Google Gets a New Real-Time Infrastructure for Display Ads

Google just announced that it is acquiring Teracent, a provider of "intelligent dynamic display advertising." The company considers itself a pioneer in dynamic ad serving and optimization solutions. Google appears to agree.

Teracent provides machine-learning algorithms, which can create customized display ads based on thousands of different creative elements. The infrastructure Teracent brings to the table allows for real-time assembly of dynamic ads. It's designed to determine the optimal selection of each ad element and return it based on the objectives of the campaign.

"As you know, we've been busy releasing new features and products to help improve display advertising on the web for everyone," Google says. "We believe that Teracent's technology fits neatly into these efforts."

Google says the one on the right was created with Teracent's technology.

"Teracent's technology can pick and choose from literally thousands of creative elements of a display ad in real-time — tweaking images, products, messages or colors," the company adds. "These elements can be optimized depending on factors like geographic location, language, the content of the website, the time of day or the past performance of different ads."

"The infrastructure, opportunities and technical depth that Google will provide for Teracent customers means a future of product innovation for Teracent's dynamic ad optimization platform," Teracent says in their own announcement.

Google says the technology can help advertisers get better results from their display ad campaigns, while enabling publishers to make more money from their ad space.

Teracent's technology will be available to all Google advertisers running display ads, including DoubleClick clients. The deal is expected to close this quarter, subject to various, but unnamed closing conditions.

Integration details will be announced after the deal is officially closed. Financial terms were not disclosed.

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Sharing Emails Via Social Networks

A third of Internet users visit social networking sites at least monthly, and 40 percent of email users visit social sites to gather product information and recommendations, according to a new study by Silverpop.

 The study "Emails Gone Viral: Measuring 'Share-to-Social' Performance," found that shared emails delivered an average increase in reach of 24.3 percent and this is set to increase as sharing becomes more mainstream.  On average, social sharing leads to an additional 1 percent of opens.

The majority of opens and clicks of shared emails took place in the first couple of days following posting on a social site. On average, the last click on shared emails occurs about seven days after the initial share, with activity ranging from 1 to 44 days.

While specific creative elements did not factor heavily into emails shareability, emails most frequently shared were more likely to feature a brand name or product in the subject line rather than a specific offer.

Links to Facebook, Myspace and Twitter were included most often in email messages, Bebo, Delicious and LinkedIn had a higher percentage of shared link clicks among the networks.

"Combining email and social networking can be very powerful," said Loren McDonald, vice president of industry relations for Silverpop.  "Research tells us that ninety-two percent of adult Internet users send or read email.  And social network users are, on average, connected to between 150 and 200 friends, so developing an email that is socially shareworthy can turn messages viral very quickly and reach a new group of customers very similar to the ones you already have.

"This first benchmark study establishes a baseline for future studies that will examine whether sharing activity changes as the practice spreads from early-adoption to a mainstream marketing practice. "