pTypically, when you are running a direct response (DR) online b advertising/b campaign, you have a very limited time to prove the effectiveness of your b advertising/b b strategy/b and the capability of your network. If the client does not see a clear progression of performance in the right direction, they would terminate the campaign. Clients usually have 24-48 hour out clauses in their insertion order (IO). When running an online display campaign, there are lots of variables at play. nbsp;Choosing the right ones could be the difference between a successful campaign and a prematurely terminated campaign with an unhappy client./ppHere are the key ingredients to a successful DR campaign:/pp1.nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp; bContent/b: nbsp;Content is very crucial component of any successful campaign. The content decides how long the user is going to be on a site, what would be the location of the ad on the page and how much will the user engage with the ad./ppConsider a user on a photo sharing site. Each page on the site will have some ads. The user will most likely be skimming through pages looking at pictures spending barely seconds before moving on to the next page. If such is the case, you can imagine that the user will not even look at the ads. Contrast this with an article that is of editorial nature, a user is more likely to be on this type of page for minutes. An ad on such a page will be in front of the user for a longer time and is more likely to register and invoke a response from him or her./ppThe more relevant the content to the b advertising/b campaign, the more likely it is that the user will engage with the ad. If you are selling Verizon FiOS service, for example, you are more likely to find the user on cnet.com rather than babycentral.com. Which bring me to the next item on my list namely the audience. nbsp;/pp2.nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp; bAudience/b: nbsp;When planning your campaign, it is imperative that you chose to run it in front of the right audience. As simple and as obvious as it may sound, it is often an overlooked feature of a campaign. Very often I come across campaigns that failed because they were running on mismatched audience. You can get sophisticated by employing a third party audience measuring company like Quantcast or Comscore, or you can use common sense while picking which sites to run the campaign on. Like I said above, Verizon FiOS will perform better on CNet than on babycentral. If you can get the right ad in front of the right audience you would have done the trick, unless of course you missed out on recency and frequency aspect of targeting the user. nbsp;/pp3.nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp; bRecency and Frequency/b: While deciding who to show the ad and who not to, a key decision parameter that I always use is how recently the ad was shown to the user in question and how many times has the user already seen the ad. After having run a lot of campaigns, I can tell you that you have a better chance of succeeding if you show an ad to a user who has recently seen the same ad. There is also a limit on the number of times you should show an ad to a user before deciding that the user will not engage in the future. From my experience, this number is between 3 to 5 times per day. nbsp;If the user does not engage with your ad after you have shown it to them 3 to 5 times, your chances of succeeding with this user drop significantly as you show more ads to this same user. So once you have shown the ad to as many users as you can what else can you do? You can find other relevant audience using re-targeting./pp4.nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp; bRe-targeting/b: nbsp;Re-targeting allows you to target users who have been on the advertiser’s site either browsing or looking for more information. If you can identify such users within your network, you can be assured that these users will engage much better than other users. Whenever possible, I utilize re-targeting as a key component while building my campaigns. Performance of this audience is always superior to the others. The only issue is to find enough such users to run your entire campaign in front of them. Once you have applied all the above mentioned four techniques, you can utilize the final technique of standard targeting to fine tune your campaign and make it more efficient.nbsp;/pp5.nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp; bStandard Targeting/b: Sometimes basic targeting can save media dollars for your advertisers which could result in an efficient successful campaign. If you are showing an ad which is relevant to a certain state, there is absolutely no advantage in showing that ad to users who are outside that region. Whenever possible identify if the product is a nationally advertiser or more regional in nature. If it is regional then you should definitely geo-target the campaign to that region only.nbsp;/ppI have often notices that the performance of most of my campaigns usually drop off between 12 AM to 4 AM. These are the times when users are less engages, tired, trying to wrap up their work and go to bed. It is very unlikely that you will get them to engage. If you are selling a business product like FedEx Kinko’s office services, you are better off running that campaign from 7 AM to 7 PM. Also, remember you can target off of user’s time zone rather than yours. I have seen this error being made where campaign managers forget to target to user’s time zone and end up either running the campaign longer during the day or ending it prematurely for users on either side of the coast. This is an important distinction that is often overlooked./ppThese were, in my opinion, the most crucial components that can lead you to running a successful DR campaign. Again, not all campaigns respond positively with the same degree to all of these components. Some factors are more determinant for one campaign then others. You will have to play around with these to find out which one or ones make the most impact on your campaign. Once you identify which factors make your campaigns work, pour more traffic in those factors and reduce the traffic from others. I also recommend monitoring the campaign’s performance on a weekly basis. Sometimes factors that work initially for a campaign may stop performing as well and other non-performing factors might become dominant performers. If and when this happens you should be able to monitor it and adapt to the change./p p a href=http://htmlnewsletter.ndesignsblog.com/ rel=dofollow title=Html NewsletterHtml Newsletter/a a href=http://marketing-automation.onblogme.com/ rel=dofollow title=Marketing AutomationMarketing Automation/a /p
This entry was posted on Saturday, November 6th, 2010 at 8:48 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.sâmbătă, 4 decembrie 2010
vineri, 3 decembrie 2010
Blog: Facebook Gets Serious about Location with Deals
When Facebook launched Places, the social network’s long-awaited location-sharing feature, in August, it was accompanied by a couple of key assumptions. One was that 800-pound gorilla of the social networking space, with its 500 million total users and 100+ million mobile users, would take the check-in mainstream. As my colleague Debra Aho Williamson sagely put it in an eMarketer blog post:
Right now, checking in is a fairly niche activity. Places will introduce a lot more people to the concept. Facebook has already shown that it can drive big changes in people’s behavior—just look at the popularity of status updates. Checking in is another one of those behaviors that Facebook can easily push toward mass acceptance.
Another was that the launch of Places signaled the death knell for foursquare and other location-sharing services. But as it happens, the reports of foursquare’s death have been premature. In fact, since the launch of Places, foursquare’s user base has continued to surge, growing from 2.6 million on August 12th (according to a tweet by CEO Dennis Crowley) to 4 million on October 21st. If it continues at its current pace, foursquare is projected to top 5 million registered users by the end of November.
In addition, while Places has built-in scale, it doesn’t necessarily top foursquare in engagement. According to some recent (and admittedly rough) calculations by Silicon Alley Insider (SAI), a large number of people (a reported 30 million) have tried Places, but more people check in on foursquare on a more regular basis. Blame a lack of compelling features, such as game dynamics, that give foursquare a lot of its appeal. On the other hand, engagement and usage metrics, even the somewhat speculative data assembled by SAI, that disproportionately favor the smaller foursquare over the much larger Facebook, serve as further evidence that two can peacefully coexist.
The big question is: what would make Places more compelling? With yesterday’s launch of its Deals program, Facebook is betting the answer is commerce.
Why Places + Deals is important to Facebook:
First, the opportunity to save money will give Facebook’s base of mobile users, now 200 million-strong, a reason to use Places to check in. The success of group-buying services such as Groupon and flash sale sites like Gilt has demonstrated that consumers will jump at the chance of a good deal. The fact that Deals is launching with a roster of 22 national brands, including the Gap, H&M, McDonald’s, Starbucks, Macy’s, American Eagle Outfitters, JCPenney and Chipotle, proves that Facebook is serious about driving adhesion. In many cases, the inaugural deals mean discounts, but Starbucks and McDonald’s, for example, are offering donations to charities in return for checking in, reminiscent of a successful program non-profit Earthjustice has run with foursquare.
Facebook also recognized the need to include a mechanism to drive ongoing usage. In short, Deals is not about the one-shot deal. Rather, merchants have the option of using the platform as a virtual loyalty program or punch card to reward repeat buyers. This is a smart move that could counter some of the criticism leveled at services such as Groupon and one that will make Deals more compelling for users and businesses alike.
Why location-specific deals make sense for marketers:
Location information, which provides insight into not only place but also context, enables marketers to deliver a compelling offer or reward when consumers are at the point of decision. In yesterday’s geo-location sessions at the ad:tech New York conference (coincidentally scheduled at the time same time as Facebook’s Deals announcement), WHERE CEO Walt Doyle noted that reach, relevancy and redemption are the key factors in the location game.
Cracking all of those nuts simultaneously and with the same degree of success is challenging. Facebook can do its part by offering scale and ease-of-use for the business owner, whether a national brand or single proprietorship. But platform and scale alone are not sufficient. Ultimately, the success of Deals depends on, well, the deals that merchants offer. Unless they’re consistently attractive, consumers will lose interest or not sign on at all.
Will Deals alter the dynamics of the marketplace?
The answer is yes, but the impact of Deals will be felt differently throughout the geo-location ecosystem. Although foursquare was absent at yesterday’s launch, Groupon and Loopt, two companies that are farther along than Facebook in marrying location and offers, were present. The single-click sign-on feature that Facebook announced as part of the enhancements to Places will enable deeper integration between Facebook and other location services, which, in theory, at least, will give Facebook more appeal as an aggregator, a value proposition that will likely extend to commerce as well.
Could Facebook, with its reach and resources simply blow its erstwhile competitors out of the water? Given the inclination, the answer is probably yes. But Facebook understands a) the value of the ecosystem (a lesson perhaps learned from Google, now Facebook’s primary competitor in the digital space); and b) its limitations in being all things to all people and all companies. Fast Company described the post-Places opportunity for services such as foursquare and Groupon in the following terms:
Their long-term sustainability will probably rest on the same thing that enabled the Mac to survive in a PC world: A decision to eschew the urge to be everything to everybody and instead to focus on a customer segment they will always be able to serve better than the big boy.
Deals may not be perfect, it may be “cruder,” in Fast Company’s estimation, than similar offerings, but assuming that Facebook is on to something here, Deals could have a significant impact in the marketplace. It could also offer a big boost to mobile-assisted commerce and make mobile not only a more viable but also more necessary channel for reaching consumers.
Blog: Gaming Dollars Flowing to Social, Mobile Spaces
A rave review in The New York Times of the motion capabilities of the Microsoft Kinect system for the Xbox 360 game console got me thinking about the ups and downs of the video game industry, and how social and mobile gaming fit into the overall picture.
Despite the Times’ enthusiasm about the Kinect box, most of the news from the traditional gaming industry has been bleak. According to NPD Group, in the first three quarters of this year US video game software, hardware and accessories revenues were down 8% compared with the same period in 2009 – and last year revenues were down 8% from 2008.
Nintendo posted its first half-year loss in seven years. And Viacom announced it’s selling the once-hot Harmonix unit, developer of Rock Band and creator of Guitar Hero. Harmonix had been pulling down Viacom’s earnings for several quarters, including a $260 million write-off in the most recent quarter.
Against this backdrop, social and mobile gaming look especially promising.
eMarketer’s short-term forecast of ad spending on social gaming is pretty aggressive. In the US, we’re expecting ad spending to hit $192 million in 2011, up 33% over 2010. And the non-US growth curve is significantly steeper at 160%—though the dollar amounts are lower.
Keep in mind that estimates of advertising on social games don’t include so-called “offers.” These are lead-generation pitches from marketers such as Netflix and Blockbuster, or surveys that reward participants with virtual cash for social games. According to ThinkEquity, these offers accounted for 47% of US social gaming revenues in 2009. Direct revenues from virtual goods made up some 44% and the remainder came from pure advertising.
On the mobile front, eMarketer expects US revenues to reach $1.5 billion in 2014, from $850 in 2010. Most of the revenue will come from paid downloads, but advertising’s share of the total will grow to 12.3% in 2014, from 6.5% in 2010. Dollar-wise, ad-supported gaming will bring in $186 million in the US in 2014.
It’s no wonder game developers, entertainment conglomerates and Internet giants are diving into social and mobile gaming. Electronic Arts acquired Playfish for $300 million, plus another $100 million if Playfish meets pre-established performance criteria. EA also bought Chillingo, the maker of the popular game app Angry Birds. Disney purchased Playdom for $563 million plus a $199 million earnout. And Google acquired social game maker Slide for $179 million and mobile gaming specialist Social Deck for an undisclosed sum.
Consider also that the granddaddy of social gaming companies, Zynga, was just valued at $5.51 billion, topping EA’s valuation of $5.16 billion. This makes Zynga the second largest video game company, behind Activision Blizzard, which is estimated to be worth $13.9 billion.
Zynga has some 210 million active users, including 62 million on FarmVille alone. Its 2010 revenues are projected at $525 million, and it’s raised $350 million in private capital so far. Most of its action happens on Facebook.
What’s in it for marketers? Quite a bit. There are many ways in which companies can tap into revenue streams associated with social games:
Branded virtual goods. These are rampant in the virtual gaming ecosystem, but to give one example, 7 Eleven partnered with Zynga to create a YoVille Big Gulp, a Mafia Wars Slurpee and FarmVille vanilla ice cream. 7 Eleven gets a cut of the revenue that consumers spend on these virtual goods
In-game billboards. Many companies are inserting their brands into the gaming space. For instance, Honda advertised its CR-Z in Cie Games’ Car Town.
Sponsorship banners. In one of the more clever examples of this kind of brand advertising, National Geographic overlaid its logo on the pitch of the soccer-themed game Bola.
Branded games. Companies are also creating their own games, following the advergaming model in the traditional video game world. One example: a Hello Kitty game.
I’m not ruling out a resurgence in console gaming. After all, this industry has had an impressive track record of reinventing itself. It did it in 2006, when the Wii led a new generation of hardware consoles. And it did it again a couple of years later, when music-themed games were all the rage.
But if I were a betting man, I’d put my money on social and mobile gaming. That’s where all the gaming action seems to be these days.
joi, 2 decembrie 2010
Online Promotional Strategies For Start Up Entrepreneurs
pAs a small business owner are you looking at promotional b strategies/b that could, while giving you a steady stream of prospects can also save costs?/ppDo you know that thousands of website owners use few simple techniques to generate targeted visitors to their websites without spending a penny on b advertising/b? Yes. It is the webs most well kept marketing secret./ppThese are the b strategies/b used by fortune 500 companies as well as some of the most successful internet marketing wizards. The principle behind this incredible internet marketing b strategy/b is first GIVE and then GET. When used effectively, the results could be mind boggling./ppHow Does This b Strategy/b Work?/ppImagine for a moment that you are selling insurance. It is just an illustration. It could be a healthcare product, credit cards, housing or innumerable other loans or anything under the bright blue skies. The moment you talk of insurance to any prospect who is already hunted (pardon my term hunted. that is what a prospect feels about sales approaches) day in and day out by insurance sales persons, immediately erects a barrier and comes up with innumerable excuses for not wanting insurance./ppNow there is another way. You offer people valuable information about choosing the right insurance in the form of a free report, an article, or a book. Would people take it? They definitely would. Because they are under no obligation or pressure to buy anything in the first place. They are also getting a benefit which is valuable information about choosing the right kind insurance./ppNow this free information product that you offer has subtle messages or links to your website with your address and phone no’s as the sponsor of the book. The person reading the book has already started to build a good image about you because you have offered him valuable information which is going to benefit him. He is obliged to you for the free service that you have rendered him. So he is more likely to call you if he needs your product than any other competing product./ppLet’s assume for a moment he does not require insurance. But just because he appreciates the valuable information contained in your info product he forwards it to five more of his friends or relatives. Your information with your ads has now been exposed to 6 persons whereas you gave it to only one with no involvement of time, money, or effort. These five people again find the information valuable and each person shares it with 5 more of their friends. Now you have reached 31 more people. This way it continues on may be not in the same arithmetical progression mentioned here. It could be more or less. But be rest assured you have created a viral b advertising/b tool that keeps moving and replicating and spreads across./ppWe have taken an example of an ebook, e-report, or white paper. In the case of an article it works slightly differently. An article is published in ezines like this one with a huge readership. Whoever likes the article can of course forward it to their friends. But a content syndication site also has thousands of other ezine owners visiting it for content. So an article which is preapproved by the author gets published and in turn they keep being republished in hundreds of sites with the authors link in the article./ppNow do you see what an exciting promotional b strategy/b this could be that has very little cost implications while reaching a wide national or global audience making your cash registers ring./p p a href=http://advertisingandpromotion.ndesignsblog.com/ rel=dofollow title=Advertising And PromotionAdvertising And Promotion/a /p
This entry was posted on Friday, November 19th, 2010 at 10:48 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.Facebook Paid Advertising – Things to Look Out For
pBecause it has become a staple in almost every internet user in the planet, Facebook decided to take a bite out of the large apple that is marketing and b advertising/b. Today, Facebook is offering b advertising/b to all of its users – but the question is, do you truly know how to create successful Facebook ads?/ppIf you are planning to use Facebook as a part of your marketing and b advertising/b b strategy/b, then you need to know a few things before you start making your ads. The internet is about competition nowadays, and if you do not know what things to look out for, you might just end up losing money instead of gaining some./ppIn order to have a really effective Facebook ad, you have to know what to expect – you need not be a creative genius to make a simple, yet very sharp advertisement. Creating an ad does not necessary mean that you have to be an artistic genius or that you need to hire one./ppIn creating your ad, there are several things that you should look out for. Things like the length of you’re ad copy, the most common types of (effective) b advertising/b, the different forms of b advertising/b, as well as the placement of the ad, and its benefits./ppTo help get you started, here are some of the things that you should keep in mind to make sure that you make effective ads./ppYour ad should be as long or as short as it needs, as long as it is able to hook your customers to buy the product. In order to help you determine how long your ad copy should be, you have to know the type of product you are b advertising/b, what you want your ad to accomplish, the price of your product, where it will be placed, and how tough you should sell.
You have to understand the three common types of b advertising/b and evaluate which type will suit your business best. There is consumer b advertising/b (b advertising/b products to the general public), business to business (advertise from one business to another), or direct response (b advertising/b that compels the reader to do something – clip and use a coupon, call a sales representative, etc.).
You also have to know what form of advertisement to use and you need to know which b advertising/b vehicle will be better for your product.
Most importantly, you have to know exactly where you should put your advertisement – on top, on the side, or at the bottom of the page./p p a href=http://advertisingandpromotion.ndesignsblog.com/ rel=dofollow title=Advertising And PromotionAdvertising And Promotion/a /p
miercuri, 1 decembrie 2010
Article: Men Care About Causes Too
Cause marketing has a special appeal to some demographic groups, like moms and millennials. But guys can get on board with a good cause too, and are willing to open their wallets.
An August 2010 survey by PRWeek and Barkley found that this year three-quarters of companies engage in some form of cause marketing, up from 58% in 2009. Marketers agreed that women were overall the most receptive target to such campaigns, but 88% of men said it was important for brands to support a cause.
Further, 55% of male internet users surveyed said they would pay more for a brand or product that supported a cause they cared about. Two-thirds said they would try a new brand because of a cause.
“The Boomer generation has carved out the path toward looking at cause marketing as an important way to connect with consumers,” said Mike Swenson, President, Barkley Public Relations, in a statement. “But even more so do Gen X and Gen Y Millennials, who view it as something that must be done. That’s why we’re seeing the numbers we do with men. It’s no longer a gender issue.”
Child-related causes were most important to men, followed by those dealing with health.
Marketers have an opportunity to target men with cause campaigns that they are already conducting, and to optimize those campaigns to appeal to the male demographic. But the study found that despite widespread brand activity in the cause marketing arena, 68% of marketers said they had no plans to target men because of their perceived indifference and the greater importance of causes to women.
Keep your business ahead of the digital curve. Learn more about becoming an eMarketer Total Access client today.
Check out today’s other article, “What Are the Benefits of Email-Social Media Integration?.”
Get more articles like this one delivered every day.
Click here for the eMarketer Daily newsletter.
Exploring The Benefits Of Advertising On MySpace
pMySpace is an extremely powerful social networking website. There are millions of internet users actively surfing the MySpace website on a daily basis, and nearly as many joining this community. There are many different aspects to the MySpace community that makes it a very appealing resource for the active internet marketer. Here, you will be introduced to the many benefits associated with MySpace b advertising/b. If you have a product, service, blog, or even just a simple article that you wish to advertise, this social networking community is the place to be!/ppWhen you elect to advertise on MySpace, you are able to target a number of different audiences from around the world. While this particular website is often noted in a popular online community for teenagers, individuals of all ages are active members of this community. In addition to attracting potential customers of a particular age group, internet marketers can also attract potential customers from many different places around the globe! It is one of the most popular international social networking websites in existence today!/ppThere are a number of popular methods in which an individual can profit by b advertising/b on MySpace. One of the ways that seems to be increasing in popularity is by b advertising/b in the form of a video. Many individuals create videos in which other users can view, share, and use on their websites. This is a great way to link back to your website if it is done correctly. In addition to actually creating videos to share on this popular social networking website, you can also pay to advertise in the form of small banner advertisements and more./ppYou can advertise on MySpace by creating a profile that accurately displays the goods and services that you are interested in promoting. There are absolutely no fees associated with this type of service. Members can place an assortment of different advertisements on their profile page, promote the goods and services in any way that they wish, and network with other individuals around the globe that share the same type of marketing interests when it comes to the use of social networking websites and internet marketing b strategies/b. This can be very beneficial to your b advertising/b b strategies/b!/ppThere is a blog area on the website that you can use in order to advertise the goods and services that you offer. Many individuals may elect to use the blog as an area where they can communicate with their customers. This can be extremely promising when it comes to building website traffic and more. Many advertisers implement the use of the blog system on this popular social networking website to increase the profits associated with their website. You can create a blog group that can be used to attract individuals who may be interested in your goods and services./ppThe MySpace community has a number of other options that can be used in order to maximize the potential of b advertising/b. These items include groups, classifieds, active forums, and more. If you are in the b advertising/b business and you wish to grasp the pure potential and power of social bookmarking websites, you should consider using the MySpace online community website in order to do so. You will not be disappointed in the results. This is a true power b strategy/b when it comes to online b advertising/b marketing campaigns. Why not harness it for yourself?/p p a href=http://advertisingandpromotion.ndesignsblog.com/ rel=dofollow title=Advertising And PromotionAdvertising And Promotion/a /p
This entry was posted on Thursday, November 4th, 2010 at 8:05 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.