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Labels: Blog Outreach, ClickZ, Online Media, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Strategy

Four Dimensions of Online Media

Unlike print, television, outdoor, and any other form of media, online is hopeless, complicated, and ever growing in its complexity. Every day it brings a new list of ad units, serving options, compensation models, targeting options, and, of course, KPIs (define). To try and enter the industry now, without the benefit of gradually building up a knowledge base to get you up to speed, is difficult for many people. For clients who aren't seasoned online marketers but find their advertising increasingly channeled into the digital space, the task can be daunting.

To help agencies help their clients make sense of all the dimensions and options that can go into an online media plan, I have outlined the four dimensions of online media in this column. They include targeting, compensation, ad units, and metrics.

Even with all the options and opportunities we have to maximize value and customer impact, I still see agencies planning buys based on pre-determined ad units or creative concepts. The best plans take elements from all over the spectrum to create all-encompassing campaigns that deliver branding (impressions, reach, and frequency) as well as good old fashioned measurable return on investment (conversion, leads, sales, etc.). Also, any seasoned media planner should be able to give examples of each one of the items listed under the four dimensions.

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Labels: ClickZ, online marketing, Online Media, Strategy

Predictive Modeling and Display Ads

Often times we're approached by direct marketing clients who want to scale up their online sales, but have exhausted or saturated their successful channels. They're bidding on all the keywords that perform, they hit their e-mail list as much as they can, and they're applying all the focus in their power to SEO (define). The one channel they haven't successfully cracked open is display advertising.

Unlike search, where you're limited to the volume of consumer queries around your performing terms, display ads, particularly banners, have a lot more scalability if done right. The amount of inventory and opportunities in some cases (if your target audience is broad enough) is unlimited. The challenge is to crack the formula of what sites, placements, rates, creative (offers, images, messages, etc.), and conversion environments (landing pages, conversion paths, etc.) will ultimately form a scalable and reliable channel that grows your business.

The problem is that many companies have tried to use display advertising with sporadic bursts of banners, often in high CPM (define) and premium placements, without a foresight of predictive modeling and a sustained effort that applies an ROI (define) optimization process and methodology. They then fail and condemn the whole category of online display.

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Labels: Advertising, ClickZ, online marketing, Online Media, Strategy

Turning One Ad Impression Into Ten

Not long ago, I had a client say something really interesting. He said, "We need to make sure everything we can in our campaign to turn every one impression we buy into 10 actually being delivered -- that is my challenge to you." Of course, we're always doing that anyway. Added-value no cost or super low cost impressions generally improve the metrics of what we actually optimize against -- things like cost per action (define), cost per sale, etc.

So, I decided to list some tactics we employ to beef up the impressions we were able to generate without having to actually buy them (or at least list them as having a cost, i.e., value-added placements.) Some are easy, some are hard, and some may require an awful lot of client side buy-in, implementation, or participation. But these days, clients are much more open to difficult ideas and logistics if they have a chance to improve the success of a campaign.

Value-added placements: First and foremost, when doing a buy, ask for value-added placements. (I know this is obvious, but I still see plans from clients' past agencies that don't list any.) Go beyond just getting more run-of-site (ROS) banners. There are high-volume placements like text links, text-based e-mail newsletter ads, buttons, and advertorials that complement premium placements very nicely. They not only add impression volume, but boost click volume and the top-line performance of a property, often saving it from cancellation.

Offline to online value-added placements: This is another often overlooked nugget. Make a list of the offline deals being cut in print, broadcast, and radio. Nine times out of 10, those buys come with a ton of online value-added placements that you would have never really considered paying for in your online plan. Many organizations offer bundled deals, but for the most part, there's a lot of online juice to be had here for zero cost -- and zero cost impressions and resulting clicks and actions help the top line metrics of any report quite nicely.

Tweet this: Put a call to action based on a chiclet (define) in your banner that gets people to tweet the deal you're promoting. If even a tiny fraction of the people who see it, tweet it, that could equate into thousands or even millions of added impressions and clicks. You can track the tweets by monitoring Twitter search, and track clicks and actions from this by using a bit.ly tracking URL in your tweet that jumps through your ad server tracking URL. If you have Radian6, or write a quick little script, you can also add up the additional impressions/tweets you got by totaling the followers of the people who tweeted your message.

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Labels: Advertising, ClickZ, Online Media, Social Media, Social Media Marketing, Strategy

Clients: Tell Us What Your Budget Is!

Why are some companies scared to disclose their budget to potential media buyers? What bad things could we do with that information? We will know eventually, right? Let me state here and now: It's okay to let media buyers know what your budget is! In fact, there are not many valuable things we can do without knowing that information. If it's a test, decide what you can risk on a test. Don't ask us what you should test if you cannot tell us what you can afford.

Consider this: What if you went to an architect with no specific idea of what you wanted and said, "Design me a house." What would the architect say? Most likely the architect would ask, "How much do you want to spend on your house?" You wouldn't say, "Well, do some research, draw me up some plans, give me some ideas first, and then tell me what I should spend." A serious builder knows what his budget is, has an idea of what he wants, and shares that with architects he deems worthy of interviewing and requesting detailed information from.

What inspired me to write about this issue? I recently participated in a pitch conference call with a prospect who wanted us to do media planning and buying but refused to reveal their budget. Of course we gave a presentation describing our full capabilities. The prospect said they were looking for a good partner and we seemed like a good fit but still didn't want to reveal their budget at this point in the process. Now that is fine, except when they wanted more details on what we would do and sought advice on what they should spend.

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Labels: ClickZ, Industry, Online Media, Strategy

Online Marketing Expert Harry Gold to Share Social Media Marketing Case Studies and Best Practices at NEDMA Technology Day

Labels: Events, Industry, Overdrive News, Social Media, Social Media Marketing, Strategy

Eight Ways Twitter Could Make Big Money

The big news: Twitter is raising another $100 million on a valuation of $1 billion! Well I guess that seals it. Twitter is in it for the long haul, declaring its intention to remain a freestanding media company.

But as Bloomberg News reported, "Twitter has yet to report any significant revenue." So how can it justify that kind of valuation? Let's put it this way -- remember when Google had yet to report any significant revenue?

Twitter attracted 25 million users in August, compared with 2.2 million a year earlier, according to Nielsen. With that kind of groundswell and large database of registered users, the opportunities for highly targeted contextual, demographic, geographic, and behavioral advertising is huge. Twitter could monetize in ways that would be non-intrusive.

Twitter has reached a point where there aren't many alternatives to the micro-blogging platform. While it's not impossible for one to emerge, it's unlikely. People are pretty much wedded to Twitter, plus there are so many complementary applications in use on desktops and mobile devices around the globe. It would be difficult to topple Twitter off the top of the heap anytime soon.

Then there are fears about injecting advertising into a media environment that people enjoy. I always hear, "Well, people don't like advertising," or "We did a poll and people said they did not want to see ads." If you asked television viewers if they wanted to see ads during their favorite show, close to 100 percent would probably say "no." Now conversely if you asked people if they preferred to have their favorite show with ads or not having their show at all because there was no funding, close to 100 percent would probably take the show with the ads.

The same goes for Twitter. Of course, no one wants it cluttered with ads. But if there were only two choices -- Twitter with a way to stay in business or no Twitter -- the vast majority of us would choose Twitter with a way for it to stay in business.

The same thing happened with Google, YouTube, and Facebook. Even YouTube has pre-rolls running on certain premium partner channels and I haven't heard of any huge consumer backlash.

So, I started to think of the different ways I'd monetize Twitter if it were my site. And that includes programs that I'd find valuable as a media buyer.

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Labels: ClickZ, Social Media Marketing, Strategy, Twitter

Social Media Strategy & the Importance of Listening to the Conversation

So, you’ve been tasked with developing a social media strategy, but where do you start? In most cases the focus is on building an actual presence, which means building your Facebook page, MySpace profile, Twitter page and YouTube channel. Then, just like a magician waving a magic wand, your social media channel will be up and running.

But is this really the right approach? As we all know, what makes social media unique is the ability able to socialize with your target. To simply just look at social media as an extension of what you are already doing elsewhere online is not necessarily a sound strategy, as most online strategies are based on a one way exchange…speaking to your customers, while social media strategy is about socializing with your constituents. However, can you really socialize with people if you don’t know what they are actually talking about and what’s important to them? Now, you may think you know what’s important to them and in doing so try to barge in on the conversation, but is that really the proper way to engage someone in a social conversation?

While establishing a presence on major networks is by no doubt important to any social strategy, I’d like to argue that its not necessarily the first thing you want to do if you truly want to socialize with your constituents. In order to truly socialize with your audience, you need to first listen and understand the conversation that’s already taking place. This approach will in turn enable you to form the foundation of a social media strategy that is truly based on socializing with your audience, versus just speaking to them.

A Four Step Approach
With this being said, I would like to propose a different approach towards social media strategy development that is first about understanding your audience and the conversation taking place, versus building out a physical presence on major social networks. In the case where you might be inheriting an existing social media infrastructure, which as a result needs to be managed, I would like to argue that this approach still applies, as understanding the conversation that’s taking place will enable you to more effectively evolve the channel you've inherited.

With this being said, I would like to outline an approach to social media strategy that is based on the following four sequential steps.

1) Listen
2) Learn
3) Build
4) Engage

1. Listen to the Conversation
As any company knows, based on today’s environment there’s a conversation going on. And knowing there is a conversation, but not knowing what’s being said, scares the heck out of them. From blogs to Twitter to groups/forums and more, people are talking and conversing about your brand, products and company in more ways than you can imagine.

Thanks to social media monitoring technology such as Radian6 and other tools, it’s now possible to monitor this river of news and understand what people are saying about your brand and organization. These tools enable you to see what people are saying on Twitter and in the Blogosphere and by monitoring the conversation, you can get a handle on what’s being said.

Therefore, focusing first on “Listening to the Conversation” is more important than ever, as the intelligence you can gleam from it can form the bedrock of your social strategy, in terms of how you will ultimately choose to socialize with your constituents.

2. Learn from the Conversation
It’s not just enough to listen to the conversation, but you must then learn from it as well. By having your ear to the ground, you’ll be amazed by what you suddenly can learn about your brand and the people discussing it.

With this being said, following are just a few of key strategic elements that can be garnered and be used to develop your baseline strategy:

*** Topics of Conversation ***
- What are people talking about?
- Which topics are most popular?
- Which topics incite the greatest passion?

*** Sentiment ***
- Are people speaking in a positive or negative tone?
- Are there certain topics that garner positive and/or negative responses?

*** Influencers ***
- Who’s steering and guiding the conversation?
- Are there particular individuals, bloggers or Tweeters, that have a large following and are seemingly influencing how others perceive your brand in the social landscape?

3. Build Your Presence
Now that you’ve listened to the conversation and learned about what’s actually happening on the social front, you’re now ready to begin building your actual channel. The key thing here, is that unlike most strategies where this is often the first idea that is put forth, we’ve only come to this point after listening to what’s being said, and then garnering strategic learnings from it. This will ultimately enable you to develop a much more sound social media strategy, as it will be based on what people are actually conversing and socializing about, versus your assumptions, or worse, what you think they should be conversing and socializing about.

With this being said, building your social presence is composed of a few key components:

*** The Plan ***
Once you’ve decided to build your presence you must then develop a plan of action. Specifically, what’s the timeline, how and where is your channel going to be constructed and what kind of content are you going to populate it with.

This is obviously a huge endeavor, but when based on steps 1 & 2 of Listening and Learning, it becomes much easier and more strategically sound. The reason for this is that your plan and all of its components are rooted in the realities of the social conversation that’s happening and what people are responding to. Therefore, you can be confident that the plan you put forth will ideally be well received because its based on the realities of what your audience wants, not what you think they want.

*** The Platform ***
This is the point where you put your plan into action and start building your actual social media platform…Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, Twitter, etc.

In doing so, your key advantage here is that you will be building a platform that’s based on knowledge of how your constituents are already socializing, so it can be constructed with this in mind. Therefore instead of merely constructing a social media presence, what you can construct is a platform for socialization.

4. Engage Your Base
One, if not the most important, component of your social media strategy, is your Engagement Plan. The reason I say this is that engagement is really just another word for socialization and this is this is what truly makes Social Media a unique marketing medium.

While anyone can listen, learn and build, what will ultimately determine the success of your social media strategy is its ability to engage your base. In short, if you want to build your friend/fan/follower base, you need to be consistently updating your channel, responding to inquiries and developing new content.

However, it’s important to realize that engagement is a two way street. It’s about how you choose to engage with your users and also knowing how they want to engage with you. Therefore by first and foremost Listening and Learning it will enable you to formulate a 360 degree approach towards your engagement strategy, as you’ll have a solid handle on what people want from you and also what you can expect with them.

With this being said, the following are a few key components to any engagement strategy and how listening to and learning from the conversation can impact them.

*** Building Your Fan/Friend/Follower Base ***
For many social media programs, this is what success is often measured against…the ability to build your social community. This of course is very important and therefore, warrants very specific attention.

Understanding why someone would want to engage and become a friend/fan/follower is very important. Therefore incorporating elements of the conversation within your branded social environment in the form of content, updates and more will help you to readily build your Fan/Friend/Follower base as they will see you as understanding their needs and most importantly relevant.

*** Outreach ***
Social media also affords you with the opportunity to reach out to particular “influencers” as a means to extend the reach of your social media communications. This is particularly true in the case of Blogs, as identifying bloggers who focus on particular topics and have a decent following is a great way to further extend your message and get others, besides yourself ,to talk about your offerings.

Therefore having an understanding of what’s being discussed in the Blogosphere, can help you to offer and put forth content that will garner interest from them. This can in turn lead to long term and important relationships with a very influential circle of tastemakers and evangelists.

*** Integration ***
Engaging your audience via social media does not only have to happen within your social media properties, but it can also happen on your branded web properties as well. The act of installing chiclets throughout your site or by integrating Facebook Connect makes it possible for users on your site to engage in a way that enables your website content to be propagated as social content.

Therefore, listening to the conversation can provide insight in how and where you should place chiclets and what kind of content might likely get propagated into the social environment. This is particularly important as your website is where many of your key evangelists are residing and giving them the ability to propagate content into the social networks can play a huge role in helping your overall channel to grow.

*** Applications ***
While there have been far more misses than hits with applications, what they do afford is an opportunity to create a branded social engagement within a user’s personal social environment. Therefore, applications make it so a user does not have to come to you to socially engage; rather they are able to incorporate your brand into their environment.

Additionally, I personally believe that also by deploying a “Listen & Learn” strategy as it applies to application development can fundamentally change how they are perceived and adopted. The reason I say this is that by basing your application development decisions on the conversation that's happening within the broader social media environment ensures that you are fulfilling a definitive, versus a perceived, need with what is built and deployed.

Conclusion
I believe that the four steps outlined in the proceeding paragraphs provide a solid road map to success in this new and evolving medium. The key takeaway here is that by deploying a Listen >> Learn >> Build >> Engage strategy is that it’s based first and foremost on understanding the environment and who’s participating within it.

The fact is, social media can not be approached with a “Build It and They Will Come” mentality; rather success lies first and foremost in an “Understand and They Will Engage” approach. For its only you are able understand who you are talking to and what’s being said, will users then socialize with what has been built and success ultimately realized.

Labels: Application Development, Blog Outreach, Brand Awareness, Facebook, online marketing, Online Monitoring, Social Media, Social Media Marketing, Strategy, Twitter, web 2.0, Widgets, YouTube

Six Tips to Get Prospects to Click

I have a saying that I often apply to many situations in life: "Don't go to China to get to California."

How does that apply to online marketing? More often than not, we determine an online campaign's success through some high value action, like lead capture, video view, or something similar. But just as often, and even though these actions are at the heart of a campaign's success, those actions are hidden or put at the end of a process or banner.

Critical messages and calls to action are obscured by creative, images, and messaging, and they're relegated to the back of the visual and click-path sequence. Yet those items' resulting metrics are the first thing people look at when evaluating a campaign's key performance indicators (define). This is done for a variety of reasons, such as simple ignorance of best practices, an aversion to asking people for what you want, extraneous pages and content, or an overly hard sell that focuses on selling a product rather than the escalating or high value action on a landing page. The result is always the same: users are forced to jump through more hoops to engage in the behavior we want and conversion rates go down. Users are being forced to go to China to get to California.

Below are six tips to helping your users get to California by a more direct route:

• Promote and deliver on benefits and offers. Google did a study a couple years back showing that 70 percent of what influences clicks in its text ads are the benefit and offer statements. Our agency has found this fact applies to most things online; tell people how you will help them and what you can give them right then and there. Display benefits and offers in your banners, deliver on them on your landing pages, and watch your conversion and action rates go up.
  
  
• Use a reverse-pyramid message structure. Typically, good creative people love building to a crescendo. Lead with a tease, then deliver the payoff with a bang. This may be good for a mystery novel or an episode of "Curb Your Enthusiasm," but for banners and landing pages it's not so good. When trying to get people to take action online, lead with the payoff and get right to the point. Most people won't sit through :15 animation frames to get to the offer. You need to grab them right away with the wow factor, then follow up with the facts. Sizzle, then steak.

Labels: ClickZ, online marketing, Online Media, Strategy

Google Announces a New Way to Manage Your Online Identity

To take advantage of this new feature, a user must Google the word “me” and click through from the Google Promotion ad that is currently in position 1 of the sponsored results. This will bring up a simple form including limited contact information, opportunities to link to other social profiles, images from Picasa, and a few generic fields for a user to add a detailed description about him or herself. Google Profiles also allows you to opt-in to have your profile show up in search results. This is not an automatic inclusion, so as to allow people to either essentially have “private” or “public” profiles. While not necessarily optimizing your profile to position 1, Google Profiles tend to show up on the first page of Google’s natural search results. This is a great tractic of natural search engine optimization on your own name.

Google Profiles could become a very powerful reputation management tool. Of course, if someone is typing your name into Google and they see your profile, it will likely only be one of the many links they end up looking at. However, it at least allows you to have a say in what Google returns to searchers; essentially, who Google thinks YOU are. According to Adam Ostrow at Mashable, “This is going to be a welcome addition for lots of people, especially those who aren’t necessarily happy with what links Google has for them on the first page of results.”

Google Profiles opens up a whole new realm in the world of controlling your online identity. Now not only can you control sponsored results, but there's an additional level of control for the natural search results as well. Get started! http://lmgtfy.com/?q=me

Labels: Google, POV, Reputation Management, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Strategy

Cracking the Social Media Marketing Code

Labels: AMA, Podcasts, Social Media, Social Media Marketing, Strategy

Good Example of Someone Listening in the Social Space

@dewaldp (Mon, Feb 23, 3:40PM) It would be very useful to have "manage account" link right on the homepage
@Ovrdrv (Mon, Feb 23, 3:52PM) I see what u mean. When u return to the site & you're still logged in, you're almost stuck on the home page. Will take care of it.
@dewaldp (Mon, Feb 23, 3:54PM) That would be great, thank you!
@Ovrdrv (Mon, Feb 23, 4:02PM) OK, I've added an Accounts button in the sidebar. Don't know why I've never noticed that deficiency.
@dewaldp (Mon, Feb 23, 4:10PM) Wow, thanks for the quick response! this will make it a lot easier to manage our account

Labels: Online Media, Social Media, Social Media Marketing, Strategy, TweetLater, Twitter

Best Practices for Google Content Targeting

The lines between search marketing and online media have been blurring for some time. This is especially true with the Google AdSense network. It's basically a huge ad network where content sites run ads for Google.

In a Google search program, this is also known as content targeting. Even though you manage these ads through the Google interface and they're often targeted by keywords that don't show up in search listings, they show up in Web sites, just like online media.

A debate recently popped up in our agency about whether Google content ads, banners, and click-to-play videos managed by our search term could also be managed by our online media campaign managers as part of a media buy.

Online media campaign managers should be able to manage these ads too, because -- to reiterate -- ads running in the Google content network aren't in search results. The ads are on regular Web sites and can be targeted on a site-by-site basis.

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Labels: ClickZ, Google, Strategy

Paying Less for More Buzz

Labels: Advertising, Social Media, Strategy, Video

Spreading Holiday Cheer

Labels: Advertising, Online Media, Social Media, Strategy, Video

A Commuter's Dream

Labels: Advertising, Strategy

Six Crucial Tips From the Media Guy

I'm often vexed that online media professionals are typically 100 percent on the hook for a campaign's performance when the creative typically determines whether a well-planned and -targeted campaign succeeds or fails. People often forget that media will only put you in front of the right people, while the creative (banners and landing pages) make people react, interact, click, take action, and convert.

This occurred when I was involved with a small campaign for a business-to-business (B2B) tech company. It had a product for bank IT staffers, and we placed ads on Bank Systems and Technology, BankInfoSecurity, "Banking Technology" magazine, and more. All the stars seemed aligned on this one, the media hit the target square on the head, and the offer in the banner was a valuable report from well-known analysts.

The campaign tanked.

The client quickly blamed the media plan. However, if we couldn't generate interest for a banking technology industry report on a site like Banking Technology, this company had a bigger problem than a bad media plan.

The real problem was the creative was provided by another agency that didn't know what it was doing! First, the banner was a ultra-creative and so ethereal that people didn't get it. People had to think way too much to discover the product and offer relevance. Second, and this was the bigger problem, the offer didn't appear for 19 seconds. Who' s going to wait for 19 seconds in a looping banner to see an offer?

Labels: ClickZ, Online Media, Strategy

Setting The Tempo With Clients

Labels: Industry, Strategy

Me Gusta Oprah

Labels: Hispanic Marketing, Industry, Strategy

Let's Give Them Something to Talk About

Last Thursday, Microsoft launched its first ad installment of its $300 million campaign to counteract negative publicity around Window’s Vista. The ad features Jerry Seinfeld and Bill Gates in a shopping mall as Seinfeld helps Gates try on shoes.

As we all know, Seinfeld’s ever-popular show is often regaled as the show about nothing. However, the actions of each Seinfeld character always seem to come around full circle in the end. I couldn’t help but think this was the case with the Microsoft commercial. At first glance, the commercial may be seen as an ad about nothing. However, when you are viewing the ad you can’t help but look for hidden symbolism. It can’t just be about Gates and Seinfeld shopping for shoes, can it? The ad is a teaser, designed to generate buzz and create awareness; something that Microsoft has certainly succeeded in doing so with this ad.

Brand consultant, Dean Crutchfield, was quoted in the WSJ article as saying, "The initial reaction might be on the fence or leaning negative but the ad did its job. Most companies would have to spend a billion dollars on advertising to get this kind of attention." According to Bill Veghte, senior vice president of Microsoft's Windows and online services business, “the first commercial was a ‘conversation starter, an ice breaker’ that will be followed by further ads that he declined to describe. Mr. Veghte says the campaign is intended to create more excitement around what Windows can do.”

I have no doubt that in time, the true message of the ads will be revealed. In the meantime, Microsoft has given bloggers and online critics something to talk about.

To read the WSJ article and watch the Microsoft commercial click here

Labels: Advertising, Industry, Strategy

Ten Things to Do Besides Banners

We are familiar with great decline of banner click rates. It's funny how we now look at a 0.2 percent click rate and think that's good. There was a funny parody of "Adweek" called SadWeek that appeared when the dot-com bubble burst around 2001. One article was headlined, "Banner Click Rates Drop Below Zero Confounding Marketers and Mathematicians."

The industry has combated it several ways including research to justify the branding power of banners (which I whole heartily believe in). However, branding clients always agree with a campaign being about the brand until they read their reports. Then, they start to look at things like clicks and action rates.

At our agency, we try to get the client to focus on a campaign's top-line metrics. We have high CPM banners for branding and visibility and a wide variety of non-banner placements that tend to get more or cheaper clicks to balance things out.

For example, one buy we do again and again is on a site that sells us all the banners and skyscrapers at mid-range CPMs. Then, as almost a value add, the site throws in millions of text link and button combination units as fixed placements at the bottom of their pages. Then we come in with Google Site Targeted Text Ads that we apply to our media buy from our media budget. As a result, we get the visibility we want from the site with the banners and tons of low cost clicks to bring the cost per click and cost per action from the site way down.

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Labels: ClickZ, Strategy

How to Optimize an Ad Campaign on the Fly

At many larger agencies, the role of running an online campaign is fragmented. Typically it's broken up between planners, buyers, traffickers, and analysts.

The problem with this model is who is going super deep on the account? This model assumes that optimization is simply about moving media and turning banners on and off at the banner server. Which begs the question: How are real-time decisions made? Do all these people have to meet to get a high-level idea of what's going on in a campaign? How often do they meet or talk? Are they making real-time decisions? Candidly I have heard stories where optimization at some firms is more like run, track, report, meet, decide, and finally optimize. As opposed to real-time optimization, a more old-school see-what-happens approach is taken and many impressions and dollars are wasted in these protracted optimization cycles.

OK, I know everyone is going to say to clients: "Of course, we optimize real-time." But do you really? If you have a fragmented team, is a lower level traffic manager with her fingers on the banner server keyboard authorized or able to kill a site, placement, or piece of creative? Or, does this person need to wait for the analyst to see that it's not working, report that to the team, and then ask the buyer to cancel the contract or renegotiate the deal? That's a lot of hops and meetings to do something as simple as cancel a site, placement, or piece of creative.

The only way I have seen this work is when all of these people are working together in a tight little pod where meetings don't have to be scheduled to make decisions and inform clients of those decisions. One easy question to ask your agency if it has a fragmented media management team is, "Where do all these people sit in proximity to each other?" If the analysts are in another department, office space, or even floor away from the campaign managers, then it's unlikely your optimization is real-time.

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Labels: ClickZ, Strategy

ESPN and MLB Strike Out Looking When it Comes to Search and the 2008 Home Run Derby

Josh Hamilton of the Texas Rangers put on a spectacle during the 2008 MLB Home Run Derby as he hit a single round record 28 home runs in the first round of the contest. I am not quite sure how the ratings will end up, but ESPN, the MLB, and their partners have to be optimistic for decent numbers based on the record breaking performance. And although this year’s derby was probably lacking the star-power of recent derbies past, the network could at least rely on promoting the historic venue-Yankee Stadium in it's final year.

With all of the effort surrounding the promotion and coverage of this event by ESPN, the MLB and their partners, it's hard to believe they could have missed out on the opportunity with search, integrating online opportunities, and driving relevant traffic to a destination where further brand engagement could have occurred.

One missed opportunity was not capitalizing on the spike in searches on “Home Run Derby” that would expectedly occur around the all-star break.

Searching “Home Run Derby” resulted in NO paid ads...

...so it’s clear there isn’t much advertiser competition surrounding these terms. The cheap clicks could have been driven to a special Home Run Derby landing page or microsite with stats, blogs, past Home Run Derby highlights, pictures or even interactive games.

But the good news is- it's not too late! The big game isn't until tomorrow night. It's as simple as coming up with a destination and some ad copy, and bidding on the term "all star game"-there is no advertiser competition here either. And the spike for "all star game" is also pretty high in mid July.

Labels: Google, Paid Search, Strategy

Yahoogle – It’s Here

Labels: Google, Industry, Online Media, Paid Search, POV, Strategy, Yahoo

Landing Page Whitepaper Offers With Sub-Par Landing Pages?

Over the last few days, I have been served ads for a couple of different landing page guides. In order to get the landing page whitepapers, the user is directed to what else- a landing page. Logically, you would assume that an ad or email for a landing page best practice whitepaper would point to a pretty well designed landing page, but don’t make assumptions too quickly. I do not have access to the conversion data for either of the pages to be discussed, so the following observations are based solely on my experiences of landing page elements that enhance or detract from conversion rates.

One example of a questionable landing page design is for an Omniture landing page guide entitled “Does Your Landing Page Smell Like Your Keywords”. I use the term “questionable” because many design elements on this page are pretty good , but there are some design elements on this page that are extremely frustrating, especially in the context of downloading a whitepaper about landing pages. See the page below. The red line represents the “fold”; the portion of the page above the red line is visible without scrolling.

The first design element of this page that is concerning is the position of the form submit button. In my experience, forcing the user to scroll to find the submit button significantly detracts from conversion rates.

The next design element that is frustrating as an end user is the functionality of the form. Keep in mind, I was served the ad for the landing page in an email newsletter for online marketers- the primary subscriber base is most likely comprised of folks working at interactive agencies, which brings me to my concerns surrounding the form functionality. The first several fields are the standard fill-ins like name, email, but when you get to the drop down menus, things get a bit strange.

One design element that seemed particularly odd was the industry selector. As I mentioned previously, the ad for this page was served to a group that is likely comprised on online advertising agency types, but neither “Advertising” or “Marketing” were available as drop down selections. Instead, the form has a selection for “Healthcare” which seems strange as I could not imagine many people in healthcare are developing custom lead generation landing pages in-house.

Similarly, peculiar selections were available for other fields, especially considering the ad for this offer was served in an online marketing industry newsletter. Assuming the majority of folks that see this ad work at online ad agencies, it is odd that the most common job titles in the industry are not available in the drop down menu. There are no fields for “Account Executive” or “Account Director” although these are very common titles for the people that are seeing the ad impressions.

This experience reminds me of the frustrating multi-stage forms in which users keep getting directed to new pages with new form fields, and there is no indication of when the form will be complete.

Keep in mind, this page design could have been the result of extensive testing that indicated this design would lead to the highest possible conversion rates for this channel; however, it is undoubtedly counterintuitive to many thoroughly tested best practices, as well as my own experience in landing pages testing and design.

Nevertheless, I won’t be reading Omniture’s landing page whitepaper- I bailed out of the conversion process before I could make it through the frustrating landing page and form.

Labels: Industry, Landing Pages, Strategy, web 2.0

Supplementing Social Media Marketing is Crucial to Success (Part 2.)

For the first part of this series, please see Supplementing Social Media Marketing is Crucial to Success (Part 1.)

In order to maximize return on any social media investment, it is critical to supplement the social campaign with alternative forms of media. Social media marketing campaigns can include a variety of components and platforms, but it is important to remember you can’t simply launch a social marketing campaign and assume your core audience will find you and engage in a conversation.

This sentiment was reiterated in a recent article in the Summer 2008 edition of Search Marketing Standard entitled Marketing on Facebook. In the article, SMS correspondent Grant Crowell interviewed Rodney Rumford- CEO/founder of FaceReviews & Gravitational Media. When asked about common mistakes of marketing on Facebook, Rumford cited a problem in the perception of marketers that “if I build it they will come”. Yes, there is a huge viral component involved with social media marketing; however, marketers still need to take steps to ensure their social campaigns are supplemented with other forms of media in order to fully capitalize on the social marketing opportunity.

Getting back to BMW’s social campaign surrounding a car customizer application, it is clear that supplemental marketing efforts were not a well thought out component of the social campaign, and this detracted from the overall performance of the campaign. BMW clearly fell into the common trap of thinking “we built it- they will come”, but this is not the case.

So what specific supplemental tactics could BMW have utilized to maximize the return on their social campaign? Here are a few ideas.

• PPC Search Ads

After reading about this campaign in the press, I attempted to find the custom application, but I was not successful. For a very modest fee, BMW could have developed a small paid search campaign with terms like “BMW customizer”, “BMW Facebook page”, “BMW MySpace profile” etc… This would be very inexpensive as there would be virtually no advertiser competition on these terms. Ad copy should include calls to action such as “add us to your friends/become our fan” or “check out our new application” to encourage users to interact with the social profile and/or social campaign.

• PPC Content Ads

The same keyword list running in the PPC search campaign should also be launched on the Google Content network. This will generate tons of free impressions, and more importantly, MySpace pages fall under the Google Content network, so text ads running within MySpace could direct users BMW’s MySpace profile (assuming this was one of the networks utilized). Click costs on the content network would likely be even cheaper than search clicks, and the high level of relevance related to seeing ads for BMW’s MySpace page when already in MySpace should help drive comparatively high click through rates for the Content Network.

• Online Media

It also makes sense to invest in online media to drive additional traffic to a social profile, campaign, or application. It is unclear if BMW supplemented their social campaigns with display, but it is certainly a good idea. In addition to standard media buys with various targeting options, it is also worth investigating media buys that would run on the social sites themselves, which would also increase relevance, and therefore would hopefully also increase performance.

Social sites are constantly coming up with new advertising solutions as well. Case in point- Facebook’s new Social Ads which utilize the Facebook News Feed to serve hyper-targeted ads to relevant users. One unique targeting example would be the ability serve ads to users whose friends have recently engaged with the advertiser's Facebook profile.

• RSS Content Distribution

BMW had an opportunity to develop a short press release describing the campaign/custom social application that could be distributed to targeted audiences via RSS. The release should have several anchor text links pointing back to the profile page where the application resides. The anchor text should include copy like “BMW customizer application” or “BMW virtual joyride”. The RSS feed should also include a screen grab or short video of the application to maximize performance in terms of press release reads and the number of times the story is republished on blogs, forums, etc…

The RSS component is very cost-effective as well, and there are multiple benefits to this specific tactic. The RSS feed will drive traffic to the profile page, but in addition, there will now be several links out on the web that will point back to the profile page. The additional links will help gain SEO traction in the natural search results in the search engines, but the links will also help the profile pages show up higher in search results within social sites like MySpace and Facebook.

• Friend/Fan Outreach

Another important tactic involves continuing the conversation with your core audience in the social space. If BMW is hosting their application on Facebook or MySpace, then a blast should be sent out to the fans/friends of the brand. In addition to telling fans and friends about the new customizer application and “virtual joyride”, the content on the profiles should be updated on a regular basis to encourage users to return. Every time an update is made, friends and fans should be notified. Some social sites will automatically inform users when profiles are updated, but this is likely not enough in most cases.

• Blog Outreach

The blogosphere also offers a huge opportunity in relation to supplementing a social media marketing campaign. BMW had an opportunity to launch a blog outreach campaign in conjunction with the social media campaign/customizer application. Putting your ear to the ground to find out what bloggers think of your brand is helpful, but it isn’t enough. Bloggers can significantly influence thought, feeling, and general perception of a brand, particularly in the automotive category in which emotion plays such a large role in the perception of a brand. Cars could be considered more of an extension of an individual’s personality than a preference in transportation.

So if listening is not enough, what should BMW do? Reach out and initiate a conversation with the influential brand ambassadors in the blogosphere. Find out who is talking, select the most active and influential blogs, initiate a conversation, and provide something of value- even if it is just the right to use images of a new model on their site. BMW should also make sure that the conversation includes a quick pitch of the social app that BMW is promoting, as this will create awareness, drive traffic to the application, and will likely result in additional links back to the campaign which provides additional SEO benefits.

The list of supplemental tactics above is by no means all-inclusive. Each campaign has a unique set of goals and challenges. The most effective may to maximize the return on a social campaign is to develop a well planned, multi-faceted, integrated promotional strategy to supplement the efforts of the core social campaign. BMW clearly missed a big opportunity to maximize the return on their social campaign- so be sure not to make the same mistake.

Labels: Blog Outreach, Integration, Paid Search, RSS, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Social Media Marketing, Strategy

Social Media Marketing: A Marriage Made in Heaven

Labels: Online Media, Social Media, Strategy

Maximize Return By Supplementing Social Media Marketing Campaigns (Part 1.)

Social media marketing is all the buzz today- you can't read any online marketing newsletter or industry publication without coming across an article about the next frontier in the world of interactive marketing- social media.

Most of the articles out there about social media are in agreement that it is an important new medium. Most of the thought pieces also discuss effective monetization as the key to the growth of social media advertising in the upcoming months. There are hundreds of examples and case studies on the cool new things that companies are doing to promote brands and continue the conversation with their core audience. Widgets, MySpace & Facebook applications, virally shared content on social networks among "friends" of "friends", and virtual "gifts" are all part of the new marketing mix.

But it is important to keep in mind that these social marketing campaigns do not live in a vacuum. Sure, the viral aspect of social networks can certainly help propagate the social marketing media mix, but you still need to make sure people can find you. Many companies are investing vast resources into creating assets for the social media mix, and then just leaving them in the space in hopes the viral machine will take care of the distribution, but this could be a costly mistake.

A June 3rd article in Online Media Daily by Mark Walsh entitled Goldstein At IAB: Marketers Can't Ignore Social Media references a social media marketing campaign for the BMW Series 1 model. According to the article, the campaign included a virtual customizer application that allowed users to go on a "virtual joyride" with their social network friends, although the article did not reference which specific properties were utilized. Sounds cool right? I thought it did, so I decided to do a bit more research to find out how the social application works.

The only problem is I can’t seem to find it! And if a certified AdWords pro can't find it through search, the general population will probably have an even harder time. This is a major problem for BMW as they expended a lot of effort to create this interesting application that is virtually invisible unless I happen to be a "friend" of BMW on whatever social networking site the campaign utilized. BMW missed a huge opportunity with this campaign due to the lack of an integrated plan to maximize the traffic, and allow people to find the custom application.

Nothing popped in the paid or organic results for relevant searches like "BMW customizer", "BMW customizer application", "BMW social network application", "BMW MySpace page" "BMW Facebook page" or many other related queries. As a result, the overall return on the campaign must have been significantly stifled by the fact that the no one can find this new application despite the fact the application is discussed in the media. Even after reading an article about the campaign/application with quotes from the agency that developed the campaign- it is nowhere to be found!

The lack of integrated efforts to promote the social campaign has certainly impacted the return on investment for BMW. Even though the majority of traffic hitting the social campaign is viral, a huge opportunity was wasted by not driving additional traffic through integrated marketing efforts.

So, what should BMW have done? Stay tuned for Part 2 of this series to find out.

Labels: Integration, Online Media, Social Media, Social Media Marketing, Strategy, web 2.0