Archive for February, 2007
February 28, 2007 at 5:47 pm · Filed under Campaign Review
Quick Update: I’m seeing a lot of Google visitors who are searching for “fish eye wine cask” visiting here which proves my point about their need to get this product’s content on their site. In any case, you were probably looking to buy the wine or read some reviews so I have added a set of quick links right above here to take you to your intended destination. Please do feel free to read this review if you’re interested in online marketing or how you ended up here instead of on the fisheye site. Thanks!
Overview:
Fisheye Winery of Ripon, California launched a new integrated marketing campaign for a 3-Liter Wine Cask (essentially boxed wine) during the E! Academy Awards red carpet show. According to the press release from their agency B.A.R.C. Communications, the key goal of the campaign is to “reinforce the growing popularity of both Fisheye Wines and Premium Cask packaging”.
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February 28, 2007 at 12:30 pm · Filed under Around the Blogosphere, Web Analytics & ROI
Scott Maxwell has posted a list of 10 ways to lie with metrics on his blog which Juice Analytics summarized:
1. Only present metrics that are positive. That’s why you collect all those metrics.
2. Only present metrics that are easy to manage.
3. Use many metrics.
4. Be extremely precise with your numbers.
5. Present quickly, drown ‘em with data.
6. Say “you don’t break down metrics” if they aren’t flattering to you.
7. Put lipstick on that pig–apply lots of gloss to your charts. Hello, Crystal XCelsius!
8. Show off your bona fides by sharing some metrics “off the cuff”.
9. Prep your team by feeding them lines.
10.Your job isn’t to educate your audience about your metrics. If people don’t know what you’re talking about, it’s because they’re stupid.
I work with data every day and I’m probably guilty of some of these points myself. However, I don’t necessarily think that all of them are “lies” — some are really a matter of client/personal preference. The biggest challenge is to get people to think about measurement and ROI — in fact, most recent surveys reveal that most managers and executives have no idea what their return on advertising is even though the tools are available to help do that.
I personally do tend to use many metrics (#2) to provide insight into performance and behavior from multiple angles. You don’t just look at sales, you look at average order value, margins, sales categories, sales conversion rates, shopping cart abandonment, etc. in order to get a complete picture of what’s happening. Multiple metrics are needed to go beyond the “what” and get to the “whys” and “hows”.
Fortunately, our agency culture is about accountability and we are very open about how we measure with our clients. We also make sure we take the time to educate and understand what are the measurements that they care about in order to tailor our reports accordingly. At the same time, we do pride ourselves in being precise (#4) and prepared (#9) but not to cover up any deficiencies but because our clients expect us to know the data intimately and to be ready to present it clearly.
My personal advice to those who are victims to #1, #5, and #7 are as follows:
- Don’t be afraid to share negative metrics. There’s a story there that needs to be told. In my experience, clients are much more interested in the learnings and insights than they are about the actual number. Never give a negative metric without having a plan to turn that around.
- Use data to support your ideas and insights. Don’t throw up charts into a presentation without preparing the audience for it. Never assume that everyone can read a chart the same way you can — even when it’s extremely obvious to you
- Please, no more driver’s dashboard themes and pressure gauges on reports from anyone. I stick to clean Excel charts when possible utilizing easy-to-read color themes. Yes, it’s sort of dressing the charts up, but it’s primariliy for visual clarity and to bring Excel’s fashion sensibility up-to-speed. (This doesn’t apply to Excel 2007 which has a modernized palette). We also use a data visualization tool called Tableau which helps us build more interesting data visual aids and allows us to add additional data dimensions through variable line widths and color gradiations based on data set values.
Rebuttals, Agreements, Discussions in the Comments Section Please.
February 25, 2007 at 9:49 pm · Filed under Web Analytics & ROI
AdAge Digital published an article “How Google Has Helped Build Brand Advertising Online” this past Thursday and I wanted to address some of the 3rd party ad serving issues called out by Tim Armstrong, Google’s VP of Advertising Sales.
Here’s the part about 3rd party ad serving:
A Bank of America analyst asked Mr. Armstrong about Google’s ad-serving philosophy and whether that was hindering marketer use of its display network. While most major online agencies serve their ads through Doubleclick or Atlas to simplify delivery and reporting, Google hasn’t yet opened up its network to third-party ad serving. That means an agency that uses Doubleclick for virtually all of its ad placement would have to use a separate ad server, Google’s, for buying display ads across AdSense.
Mr. Armstrong said Google faced the same issue in 2000 and 2001 with search — people had asked whether Google would use a third-party ad server for search. Third-party ad servers, he said, “assume they can figure out how to target more effectively than you can.” He said Google has been happy not to use third party ad servers to deliver its search ads and that it’s “working diligently” in the branded ad space to continue to serve ads effectively.
In terms of search text ads, there’s really no reason to use a 3rd party ad server to deliver the actual creative since most advertisers do not consider a “view” of a text-link to have a significant impact. Google already allows 3rd party click tracking through AdWords, advertisers just use Atlas/DART redirects in the Destination URL fields.
The Google display network, on the other hand, would greatly benefit from allowing 3rd party ad serving, but not for the reason the article outlined — “Third-party ad servers, he said, “assume they can figure out how to target more effectively than you can.”
Here are 3 benefits from 3rd party ad serving that would allow advertisers to derive more value and in turn spend more branding dollars with Google’s display network if 3rd party ad serving was allowed:
- View-Conversion Tracking - Google still takes the “click tracking” approach to display as it has done with text even though advertisers are increasingly looking for brand metrics beyond the CTR including brand engagement and view-based ROI. Without 3rd party ad serving, advertisers are not able to measure whether or not people who see the branded ad are in turn visiting the site, even when they haven’t clicked. Experiments to measure “non-click” activity can also be controlled through testing on 3rd party ad servers which allow for test/control group setups of users who are exposed to branded ads and those who are not. Atlas Institute has already conducted a study into the effects of banner impressions (http://www.atlassolutions.com/pdf/BrandingEffect.pdf)
- Behavioral Targeting - Contextual relevance is a great first step. When you can overlay behavioral targeting, it gets even better. 3rd party ad serving has nothing to do with where the ad gets served (Google still controls that), it has to do with what message is served for which audience. Using simple targeting on 3rd party ad servers, one can target messages based on past user behavior on an advetiser’s website. For example, if you’re a car manufacturer, having your “Visit AcmeCars.com” is a great message for those customers who are not in-market. What about a user who has already visited your site and browsed for, let’s say, the Acme Destroyer. With 3rd party ad serving on Google’s display network, the ad server can serve up “Test Drive the Destroyer at your local Acme Dealer” and that may improve ROI and response rates.
- Unified Platform - Agencies and Advertisers hate having to go into multiple interfaces to run and track their marketing programs. Swapping creative and changing landing pages can become part of the existing production/execution process flow once ad serving is consolidated into a 3rd party ad server.
In short, everyone wins.
Related Articles:
Jay Sears at ContextWeb has a write-up on this as well on the ContextWeb Blog.
Disclaimer: I work for Avenue A | Razorfish, a division of Aquantive, which also owns Atlas, a 3rd party ad server. My comments in this post are my opinions and are offered out there as my 2-cents.
February 25, 2007 at 3:14 pm · Filed under Personal News, Personal Opinion
I caught a glimpse of Guy Kawasaki’s book “The Art of the Start” at my local Barnes and Noble today and decided to give it a quick lookover.
On the cover, Pierre Omidyar, one of the founders of EBay, is quoted as saying “please, read the last chapter first.” So the last chapter is called “The Art of Being a Mensch” which is basically Guy’s advice on how to be ethical, decent and admirable.
It’s a pretty short chapter (3 pages) so the basic idea is:
Help Many People
- Do What’s Right
- Keep your Word, Value the Spirit not the Technicality of an Agreement
- Pay for What you Get
Focus on What’s Important
Pay Back Society
Pretty pratical advice if you ask me. I can probably work on the first point, and the last point more but I think I’m pretty good about doing what’s right most of the time. The most important part of this chapter is probably the exercise you’re supposed to do:
“It’s the end of your life. Write down the three things you want people to remember about you”
1. To be remembered as a close and trusted friend to those who were kind enough to have shared a friendship with me.
2. To raise a strong loving family (when the time comes)
3. To have lived with no regrets and lived life to the fullest.
And here’s a quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson which I find unwavering inspiration in:
“To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty; to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.”
That is what I would like to be remembered as.
I would like to invite everyone reading to submit their list of 3 things they would like to remembered for and I’ll post them here.
February 24, 2007 at 8:07 pm · Filed under Site Critique, Personal Opinion
First off, I’m writing this review primarily because I have been a reader of JohnChow.com for a while now and I truly find his posts entertaining (and often educational) and secondly, because he’s offering to link back to this review and hopefully bring me some new readers.
Who is John Chow?
In a nutshell, John is a self-described “dot-com mogul” and he really is. He started the highly popoular TechZone and then went on work on several other online content ventures. John Chow calls his writings “ramblings”, but it’s really not. His posts are coherent, clear, and most of all authentic. John hails from Vancouver, British Columbia (that’s in Canada) and from what I can tell, he’s in his mid-30s, loves cars, food, and life.
JohnChow.com in a Nutshell
John’s first post on his new blog was on December 1st, 2005 so JohnChow.com has been in existence for little over 2 years now. JohnChow.com includes posts about his work, dot-com news, as well as details from his personal life including restaurant reviews, cars, and blogonomics (the economics of running a blog).
In many ways, John is a great example of way the internet has elminated the barriers to entry and has allowed almost anyone who has common sense, smarts, and most of all heart to be successful.
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February 23, 2007 at 8:24 pm · Filed under Blogging and Viral Marketing, Around the Blogosphere, Personal Opinion
Seth Godin wonders why people continue to blog even when outsiders will hardly ever get a chance to read it. That’s a very critical question for InteractiveDaily which has only recently begun to be updated regularly. Despite my efforts at submitting stories to Digg and Reddit, I haven’t gotten a single comment yet. I’m getting somewhat compulsive at tracking visitors though, I think I visit Google Analytics every hour.
In some ways, I think I write because of the need to write myself “into being” which Lynette Webb at FutureLab wrote about recently.
She quotes Danah Boyd’s essay that “Jenny Sundén (2003) argues that, in order to exist online, we must write ourselves into being. From the flow of text in chatrooms to the creation of Profiles, people are regularly projecting themselves into the Internet so that others may view their presence and interact directly with them. Social network sites take this to the next level because participants there write their community into being through the process of Friending”.
I guess at the end of the day, I’m just looking to validate my existence online through befriending others.
I’m also very excited about the online advertising industry which is experiencing phenomenal growth. Being situated in one of the top agencies in this field helps as well as I’m right in the thick of it, working on campaigns for some major advertisers, thinking about online marketing strategy and actually being able to measure its effectiveness.
So I think the answer to Seth’s question is: Yes, this blog exists even if no one is reading if just for the sake of validating my own existence.
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