Tag Archive for web marketing

Conversion Conference London Keynotes

Posted on October 6, 2012 by

Conversion Conference

Conversion Conference 2012 has kicked things up a gear with the announcement of two amazing keynote speakers.  Running during Data Driven Business Week, Conversion Conference is focused on acceleration of online competitiveness through best practices, smarter adoption of web analytics and discovering better methods and technologies to provide detailed insights into your customers. Some of the other amazing conferences running that week include eMetrics Marketing Optimisation Summit and Predictive Analytics World.

Prof. Wolfgang HenselerThe opening keynote is run by Professor Wolfgang Henseler of Sensory-Minds who is a recognised expert of natural user interface design, usability and user experience.  He is also a consultant to Google & Microsoft on what you will see in the next generation of interface designs.  His keynote will examine challenges the role of applications in multi-touch computing and future dimensions in user experience.

Matthew Finlay, CEO of Rising Media responded about the keynote announcement “Professor Henseler is a global expert on customer and user-oriented e-business solutions as well as a user and brand experience specialist. He is creating the blueprint for the next generation of websites and as a result is in demand by global enterprises for his expertise in human-computer design.”

also adding that

“We are thrilled to have Professor Henseler open this year’s conference in what promises to be a very thought provoking keynote presentation.”

Nick HolzherrThe second keynote is being presented by Nick Holzherr of Whisk who has built a service to simplify the buying process for customers by converting recipes automatically into shopping lists within online supermarkets.

Matthew Finlay, CEO of Rising Media was quoted saying that “Nick is one of the UK’s most innovative young entrepreneurs and his new venture Whisk is set to change the way people do their food shopping online. The foundation for Whisk’s success lies the company’s focus on strategic conversion and delegates will see how this is being implemented in this exciting new business.”

Nathalie NahaiA final speaker Nathahlie Nahai of Web Psychologist has been added as a keynote speaker for Conversion Conference London.  Nathahlie is an award-winning speaker with a background in digital strategy and psychology and one of the leading voices in her frield to have both academic and hands-on experience in online persuasion.  Nathahlie is also a member of #OglivyChange that utilisies cognitive psychology, social psychology and behavioural economics to produce behaviour interventions in real life.

Conversion Conference 2012 Pass Options

  • Two Day Conversion Conference Pass (Access to Conversion Conference sessions and Expo Hall on 27th November AND 28th November)
  • One Day Conversion Conference Pass (Access to Conversion Conference sessions and Expo Hall on 27th November OR 28th November)
  • Combo Pass eMetrics (Access to Conversion Conference & eMetrics sessions + Expo Hall)
  • Super Combo Pass (Access to eMetrics, Conversion Conference AND Predictive Analytics World sessions + Expo Hall)
  • Exhibit Hall Only Pass (Access to Exhibition Hall Only – no conference sessions)

Conference Discount & Registration

Book early for London 2012 and save with our 15% Discount Code LOSTAGENCY12  and register for conference here
Conversion Conference Venue

Business Design Centre, Islington 52 Upper Street, London N1 0QH, United Kingdom Telephone: +44 (0) 20 7359 3535 Conversion Conference Social Media Links Follow them on twitter @ConvCon, and track the 2012 conversation with hashtag #ConvCon

No comments Posted in conferences

Bonobos fails Facebook Father’s day promotion

Posted on June 29, 2010 by

Bonobos LogoSorry to say for those who live in Argentina, Canada, United States, United Kingdom, Chile, France, Japan or the Netherlands, but your Father’s day was last weekend the 20th June. The reason for the confusion is that some advertisers may not have noticed or are trying to wring every last drop of value of the event.  It is fairly common to see campaigns that run past their due date over long holidays such as Christmas but it is not acceptable for business to continue to be so lazy.

Some advertisers or marketers may argue that there is a spill over after big events and they can capture this traffic now much cheaper because there is no competition.  While this is a fair argument for events like Mayday Sales, Black Friday or Boxing Day sales, you can see from the Google search trends data below that it’s almost zero.  So paying to expose your brand to zero search traffic usually means zero sales but if you have statistics please tell me I’m wrong!

Father's Day Search TrendsAfter 21st June there is almost zero web search interest in Father’s Day

I have updated the campaign tracking code to remind whoever is looking at the Google Analytics data that it’s no longer Father’s Day so feel free to click the image below to ensure there is enough traffic captured in the analytics reports. The new campaign they will be tracking from this page is “Not Fathers Day” which should set off some alarm bells if anyone is running their campaigns and actually checking the data.

Bonobos Facebook Ad

Please click the image above

While its wonderful to see a company like Bonobos running Facebook ads and also using Google Analytics campaign tagging on the URLs the issue is why wasn’t the extra step taken to ensure the campaign would stop running on Monday the 21st June? It can happen that not all the campaign budget is spent so agencies continue the campaign at the request of the client or on their on behalf but if they took just 30 seconds to add in a new creative I wouldn’t be writing this blog post.

Google AdWords

Just a note that this is not specific to Bonobos or Facebook, a simple search on Google for “Father’s Day” showed a number of ads for campaigns targeting the event.  It is possible that some of these domains might be still running on Google Grant money but they still should be ensuring they are getting value for their clicks and donations for their organisations.  It would be smarter to run a new campaign “Forget Father’s Day?” you can still make it up to him with a donation!

Google Father's Day Ads

Disclosure: Facebook and Google offer a feature to stop campaigns on a certain date as shown below

Facebook Ads Campaign Settings

Facebook Ads Calendar

Adwords Campaign Management Settings

Google Ads Calendar

Time Required: 30-45 seconds estimated including login time

So this is a reminder that it’s not really that hard to set up a campaign to run leading up to a specific event or day, but its even easier to stop that running once the day has passed and you won’t waste your money communicating to your audience that you are out of touch and don’t know what day of the week it is….

2 comments Posted in Adwords, facebook

My Coke fails to reward sponsors

Posted on June 5, 2010 by
my coke rewards logoCoke is one of the best advertisers in the world partly because of the strength of their brand but also because of the amount of money they pour into some of their advertising campaigns.  But this is not one of those cases in respect to the digital webdesign budget as it seems some basic elements were ignored in their current MyCoke Rewards promotions which they are also using AdWords to buy traffic to increase its audience, but are their promotional partners getting a full benefit?
my coke rewards
You are not eligible, please leave!
So while its not obvious until the second question, but when you select to register on the page now titled “Registration Eligibility” you are asked if you are a US resident.  While this might be due to legal rules/regulations the problem is that a portion of the US population may not be residents but could still be  suitable for the promotional partners just not the competition.  If you elect the option to say not you are presented with a useless single line of text “we’re sorry… you’re not eligible to join My Coke Rewards.” shown in the screenshot below.
They could have easily re-enforced how unwelcome these visitors were, by adding a click here to close the browser window link…
Why not offer everyone something?
The problem with paying for traffic is that you are also paying to attract audience members who may not be eligible or suitable for your product/service so you need to consider how to best deal with that traffic and the above message is a massive fail on My Coke Rewards part.  It took me maybe 5-10 mins by looking at the Coke Rewards partners hidden down at the bottom of the page to generate some basic ideas of the types of promotional messages My Coke Rewards could have easily added to the not eligible to join page shown below. The message about why they are not able to join is re-enforced but does offer those who cannot sign up something, so both the visitor gets benefit and the promotional partners get more exposure for being part of the program.
my coke rewards sponsors
Suggested Coke partner promotional offers
The following advertising messages are based on their own current summer deals/offers available to anyone who visits their website but are slightly tweaked to be more suitable to My Coke Rewards.
  • Delta Special Fare Sales – See more of the world for less
  • Six Flags More Flags More Fun – Have more fun with a season pass
  • Nike Free Run – freedom for your feet during summer
  • Holiday Inn Hit it big – earn doulbe points all summer long
  • Blockbuster Movies delivered – try it free this summer
You can see that this type of message both offers those who are not eligible for My Coke Rewards and advertisers who are paying to be associated with the promotional campaign, and only takes a matter of minutes to be setup. Advertisers get more exposure and are more likely to support the promotion as they can benefit from those who are a suitable audience for them to market to but might not be suitable for the My Coke Rewards promotion.
Failure to survey visitors
Another point is that Coke is now offering visitors a chance to provide feedback on the website, but ends up giving you a 15 min survey seriously if you want users to provide feedback make it quick and easy.  I really wanted to provide feedback but didn’t want to leave demographic details, product consumption details and a blood sample, so if someone is really looking to provide feedback on the site to make it better and not have the survey turn into a marketing study you really need to look at something like Kampyle.
No comments Posted in marketing

Campaign optimisation tips for Christmas

Posted on December 28, 2009 by

Leading up to Christmas can often mean a downturn in visitors to many business websites as companies wind down marketing and employees spend more time on eBay and Amazon than working. If you have noticed a drop in clicks it might be the time to examine how the content placement can compliment your existing campaigns.

The benefit of a content placement campaign is that you can reach many of these sites of interest visited by bored employees and can be very cost effective compared to traditional search campaigns. It might be also an idea to examine how a specific holiday campaign landing page can drive that extra boost in business leads and sales. Just because your competitors have wound down their marketing and given for 2009, there is no reason you should follow. If business has slowed down, we suggest setup a specific holiday campaign and landing page offering discounts for 2010 that are purchased before 31st December 2009.

The typical Christmas downturn also presents a massive opportunity for savvy business to use this time to review their existing campaigns with a more in-depth online marketing audit, we offer hourly web marekting support packages for specific online marketing assistance. Ensure that your campaign is up to date and covers any services you plan to introduce in 2010 and examine if you can add conversion tracking to get better campaign ROI. Starting your 2010 campaigns refreshed and organised can mean next year will ensure that you start ahead of your competition and ready!

No comments Posted in web marketing

WalMart fails to understand online marketing

Posted on December 20, 2009 by

From several previous posts we have discovered that a majority of traditional retailers don’t place as much effort into their online strategy as they do their shades of colour used on the logos or even the material used for corporate furniture….

While a majority of the Toys R Us web properties fail to follow the basics around search optimisation, they still rank #1 or #2 for many of the high volume terms because they have an effective and established backlinks.  But with some on site optimsiation it is possible that they can further increase their online sales from their current position. This will also help them expand their reach to the profitable and higher converting long tail search terms that their competitors currently capture. They appear to be well ahead of Walmart.com in the market to capture a bulk of the profitable online toy market.
Website Traffic
Even the more established online sites Toys.com and eToys capture significantly less traffic according to compete.com site analytics. The site analytics figures show that even though ToysRUs.com is a niche retailer it still attracts a significant amount of website visitors.
Walmart.com (51.8 million)
Toysrus.com (18.7 million)
Amazon.com (76.4 million)
What is interesting is that Walmart traffic grew 52% less than the 78% growth for Toys R Us leading upto the Xmas period.  Amazon showed far less of a spike with around 8% growth but matched the other 2 websites for yearly growth rates according to compete.com.
Keyword Ranking?

So how does eToys managed rank #2 for the search term ”toys” when Walmart struggles to rank #5. The basic analysis revolves around eToys is a keyword friendly domain and has always been associated with toys.  This combined with around 20,000 links from 2,500 domains

vastly out performs Walmart.com/toys which has 57,000 links but from only 80 domains. Domain diversity is an issue and Walmart’s backlink strategy is leaning closer to spam and failing to give it the extra online sales.
So how does Walmart rank for its key terms and products it seems to indicate are key areas of business or has plans to capture more market share. It doesn’t appear that they have made an effort to improve what toys are the hot/popular from Christmas 2008 which is not the best start.
Walmart.com Keyword Rankings in Google.com (Top 100)
Toys #5
Games #N/A
High School Musical  #N/A
Disney #N/A
Iron Man #N/A
Elmo #70
Star Wars #N/A
Batman #N/A
Barbie #N/A
Lego #N/A
More #N/A
Action Figures #24
Bikes #7
Scooters #21
Skates #11
Building Sets #N/A
Dolls #N/A
Stuffed Toys #N/A
Games #N/A
Kids Electronics #3
Learning Toys #12
Music Instruments #N/A
Karaoke #N/A
Outdoor Play #3
Preschool Toys #3
Riding Toys #2
Radio Control Vehicles #53
Video Games #27
Gift Finder #19
We did not include universal search results that showed Google Product listings for some searches such as Scooters, only actual organic results for Walmart.com.  The biggest problem is that based on our own clients data you need to be first page of the search results at 92-94% of clicks occur here and do not goto the second page, combined with expanded universal search results it is key to be in the top 3 results to be successful. There is so many gaps in their products that don’t even feature in the top 100 which I thought would be impossible for a website like Walmart.com which shows there are major issues with their online marketing strategy.
Meta Tags
It also seems that Walmart still seems to follow some basic points to guide the search engines such as Meta description or Meta Keywords and leaves this marketing message to algorithms. It is not always best to leave your advertising message to a robot to self generate based on its estimates on what would encourage people to click.
Canonical Tag
But a guiding point is that they are using Canonical tags to reduce duplicate content and give Google/Bing the hint of what page they wanted showed in the SERPs. http://www.walmart.com/toys
The canonical choice of URL does show some hope for WalMart at a top level but they seem to fail around most other factors such as relevant title tags, and even SEO friendly URLs within the store.  These failures combined with overuse of onsite ads, too many images, too much flash and poor page loading times affect website usability.
Site Navigation fails consistency
I would rate this is a poor navigational URL for a website and one that could easily lead to broken links
Product URL fails to rank well
How could what product or item this URL is for? http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=11018843
It doesn’t make sense to the user and would i be likely to share or bookmark this link? Once again Toysrus.com ranks higher at #3 for the search term “DC Universe Batman figures” but below Amazon.com #2 which shows that there is something wrong with the online marketing by Walmart.com
Google Insights
Using Google Insights for Search Toys R Us has around 10 times the amount of branded search traffic that Walmart Toys does.  Combined with owning 3 of the top online domains: Toyrus,eToys,Toys gives them a massive lead over Walmart. Using the basic calculation of a #1 & #2 result for Toys R Us website this gives them an estimated of around 53% of clicks from searchers seeking toys in the US market.
SEO Factors such as Domain Age?
Looking at some key search ranking factors for Walmart.com and it appears to be around 2 years older than the eToys.com domain so we can say that in this case domain age is less of a factor. Also it seems that Walmart.com’s competitors such as Toys R Us fail to take onsite optimisation as seriously which leaves link strategy as the only differentiator between the two companies.
Walmart Domain Strategy
Walmart continues to buy back domains which it didn’t secure early in the dot.com days, but is it making effective use of these domains as part of an overall strategy.  The only domain that is partly setup correctly is “wal-mart.com” which has a 302 redirect to its primary Walmart.com domain. It would appear that they wish to have these other domains show within the search results, and they are likely causing issues such as duplicate content and maybe marked as spammers due to how the search engines are treating the domains.
  • wallmart.com (200)
  • wal-mart.com (302)
  • Retaillink.at (200)
  • Wallmartphoto.com (200)

So based on our initial analysis their appears to be several key areas where Walmart fail to be the 800 pound gorilla of the online retail world and may just need to sit back eat some humble pie and consider its strategy with some more thought.  Only digital strategy takes more planning and requires a site wide view that matches with several elements of your online marketing and some companies still need work.

3 comments Posted in seo campaigns

AT&T video fails at Social Media

Posted on September 8, 2009 by

attWhile many companies seem to be understanding how social media works and they are slowly getting better at tracking consumer sentiment and complaints they still seem to fail at responding.  Following someone’s bad advice as to how to best respond to the increasing negative feelings within social media and mainstream media, AT&T produced a “Im a PC” style video.

The canned response from AT&T is a PR polished video combining flashy graphics, friendly images and some random guy named Seth the blogger talking about how everything is not really that bad as supported by the random graphs shown in the background.  The video also highlights that AT&T is to be credited for enabling the smartphone revolution over the past few years with no supportive facts or recognition of the other network providers.

The first point which Seth the blogger helps explain is that the issues around their current network issues are in fact based on you and 300% the growth in wireless usage each year.  Considering falling revenue from other segments of the market would the best way to explain your failing network to provide quality service on customers using it? Is it better than consumers are not using your network?

Each time you use data on your mobile phone plan over your allocated data rate you pay your phone company its a simple enough concept.  Looking on a AT&T business rates plans this shows that excess data usage is charged at $0.0048/kb or $5.12/mb which makes for a very profitable business, not something to complain about.

The process where AT&T begin to try and repair their reputation involves first explaining the complexities behind the issue of bandwidth and how more complex it is to deal with MMS.  This is another area where they fail down as typically the early adopters who are also the ones making the most complaints have a good grasp around the technology and don’t need a “Dummies guide to mobiles” video. If you are trying to reach your audience using social media you need to tailor your message to your audience, and this is another area where AT&T fail.

The point about this ground breaking technology is that MMS is not a new feature on mobile phones and has been available on GSM/GPRS since MMS was first introduced by Telenor of Norway in March 2002.  This was followed by Optus introduced MMS into Australia in July 2002, and mm02 launch in europe in October 2002, so why the big issue for a large telecommunication company like AT&T?

As Gizmodo points out the failure of the MMS is likely due to AT&T Opt-Out codes automatically enabled on all their subscribers accounts, so if this is in fact an internal issue why build a smoke screen around the issue that they need to do more?

So the points to learn from this social media failure is if your are responding to your complaints

  • match your message to your audience
  • don’t include useless images/graphics
  • support your statements with facts
  • don’t treat your audience as idiots
  • use high profile executives not characters such as “Seth the blogger”
  • don’t spend more money on the video than your customer service
  • update your website to include new product information you refer to “MMS”
One comment Posted in Public Relations

Facebook fan pages overwhelm business

Posted on August 10, 2009 by

While much of the recent DOS attacks on Twitter have also affected Facebook & Google, it is evident that the Facebook platform is much more stable and suitable for business.  As Brand Republic highlighted it is actually Corporate America who seems to be leading the charge online reaching out through social media to consumers through corporate fan pages & facebook applications.

The Facebook platform has the advantage of scale with 250,000,000 users and 340,000,000 unique visitors each month and is now the 4th most visited website in the world.  Some mega brands like Starbucks have fit well within the Facebook platform with a massive 3,765,562 fans.

Nick Burcher has a great list of top 30 largest Facebook fan pages by number of fans, which was updated in June.  Based on the growth rate of Facebook these figures reported are slightly lower but still quite close and useful to understand the current leaders.  The only major shift is the rise in Michael Jackson fan pages since Nick updated his list.

Coca-Cola – 3,578,889 fans

Starbucks – 3,765,562 fans

Pringles – 2,765,695 fans

So who is the most popular brand or item? It is Pizza which has 3 of the top 30 largest Facebook fan bases with combined audience of 10,433,262, but the Pizza Hut group has only 993,815 fans. It would make sense for one of the big pizza chains to buy or sponsor one of these 3 fan pages if they want to reach scale quickly.

According to insidefacebook.com who provide a breakdown of page leaders, it clearly shows that the average number of fans per page is close to the average number of 2,104. This average figure is still far ahead of many corporate and business fan pages so can be a useful target to measure your social media campaign against.

Retail – Total fans in this category: 11,548,515 :: Avg fans per page in this category: 2,093
Actor – Total fans in this category: 193,520,303 :: Avg fans per page in this category: 10,865
Celebrity – Total fans in this category: 1,069,732 :: Avg fans per page in this category: 6,148
Food & Beverage – Total fans in this category: 261,930,703 :: Avg fans per page in this category: 11,478
Musician – Total fans in this category: 449,238,627 :: Avg fans per page in this category: 2,116
Automotive – Total fans in this category: 14,000,613 :: Avg fans per page in this category: 1,979
Consumer Product – Total fans in this category: 39,162,949 :: Avg fans per page in this category: 3,664

Nick from AllFacebook has analysed a large amount of Facebook fan statistics and the most frequent number of fans is only 7, with around 61,400 pages with no fans. There is a 40% change of your page attracting more than 100 fans, but this is reduced to a 9.5% change of more than 1,000 fans.  Only 5% of pages actually have more than 3,000 fans and only 2.5% actually have over 10,000 fans.  But compared to twitter where only 14 have over 1 million fans, there are 237 facebook pages who have reached this figure.

Advertisers can benefit from Facebooks powerful ad platform to target the right audience which Pringles has been doing recently to attract more followers to its fan page. The only issue is that sometimes the Facebook platform can become too open, with Primark staff insulting their customers. This open stream has also affected Tesco, Waitrose & Virgin which asks the question is open always the best way forward?

If you are thinking of social media for your brand, you need to decide who is in control and how much openness you want in case not everything posted is friendly.  Your fan page followers will grow slower but this maybe suitable for niche brands and products who don’t need 4,000,000 fans to be a successful social media campaign.

Keep up with The Sun?
6 comments Posted in Social Media

Google Apps Campaign

Posted on August 4, 2009 by

From the recent moves it appears that Go-Google-Campaign-adGoogle has taken an aggressive move from its previous purely online marketing of Google Apps with its new “Go Google” campaign.

One of the most obvious offline moves is the placement of large billboards along major roads in New York, Chicago, Boston & San Francisco.  CNET understand that the idea is to catch the many IT managers stuck in traffic horror spots such as New York’s West Side Highway or San Francisco’s U.S. 101.

These billboards will be changed everyday for a month forming a daily story starting with Day #1: Just heard about going Google. I want to know more.

The interesting aspect to this campaign is how the locations for the billboards have been chosen don’t seem to match with any logical data that I have found.  The closest match is if the location selected is based on top cities by population but the leaves out LA & Houston, which both have terrible traffic problems.

Top 10 worst cities for commuters

  1. Atlanta
  2. Detroit
  3. Miami
  4. Orlando
  5. Dallas
  6. Tampa
  7. Washington DC
  8. Houston
  9. Los Angeles
  10. San Francisco

Top cities by population

1. New York city
2. Los Angeles
3. Chicago
4. Houston
5. Phoenix
6. Philadelphia
7. San Antonio
8. Dallas
12.  San Francisco
22.  Boston

If you use Google Insight for search to check trends for the last 12 months around “Google Apps” again these locations do not closely match the locations for the billboards.  Los Angeles shown again this time featured as a top potential location for Google Apps interest but is not one of the first locations for the billboards.

Top Metro Locations

  1. Denvergoogle-apps-map
  2. Boise
  3. Burlington
  4. Charlottesville
  5. Los Angeles
  6. Salt Lake City
  7. Austin
  8. San Francisco
  9. Portland
  10. Seattle-Tacoma

If we further analyse the Google Insight for search data based on state location we can see that San Francisco is top of the list and is also the city where Google was founded.   Boston is likely chosen based purely on the MIT students who will when they graduate will be the next group of IT decision makers, deciding between Google & Microsoft.

Top city Locations

  1. San Francisco
  2. Denver
  3. Pleasanton
  4. Austin
  5. Los Angeles
  6. New York
  7. Seattle
  8. Portland
  9. Tampa
  10. Washington

Through the WSJ, we have confirmation that Google has annouced a that they have started a global roll-out of this campaign to expand overseas starting in train stations and airports.  The extended Gone Google campaign countries include UK, France, Canada, Japan, Australian and Singapore to increase their current userbase of 20 million users. This expansion followed up from our previous statements that there will be more locations and more campaigns launched over the next few weeks.  We also expect to see many of these cities listed in this blog post will be next as they increase their apps marketing focus within the US.

As for other moves into various offline media, the managing director of Google creative labs Andy Berndt said that at this stage Google Apps will not be advertised in other offline media like magazines, newspapers, television or radio.

The online Google Apps movement seems to be very similar to the successful “Spread Firefox” movement combined with pester power with the launch of a new product website built using their Google Apps Sites product, so they ask do you want to Go Google?

The Go Google website offers handy email templates to assist your creative blocks to help let your IT team know you want Google Apps. It also has 3 non-environmentally friendly pdf posters to print out and post around the office to use for internal marketing, maybe encouraging Friday afternoon pranks?

Google Apps at Work Poster 1
Google Apps at Work Poster 2
Google Apps at Work Poster 3

Some other more business orientated information provided is some product cheat sheets so staff can explain some of the more technical benefits of Google Apps for messaging & collaboration to help the move to Google.

Google Apps Collaboration
Google Apps Messaging

Google are yet to see how aggressive Microsoft hits back to promote Office 2010 through their network of thousands of retailers and partners. Microsoft has already moved quickly to start the online promotion of Office 2010 so quickly that the website and videos were published before the campaign was announced… The new marketing website from Microsoft has stepped up a level with smart product demos, social media campaigns and free technical previews of the software.

Microsoft has shown a departure from the past where only a inner circle would get a chance to test and preview their upcoming software so are Microsoft are starting to learn from how Google that good word of mouth can be a cheaper and more powerful that traditional advertising? So who will win the hearts and wallets of IT administrators, Google the traditional online going offline or Microsoft the traditional offline pushing online?

The process to signup Google Apps Premier Edition for your domain is easy enough:

1. Choose a domain name
2. Sign up
3. Purchase
4. Set up

So we suggest that you give Google Apps Premier Edition a try today.

No comments Posted in Google Apps

YouTube Video Ads

Posted on August 2, 2009 by

youtube logo

On of the biggest issues around video has been its been a typically one way medium, while people can comment back by text or video can it be used for viewer feedback.  Recently YouTube has shown the potential to offer multiple response options for advertisers interactive videos using the overlays linked to other videos. While it is not clear if this is a beta test or just a very smart and inventive person who is pushing the boundaries of the YouTube platform.

The video player is built in Adobe Flash so technically anything you can do in a standard flash application can be overlaid on user videos, and this is becoming increasingly common with popular videos.  The multiple choice survey test shown below is running on Machinima.com’s YouTube channel where, they are broadcasting game previews from Comic Con 2009. They are very clear with different choices with individual colours and even a text box at the top of the screen to explain what they want you the viewer to do. 

youtube-rate the game

The “rate this game” option is shown towards the end of the game preview.  When one of the options are selected a new YouTube video loads, with a clear title as to which option you selected, but could the video instructions be a bit more clear for the next steps as you can see in the screenshot below. 

The reason I feel that the steps are not clear is that around 15-20% of people used the 5 star rating system to provide feedback and not the text comment box below the video. Although the text is explaining the call to action is very large, since this is a visual element, a short video showing the desired action would make sense but only because its YouTube.

If you were running this on different medium/platform such as your website screenshots or flash animation could deliver the same visual explanation as not all users maybe used to using the comment field.

youtube-rate-ironman2

So how do you measure the results, the video requests for comments to be made in the text comment field below, but this also requires the user to have an account and login.  Based on the chart below based on the YouTube comments reaction more people are unsure if they want the game so they must analyze the comments for more understanding.

An easier way to measure survey results is to track which of the three videos options get the most views, the benefit is that the viewer doesn’t have to login to track their response.  From the chart below we can see that around 62% of views of the 3 options were that people want the game which may not be the perfect campaign result but to scale for large campaigns with thousands of comments its more efficient.

Comments can still be useful as they can provide feedback such as the “game lighting is too dark” or the “there appears to be glitches in background images” but the number of comments were a fraction of video viewings.  There is also the issue which is visible of users responding and interacting amongst themselves off the topic and even starting abusive attacks against other users commenting.

There are a few issues, one is that YouTube makes all videos public, so once one option such as “hate it” is selected it is easy to see related videos such as “not sure” and “want it”. If campaigns like this are to be more transparent, it should not be possible that users can select one option and then click to view other options skewing your results.

The obvious issue for analysis based on the chart below is that the number of comments were fairly consistent between each option so do not provide as much feedback compared to the video viewings, the lower the number the higher influence of duplicate posts, and multiple posters, spam…

youtube-responses

So how can web analytics help this test deliver better results for business?

Using methods such as A/B testing, they can test a different second trailer for the same game, using the same question but with 3 new video response pages.  This way they can test which particular scenes or clips generate the most positive reaction to the game.  This information can be further analysed as why but can be used to make a simple decision as to which would be best in an advertising campaign.

Further tests could be would you buy this game based on this preview, using the same call to action tracking and comparison of data to measure if a second trailer generated higher “want” results but also higher “buy me now” results.

Click to see the video Iron Man 2 Comin Con “Rate This Game”

One comment Posted in web marketing

Unified ECM vs Facebook

Posted on August 2, 2009 by

unified-ecm-logoUnified ECM based in Beverly Hills, California has started a class action lawsuit accusing Facebook with unfair advertising practices.

The case that has been filed in the Californian Northern District Court is Unified ECM, Inc v. Facebook, Inc. and the case was filed on July 27th 2009 and is case number 5:2009cv03430.

Facebook also based in California has been named in the lawsuit filed by Unified ECM for overcharging advertisers for ad space on Facebook’s website.  The basic overview of the website is that they claim Facebook is actually overcharging advertisers based on the reported number of consumers that actually view the ads on a daily basis.

The ad model that is being disputed is CPM which advertisers typically pay a specified amount for every 1,000 page views or ad impressions.  Using the Facebook advertising platform it is possible to set the amount you want to spend each day and how much per thousand views.

The lawsuit allege that Facebook only offers two options to chose from when buying advertising space, CPC or CPM.  The interesting point is that this model is the same as the Google Adwords platform so does that mean Unified ECM is also accusing Google with unfair advertising practices.

The CPC or CPM model is common among most web marketing platforms, only affiliate marketers sometimes offer a CPA model.  The CPA model is where you nominate how much you would pay for a lead or a sale can be very expensive but offers a higher ROI.

The other element of the lawsuit is that Facebook is not being proactive enough to monitor or prevent ‘click fraud’.  If you are using the CPM model click fraud is not an issue as you not being charged per click.  It would be like complaining to a radio/tv station that you believed people were not dealing with the fact that people turned down the volume during ad breaks.

CPM works on the impression or eyeball model, the more people who see or have the option to interact with your ad the more you pay, with Facebook having around 250,000,000 active users that is a large potential audience.

The idea that you can launch a class action lawsuit because you are not happy with a websites advertising model lacks intelligence.  This seems more of a marketing stunt on behalf of Unified ECM to get exposure through its press release outlining the legal action they have taken.

I would assume that Unified ECM did not take the time to research their possible audience for the Facebook campaign.  So if they failed to use the daily budgets for the campaign and made a generic campaign it is their own fault and not a unfair advertising model, this is a failure to understand the platform not a conspiracy.

If you are thinking of running a similar campaign speak with a web marketing agency or your local digital agency.  The benefits of using an agency that understands PPC campaigns is that they can research the likely costs, potential audience reach and also examine your competitors current campaigns.

Keep up with The Sun?
3 comments Posted in Social Media

Nike fails PR lessons

Posted on July 28, 2009 by

nike-logoIt seems that the Nike team has been working to ensure what could have been a small PR issue turns into a frontpage disaster story. Earlier in July, Nike confiscated videotapes recorded showing NBA allstar LeBron James, being dunked by amateur player Jordan Crawford.

The event took place at the LeBron James Skills Academy in Akron, OH where 2 accredited journalists filmed Jordan Crawford scoring an easy basket while LeBron James was playing defence.

The low quality camcorder footage which does not clearly identify players did not make for any interesting news until Nike demanded the tapes on the grounds that it violated media guidelines which does not allow filming of the skills academy games.

What happened at this point was that internet phenomenon of the Streisand effect took over causing the information to be so widely publicised that it becomes an YouTube sensation. As with the 2003 request by Barbara Streisand to remove aerial photographs of her beach house made a fuss of what is a small issue, but highlighting the issue as one worthy of news coverage.

What turns this into a very bad public relations exercises for Nike is that they appeared to be more concerned with trying to sell LeBron James as the next very brand-able star.  This money earner for Nike needs to always look good, so the possible humiliation or at least humbling of LeBron James may not sit well with their future revenue plans.lebron-ball

To ensure that this matter did not get shown by the broadcast partner CBS, Nike demanded all tapes of the event, creating instant interest in what happened.  Even if this had been the most boring event ever filmed the fact that the heavy handed approach showed that maybe people were missing out on something great and the interest started.

With such interest it is only a matter of time before a video made its way to YouTube, but it did take up to 2 weeks for the crew at TMZ to get it their hands on it, you can watch it here.

Also recently the Nike guys have bowed to the millions of viewers who have already seen the video and given back the tapes, but not before they ensured they got as much bad press over the issue as possible. Judging by previous viral video events this matter will continue to hurt Nike’s image of being a supporter of up and coming talent if they dare challenge their existing cash cows…

You can hear Jordan Crawford’s interview response about the video here, it is just a short 30 second interview.

2 comments Posted in Public Relations

Google warned to stop property portal

Posted on July 27, 2009 by

smhNews just from Sydney Morning Herald a Fairfax company has publicly announced its first threat against Google Maps new Real Estate update.  It seems that there has not be much has been publicly said about Google’s move into the backyard of Domain & RealEstate.com.au until today.

Two of Australia’s largest media companies appear to have made the first threat to pull their business because of Google’s move into the real estate listing market.  While it will be a public independent decision, it is likely that with 90% of the market their decision will have a massive impact on Google’s local revenues.

The Australian market for classified advertising is worth around $144,000,000 to Google annually according to the SMH article, accounting for around 15% of Google’s revenues within Australia.

This relationship has shown some signs of strain, with Rupert Murdoch already accusing Google of failing to pay for content shown on its Google News service.  To further add insult to injury Google News has begun to sell ads against this aggregated content which has not helped with failing advertising revenues.

Google Maps began the process on 6th July sourcing listings from local real estate aggregators, Homehound & My Home offering real estate agents an opportunity to list their properties free on Google Maps. This listing service generates hundreds of dollars of revenue for Domain & RealEstate.com.au for each property and thousands from real estate offices.

While RealEstate.com.au has not allowed private sellers to list their properties on its website instead choosing to protect its real estate agents. It is likely that RealEstate.com.au will have examine if 45% annual increases will continue to be sustainable.  Domain encourages this self service listing service with costs from $250-499 and this will likely be the first market that will prefer to list their home for free on the new Google Maps service.

The CEO of REA Group, Greg Ellis did not initially object to the Google Maps service at least publicly.  He did considered the interesting concept of REA paying for Google AdWords to compete against a free Google Map product which was funded by REA Google AdWords revenue.

Analyst Frost & Sullivan forecast that the online real estate market grew at 38% in 2008 and is forecast to grow by a further 23% in 2009. Nielsen advise that the market size is significant with around 500,000 visits to property websites each day.   Leading marketing intelligence provider Hitwise advise around 30% of the traffic to these property websites comes from Google, so who is supporting who more?

Former CEO of REA, Mr Baker said Google Australia might be shooting themselves in the foot by this battle as their core business model is selling ads against search queries. It has the potential to move into a paradox if the new Google Map service struggles to attract enough visitors Google may begin to utilise their AdWord system to drive more visitors.  The paradox is that the other Real Estate portals will now be competing and bidding against Google for the same traffic.

There has been agents who have been carefully watching the matter and have found that Google is only scraping the Head Offices, MyHome and Homehound websites and none of the independents or franchise websites that have individual websites. If this is true this has the potential to kill localised franchise websites and independent operators who typically get around 75% of their traffic from Google.

Google advised they would like to work more closely with Fairfax & REA who are currently refusing to list their properties on Google Maps. What is interesting is that a majority of the real estate groups are using Google Maps to display their listings, which makes people comfortable with using Google Maps for real estate.   Another interesting future development unless these independent real estate portals have a Google Maps Premier API key, Google can potential show their listings on these portals maps.

3 comments Posted in Public Relations

YouTube animated Ads

Posted on July 27, 2009 by

YouTubes move towards increasing its profitability around youtube-bad adsincreased ad placements might have take a step too far.  While YouTube recently diffused some YouTube myths admit to trying to get the highest monetised number of views not cover a certain % of videos.

Can the placement of animated ads across video really be the best option for web usability? It is likely that these animated ads get the best CTR rates what is best for the advertiser may not be best for the audience.

The interesting point is that the ad being shown in the picture is not relevant to the Alice in Wonderland HD trailer.  The Google Adsense system is not completely faulty as the Lasoo “toy” ad is quite suitable given the likely target audience that will be attracted to this Disney movie.

Most could assume that the typical audience for Disney movies dont seem to be a good match for high end $999 Nikon Digital SLR cameras, and the display ad is not based on previous search behaviour.

No comments Posted in web marketing

Top YouTube Myths

Posted on July 24, 2009 by

youtube logoGoogle’s YouTube seeks to counter the coverage is that it is just a source of viral videos, attention seekers and animal videos in a recent blog post.  YouTube is continuing to stress its recent agreements with content partners such as Sony, Diney & Universal music has raised its profile but what are the most common myths.

Myth 1: YouTube is limited to short-form user-generated content.
YouTube directors & media partners have uploaded hundreds of full-length feature films and TV Shows.

Myth 2: YouTube videos are grainy and of poor quality.
YouTube HD is now standard for hundreds of thousands of HD videos added each month.

Myth 3: Traffic, growth, and uploads are bad for YouTube’s bottom line.
Google builds scaleable infrastructure so it depends on growth and welcomes the challenge.

Myth 4: Advertisers are afraid of YouTube.
20th Century Fox took over YouTube’s masterhead ads across YouTube homepages in 11 countries to push its recent X-Men movie, this Youtube campaign in the UK generated 15% uplift in brand awareness for X-Men.

Myth 5: YouTube is only monetizing 3-5% of the site.
Who made up this statistic?? YouTube’s business model is focused on total number of monetised views, not % of site.

YouTube media partners Mythbusters claim that it looks like these myths are busted for now, but YouTube will likely be requested to revisit these myths in the future.

2 comments Posted in google

Ebay replaced failed dealership model?

Posted on July 12, 2009 by

A recent story published by NYTimes.com tries to talk down a possible EBay deal with GM, but would this actually make sense for struggling dealerships? GM is no longer the leading auto brand within the USA, so a move towards online sales may show they have nothing to loose?
General Motors announced in May 2009, that around 18% or 1,100 GM dealerships would be closed by October 2010 and recently GM & Chrysler have had to fight to block legislation that would hamper their moves to consolidate their dealer networks.

General Motors said that many of these dealerships were losing money and were in danger of closing, and plans to eventually cull upto 40% of its dealer network.  While it is important that GM have a healthy, viable network of dealers to survive this massive market downturn.  The axing of loyal partners whose profitability failure is likely because of GM policies and corporate decisions not the local dealers may not be the best decision.

The decision to launch officially with eBay Motors in California first makes sense as its the #1 auto market in the US. This market is essential for GMs post-bankruptcy survival as they fight to regain market share from Toyota, Honda & Ford.  The point that GM is missing is the huge demand for hybrid vehicles within California with around 24.2% of the nations hybrid market, are they trying to use eBay Motors to sell their low fuel efficient vehicles cheaper or are they pushing volume sales model again?

While the market in California is perfect for increased online sales as according to Californian Broadband Task Force 96% of residences have access to broadband, so an improved high quality auto portal would benefit GM.  They should to look to Ford who have an excellent online vehicle show room “Ford Direct” where you browse their range, build your own custom model or search their range of vehicles. The Ford portal is suited to broadband users with high quality graphics, dynamic content and virtual 360 degree views.ford-direct

Ford the only US auto company not to receive federal bailout money understands there are only 4 key pieces of information that you want to filter its range by

  • Price
  • Fuel Efficiency
  • Seating
  • Towing Capacity

The important step that differentiates Ford is that the next steps feature “get an internet price” and “search dealer inventory”.  This important step offers a call to action for price conscious buyers and directly promotes its dealers inventory for your selected vehicle. This heavy promotion of the Ford dealer network helps build trust that they are not trying to kill the dealership model but also allows Ford to control direct engagement with consumers.

ebay-motorsWhile Rob Chesney the VP of eBay Motors and Marketplaces said “We are excited about a potential new adventure that supports G.M.’s dealers by expanding on how they already reach consumers through new approaches.”

The main advantage is the transparency of the eBay model and that it will take a lot of pressure of dealers around the negotiation process with consumers. Tom Pyden of GM emphasised that it would be the dealerships that would list the new cars on eBay as they are not looking to sell direct to customers.

The advantage of eBay Motors is that it lets customers buy the cars at auction or use EBay’s fixed price “Buy It Now” option.  How much the “Buy It Now” price might vary from the manufacturers recommended retail price or GM might try to artificially inflate auction sale prices needs to be clear.

As with the efforts by GM to reduce their dealership network by 40% is that a smaller dealership will reduce possible delivery locations where customers can pickup their cars and may limit their potential market. This reduced local inventory may hamper GM and only benefit multi-brand dealerships and may fragment the GM dealership benefits.

ebay_vppTo attract confidence buying a car online in Australia eBay Motors offers Vehicle Purchase protection upto $20,000.  This may protect you from fraud, breach of warranty or misrepresentation in the unlikely event that something goes wrong with your transaction.  This is only eligible for sellers that have this VPP logo next to their listings.

eBay Motors Australia moves to help buying a car online easier and safer with agreements with RACV and RACQ to purchase inspection services ebay-motors-racqon cars they are considering buying. This helps as buyers can now inspect cars that are too far to inspect yourself with vehicle inspections.

What is a little embarrassing for eBay and shows that partnerships don’t always work out, both links from the map shown on eBay Motors to the websites of RACQ and RACV are dead.

Is eBay Motors just too general to be a solution for GM? The web marketing of eBay Motors interesting is that the domain is http://cars.ebay.com.au but the site is actually called eBay Motors and tries to be a complete place for anything that runs on gas.  eBay Motors advises that it sells cars, parts, accessories, motorcycles, scooters, caravans, boats, water craft, go carts, trailers, aircraft. Is a general market place the best place for a large brand such as GM or more suited to their dealerships that sell multiple brands?

2 comments Posted in web marketing
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