@BasilPuglisi

Content & Strategy, Powered by Factics & AI, Since 2009

Branding & Marketing

SMX East: Acquisio for SEM Display Management

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A productivity efficiency platform, Acquisio was specifically created for search engine marketing agencies. Agencies are able to establish, organize, automate, and optimize their PPC campaigns across all search engines with Acquisio’s management tools, including search display and social media. This helpful platform will help marketers save time on repetitive or superfluous tasks so that more time can be allotted to campaign planning and improvement.

Acquisio offers:

  • External Data Feeds
  • Multi-Engine Bulk Editor
  • Seamless DART Integration
  • White Label Reporting Engine
  • Easy-to-Use Campaign Automation Engine
  • Advanced Budget and KPI Tracking
  • Automatic Currency Conversion

At the SMX conference on September 13th, 2011, Acquisio shared insights and their results from a year-long partnership with demand side platform. Without leaving the Acquisio platform, nearly 3,000 users are now managing over 7,000 brands by purchasing, tracking, comparing, and reporting on their display purchases across multi-million websites, without the need to leave Acquisio’s platform.

Many users believe that search and display should have been brought together far before now. The focus is on supplying targeted display ads for consumers who have shown intent by querying search engines with keywords that indicate they are likely to make a purchase. Acquisio has filled this gap by integrating this type of approach in an easily scalable manner.

Acquisio allows agencies to handle all tasks associated with their ads performance from the time of purchase. They host their own third-party ad server while employing single tracking functionality across channels. This in turn, provides agency marketers unrivaled conversion, revenue modeling, and reporting proficiency.

Who Uses Acquisio?

On the corporate level, users of Acquisio include the Yellow Pages Group, Media Experts, DAC Group, Guava, and many others. On the website level, Aquisio is currently ranked at #56,440 around the globe but does have a more concentrated following in Edinburgh where it ranks at #2,153.

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What Makes Mobile Search Marketing Beneficial?

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Mobile marketing changed its definition in the early 2000’s when the original meaning, which was marketing on the go, changed into mobile search marketing, which are in essence, marketing techniques carried out over a mobile device.

SMS marketing is an advertising technique that involves the collection of mobile phone numbers to add to a messaging platform database. These numbers are collected so that when a special promotion or offer becomes available, the number list owner can send out a mass message to what they hope will be future repeat customers. SMS marketing relies on opt-in users due to practices established by the Mobile Marketing Association to help prevent unwanted messaging, similar to the protection offered by the Federal Do Not Call registry.

The fact that SMS messages are commonly read in the first four minutes after receipt means that this form of marketing is highly convertible.

A New Digital World

If we thought SMS marketing was impressive, then came the smartphone. A new world of marketing was then opened in many new forms.

  • MMS – Multimedia message service
  • Mobile Web Marketing
  • In-Game Marketing
  • Mobile Marketing via QR Codes
  • User-Controlled Media

Ever-Changing Media

So exactly what is changing about mobile search marketing? For one, it has become infinitely more complex than the simple SMS original formats. Mobile search marketing is unique not only in its format, but also in the way that it approaches the consumer. Traditional forms of marketing can be a combination of intrusive versus elusive.

Intrusive methods include telephone marketing, television advertising, and even door-to-door sales. Although intrusive methods have shown their own positive statistics about effectiveness, many elements such as increased crime rates, new laws and regulations, or increasing costs have made the intrusive forms of marketing much less lucrative in recent years.

Elusive methods are the most effective and can include in-game marketing, user-controlled media, or mobile web marketing. This type of marketing is effective in the sense that the advertisements are usually an ‘in addition to’ or bonuses. For instance, users can play the free game on their phone, or they can purchase the nearby advertisement option to achieve ‘pro’ status on the game. Users can utilize a particular browser and that browser may support and advertise their own series of media, apps, or programs.

Although some marketers still argue that mobile queries constitute too little of an overall end-result to make the campaign effort worthwhile, it is a notable fact that Google’s mobile query share has grown over five times in the last couple of years. Mobile search continues to grow at an accelerated rate than traditional search options.

There may be no time like the immediate present to gain pioneer advantages and initiate your mobile testing and paid search campaigns right away.

 

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Google+ is Open to ALL and Google+ Leading Mobile Development

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Today Google plus went live and open to everyone. With 20 million people engaging in the first three months in its trail stage, the Google+ platform now hopes to capture the masses.

While some writers like Robert over at BundlePost are betting against Google+ and predicating it to be the threat to Google, I am confident that Google has secured itself in the mobile and cloud space. This move by Google to capture mobile so early is what will have Google on top for a very long time. Google+ is in a safe place, capturing Social Media engagement and tailoring to the mobile trend.

Google Leading in the Mobile Space:

While I will give credit to Apple and Facetime for being the first to the mobile video market, the wifi limitation left users feeling like video chat was still more Sci-Fi then reality. In comes T-Mobile and 4G with the MyTouch4G, now you can use video even when not on a wifi signal, however the user interfaces are scattered and the experience doesn’t seem to capture the social feel to being in a room with a real person.

Google Hangout is introduced on PC and groups of people start to engage, converse and learn about each other in real time in a social setting that makes you rethink about your daily appearance.  One of the first things I noticed was the trend of individuals who previously relied on a single picture having to rethink the way there where dressed, the room there where in and what was behind them. Communication skills kicked back into hi swing as the most important communication indicator was alive and kicking, body language.

This move to get a fully functioning communication tool in the hands of the largest growing market in the world should be enough to secure Google’s future.

Android & G+

When you take a look at how Android has performed in market penetration, you can’t help but realize that Google is just getting started. It’s the little things that are setting Google apart from the competition, i.e. Google Cloud contacts from the release of the G1. Androids first phone was cloud ready as anyone who stored their contacts on their google account never again had to worry about lost phones, moving contacts to new phones etc. This was done without wires and with no need for a PC or software.

Flash, love it or hate it Android got it. You almost wonder why Apple left the door open like this, but Flash adopted by the Google into Android mobile technology was the nail that broke the growth rate of the iPhone and then later allowed Android devices to surpass iPads in global sales and users.

Google+ brought lots of new features, in addition to the latest Hangouts, the G+ app allowed you to upload videos and pictures in real time to the google+ account meaning that in addition to ease of sharing, you could lose your phone during the day and still save your memories, promo photos etc.

In the end, google is innovating for the future, not just today. That’s the sign of a strong company, one I am sure my grandkids will love and hate, long after Apple and Facebook are gone.

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SMX East: Search Engine Expo, First Impressions

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DBMEi was granted Press Access to the SMX East taking place in NYC this week. While we will follow up with a summary of the event, we wanted to share some first impressions.

If you have not been here yet, make time! With one day left on September 15, 2011 at the Jacob Javits Center we hope this post find you in time to get into the event and see some great vendors and try to access an event.

The event is very well organized and the speakers are prepared to share data and facts! This has been one of the biggest critiquesfacing many conferences, most have speakers that participate seem to be self or company promoting with little if any actionable information to share. One of the other concerns, often expressed by people like us here at DBMEi, “where is your data, your sources” because sometimes we wonder if they are just pulling this stuff from the sky…. “where is the credibility”. The SMX East has had an impressive impact quick and early.

As you can see in the photos I have attached the speakers are sharing their actual trade practices, unlike many others events the SMX seems to have set a standard where the goal is to make sure each presenter has something tangible and actionable. The presentations are supported by a ton of quantitative data that the presenters are using to show, not tell the attendees what they are doing and why.

So far the SMX East has been an event worth attending, I have been very excited to see speakers talking about the process by which they take action and sharing the quantitative data to support their processes and theories.

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New Hot Startups: Silicon Valley, New York and Virgina?

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Some of the new startups generating interest in the West Coast, New York and in Virginia? Which one of those will flourish and become the next new trend?

Flotype – Founded in October 2010. Web technology that will enable anyone to easily build large scale web applications.

GetAround – Sept. 2009. Peer to peer car rental by the hour or the day. Network of people who are renting their cars instead of having them parked, unused, for 23 hours a day. Their technology allows people to unlock cars with their smartphones. GetAround won the TechCrunch Disrupt NYC last year.

LuJure – Founded in Balcksburg VA. LuJure is a drag and drop facebook application that allows everyday business owner the opporutnity to develop catchy facebook custom tabs that provide interactive content, videos, and specials sparked by timelines and viral activity.

HotelTonight – Launched in 2010 , the website lets you make last minute hotel reservations from your cell phone for a drastically reduced price. It aggregates information from hotels about their daily vacancies. Was names “best travel app” by travel & Leisure magazine.

Dekko – May 2011. Still in the beginning stages and very secretive, Dekko wants to give users all the information they might need about a picture they take with your cell phone or a photo they see on the internet. See explanation at:

iDoneThis – May 2011. sends users an e mail to remind them what they have to do and what they’ve accomplished. The information is put in a calendar so you’ll have a record of what you’ve accomplished and when.

Blurts – A blurt is an audio comment, story, anecdote, narration or voice-over used to add passion, authenticity and tone to any social post – Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, YouTube, blogs, comments, etc.

TaskRabbit – 2008, A marketplace for busy people who don’t have time to run errands. Users can post what they need done and how much are they willing to pay for the service. If your car doesn’t start, you can get jumper cables in minutes, or you can advertise for extra delivery person for a business at crunch time.

Cruisewise – May 2010. A site that aggregates all the information about cruises into one place and lets you place an order right there, unlike Expedia for example, where you have to call the cruise line after the reservation.

Dynamic Signal – November 2010, a social media marketing platform for marketers to build and operate their own brand communities. An operating system to make word of mouth marketing a key part of the marketing strategy.

Giftly– 2010, Enables users to send personal gift certificate to different stores. The recipient goes to the store, buys what he wants and the amount is reimbursed with the amount of the gift.

Additional Sources:

Klout vs PeerIndex vs Social IQ

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Although Klout is certainly a highly popular format for social influence measurement, it is not the only tool available for this type of social media standing calculation.

Klout Review

Currently, Klout is definitively the leader in this social media-indexing race. Although some people continue to question the validity of the topics that are dubbed as a user’s ‘expert’ topics, others say that Klout is right on time when it comes to knowing what niches a person has a public passion for. 

Since early May of 2011, Klout has shown a steady rise in viewers. With only 1,208 sites having better three-month global traffic rankings, and the site holding steady in the US at #303, it shows no sign of letting up anytime soon. With new Klout Perks cropping up with increasing frequency, the buzz about this choice in social media monitoring does not leave out any of its pros, and even has its fair share of cons as well.

Some users report inconsistencies in what they are truly passionate about, and what Klout has derived as their interests from previous posts, statuses, and tweets. It seems that giving digital high-fives may only be worthy of Klout points if Klout is passionate about your topic, or simply just recognizes it as common.

PeerIndex

PeerIndex is another ingenious algorithm that measures the influence with a three A list.

  • Audience
  • Activity
  • Authority

These three elements are then evaluated and averaged in order to create each user’s Peer Index. The collaborated Peer Index will then reflect a number from zero to one-hundred, one-hundred being the highest.  

Another benefit to Peer Index and Mozilla users is a very helpful plugin that will reflect any Twitter users PeerIndex score on any website, forum, or any html based page where the @ symbol is used before a legitimate Twitter account name. This means that if you ever find yourself in need of someone with high authority in your niche, you are a simple Tweet stream away from the familiar and comforting highlighted PeerIndex rating. It also means an instant perusal of site owners’ proven level of peer influence without the need to manually go on a search.

PeerIndex has also been growing in leaps and bounds and has an Alexa ranking currently of 13,226 global with a U.S. presence at #7,326. However, only around 30% of users are U.S. based.

 Social IQ

A new competitor is also about to break out of beta and into the hands of eager users. Social IQ is defined as an algorithm that was developed by Soovox. Founded in 2009 and headquartered in sunny San Diego, California. Social IQ is the newest concept of the three in social influence calculation and monitoring. Still in their building phase, their main mission is to become a globally recognized element of new media advertising and influence economy.

Social IQ is taking the road previously traveled by Klout by enacting reward systems for users who have targeted niche influence. Login is just as easy on Social IQ s on the previously mentioned with manageable Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn integration.

Although it is still in beta and quite off of Alexa’s shortlist, Facebook integration is already functioning and any user can see what a fantastic tool this will be once completed.

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New Trends: Online Retail Boutiques

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There have long been many sources of purchasing items online. Ebay, Amazon, and other big names have made online retail a much more common method of consumer purchasing. For the most part these services have done their duty by general consumers, but there are others who seek a more of a personal touch in their online retail experiences.

Although most all of the online retail sources do provide some type of cash or credit benefits through purchasing, referrals, and networking among other consumers and shop owners, the more general the service, the more general the benefits.

The Boutique Experience

The difference between Amazon and sites like Fab or The Fancy is not only the products available, but the benefits of referrals and other methods may be a bit more beneficial for the particular buyer.

Items on the online boutique sites differ a bit from mass produced products on general retail sites. While Amazon sells plenty of high-thread count sheets for a great price, they do not sell those sheets custom dyed, and custom fitted for your customized mattress. Users can find just about anything on a boutique site to match an amazingly large variety of taste. Not only can users find unusual items for their uncommon situations, but also the boutique owners are usually available to meet any custom needs, at much fairer prices, than a consumer would ever find for such specific items on the larger general sites.

What is the Attraction to Boutique Retailers?

Some of the coolest elements of boutique retailers are the consumer’s ability to customize just about anything at an affordable price. Moreover, do not let your mind limit the possibilities. Unique items that can be quickly found on boutique retailer sites are:

  • Food
  • Media
  • Gadgets
  • Art

This list, however, does not do justice to the items any consumer can find to fit their specific taste. Are you a musician? How about a cheese grater shaped like a guitar for your kitchen? Have an affinity for Grasshopper art? Need a new purse to tote your doggy around in? How about just turning the dog itself into a tote?

Rather have your grasshopper art on a blue background? Or perhaps you would rather your ‘doggy-gone-tote’ be red, to match your shoes. Chances are you can send those shop owners a message, and they will happily create the custom item for you. Although some boutique items can be higher priced than their generic counterparts, this is not always the case. Be sure to shop around, and in depth for options that match your current interest. Another great element of boutique shopping is that you can often actually bargain out your prices. If you see another item that is acceptable, but would prefer to get your item from another shop owner with slightly higher prices, you may have great luck by simply sharing that thought with your preferred retailer. They may be happy to strike a bargain with you that will please everyone.

Get Your Own Boutique

Setting up your own boutique is simple. Most sites will allow users to build anything from a very simple to a highly complex storefront. Although some sites may charge a set fee per month for owning your own store, most often, they work much like Ebay where a small percentage of sales are calculated to pay for your online shop ‘rent.’

Even those who have no experience building websites can quickly build a storefront by following prompts and choosing themes to get set up. User can usually also create their own custom designed storefront by writing their own html or paying a pro to do so. For shop owners, the best part of boutique management, is that you cannot usually overextend yourself if you are careful. Most often items are created, and then posted, and custom orders are frequently expected to take longer.

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TripAdvisor: TripWow Provides Impressive Presentations for Many Uses

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When creating this product, TripAdvisor relied heavily on the in-house developers at TravelPod. Their main focus was to provide slideshows that displayed unparalleled production value. However, their most vital concern was that the tool provided the greatest functional ease possible with current technologies. It seems as if they have succeeded. The presentations produced by this software are amazingly vibrant, professionally presentable, and utterly impressive.

How to Use TripAdvisor – TripWow

To begin, users can choose from a variety of themes such as Family Vacation, Flying, Outdoors, Backpacking, Celebrations, Romantic, and more. Once the user has selected their theme, or skipped it altogether, their next option is one of the most shining aspects of this tool. Users can now retrieve their photos from Flickr, Facebook, Picasa, TravelPod, or their local computer.

Choosing the Facebook option to test its capabilities, forty-seven photos were uploaded in less than twenty seconds. Then it allowed the selection of photos individually, or by rows. The preview button makes this a fail-proof option in creating the perfect slideshow, as quickly as it can be done. To top it all off, you can now view your slideshow, make changes to it, and then download it to your machine or device. Users are even given a link where their slideshow will remain indefinitely.

Social Media Sharing

If the presentation itself isn’t impressive enough, and it is, than the quick one-click option to share your slideshow on Facebook, email it to your entire contact list, embed on your site, or to send it to other social networking sites like Myspace, Twitter, and over three-hundred and forty more social networking and aggregate sites.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WAyKFuTO_ow&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL]

Open Options

Although TripAdvisor does target locations which allows for users to designate where their photos were snapped at, this doesn’t mean this tool has to be limited to sharing your family’s weekend road trip alone. Other uses could include:

  • Marketing Presentations
  • Training Slideshows
  • Travel Logging
  • Visual Campaign Management

There are certainly other options that could be helpful to many industries. A small business owner that owns a Roofing company could take photos of each roof they have completed, and build their highly professional and presentable slideshow to embed to their website.

Regardless of the business, most people will agree, seeing is believing. If your company makes a claim, and can provide visual proof of their integrity and workmanship, they are more likely to garner visitors from those websites that cannot.

Although many small business travel agencies have begun using TripAdvisor to advertise some of their greater destinations, no big names have picked up on this nifty tool as of yet. Considering the social media options and present-ability of their finished products, I would expect that to change in the very near future.

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Google AdWords: Call Metrics & Click to Call

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Since Dec. 2010, Google has allowed placement of phone numbers in AdWords text body.  Their rational was that most people seeing the ad know they are one click away from the advertiser’s site, where they can find all the information without bothering anyone. They thought people would be unlikely to call instead of clicking the mouse.

Others thought that displaying a local phone number, especially if it is  for location based services such as a dentist, have their own benefits.

Google realized they might be losing money, if people do call instead of clicking on the ad, so they’ve added Call Extensions. Those are types of ad extensions that allow advertisers to include additional information about their businesses and specials in their text ads. Call extensions works differently whether or not you’ve enabled Call Metrics.

Call metrics allows advertisers to track phone calls that come from the ad. This is done by generating a specific phone number for this specific ad. With the popularity of mobile gadgets there’s a growing benefit for advertisers to receive calls from mobile users. In this platform, calls generated, duration of the call and the area codes of the callers are noted so advertisers will have information about the location of the calls. The Call Metrics is free to use, but by setting it up the advertiser started paying for the calls as they did for the clicks.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QIJ36uUxJBw]

There are metrics available to see how effective it is and how many people call instead of clicking. If you did enable Call Metrics, Google assigned a custom phone number to the ad and displays it on both desktop and mobile devices. Vanity numbers (which include letters and numbers) are also allowed.

But In July 2011, Google announced click-to-call enhancement in AdWords ads which will affect charges for the ad. All non-clickable numbers in the ads will be converted to a click-to-call numbers, and they will start to incur extra charges when the number is clicked.

If you didn’t enable Call Metrics, your phone number will appear as a clickable phone number for users of smartphones using Google search, voice search, Google mobile apps or Google maps.

If you are using Call Metrics, and you have a phone number in your ad text, only the newly clickable phone number in you ad text will show. That is done to reduce confusion for users not knowing which number to click.

If you would like your Call Extension number to display, you need to delete your phone number from your ad. You will receive an additional line of ad text. The phone number will still be displayed without the need to take up text space.

If you didn’t use Call Extension and you have a phone number in your ad, it will convert to click-to-call automatically. You don’t have to edit your ad to make the phone number clickable. But, if you want to maximize your ad space, you should consider using Call Extension  to free up more space. You will be charged for the calls either way.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88VTa0GfBiE]

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Digital Brand Experience: Google shares it’s thoughts on Brand

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Digital Brand Marketing is about taking traditional concepts and rethinking how those practices can be streamlined and transformed into digital practices. I have repeatedly published on how so many businesses have taken the extreme approach to digital and social marketing. This has resulted in lost opportunities and negative impact on their brand.  

If you do not claim your brand, someone else will!

Social Media is but a tool or advancement in what people have done throughout all time, if your product is wonderful people talk, if your product is terrible people talk. The big change is how they talk, and how many people they can reach.

In traditional marketing it was found that November, December, July and August are the big word of mouth months. These are the times of year that people congregated the most for Holidays and/or Vacations. This is when word of mouth could really be capitalized on. Did you see what I bought, where we went, the quality of work the installer did, the product I would never buy again.

As Erik Qualman pointed out, “word of mouth”  is now “world of mouth”. Social Media is about having the ability to interact at any given moment and beyond the limitations of physical presence. Social Media thoughts, comments, reviews, posts, blogs, etc are almost all sustainable. The comment does not go away like a traditional conversation, the review, thought or post continues on to reach others, shared and searchable forever!

This has created three major issues in modern marketing.

  1. The Company is not participating or facilitating their “brand”. Others are welcome to lay claim to it and control the information about it.
  2. The Company rushed to execute and participate and did not consider the “brand” experience. How they facilitate and deliver a consistent experience across the different digital medias was lost. The worst continue to rush along making half measures to recover sections or parts of campaigns and services instead of rethinking the “brand” experience.
  3. The Company has not learned how to use free resources to respond to the market. By not participating in Social Media the company cannot address issues and opportunities in real time. Surveys, Customer Complaint numbers are traditional, websites are 1.0, social media is engaging and seeking out the customers in their space. If you don’t seize information for your benefit, perhaps your competitor will!

An Anonymous Case Study for point 2:

A company decides that they wish to use twitter, they know its popular for news and marketing. The company creates accounts for 800 locations. The first mistake is made when they leave a default image in the service. A few months later they start to fill the profile image with the company logo. As a young marketing assistant learns about the personal interaction that twitter thrives from, the company starts to take “brand” accounts @GeoCompany and tie the individual name and a personal photo to the profile image. At this point the @GeoCompany John Doe has a picture of just a head shot with news updating from the company site. The profile area talks about the company and links to the company’s local site.

At each stage the half measure reviews have cost the company brand awareness. Something as simple as taking the time to think out the strategy would have saved the company’s social image as their claim to be social has struggled from day one. To date this company still has personal photos without proper branding on them. If the company takes the time to rethink the brand experience, they might decide to use something like this. @MorichesNews John Doe, with a Picture of John Doe accompanied by the Moriches News Logo in the corner or part of the frame, perhaps the background of the headshot. Provide a profile statement that looked like “John Doe is a reporter for Moriches News, a local source for issues and events. MorichesNews.com. An additional option, they could go one step further and develop a brand background to upload to the twitter accounts so that each twitter account looks consistent.

If you avoid your digital brand, or don’t invest quality time into the digital brand then you’re hindering your success. If you’re not listening to digital media you will not be able to learn about product opportunities in real time.

Here are two important videos from Google that talk about brand.

 

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q71uXKEBXrw&feature=player_embedded]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJuAvrHd3DU]

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