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March 2008

March 31, 2008

Aquafina Jumps on Widget Bandwagon in Baseball Promo

Baseball, beer, peanuts...and water?

It's all baseball all the time today (when the rain doesn't ruin things, that is). Advertisers want to be a part of it all, too. Along with Bank of America, today's MLB.com Opening Day sponsor, and several other advertisers written about here today, Aquafina is running an MLB.com-related effort, extending its campaign featuring everybody's favorite curmudgeonly manager, Lou Piniella.

The water brand has created a widget featuring a digital bobblehead that's supposed to look like Piniella. It doesn't. At all. Bobble heads never look like who they're supposed to, though, so maybe it was intentional.

Anyway, the Aquafina branded widget features a new message from Piniella everyday, the type of peaceful, pleasant statement you'd never expect him to say. Today's is pretty ho-hum. I think I'd rather hear the angry Piniella personally.

I think it's smart that Aquafina is running an Opening Day related effort since it's campaign has a baseball connection, but I'm not sure what the value of this widget is exactly. How many of these things can people be expected to download anyway?

Posted by Kate Kaye at 5:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Hello Awareness, Goodby Brand Equity

You know it's a lucky day when you wind up sharing your lunch table with Ted McConnell, Procter & Gamble's hypersmart manager of interactive marketing and innovation.

What's been on Ted's mind recently? Brands that advertise on social networks. He believe these marketers are looking at short-term metrics to their longer-term detriment. Awareness is spiking for these advertisers, but at the expense of brand equity down the road. Users overwhelmingly regard social network ads as unnecessary and intrusive.

Short term wins. Long term problems. When someone of Ted's stature raises this as an issue, Facebook, MySpace and their ilk would do well to prick up their ears.

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 3:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Are TV Networks Measuring What Counts?

Alan Wurtzel, NBC's president of research and media development, is presenting research at the ARF Re:Think conference essentially in defense of network TV. He's claiming TV viewing hasn't decreased as a resut of the Web, rather that people are absorbing more media simultaneously as they multitask.

He's also showing eye-tracking scans taken of views as they fast-forward through :30 spots on DVRs. The graphics are supposed to indicate these viewers concentrate more intently on the center of the screen as the ads whiz by, indicating there's no real conscious absorption of the ad message, but there's nevertheless an unconscious message being conveyed.

This sounds dubious. Sure, networks are bound to conduct research in their own interests -- why wouldn't they? But the message coming through from Wurtzel (who's still talking) is that while consumers certainly are still watching TV, they're significantly less focused on it. In fact, they may even be most intent on the set when they're trying to avoid something rather than watch it.

This raises questions about engagement, something the ARF is still working to define.

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 10:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

March 28, 2008

Bad Credit, Good Creative?

Guess it's a sign of the times.

This Orchard Bank MasterCard ad turned up on AOL.com.

Don't forget the small print, either. The bank didn't here.

Posted by Anna Maria Virzi at 3:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Spamming, the Google Docs Way

Hey, why build a Web site to hawk your penile enlargement kits or questionable pharmaceuticals? Get with the program - there's a new way to spam. The Google Docs way!

Talk about optimizing landing pages.

We just received a "suggesation for purchaseing Cheap Drugs Online" (sic) in our spam folder. The call-to-action caught our eye - an invitation to click on an unembedded URL clearly leading to a Google Docs page. It's not like we would've ever thought of it ourselves, but spammers wear a special breed of thinking cap.

On the one hand, the spammer behind this scam probably isn't getting great analytics. But spammers aren't interested in crazy notions such as purchase funnels. Only results count. And if this kind of scam results in a much more circuitous route to a whois lookup, so much the better for the spammer.

What will they think of next?

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 2:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Could China Block Microsoft-Yahoo Deal?

Microsoft's proposed purchase of Yahoo could encounter a roadblock in China, "The New York Times" reports today.

An antimonopoly law, which takes effect August 1, strengthens Chinese oversight of acquisitions involving foreign businesses acquiring or investing in Chinese businesses.

Chinese regulators will have the authority to review the Microsoft-Yahoo acquisition's impact on Alibaba.com, an e-commerce company in China. That's because Yahoo invested $1 billion in Alibaba for a 40 percent stake three years ago.

Quoting legal specialists, the Times reports that China's new law could match the powers that regulators in the European Union and the United States now have to review foreign mergers for antitrust concerns.

Posted by Anna Maria Virzi at 11:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Newspaper CEOs Totally Stoked about Yahoo

If an Editor & Publisher "Special Report" on Yahoo's newspaper consortium project is any indication, everything's going swimmingly with the project, despite worries of how an impending Microsoft takeover could affect the situation. Consortium CEOs got together at a two-day meeting at Yahoo HQ in Sunnyvale in which Yahoo EVP Hilary Schneider and President Sue Decker were in attendance. Apparently the leaders of this motley media crew were throwing around terms like "blown away" and "psyched" afterwards.

Does Yahoo have a rollercoaster in their office courtyard we haven't heard about?

Anyway, though the story acts as a re-cap and somewhat of a cheer-fest for the Yahoo project, there are some tidbits of interest. For one, MediaNews Group CEO Dean Singleton told E&P Yahoo has 572 staffers working on paper consortium efforts, and he's been told that will increase to 700 in the coming months. I've seen Yahoo job ads for HotJobs sales gigs, so don't doubt they're hiring, but these numbers do seem really high.

The story notes, "In the next few months, newspapers will begin beta testing of a platform that moves beyond the troubled recruitment advertising arena -- and from traditional mass aggregation of eyeballs into targeting by demographics, geography, and consumer behavior. None of the CEOs will describe in any detail what Yahoo has cooking, but they are uniformly impressed."

This testing is already happening. ClickZ reported this about a month ago, noting Yahoo has already begun testing behavioral and geo-targeting across the growing network of newspaper sites. At the time, Lem Lloyd, VP of Yahoo's Newspaper Consortium told me about 20 paper sites were testing sales of Yahoo inventory to their local advertisers, while Yahoo was testing sales of those paper sites to national advertisers. That test group was expected to expand to 50 in a month's time.

More recently, McClatchy's Chris Hendricks told me McClatchy has had two sites live in the Yahoo pilot test for display advertising for about three months.

E&P also made note of quadrantOne, the new newspaper network led by Gannett, Hearst, Tribune, and The New York Times Company. QuadOne recently added new sites from publishers already partnering with Yahoo, raising questions about the paper companies' attitude towards the Yahoo deal. The story notes, "QuadrantOne has a dedicated sales staff armed with committed inventory from each paper, though Williams could not say how many salespeople will be involved."

For the record, ClickZ reported when the network launched in mid-February that, 17 people are on board to sell CPM-based standard and rich media ads to national advertisers. Some handling ad sales out of New York, LA and Chicago are on the national sales teams at owner firms, including quadOne Interim CEO Dana Hayes and SVP Sales Donna Stokley, both top Tribune Interactive sales execs. They also planned to hire additional sales staff at the time.

Posted by Kate Kaye at 10:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Automotive Web Ads: GM Is Tops in Reach, Toyota Plays Frequency Game

GM, Toyota and Honda were the heaviest online advertisers among auto companies in January, according to some new data from comScore Ad Metrix. GM delivered approximately 1.7 billion impressions, while Toyota placed 1.4 billion and Ford bought 11.3 billion.

However the data tell a different story when examined in terms of frequency and targeting. Toyota scored the highest number of ads per person -- 22 per individual in January, comScore says, compared with 16 for GM and 11 for Ford. The heavy concentration of impressions probably has something to do with the auto maker's online marketing strategy for its Scion brand, which is focused heavily on the "urban" segment (i.e. black and hispanic youth). Also, I wouldn't be surprised if Prius and Toyota's other hybrid/fuel economy advertising was aimed at fans of TreeHugger.com and other environment and cause-related content.

Speaking of Toyota and digital marketing, have you seen the Scion Speak "create your own crest" experience? Ranks right up there with the smoothest and prettiest site interfaces I've played with in recent memory. The "navigation wheel" concept sure is favored by experience designers. See R/GA's recent work for Sunglass Hut.

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 9:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

March 27, 2008

dotMobi Hearts Mobile Web

The non-profit dotMobi Advisory Group (MAG) is taking over the ilovemobileweb campaign launched last year by Bango, thereby bringing together over 125 companies to support and foster the initiative.

The stated campaign aims are to:

· Raise awareness of the mobile Web with consumers around the world
· Encourage open access to the mobile Web for every user
· Provide consumers with choice of content and services
· Provide easy pathways for fixed Internet publishers to move to mobile
· More standardization of devices and development platforms

Interested organizations are invited to join the initiative -- gratis -- via the e-mail link on the ilovemobileweb Web site.

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 4:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

The Top 25 Most Valuable Blogs

24/7 Wall St., a Web site that publishes financial news, took at stab at identifying the 25 most valuable blogs.

Defining value, of course, is not an easy proposition when examining private businesses. While putting a value on each blog, 24/7 built its estimates on several factors, including page views, ad revenues, and operating expenses. Keep in mind, estimating ad revenue can be dicey depending on how advertising deals, including sponsorships and graphic ads, are negotiated.

Hacking away appears to be paying off for Nick Denton. His Gawker properties, including Gawker, ValleyWag, and Gizmodo, topped 24/7 Wall St.'s list. Valued at $150 million, the Gawker blogs bring in an estimated $11 million in annual revenue and growing. That estimate assumes Gawker has 30 million unique visitors, these visitors view 1.5 page views each month, and the sites collect on average a per page CPM value of $20, according to 24/7 Wall St.

Rounding up the top five: MacRumors, Huffington Post, PerezHilton, and TechCrunch.

24/7, which examined unique visitors and page views, said its analysis is based on the estimated advertising revenue as well as income from related businesses such as conferences. The analysis omitted some blogs such as those affiliated with larger media companies because it's tough to break out traffic.

Posted by Anna Maria Virzi at 10:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Google Click Volume 'Troubles': Month Two

Here we go again. ComScore has released its second consecutive report showing year over year and sequential flatness in Google's paid click volume. I addressed the issue last month, noting the company's ongoing efforts to improve click quality by reducing the number of ads on its network.

Blogs and pubs that use this metric as a minute to minute barometer of Google's health are missing the point. You can't separate causation here: How much is the result of Google's ongoing click quality initiatives, which are meant to increase cost per click and conversions while reducing overall clicks (a good thing for advertisers, and in the long run investors)? How much is the result of declining consumer confidence and ad effectiveness? (A bad thing for all parties obviously)

ComScore itself has argued you just can't draw any major conclusions from its findings. So please hold your tongue until Q1 earnings.

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 10:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Google Provides YouTube Creators with Viewership Stats

Google today launches YouTube Insight, an analytics tool designed to allow a YouTube account holder to see how often her video is viewed based on geography and how it compares to others in that market.

Google is promoting the new feature as a way to help advertisers. "Insight will help advertisers optimize their marketing efforts, determine how successful they were, and discover previously unknown marketing opportunities," the company wrote in a news release.

On a Google blog, Tracy Chan, product manager, YouTube, wrote that the tool helps account holders to determine things like how long it takes for a video to become popular.

In another development, ClickZ yesterday spotted and reported on how Google is testing video ads in its search results pages from advertisers such as Intel and AT&T.

Posted by Anna Maria Virzi at 7:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

March 26, 2008

The $6,560 Baby

Two classified ads spurred police into action this week.

A Salt Lake City television station reported that someone posted an online classified ad to sell or adopt a 6-month-old girl for $6,560, according to FoxNews.com. Police are investigating the ad that someone sought to publish on the TV station's Web site.

In an unrelated incident, an Oregon man reportedly lost his home's possessions after someone posted a bogus ad on Craigslist. The ad said the property's contents were free for the taking. The homeowner said that wasn't true.

Posted by Anna Maria Virzi at 4:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Spotted in the Wild: Video Ads in Google Search Results

We've known since mid-February of Google's plans to test video ads in its search results pages, but we haven't seen them in action. That is until now. The below "testimonial" video ad for Intel is running today against a search for the company's name. Google SERP video ads were spotted earlier by two blogs:Google Operating System caught the same Intel clip on a search for "laptop," and Digital Inspiration screen-grabbed a video spot for AT&T that was placed against the keyword "phone."

The first image here shows what looks like a typical search ad with the addition of a plus sign (+), indicating the ad can be expanded:

Clicking (+) opens and plays the video. The ad is 45 seconds long and centered completely on a film maker's love for his computer chip. "This is the thing that lets me make movies," he says.

Once the clip plays out, a link to Intel's site appears over the video frame. Clicking the link takes the viewer to a product page for Intel's Quad Core Xeon processors.

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 3:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Guardian Says 'No Thanks' to Phorm

Phorm recently partnered with a three leading U.K. ISPs, and has been working hard to allay privacy concerns stemming from its use of IP-based targeting technology.

In what could portent a blow to the companies attempt to make inroads into the British advertising marketing, Guardian News & Media has just politely said thanks, but no thanks to the prospect of working with Phorm's OIX advertising exchange.

"Our decision was in no small part down to the conversations we had internally about how this product sits with the values of our company," Simon Philby, the Guardian's advertising manager, is reported to have written in an e-mail to a concerned reader.

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 2:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

March 25, 2008

DoubleClickers Sow-er Over Facebook Ad

This little piggy got acquired? We may never know who's behind a goofy yet somewhat mean spirited message sent to all DoubleClick employees on Facebook today. Some think it's a Googler who had his or her finger on the ad trigger.

"Hi DoubleClick. Please stop gorging yourselves on all our food," reads the ad message, accompanied by a cartoon image of a slovenly piggy. It ends, "Maybe we won't fire you. Thanks." Ouch. The ad may be a reference to the integration of the two firms, particularly at Google's famed cafeterias in NY and CA. When a DoubleClicker grabs the last almond crusted pork tenderloin, don't expect a Googler to be happy about it.

No matter who the culprit is, the ad evidently has ruffled the feathers -- or perhaps crisped the skin -- of a few DoubleClick staffers.

Posted by Kate Kaye at 4:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

March 24, 2008

The Purple Distinction

Marketing services firm Epsilon is rebranding as Purple@Epsilon. "We want a distinctive brand name for online and offline services," said Steve Cone, CMO at Purple@Epsilon. Purple combines Epsilon's interactive, agency, and direct groups including its creative, media planning, Web design, e-mail systems, delivery, and direct mail delivery. What's outside of the purple umbrella, though seen as too much of a separate entity, Epsilon's Strategic Database unit, which includes Abacus, which Epsilon acquired from DoubleClick. "All of those services compliment each other, but we wanted to let people know we are a much bigger agency than anybody realizes," said Cone.

While the company's color has always been Purple, this rebranding just plays it up. The company branding includes, "Marketing as usual. Not a chance." That's because Cone says, "We don't believe in marketing as usual."

Posted by Enid Burns at 6:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Chrysler Sits Brand Fans in Passenger Seat

Chrysler is using Passenger's brand community platform for its online Customer Advisory Board, a new program for studying consumer insights on the car brand and its products. Passenger powers private Web communities for brands including Nestle, Coca-Cola, ABC Television and Sara Lee, JC Penney, American Express and Fidelity. The new Chrysler relationship was facilitated by the automaker's interactive agency, Organic.

The Passenger system will be used for social-networking, community-building, customer collaboration and advocacy building among Chrysler fans. Those interested in joining the community can signup now, and the firm will begin introducing the program to participants late this month.

According to a press release:

Once introduced, Chrysler will begin the ongoing initial dialogue with the Customer Advisory Board members by engaging the community with live, facilitated sessions where they may view media, respond to polls and engage with other members. There will also be discussion sections that allow members to discuss a variety of topics on their own time during a four-week period. Examples of topics may include environmental, safety, quality or technology. Other features include activities to stimulate member creativity and polls for quick feedback on topics. In addition, members may create their own profile and connect with each other through the message center.

Posted by Kate Kaye at 4:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Starbucks' Virtual Suggestion Box

Starbucks has set up a virtual customer suggestion box, MyStarbucksIdea.com.

Since the site was announced last week, Starbucks customers have debated the merits of establishing a separate line to order brewed coffee, discounts for frequent buyers or seniors, and more.

"We are completely thrilled at the number of ideas (thousands!)," Chris Bruzzo, Starbucks Coffee chief technology officer, wrote on March 21.

Other businesses, such as hotels, have tapped the Web to collect and track customer comments. ClickZ columnist Heidi Cohen offered up these tips two years ago that are still relevant today.

Starbucks has found itself reassessing its growth strategy, saying it views 2008 as a "year of refocus and renewal." It plans to open 1,175 stores in the United States, down from the original target of 1,600, during the fiscal year. And it's accelerated plans to increase its target for store openings outside the U.S.

Posted by Anna Maria Virzi at 12:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Collective Media Is Powering quadrantOne

It's official. As reported here, Collective Media's AMP is indeed the platform quadrantOne is using to run ads across its network of newspaper sites.

Posted by Kate Kaye at 11:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Another Big Publisher Ditches Ad Networks

Earlier this year I wrote about Gawker's abstinence policy with regard to ad networks. "We feel there absolutely is value in not wasting our readers' attention on cheap, ugly advertisements... and maybe some good karma too," Gawker sales head Chris Batty told me at the time.

Now another major publisher is following suit. ESPN has decided to sever ties with ad networks and exchanges, according to a story in MediaWeek this morning.

Both Gawker and ESPN have expressed hope other publishers will follow suit. It's a great sales move, since it sends a message of love to brand advertisers and appears to take a stand against the math-driven approaches to ad targeting being championed by the major Web companies. But don't look for a general publisher rebellion against networks. Abstinence may work for sites representing a potent media brand in a narrow category (like ESPN), or for networks independently run on a shoestring (like Gawker). But dozens of others are deeply reliant on the incremental revenue offered by arbitrage and algorithms.

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 11:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Could Behavioral Targeting Work for Pharma?

At last week's EconHealth conference there was much talk about privacy issues, how the pharma and medical/health industry needs a major overhaul, and about emerging models for presenting health information and discussion online. There was a lot less talk about how to monetize that content, i.e. "The Economics of Health Media."

Still, a couple points were made regarding the money end of things, including advertising.

Steve Case, chairman and CEO of Revolution, which runs health info site Revolution Health, made a couple grandiose prognostications, including one about how the amount of money spent by pharma companies on Web ads will go from 5 percent to 50 percent in the next five or ten years.

More wishful thinking: The recession might help. "If some of these major companies come under some pressure, it's going to force some people out of their comfort zone….I think there will be an acceleration" of spending online, said the former AOL CEO.

Panelists reminded the audience multiple times that, like it will for sharing health information online, it took a long time for consumers to be comfortable with online banking. But this was something we've all heard umpteen times. Where was the conversation about the dollars and cents, the advertising? One question did percolate as I wondered, so I asked it during a panel on "Emerging Models: HealthContent & Web 2.0." (Note: No conference is complete without a panel whose title features the term Web 2.0 and/or social media. Also, collapsing two words into one suggests hipness.)

The question: Considering the privacy implications, will pharma advertisers ever use behavioral targeting? Raj Amin, CEO of Health video network HealthNation didn't rule out the possibility of pharma advertisers using behavioral targeting, despite the fact that people may not appreciate being targeted with ads based on interaction with content about a specific disease or condition. Still, he stressed contextual targeting raises fewer if any of concerns.

"Contextual doesn't send up the same kind of flags," he said. "Sure there's an opportunity" to explore use of behavioral targeting, he continued. "But it needs to be done in a way that's acceptable to consumers."

Posted by Kate Kaye at 9:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

March 21, 2008

Verizon Wins Auction 73

Verizon is the proud winner of Auction 73. The government auction the FCC held with bidders cloaked in secrecy. Google and Verizon were among the most public about their plans prior to the bidding proceedings.

In a statement from Verizon, "We were successful in achieving the spectrum depth we need to continue to grow our business and data revenues, to preserve our reputation as the nation's most reliable wireless network, and continue to lead in data services and help us satisfy the next wave of services and consumer electronics devices." The added bandwidth is likely to come into play with industry plans, as well as Verizon's own plans, for open mobile Web standards, which are expected become available later this year.

Posted by Enid Burns at 12:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Yahoo Mail Says: Don't Act Like Spammers

While reporting on Yahoo Mail's deliverability issues I spoke to a lot of great sources, including Yahoo. Here's a few spammy tidbits I left out. "Whenever we deploy some tighter, stricter filters, spammers are sometimes the first to complain," said Mark Risher, group product manager for Yahoo Mail. "No one considers himself a spammer; they just consider themselves aggressive e-mail marketers."

Risher closed with a word of advice for e-mail marketers. "Do whatever is in their power to make themselves look like good guys by not using tricks that spammers use, which will in the long run hurt them."

Posted by Enid Burns at 10:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

ClickZ at Kelsey Local Conference in Seattle

As you may know, ClickZ News covers a lot of online local ad news and trends. The Kelsey Group is dedicated to local, and I have the privilege of speaking at their upcoming conference in Seattle, Drilling Down on Local '08 to be held on April 30-May 2.

Posted by Kate Kaye at 10:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

March 20, 2008

AdBrite Opens Up to Other Ad Networks

AdBrite has cut deals with numerous ad networks, allowing them to sell inventory into its auction-based marketplace for mostly small to mid-sized sites. A dozen networks including Advertising.com, Burst Media, AdPepper Media, PrecisionClick and CPX Interactive are now trafficking ads with AdBrite, the company said.

AdBrite has worked with ad networks as part of a pilot program since fall 2007, a year after it embraced greater transparency into its audience stats and inventory avails. It was then, fourteen months before Facebook introduced a nifty audience configuration tool for marketers as part of its Social Ads program, that AdBrite created its interface letting media buyers plug in audience characteristics and immediately generate a count of available inventory.

It's all very exchange-like. Indeed, the new ad networks policy shows how tenuous is the distinction between ad networks and exchanges. An exchange is fundamentally an ad network that lets anyone -- including other networks -- trade inventory into an auction marketplace, finds the optimal pairing of advertiser and publisher, and charges fees rather than a percentage of sale. Like so many developments in the display ad arena these days, AdBrite's move takes the display ad business a step closer to that day when every unit of remnant inventory will be offered on the spot to every available buyer before connecting with the optimal creative execution.

AdBrite is the Internet's 17th ranked ad network (comScore, February 2008), reaching approximately 82 million monthly unique users last month. Comscore ranks the network fourth in page views however, with 25 million in December, roughly the same as ValueClick.

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 11:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

March 19, 2008

Rapping SEMPO at SESNY

At SES New York SEMPO hosted an entertaining gathering where Chuck Lewis, AKA MOserious performed a very special rap for the search industry audience.

Posted by Enid Burns at 2:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Matchpoint Pairs with WSJ, Local Relevance a Challenge

WSJ.com is running Matchpoint's ads in its classifieds sections, representing another financial site partner for the lead-gen ad firm. Though sites like Dow Jones-owned WSJ.com and Matchpoint partner Forbes.com are typically associated with pricier display ads from airlines or luxury goods brands, adding more direct response-oriented offerings helps them monetize non-premium site areas and appeal to new types of advertisers.

The plus for Matchpoint is more distribution for its advertiser partners, who bid on customer leads through an auction platform. Essentially, the consumer fills out a Matchpoint form asking for info like e-mail address and zip code. In this case they're WSJ-branded forms. Matchpoint vets the lead by sending the interested consumer an e-mail to ensure he wants to be contacted by the advertiser.

WSJ Careers, Real Estate and Small Business classifieds areas feature links to Matchpoint's browsable database of complementary services such as resume assistance and landscaping. The ads link to forms where users submit information such as e-mail address and zip code.
Forbes.com partnered with Matchpoint last October to run form-based display ad units on its site, allowing readers to connect with companies advertising online banking or credit card offers.

Matchpoint gives publisher partners a cut of the revenue collected from advertisers bidding on sales leads; the share depends on publisher partner size and volume of leads generated. Matchpoint touts the service as an alternative to Google AdSense, used by countless publishers in the advertising network to collect additional ad dollars.

The Forbes deal, which involves actual display ad units served throughout the site, seems a little more robust; at this point all Dow Jones is doing from what I've seen is including a link to a relevant Matchpoint search from "Partner Market Opportunities" sections in WSJ.com's jobs, real estate and small biz classifieds sections. For instance, the executive recruitment search page features a lengthy list of so-called partners, mainly standard lead gen stuff. A link to "Online Degrees" leads to EarnMyDegree.com; a "Find Small Business Software" link in the small biz resources area leads to KnowledgeStorm.com. The "Small Business Services" link in that section goes to a Matchpoint search for things like "Auto Loan" and "Furniture Systems."

So far, my experience trying out Matchpoint isn't exactly efficient. For instance, clicking from a "Career Marketplace" link on WSJ brings me to a form to input e-mail and zip code info. An e-mail comes soon thereafter, but rather than delivering me local career counseling services I can contact immediately, it provides me with a link to one company, another online lead gen service called Jobfox. When I go to that site, I have to submit even more information, including the e-mail and zip I just filled out on Matchpoint's form.

When reporting the Forbes deal last October, I tested the system, and then it also drove me down a lead gen rabbit hole. A search for "cleaners" in White Plains, NY resulted in a singular advertiser, The Done Right directory of local home improvement services. Not only did the site require an additional search by the user, its database didn't include White Plains.

The company has high hopes for building out its database with relevant local advertisers, rather than other lead gen firms, though. It's aggregating databases and now includes 11 million business listings. Also, the firm acquired GetVendors, which has a technology allowing small companies without a Web presence to contact potential clients via phone. The service basically spits out a temporary phone number that connects the merchant with the interested consumer, without divulging the consumer's actual number.

"A lot of people are starting to realize that there might be difficulties [with Web-only contact] considering these businesses are primarily phone-based," Matchpoint President Peter Adams told me, noting the phone system is "a key piece of our model as we expand into lead generation for local businesses."

Posted by Kate Kaye at 1:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Click Campaign '08 on Marketplace

If you didn't hear, American Public Media's Marketplace Morning Report ran a brief piece on online political advertising, for which I was interviewed.

Check it out, and if you're into the political thing, make sure to keep an eye on our regular coverage of the online presidential campaigns in our Campaign '08 section. Better yet, sign up for the dedicated ClickZ Campaign '08 RSS feed!

Posted by Kate Kaye at 11:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

March 18, 2008

Multivariate Testing for Agencies

Does your agency do multivariate testing? A few weeks ago when I sat down with Jonathan Mendez to discuss his new company Ramp Digital he said most of the companies doing multivariate testing had been acquired, and "Traditional agencies don't really have that knowledge in house to deliver that to clients."

Over lunch last week with Widemile's CEO and president Robert Bergquist, he laughed and wouldn't decline to agree with his friend Mendez's statement regarding the shortage of multivariate-capable companies. He welcomed the advantage Widemile has as it prepared to announce an agency solution at Search Engine Strategies this week.

After two and a half years with the Partner Zero product working with clients like Microsoft, The Weather Channel, Miva, Telenav, and other companies, the company is setting its sights and services on the agency. Entering beta is an on demand service that agencies will use to test all matter of creative from Web sites, landing pages, microsites, banner ads, text, images, and any other aspects of the Web you can design an A and a B or a C group for. Widemile also provides training to agencies to get account reps up to speed. The interface is accessed through a dashboard, and integrates with existing analytics services. Agency clients get a limited view based on what the agency sets up.

Bergquist isn't concerned Widemile's Partner Zero clients will turn their services over to their agencies, in fact, in many cases Widemile is helping its clients do just that. The Enterprise market is already overloaded with analytics, keyword testing, and other issues. As far as testing, he sees the move towards involving agencies with this product as the third wave in testing and optimization.

Initial agency clients include Avenue A | Razorfish, Zaaz, DDB, Red Bricks Media, TMP Direct, Closed Loop Marketing, Solutionset, Ascentium, Palazzo Interactive, ZeroDash1, Brand Digital, and Portent Interactive.

Posted by Enid Burns at 1:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Nicholas Carr: Google Rewiring the World

Declaring "we're at a major turning point in the history of computing," author Nicholas Carr today said major change is underway with ramifications for business, commerce, marketing, media, and the society.

Carr, author of "The Big Switch: Rewiring the World, from Edison to Google," likens the change in running computer systems to electricity generation.

In the second half of the 19th century, factory owners had to build and operate their own power generation facilities. Then, between 1910 and 1930, electricity generation shifted from manufacturers to centralized utility companies, which distributed power at lower cost thanks to economies of scale. With that change came an "explosion of innovation at the socket," said Carr, speaking at SES New York.

Computing, he said, is moving to a similar model as electricity. It's becoming available for less money -- a trend that too, will result in technological innovations that will affect businesses and consumers alike. And Google, which is building data centers and offering applications online, is one of the companies leading the new computing approach.

Consider these trends: software as media (e.g., Google) and media taking on characteristics of technology companies (e.g., NBC's entertainment "portal").

Plus, innovation is coming from companies with far smaller staffs than their traditional counterparts. When eBay purchased Skype, the Internet telephony service had only 200 employees and served the same number of customers as BT, the British telecom service, which employed 100,000. Likewise, Craigslist publishes an online classified ad network with only 20 employees, a fraction of the number of people selling ads in newspapers and other publications.

"Whenever you have technological and economic change of this magnitude, it's difficult to predict" what will happen, he warned.

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March 17, 2008

ValueClick Experiences Long Arm of Murphy's Law

Rather than attracting the luck of the Irish on this St. Patty's Day, it looks like ValueClick has fallen prey to Murphy's Law. The firm already garnered unwelcome headlines when it announced its settlement with the Federal Trade Commission a month ago, an agreement to cough up $2.9 million for allegedly violating the CAN-SPAM and FTC Acts.

But it looks like they've grabbed more ink this time around, as the FTC has put out its own official announcement regarding the settlement today.

The FTC has provided more detail on what ValueClick was charged with, and what the firm has agreed to. "According to the FTC's press release, "ValueClick subsidiary Hi-Speed Media used deceptive e-mails, banner ads, and pop-ups to drive consumers to its Web sites." Like other recent settlements with the FTC and the Florida Attorney General's Office, the offers promoted free items like plasma TVs that ended up costing consumers who "were led through a maze of expensive and burdensome third-party offers – including car loans and satellite television subscriptions – which they were required to 'participate in' at their own expense, in order to receive the promised 'free' merchandise."

Perhaps more damaging, the commission alleged Hi-Speed Media and ValueClick subsidiary E-Babylon "failed to secure consumers’ sensitive financial information, despite their claims to do so."

The company now must disclose the true costs of "free" offers and can no longer make false claims about security of consumer data collected on e-commerce sites.

ValueClick originally announced the settlement February 13 in conjunction with its Q4 2007 earnings report. The firm recorded the $2.9 million charge related to the settlement in that quarter.

According to the FTC, it's the heftiest settlement based on the CAN-SPAM legislation. The agency voted 5-0 to approve the final order.

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Web Analytics and Hippos

Some Web sites fall flat because they're designed by hippos.

That's the name Avinash Kaushik, Google's analytics evangelist, gives to the highest paid opinion, or hippo, in the room.
In citing an example, he said he did a search for a bathroom sink and the search results turned up Delta Faucet; the link took the visitor to a Web page featuring faucets, not sinks, Kaushik said. "What the hell are they thinking, selling me faucets," he said, stressing that many other Web sites make similar oversights.

Kaushik had the audience laughing several times during a Web analytics discussion at SES NY.

Bringing up a theme raised by others today, Kaushik said clicks -- as a success metric -- shouldn't be the ultimate goal. Generating revenue and profit for the business is what counts.

Citing another metric, he called the bounce rate a good indicator of a site's shortcoming or "suckiness." Why? "It measures, from a user's perspective: I came, I puked, I left," he said.

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DoubleClick Acknowledges Widget Ads, Will Support Them

There used to be a running joke at DoubleClick that the company should hire a VP of widget technology. "It'd be a short-lived career," VP of Advertiser Products Ari Paparo told me in an interview last August. He uttered the somewhat mocking remark by way of acknowledging that ever more advertisers were asking for widget capabilities.

Six months later DoubleClick is giving them what they want. The Google-owned firm today announced support for widget (i.e. "embeddable") ads. The function will reside within DART for Advertisers, where agencies will be able to easily add "virality" to their rich media campaigns.

Gigya is supporting the ad sharing component through its Wildfire technology, which can process widget installs on 50 social media platforms, including social networks, blogs and bookmarking services.

The main value DoubleClick can bring to the widget advertising phenomenon is standardized reporting. DFA customers will be able to obtain metrics on the number of impressions, interactions, viral “grabs” for each of the social networks. That may eventually help marketers gauge the conversion impact of all that viral sharing.

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Web Analytics and Star Trek

Companies fall into a trap when they collect Web site statistics.

They report statistics, not analyze them, said Matthew Bailey, president of SiteLogic Marketing.

Bailey, addressing an audience at SES NY, said a company must first know what its goals are, and then identify key performance indicators to track such as sales leads or downloads. "Then focus on a goal and ask how are we reaching that goal," he said. "Start asking those kinds of questions rather than how many unique visitors we have each month."

Bailey advocates the use of "segmentation" to track a company's Web site performance. What exactly does that have to do with Star Trek?

To make his point, Bailey referred to the original Star Trek television series, which was aired in the 1960s. He said the starship Enterprise started with a crew of 430 people. By year five, 59 crew members had died; 43 of whom, or 73 percent were wearing red shirts. The others were in yellow or blue shirts. "We have a little bit of knowledge, but we don't have any indicator what we can do with it," he said.

After a little more digging, Bailey said one would learn that 57.5 percent of the crew members who accompanied Captain Kirk on a mission died. If they accompanied the captain when he met an alien woman, the survival rate soared to 84 percent. Comparing the circumstances when red shirt crew died is an example of segmentation, he said, advising the audience to apply the concept to Web site analytics. For instance, a site that sells both MP3 players and digital cameras should track results for each product to gain additional insights on what works and doesn't work.

"Segmenting your visitors, where they came from, what they are looking for…trying to find the goals and motivations of your visitors and segmenting them to get a little bit of intelligence," he said.

Bailey says he's surprised by how many companies still tracking the number of "hits" they receive. "It's so '90s," he says. "We have to get beyond reporting these types of numbers…it drives me insane," he said, imploring the audience to dig deeper into the data that's collected.

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China and Russia to See Big Digital Ad Growth

Growth in global online ad spend will slow significantly in 2008 and 2009, according to forecasts issued today by media communications agency Carat.

The forecasts estimate that global digital spend will slow from 27 percent increase year-on-year in 2007, to 23 percent in 2008. This figure is expected to drop further in 2009 to around 18 percent.
In North America it's a similar story, with online growth slowing from 18 percent in 2008 to around 15 percent in 2009.

According to the forecasts, all regions examined will experience double-digit year-on-year growth in digital spend. Areas of substantial growth will include China and Russia, which will experience 56 percent and 46 percent growth respectively in 2008.

Meanwhile, online ad spend in Europe is predicted to slow from 28 percent year-on-year growth in 2008, to 23 percent in 2009, and despite China's huge increase in spend, growth in Asia overall is expected to slow from 30 percent in 2008, to just 16 percent in 2009.

Though digital spending will slow, Mainardo de Nardis, CEO of Carat's parent company Aegis Media, noted in a company statement, "Digital's success story continues…. We predict it will approach a 10 percent share of all global ad spend in 2009."

Posted by Jack Marshall at 1:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

March 14, 2008

Net Neutraility - The Saga Continues

Recently, I upgraded my Verizon DSL service at home. A rep called last night with a bunch of customer experience questions, all of which I responded to with a "satisfactory" or "very good." Except one. The rep was stunned when he asked how likely I was to recommend Verizon to a friend on a scale of one to 10.

"Zero" was my emphatic reply.

He was kind of stunned and asked why. "Verizon's position on net neutrality," was my immediate response.

I'm still looking (in vain) for a viable (read under $300 per month) home broadband option. Despite being a confirmed Apple fanatic, I refuse to get an iPhone. After all, AT&T started the whole anti-net neutrality movement. And I'm still looking for new ways anyone who wants, needs, uses, or makes a living from the Web can voice their support for a free and open Internet.

I'm introducing a panel at Search Engine Strategies on Monday entitled "Network Neutrality is for On-Line Marketers, Too!" If you're attending SES, don't miss it. This issue is just too important.

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Great Experiences: BMW Scores with TED Talks

TED conference attendees hear talks from some of the planet's most inspired minds, the fruits of which were unavailable to the public for the first ten years of the event's existence. That changed in 2006, when TED's organizers began podcasting the presentations through an exclusive sponsorship with BMW. The deal blossomed into a more involved collaboration on TED's expanding Web site as well as the event itself. (BMW's Hydrogen 7 was displayed in a TED 2008 "simulcast lounge" featuring alternative fuel vehicles.)

There's an obvious closeness and mutual respect between TED and its sponsor, easily gleaned from the language the organizers use to describe the relationship. Said TED:

The talks outpaced our expectations, drawing more than 8.5 million views to date. But what impressed us more than the numbers was the impact the talks had on viewers; bloggers wrote emotional accounts of their viewing experience, and passed a great deal of their gratitude on to BMW (With comments like, "Thank you BMW for making these available on my iPod").

This initial response convinced us we were on to something much bigger than we anticipated. And so we began to reimagine what TED might become online. The result: This new website. Also sponsored, in part, by BMW.

Through the process of working together, we've discovered a lot of common ground between BMW and TED, stemming from the fact that we're both independent, idea-driven organizations. And one of BMW's main focus points holds particular interest to many in the TED community: sustainable mobility.

When marketers talk about value you can't buy, this is exactly the sort of thing they mean. But warm fuzzies aside, the ad experience BMW and TED also happens to be outstanding. See for yourself in the following delightful video from Sir Ken Robinson asking the question, "Do schools kill creativity?"

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March 13, 2008

Interactive TV Not Measuring Up

Interactive television won't succeed until cable companies reach agreement on measurement standards, said two Starcom MediaVest executives.

An initiative undertaken by six major cable companies, called Canoe, is a step in the right direction, said Jen Soch, MediaVest USA's VP and director of advanced TV.

Tracey L. Scheppach, vice president/video innovation director at Starcom USA, said flaws include video-on-demand's poor navigation and an inability to insert ads dynamically.

Unless these shortcomings are addressed, Soch and Scheppach warned that advertising dollars would move into broadband. Both spoke today at day two of the McGraw-Hill Media Summit in New York City.

Problem is, the more things change, the more they stay the same. That's because interactive TV's promise hasn't been fulfilled for at least three decades.

Expressing a little more optimism was Scott Brown, SVP, strategic relations, marketing/technology at Nielsen. The media measurement firm is working with Charter Communications to obtain and resell anonymous digital set-top box (STB) data for analyzing and measuring audience. That venture, announced yesterday, involves TV viewers in Los Angeles.

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