No Rush Jobs? How about getting a clue (or a process)

I had a call earlier in the week with Steve Hall from AdRants… Specifically, our PR firm wanted to introduce us as he wrote a great article on media optimization trumping creative optimization. During the call – I realized that our personalities and thinking were really right on the same line – and it was refreshing to hear that my thoughts and frustrations were not being felt alone. What was even better was the fact that Steve is a reporter now – and is no longer even active in the day-to-day “doing” that we do here at Media Two Interactive, but yet his thoughts and hopes were much in-line with ours. That all being said – I gather the excitement of the introduction had to do as much with the non-excitement of the earlier IAB call I sat in on that discussed Best Practices for Interactive Campaign Setups.

So for years I talked about how I didn’t think the IAB was doing enough to help out the industry, and now that we’ve joined as one of only 14 advertising agencies – I now understand why it is more and more important for agencies to get more active within the IAB. The presentation centered around everything from handling RFP’s to set up to whatever you would need to know to run a campaign if you were a publisher. The problem was – what stuck in my head the most was the comment that was made of “Do NOT do 24-hour rush jobs for media buyers.”

The point that was trying to be made was that when things are rushed, that’s when accidents happen the most, problems occur, etc… The reality of it is though, is agencies are typically rushed because a client is typically rushing them. Our firm tries to educate all of our clients on the benefits of having at least 2 weeks to do a media plan and buy, but the reality of it is, is sometimes the plan and buy MUST be executed within 24 hours. In which case, as part of Media Two’s “After the Buy” process, we have a set plan in place for executing these rush jobs so that errors and problems don’t occur due to time constraints.

As I now have a much greater appreciation for the IAB and their challenges of educating beginner firms as well as advanced firms, I would implore them to create a follow up series that discusses a best practice for taking the rush job… After all, everyone knows that a publisher isn’t going to turn away revenue – so let’s help them take the revenue and not mess it up. The procedure we go through here requires us to be fast and flexible, and if publishers can’t keep up, then the industry as a whole will suffer the same fate traditional marketers are going through now. Agencies - it's time to get involved so the IAB has a voice on both sides of the fence. Don't let publishers dictate all of the rules - or you may never get a rush job done again.

A Good Day Had By All

Despite my illness last week and my general irritability as a result, the schedule of events on my calendar went off without a hitch. Wednesday was the big day; it had loomed on my calendar for a few weeks now. Wednesday made me quite anxious. Wednesday was Kick Off Day.

Wednesday went smashingly!

We have been engaged by a fantastic new client to redesign their existing web site. This project is expected to modernize their identity and position them as the progressive, integral, brain trust and chief resource for their industry. It's a tall order with with a number of very complex requirements and we're extremely enthusiastic about the project.

After our standard initial Discovery Phase, where our team does our thorough due diligence on the client's existing site and architecture, in order to produce accurate estimates and recommendations for our final Statement of Work - we gather their team and ours for a project Kick Off meeting. The day is an anxiety-producing one simply because there is a lot of information to cover in a short amount of time and the expectation on both sides is to come away with a sound and shared interpretation of the project.

The stars aligned and we accomplished what we all set out to do for the new client. The key? Organization of thought and expectations and a solid partner in crime on the client side. Organization and partnerships built upon a common goal out the gate, is what will ground this project on a path to success. Good working relationships are critical, as is effective communication of expectations and organization of work flow.

This post is not intended to be self-promoting. Rather, I wanted to begin documenting the journey of this project here; call it a blog study. Also, I wanted to note the key ingredients for the success of a project like this one and thank everyone for their work to get the good foundation in place.

TIMA + Cookies = Delicious

Today was TIMA’s monthly lunch and learn and as per usual I’m going to school you on what went down. The guest speaker this month was Scott Nelson CEO of the Ad Server True Effect, and the topic was cookies, not the delicious ones your mom used to make or the Oreos that keep appearing in our break room, but cookies http cookies which briefly are tiny text files that are downloaded on to your computer when you… well… when you do anything on the internet. Cookies were originally intended to just transfer information back and forth but have become the key to interactive advertising industry. Scott discussed that cookies do not carry viruses and are not to be feared, cookies by themselves are only a way to obtain data about a internet user, they allow us to do things like use the “shopping kart” function on many shopping sites, the only time cookies become kind of “creepy” or controversial is the way people use these cookies, or people who we don’t trust or know using our personal information obtained from cookies to target us in a unwanted way. The great example he used was if you spent a thousand dollars at a store and then came back a week later it would be considered a positive if the store attendant knew your name and remembered your preference. Now if you went to the same store and the whole time you were in the store, and throughout the buying process someone was following you around and taking notes on everything you did and said, then after leaving that store the guy with the clipboard and notes followed you around to every new store and told the new sales clerk everything he knew about you from the previous store… that’s where cookies can get “creepy”. The key to the cookie process is finding a grey area where the consumer/internet user can have a more enjoyable internet experience without feeling stalked or violated. Another interesting point that was brought up was the ability to use seemingly non personal information to make a personal target… for example, gender, area code, and birth date are commonly entered on the internet and in the big scheme of things aren’t considered personal information, certainly not as personal as credit card #’s or social security numbers, but with just those three pieces of information companies have the ability to target you down to 80%... in other words there is only a 20% chance that in your area code lives someone of the same gender and birth date… and they don’t even need to know your name. This makes you think about how much information you volunteer on website like facebook or myspace and the ability this gives people to target and learn about you. To sum it up cookies are not to be feared, and actually serve a purpose to the consumer and not just the advertiser, to make the internet more personalized and enjoyable as long as the data being collected is regulated by responsible companies and ethical people in the future....P.S. the whole thing caught on tape!...http://qik.com/video/83292

“Full Service” Search Marketing

For a couple years now, I have seen a pattern of business/site owners focusing solely on Google AdWords. There are even firms out there (who call themselves a “search engine marketing agency”) that only do Google PPC. If you only manage AdWords accounts, then you can’t really call yourself or your agency a Search Engine Marketing professional(s).

A true search engine marketer understands the value of making sure your business is visible across the major search engines (Google, Yahoo and MSN) both organically and paid. Google AdWords is not the end all be all. Now, I do understand is it between 70-80% of the market; however that 20-30% that is made up of Yahoo and MSN still contains millions of searches per day…and quality searches at that…I’ll bash Ask, Looksmart and the other 2nd & 3rd tier engines regarding their click fraud in a later blog maybe ;-)

What marketer would ever say, “I don’t feel like being visible to everyone who actively looks for my products”? Well, if you only run AdWords, that is exactly what you’re saying…that the Yahoo and MSN consumers aren’t worth your time. Assuming you run campaigns across the engines, a benefit is that you could even pick and choose which campaigns you run on which engines. You may find that some product campaigns perform differently on one engine than another…you can then take that information and run search engine-specific campaigns…that is when you have true search engine marketing strategy running on all cylinders.

Also, I realize that along with Google being the leader in the industry, they also have tools for PPC managers that make researching, implementing and optimizing campaigns MUCH easier than their competitors. For that I highly recommend using Google as your sandbox for new campaigns or test initiatives; however don’t just stay inside Google’s world (no matter how bad they are trying to rule it)… once you have the campaign structure set up, move right on into launching on Yahoo and MSN as well. You won’t get the same amount of traffic you get from Google but you’ll ensure your market coverage. Never put all your eggs in one basket…with search engine marketing, you always want to diversify. We preach keyword diversification…so why not preach search engine diversification.

Ad Networks - On The Verge of Extinction?

There has been a lot of conversation around ad networks since ESPN decided to pull inventory from Advertising.com. I've been reading the articles, listening to the comments and thinking about ad networks from a media strategy perspective. Conclusion....they are a "necessary evil" in order to run successful, scalable direct response campaigns. Let's take a look at some things:


Efficiency:

While one article I read touted that in a media-agency buying group each buyer is supporting as many as two publishers during the course of a year. I beg to differ on this one, or we here at MediaTwo are superhuman. It's not unlikely to work from 10-50 publishers at a time per campaign.

A recent study by Collective Media (a New York-based ad network) found that over 95% of media buyers said that they would be working with ad networks this year, while 75% said that they planned to increase their ad network spending from 2007. No surprise here - it's the easier route for a lot of advertisers new to the online space, thus will definitely catch the "new-comers" . However, ad networks are also needed for direct response online - which, in my opinion, is what we are going to (or should) see a majority of online advertisers migrate to during the "economic shakeup".

Mark-up:

It seems that one of the issues being talked about is margins that networks are adding to the cost of media. While from the outside it seems that this could cause the media to having a weaker chance of success - I think that depends on some factors. Many times going straight to a publisher instead of through a network causes the CPM to increase to a figure that kills the chances of the ROI working out. There's also instances where the sales reps at the individual sites aren't allowed to sell the remnant inventory at the same discount rate. So, when your held to certain metrics in order to obtain your goals, the network route is sometimes the best.

Technology:

Optimization can make or break a network. Let me rephrase that..technology AND account management can make or break an ad network in a Direct Response model). Too many times I've been promised that a network will optimize to the CPA, only to be 10x my CPA goal within days and then the account manager says they will begin optimizing. Well, 99.9% of the time the CPA is so deep in the abyss that there is not a rope (or optimization) long enough to pull the CPA goal out at that point. So, account management and optimizing before things get out of control are a must for ROI. So, what if the direct placements had the technology to optimize against the CPA goals? That would be wonderful, but I'm not finding that to be true. I can think of at least 5 publishers of great scale that I've spoken to in the past 2 weeks that cannot place a conversion pixel on my confirmation page and then tell me where exactly on their property my ROI needs are being met, let alone optimize the inventory to funnel the impressions toward those areas. Until this is established, it's going to be tough going on advertisers to carry this burden.


Wrap Up:

I wouldn't start building "ad network museums" or anything...they are evolving and will continue to evolve as online advertisers become smarter and expect more from the publishers. Hmmm...I did learn something from the 8 am Economics class I went to a couple of times -- it's a simple case of -- Supply and Demand



Reference Articles:

http://publications.mediapost.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=Articles.san&s=82362&Nid=42581&p=106607

http://publications.mediapost.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=82353&art_type=13

http://publications.mediapost.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=Articles.san&s=82262&Nid=42517&p=401699

http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3617001

http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/19337.asp

Keeping it Real, Online

Well my first ten minutes on this post have totally been productive. The end result? The first sentence you just read. You are so in for a treat. Much of that time was spent trying to come up with a witty analogy that compares our media planners/strategists to something in the realm of pop culture. I landed on DJ (disc jockey). Ok, connecting the dots yet? I'll be the first to admit, not one of my best attempts at being clever. I'm suffering from an upper respiratory infection and the lack of oxygen has obviously slowed the nerves impulses to my brain. I had really hoped my pop culture blurb would provide the roots of this blog post with the moisture it needed to sprout into something magical and ground-breaking...ugh, square peg, round hole. I guess I can talk about the ever evolving media buy.

It seems with each month that passes the media buys around here become increasingly complex in an effort to gain the almighty conversion. Our media planners/strategists extend themselves to the very ends of the Internet to a find a media mix that delivers on the back end. With that said, it becomes increasingly important for the planner/strategist to develop a good rapport with the publishers, and the client for that matter. Crossing your fingers and hoping for conversions just doesn't cut it. This relationship is especially important when starting a new program, for instance, a CPT or Mobile buy. Furthermore, this communication has to extent to the client when the program utilizes a resource such as a call center.

The aforementioned buys (CPT and Mobile) are particularly concerning because all tracking occurs on the publisher's end. While the data can usually be accessed or requested with ease, our media strategists take a proactive approach to ensure the campaigns deliver results. Our media strategist will test the respective program from the onset and trouble-shoot, with the publisher, if a problem should arise. As for the client, they are constantly kept in the loop when new initiatives are implemented so that their resources (again, i.e. call center) are equipped to deliver conversions. These relationships are indicative of executing media "after the buy." It's a complex notion, but an essential one. What else can I say? We keep it real.

What Influences You?

My last post was inspired by a recent article on eMarketer, and to continue with that theme, this post is too. In this article called E-mail Marketing Still Works, the main focus was that “permission-based email is great at getting consumers to buy”, with the key word being permission-based. What they are really saying is CRM emails convert at a high rate. Yes, we knew that. There are still some interesting points regarding email marketing that you may fancy, so take a look. I’d like to take a more general view of the data and provide some feedback.

Let’s focus on the research from the “Green Marketing Study” by Opinion Research Corporation with the chart titled Type of Advertising that Most Influences US Adult Online Buyers When Making an Online Purchase. Another layer of this data that I like is it’s segmented by age and US region. There are several ways to use this information, but the two most obvious are landing page development and media buying.

According to the aforementioned study, younger folks like to have assurance from others before making a decision and older folks consider search results their pied piper leading them to a decision. This makes a lot of sense as I made several recent online purchases based on customer reviews on Amazon.com and other consumer report sites beforehand. They did not have any effect on purchase intent, but did influence my decision on the brand.

Speaking of reviews, we recently incorporated video testimonials into our landing pages, and although it may be too early to tell, the initial results have been positive. So, give it a try when developing your next landing page. Although ideal, it doesn’t have to be a video, just tie in some reviews and written testimonials … to go along with your kick-ass value prop in the upper left hand corner and call to action button strategically and prominently placed on the page.

I rarely use an email to initiate purchases unless the offer is phenomenal, but the results don’t lie. It does show that you can have success with a very qualified list rental, or even better, remarketing efforts via email. This is a whole other blog entirely, but CRM is an area that, more often than not, the client is neglecting and failing to utilizing these qualified leads to the best of their ability. The biggest problem is the turnaround times are just too slow. If I’ve made the effort to raise my hand, don’t contact me back in two weeks or worse, two months. I will have already started a conversation with your competitor or made a decision already by then, and now, you are just spamming me.

Lastly, it is surprising that display on social networking sites is at the bottom of the list. For a service or product targeted to a younger demo, social networking sites have worked well in the past, mainly because the inventory is inexpensive. On the other hand, I am not surprised about Blogs. From a direct response standpoint, these do not work, as well as, you run the risk of creating a negative forum that could harm your brand.

Quick hitter - Tidbit on Ad Networks

TIP: Let's face it. Clients are fond of visual representations and "fluff" in decks. So, the best place to find some quality "pre-made" charts is eMarketer.com. Sure, you may want to show something niche, but if you require something broad like industry trends, this is the place. This is my Tip of the Day. And while I'm giving out tips, here is another one, Big Brown will win the Triple Crown.

So, as I was going through some recent eMarketer articles, I came across a couple worth mentioning in the blog. Here is the first one. It was an article regarding spending trends involving ad networks called, Targeting, ad networks Spending Increase. It must be noted that the research for the article was provided by an ad network, so keep that in mind. Regardless, the point I found interesting was only 13.4% of the advertisers that use ad networks in their online marketing mix said the sole purpose was direct response. Wait, WHAT!?!!?!?!?? Furthermore, according to the data, more advertisers are using this category for branding purposes in 2008. This makes no sense. Ad networks spawned from sites aspirations to monetize remnant inventory to resell to the public at a discount in order to lure more DR advertisers to the web. So, now all of a sudden, this same tactic has become a branding platform. Don't get me wrong, there are secondary branding benefits from that many impressions (recall), but you can't convince me that you should be running on an Ad.com primarily for awareness. So, if you feel like throwing away your marketing dollars on branding efforts with ad networks, I have a better idea. Take that money and donate it to the Mike Atkinson Charity Fund c/o my wallet, or move your budget over to Media Two and sit back while we magically increase your sales volume and decrease your CPA (ok, it's not magic, we just know what we are doing).