When the news broke late Sunday evening that U.S. armed forces had managed to hunt down and kill Osama bin Laden, a range of emotions washed over me, including relief, elation, pride and so many others. But soon after the initial “pinch-myself, is this really finally happening?” moment subsided, I was immediately consumed with a voracious appetite to read anything and everything covering the details of the capture and the geopolitical analysis. I had the news on the TV and about 15 tabs open in my web browser as I flipped back and forth between my favorite news sites to see what other details of the operation were beginning to leak out. I am sure I was not alone in feeding this news addiction.

Here at comScore, we were curious to understand how others may have experienced this news, so we decided to do a little digging. Our analysis looks at the 24-hour period beginning at 7:00 PM ET on Sunday, May 1, and ending at 7:00 PM ET Monday, May 2. To understand Americans’ news consumption patterns in the aftermath of the news, we’re going to begin by gaining some overall perspective into how Osama Bin Laden (OBL) news coverage was consumed across various media, then we’ll examine some of the consumption patterns in relative terms.

Consumption of #OBL News Coverage Across Platforms
The illustration below shows us that, not surprisingly, computers accounted for the vast majority of OBL-related news consumption throughout the 24-hour period. However, during a few segments of the day, tablet and mobile traffic accounted for notable percentages of the total.

Next, we decided to see how this news story affected the composition of all news traffic to understand just how pervasive the coverage and resulting reader interest was. We specifically looked at OBL-related news consumption as a percentage of total news consumption. OBL-related news coverage was estimated by analyzing the traffic patterns for all news sites with URLs including broad matches of the terms “Osama” or “Bin Laden,” as the majority of related news stories included these terms in their URLs. News coverage spiked dramatically around 10pm ET Sunday night with about 10 percent of all computer traffic to news sites being Osama-related – a fairly sizeable percentage given how expansive and diverse news reporting can be. This percentage spiked substantially higher among tablet users – between 20-25 percent – and was highest at around 30 percent among mobile Internet users. These figures are pretty staggering, especially when considering that these figures only account for articles that were obviously OBL-related (per their URL structure).

We also wanted to understand how consumer behavioral patterns might shift by medium throughout the day. We looked at the share of each medium’s OBL traffic for each of the 24 hours as a percentage of overall OBL traffic for that medium. Interestingly, we see that tablet readership saw the highest relative percentage of its activity occur in the immediate aftermath of the news on Sunday night. Mobile news consumption was also relatively high during that period, while PC consumption that time was more modest in comparison to other dayparts. Notice that there is another spike in mobile activity between 7:00-9:00 AM on Monday, most likely as people glued themselves to their phones during their commutes to work. PC traffic saw its highest relative consumption during this 24-hour period in the late morning and early afternoon, as people checked out news during the workday from their computers.

The Future of News Consumption?
The quest for news about Osama bin Laden exhibited in these charts illustrates how increasingly dependent on technology we’ve become to keep informed of developments especially as they pertain to important breaking news. Mobile and tablet devices are becoming a more significant part of the digital media landscape, as it’s becoming clearer how they help fill in the gaps when consumers may not always be right by a computer. From our analysis of news consumption in recent days, we’ve shown that many people opted for these devices – myself included – to feed our need for news in the wake of this historic event. This behavior is only going to grow more prevalent with time with the plethora of devices coming out to support growing information needs. And in this real-time environment where we can always be plugged in, one can expect news consumers will only become savvier in consuming a constant stream of news from multiple platforms. The capture and killing of Osama bin Laden may have just given us an important glimpse into the future of news consumption.

This post was originally published at SearchEngineWatch on May 2, 2011.

A funny thing happened on the bus on my way to work recently. I was on my phone searching for a lunchtime haircut spot, the lady next to me was shopping for new curtains on her iPad, and a Wall Street type was talking loudly on his phone asking for tips prior to laying a bet with his bookie (you have to love New York City).

Each of us, in our own way, was using our mobile devices to reach out and find answers to our pressing questions. But until a few years ago, the only way we could reach out and answer these questions in a mobile fashion was via email and/or asking someone on the other end, a process that was inefficient at best and frustrating and without closure at worst.

Due to the advances in mobile hardware, software, and user experience, much of this has changed and finally rivals what we love about desktop searching. Screens are big enough to read, keyboards are ergonomic enough to allow for speed, and - most importantly - the search engines and marketers have begun to adapt their search offerings to address our mobile needs.

Mobile Market Maturation Means Money in Search Marketing

As of February 2011, there were over 234 million mobile phone users (age 13+) in the U.S., with nearly 50 percent searching on their mobile devices in some capacity during the course of a given month. Mobile searching is especially prevalent among smart phone users, which now accounts for over 30 percent of the total U.S. mobile marketplace.

Considering that 50 percent of all new phones purchased in the U.S. are smartphones, it's clear that mobile searching will not be slowing down anytime soon. Toss in another 10 million or so iPad/Tablet users (and counting) and you begin to see why we are finally reaching the tipping point where marketers must address their mobile paid search strategy as its own concern, and not simply allow the search engines to serve mobile ads by default.

6 Keys to Mobile Search Marketing Success

In a recent webinar collaboration I did with The Search Agency, we ran through a variety of best practices and practical recommendations for mobile search marketers.

According to The Search Agency's client files, mobile CPCs (cost per click) are 30 percent less than those on desktop, but the mobile CTR (clickthrough rate) is roughly five times higher than that of desktop. This data presents a rather compelling argument on why your paid mobile strategy requires separate targeting.

Below are some of our highlighted points and recommendations for search marketers:

1. The AdWords interface will show you what portion of your clicks and conversions come from mobile vs. desktop, and if 10 percent or more of a campaign come from mobile devices, consider targeting separately.
2. Google allows for targeting by specific devices, operating systems, and carrier (with further tablet targeting options expected later this year), which is important because the end user mobile search experience is different on a mobile phone than it is on an iPad/tablet.
3. Mobile searching lends itself to shorter query lengths and hyper-local results. Google's mobile keyword selection tool offers great assistance for getting started when choosing your ad keywords.
4. The searcher's attention span is limited, so make mobile specific ad copy short and sweet. Include clickable phone numbers and/or geo-targeted maps to enhance your CTRs and conversions.
5. Landing pages from mobile search clicks should reflect your conversion goals. If you want them to call you, download something, watch a video, and/or view a map, optimize these pages accordingly.
6. When launching new campaigns, it's best to start with an aggressive bidding strategy, which will allow you to establish a strong quality score off the bat. Securing position in the top two paid results is imperative with the limited viewing area on mobile devices.

Conclusions

Mobile marketing techniques must keep up with mobile user and technology sophistication.

Desktop search may continue to dominate overall search market share, but mobile search is a new frontier with potentially different searcher intent. Lumping the two in together without taking the time to analyze the differences could lead to costly mistakes, both short and long term.

Although the advent of new mobile devices like the iPad are closing the gap in experience between mobile and desktop searching, the ubiquity of smartphone adoption requires some alternate thinking in order to best capitalize on your mobile strategy.

You're probably tired of hearing that it's the "Year of Mobile," but these numbers and results indicate it may actually be the time to starting thinking differently about this medium.

Make the effort. You won't be disappointed.

Webinar recording and slides for Mobile Search: Techniques and Tactics for Marketers can be downloaded here.

Raised in the technology age (since the early 80s), Millennials have only known life with scores of cable channels, remote controls, and video games. In addition to these conveniences, younger Millennials can’t even imagine life without the Internet, text messaging, social media and entertainment on demand. As my 8 year-old son often asks, “Daddy, what did you do without TV, games, and the Internet?” (“We played outside with others, son!”)

Why should we care? Because Millennials, also known as Generation Y, are one of today’s most valued segments to most marketers, with the size of this generation eclipsing that of the Baby Boomers. It is no surprise, therefore, that this is a highly competitive segment for marketers and that strong battles ensue to secure trial, loyalty and advocacy among Millennials.

While a wealth of research exists on the best way to reach Millennials through their preferred technologies and media consumption channels, scant research has offered insight into the varying responses to brand messages among this coveted group. Millennials are an interesting bunch. They are often hypothesized to be more impatient, more easily irritated, and have shorter attention spans, all of which adds up to a particularly challenging and often elusive marketing segment.

In order to address these hypotheses and provide marketers with direct insight on marketing to varying generations, comScore is currently conducting an extensive, cross-category study of thousands of ad campaigns targeting Females. The full research analyzes the differences in behavior of Female Millennials (age <30), Generation Xers (30-44), Boomers (45-59), and Seniors (60+).

Preliminary results of our study appear to clarify and support many of the common notions. When compared to Female Baby Boomers and Female Seniors, the results showed Female Millennials to be less interested and more difficult to connect with, capture attention, impress, convince, and entertain. They also appear to be more price-sensitive, perhaps due to lower disposable incomes. On the positive side, there is strong opportunity for marketers to connect with Millennials as they are more likely to have a lot in common with other users. Below is an illustration of some preliminary findings from our study across thousands of ads, indicating the percentage of respondents agreeing (based on top 2 boxes) with the statements at the left:

So what does this mean for marketers? As with any advertising, effectiveness is achieved when sound strategy meets strong creative execution. While more insights are expected to emerge from our study, below are some simple strategies to help successfully market to Millennials:

1. Define Your Target Segment: Focus on understanding your particular segment of Millennials and communicate directly to them. Don’t assume it’s a ‘one size fits all’
2. Communicate Authentically: Millennials are less trusting of marketing, so it’s important to speak their language. They prefer being engaged over being force-fed marketing messages, so work to identify the best ways to connect with them – even if it means relinquishing some control over your message.
3. Don’t Appeal to the Lowest Common Denominator: If you want your message to have real resonance with Millennials, you’re going to have to be comfortable with your message not connecting with some people. But it will pay off with the consumers that you do reach. Of course, improved targeting will help in this regard.
4. Be Different: Millennials live in a highly cluttered media environment and tune out the mundane, so even if your message is appropriate for the audience, it will be overlooked if it’s similar to messages they’ve already heard.

Ignoring the importance of creative when targeting Millennials can be a recipe for disaster. comScore data show that half of a campaign’s impact on sales is due to the creative strength. Consistent success requires that similar rigor and attention as is applied to reaching different brand targets must be applied in understanding necessary creative drivers.

Unfortunately, rather than working to understand unique generational differences or working hard to develop a differentiated value proposition for Millennials, too many marketers today often focus on broad product features and/or pin their hopes for success on offbeat humor or a celebrity in the rush to meet deadlines. While there is no guaranteed formula for successful cross-media advertising, there are best practices, processes, and emerging knowledge that can help steer success. And the more you, as a marketer, truly understand your Millennial segment and what is needed to achieve break-through with this notoriously tough audience, the better success you’ll be able to achieve.

Stay tuned for more insights from our study of Millennials. In the meantime, if you’d like to discuss our cross-media message testing/tracking/optimization solutions, please reach out.

In two years, Spotify has gone from being a startup with big ideas to being one of the most talked about and fastest-growing tech companies in the world. Recent reports suggest that the Swedish firm is in advanced talks with venture capital group Digital Sky Technologies about a $100 million investment that could value the firm at somewhere between $1 billion and $2 billion.

For those who may be unfamiliar with Spotify, it is a web-based music hub that employs a freemium model (using a combination of ad-supported and paid subscription services) that allows registered users to listen to a wide catalogue of songs. Currently available only in Europe, much speculation has surrounded its ability to successfully break into the U.S. market due to logistical hurdles in agreeing to terms with the big music labels. But its success in Europe is unquestioned, with Spotify quickly becoming the music destination of choice for many music aficionados and house party hosts. No longer do you need to own the entire back catalogue of Beyoncé to be able to listen to her dulcet tones!

Looking at comScore data over the last two years, the rise in popularity in Spotify has been nothing short of phenomenal. From a user base of under 2 million people in March 2009, an amazing 11 million now visit Spotify on a monthly basis; representing a staggering increase of 546% over that period of time.

So what has made Spotify such a phenomenon? Its slick interface and the availability of so many songs are two key reasons.

Spotify’s success stands in marked contrast to the music industry as a whole, which has sometimes been seen as floundering over the last few years. In fact, in the time that Spotify has risen from nothing to where it is today, other music related companies have not fared quite as well, including the EMI purchase by Terra Firma and the continuing struggles of high street retailer HMV, both of which spring immediately to mind.

One of Spotify’s major accomplishments is that its popularity clearly transcends borders. In fact, its user base is remarkably well distributed across several European markets. The chart below illustrates the five top markets accounting for Spotify’s audience.

Perhaps the continued decline of the traditional music distribution model coupled with the rise of digital music has helped drive Spotify’s extraordinary growth; but what does the future hold for the company? Well, a couple weeks ago the company announced that it will begin competing with iTunes as a place to store and buy music. And as Spotify continues to build a loyal base of smartphone subscribers, it is clear that mobile will be a critical factor in its future success. If an eventual public offering occurs, then pressure will certainly increase for it to expand its model globally. Perhaps then it will finally clear some of the logistical hurdles and do what many musicians want to do - crack America!