Now this isn’t the most exciting news of the day. Most people are pumped up for Google’s release of the Nexus One. Granted a new phone is always cool. I remember when I first touched my iPhone. It was an exciting moment.

However, nothing really gets the blood flowing like online advertising. I mean who doesn’t love the random ads on the top of your Gmail account when you’re at work. Like right now mine says something about ESPN.com. I don’t know why. I’m about as coordinated as an inebriated gazelle.

What’s my point? I’m sure I have one. The point is online advertising is sexier than a new phone. The reason for my excitement is because JPMorgan has come out with their forecasts for online advertising in 2010. And their forecast calls for mostly sunny and high percent chance it will rain money.

Online advertising is a large part of what we offer clients at BOALT. That includes display advertising, search advertising and mobile advertising. According to JPMorgan, 2009 saw a 5.2 percent decline in revenues bringing in only $7.5 billion. However, things are looking up for 2010. According to JPMorgan forecasts, 2010 should see a 10.5% bump to $8.3 billion. Which means great things for everyone.

The bump is being credited to a rising market and growing trust in the economy from both consumers and businesses. The most surprising forecast is in SMS advertising. JPMorgan expects it to grow from $2.3 billion in 2009 to $3.8 billion in 2010. That’s a large bump.

SMS advertising is often an opt-in service. Say you’re looking for sports scores and you sign up for a text back response service that will send the score to your phone. Once you receive the information there is usually a brief ad at the bottom with a phone number or link. Some people find it annoying, but turns out that people actually do click on those links.

JPMorgan is also forecasting a 13.2% growth in search advertising to $16.6 billion.

What does this mean for you? Well it means that it’s probably safe to go back in the water. So get your floaties.

Pay-per-click is the most effective way to direct traffic to a particular website. BOALT has created many successful pay-per-click campaigns for our clients and from our many years working in pay-per-click we’ve learned a few things about creating a successful campaign. I’m going to share the five most important:

1. Keyword Analysis: Make a comprehensive list of keywords and phrases that best represent your product or service. This list will grow and change daily. Constantly monitor the success and failure of a particular keyword. Ad words to describe your product or service but know the keywords your customer will use to find what you’re offering.
2. Curb the Creativity: A lot of people might disagree but given the space restrictions for pay-per-click ads it is best to tailor your copywriting to more specifics and less abstract creative copy. Tell your customer what you are selling and for how much. Don’t try to wow them with creativity.
3. Place Ads Everywhere: Google provides the most successful platform for pay-per-click advertising with Google AdWords but don’t forget about Bing and Yahoo and especially LinkedIn. All target a specific taste and market. You would be doing a disservice to yourself if you focused only on one platform.
4. Negative Keywords: A comprehensive list of keywords are essential to success. But don’t forget to create a negative keyword list. That is a list of keywords or phrases that your ads won’t appear when searched. For example, if you aren’t giving away anything for free then ad free to your negative keyword list This will ensure that people looking for free things don’t click on your ad. Because when they do you won’t convert them to a sale because they’re not looking to buy. Get several hundred people looking for free stuff on your site and you’ve just wasted a large percent of your ad budget on visitors who never intended to buy anything.
5. Examine Your Stats: Each of the pay-per-click platforms from Google to Yahoo provide a plethora of statistical information about your ads. Obviously look at your clicks and conversions but don’t stop there. Look at everything and do it everyday, throughout the day. Pay-per-click campaigns must always be changing and adapting to be successful. You can’t just post some ads and forget about them. You have to stay on top of them to be successful.

Your success with pay-per-click is directly related to the amount of work you put into it. Follow these steps and put a particular focus on number five.

Today as I write this it is Friday 13th.

Seems a good day to talk about leaving things to chance, right?

What do I mean when I say “leaving marketing to chance”?

Let’s take a look at your process. When you put out a message to your customers or audience, what do you do?

• Do you have a system that you follow?
• Do you measure your response?
• How do you improve the process for next time?

This is what I mean by leaving things to chance. If you do not monitor, track, test, and analyze, then you are shooting from the hip.

That’s fine if you are doing things that way intentionally. If your “gut” has served you well, then fair play, who am I to tell you otherwise.

Face it though, if you do not know how successful a message has been, and you do not know why, then one day it could come back and bite you.

I test everything. Even when I can not use sophisticated tools, I still test as best as I can.

My list of 102 headline formulas is called “proven” for a reason. When I told people if they should use a popup email box or not, I had data to back up my arguments. Even my tweets are split tested to the best of my ability.

It’s not enough to get results, you have to know exactly the results, and work out why. Otherwise there is no system, no consistancy, and no improvement.

Is McDonalds the fast food power house it became because of their burger recipes? Probably not, we have all eaten better food. It is their systems that made them the success they are. Systems in production, management, marketing, even real estate.

You have to have a similar attitude in your marketing.

Do you know why your last campaign worked or didn’t work? Take a look, and learn, starting now

The horror film Paranormal Activity is calling its release “The First Ever Major Film Release Decided by You.” In an unheard turn of events, Paramount Pictures agreed to give the film a wide release if 1 million people demanded it and yesterday they hit that total.

The easiest film genre to make a buck off of is horror. Why else would Saw VI be coming out this month? Not because it’s hoping to win an Oscar but because it’s going to make a ton of money.  The ROI on horror films in huge in comparison to other genres.

Take Saw V for example. The budget for the film was $10,800,000 and it made $30 million its opening weekend and ended with $56 million for its theatrical run. This doesn’t even include DVD sales and television deals.

Now we have a film like Paranormal Activity which was made for $15,000 and 1 million people who say they want to see the film. It’s a brilliant marketing move by Paramount. They are getting the word out for a film while only committing to show it if enough of us want to see it.

News agencies have written stories about the campaign and with the word of mouth sales of midnight screenings in venues across the country, the marketing for this film resembles that of a viral video rather than the traditional marketing of Hollywood films.

Paranormal Activity is a lot like the Blair Witch Project in its execution and production value but a good scare is priceless and although this film will not be winning any awards, it’s exciting to see small films make a splash, even if it’s a splash of blood.

Let’s just get it out on the table. Contextual advertising outperform display advertising. Okay, I said it. It’s true. Everyone will agree on that, so let’s move past that. The important thing for us to remember is that display ads are far from dead or obsolete. In fact I believe there is a resurgence on the horizon as we begin to learn more and more about the unknown power of display ads.

In May, iProspect published a study outlining the effectiveness of display ads with some surprising results. What they found was that 31% of those polled clicked on banner ads when displayed. Not exactly groundbreaking but the interesting part of the study is that they found an additional 27% don’t click on the ad, but instead perform a search for the company or product on a search engine. The study goes on to state the number grows to 49% who will eventually perform a search for the product, service, or company originally seen in the display ad. That’s impressive for an ad that a lot of us thought was on its way out.

I’ve had a lot of success with display ads. Again, it doesn’t compare to the success of contextual ads but enough success to not completely give up on display ads.

We had real success with display ads in a campaign for one of our clients: Dukky. What we did was first create contextual ad campaigns in Google, Yahoo and Bing. Once we had those going strong we moved on to display ads.

The following is what you need to know to create an effective display advertising campaign. Some of these are obvious and some you’ll learn along the way:

1. Research, research, research. You have to know where to sell your ad. The content networks of Google and Yahoo are great at placing your ads on a million websites but your product may be better suited for 200 of those sites or really just 30. Once you know your product and you know your ideal customer, you’ll know the sites you need to place ads.

With Dukky we researched mostly marketing sites. We looked at sites whose core audience was company decision makers. This is an important step to get the client involved because they know their industry better than we ever will.

2. Create site tailored designs. It is important to get noticed but we’ve found that it is just as effective to blend in. Create ads that fit into web pages. You should study the website that you want to place your ad. Then base your ad concept on the concept of the site. For example, we ran an ad on Guy Kawasaki’s blog How to Change the World. We decided to run our ad with copy based on the concept of How to Change the World.

Here’s the ad:

We used the same colors that Guy Kawasaki uses on his website. It looked like it belonged on the site. The ad turned out to be very effective. We did the same thing with each ad we created. This can be time consuming when it is so much easier to create one or two great ads and run them over a gamut of websites but it’s worth it to write site specific copy and create site specific designs.

Here’s how the ad looked on the page:

3. Write short, to the point copy. Internet banner ads are like TV ads, they only have a second or two to catch the viewer’s attention. After that you’ve lost them. So your ads have to be able to sell your product in a few words or with great graphics.

Like this ad we ran for Dukky on TechCrunch:

This banner has a very strong image. It is also pretty clear and to the point but it doesn’t give away too much. You know that direct marketing is on its last leg and you know that Dukky has the solution. So click on the ad if you want to improve your direct marketing efforts. This little ad says all of that and it was catered to a tech audience who has become numb to display advertising.

4. Have a strong call-to-action. When someone sees your ad they need to know what to do. So say: click, buy, download, request, and sign up. Whatever. Just make it clear and strong. Or use “kill it.” That was our call-to-action in the ad above. It works well, I’ll vouch for that.

5. Be able to let an ad die. I know that every word of copy I submit to clients is priceless. Sure a lot of copy dies a brutal and painful death on my computer but the things I ultimately decide to pass along are like the Dead Sea Scrolls but sometimes the clients don’t like them. Sometimes my boss doesn’t like them and I’m afraid he’s going to fire me. It’s tough but you have to learn to let it go. Same goes for ads that have made it from the drawing board to realization and are online. If they aren’t performing well then you have to take them out. You can’t waste the time and the money on an ad that isn’t performing, no matter how clever you think the line or the graphic is.

6. Be open to client feedback. It is important again to recognize that your client knows his product better than you do and they can give you great insight. So bounce a lot of ideas off of them and sometimes their responses will be frustrating and you’ll be dismissive but sometimes they’ll be great ideas. Again take the bloody cleaver ad. As much as I want to take credit for that copy, I can’t. That came from a long collaboration with the client. I rambled on about how I’d been exploring a more apocalyptic idea and the client came back with that copy. We ran with it and our creative director came back with this kick-ass design. We posted it and it’s doing well. But remember to listen to the clients. I’m saying that for the record because I know some of our clients are reading this and we want them to think we always listen to them.

7. Lastly, and most importantly, you have to have a solid site and product to back up effective ads. We could work for weeks designing the perfect combination of display ads and contextual ads to drive thousands of consumers to a client’s website but if they arrive on the site and it’s impossible to navigate or the product is crap, then there’s nothing we can do to sell it. So if you are trying to start your own campaign for your business then first you need to look at your product and you need to look at your website. Once those are perfected you can focus on creating ads. If you’re having trouble getting that done, that’s when you call someone like us.

Some of the other ads we created for this campaign:

Many social media proponents try to make the case for social media being cheap and easy, when in fact when you actually try to implement a social media marketing campaign you discover it is anything but.

Just because someone has a ton of Twitter followers and FaceBook friends, does not mean they know how to do the same for a business, or create tangible results.

As an example I have a client with two common, but extremely difficult challenges to overcome:

1. They have multiple web properties to promote
2. Their existing sites are very commercial, which limits their social media momentum

Consider your own situation, do you have these same issues?

Social Media Resists Corporate and Commercial

• A corporate website or ecommerce store? Good luck getting social media traction, in many social media services “for profit” = “spam”
• Low resources and no dedicated staff time
• Little internal buy-in for adding to already tough workload

This is where the “Social Media Hub” strategy can come into play.

Rather than try to promote your commercial sites in social media, instead you create a new social media friendly web property or blog.

Build a Loyal, Engaged Audience, Funnel Attention

You use this new hub to archive all your social media content such as photographs, audio podcasts and YouTube videos, and build an audience by driving your social media following to engage you at the hub. Essentially you go to where your audience already hangs out, give them engaging content, then get them to follow you back home.

Once you have an audience following you to your hub, then you keep them returning and build their loyalty using email newsletters, blog feeds, community and Twitter/FaceBook groups.

This attention can then be funneled to your ecommerce/service offers, your news articles, events and campaigns.

Although this hub strategy appears to be a lot of work, it is a lot less effort than creating social media targeted content distributed across your existing web properties, and is more likely to gain traction because it is developed as social media friendly from the outset. Rather than raise red flags and label you as a spammer, your following will actually promote your content for you, creating a viral effect, and thus lessening your reliance on your own scarce resources.

Target Specific Audiences, Match Their Needs

You can even create hubs for specific demographics, which through focus creates even better traction, rather than attempting a one-size-fits-all approach.

By addressing the unique requirements of a profile you can taylor the content, media, packaging and presentation to the exact needs and preferences of your most wanted audience, and give them everything they need to get involved and take action.

What you have to remember is that a social media user is unlikely to want to hear from your CEO, they want to hear stories that connect with them, engage with services that address their challenges and answer their questions. Rather than feeling sold to, they should feel at home with your content.

Often that means giving them a safe, specifically designed environment, and only taking them to buy when you have gained their full trust.

I’m really liking the new LinkedIn DirectAds Beta program.  The cost-per-click is reasonable compared to Google Adwords and the targeting is great.  I launched a campaign yesterday and already received a couple leads within a matter of minutes.  I’m still trying to figure out if there is any specific keyword targeting and have yet to test some different ad variations.  I’ll report back next week after I’ve been able to see the analytics in further detail.

Share it - loose it

I’ve always been a fan of tech videos on the web.  I remember the good old days of Tech TV, previously ZDTV, now defunct.  The newest of them, Techfluff.tv just recently launched its 3rd episode on Europe’s number one Web-Tech conference in Paris, Le Web ‘08.  TechCrunch just recently covered the show explaining that “every week TechFluff delves into the world of web-celebrities and tech startups, particularly the London scene”.

I think online video has always presented monetizing challenges even more so through its syndication channels.  This past summer at TechCrunch 50, I heard Ashton Kutcher talk about his theory on this topic and how he was using product placement on his show, Blah Girls.  I can understand how that might work for an animation of sort but its difficult to execute product placement opportunities when it comes to on-site interviews.

Take Kevin Rose’s Revision 3 for instance, I know that he has sponsorship opportunities on every show and he executes them well but do you think online advertisers expect more?  I think so, I think online advertising is much more about direct response (call to action) type of advertising then branding or sponsorships.  Take a look at the evolution of banner advertising and how far that has gone.

I don’t think showing a sponsor on a show has enough stickyness to it but if they can figure out a really clever way of incoporating the sponsor into the content that would be cool but then again does that break the editorial code of conduct?

HELP US!

Since the start of my career, I have had a never ending feud with Google about their double ad serving policy.  For starters, Google’s customer service team is setup in such a way that they help first time search rookies the same way they help Google certified companies.  There should be some benefit to being a Google Adwords certified company other than just being able to showoff their logo.  I personally believe that these folks should be escalated up the ladder a bit; why else did we spend the time to take your certification.  It’s annoying that every time, I ask a question, I start at the bottom with the same canned answers.  Not to mention, that we spend in excess of a million dollars a year with Google.

Google doesn’t allow for the same company to advertise on Adwords with the same keywords.  I totally understand that.  The problem is that we work with so many different affiliates that sometimes they jump on Google trying to make an extra buck advertising our product and we get knocked off.  Affiliates advertising against us on Google is a violation of our affiliate marketing terms however tracking the affiliates down and requesting that they remove their links can take hours and sometimes days.  During that time, it’s a major loss of revenue for our company.  It’s scary that Google has that power.

I’ve been on the waitlist for an account executive at Google and I’m staill waiting – it’s been over a year.  I would think that spending a million bucks a year with them would get me a direct phone number to somebody that can make a decision at Google – hasn’t happened yet.  It’s frustrating that with current market conditions their not trying a bit harder to satisfy their customers.

If anybody has any advice on how to expedited the process of getting a Google Adwords account executive, please let me know.

I have so many prospects that spend so much money on search marketing but haven’t taken the time to consider that good design and content will get them more actions.  We measure return on investment (ROI) based on conversions or how frequently a visitor reaches a goal on your website.  Generally that goal is to get the visitor to a thank you page for filling out a lead or an order form.

The first step to increasing your ROI is to define your goals.  It could be multiple goals.  For example, the BOALT website has two goals: a contact inquiry and request for proposal form.  If you don’t have goals on your website – that’s a problem. You might want to consider adding a form or two.

The next step is how to handle that first customer that clicks on your website.  How are you going to engage them? Are they enticed to click on the next page that leads them to the form?  In order to achieve success here you need to understand your audience.  Are you a real estate broker looking for new listings or new buyers? Are your a mortgage broker looking for a certain type of credit score?  The tone of your content will help filter the right type of customer.  Also  using certain call-to-action words like: “Learn More”, “Request a Brochure”, “Sign Up” will increase your conversion.  There are certain stop words that decrease your conversion as well such as: “we”, “our” and “trust us”. Let the customer gain trust in you on their own, don’t sell it to them.  Lastly, keep everything short and to the point.  The most important part of the process is the lead or sales funnel.  Once a customer has clicked on the link that takes them to the beginning step of that funnel, make sure you lead them through the process efficiently without any confusion.  Rule of thumb on that conversion path – less is more.

Any information that you can gather from them after they place the order might help you increase conversions.  We’ve found that the shorter the form, the more successful it is.  Also, asking for certain confidential items such as social security numbers can really hurt your conversion.  Try to get sensitive items over the phone after you have attained that customer.

Good luck!  Remember, the customer must be able to identify the goal.  Keep them focused on the conversion path.  Less is more and no sensitive data!