Online brands among most respected, Facebook PPC discount and Google targets ad scams

TAGS: Facebook | Google | Pay per click

Google, Amazon and M&S top UK’s most respected brands list

According to YouGov’s 2011 BrandIndex league table, Google, followed by Amazon and Marks & Spencer were last year’s most respected brands. Google scored a rating of 60.1, whilst Amazon achieved 58.7 and M&S 54.6.

However, the biggest jump in ratings from 2010 to 2011 was made by British Airways, Android and HTC.

YouGov polled 350,000 Brits asking them to rate companies on their quality, value, customer satisfaction, reputation, general impression and how likely there were to recommend the brand to their friends.

Facebook offers 45% discount on ad campaigns that increase dwell time

According to TBG Digital, Facebook is offering a discount on CPC rates of 45%, to advertisers creating campaigns that increase dwell time on the social network. So far, this incentivised model has boosted ad revenue by 23% between Q1 and Q4 in 2011 and click-through rates over the period have risen by 18%.

CEO of TBG Digital, Simon Mansell was quoted by nma.co.uk as saying, ‘the potential cost savings available by maintaining traffic within the Facebook environment is particularly compelling and demonstrates its effectiveness as an advertising channel and also as a “destination”, with more and more clients investing heavily into their Facebook presence’.

Google targets paid search ad scams

Despite increased efforts by Google, the search giant has been plagued by paid-search ad scammers throughout 2011. A face cream ad scam surfaced a couple of weeks ago that displayed what looked like paid links promoting the cream, from the BBC, Independent and Daily Mail but which later turned out to be bogus.

Google has since removed the ads, but the situation prompted calls from the industry for it to further tighten its regulation methods and to act more rapidly when bogus sites do slip through the net.

Google issued the following statement as a result: ‘our policies make very clear that we do not allow ads for unacceptable business practices. It we discover that we are showing ads that break out terms and conditions, we will take them down immediately and we have systems in place to prevent those ads from reappearing.’

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