Google’s 2011 revenues were a total of 37.9 billion dollars… yes, 37.9 billion, with a B. The most interesting fact is that 96% of the revenue came from advertising.

Thanks to companies like StateFarm, Progressive, Amazon, Macy’s, Sears, Quicken Loans, Lowe’s, Booking.com and many others like them that spend millions of dollars per year bidding for keywords like “new york hotels” with average CPC of $7.68 (used by Booking.com), “zumba dance dvd” with average CPC $5.18 (amazon), “self employed health insurance” with a extremely high CPC of $43.39 (eHealthInsurance), “cheap hybrid cars” bidding for average CPC of $15.57 (Cars.com) Google made its billions.

Below you can find the infographic with all the breakdowns and stats…

Source: http://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2012/01/23/google-revenues

The forecast, free to download, explains that in the upcoming years, advertisers will spend more money on interactive marketing because of the excitement about emerging media, the effectiveness of the interactive marketing and the overall customer obsession with online media and mobile devices.

The report contains many interesting predictions, some of them a bit controversial and very doubtful, but still worth taking them in consideration when working on your next strategies and business spending.

Beside concentrating on the mobile and social media expansions, one part of the report that I really was surprised to see was the prediction that the daily deals would die.

The reason for this statement, Forrester is putting in these words:

“Standing out above the clutter becomes harder for marketers as ad exposures grow. So some marketers unable to differentiate will rely on spontaneous coupons through more and more urgent Groupon-like “daily deals” as one way to drive notice. Consumers will grow so conditioned to micro-impulse offers that they’ll lose practice at considered decisions — in all walks of life, not just when buying spa treatments. Facing a cultural descent into maladroit judgment, employers (and spouses) will blacklist impulse deals to keep people intentional.”

Controversal, but yet very interesting forecast. What do you think?

Multi Channel Funnels report how previous referrals and searches (organic/paid) have contributed to your sales. Once you know which channels produce the highest conversion path, channels like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, press releases, e-mail newsletters etc, you can focus on enhancing the successful funnel. The Multi-Channel Funnel gives marketers useful reports to know which channel contributed, how often they contributed, how long it took between the initial channel click and conversion and the channel path that is followed most frequently to conversion.

From the Google website:

Multi-Channel Funnels reports are generated from conversion paths, the sequences of interactions (i.e. clicks/referrals from channels) during the 30 days that led up to each conversion and transaction. Conversion path data include interactions with virtually all digital channels. These channels include, but are not limited to:

• Paid and Organic Search
• Referral Sites
• Affiliates
• Social Networks
• Email Newsletters
• Display Ads
• Custom Campaigns that you’ve created, including offline campaigns that send traffic to vanity URLs

Multi-Channel Funnels in Google Analytics

• Customer profile and mix
• Product mix
• Demographic issues and trends
• Future regulatory and legal effects
• Prices and values, and customer perceptions in these areas
• Competitor activities
• Competitor strengths and weaknesses
• Customer service perceptions, priorities and needs
• Communication
• Network
• Public Relations

When exploring the above, include primary research on local and niche areas, as it can help in providing a more thorough assessment. It is also important to adopt social media marketing plans and other digital strategies that are vital in competing and succeeding in today’s market. Understanding the competitors market helps industry growth as well as the growth for the demand of your products and services.

This content must also be easily transferable, crossing mobile channels and time zones.  Buyers tend to err on gaining specific details from the outset, while inquiring on a personal level when a service piques their interest.  They would like to know the price points first so that they do not spend a lot of time with a vendor that does not seamlessly fit their needs. Since they have the ability to survey from several websites, a video demonstration can be a powerful form of online advertising.

My industry colleague, Lauren Carlson, does a brilliant job of explaining the demands of a software buyer. She posted a mix of illustrative data charts and actual quotes. She also has offered some links from vendors with toolkits to get you started. Read more here.

1.  Google Confirms Antitrust Inquiry

The Federal Trade Commission has dropped a hammer that has long been expected.  The headline from The New York Times delves into the ramifications.  The content is quite benign, stating that the search and online advertising titan has not been accused of malpractice at this point in time. It merely echoes the showdown between Microsoft and the U.S. government in the 1990s. Buckle your search goggles.

2. Facebook Cashes Virtual Currency

We have more Facebook news. This one is pertinent for web developers.  They will now have to pay 30% of their proceedings from games like Farmville to Facebook.  The article notes, importantly, that Credits will be used to pay for other digital content forms.  As we already know in the tech world, content is the new king. Hardware is loved, but it’s value is fading.

3.  Copious Ties To E-commerce

Copious is looking to enter the e-commerce marketplace of auctions where EBay has long held reign.  They, however, are doing it with the integration of Facebook users.  Online auction vendors should be able to construct interesting strategies for demographics.  Nowadays, items can be critiqued and shared through social networks before a purchase is considered.  This engagement can be quite influential regardless of the flow. The mission is intriguing.

4.  Apple’s Final Cut Pro X: Revealed

PC Magazine gives a positive review on the release of Final Cut Pro X.  They claim that the interface upgraded will make the editing experience smoother once professionals adjust to the changes. Conan O’Brien has already lampooned the changes, and even online communities did the same today. Time will tell. It could portend for digital developers looking enter an online advertising sector which is slowly growing scale.

5.  Righthaven Claims Copyright Ownership

In the world of blog, you may not necessarily be what you post.  Righthaven, a Las Vegas-based copyright litigation company, met with the Las Vegas Review-Journal over some of the publisher’s content.  As a firm in the business of lawsuit protection, these cases have not garnered as much publicity. The democratization of written content by uncredible posters can only spread to other mediums like video and sound.  In fact, content is becoming more than king. It is becoming a tasty hot potato.

That’s the Blue news for now. Enjoy the weekend.

It’s link shortener is better than Bre.ad as well, who now has my scorn for poor account integration.  I’ve had trouble loggin in using a Facebook account and using my email account. Their smart brand strategy is being wasted right now. Hopefully they can make adjustments.

My one caveat with RockMelt is the close integration with Facebook could annoy users who use other content distributors.  The Developers vouch for Facebook because of its endless personal data reservoir. Fair enough.  I also thought the search query box was a little cumbersome as you have to open a new tab to enter Google and see content clearly.

Those quibbles aside, RockMelt is a social media browser perfect for those who push endless content around the web.  Click on the image for a download and test drive. Over here, CEO Eric Vishria talks with Bloomberg Radio about the experience.

In this video above, a Google programmer discusses the enhancements in language to their search algorithm, which speeds up the search query to handle the rise of mobile data transfers. The UI now also includes the ability to search by image pulled from your files or pages. Ad Age also notes of another innovation named Google Instant for Pages. The search giant will pre-load the predicted page in user results based on prior queries, saving approximately 10 seconds. More so than classified advertising, this new technology will drive up the value of banner advertising, as the number of impressions will rise for a user. Unfortunately, the test can only happen on the Chrome server. Holders of that portal should pass along feedback. Here’s another video.

Such an increased speed of a visual search algorithm foreshadows some developments for the future of the query experience. A future where SEO could be rendered obsolete. It should also prove advantageous for producers of video content, as load times will decrease with processor improvement. I also think that access to a wider range of personalized video content will improve, and do not be surprised if Netflix applies these tools to its query dashboard.