Click fraud in Pay-Per-Click campaigns is on the rise as the economy tanks and firms look for ways to thwart their competitors. A recent article on NewYorkTimes.com states that click fraud can represent anywhere from 1% to 15% of Pay-Per-Click costs and clicks. Click Forensics, a click fraud detection business in Austin, Texas also discovered that in the 4th quarter of 2008, 17% of all online ad clicks were fraudulent.
If Pay-Per-Click is part of your Interactive Marketing Plan, be sure that you are actively reviewing web analytics and Pay-Per-Click reports to spot suspicious behaviour before your funds are depleted -- or make sure that you have a reputable Interactive Marketing Agency that can analyze the data for you.
Is That Your "Official" Social Media Page?
Monday, May 11, 2009 by
Ira Gross
I was recently doing some research for a client presentation on interactive marketing and decided to check out their My Space and Face Book pages. I Googled "company XYZ at My Space" and was delighted to get a link to what appeared to be the client's official My Space page. Once inside My Space, I used their internal search tool to confirm that I was on the correct page. Yep, looks like both My Space and Google were directing me to the same page, so it must be the correct one. Only it wasn't. Problem was, I didn't find out until I was well into my client presentation. So that raised a simple question, how does a fan/user/prospect find a firm's "official" social networking properties?
In my case, performing an in-site or Google search yielded a false sense of security. Now I know better. But how many prospects out there had the same experience as me, i.e. logging into what appeared to be an "official" page, being underwhelmed with the experience, and moving on. All without ever realizing that we never in fact reached our desired destination. The easiest, most obvious way for a firm to prevent this experience is to put a link on their website directly to their social media pages. This would remove all confusion. Problem is, many firms do not do this.
And to compound the issue, I learned that many "fan" pages have more interesting, updated and relevant content than a firm's official page may have. Again, adding to the confusion as to which is the actual "official" page. I would posit that firms need to start addressing this issue seriously before an inordinate number of prospects begin to think that 12 year old Billy's My Space page is the public voice of their brand.
So, other than having links directly on their corporate websites to Face Book and My Space pages, what can a firm do to ensure users find their "official" social media pages? Here are a few ideas:
1 - Somewhere on the page, state plainly that is is the "Official My Space Page of Company XYZ." That will remove all doubt.
2 - Monitor the social network to identify fan pages, and post content or communications that will alert other users to the fact that the given page is a fan site and not the firm's official page.
3 - Ensure that your firm makes frequent updates to your official pages. One way a prospect might realize they are on the wrong page is if the last post is 6 months old, or discusses "upcoming" events that happened last year.
4 - Where the law allows, link from the social networking page back to your official site. This should confirm users found the correct page.
5 - Perform your SEO due-diligence to ensure your social media pages come up in the first page of search results.
6 - Put a little skin in the game and do some PPC (pay per click) to ensure your pages come up after the appropriate user search.
Companies should also include links to these official pages in their email and other correspondences. In this way, businesses can ensure that the efforts they make in the social networking space will bear fruit, and that the fruit will be what they planted, not a knock-off of by an eager fan.
In my case, performing an in-site or Google search yielded a false sense of security. Now I know better. But how many prospects out there had the same experience as me, i.e. logging into what appeared to be an "official" page, being underwhelmed with the experience, and moving on. All without ever realizing that we never in fact reached our desired destination. The easiest, most obvious way for a firm to prevent this experience is to put a link on their website directly to their social media pages. This would remove all confusion. Problem is, many firms do not do this.
And to compound the issue, I learned that many "fan" pages have more interesting, updated and relevant content than a firm's official page may have. Again, adding to the confusion as to which is the actual "official" page. I would posit that firms need to start addressing this issue seriously before an inordinate number of prospects begin to think that 12 year old Billy's My Space page is the public voice of their brand.
So, other than having links directly on their corporate websites to Face Book and My Space pages, what can a firm do to ensure users find their "official" social media pages? Here are a few ideas:
1 - Somewhere on the page, state plainly that is is the "Official My Space Page of Company XYZ." That will remove all doubt.
2 - Monitor the social network to identify fan pages, and post content or communications that will alert other users to the fact that the given page is a fan site and not the firm's official page.
3 - Ensure that your firm makes frequent updates to your official pages. One way a prospect might realize they are on the wrong page is if the last post is 6 months old, or discusses "upcoming" events that happened last year.
4 - Where the law allows, link from the social networking page back to your official site. This should confirm users found the correct page.
5 - Perform your SEO due-diligence to ensure your social media pages come up in the first page of search results.
6 - Put a little skin in the game and do some PPC (pay per click) to ensure your pages come up after the appropriate user search.
Companies should also include links to these official pages in their email and other correspondences. In this way, businesses can ensure that the efforts they make in the social networking space will bear fruit, and that the fruit will be what they planted, not a knock-off of by an eager fan.
Introducing the Interactive Roadmap
Friday, April 17, 2009 by
Ira Gross
The mantra of our time seems to be “do more with less.” Nowhere in business is this sentiment more pronounced than marketing. With the economy in free fall and marketing budgets slashed to the bone, maintaining market share, let alone growing market share, is more difficult than ever. Enter the Interactive Marketing Roadmap.
One of the keys to “doing more with less” is reuse. Most marketing organizations spend a lot of resources developing marketing collateral for various tradition channels. These artifacts include direct mail pieces, television spots, brochures, catalogues and the like. The goal of the interactive marketing roadmap is to identify the optimal re-use of these items on the web. The challenge is to employ limited incremental spend to leverage existing assets created in traditional channels for re-purposing in the web channel. Definition 6 has spent a lot of time and intellectual capital trying to address this challenge. Via our Interactive Marketing Roadmap, you can get the benefit of this cumulative effort and knowledge base.
So let’s start with a simple example. Your company is about to launch a new product, so the marketing manager has created a new direct mail piece to explain the offering. For educational purposes, let us say that it cost one dollar for the design, development and distribution of the direct mail piece. And let us also assume the target market for this effort is 50,000 households. That would equate to a cost of $50,000 to reach 50,000 prospects, or $1.00 per prospect. If the piece got a 2% conversion rate, the program would be considered wildly successful. More likely, most of the direct mail pieces end up in the circular file. And identifying the one’s that didn’t is no easy task. Plus, the “shelf life” of the entire promotion is no more than a week or two.
Now, let us leverage the Interactive Marketing Roadmap. In this instance, we would identify the best re-use of the promotional direct mail package for the web. First, we would most likely turn the direct mail copy into a targeted email marketing campaign. The cost to turn the direct mail content into an email friendly version is a few thousand dollars. Then there is the cost of the email blast, usually no more than pennies per email. So we can spend $5,000 to make the direct mail piece email friendly, and spend an additional $2,500 on email distribution. At that point, we can blast the email to 100,000 prospects for roughly $7,500. Hence we tripled the total audience of the initial direct mail piece for an incremental spend of less than 20% of the cost of the original direct mail piece. And click through and conversion rates from targeted email marketing campaigns is in the 4% conversion range. At even less incremental cost we can add the direct mail piece to the website as new and additional content. This will boost natural SEO results. We can also allow the promotional coupon to be live on the website for an extended duration, thereby increasing its shelf life. And through all of these initiatives, we have the added value of web analytics to give us insight into who is actually receptive to our overtures, so we can do even better next time!
Now, imagine that you have multiple brands, each of which employ a wide range of traditional marketing tactics, and the messaging of those tactics varies by market. The Interactive Marketing Roadmap will literally map out the alignment of traditional and web programs across all of these brands, assets and markets to create a uniform, comprehensive marketing and tactical strategic plan. And we can create this plan in matter of weeks. That enables the marketing department to get the benefit of this analysis for the duration of the year. I consider that a prime example of “doing more with less.” And Definition 6 is the only online ad agency to offer such a service.
One of the keys to “doing more with less” is reuse. Most marketing organizations spend a lot of resources developing marketing collateral for various tradition channels. These artifacts include direct mail pieces, television spots, brochures, catalogues and the like. The goal of the interactive marketing roadmap is to identify the optimal re-use of these items on the web. The challenge is to employ limited incremental spend to leverage existing assets created in traditional channels for re-purposing in the web channel. Definition 6 has spent a lot of time and intellectual capital trying to address this challenge. Via our Interactive Marketing Roadmap, you can get the benefit of this cumulative effort and knowledge base.
So let’s start with a simple example. Your company is about to launch a new product, so the marketing manager has created a new direct mail piece to explain the offering. For educational purposes, let us say that it cost one dollar for the design, development and distribution of the direct mail piece. And let us also assume the target market for this effort is 50,000 households. That would equate to a cost of $50,000 to reach 50,000 prospects, or $1.00 per prospect. If the piece got a 2% conversion rate, the program would be considered wildly successful. More likely, most of the direct mail pieces end up in the circular file. And identifying the one’s that didn’t is no easy task. Plus, the “shelf life” of the entire promotion is no more than a week or two.
Now, let us leverage the Interactive Marketing Roadmap. In this instance, we would identify the best re-use of the promotional direct mail package for the web. First, we would most likely turn the direct mail copy into a targeted email marketing campaign. The cost to turn the direct mail content into an email friendly version is a few thousand dollars. Then there is the cost of the email blast, usually no more than pennies per email. So we can spend $5,000 to make the direct mail piece email friendly, and spend an additional $2,500 on email distribution. At that point, we can blast the email to 100,000 prospects for roughly $7,500. Hence we tripled the total audience of the initial direct mail piece for an incremental spend of less than 20% of the cost of the original direct mail piece. And click through and conversion rates from targeted email marketing campaigns is in the 4% conversion range. At even less incremental cost we can add the direct mail piece to the website as new and additional content. This will boost natural SEO results. We can also allow the promotional coupon to be live on the website for an extended duration, thereby increasing its shelf life. And through all of these initiatives, we have the added value of web analytics to give us insight into who is actually receptive to our overtures, so we can do even better next time!
Now, imagine that you have multiple brands, each of which employ a wide range of traditional marketing tactics, and the messaging of those tactics varies by market. The Interactive Marketing Roadmap will literally map out the alignment of traditional and web programs across all of these brands, assets and markets to create a uniform, comprehensive marketing and tactical strategic plan. And we can create this plan in matter of weeks. That enables the marketing department to get the benefit of this analysis for the duration of the year. I consider that a prime example of “doing more with less.” And Definition 6 is the only online ad agency to offer such a service.
Business have a new weapon in their arrsenal regarding a feedback mechansim from Yelp which allows them to respond to unflattering user reviews and feedback - and according to an article I read on MSNBC, Yelp will be ready to release this new feature by the end of April 2009. This is a great tool for companies interested in working and interactive media agency to research user generated content - Yelp allows you to see what people are saying about your brand, product or service whether it's good or bad. Contact Definition 6 to find out how we help our clients harness the power of the social web.
Staying Competitive in a Turbulent Economy
Wednesday, February 18, 2009 by
Ira Gross
There's a good, quick read from Kelly Spors I found online at the Wall Street Journal called 'Tough Times Call for New Ideas'. She explains how in the current tough business environment, firms need to develop new ideas, approaches, products and services to stay competitive and stay in business. There are a few key take-aways from the article:
- search for new outlets
- expand your services, offer a wide range of services
- hit a wider audience
I opted in, Now What?
Wednesday, February 11, 2009 by
Ira Gross
Getting prospects to "opt in" to receive more information at a website is a significant goal of interactive marketers. They create content with strong calls to action, offer compelling reasons to offer up your email address and other information and vigilantly track and monitor opt in rates. The goal often seems to be getting the opt in, not doing much for the prospect after wards.
As part of research I performed for a client, I opted in to several of their competitors websites. Of the 5 sites I opted in at, 1 sent me a welcome message within a few hours, and emails fairly regularly thereafter. Two others sent me an email within the first week, with sporadic communications since. Two others, or 40% of my sample, have yet to send me anything - 2 months and counting. Did my opt in take? Do they have nothing to say to me? So I ask this simple question, what should a firm do once someone has opted in?
It seems to me that a welcome email or some form of acknowledgment within 48 hours should be the bare minimum. That email should welcome me to their communication channel, and perhaps even inform me what I should expect now that I have opted in. Should I expect weekly communications or a monthly newsletter? Special promotions or general information?
The firms I am receptive to send a welcome email almost immediately. That is followed up with some form of "standard" email marketing piece within the next few weeks. If that first real email marketing message shows the firm understands where my interests lay (i.e. what I was doing on their site when I opted in), I quickly start to look forward to their communications as they are viewed as relavent.
When no welcome email arrives, and weeks or months go by without hearing anything, I feel duped and question what I was thinking when I opted in. Those sites are not likely to get more traffic from me, and they are likely to be fodder at the next interactive marketing meeting on how to not engage your customers and prospects. List building has a definite place, but going dark on an eager prospect is no way to grow a business, especially in these tough times.
So, if you have nothing to say, I would question having an opt in area on your website. If you are doing simple list building, I would at least mandate a welcome email, and in that email I would set an expectation of sporadic communications. Users will understand what you tell them. But in the absence of telling them anything, the best you can hope for is that they will simply move on, and you will have missed a good opportunity with an interested prospect. At worst, you might get called out in an interactive marketing blog as the poster child of how not to run an opt-in interactive marketing campaign.
eCommerce Holiday Tune Up
Monday, October 20, 2008 by
Ira Gross
As the holiday season approaches, the prospects for record setting sales appear dim for most retailers. The economy is, well, you know... Competition is keen and consumers are spending on necessities, if that. This will make the 2008 holiday season especially challenging for marketers and retailers. So for eTailors, and those in the electronic commerce space, getting it "right" this year can mean staying in business, or not.
So I suggest a pre-holiday, eCommerce audit to ensure a successful holiday season. Make sure your web site is search engine optimized by reviewing page tags, keywords, meta data and header information. Ensure your home page has a strong call to action. Are there special promotions prominently displayed on the homepage and above the fold? There better be, because your competitors will have that nailed!
Have you checked the web channel integration with your inventory application? Better make sure that inventory purchased on-line is reflected in your database in near real time, as the costs of returns will be higher this year, with gas prices as they are.
Are you planning special promotions and marketing events in your other channels? Ensure that the web is being leveraged to support and augment those initiatives. Are your call center employees up to date with your latest web promotions?
If your website is hosted by a third party hosting provider, have you alerted them to that great new web promotion you are planning? You'll need to ensure they can handle the anticipated increase in bandwidth. Those managed services providers might also offer some ideas on how to keep that traffic even by varying messaging by the time of day and even day of the week. This will smooth out traffic and promote a more consistent user experience.
And let's not forget the all important email campaigns. Have you segmented your target audience so they can receive offers indicative of the part of your website that got them to opt in in the first place? Are you promoting higher margin products so you don't generate a lot of traffic and revenue but no profits? Are you sending emails often enough to keep your prospects engaged, but not too often that they stop opening your emails? Can you do timely email clickstream analysis to identify which promotions are generating the most traffic, and stop the low performers and supplement the rain makers?
And have you reviewed your search and SEO strategies? Will you be doing a lot of paid search? Buying brand terms, category terms or product names? Do you have a comparison or analysis regimen in place so you can add to the converting keywords and dial down the laggards? Can you run timely metrics reports to get a good snapshot on how your website is performing on a daily basis?
If you have not thought through all of these interactive marketing concepts thoroughly, 2008 might be the year you learned a lot more about eCommerce than you bargained for. And the way 2009 is shaping up, that job search will be long, prolonged and difficult. So contact Definition6 now, and have us perform that eCommerce audit and tune up for you. You'll sleep better, outpace the competition and ensure that 2008 is a stepping stone to a more prosperous 2009.
Where Did You Opt-In?
Tuesday, August 26, 2008 by
Ira Gross
I recently "opted-in" to an online retailers email list. The experience was underwhelming to say the least. After I optedin, I received an immediate email welcoming me to their distribution list. Six weeks and counting, and I have yet to receive another communication from the firm. At another e-tailors website, I opted in while looking at some of the services that they offer - in this case looking to replace some windows on my condo. Several weeks later I began to be run over by emails offering discounts on hand tools, consumer electronics, and large appliances. There was nary an acknowledgement that my reason for opting in had to do with their services rather than their products.
At a team meeting with another large internet retailer, I asked the online marketing manager if they documented where a user was on the website when they opted in. Blank stares all around. Then the question, "Why would that matter?" I asked, "Wouldn't you want to know what someone was looking at when they decided to opt in?" To me it was a totally obvious connection; to my client it was an irritating question. Further research showed most e-tailors clearly in my clients’ corner. Opting in was good enough. No reason to know more. I pose it as the complete opposite. And the difference is the ability to easily begin a 1:1 customer dialogue over the web; or not!
If the web retailer mentioned above had documented that I was looking at a window installation when I had opted in to receive additional communications, they would have targeted messages to me for window installation services, window treatments, perhaps shutters and other products that showed they knew what my specific interest in their firm was all about. Instead, I was lumped in with the several other million email optin's who apparently have an insatiable thirst for inexpensive hand tools and cheap consumer electronics. I no longer read that firms email marketing promotions, as they contain nothing I am interested in.
So the light bulb clicked on. How many firms on the internet try to map where a user was when they opted in so they can create better email marketing campaigns or email marketing services. If my experiences over the past two years are any indication, the answer is not many. So here are a few simple steps that a firm can take to integrate their email campaigns in order to move towards a more customer centric 1:1 dialogue.
1. For the easiest level of integration, firms with multiple products and services can provide users with a checklist of items for which they are interested in receiving email and other interactive marketing communications. A few large computer hardware vendors are already adept at this.
2. For sites with multiple products and services, they should capture where a user was on the site when they opted in. This could be at a category level, product level, or possibly a business unit level.
3. Create interactive marketing promotions that correlate to the distinctly different parts of the site where users opt in. For example, if I was looking at "services" at least send me email messages that show awareness that I was interested in services rather than products.
4. If product categories are highly differentiated, than the corresponding email campaign should be too. For example, if hand tools and power tools are in different categories, and I opted in looking at hand tools, than a subsequent email marketing campaigns should contain some elements related to hand tools.
5. Over time, an "opted-in" customers' sales activity should be added to their profiles so that over time the firm can know what they were viewing when they opted in, what online promotions had a high click through and/or conversion rate and which products were ultimately purchased.
At that point, the sponsoring site should have all the information they need to have a robust 1:1 customer dialogue with an engaged and nitrated client. And all because they captured what page a prospect was viewing when they opted in to receive additional information. Sometimes, the missing link doesn't have to be missing at all.
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