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Friday, October 27, 2006
Interruption as a tool is obsolete. Let ideas find the medium. Great ideas,
not channels, create buzz. Get comfortable with consumers messing with your
brand. Business results are the only measure of success.
Those five points are the new rules for the digital experience,
according to the leader of the agency that's arguably done the most to re-write
the advertising playbook.
Posted by Reid
9:24 AM
0 comments  
I've only been a reader of the print edition for a couple months now, but have quickly become a fan of NY Mag's "Approval Matrix".
Well, with the recently launched site redesign, the new and improved Interactive Approval Matrix is event better. Users can drag-and-drop stories onto the grid, and then see how their opinions compare to the overall community - "collective for sure". The timeline slider is nice too.
Posted by Charles
9:00 AM
0 comments
Thursday, October 26, 2006
Several new features were announced about the upcoming release of HBX 4.0, including:
Commerce - Active segmentation for commerce (most significant new feature for us)
- Multiple storefronts (second up)
- Additional block of custom variables
User & Group Permissions - Increased granularity of user and group permissions
- Separate access controls for Web UI and ReportBuilder
Posted by Charles
5:11 PM
0 comments
An interesting read that shares a few respected marketer' perspectives about why blogging is at least of relevance to marketers.
Posted by Reid
4:47 PM
0 comments
Wednesday, October 25, 2006
Announced on Wireless Week today, Verizon will be offering Adobe Flash Lite on their network. Users will be able to Flash-enable their phones over the air.
This move will only serve to enhance the user experience on mobile devices.
Posted by Reid
5:09 PM
0 comments
Tuesday, October 24, 2006
This is good news for online advertising companies, because it indicates
that more large companies are beginning to see the Internet as a viable
advertising resource. Currently, GM is spending about 10-15% of their ad dollars
online, but according Merrill Lynch analyst Lauren Rich Fine, even more of the
company’s ad dollars could be headed to the digital marketplace soon.
Posted by Reid
12:40 PM
0 comments
Video on the web is in a nascent stage according to this article. But with 300+ video start-ups in the pipeline there is going to be a big shake-out soon. The article highlights the Venice Project - a web video project being developed by the founders of Skype. Also interesting is the development of video recognition technology that analyses individual frames of video and indexes them accordingly - see Blinkx.com and TVEyes.com.
Posted by damo
11:13 AM
0 comments
This is a quick article about how some companies are using search marketing as a means to "brand" their products using terms that they want to be associated with.
Posted by Reid
10:08 AM
0 comments
Findings from a study done by Silverpop that hints at a few things that marketers can do to increase their click-through rates...
Posted by Reid
10:00 AM
0 comments
Online retailers are adding more product demonstration videos to their Web sites and the effort is paying off with increased conversions. While specific metrics are hard to come by, QVC's senior vice president was quoted in the Wall Street Journal saying that "QVC gets a significantly higher conversion rate for products it shows in videos". QVC currently has more than 1,500 videos on its Web site, adding 20 to 30 new videos daily. Other Web sites mentioned in the article are Edmunds.com and Vehix.com. Product demonstration videos are particularly useful for action-oriented items, like cars and tools.
In the past year, Edmunds.com has seen video views jump 30% averaging 800,000 a month. In addition, people are increasingly watching the complete videos, instead of closing them out half-way through - a measurement that Web analytics tools like HBX now allow us make.
The biggest obstacles facing online retailers with the use of video are production costs and vendor delays resulting from surging demand.
Online video is not just useful for selling products. Looking to host an event or conference? Regonline, a Web service to manage event registrations, states on its Web site that registrations can increase by as much as 11% when users are greeted by a Video Spokesperson on your event registration Web page (scroll to bottom of page).
Posted by Charles
8:40 AM
0 comments
Thursday, October 19, 2006
Jakob Nielsen's most recent Alertbox gives some great tips for building online communities and encouraging more balanced user participation. Below is a summary, read the full article.
- Make it easier to contribute.
- Make participation a side effect.
- Edit, don't create.
- Reward -- but don't over-reward -- participants.
- Promote quality contributors.
Posted by Charles
1:32 PM
0 comments
Google's next smart move toward helping companies leverage Web technology to incrementally increase site conversions, thereby effectively encouraging them to spend more in advertising with them. Another proof point that companies who choose to advertise online need to spend more time working on their on-site conversion rates; there is more to this "Web thing" than PPC, SEO and online advertising.
Posted by Reid
12:49 PM
0 comments
Wednesday, October 18, 2006
Rather than focusing on unique visitors, e-tailers are allowing third party
cookies, click-throughs and pageviews to determine how online and email
campaigns are performing. As retailers head into the Christmas buying season,
this kind of practice could lead them to make the wrong decisions on campaigns
and lose revenue.
WebTrends surveyed 300 Internet and multi-channel retailers and found
more than 63% of those surveyed were relying upon click-throughs, pageviews and
visits and orders. The problem with this method is that it can lead to double
counting or declining conversion rates because users don’t always convert on a
first visit. Many times it is a return visit that leads to conversion.
Posted by Reid
6:01 PM
0 comments
Thursday, October 12, 2006
According to AdAge, Internet questionnaires account for more than 1/3 of the spending for market research surveys. Still, much of the information isn’t put to use because marketers aren’t sure how to integrate the information from customers into customer service.
Posted by Reid
9:53 AM
0 comments
Tuesday, October 10, 2006
A redesigned Cisco.com has launched with new logo and concept to support the brand, or the so called "Human Network". Also, the site supports a reworked information architecture and functionality.
Cisco's CMO has written a nice summary of the redesign.
Site redesigns like these catch my attention because of the scope of work and organization involved. Coordinating the redesign of a site with thousands of pages across multiple continents and project teams is no small feat. In fact, a large portion of the Web site retains the old design templates supporting the fact that taking it all on at once is often not possible with the huge amount of work involved.
I like the new logo and the purpose behind its updated look which is "optimized for today's smaller communications devices" - interesting sign of the times.
Also, the redesigned site itself is nice with easy to understand navigation and clean and consistent page layouts.
Posted by Charles
2:28 PM
0 comments
Monday, October 09, 2006
Just to be a bit ironic, I thought I'd link to this story on Yahoo! News. In any case, among many interesting things about this acquisition is this statement, "Although some cynics have questioned YouTube's staying power, Google is betting that the popular Web site will provide it an increasingly lucrative marketing hub as more viewers and advertisers migrate from television to the Internet." Or, as we do it in our house, watch TV and surf the Internet at the same time.
Posted by Ingrid Alongi
2:36 PM
0 comments
Sunday, October 08, 2006
Management consulting firm Evantage Consulting conducted a survey that reveals Web marketers find obstacles to taking the measurements and subsequent action required to optimize Web sites and marketing campaigns. Even marketers with high-end analytics programs don’t use analytics systematically for marketing decisions due to cultural barriers.
"Despite growing evidence that online marketers who use Web analytics data to optimize their campaigns achieve measurably improved financial performance, organizations have been slow to embrace Web analytics," said survey author Jennifer Veesenmeyer. "Our survey respondents clearly demonstrated that many traditional marketing organizations do not support an analytical culture where marketing decisions are based on measurement data."
Web analytics is a discipline that uses software to monitor and analyze Web visitor behavior and marketing campaign data enabling Internet marketers to optimize Web site and marketing campaign performance.
Evantage survey findings
Source: PRWeb PRWeb
Posted by Paul J. Bruemmer
11:25 AM
0 comments
Friday, October 06, 2006
There is a misconception that social networking is the exclusive domain of teenagers ~ analysis confirms that the appeal of social networking sites is far broader.
Posted by Erika Tyker-Werner
1:03 PM
0 comments
Thursday, October 05, 2006
Yahoo is testing paid search ads in the U.S. and U.K. after launching mobile search ads in Japan. This program is similar to Yahoo Search Marketing on the web wherein consumers click on a sponsored search listing from Yahoo Mobile Search, which takes them to an advertiser’s mobile site or a landing page to view a marketing message.
Yahoo is taking advantage of its partnership with Bango, a mobile search advertising company that helps simplify the process of buying paid search listings on mobile devices. Bango will create the advertiser’s mobile web site, manage YSM keyword campaigns and provide analytics for mobile paid search campaigns.
Yahoo also is testing sponsored listings on go2, a mobile phone search engine, local directory and movie guide. Major cell phone carriers like Cingular, Sprint, Verizon and Nextel provide go2 mobile search for their users.
Research firm Informa projects that mobile ad spending will reach $11.35 billion worldwide by 2011. Other projections by visiongain and BusinessWeek indicate U.S. mobile ad spending will reach $602.3 million in 2009.
Source: Mediapost
Posted by Paul J. Bruemmer
4:35 PM
0 comments
Wednesday, October 04, 2006
As more Web sites become Rich Internet Apps with Ajax bells and whistles (see Nikestore.com), Web analytics vendors need to devise new strategies for measurement. This will prove to be challenging as the page view model becomes obsolete. How will Web publishers sell advertising when the concept of a page becomes muddled? Read this article to preview the future of analytics.
Posted by Charles
12:04 PM
0 comments
Article by Scott Brinker that does a good job keeping the concept simple. This message is really about the conversion rate and the old story of not worrying solely about the CTR.
Posted by Reid
8:53 AM
0 comments
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