EMAIL:

107 trillion – The number of emails sent on the Internet in 2010.

294 billion – Average number of email messages per day.

WEBSITES:

255 million – The number of websites as of December 2010.

21.4 million – Added websites in 2010.

INTERNET USERS:

1.97 billion – Internet users worldwide (June 2010).

14% – Increase in Internet users since the previous year.

266.2 million – Internet users in North America.

204.7 million – Internet users in Latin America / Caribbea

63.2 million – Internet users in the Middle East.

21.3 million – Internet users in Oceania / Australia.

825.1 million – Internet users in Asia.

475.1 million – Internet users in Europe.

Social Media:

152 million – The number of blogs on the Internet

25 billion – Number of sent tweets on Twitter in 2010

100 million – New accounts added on Twitter in 2010

600 million – People on Facebook at the end of 2010.

70% – Share of Facebook’s user base located outside the United States.

VIDEO:

2 billion – The number of videos watched per day on YouTube.

2+ billion – The number of videos watched per month on Facebook.

In recent months Twitter has formed search partnerships with Google, Microsoft and Bing to use all of Twitter‘s data and implement it into one overall package. It was decided that because Twitter’s own search engine was attracting users looking at real-time results on live events, its competitors wanted a piece of the action! In an interview with The Telegraph, Twitter’s CEO Evan Williams said “that the company was focused on improving its search engine, and that the developers were actively working to make it more intuit.”

As Twitter grows in membership, these search queries will increase making them close to Google in search. If you think about it, all big three Google, Yahoo, and Bing have spent countless money in TV spots to advertise their services. Have you seen a Twitter commercial on TV? There is much room for growth for Twitter as a service and brand. It is still to catch on by other demographics as Google, Bing, and Yahoo have targeted and hit all demographic types.

I think we haven’t seen the peak of Twitter yet and believe it can possibly compete with Google in the near future in search.

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These factors I believe to be very important to compare to the competition:

-Shipping Cost
-Shipping Time
-Price Comparison
-Contact Channels (phone-live chat capabilities)
-Payment Channels (credit cards, paypal, etc.)

You have to determine what factors are most important to you and your business and also what the consumers in your particular industry would think is most important and compare them to you competitors. With this simple exercise, you’ll see that you can quickly identify where you have more leverage on marketing and where you don’t.

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The research finds that the search experience on different search engines yields different results, with some being more relevant to the consumer than others. This, according to the research, contributes to overall customer and brand awareness. If the results of the search satisfy the needs of the consumer, then the search engine has greater appeal to that potential customer and he or she will have a deeper connection to the brand and the search engine. Therefore, the research indicates, search engines provide different degrees of a “brand lift” to the destination site.

Unfortunately, for many, we don’t decide what search engines to rank better in, we can all look at the data and optimize accordingly, but you can never just say, “I’m going to optimize for YAHOO,” unless you know the real key signals of optimization for that engine. But anyhow, when doing SEO, the goal is to try and rank well on all engines. This study really gives you something to think about when doing paid search.

• It’s About Who You Are: The demographic and psychographic profile of each loyal search engine user is different. Bing users, for example, tend to be mostly from the tip of the adoption curve (innovators and early adopters) where Yahoo! and Google’s passengers tend to be middle majority (see accompanying chart).

• It’s About the Road You Take: Each search engine delivers a different result, whether paid for or earned. In the brands and vertical categories studied (automotive, travel, retail, and wireless), each search engine demonstrated different degrees of consumer engagement ranging from visiting to finally purchasing.

You can read the whole study @ WPP.com —-> Wunderman finds link between brand building and search engine use by consumers

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Do you really think a color test is telling of how an CEOs character is? Well, according to the test, it reveals that CEOs are different than most people out there. How is this test compiled and how does it work?

“Dewey Sadka, who’s spent 15 years developing the test, said the color choices paint a picture of the typical CEO as sensitive, cooperative, and not a perfectionist. He or she actually is less controlling than the rest of the population – and more likely to be emotionally unstable.

Skeptical about the test itself? Well, it’s trended on Google. Seriously, Bayer CEO Greg Babe and Hard Rock International CEO Hamish Dodds were among those shocked by the test’s ability to sum them up based on a few simple color preferences. “I was floored,” Dodds told USA Today.”

I just took the test and these are my results:

You’re a CREATOR
Keywords

Nonconforming, Impulsive, Expressive, Romantic, Intuitive, Sensitive, and Emotional

Suggested careers are Advertising Executive among others.

Take the color test HERE.

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As defined by Wikipedia and some information on drop shipping:

Drop shipping is a supply chain management technique in which the retailer does not keep goods in stock, but instead transfers customer orders and shipment details to either the manufacturer or a wholesaler, who then ships the goods directly to the customer. As in all retail businesses, the retailers make their profit on the difference between the wholesale and retail price.


The Benefits:

Two main benefits of drop shipping are – no upfront inventory to purchase and a positive cash flow cycle. A positive cash flow cycle occurs because the seller is paid when the purchase is made. The seller usually pays the wholesaler using a credit card or credit terms. Therefore, there is a period of time in which the seller has the customer’s money, but has not yet paid the wholesaler.

Other benefits of drop shipping include:

**Eliminates duplication of effort as only one warehouse will pick, pack and ship the product thereby reducing costs in the supply chain.

**Reduces total inventory management and shipping costs which can be passed on to the customer by the retailer.

If you could find the right drop shipper you could make some good money if you’re a good online marketer and know exactly what channels will suit your product. The MAIN problem with this concept and business tactic if actually finding a drop shipper.

This company has caught my attention because they are becoming or known as the largest drop shipper out there, that is SIMPLX.

I couldn’t tell you from personal experience about this company but I did inquire once and I did talk to a rep. I never quite understood why these companies charge fee’s when you’re willing to give them business. Drop shipping isn’t easy on the company providing the service but a fee is just a way to really un-interest someone from doing any type of business. We all know how small the margins can be when drop shipping a product so any additional fee’s are a total turnoff.

>>WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT THIS TOPIC? COMMENT AT THE BOTTOM OF THIS POST<<

When researching the company a bit further I came across a thread on Scam.com (yeah, I know, a deff red flag, right?) and here are what some people are saying:

"...Simplx is definitely a scam! What kind of company charges $20 to tell you about thier product. They should be paying you!"

"I am a little suprised to hear these things about Simplx. I personally have been using them and making a lot of money. However, because there are a few people with other ideas on here, I am going to investigate further as I don't want to be involved with a company if it does these things. I am anxious to find out if these claims are legit, or if it's from a few random people that didn't make money online and are bitter about it."

"I was actually investigating this company because my son wanted me to sign him up. I will take a little longer now that I have read so much negative info on simplx now."

You can read further in the thread here.

From an eBay blogger:

“Yes, I got scammed by these people. Which sucks because I was just starting to enjoy selling things on Ebay. It’s fun, but i figured I could get into this “dropshipping” business people keep mentioning. I wanted to find a wholesale dropshipper, and I ended up with a loss of $250. Simplx.com is NOT A DROPSHIPPER! they are an affiliate network, and they offer you NOTHING that isn’t already free to the public. For this, they charge you $250 plus $35 a month. WOW. I really wish I had done more research before joining the site, because they aren’t just a scam, they are an ESTABLISHED scam at this point. Well, there ya go. Another pissed off SIMPLX.COM victim.”

So, I posted this in case you’re looking into Simplx. Again, I do not and never have used this company so I’m blogging based on what is already written online after taking a little interest in how they work.

According to this study, “The #1 online transaction category was travel, with 38% of adult online consumers making at least one travel purchase on the web in the previous six months. Credit-card account management and home banking took the #2 and #3 spots, with 36% and 35% of consumers conducting transactions, respectively.

Clothes, shoes, accessories and books were also popular online purchases.”


**About the research: The online purchase research is based on a quarterly survey of approximately 36,000 US internet users age 18+.**

As travel being the highest purchase of adults online, you can imagine the CPC prices in Google. According to the keyword tool (which is always an estimate), here are some keywords and their estimated CPC:

bargain airline tickets $2.30
cheap one way airline tickets $4.49
cheap airline tickets com $3.42
airline tickets for cheap $1.99
cheap airfare tickets $2.23

So, with those prices (and there are thousands of keywords for this “niche”) and you can build an incredible campaign targetting every city, state, country, etc (I’d probably kill it…I just got an idea) So if you’re thinking about becoming an affiliate and doing any PPC promotion, take that into consideration as you’re probably competing around 23 advertisers in Travel!