During my years of experience in developing broad agency relationships with mid-to-large brands, it has become clear that as budgets become bigger, so the need for efficiency, transparency and ROI measurement increases as well. But on their own, they are not enough. What is needed to a perhaps even greater extent is education in online marketing best practices for the … [Read more...]
Skinflint Search Marketing
I admit it - I'm a skinflint. Call me a tightwad, a miser - I don't care. Basically, I'm cheap. And even if you're not cheap by personality, you might need to conserve cash by necessity. If that's your situation, don't despair. The Internet is tailor-made for you. Internet marketing, and search marketing in particular, is the land of the free. So step up, you skinflints, and … [Read more...]
They Can Hear Us Now: Q & A with Laura Marriott
The president of the Mobile Marketing Association says that ads on mobile devices will only get better, more widespread and easier to create and measure.Laura Marriott is president of the Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) and spearheads efforts to get mobile marketing adopted worldwide. The MMA is a global nonprofit trade association with more than 500 members in 42 countries. … [Read more...]
Winning With Authority
It's all good - from online advertising being up 25 percent, according to the IAB; to online commerce on the rise 23 percent, according to comScore; to Google search queries that are up 41 percent, per Nielsen//NetRatings. It's clear that online marketing grew strongly through the first three quarters of 2007.However, as industries grow, so does the attention paid by state and … [Read more...]
Late for a Date
This column was supposed to be the last in our series on redesigning SostreAssoc.com, the website for my design firm Sostre & Associates. I even said in my last article that, "By the time you read this article, the new design will be live on our site and we'll have started crunching the analytics data." Unfortunately, things didn't quite work out that way.Due to various … [Read more...]
Looking for a Few Good Affiliates
Linda Woods, CEO of PartnerCentric, an outsourced affiliate program management group, says that affiliate recruitment is the hardest thing affiliate managers have to do."There is no software that spits the names of affiliates out," she says, adding that there is no easy way around the arduous process of finding, meeting and building a relationship with the appropriate … [Read more...]
Video + Twitter = Seesmic
I recently had to stop Twittering. It was awful. The doctors said I would go blind.Seriously folks, even for as big of an Internet geek as I am, I was completely overwhelmed by the massive flood of 140-character messages from friends and colleagues that bombarded me 24 hours a day. So at the time of this writing, I'm off the Twitter-pipe, for now.But just when I thought I was … [Read more...]
Avoid the Blog Drivel
I degraded myself as a content publisher twice last week. In both cases, after reviewing my Google Alerts and picking the day's hot news item, I wrote a blog entry that included a quote, a few inane comments about the topic and a link back to the original post.It's a technique commonly used by bloggers to drive traffic to their sites through backlinks. Indeed, some bloggers use … [Read more...]
Ad-Supported Nation
There's no doubt that popular websites such as video clip destination Metacafe continue to be strong players because visitors know that when they come back again and again, they can be treated to fresh content to inform them and tickle their funny bone. They can play the short clips over and over again and send the links to friends without having to pay for visiting the site. … [Read more...]
Infrastructure Solutions for Growing Businesses
Oracle and HP deliver flexible, affordable and easy-to-manage reference architectures that are tested and validated for optimal performance. Oracle and HP deliver flexible, affordable and easy-to-manage reference architectures that are tested and validated for optimal performance. Infrastructure solutions from Oracle and HP provide your customers with … [Read more...]
Follow Up or Fall on Your Face
Guerrilla affiliates know well the importance of customer followup and prospect follow-up because they know what it takes to succeed in business.Why do most businesses lose customers? Poor service? Nope. Poor quality? Nope. Well, then why? I say, it's apathy after the sale. Most businesses lose customers by ignoring them to death. A numbing 68 percent of all business lost in … [Read more...]
Over-the-Counter Advice for a Healthier Home Page
A double dose of design is not nearly as potent as performance for a site that needs a checkup.What does design mean to you? Since the goal of this column is to teach website owners, Internet marketers and developers how to design home pages and landing pages that meet business objectives, it's important that we are on the same page, the same line - the same word - as we … [Read more...]
Mistakes Lead to Success
Learn from your missteps and the path to affiliate success will be paved with opportunity.Lurk around any affiliate marketing forum for more than a few minutes, and you will surely encounter a post that reads much like this: "Affiliate marketing sucks! I'm not making ANY money and I've tried EVERYTHING - Google AdWords, AdSense and affiliate programs. NOTHING works. My … [Read more...]
Search Marketers Target iPod Users
Discover how your business can leverage podcasts before it's too late.Everyone's talking about podcasts, those audio files downloaded from the Web and played on demand using an Apple iPod or any MP3 media player. Many podcasts are just for fun, but marketers are discovering they're also a promising new way to deliver advertising.In a sense, there's no difference in what you can … [Read more...]
Affiliate Market Maturing
The affiliate space is getting more sophisticated and complex, according to the findings of the AffStat 2006 Report, an annual study examining the state of the affiliate marketing industry.Released earlier this year by Shawn Collins Consulting, the survey polled nearly 200 affiliate managers from a cross section of the industry on their overall statistics, as well as a number … [Read more...]