go-Digital Blog on Digital Marketing

Google rolled out the most significant change to its core search algorithm a month ago and almost nobody noticed. The change is designed to handle conversation search queries, such as “How do I tie a bow tie?” as well as it handles keyword search queries, such as “White House history.” It affects 90% of search results.

The company officially unveiled it to the press yesterday in California:

“It is really big,” said Google search executive Amit Singhal.

In fact, Singhal said that what Google has done is the equivalent of switching out the core “engine” of Google’s search system for a new one. It’s perhaps the most significant change since 2001, according to the Search Engine Land blog.

But the new algorithm, nicknamed “Hummingbird,” has been operative for a month now, and yet few noticed. That means it’s basically a huge success. The last time Google made a slight tweak to its algorithm (“Panda”), in order to weed out spam and scraper sites, many mainstream web publishers screamed in protest as the search traffic they were used to receiving began plunging.

The fact that few have been screaming tells you that the new algo is doing exactly what Google wanted it to do: Work seamlessly.

You can get more details on conversational search here.

One last thing: At least initially, Hummingbird feels a bit like Facebook’s Graph Search, which is designed to handle more abstract or “latent” search queries such as “What movies do my friends like most?,” where users do not necessarily know what they are looking for.

Facebook has made a big bet on Graph Search even though may users still remained baffled by it. Google’s move into conversational queries suggests the company thinks Facebook may be on to something.

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Leaving other media out of the equation for the moment, research shows that TV ad spending continues to rise even as audience size remains flat or declining, speaking to the value advertisers continue to place on TV commercials. (A separate MarketingCharts analysis suggests that advertisers are spending roughly $225 per year on each TV viewer, versus $144 to reach each online user.) Indeed, comparing the figures provided by Kantar Media with Nielsen audience estimates reveals that TV ad spending growth continues to be relatively solid amidst an apparent saturation in audience size. The size of the TV-viewing population (Americans aged 2 years and older) has dipped on a year-over-year basis for 8 consecutive quarters – even as TV ad spending growth rates were positive during each of those quarters.

Some of that may be due to TV consumption rates remaining intact. Overall, traditional TV viewing time is inching up, though there are stark demographic differences at play: older segments continue to increase their viewing time, while younger segments are slowly turnin! g away from traditional TV and upping their consumption of online video. (See here for an in-depth look at TV consumption rates for youth, and here for a comparison of TV and online video consumption.)

More are buying ads on Facebook, even as the number of marketers using Facebook is plateauing

Facebook has made a big push to enhance its advertising opportunities by rolling out both mobile ads and the Facebook Exchange (FBX) ad-buying platform—two of the social giant’s most high-profile efforts to increase ad revenue. Now that both mobile ads and Facebook Exchange (FBX) have been around for a little while, marketers are beginning to assess their efficacy.

When it comes to Facebook ads on mobile vs. desktop, the results seem to be moving in mobile’s favor. In a September 2013 survey by RBC Capital Markets and Advertising Age, 35% of US marketers found the return on investment (ROI) from mobile at least somewhat greater than from desktop. That’s compared to a lesser 27% who rated desktop’s ROI as better. The remaining 38% of respondents saw mobile and desktop Facebook ads as offering about the same ROI.

While mobile Facebook ads are intended to reach the fast-rising share of social users who access via mobile, the rollout of FBX was the company’s effort to help advertisers capitalize on the targeting potential of Facebook, by allowing advertisers to serve ads based on users’ web-browsing behavior. Although FBX isn’t widespread yet—the study found 18% of marketers had used the platform in September—advertisers who have purchased through FBX seem reasonably happy with the results.

The number of respondents who said FBX was very effective for their ad ca! mpaigns rose from 11% in January 2013 to 20% in September 2013. In total, 87% found FBX at least somewhat effective as of September.

Leaving other media out of the equation for the moment, research shows that TV ad spending continues to rise even as audience size remains flat or declining, speaking to the value advertisers continue to place on TV commercials. (A separate MarketingCharts analysis suggests that advertisers are spending roughly $225 per year on each TV viewer, versus $144 to reach each online user.) Indeed, comparing the figures provided by Kantar Media with Nielsen audience estimates reveals that TV ad spending growth continues to be relatively solid amidst an apparent saturation in audience size. The size of the TV-viewing population (Americans aged 2 years and older) has dipped on a year-over-year basis for 8 consecutive quarters – even as TV ad spending growth rates were positive during each of those quarters.

Some of that may be due to TV consumption rates remaining intact. Overall, traditional TV viewing time is inching up, though there are stark demographic differences at play: older segments continue to increase their viewing time, while younger segments are slowly turnin! g away from traditional TV and upping their consumption of online video. (See here for an in-depth look at TV consumption rates for youth, and here for a comparison of TV and online video consumption.)