Buy the Cow

Business is good I have to admit. Recession be darned, Media Two is continuing to forge ahead on the notion that one day soon the sleepy little town of Clayton will be the interactive capital of the world. With corporate marketing budgets becoming more and more focused on the DR that interactive media provides, the comment I’m hearing more from new clients is “We’ve tested online, but it wasn’t great. How do we make sure another test is successful?”

Hmm... good question! Unfortunately there’s rarely enough time for me to complete a response. Two things will generally happen. They lose interest and start snoring on the other end of the line, or I lose my voice. Either way, it’s a struggle to try and package all of that into a nice neat box. That said, if you want an analogy I say you should buy the cow rather than the steak.

It seems to me that over the last few years the buzzwords have been piling up. Quite often we’ll get referrals that want very specific campaigns… email only, behavioral, or affiliate for example. There’s certainly nothing wrong with that. In fact, it’s good to have a client with vision, but the thing that always comes up under those circumstances is that the “need” for a (insert buzzword) campaign is unfounded. I’m not trying to advocate that every campaign should incorporate every single element of interactive media. That would admittedly be a huge strategic mistake. What is important, however, is that the research and due diligence be done to warrant a campaign’s strategic parameters. Buy into the notion that success comes from a well rounded approach rather than trying to throw darts while blindfolded. So in keeping with our theme to define best practices, here’s a quick hit list of what should be done between both client and agency to ensure that another test is successful.

1) Set the bar – Is it a certain CPA, a target ROI, number of leads, or brand reach. Define goals from day one so the strategists and designers have a focal point. This helps not only as a negotiation point with publishers, but it ultimately leads to clearer communication between agency and client.

2) Study hard – The test we’re talking about here is not multiple-choice. As an agency, we need the opportunity to define all possible scenarios, identify all target touch points, complete competitive research, and bring that into a comprehensive media plan that aims squarely at numero uno above. If this is done and done right, the parameters will become abundantly clear before the first dollar is spent.

3) Let the play develop – My coach drilled this one into my brain. “Son, you can’t throw a fade route if you don’t let the receiver fade first.” Same thing goes for optimization. It generally doesn’t happen overnight. You have to let trends develop before you can accurately assess the situation and react accordingly. There’s rarely been a campaign that has achieved its objective in the first few weeks. Much less the first few days. Let all aspects of optimization take place before judging success.

Sure there’s a ton of other intricacies that play into meeting end objectives, but as a general rule, following these three will put both the client and agency ten steps ahead of the competition. Now what did that funny ad say about keeping your business plan a secret? Oops!!!

3 Myths about Video Production

My name is Jim Mather. I am Media Two’s video director. I was brought onto the design team to help incorporate videos into our ad campaigns.
As many of you reading this know, video has become the new buzz word on the net. Since faster connection and higher bandwidth have entered the private sector, online video viewing has grown by leaps and bounds and with the recent writers strike, we have seen online videos go through the roof! Everyone wants a piece of this new pie so for my initial blog, I thought I’d dispel 3 myths about video and online video production.

1. Myth #1: Any one with a camera can (and should) produce a video.
   

   Client says: “My nephew has a camera he got for Christmas, can we use him? He makes great skateboarding videos.”
   Jim says: “That’s great. Next time I’m producing a free skateboarding video, I’ll look him up.”

   While it’s true video production doesn’t take as long as it used to or that computers make video editing more accessible to the enthusiast, quality video production does not take any less talent or knowledge. In fact, producing high quality video today is harder then ever before! Every video produced requires skills in several fields. From pre-production (concepting, writing, storyboarding, etc…) to production which includes lighting, set and sound design as well as quality camera control such as framing shots, smooth zooms, pans and tracking shots and finally, to post-production which involves motion graphics, titling, editing and compressing your video. Each of these skills have work flows and techniques specific to the program being used and the viewing medium which changes for online viewing vs. DVD viewing vs. iPod viewing and so on.
   Spend 30 minutes watching YouTube and you’ll see this first Myth in action.
   
   
2. Myth #2: Video is cheap.
   I have a fantastic Sony HD consumer camera that I use at home. It cost roughly $1,200 with all the bells and whistles and it shoots full High Definition 1080i onto miniDV tape. This camera looks fantastic… but only in certain situations. For how good this camera looks in typical sunlight, it looks equally bad at dusk or night. The microphone is terrible and there is no way to use external microphones. The automatic color balance is inconsistent at best and I have lost the ability to quickly and easily adjust my focus or exposure settings which is a problem when moving from indoor to outdoor or trying to selectively focus on a subject.
   Consumer cameras are great for catching Johnny’s Soccer Game or Jane’s Ballet recital, but will fail miserably when needing fine control of focus or exposure for quick changes in lighting.
   

   Simply because consumer camcorders (and industry cameras) have dropped in price, this does not reflect a rise in talent or ability of the general public.

   To create a high quality, professional level video, you will use many of the techniques we have been using for decades in the industry. Editing techniques developed in the late 1920’s to tell a story still hold true in today’s computer editing environment. The same goes for shot composition and general lighting techniques. While today’s workflow is much more forgiving then the past you must be able to wear several stylish hats to get your video out on a client friendly budget.
   In a typical video post-production work flow, using a mac, you will likely use the following programs: Final Cut Pro (editing), Live Type (titles), Motion (animating graphics), Photoshop (creating graphics), Soundtrack Pro (audio), DVD Studio Pro (DVD authoring), Flash Video Encoder/Compressor/Sorenson Squeeze (or some other video compressor if you’re video is online). If you aren’t at least an intermediate user of all of these programs, the quality of your video will suffer.
   
   
3. Myth #3: You can fix everything in Post-Production
   

   I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard a client or producer say “it’s OK, we’ll fix that in post”.

   While a skilled editor can repair some things, like a camera not being properly calibrated for color, there are many things he/she can not fix. You can not add light if the scene is too dark, fix bad writing or inconsistent ambient sound, poorly framed shots or jerky camera movements. Nor can you produce big budget, high quality graphics to compensate for bad production quality.
   There’s a saying: “if you put paint on a pig, it’s still a pig” meaning, you can dress up your video in pretty graphics, all shiny and fancy… but you can’t hide the pig that lies beneath.
   

Simply put, cheap is cheap. If you don’t allow for proper time in production, from concept to completion, some aspect of your production will suffer and come across as amateurish. Quality is the most important part of your production and quality is entirely dependent on the sum of steps taken earlier in the production.
I’ve never heard someone complain about a video being too high in quality, but I’ve heard endless complaints about bad production.

This being said, Reality TV does nothing to help my argument.

Is there such a thing as too much data?

Over the years, I have seen way too many data-hungry marketers, especially when it comes to web analytics…the irony lies in that they don’t do much with all the data they crave and receive. Nothing against them, but there is such a thing as too much data. It’s the ol’ law of diminishing returns rearing its ugly head again. In the online world, there are tons of metrics, ranging from the simple (ex. CTR and Conversion Rate) to the complex (ex. navigation path and abandonment point analyses). We, online marketers, are in this industry because we love it…we love the numbers, we love tracking and reviewing how potential consumers interact with our brand and our sites, and we love testing our web properties to provide our “guests” with the best experience possible in hopes that they perform our desired action. But there comes a tipping point when the data is just too much to make educated decisions.

Web analytics does not have to be the complex, intricate, often times forbidding beast that it is often perceived. There are simple metrics and analyses that provide marketers with just the right amount of data…and data you can actually act on. The first step is the make sure your analytics solution’s conversion path/funnel is set up to report only on key parts of your funnel. Don’t set up every sub-page or link within your website as a potential stop on the way to conversion…you only want to look at the clear “road” to your conversion point. Look at it like a road map…you wouldn’t consider every exit on your trip down a highway as a potential abandonment point, would you? I mean, yes, you can get off or turn down another road if you want, but that indicates you’re not too serious of a traveler or that you don’t have much of a goal or destination in mind. More than likely potential consumers will follow a particular route. So the key is to flag the points of interest. Once these “points of interest” are identified, you’ll be able to focus your attention to that route and not necessarily the entire map of the southeast. This will exclude those users who are sheerly putzing around on your site…and trust me; you can’t do anything with analytics reports when you include those who “putz”. That is where you will be inundated with data to a point where you are swimming in different analyses from all angles to a point you cannot intelligently make proactive decisions. You have to give your attention only to those consumers who truly expressed an interest in your product or service. By doing so, you will have a clear picture of what the strengths and weaknesses are within your site…and you will be able to make actionable decisions in attempts to make those consumers’ route a bit quicker with fewer road bumps.

Are All 3rd Party Ad Servers Alike?

Recently our agency reviewed 3rd party ad servers. First of all, there is no question that it is essential for agencies and any advertisers placing any significant online media to use a 3rd party ad server. Online advertising is so packed full of data, that it can quickly become unmanageable and overwhelming without one central location to manage, report and optimize the campaign.

So - question is - are all 3rd party ad servers alike? At the very basic level, YES - all act as the mediator between publisher and advertisers, counting and consolidating counts on impressions, clicks and conversion data. It's the bells, whistles and "accessories" in today's ad servers that set them apart from each other.

It had been awhile since I've had the chance to "shop" ad serving technologies. It was nice to have a refresher on what was out there in the market. I have tried to organize my thoughts and share them w/ MediaTwo blog readers, so I've decided to use the list method - dividing into features that struck me as "must haves", the extras that have the potential to make the life of a media strategist a little easier, or were just plain advanced and TOO COOL:

Must Haves:

• Geo-targeting: Both targeting and reporting on your campaign by State, DMA, IP or zip code. This seems to be a pretty standard. The question is - Are marketers using this?
  
• Day-Parting/Time Targeting: Always makes me think of the breakfast ads before 10a, the Big Mac ad until 1p and then the images of a steak dinner tantalizing your tastebuds all afternoon. But, it's not just for restaurants, day-parting can be used in a variety of ways. For example, it can be used find out those peak hours when your target converts and then that data can be used to purchase your media smarter by only running banners during those prime times. Less waste = better ROI.
• Other targeting: Retargeting, storyboarding, Operating system and language targeting - the list goes on and on....my opinion, the more targeting the better!
• Video Ad Serving: With video advertising rising faster than a DiGiorno's pizza - being able to track the video in as many ways as possible is essential.
  

Make My Life Easier:

• Real-time trafficing: For those spur of the moment buys that need tags to be in the publisher's hands and live NOW!
• Real-time reporting: Doesn't all agencies check on their campaigns hourly or even more often than that throughout the day? There's nothing worse than launching a big campaign and waiting until the next day to see results and even worse to find out there were issues that could have been fixed if the stats were updated and available to raise a red flag
• Integrated Media Planning Tool: Call me cynical, but I haven't seen a planning tool that eliminates the need for sales reps to pick up the phone and/or email with a million questions. Cheers to a simple planning solution that seamlessly connects to the traffficing interface.
  
• Mega Universal Action Tag: A UAT (universal action tag) is helpful enough, but combine that with the intelligence to only fire the pixel and credit the publisher who created the conversion - it's the online Direct Response marketers equivalent of an Advil. This eliminates conversions being claimed by multiple publishers, which can cause quite a headache when buying on a CPA or CPL.
  
• Real-time Automated Optimization: While nothing can or should replace the intuition of an online marketing professional - having a tool that can analyze the data in real-time and weight creative based on ROI goals is nice to have in your arsenal.
  

TOO COOL:

• Dynamic Messaging: Having the message in your creative change based on content, location, etc. With all of the ad clutter out there, what better way to grab your viewer's attention than with a little dynamics? It sounds like a lot of front end scoping, but results should be worth the effort.
  
• Conversion Path Analysis: Being able to quantify and present how a mix of publishers work together within an online media plan to deliver bottom line results, I feel is one of the next big steps in the evolution of online as an advertising medium.
  
• Cross-Channel: Feeding in the data from "traditional" marketing efforts (tv, radio, print, DM, etc.) into one platform and analyzing how they are working together to achieving marketing goals would (or should) definitely be a CMO's dream.
• Eye-Candy: Agencies should and I think increasing will be expected to load their campaigns post-mortems with charts, graphs and maps to visually demonstrate the effectiveness of your online campaign to the client's marketing goals. Having these at your fingertips vs. spending time pivoting tables and feeling your way around Office 2007, sounds like a stellar idea to me.
  
• The Whole Picture: Does your conversion funnel begin virtually, but then continue into the "real world"? How invaluable would it be to pull that data into your ad server and be able to not only see the whole picture, but to make decisions and optimize based on those metrics?
  

Just like the rest of the interactive industry, 3rd party ad serving is continually developing and evolving to meet the measurement needs of advertisers. Taking the time out of the hustle and bustle of everyday agency life and getting to peak at what was out there and what was important measurement for other online marketers was a good job "tune-up."

What was also nice was to affirm that MediaTwo is not only providing clients with the "Must Haves", but also the "Too Cools". Every day Media Two is delving deeper into the forward thinking analytics that today's marketers need to achieve their ROI goals - third party ad serving is just one of the tools that can help along the way.

The Design Triangle – Time, Cost, Quality

Designers have a tough job. It may be seen as a cushy job, but in actuality it’s very demanding and exhausting. I’ve worked as a designer myself, (ok, it was costumes and not graphics) so I know the demands and challenges that each design job brings to the table. Every project has the same expectation. And that expectation is perfection. As we all know, nothing in this world is perfect!

I love what I do. As production manager I am able to balance my creative side with my business side. I get the joy of working with creative types every day, participating in brainstorming sessions, and performing QA checks, while also putting my business sense to work through scheduling, estimating, and keeping a generally unorganized crew on target.

When you are planning out your next design project, keep the graphic above in mind. The design triangle has three sides: Quality, Time, and Cost. Design takes time. Design takes resources. And design is expected to be high quality. Unfortunately, it is nearly impossible to turnaround a great design fast and cheap. Also think about the following questions. “What do I really need? When do I need it? Why do I need it? And what can I cut corners on?”

• If time is of the essence, say the project is event driven, then the price may increase, or parts of the process must be skipped to meet the deadline. Skipping parts of the design process means that quality will suffer.
• If your piece must be mistake-free, then expect to spend more money for quality assurance. If the piece is going to be seen by the general public, this is an aspect you definitely should not cut corners on.
• If your budget is next to nothing and you don’t have a designer in your family to run to, then quality assurance will be lacking, and your project will become a lower priority compared to more profitable projects, therefore taking longer to complete.

While the goal of every job is to maximize all three of these factors, typically one suffers at the expense of the other two. As my father always said, you get what you pay for. That is true for cars and stereos, and it is also very true for design. Good design does not come cheap nor does it come quickly.

The Design Process

Just as music has theory behind it, so does design. I don't think this is a well known fact, so I thought it would be good to include the process of a design job. This starts after the estimate has been approved to start work. You will be able to see why it takes time to turnaround an successful design project.

1. Create the Design Brief – this is a document, typically created by the Account Service person, which details the goals, needs, and deliverables of the design project.
2. Scheduling/Timeline development
3. Research & Discovery
4. Concept Development/ Content Development – in an ideal world we would have all content before concepting begins, but this doesn’t always happen.
5. Concept Selection
6. Design Comp
7. QA/ Edits - this could be one round or five
8. Fine Tuning/Final Development

Ad Networks a Thing of the Past?

Today I read with one part joy and one part sadness the MediaWeek article titled “ESPN Turns Off Ad Nets to Protect Brand, Content”. The joy is very obvious here at Media Two: Stripping the ad networks of some of the larger sites will now “un-muddy” the waters with the placements and only interactive firms with the best capabilities and know-how will now be equipped to handle strategic online media buys (that was a much longer sentence than what I saw in my mind). Some of the advantages that come from bypassing networks include:

• Knowing that your ads aren’t appearing repeatedly on the same site when you buy more than one ad network. The top two networks make up something like 170% market penetration, and yes, we currently buy on both of them – and no, we don’t ALWAYS know if our ads are appearing on the same page at the same time.
• Traditional agencies that are trying to make a splash into interactive will now have to completely jump in instead of just dipping their toes in the water. Part of the problem we have right now is trying to explain interactive to new clients who have had other agencies do a half-ass job with their campaign.
• Optimization can be brought back in house instead of waiting for the networks “super secret optimization tools”.
• Buying direct always gives you better placements and rapport with the publishers themselves, therefore, hopefully allowing for better brand and position control – and always opening the door for more creative placements that can help advance the industry.
• If a network lowers your campaign exposure because a larger opportunity comes along, it doesn’t force you to frantically find replacement buys.

But with the good, comes the bad…

• Large sites like ESPN are probably going to ask for top dollar, when the networks have already proved we shouldn’t pay that much for them on a straight banner placement.
• Your buying clout and testing capabilities pretty much goes out the door. Has anyone else noticed that there’s no such thing as buying clout online anymore? Not to date myself too much, but I remember the days of placing ads in traditional mediums and the sales reps were willing to give me better rates for my Joe Blow client because they knew that we also worked with Gateway, Bose and others… But I digress.
• If we do want to ramp up our buys in categories we’ve found successful, we can no longer do it as quickly as the one call to the networks.
• More paperwork! You now have to contact 500 sites with orders that you could have gotten previously with just one IO.

Trust me, there’s a lot of good and bad to both routes, but I really think that the more the publishers take back control of their “A” Inventory, the more it will help interactive shops such as ourselves differentiate from the newbies in the industry.

Sight Motion Sound

Today was TIMA’s (Triangle Interactive Marketing Association) second lunch and learn of the year and the topic of discussion was video. Although I must admit I was a little disappointed that the lecture wasn’t spent watching all of our favorite youtube videos like the dramatic groundhog or the Bert and Ernie Metal Drumming (go ahead search for it… totally funny.) I did actually learn a little something too.

The first speaker was Randy Kilgore who now works for Tremor Media as the Chief Revenue Officer. Randy opened his presentation with a youtube video that was entertaining it was well done parody of the famous “you can’t handle the truth!” scene in a few good men…http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYEf8XZKlUU… its full of advertising lingo that I found to be funny but made me feel a little nerdy at the same time. The same way if you would feel if you cracked a joke about the planet Endor at a star wars convention and everyone laughed, defiantly catered to the right audience. (Two consecutive blogs with a star wars reference…10 dork points yes!). He then went on to explain how video on the internet is basically broken out into four groups; Pure play video, which consists of sites like youtube, Hulu.com, and Veoh, Portals which consist of sites like yahoo, AOL, and MSN, Destination Video Sites like ESPN.com and Wallstreet.com and finally network video sites like Tremor.

Randy then touched on all the different types of video advertising pre-roll, post roll, in banner etc… but what I found most interesting about this was the comment he made about effective length of video ads saying “they can be as long as they need to captivate the consumer” the standard 15 or 30 second rules don’t always need to apply, and the notion that 15 second ads perform better that 30 seconds was false in reality many cases 30 seconds performed a lot better than 15. He then spoke directly to the creative people in the audience asking “how long have people been telling you what size and what length ads had to be?” then explaining that video does not have rules set in stone about length.

The next speaker was Ben Weinberger who co-founded Digitalsmiths which had created the “ground breaking” software Inscene. This was impressive to say the least, with the ability to scan video and analyze it quickly with face recognition, scene recognition, voice pattern recognition, and even the ability to target certain objects within a video. This is a technology that will allow advertisers to better target their ads behaviorally, for example if you were watching a episode of The Apprentice online and Donald Trump’s watch came into frame at the exact same time a Rolex banner appeared the ad could carry more relevance. This is a new targeting technology that they are just scratching the surface of and I’m sure it will change the way we as an industry do online video buys and behavioral targeting.

…Oh Yeah! and I got a free Frisbee!

'Fitty' cents equals 'Fitty' dollars

We have all taken the call, where an online publisher calls you out of the blue, or worse, calls your client and then they call you, selling their services and the benefits of their site. If they are really good at their job, everything sounds great…quality traffic, attractive demographic profile, targeting capabilities, Web 2.0 functionality…and that it makes “too much sense to ignore”. Then comes the punchline, “depending on the budget levels, I can talk to my manager about discounting our rate card and offer a onetime CPM of $20, but don’t tell anyone else I gave you this rate.” I knew you had heard that before.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not trash-talking publishers...I started my career on the publisher side. A big part of our business, or any business for that matter, is fostering strong working relationships with your vendors. To that point, it is extremely important to test new publishers to see if you may find your next 'Behavioral Targeted Yahoo Mail at a $1 CPM'. That said, do they really think that a CPM at that level is going to work from a direct response standpoint? (Do I even have to say the objective is direct response? The online channel is direct response by nature as results are immediate and measureable)…but I digress. Politely explain to your cold caller that in order to meet your $50 Cost Per Action, you need to be at a $.50 CPM. Maybe your Cost Per Action is higher at $100. Well then at that CPA level, we have to be in the ballpark at that CPM level, right? Ahhh….not even close. The CPM would need to be at $1 to hit a CPA of $100 (just double the $.50 CPM). $150 CPA = $1.50 CPM, $200 CPA = $2 CPM, so on and so forth. You get the idea. At this point, two things will happen. Either, your perfect opportunity will know the jig is up and end the call, or they will get defensive and start spouting @plan composition percentages of their user profile. “70%+ of our audience is 25-54”…oh yeah, so is the general online universe.

I know what you are asking yourself, how do you possibly know what the rate needs to be to reach my client's CPA levels? You have no idea what my business is or what our current metrics are. I don’t need to know. The answers are in these two numbers - .1 and 1. You only need these two numbers to determine what you have to pay for your online inventory to meet a certain CPA level.

• The first number is the click-through rate, the rate at which users responding to your ads after being exposed. A click-through rate of .1% is a good benchmark to shoot for judging creative and using within your projections to forecast performance. What about the use of Rich Media, you say? “We did a campaign in Qwhenever and we saw a 2% CTR, so take that!” (Let’s be clear, flash is not Rich Media. It’s far too common to be considered Rich Media anymore. We are talking about the 3rd party technologies of the world - Pointroll, Eyeblasters, DART Motif). Ok, I’ll bite. How much did your CPM and serving cost go up by running this type of technology? Also, what was the effect on the conversion rate? You have to be careful with Rich Media and focusing too much on increasing front-end response. Majority of the time, your campaign will not achieve a 2% CTR to make up for the added cost associated with the technology, and historically, they have an adverse effect on the conversion rate. In the end, an advertiser pays these additional fees with no return on their investment, and this aesthetically pleasing ad is used only once and forgotten. So, I think it is fair to use the aforementioned .1% in our calculation, don’t you? Sure, sometimes an ad may experience a higher rate, but majority of the time, most flash ads are not cutting through the clutter and not even reaching a .1% CTR.

• The second number is the conversion rate, the rate at which a user clicks on one of your ads and completes the conversion process, whatever that may be. Let me explain why I am using 1%. For far too long lately, I have seen extremely low conversions rates, and it is not just the Health industry. I have seen 1% or less conversion rates for some very well-known clients in the Financial Services and Telco industries as well, meaning this is a trend across the board, not an isolated incidence. I get asked a lot to explain the reasons why users in the online medium are just not converting and dropping off at such an alarming rate. This conversation always leads to “how are you, our interactive agency, going to fix this problem?”. We, as online marketers, can lead them to water, but we can’t make them drink…at least not by ourselves. Both are blog entries for another time, because there isn't a simple answer…again, I digress. The numbers do not lie, and historically, the online click-to-conversion rate is on average around 1%. I stand behind my number. Yes Michael, I feel a case study coming…

As you can see, .1 and 1 are the magic numbers. Obviously, there are more calculations that go into it and you may even have historical data that is different from these. But if you don’t, these two will work for you. Are you coming to the realization that we, at Media Two, have known all along? I know, pretty daunting isn’t it…but if you can’t beat’em, join’em. So, have no fear, there are online marketing tactics and strategies that can make those numbers work for any business to enjoy success in achieving your or your client’s acquisition goals. So next time you receive a call from a prospective online partner, remember this simple calculation, and save yourself the trouble of having to explain to your client why they are in market with a $1,000 CPA. Then, take the conversation to that place where content publishers want to avoid like the plague – PPP (Pay Per Performance). Say that three times fast…

[op-tuh-mahyz]

Oh boy, my first blog post...my fingertips are sweating with excitement. This better be good seeing as how my post follows the interactive juggernaut that is my boss. In my few paragraphs I'd like to touch on the craziness that is optimizing [op-tuh-mahyz-ing]. Having been in the interactive industry for just over a year, my knowledge quest into the world of optimizing did not truly begin until I started at Media Two. Led by a cast of intelligent characters I have come to appreciate and understand the importance of real-time optimizations, especially when many of our campaigns are direct response driven.

Through a combination of technology, smart people and insane spreadsheets we are able pin-point inventory metrics, develop strategies and react in real-time to maximize campaign efficiency. Phew, that was a long sentence. The analysis, for example can get as granular to say "This piece of creative performs best in this site section, on this day, in this market." Ok, that's a really general and overly simplistic example. I failed to mention what metric "best" defines, there are so many different parameters that need consideration. AHHHH! It's deep!

But, we don't simply look at the numbers, the analysis also involves a bit of forecasting. Amy, with her left-handed mouse zooms across data spreadsheets formulating projections that predict which placements will either positively or negatively effect the CPA. Mike A is all over the forecasting front too, I just wanted to bring attention to the left handed mouse thing...weird. Based on our findings, we implement our strategy in real-time through our ad serving technology. An example of a change might be re-weighting creative. Optimization complete! NOT! From this point, we monitor the optimizations and react if necessary. My brain is telling me to stop typing, so I oblige and hope that I haven't oversimplified a truly in-depth process too badly. Thanks for letting me type.

Creative IS Media

Lately I’ve been reading articles about media firms that are starting to break into the creative ranks, but are getting push back from their parent companies or holding companies as they don’t want the media group to compete with their other brand agencies. I “get” that from a holding company strategy. They want to make sure they’re not stepping on each other’s toes, and strategically it opens doors for them if they have a wider array of specialties. However, if I’m the media shops client – I’d be damn sure to push back on them, and here’s why.

For years we have been saying give us more solid clients that understand marketing principles, and we’ll deliver them results – whether it’s brand exposure or ROI – we’re going to produce IF… If the Media Buy is flexible, can be tracked and has good creative execution. Notice I didn’t say “great” creative execution – I only said “good”. If you give us “great” that’s a whole new meaning that we can deliver the world on your doorstep.

To prove our point, we have a client who we had been begging for some brand identity guidelines from. This is not a small client, they just happened to be evolving their brand to keep pace with the fast moving interactive audiences. But when it never came, it was misconstrued by them as saying Media Two didn’t want to create their ads. On the contrary – we were creating very good ads, but our objectives were direct response and that meant there was not a lot of consistency from ad to ad or from site to site. So when the brand guidelines came, they turned the creative chores over to another agency to produce. We immediately saw a negative impact of the new ads and asked for new ones. Three to Four weeks later we had more underperforming ads to the tune of a 150% increase on our CPA. This is not the fault of this new agency, instead it was the result of removing creative from the hands of the media department. With media sitting next to creative on a day-to-day basis and sharing in the experience, you get the benefits of:

• Hearing what new sites are working from media allows design to customize banners (for example – if it’s a sporty site, make an athletic image/message).
• If the media buyer is on the phone and has a value-added opportunity in a new ad size format, the creative group can have that format done in minutes so as to not miss the opportunity.
• If messaging completely bombs – the media buyer will be the first one asking for new ads from creative before the client has even reviewed the end of day numbers.
• Media can keep in check design… By that I mean, every designer wants to create the coolest ads in the world – but when running ads on Yahoo.com or other large sites, you’re limited to 25k file sizes and 15 seconds of animation. If design understands media’s pain – it’s a much happier relationship.

Again – there are a lot of reasons to keep media and design together, and there are a lot of best practices, but I think the biggest reason any of our clients could ever see is that 150% increase on our CPA. As a side note – we have received those creative duties back from the client and are awaiting approval on our first batch of banners under the new brand guidelines. Anyone else smell a case study coming?

a note from accounting....

A note from accounting….
Ok, I may not be the most Internet savvy person on staff but I have a few things to say about the realm of alternate reality. In the world of super speed expectations and instantaneous results, it is amazing to me how long it takes to receive an invoice. Is there some logical reason why we can receive campaign results in real-time but it takes eons to attach the correct value of that information and get an invoice? Ok, I may be over exaggerating ….a bit....but receiving vendor invoices 3 months after the period end is a bit frustrating. And doesn’t everyone know about email? It’s tried and true….save a tree….save a stamp.
The reason for my frustration is that we strive for accuracy, timeliness and efficiency. There are many ad servers out there and other variables to take into account when comparing and reconciling results to ultimately report to the client. Some of those variables appear via the invoices and when we don’t receive that invoice until 3 months later, well, that isn’t very timely or efficient. I could go into a long discussion about accruals, budget effects and COGS but I really don’t want your eyes to glaze over. Don’t get me wrong, we have many vendors who are great to work with. They email or mail invoices in a timely manner and respond quickly to discrepancies. We value our vendors but there is a level of professionalism that is expected as our clients expect it from us. So, get with it..

Newsflash: Grandma gets Google

Yes Ryan, Google is taking over the world. Not that I ever doubted that before, but that theory was once again confirmed for me on a recent trip to my hometown. While sitting down to lunch with my grandmother – a person who literally quit her last job when they decided to buy computers for the office – she said the “G” word. And not only did she say it. She used it correctly as a verb. I was floored to say the least, and it took a few seconds for me to comprehend what I had just heard.

So, what’s so special about that? After several years of trying to explain to friends, family, and clients what it is we’re trying to accomplish in this industry, I realized that if my grandmother – someone who doesn’t even own a computer – could understand the power and reach of the medium, then that ever elusive link between traditional and interactive had been confirmed.

You’re thinking to yourself, “That’s a pretty broad leap isn’t it?” Not really and here’s why. For a few years now Media Two has been concentrating not only on strategic interactive campaigns, but also convergence trends of how interactive and traditional media play a role in driving traffic and sales online… and vice versa of course. Each media plays off the other in a fascinating trend line that, depending on the client’s objectives, shows how effective a cross medium strategy can be when creative and messaging are properly tested, launched, and then fully optimized. And at the cornerstone of this cycle is interactive media. As a performance benchmark for testing copy, audience demographics, landing pages, banner creative, and conversion funnel metrics, this plays in integral part in any campaign.

Savvy internet marketers have known these big picture trends and strategies for a while now. That said, I’d like to take this a step further and attempt to coin a phrase given my grandmother’s recent revelation. Let’s call it silent surfing. You’ve probably done it a hundred times and never even thought about it. You’re sitting at your computer, and get a phone call. During the conversation a question arises that neither party has an immediate answer to so you offer to Google it for them. An hour later you find yourself entranced in someone else’s business, happily surfing away on their behalf over a topic you thought you had absolutely no interest in.

In my grandmother’s case, it was a healthcare issue. She had seen a “pharmamercial” for the latest and greatest drug and had asked my aunt to look into it for her. Two weeks later, my aunt had given her every piece of information the company’s site, WebMD, and half a dozen magazine articles had to offer on the drug, and she confidently walked into her doctor’s office and asked him if it was right for her.

Now I’m sure any traditional planners out there may be thumping their chests saying, “That was our ad she responded to.” My response to that is yes, no, and maybe. The point of the story here is not to spotlight where the conversion funnel began. TV is a powerful brand medium, and since DR is our bread and butter, that’s not a fight I’m brave enough to take on at this juncture. However, the point I am trying to make is that we need to better analyze the process. As advertisers we can look at trend lines, graphs, and conversion data until we’re blue in the face, but having the stories to back up the data solidifies even further what we’ve been preaching as the convergence of media. The Internet has gained a reputation for instant gratification. Click to buy, click to call, click to do whatever you want to, but understanding the trends before, between, and after the clicks is how we put ourselves in a position to excel as marketers and truly take our clients’ campaigns to the next level.

P.S. – Thanks Grandma!

The Tangled "Web" We Weave...

I was going to call this blog ”How Uncreative and NOT Fun Writing Can Be When Prompted Repeatedly", but as I was getting ready to start my day this morning, a different topic entered my mind. How my interactive career has become entangled with my personal life.

Not to say that it's a bad thing...it's just hard to explain some times. Over my years in the media side of the biz, I've met and done business with countless people in this industry and overall I have to say, what a great group of peeps! I've worked both traditional and internet-side...no offense traditional, but the internet profs are way more fun to work with. Maybe it's because we're all relatively young and learning the ever-changing landscape of the big WWW daily. Maybe it's because it takes a certain personality to want to dig in the trenches to build out this new medium.
Maybe everyone has "been there, done that" on the stuffy side of advertising and marketing and is set to do the complete opposite. Whatever the reason, it fills your life with very unique and interesting relationships.

And sometimes those relationships, turn into friendships....crossing into your personal life.....

I was attending my friend's wedding over the weekend, she was one of my first clients, a co-worker and a "help guide" for motherhood. At the same wedding were....1 old boss, 3 more former co-workers, the admin for the Oldtimers Group and 3 former sales reps. Together, however, they are also known as my friends.

I've felt for years that this industry is just one big happy family and watching the NY sales reps' toddler dancing with my flower girls, somehow solidified my feelings.

The moral of this story? My writing is just not very creative when prompted repeatedly.