October « 2008 « The Direct Approach

Do You Know What Colours Work in Your Advertising?

Thursday, October 30th, 2008

Have you ever wondered what colours would look good in your ads? Do you know what the colours behind your logo or brand mean?
About.com has great content explaining what colours mean. Next time you’re sitting in your creative director’s office you can thoughtfully ask them if they used the colour orange to stumulate emotions or to bridge a gap and see how they answer. Good test to see if they know why they did what they did!

Not sure what colour to make that starburst in your ad? Take a moment and check out COLOURLovers

COLOURlovers gives the people who use color – whether for ad campaigns, product design, or in architectural specification – a place to check out a world of color, compare color palettes…

Because ads are about visual stimulation, colour is/can be very important to your audience. You should be testing a variety of colours in your marketing campaigns to determine what colours perform best for you. Do the same colours perform well both in off and online for you? Have you tested it even?

It’s important to understand the role that colour plays in your marketing/advertising efforts and ensure any findings are incorporated in each and every one of your briefs – and how that differs by tactic – if it does.

Photo Credit: November Fresh by Raeanne

30.10.2008 online marketing No Comments

Email Marketing Influences Online Purchasers

Tuesday, October 28th, 2008

In an increasingly troubled market, I think it’s important to focus on marketing that works – or at least provides results or great ROI. Email is one of those tactics that is often overlooked or dismissed because of all the spam out there. However, despite all of that spam, people still rely on email marketing. Receiving promotional emails is consistently one of the top-three influencers for online purchasers – based on stats released in a study from eMarketer this past April.

Now of course as you can see in the results, the size of influence depends greatly on age and location, but with that in mind – isn’t it time you re-evaluated your email marketing strategy to see if you’re providing value as well up/cross selling where you can?

Notice I said providing value first. Value is key to keeping your subscriber numbers up. If you provide value, you can build a relationship and establish some form of credibility with your customers (or potential customers), which means when those promotional emails come out, they are more likely to influence those purchasers.

28.10.2008 Email Marketing, email campaigns No Comments

Google Analytics – Not Just a Toy Any More

Friday, October 24th, 2008

The big excitement in the web analytics world this week was Google’s announcement of the changes that took place to their Analytics Software recently.

You can read more detail in some of the posts that have since spawned here and here.

What’s most interesting about this is how the big guys must be shaking in their boots. Let’s not forget, Google is still free. With these enhancements – especially the advanced segmentation features (I’m drooling), suddenly Google has just entered the major leagues.

Analytics tools like Omniture and Web Trends have been charging tidy sums of money for these kinds of services for years and now they are free.

Let’s not forget that the ability to custom reports, more complex data extraction (API) and fun “dancing” bubble charts have always been the claim to fame for some of these companies. It’s been their unique and differentiating factor from Google. They could give us something Google couldn’t. And implementing these things were so complex that they required huge internal tech team coordination and support staff/client care reps whose job it was to keep you so confused that you didn’t think you could live without paying for their services.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying the pay-for analytics models don’t have a place or that they aren’t any good. In fact, many of these tools still have their own unique factors and still offer much more robust services than Google does – which for the biggest of biggest clients – is definitely required.

But these companies will need to get better at explaining why it costs so much for their services and why you need them vs. the freebie.

For companies – it will become increasingly important to create vendor RFPs designed to understand and evaluate which service or company can best deliver on your analytics objectives and needs.

Looks like times are changing – and with the current economic crisis, I’m inclined to think a lot of the small-mid sized companies are going to be looking long and hard at which analytics system best fits their needs.

24.10.2008 Google Analytics, Omniture, Web analytics, analytics tools 2 Comments

Why You Need to Understand Where Your Website Visitors Come From

Wednesday, October 22nd, 2008

Where do your visitors come from? I mean really come from – and I’m not referring to backgrounds or locations. I mean how do they get to your site? It definitely wasn’t magic (although we all like to think so now and again).

More likely than not some form of search (paid or organic) is going to be the largest source of traffic. If it’s not you have bigger problems that won’t be helped byt this post.

But what about after search? What is the biggest source of traffic? Is there one site that stands out on a regular basis? Or perhaps it’s a matter of “bookmarked” or “typed” urls (which is basically people opening up their browser and either manually typing in your website, or selecting it from their favourtites).

Whatever that source is – do you give it a second thought? What do you do with that information?

Do you look to see what people do once they land on your site from that particular source? Do they convert? Do they view specific content? What are their habits? Are there any patterns you can identify to help you either provide better content, help them convert or improve your overall marketing experience?

Say they come from website X – should you go spend all of your ad dollars on website X? Maybe. Maybe not. Why wouldn’t you spend all your ad dollars on that site? Well back to my earlier question of what do people do when they come to your site? Did visitors from site X convert? Did they do so at a higher or lower ration as compared to your site’s average conversion rate?

If you answered yes, then you definitely might want to consider checking out some sort of relationship with that site (if you don’t have one), after you investigate what it was that caused your traffic spike and sent people to your site in the first place.

Once you have that information – you can use it to better understand why people are coming to the site, what they are looking for and how you might work with that site owner/pubisher to create valuable content (which can also be in the form of ads) that will continue to not only drive traffic, but keep site X’s conversion rates at the same (or higher) levels.

If the conversion rate for visitors from site X was lower than your site’s average conversion rate – the question you have to ask is, is it worth it to go spend money and advertise on that site for more traffic that doesn’t convert? Perhaps. Again once you know why or how visitors are coming to your site from site X, you can then determine if you think there’s a way to improve that conversion rate.

If for whatever reason you decide you don’t think you can improve the conversion rate then perhaps you should look at focusing your ad dollars elsewhere – maybe there’s another site out there that is providing you less traffic, but a much higher conversion rate. Wouldn’t you rather spend your money focused on converting more of these individuals than by driving large numbers of unconverting traffic?

It’s not enough anymore to say “Wow site X drives lots of traffic, let’s advertise there.” Pathing tools available within any analytics system (even the free ones), if set up properly, can start to give you a better understanding of visitor behaviour and help you make more informed advertising decisions, which should increase your ROI and… and… and…

Photo Credit: afreeta; Stock Xchng

22.10.2008 Rebecca Atkinson (Muller), Web analytics, analytics tools, online advertising, web marketing, websites 2 Comments

Online Ad Measurment: The Shorter the Better

Monday, October 20th, 2008

There really is a reason why publishers insist on animated ads stopping after 15 seconds.

Now I’m not speaking about video ads (with play and pause buttons) which apparently do work better with 30-second clips as per some study results, instead I’m talking about your traditional banner ads that are flash – or video (but look more like flash).

Many sites won’t even allow ads more than 15-seconds in length for a variety of reasons including band-width, file size and demand on their resources, but there are some that do (although I think you’ll be hard pressed to find any major sites accepting these lengths).

Working with a client on a US-based brand awareness campaign for B2B services, I was reviewing the previous fiscal year online advertising results. I found that a Fall ‘08 campaign saw expandable ads with some of the creative (flash) at 15 seconds, while others were closer to 30 seconds. The only difference between the two versions were how fast the animation occurred and how smooth it was.

When it came time to refresh Spring creative, the client’s agency made sure that the ads were no more than 15 seconds and that the animation and transition of frames were very smooth so as not to run into the same types of problems that they had previously.

Comparing, results, the biggest thing that jumped out at me was that Interaction rates (the proportion of ad viewers who interact with an online ad by rolling and expanding it) jumped by 4% and brand interaction (the amount of time someone was exposed to your brand with the ad expanded) raised by a full second.

The overall theme of the campaign was the same, while it did have a visual refresh (images only), the overall concept was identical, including the wording of the ads – even how the user was asked to expand and interact with the content and how the company referred to themselves. I also checked ad placement, since in some cases accidental roll overs can be included in these rates – the ads were placed in the same sections, and used the same ratio of various ad sizes.

The only real difference was the content itself once interacted with was the main change in the ads, but a user would not know this until they expanded the ad.

I was tasked with explaining why there was such a large difference with the two ads. I had one of two theories:

1) The imagery used was either much more powerful and eye catching, which definitely may be part of the equation

2) The ads simply got to the punch line quicker. Instead of taking nearly 30 seconds to ask someone to interact with the ad, the new ads took no more than 15 seconds.

My money is on the second theory. I’m sure imagery could have had something to do with things and potentially caught someone’s eye better than the previous campaign, but what kept the attention and encouraged them to expand when the copy was the same? The fact that the user was asked to interact sooner rather than later

When you think about it, 15 seconds is a massive time difference to a user browsing web content who didn’t actually come to the site to see your ad in the first place.

Knowing that you have 10 seconds or less to keep someone on your website, you can apply the same theory in principal to your ads. We know users haven’t arrived at the website to see your ad, so it makes sense that you have a little longer than that 10 seconds to capture a user’s attention since they first have to spot your ad before you can capture their attention.

My personal recommendation? If you’re trying to encourage in-ad interaction make sure that request comes around that 12-second mark for optimal rates. That being said, it’s important to remember that testing to determine what works best for your company is always recommended.

Photo Credit: Daino_16; Stock Xchng

20.10.2008 Web analytics, online ad measurement, online advertising No Comments

What Happens When You Make Subscribers Work

Thursday, October 16th, 2008

What happens when you make subscribers work? They get angry.

I can’t tell you how frustrating it is to receive an email that I no longer want and realize I can’t unsubscribe from without jumping through hoops. Making your email subscribers log in to an account (if they can even remember the appropriate information), find the preferences area so they can then determine what they might be subscribed to – just so they can unsubscribe, takes a whole lot of work.

I have an email account that I rarely check simply because it contains email subscriptions that I can’t seem to unsubscribe from because I signed up years ago and quite frankly no longer remember the passwords to get into those accounts. And there seems to be no easy way to figure out how to unsubscribe: sending emails back didn’t work.

Sure, I could probably click on the “forgot my password” link and go from there, but honestly – my time is valuable (to me) and that’s a whole lot of work just to tell you I don’t want to hear from you. In fact, it really makes me quite annoyed. And an annoyed subscriber or customer is not usually a good thing.

It doesn’t matter how big your email list is, it’s quality over quanity. If you have a large list of annoyed subscribers who can’t get off, surely your list isn’t valuable to you. If your list isn’t valuable to you, then neither are the people on the list. If the people on the list are not valuable to you – then what are you really saying about your current or potential customers/clients?

It’s not about keeping subscribers at all costs. Sometimes people just don’t want to subscribe any more. If you force me to stay on your list, rest assured I’m going to remember that in a negative way by, say, not giving you my business or telling my friends about it. How’s that for Word of Mouth Marketing?

Moral of this post? Please! Make it easy for people to not only sign up to your newsletters (or any other content), but make it just as easy for them to unsubcribe. Feel free to give them the option to tell you why you they want to unsubscribe but don’t make it impossible for them to leave you.

Remember that old cliche – if you love something let it go, if it’s meant to be it will come back? You can apply that here too.

Photo Credit: Incurable Hippie; Flickr

16.10.2008 Email Marketing 2 Comments

Colour Me Pink – For October

Thursday, October 9th, 2008

Just like most bloggers, I too have gone Pink for October, albeit I am a little late to join the pary.

Any cancer cause is an important one.

What started out as a joke between co-workers, has turned into a wonderful marketing/fund raising/education/awareness program that is taking over the web.

In 2006, the first year for this, 1,500 sites went pink, and 3,000 last year. With the power of social media, there should be thousands of pink sites already, however, I’m listed as the 667th entry.

It’s important though for sites that go pink to sign up so they can track their success.

In order for this to get more and more powerful each year, it’s important to have the data to back it up and to be able to try and understand where and who they are reaching – a neat little graph on the sign up page shows over 70% of those of us who have signed up are women. But many of my pals on Twitter who are promoting this are men, so I’m left to wonder how accurate the stats really are, since I know there are thouands of sites already pink?

Moral of the post? It’s fun to go pink, but to be effective, don’t forget to actually count yourself in this worldwide event.

09.10.2008 affiliate marketing 2 Comments

5 Questions to Ask Yourself When Looking at Seasonality Trends

Thursday, October 2nd, 2008

Are you using your analytics system effectively? If you only think about business when you’re reviewing the numbers, then the answer is no.

As the leaves begin to turn colour this year, I find myself thinking back to where I was and what I was doing last year at this time. Let’s see: I was engaged and was just striking out on my own from the comfort of a regular paycheck into the whole world of freelancing/consulting. I spent a lot of time wondering whether or not I’d made the right move.

That seems like a lifetime ago. I have zero regrets about my decision to freelance, and am still loving it, but I’m officially married now, have a whole new set of family members, added a kitten to the hubby plus two dog family we have, and spent a whole lot of time renovating our home, which is a whole other tangent for some DIY blog….

Seasonality is a trend that many marketers talk about: how did you do year over year? It’s a great question and an important one – but one that sometimes has to be taken into consideration against several other factors.

Sure, you go into your analytics system and can pull data for the same date ranges from last year and this year, and look at the numbers. But what does that tell you? It’s just numbers.

You need to look at the numbers in context to what was happening at that time and what was different year to year.

1. Were there any major staffing changes (especially on the web/marketing team or even agencies?)
2. Did you have any product launches?
3. What about marketing campaigns? Did you use the same vehicles? Same time frames? How different was the message and/or the campaign itself?
4. For social media, how were you using it last year versus this year (or were/are you?) Were you even aware of how your company/product was perceived in this regard?
5. What was going on in the world?

At first glance, this last point doesn’t have much to do with your business – yet it absolutely has everything to do with your business when you think about it. What happens in the world, even locally, can affect the behaviour of your customers.

Many of my U.S. clients who are either in the financial sector, or have their stocks traded, are noticing a lot more activity on their sites right now. And as much as I’d like to take credit for that, it has nothing to with any marketing campaign; it has to do with what is taking place in the markets and the current financial crisis, which is an important distinction to note when we go back and look at data from last year – or what we plan to look at next year.

It’s also a key thing to factor in when setting benchmarks: how will some of these things affect the goals and KPIs you set for your business in the coming year?

Here’s where you can use your analytics system to your advantage – most systems give you the ability to make notes or add little flags so you can keep track of any major changes. Here’s where many companies fail at using this option effectively. They use this only for business or marketing changes, or in some cases don’t use it all, because they think they know or will remember any major changes.

Making notes in the system that correspond to major political changes or happenings, major disasters or even changes that affect your local community if your business isn’t national is just as important as noting site redesigns or marketing campaign changes. In fact, noting significant staff changes is not a bad idea either.

The more data you have the better, the more you might be able to start understanding the “why” behind certain things and not just state the facts. There’s a story behind every number, and using your analytics system to look at the bigger picture can help you discover what that story is.

Photo Credit: Ralph Atkinson

02.10.2008 Web analytics, analytics tools 2 Comments

Subscribers