There's an enormous communication gap between we digital marketers and the startups that are trying to attract our dollars. Over the past several months, I have met with about four dozen emerging companies that hope to become a part of brand marketing plans. Almost to the company, they appear to think that my colleagues and I are desperate for new ways to cut prices by distributing digital coupons and free product.
"And you can give people a dollar off right in the aisle!" "And you can reward gamers by sending them a free six pack." "And you can offer coupons that they can download right onto their phones." "And you can give your best customers a 50% rebate that appears on their credit card statement." "You'll get lots of people in your stores because millions check in every day to get 50-90% discounts."
These can be valuable tactics when you have very specific business goals. But for most brands such programs don't actually constitute marketing. They're the opposite.
At its core, a brand's value is represented by the premium a company can charge versus its competitors. If I can get millions of people to pay $5.99 for Kellogg's Corn Flakes versus $2.99 for generic corn flakes, that's a strong brand. If I have to pass out $2.50 coupons to get folks to buy them, that's a weak brand. And if people get used to receiving $2.50 coupons all the time, they'll ultimately think less of the coupons.
We don't need four dozen new ways to hand out coupons. We need ways to mitigate the need for distributing any coupons at all. Good marketing increases value, not decreases it.
I think part of the reason why this simple point is so poorly understood is that the realities of digital business versus actual business are so different. If you've existed for two years and never generated a nickel of revenue, you're not a business. At least not yet. And the realities facing your management are rather different than those of revenue-producing businesses.
Brand marketers need to find digital tools and platforms that can enhance brand value. The great almost-depression of 2009 escalated marketer interest in digital promotional tools, and start up companies have been wise to recognize and capitalize on that opportunity. But digital marketing is not enhancing brand value if the bulk of it is driving up the amount of products and services we sell on deal.
I brought this up to one start up CRO last week, and he told me that they were in the business of giving consumers what they want. OK fine, but the consumers aren't actually paying his salary. Brands are.
Excuse my cynicism, but what the consumer wants is everything for free. What brands need is revenue, increasing margins and long-term consumer loyalty. You (usually) don't get that by handing out freebies.
Many of the companies I've seen have data indicating that as a result of distributing offers, more consumers like the participating brands. But here's a splash of ice water to the face: a user that loves my product because they get a 50% off coupon every week is loyal to the deal, not the brand. They may like a brand for dropping the price, but for a brand, liking only matters inasmuch as it results in greater profits.
I'm not saying you can't be successful by offering a promotions platform. The people at Coupons.com are getting rich doing just that. But marketers are becoming more acutely aware that all this discounting is hurting rather than helping. Look at Groupon's month-over-month decreasing revenue for evidence.
A year from now, many of the startups touting their ability to distribute free product and deals are going to be gone. That doesn't mean that someone won't get rich by creating a whiz bang digital promotional platform. But the people that are really gonna clean up are the ones that offer digital solutions that help me charge more for something, not less.
Thanks to ReadWriteWeb for publishing this first.
Friday, May 27, 2011
Start-Up Watch COD: ReviewSpotter gives online retailers a way to make the most of their reviews
We all know that online reviews have strong persuasive power for consumers looking for reassurance about what and where they buy. No matter how beautiful your TV ads…no matter how attractive your web pages…there’s really nothing like a user endorsement to get people comfy with clicking the buy button.
According to Forrester, more than seven out of ten consumers say that they are more likely to buy from a site that bears positive consumer reviews on its pages. And I’ll wager that for smaller businesses that 70% figure actually UNDERSTATES the importance of such endorsements. First, because when we don’t know a retailer we are less likely to trust it with our personal information. Second, because we need assurance that the sites we choose offer a good value. Reviews help on both scores.
The challenge for small and medium-sized businesses is that the reviews for an individual retailer are scattered across the web, and can be difficult for consumers to find. And we know that when things are difficult to find online, consumers often abandon their searches and move on.
An offering called ReviewSpotter is a review discovery and presentation widget that helps retailers benefit from such reviews, at a very low monthly cost.
Review Spotter starts by scrounging the web looking for reviews for a particular online retailer. They then make the reviews available in a semi-customizable widget that can be easily incorporated into a site. As part of the service, the platform continues to sift through the web looking for new reviews to add to the rotation on the widget. The widget itself ONLY features positive reviews and ratings, and clients can actually select the reviews they wish to feature in the unit.
Consumers that are interested in seeing the retailer review where it originally appeared can simply click anywhere on the widget and a new browser window is spawned. That’s a nice feature because it reassures suspicious consumers that the reviews are real.
Improving results on a website is less about monumental changes than taking small steps. Including reviews on your site can help in that stream of incremental improvement. At just $40 a month, with no contract, offerings like this are certainly worth serious consideration.
Thanks to ad:tech for publishing this first.
According to Forrester, more than seven out of ten consumers say that they are more likely to buy from a site that bears positive consumer reviews on its pages. And I’ll wager that for smaller businesses that 70% figure actually UNDERSTATES the importance of such endorsements. First, because when we don’t know a retailer we are less likely to trust it with our personal information. Second, because we need assurance that the sites we choose offer a good value. Reviews help on both scores.
The challenge for small and medium-sized businesses is that the reviews for an individual retailer are scattered across the web, and can be difficult for consumers to find. And we know that when things are difficult to find online, consumers often abandon their searches and move on.
An offering called ReviewSpotter is a review discovery and presentation widget that helps retailers benefit from such reviews, at a very low monthly cost.
Review Spotter starts by scrounging the web looking for reviews for a particular online retailer. They then make the reviews available in a semi-customizable widget that can be easily incorporated into a site. As part of the service, the platform continues to sift through the web looking for new reviews to add to the rotation on the widget. The widget itself ONLY features positive reviews and ratings, and clients can actually select the reviews they wish to feature in the unit.
Consumers that are interested in seeing the retailer review where it originally appeared can simply click anywhere on the widget and a new browser window is spawned. That’s a nice feature because it reassures suspicious consumers that the reviews are real.
Improving results on a website is less about monumental changes than taking small steps. Including reviews on your site can help in that stream of incremental improvement. At just $40 a month, with no contract, offerings like this are certainly worth serious consideration.
Thanks to ad:tech for publishing this first.
Start-Up Watch COD: Magnetic delivers search retargeting to millions and millions
am a huge believer in the potential of search retargeting to drive strong ROI for brands. The model, for those who may be unfamiliar, is that a search retargeting firm serves banner ads to people based upon their recent search history.
Now why, you might ask, would you bother targeting with banners instead of just buying the search results? Well, it’s actually not an “instead,” it’s an “in addition to.” Everyone knows SEM delivers blockbuster results. The problem is that there are not enough instances of searches to satisfy the demand from brands. You can only buy the number of searches consumers organically make. And then only one company gets to be first on the results. And even if you are first, there is by no means a guarantee that people will buy as a direct result of seeing or even clicking on your link.
Search retargeting adds critical touch points to the bottom of the funnel ecosystem, giving brands an opportunity to follow up with consumers are clearly in consideration and buying mode. The banners appear in both contextually linked content and on quality sites where the searchers visit after their telltale searches.
Magnetic was the first company in the space, and collects more than five billion data points monthly through its partnerships with most of the leading search providers. Ergo more data. These partners provide Magnetic with 100% of their search queries, so the company can develop more precise user profiles of consumers.
But there are other distinctions as well. The data they get are mostly from search and e-commerce environments – that’s an important element of their value proposition. According to Magnetic, many search retargeting options are based upon data that come largely from sharing widgets. That’s OK, but the thing is that these widgets tend to appear more in news, blogs, and general edit than in environments where shoppers are actively looking for buying options. Think of it this way –would you rather show banners to someone who searched in a commercial environment, or on CNN?
There are a variety of ways that brands can benefit from Magnetic’s data. First, they can buy inventory direct from the company. Second, Magnetic works with other sellers, providing data to pubs and networks as a means of identifying more likely prospects. Finally, users of exchanges can also leverage the company’s information.
Founded in 2008, the company has amassed a broad range of blue chip customers. It’s an impressive list particularly because many of their customers are highly sophisticated DR marketers.
Through the use of the exchanges, Magnetic can make available inventory on virtually any type of site. For brands with very high levels of concern over brand safety, they can white list a set of sites that fulfill the advertiser’s specs. For example, many of their advertisers insist on inventory ONLY on the Comscore 250.
On the data provider side, sites need not provide data solely to Magnetic – they can continue to sell their data to companies like Yahoo, Google, and Bing. They can simply add Magnetic to their set of paying contracts and make more money. Always a good thing.
As I say, I am a big believer in this space. As a means of driving scale for transactional advertising, search retargeting can and should be a powerful extension of an SEM program. Definitely worth a look!
Thanks to ad:tech for publishing this first.
Now why, you might ask, would you bother targeting with banners instead of just buying the search results? Well, it’s actually not an “instead,” it’s an “in addition to.” Everyone knows SEM delivers blockbuster results. The problem is that there are not enough instances of searches to satisfy the demand from brands. You can only buy the number of searches consumers organically make. And then only one company gets to be first on the results. And even if you are first, there is by no means a guarantee that people will buy as a direct result of seeing or even clicking on your link.
Search retargeting adds critical touch points to the bottom of the funnel ecosystem, giving brands an opportunity to follow up with consumers are clearly in consideration and buying mode. The banners appear in both contextually linked content and on quality sites where the searchers visit after their telltale searches.
Magnetic was the first company in the space, and collects more than five billion data points monthly through its partnerships with most of the leading search providers. Ergo more data. These partners provide Magnetic with 100% of their search queries, so the company can develop more precise user profiles of consumers.
But there are other distinctions as well. The data they get are mostly from search and e-commerce environments – that’s an important element of their value proposition. According to Magnetic, many search retargeting options are based upon data that come largely from sharing widgets. That’s OK, but the thing is that these widgets tend to appear more in news, blogs, and general edit than in environments where shoppers are actively looking for buying options. Think of it this way –would you rather show banners to someone who searched in a commercial environment, or on CNN?
There are a variety of ways that brands can benefit from Magnetic’s data. First, they can buy inventory direct from the company. Second, Magnetic works with other sellers, providing data to pubs and networks as a means of identifying more likely prospects. Finally, users of exchanges can also leverage the company’s information.
Founded in 2008, the company has amassed a broad range of blue chip customers. It’s an impressive list particularly because many of their customers are highly sophisticated DR marketers.
Through the use of the exchanges, Magnetic can make available inventory on virtually any type of site. For brands with very high levels of concern over brand safety, they can white list a set of sites that fulfill the advertiser’s specs. For example, many of their advertisers insist on inventory ONLY on the Comscore 250.
On the data provider side, sites need not provide data solely to Magnetic – they can continue to sell their data to companies like Yahoo, Google, and Bing. They can simply add Magnetic to their set of paying contracts and make more money. Always a good thing.
As I say, I am a big believer in this space. As a means of driving scale for transactional advertising, search retargeting can and should be a powerful extension of an SEM program. Definitely worth a look!
Thanks to ad:tech for publishing this first.
Start Up Watch COD: Kiip delivers real world rewards during mobile gaming “achievement moments”
IMHO, mobile advertising has always been a dicey arena. We want to deliver marketing messages in this most lean forward of environments, but at the same time stay on the tolerate/detest divide. Or at least that balancing USED TO BE what drove our thinking.
A really intriguing start-up called Kiip (pronounced keep) completely utterly absolutely upends this very balancing act. Instead, they offer a remarkable and ingenious way to have people actually look forward to marketing messages. To deliver on this promise, they threw off the shackles of “screen real estate” thinking. Meaning that they are not focused on how much of a mobile screen they can fill with an ad. Rather, they pinpoint time-based opportunities when real world rewards can be provided for in-game achievements. Yep, you get actual things for doing well in mobile games.
Let’s compare and contrast two gaming scenarios to show the difference in thinking. And appeal.
Under the standard ad-supported model, ads appear in launch screens, as overlays on the game screen, and as interstitials between levels in a game. Finish level three? Watch an ad and then start playing level four. It’s certainly a serviceable model in that it is exposing a brand message to a captive audience. But in this scenario, the ads really aren’t providing consumer value. Rather they are something to be endured (or despised) because they keep us from what we want to do. Yes yes it’s just for a few seconds. But in our ADD world, they may well be very frustrating seconds for your target.
Enter Kiip. No banners or addy interstitials here. Rather, they offer players tangible, real world rewards for achievements like completing a level. Just finished level three? Yay for you. As your reward, we’re going to give you a mobile coupon for a free Dr. Pepper. Not a blob of electrons that looks like a Dr. Pepper. An actual Dr. Pepper you can go out, obtain, and enjoy.
What I love about this is how it flips the consumer's openness to the marketing message from something endured to something welcomed. Brand message receptivity goes from negative to positive. And how the real world nature of the reward ensures that the consumer exposure herself more than once to the message. See the reward, save the reward, redeem the reward.
Another aspect of this that I find intriguing is the potential to thematically tie offers to games. So, for example, getting free bacon when you exterminate the pigs in Angry Birds. Success never ever tasted so good. But anyway. Rewards are targeted demographically, so that games attracting an adolescent male audience would naturally offer different rewards than games that attract women 35+. The model is priced based upon a cost per reward redeemed basis. Tech Crunch reports a price range from 25 cents to $3 per.
Given the redemption costs and the cost pers, this isn’t a cheap way of reaching consumers. But it certainly is a rich, positive, and multilayered one. Me likey likey. Apparently I am not the only one that’s taken with this great new concept. They have already signed programs with lots of big brands, among them Sephora, Popchips, 800 Flowers, Carls Jr, Homerun, and Dr Pepper. Not bad for a company that a month ago only had a splash screen for its website.
Thanks to ad:tech for publishing this first.
A really intriguing start-up called Kiip (pronounced keep) completely utterly absolutely upends this very balancing act. Instead, they offer a remarkable and ingenious way to have people actually look forward to marketing messages. To deliver on this promise, they threw off the shackles of “screen real estate” thinking. Meaning that they are not focused on how much of a mobile screen they can fill with an ad. Rather, they pinpoint time-based opportunities when real world rewards can be provided for in-game achievements. Yep, you get actual things for doing well in mobile games.
Let’s compare and contrast two gaming scenarios to show the difference in thinking. And appeal.
Under the standard ad-supported model, ads appear in launch screens, as overlays on the game screen, and as interstitials between levels in a game. Finish level three? Watch an ad and then start playing level four. It’s certainly a serviceable model in that it is exposing a brand message to a captive audience. But in this scenario, the ads really aren’t providing consumer value. Rather they are something to be endured (or despised) because they keep us from what we want to do. Yes yes it’s just for a few seconds. But in our ADD world, they may well be very frustrating seconds for your target.
Enter Kiip. No banners or addy interstitials here. Rather, they offer players tangible, real world rewards for achievements like completing a level. Just finished level three? Yay for you. As your reward, we’re going to give you a mobile coupon for a free Dr. Pepper. Not a blob of electrons that looks like a Dr. Pepper. An actual Dr. Pepper you can go out, obtain, and enjoy.
What I love about this is how it flips the consumer's openness to the marketing message from something endured to something welcomed. Brand message receptivity goes from negative to positive. And how the real world nature of the reward ensures that the consumer exposure herself more than once to the message. See the reward, save the reward, redeem the reward.
Another aspect of this that I find intriguing is the potential to thematically tie offers to games. So, for example, getting free bacon when you exterminate the pigs in Angry Birds. Success never ever tasted so good. But anyway. Rewards are targeted demographically, so that games attracting an adolescent male audience would naturally offer different rewards than games that attract women 35+. The model is priced based upon a cost per reward redeemed basis. Tech Crunch reports a price range from 25 cents to $3 per.
Given the redemption costs and the cost pers, this isn’t a cheap way of reaching consumers. But it certainly is a rich, positive, and multilayered one. Me likey likey. Apparently I am not the only one that’s taken with this great new concept. They have already signed programs with lots of big brands, among them Sephora, Popchips, 800 Flowers, Carls Jr, Homerun, and Dr Pepper. Not bad for a company that a month ago only had a splash screen for its website.
Thanks to ad:tech for publishing this first.
Start-Up Watch COD: Compass Labs uses real-time social comments to pinpoint user interests and deliver targeted ads
How do data companies and targeting engines determine your interests? Most of them use cookies to determine the sorts of content you’re consuming and the sites you’re visiting. It’s been proven effective, But if we get real for a minute, we need to admit to ourselves that Display response rates tend to be so microscopic that even small improvements in targeting make a difference. I’m not diminishing the power of BT to improve results but rather pointing out that the standard approaches and algorithms needn’t be perfect to have an impact.
But what if we could be CERTAIN about what a consumer was interested in. More specifically, interested in buying?
Compass Labs is an interesting new company that thinks it has a way to do just that. Rather than inferring user passions and needs, it analyzes what people actually tell the world they are interested in through their social media activity.
Put it this way: Would you rather put a Cadillac banner up in front of:
A consumer that has visited a lot of luxury auto content?
Someone who just typed “I am interested in buying a Cadillac” in their Twitter status?
Of course it’s not quite as simple as that; based on what I read from my friends and connections, comments are rarely THAT obvious. But the basic principle behind Compass Labs is that more effective targeting is possible when we interpret people's comments than when we read the tea leaves of their Internet travels.
Theirs is a real-time ad targeting and serving platform that puts ads into social environments precisely when users identify their interests. These ads appear in Facebook, Twitter, social media apps, and thousands of community posting boards across the web. In total, the company says it can reach 200,000,000 web users in any given month with highly targeted messages that offer stronger response and conversion rates.
Publicly available social media information enables Compass Labs to offer a broad range of targeting options, including users’ current interests, lifestyles, purchase intent, demographics, location and other factors.
Here’s their pitch vid from last year’s Under the Radar:
http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/10810222
As is often the case with advanced targeting, the benefits to DR marketers are obvious. But brand-side advertisers can also benefit by impacting brand perceptions among people who in earlier stages of the buying funnel.
Flipping the coin over for a sec, there are some significant benefits to the pub side as well. Obviously Facebook and Twitter benefit from more ads, and higher value impressions. But for pubs that offer forums, this stream of advertising revenue can be almost 100% incremental because it has traditionally been so hard to convince advertisers to place messages in UGC environments. Advertisers tend to fear the unknown, and forums may as well be renamed “Unknown Zone” as far as content goes.
With this new dimension of precision targeting, millions more page views can get monetized – and at strong rates.
I haven’t worked on any programs using them, but I think the concept is rather compelling, and warrants a serious look from DR and Brand advertisers.
Thanks to ad:tech for publishing this first.
But what if we could be CERTAIN about what a consumer was interested in. More specifically, interested in buying?
Compass Labs is an interesting new company that thinks it has a way to do just that. Rather than inferring user passions and needs, it analyzes what people actually tell the world they are interested in through their social media activity.
Put it this way: Would you rather put a Cadillac banner up in front of:
A consumer that has visited a lot of luxury auto content?
Someone who just typed “I am interested in buying a Cadillac” in their Twitter status?
Of course it’s not quite as simple as that; based on what I read from my friends and connections, comments are rarely THAT obvious. But the basic principle behind Compass Labs is that more effective targeting is possible when we interpret people's comments than when we read the tea leaves of their Internet travels.
Theirs is a real-time ad targeting and serving platform that puts ads into social environments precisely when users identify their interests. These ads appear in Facebook, Twitter, social media apps, and thousands of community posting boards across the web. In total, the company says it can reach 200,000,000 web users in any given month with highly targeted messages that offer stronger response and conversion rates.
Publicly available social media information enables Compass Labs to offer a broad range of targeting options, including users’ current interests, lifestyles, purchase intent, demographics, location and other factors.
Here’s their pitch vid from last year’s Under the Radar:
http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/10810222
As is often the case with advanced targeting, the benefits to DR marketers are obvious. But brand-side advertisers can also benefit by impacting brand perceptions among people who in earlier stages of the buying funnel.
Flipping the coin over for a sec, there are some significant benefits to the pub side as well. Obviously Facebook and Twitter benefit from more ads, and higher value impressions. But for pubs that offer forums, this stream of advertising revenue can be almost 100% incremental because it has traditionally been so hard to convince advertisers to place messages in UGC environments. Advertisers tend to fear the unknown, and forums may as well be renamed “Unknown Zone” as far as content goes.
With this new dimension of precision targeting, millions more page views can get monetized – and at strong rates.
I haven’t worked on any programs using them, but I think the concept is rather compelling, and warrants a serious look from DR and Brand advertisers.
Thanks to ad:tech for publishing this first.
Start-Up Watch COD: Social Twist delivers strategic precision in digital promotions
The digital world is becoming packed with start-ups focused on finding new ways to distribute coupons. I don’t like most of them one bit. The last thing we need to be doing in digital is creating more platforms that destroy brand value.
But there ARE good reasons and good ways to distribute promotional offers. And in my view, one of the “good guys” in digital promotions is Social Twist, a platform that helps brands deliver more powerful promotional periods by incenting users to distribute offers and information to their friends.
The big difference between Social Twist and so many of the other coupon distributing schemes is strategic precision. This company understands that in order to deliver a promotion with genuine brand-enhancing value, you need to have tools and methods to define the scope, manner of distribution, offers, and redemption methods that jibe with brand objectives and goals. They certainly aren’t the only company that understands the need for strategic precision, but their breadth of possible solutions is unusual and rather impressive.
Specifically, Social Twist can deliver:
Social Engagement Banner ads that place sharable promotional offers in IAB ad units. Such units incorporate refer-a-friend with the discount, enabling users to pass on the good news of savings to others.
Group Buying Discounts are programs that encourage users to get their friends to pool demand for a product in exchange for a discount.
Group Couponing is the promo format that made Groupon famous.
Multivariate Offers: Referrals get any one of a set of random offers. You can also giveaway different offers for existing customers and non-customers.
Geo-Qualified Offers: This tactic leverages the propensity of consumers to share offers with eople close by, and can be a valuable tool for local or regional marketers as well as new store opendings, expanding distribution, and the like.
Refer-a-Friend Offers: These encourage consumers to share an offer.
Share Your Experience Offers: These reward consumers for posting their experiences and testimonials.
Social Coupons: These reward users who make referrals with higher value coupons.
Social Contests: These enable a contest to go social to grow participation
Social Sweepstakes: These enable a sweeps to go social to grow participation.
Here’s their intro vid:
That’s an incredibly broad range of offers, all layered with social to grow impact. Naturally, the tools that are right for an individual brand are going to vary depending upon its objectives. Their breadth of capabilities has helped Social Twist attract a broad range of blue chip advertisers, including:
In short, if you’re looking for broad-based discounting, there are any number of digital vendors that can provide it. If you need precision, it’s great to know that there are companies like Social Twist that can get granular with your goals and devise precise tactics to meet them, all layered with social sharing.
Thanks to ad:tech for publishing this first.
But there ARE good reasons and good ways to distribute promotional offers. And in my view, one of the “good guys” in digital promotions is Social Twist, a platform that helps brands deliver more powerful promotional periods by incenting users to distribute offers and information to their friends.
The big difference between Social Twist and so many of the other coupon distributing schemes is strategic precision. This company understands that in order to deliver a promotion with genuine brand-enhancing value, you need to have tools and methods to define the scope, manner of distribution, offers, and redemption methods that jibe with brand objectives and goals. They certainly aren’t the only company that understands the need for strategic precision, but their breadth of possible solutions is unusual and rather impressive.
Specifically, Social Twist can deliver:
Social Engagement Banner ads that place sharable promotional offers in IAB ad units. Such units incorporate refer-a-friend with the discount, enabling users to pass on the good news of savings to others.
Group Buying Discounts are programs that encourage users to get their friends to pool demand for a product in exchange for a discount.
Group Couponing is the promo format that made Groupon famous.
Multivariate Offers: Referrals get any one of a set of random offers. You can also giveaway different offers for existing customers and non-customers.
Geo-Qualified Offers: This tactic leverages the propensity of consumers to share offers with eople close by, and can be a valuable tool for local or regional marketers as well as new store opendings, expanding distribution, and the like.
Refer-a-Friend Offers: These encourage consumers to share an offer.
Share Your Experience Offers: These reward consumers for posting their experiences and testimonials.
Social Coupons: These reward users who make referrals with higher value coupons.
Social Contests: These enable a contest to go social to grow participation
Social Sweepstakes: These enable a sweeps to go social to grow participation.
Here’s their intro vid:
That’s an incredibly broad range of offers, all layered with social to grow impact. Naturally, the tools that are right for an individual brand are going to vary depending upon its objectives. Their breadth of capabilities has helped Social Twist attract a broad range of blue chip advertisers, including:
In short, if you’re looking for broad-based discounting, there are any number of digital vendors that can provide it. If you need precision, it’s great to know that there are companies like Social Twist that can get granular with your goals and devise precise tactics to meet them, all layered with social sharing.
Thanks to ad:tech for publishing this first.
Start-Up Watch COD: CodeBaby delivers website avatars to help users understand what you can do for them
People consume information in different ways. Or at least they would if different ways were available to them. While those of us that spend huge amounts of time on the web are very adept at figuring out where to go on a website, and what to do, many other people find it challenging. Or boring. Or difficult. Or impossible.
Or just not pleasant. For example, data indicate that men and women browse differently. When you think about the percentage of UI people and web designers that are male, do you think it’s possible that some web pages aren’t entirely optimized for female viewers? This is a broad example, but I am sure you get the implications. Many of our careers live and die by site metrics, and small steps that can improve those metrics can make our professional lives…richer. Pun intended.
Which brings me to an interesting company and offering called CodeBaby, which creates attractive animated avatars that can be included on websites and in elearning products to help differentiate offerings and make them easier to understand.
Companies can create custom CodeBaby characters that reflect the essence of their products. For example, the child protection offering NetNanny uses a – wait for it – Nanny to introduce their services and describe why they are important. The Nanny also takes users step by step through how to sign up for a trial.
There are five core benefits to using CodeBaby:
Emotional Connection: While on a basic level people realize that these animated avatars are not people, the familiarity of a person to “person” experience may make them more comfortable and engaged, and more likely to buy.
Drive Desired Behaviors: CodeBaby increases the likelihood and instances of users taking desired actions, improving site metrics as important as sales, revenue, and trial.
In-Page Interactivity: The CodeBaby offering can enable characters to interact with actual page content and navigation elements. You can light up a “buy” button or highlight content and offerings to help users find what they are looking for.
Standards Based Integration: The company prides itself on ease of implementation and safety.
Analytics and measurement: Using key metrics the client can optimize and fine tune its CodeBaby experience to optimize desired metrics.
The key to a technology like this is making it available, but not distracting. As I scrounge for information on a daily basis I find many sites with tools and concepts that get in the way rather than help. As a site designs its CodeBaby program, it needs to take that sort of thing very seriously.
Perhaps the best way to give you a sense of this platform is to show you a CodeBaby. Here’s an example from an online retail site that sells stained glass. It features the voice of the proprietor, which I think adds a nice authenticity and personal touch to this implementation:
Pricing for this service varies based upon both the number of views per month a site drives, and the number of segments in its CodeBaby program. Prices go from $299 a month for a small site and nine or less segments, on up. There is a one-time implementation fee to begin a program of twice the monthly fee.
If find this concept intriguing. Those of us living in the SV bubble often forget that not everyone lives like us. Particularly if your site focuses on reaching and converting “regular people” who CAN imagine an afternoon without a celly or a PC connection, I think this is something for you to consider.
Thanks to ad:tech for publishing this first.
Or just not pleasant. For example, data indicate that men and women browse differently. When you think about the percentage of UI people and web designers that are male, do you think it’s possible that some web pages aren’t entirely optimized for female viewers? This is a broad example, but I am sure you get the implications. Many of our careers live and die by site metrics, and small steps that can improve those metrics can make our professional lives…richer. Pun intended.
Which brings me to an interesting company and offering called CodeBaby, which creates attractive animated avatars that can be included on websites and in elearning products to help differentiate offerings and make them easier to understand.
Companies can create custom CodeBaby characters that reflect the essence of their products. For example, the child protection offering NetNanny uses a – wait for it – Nanny to introduce their services and describe why they are important. The Nanny also takes users step by step through how to sign up for a trial.
There are five core benefits to using CodeBaby:
Emotional Connection: While on a basic level people realize that these animated avatars are not people, the familiarity of a person to “person” experience may make them more comfortable and engaged, and more likely to buy.
Drive Desired Behaviors: CodeBaby increases the likelihood and instances of users taking desired actions, improving site metrics as important as sales, revenue, and trial.
In-Page Interactivity: The CodeBaby offering can enable characters to interact with actual page content and navigation elements. You can light up a “buy” button or highlight content and offerings to help users find what they are looking for.
Standards Based Integration: The company prides itself on ease of implementation and safety.
Analytics and measurement: Using key metrics the client can optimize and fine tune its CodeBaby experience to optimize desired metrics.
The key to a technology like this is making it available, but not distracting. As I scrounge for information on a daily basis I find many sites with tools and concepts that get in the way rather than help. As a site designs its CodeBaby program, it needs to take that sort of thing very seriously.
Perhaps the best way to give you a sense of this platform is to show you a CodeBaby. Here’s an example from an online retail site that sells stained glass. It features the voice of the proprietor, which I think adds a nice authenticity and personal touch to this implementation:
Pricing for this service varies based upon both the number of views per month a site drives, and the number of segments in its CodeBaby program. Prices go from $299 a month for a small site and nine or less segments, on up. There is a one-time implementation fee to begin a program of twice the monthly fee.
If find this concept intriguing. Those of us living in the SV bubble often forget that not everyone lives like us. Particularly if your site focuses on reaching and converting “regular people” who CAN imagine an afternoon without a celly or a PC connection, I think this is something for you to consider.
Thanks to ad:tech for publishing this first.
Start-Up Watch COD: Adapt.ly makes advertising across the social web a breeze
A few weeks ago during ad:tech, I saw a company called Adaptly compete in the Social category of the Start-Up Spotlight competition. They faced stiff competition, and while they did not win, there was this sort of divide in the audience of perhaps 200 people – half the room seemed absolutely rapt by the offering, while the other half saw value, but didn’t appear to have a near religious experience watching their presentation.
I am convinced that the divide was between those who regularly purchase media – especially social media – and those a few steps away from this task.
Because if you buy media, you saw tremendous utility. As part of their assignment, Social companies were asked how they would spend $500K on behalf of a client. What adapt.ly did was LITERALLY book and launch a campaign with $500K in spending.
In about three minutes.
For rather than talking on a high level about the philosophy behind their offering, they launched their social buying platform and defined targets and spends for a number of social sites and opportunities.
Let me back up a minute. What adapt.ly offers is a buying, management, and reporting platform for advertising across a broad range of social media platforms. All from a single web-based console. Where can you buy ads? Check out this list:
Facebook
Twitter
Linked In
Stumble Upon
MySpace
AdMob
Plenty of Fish
As you know, each of these platforms offers ads in very different formats, and each of their self serve buying platforms works differently. Adapt.ly:
Provides a management layer between you and the social venues, so that you can buy everything you want from a single interface.
Automatically versions ads if you desire to optimize performance. In effect, they make the process of testing hundreds of copy versions automatic.
Offer real-time performance information
Provides the tools to enable you to quickly reallocate resources to stronger performers, or adjust your targeting specs to take a different tack in advertising on some or all of the values.
While I don’t buy much social advertising, I do so occasionally, chiefly for B2B clients, and the speed and ease of Adapt.ly really impressed me. So too did the idea of the automatic copy testing. In my view, far too little attention is placed on copy testing in text ads, and Adaptly offers a powerful and simple solution to capitalize on the untapped opportunity.
Here’s a vid that shows the platform in action:
The other reason I liked this idea is that Adapt.ly clearly understands the need for scale in social. It’s all very well and good that there are tools that enable brands to reach a hundred or even a thousand super influencers, but big brands with big budgets need ways to drive reach and other metrics at critical mass scale. If you are in 30% of US households, it’s difficult for 100 influencers make a meaningful impact on the bottom line, no matter how powerful they may be. And no brand or agency has the resources to spend $20,000,000 or $100,000,000 $25K at a time.
Adapt.ly has stepped into this need gap in a big way, and I for one will be watching them closely over the next months and years. Hard to imagine a concept with more appeal than making the ridiculously complicated process of buying social media so much simpler. This team has got something big on their hands.
Thanks to ad:tech for publishing this first.
I am convinced that the divide was between those who regularly purchase media – especially social media – and those a few steps away from this task.
Because if you buy media, you saw tremendous utility. As part of their assignment, Social companies were asked how they would spend $500K on behalf of a client. What adapt.ly did was LITERALLY book and launch a campaign with $500K in spending.
In about three minutes.
For rather than talking on a high level about the philosophy behind their offering, they launched their social buying platform and defined targets and spends for a number of social sites and opportunities.
Let me back up a minute. What adapt.ly offers is a buying, management, and reporting platform for advertising across a broad range of social media platforms. All from a single web-based console. Where can you buy ads? Check out this list:
Linked In
Stumble Upon
MySpace
AdMob
Plenty of Fish
As you know, each of these platforms offers ads in very different formats, and each of their self serve buying platforms works differently. Adapt.ly:
Provides a management layer between you and the social venues, so that you can buy everything you want from a single interface.
Automatically versions ads if you desire to optimize performance. In effect, they make the process of testing hundreds of copy versions automatic.
Offer real-time performance information
Provides the tools to enable you to quickly reallocate resources to stronger performers, or adjust your targeting specs to take a different tack in advertising on some or all of the values.
While I don’t buy much social advertising, I do so occasionally, chiefly for B2B clients, and the speed and ease of Adapt.ly really impressed me. So too did the idea of the automatic copy testing. In my view, far too little attention is placed on copy testing in text ads, and Adaptly offers a powerful and simple solution to capitalize on the untapped opportunity.
Here’s a vid that shows the platform in action:
The other reason I liked this idea is that Adapt.ly clearly understands the need for scale in social. It’s all very well and good that there are tools that enable brands to reach a hundred or even a thousand super influencers, but big brands with big budgets need ways to drive reach and other metrics at critical mass scale. If you are in 30% of US households, it’s difficult for 100 influencers make a meaningful impact on the bottom line, no matter how powerful they may be. And no brand or agency has the resources to spend $20,000,000 or $100,000,000 $25K at a time.
Adapt.ly has stepped into this need gap in a big way, and I for one will be watching them closely over the next months and years. Hard to imagine a concept with more appeal than making the ridiculously complicated process of buying social media so much simpler. This team has got something big on their hands.
Thanks to ad:tech for publishing this first.
Start-Up Watch COD: Addroid replaces the video middleman with a middleSaaS
Digital media is ridiculously complicated to buy and to develop creative for. Anything that makes that process simpler, faster, and cheaper is likely in a great place to get adopted and gain significant market traction.
Which is why Addroid is garnering more and more attention in our business. Addroid is a SaaS-based ad development environment and solution that makes it easy to make video ads to run in IAB banner sizes. Their goal is to replace expensive middleman technologies like the rich media providers with a drag and drop solution that creates an attractive add more or less immediately.
The cost structure of running video can be pricey. Serving a video ad is significantly more expensive than a Flash banner. According to Addroid, using one of the major rich media solutions companies (MediaMind, EyeWonder, PointRoll, and even DoubleClick) adds a cost of about 40 cents to the CPM versus a gif banner. Their platform takes that down to 15 cents.
Developed by an agency called Neoganda, Addroid is web-based, and provides an ad development environment where you quickly add creative elements and publish a video ad.
Here’s a video where their Founder explains the value proposition and shows the drop dead simple process of ad development:
If you watched the video, you learned that going after the rich media company business is only part of their vision. They believe that brands and agencies would develop a lot more video ads instead of Flash banners if they could. By significantly reducing the video markup, they believe that they have created a pricing sweet spot to drive a dramatic transition in the industry.
Lemme tell me why I think they are on to something big. There are entire industries like entertainment and auto that would surely drop Flash but quick if video were more affordable. But many of the categories that would be most interested in making such a change are very value-oriented.
Oh, let’s call a spade a spade. These categories are filled with cheap sumbitches, though I don’t mean that as an insult. Let’s take entertainment as a for instance. When you have only a couple weeks and a limited budget to hype a film, you need to make every impression and every dollar count. So we shouldn’t be surprised that their buyers don’t throw money around willy nilly.
Which is why, I think, we still see Flash banners for some movies and TV programs, even though video would surely be more compelling.
A reduction from 40 cents to 15 cents represents a big drop in cost structure.
And there’s another cool thing. By replacing Flash banners with HTML video units, advertisers can better reach and persuade tablet users, 99 and 44/100s of whom are on iPads that don’t run Flash.
The name threw me a bit. I was expecting a mobile solution. But no matter, it is clearly designed to communicate the idea that they have replaced the middleman with a droid – or rather a SaaS.
So adding that up. Cheaper. HTML 5. Cheaper. Faster. And cheaper. I would imagine that more than a few of those reading this are already dialing.
Thanks to ad:tech for publishing this first.
Which is why Addroid is garnering more and more attention in our business. Addroid is a SaaS-based ad development environment and solution that makes it easy to make video ads to run in IAB banner sizes. Their goal is to replace expensive middleman technologies like the rich media providers with a drag and drop solution that creates an attractive add more or less immediately.
The cost structure of running video can be pricey. Serving a video ad is significantly more expensive than a Flash banner. According to Addroid, using one of the major rich media solutions companies (MediaMind, EyeWonder, PointRoll, and even DoubleClick) adds a cost of about 40 cents to the CPM versus a gif banner. Their platform takes that down to 15 cents.
Developed by an agency called Neoganda, Addroid is web-based, and provides an ad development environment where you quickly add creative elements and publish a video ad.
Here’s a video where their Founder explains the value proposition and shows the drop dead simple process of ad development:
Addroid Demo from Matt Cooper on Vimeo.
If you watched the video, you learned that going after the rich media company business is only part of their vision. They believe that brands and agencies would develop a lot more video ads instead of Flash banners if they could. By significantly reducing the video markup, they believe that they have created a pricing sweet spot to drive a dramatic transition in the industry.
Lemme tell me why I think they are on to something big. There are entire industries like entertainment and auto that would surely drop Flash but quick if video were more affordable. But many of the categories that would be most interested in making such a change are very value-oriented.
Oh, let’s call a spade a spade. These categories are filled with cheap sumbitches, though I don’t mean that as an insult. Let’s take entertainment as a for instance. When you have only a couple weeks and a limited budget to hype a film, you need to make every impression and every dollar count. So we shouldn’t be surprised that their buyers don’t throw money around willy nilly.
Which is why, I think, we still see Flash banners for some movies and TV programs, even though video would surely be more compelling.
A reduction from 40 cents to 15 cents represents a big drop in cost structure.
And there’s another cool thing. By replacing Flash banners with HTML video units, advertisers can better reach and persuade tablet users, 99 and 44/100s of whom are on iPads that don’t run Flash.
The name threw me a bit. I was expecting a mobile solution. But no matter, it is clearly designed to communicate the idea that they have replaced the middleman with a droid – or rather a SaaS.
So adding that up. Cheaper. HTML 5. Cheaper. Faster. And cheaper. I would imagine that more than a few of those reading this are already dialing.
Thanks to ad:tech for publishing this first.
Start-Up Watch COD: Ample Media drives better contact acquisition, maintenance, and insights
Many companies spend a large part of their digital budgets for the purpose of acquiring contact information to power CRM programs. But as these contacts are acquired, a sizable portion of them have errors that snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. By which I mean that you spent all that money for the click and visit, got them to the form, but because they made errors in their data entry, their input makes them unreachable. You’re out all that money, and they are out the opportunity to hear more about your business and what it can do for them.
I met someone from Ample Media at ad:tech and was fascinated to learn more about their service. There are a variety of components, but the part that was most compelling to me was their ability to help users correct mistakes that they make in entering their data – and correct them in real time.
Let me explain with an example. Let’s say I reach a contact for and enter my email address as:
Oldseeksnewyahoo.com
The platform analyzes my input and recognizes that it is an invalid email address. So it alters me to that fact and gives me the opportunity to correct my error. But by now you know me well enough that I am fully capable of making two mistakes in a row. So I type…
Oldeseeksnew@yahoo.com
Notice the extra e after old. Their platform checks the Yahoo database in real time and discovers that Oldeseeksnew@yahoo.com is not a valid email. So it gives me the opportunity to get it right again. And with any luck the third time will be a charm and I will finally get it right.
It also works on phone contacts, recognizing invalid area codes and numbers and giving users the opportunity to correct an entry. For postal addresses, their solution can check to ensure that an address exists, and append the consumer-delivered entry with additional info like zip plus four that can significantly reduce your mailing costs. Their platform also monitors for obviously bad phone, email, and postal addresses submitted by malicious actors so that you aren’t carrying bum entries in your data that increase email serving and data management costs.
Those are all what they call the Point of Entry services. But their offering also helps improve the validity and value of an existing database by refreshing existing entries with newer information and appending additional data that can empower segmentation and research insights.
For some, these services may seem like nice-to-haves rather than need-to-haves. But depending upon your customer base, the losses and additional costs mitigated by services like those of Ample Media can make a significant difference in both valid acquisitions and the usefulness and economic value of a database over time. If you are going to the trouble of BUILDING a database, it should be fairly simple to understand why those types of benefits can make a real difference in your bottom line.
As I said, the whiz banginess for me was the real time aspect that helps users ensure that they input correct data. We all know what a tremendous savings having user-submitted data provides. But more accurate data entry will naturally drive even more value from this important marketing resource.
Thanks to ad:tech for publishing this first
I met someone from Ample Media at ad:tech and was fascinated to learn more about their service. There are a variety of components, but the part that was most compelling to me was their ability to help users correct mistakes that they make in entering their data – and correct them in real time.
Let me explain with an example. Let’s say I reach a contact for and enter my email address as:
Oldseeksnewyahoo.com
The platform analyzes my input and recognizes that it is an invalid email address. So it alters me to that fact and gives me the opportunity to correct my error. But by now you know me well enough that I am fully capable of making two mistakes in a row. So I type…
Oldeseeksnew@yahoo.com
Notice the extra e after old. Their platform checks the Yahoo database in real time and discovers that Oldeseeksnew@yahoo.com is not a valid email. So it gives me the opportunity to get it right again. And with any luck the third time will be a charm and I will finally get it right.
It also works on phone contacts, recognizing invalid area codes and numbers and giving users the opportunity to correct an entry. For postal addresses, their solution can check to ensure that an address exists, and append the consumer-delivered entry with additional info like zip plus four that can significantly reduce your mailing costs. Their platform also monitors for obviously bad phone, email, and postal addresses submitted by malicious actors so that you aren’t carrying bum entries in your data that increase email serving and data management costs.
Those are all what they call the Point of Entry services. But their offering also helps improve the validity and value of an existing database by refreshing existing entries with newer information and appending additional data that can empower segmentation and research insights.
For some, these services may seem like nice-to-haves rather than need-to-haves. But depending upon your customer base, the losses and additional costs mitigated by services like those of Ample Media can make a significant difference in both valid acquisitions and the usefulness and economic value of a database over time. If you are going to the trouble of BUILDING a database, it should be fairly simple to understand why those types of benefits can make a real difference in your bottom line.
As I said, the whiz banginess for me was the real time aspect that helps users ensure that they input correct data. We all know what a tremendous savings having user-submitted data provides. But more accurate data entry will naturally drive even more value from this important marketing resource.
Thanks to ad:tech for publishing this first
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