F.T.C. Clears Google-DoubleClick Deal Finally

In a landmark judgment for the online advertising Industry. FTC has cleared the Google Doubleclick deal that would provide Google with virtual end to end services in online Advertising.

The Federal Trade Commission said that the deal won't significantly lessen competition in the online advertising market, rebuffing complaints from Microsoft Corp. and AT&T Inc. that it would give Google a dominant position.

'The FTC's strong support sends a clear message: this acquisition poses no risk to competition and will benefit consumers,'' Eric Schmidt, Google Inc.'s chief executive, said. ''We hope that the European Commission will soon reach the same conclusion.''

The FTC said in a report on its investigation that both the online ad sales and ad-serving markets have numerous competitors, several of which have been bolstered by recent acquisitions.

Those include Microsoft's $6 billion purchase of DoubleClick rival aQuantive, the acquisition of online advertising provider Tacoda by Time Warner Inc.'s AOL, and Yahoo Inc.'s purchase of Internet advertising exchange Right Media Inc. for $680 million.

Other competitors include ValueClick Inc. and 24/7 Real Media, which was purchased by London-based advertising giant WPP Group PLC for $649 million in May, the FTC said.

Privacy advocates say the combined company will have access to a huge amount of data on individual Web-surfing habits. The FTC said it lacked the legal authority to block the deal on any grounds except on antitrust matters.

Online ad spending is projected to reach $21.4 billion this year, according to research group eMarketer, surpassing the $20.5 billion radio advertising market for the first time. EMarketer expects online ad spending to nearly double to $42 billion in 2011.

Google already had ad serving abilties. This deal gives Google access to publishers outside of its current AdSense network and to behavioral data that will help them with ad targeting.

This deal is significant in other ways as well as it will push Google far enough ahead in the game .Yahoo! and MSN will finally accept their second and third place positions and invest in retaining customers and providing value to existing advertisers. ( forrester blog )

Industry experts points out that Google has realized that it cannot growth solely through the value proposition of hyper-efficiency, because most of the ad dollars are still controlled by companies focused on “ traditional branding,” which is far from hyper-efficient, to say the least. As Fred Wilson points out:

But, banners carry branding value that text ads don’t. The return on investment measure is not as cold and hard with banners. And the big branded advertisers that are leaving TV and print in search of better performance on the internet want to be able to brand with their ads. And they want to control where those ads are run. They’ll pay more for those two features.

Hear it directly from the Google Blog

DoubleClick provides a suite of products that enables agencies, advertisers, and publishers to work efficiently, that will enable Google to extend our ad network and develop deeper relationships with our partners.

This new partnership represents a tremendous opportunity for us at Google to broaden and deepen our inventory of available ads and to better serve both our publishers and users. Together, Google and DoubleClick will empower agencies, advertisers, and publishers to collaborate more efficiently and effectively, which will, in turn, provide a better experience for our users.

In other words, brand advertisers will pay more and would not be overtly concerned about ROI. And this isn’t necessarily a bad thing at least for the ad network compnies — while a lot advertising is probably still wasted, a media and marketing world driven entirely by Google’s hyper-efficiency would not necessarily be an attractive place.

Ultimately, Google knows that control advertising means controlling the fuzzy middle between branding and direct response:

Healthcare Records Online : The Next big Marketing Surge

In what should be the next big thing on the internet where marketers see a surge of activity and aggressive marketing tactics seems to be Healthcare . Online Healthcare provides a minefield of opportunities to advertisers and healthcare companies to target healthcare related products once user health records and data comes available.

Most Paper records in hospitals and physician offices are increasingly being replaced by digital form on computers. Consumers are creating their own personal health records online as well. Advocates see opportunities for better health care, and some companies see profits. But a few patient privacy experts foresee problems.

Gabriel and other doctors at the University of Pennsylvania can share computerized information about patients they have in common. But, he says, when patients aren't in that system, getting information about them isn't so easy. A personal health record, or PHR, could help.

Here is how things could become very exciting for marketers once Patients medical records are made online.

• Marketers can target customized healthcare ads from healthcare providers.
• patients too can get accesses to large number of information and offers by healthcare providers.
• Online records would help doctors to know precisely the medical history of a patient even without being with the patient in person
• By combining better Internet search tools, the vast resources of the Web and online personal health records, online marketers are betting they can enable people to make smarter choices about their health habits and medical care.

However for most people, typing an ailment into a Web search engine is very different from entrusting a corporate titan with personal information about their health.

Google and Microsoft recognize the obstacles, and they concede that changing health care will take time. But the companies see the potential in attracting a large audience for health-related advertising and services. And both companies bring formidable advantages to the consumer market for such technology.

Microsoft gets about 6 billion search queries a month. An estimated 3 percent to 7 percent of those are health-related. Microsoft hopes online health records will drive even more search traffic and allow for more health-related ads.

Online personal health records are still in their infancy. A tiny number of individuals have them. The widespread ability to easily share information between doctor and patient is probably years away.

A prototype of Google Health, which the company has shown to health professionals and advisers, makes the consumer focus clear. The welcome page reads, “At Google, we feel patients should be in charge of their health information, and they should be able to grant their health care providers, family members, or whomever they choose, access to this information. Google Health was developed to meet this need.”

A presentation of screen images from the prototype - which two people who received it showed to a reporter - then has 17 other Web pages including a "health profile" for medications, conditions and allergies; a personalized "health guide" for suggested treatments, drug interactions and diet and exercise regimens; pages for sharing information, receiving reminder messages to get prescription refills or visit a doctor, and pages to access directories for nearby physicians and specialists. ( Google Health Prototype )

"If you look at health care, there's already a huge user need, people are already using Google more than any other tool on the Web to find health information," Mayer said. "And the health care industry generates a huge amount of information every year. It's a natural core competency for us, to understand how to organize all that data." ( Marissa Mayer, Google )

Earlier this year, Microsoft acquired Medstory, a Foster City, Calif.-based startup specializing in search software optimized for finding health information. Microsoft software is already used in hospitals, clinical laboratories and doctors’ offices, and, Mr. Shihadeh noted, the three most popular health record systems in doctors’ offices are built with Microsoft software and programming tools.

Microsoft has since launched HealthVault, a set of search and personal health-record tools that consumers control in terms of the data that's entered and shared with others

Microsoft will not disclose its product plans, but according to people working with the company the consumer effort will include online offerings as well as software to find, retrieve and store personal health information on personal computers, cellphones and other kinds of digital devices perhaps even a wristwatch with wireless Internet links some day.

Yet personal health records promise to be a thorny challenge for practical and privacy reasons. To be most useful, a consumer-controlled record would include medical and treatment records from doctors, hospitals, insurers and laboratories.

Maintaining digital health record would require partnerships and trust between health care providers and insurers and the digital record-keepers.

Privacy concerns are another big obstacle, as both companies acknowledge.A person might start, typing in age, gender and a condition,and a common ailment like diabetes, as a way to find more personalized health information. If a person creates a personal health record and later has second thoughts, a simple mouse click should erase it. The promise, the companies say, will be complete consumer control.

Online healthcare promises to be a great way for search marketers for targetting a user by their medical history which is most industry experts say is more relevant and trustworthy way of marketing products online.

It would be interesting to see however how privacy issues are handled by the two search giants.

Related Links on Healthcare Marketing Opportunities

Personal Health Records Moving Online

Google Says Its Health Platform Is Due In Early 2008

Google and Microsoft Looking to change Healthcare

Google Health Prototype

Online Marketing Predictions for 2008

A lot of things in online marketing happened in 2008. Among the many online trends that emerged and got tested in 2007 was in the areas of social networking . Google's open social e was something that kind of opened up many exciting areas to marketers and brand specialist. Facebook it seemed gave Google a run for its money by being the darling of media specialist in terms of press coverage it received.

The web undoubtedly is more interesting when you can build applications that can easily interact with your social networks friends and colleagues. But with the trend towards more social applications also comes a growing list of site-specific APIs that developers must learn.

OpenSocial provides a common set of APIs for social applications across multiple websites. With standard JavaScript and HTML, developers can create apps that access a social network's friends and update feeds. So developers wont have to really built different applications for different social networks, which was a real pain . Google's Open social allows a developers to build various apps for large number of social networks.

Here are some top online experts from the industry views on online marketing trends for 2008


1. Subscriptions will become the new revenue models for social networks. The fees will be small, but they will replace conventional advertising as a revenue model: (B.L. Ochman's 2008 Online Marketing Predictions:)

Social networks in terms of being a business model for advertisers have really failed to take off. No advertisers has really found the secret sauce of monetizing the social networks and make some money. Facebook seems to try out something interesting and it would be interesting to see much success advertisers would have by marketing on facebook.

Twitter and Skype will add subscription charges for enhanced features like groups and the two will compete for top social network status as the useless applications, intrusive advertising and annoying emails from Facebook et al increasingly turn off users.

Richard MacManus, Editor, ReadWriteWeb:

1. Semantic Apps will become popular in 2008, due to their ability to get better content results and make better data connections. Think search engines like Hakia and Powerset, wikipedia-like efforts like Twine and Freebase, and apps that use semantic technologies under the hood (such as AdaptiveBlue and Snap).

2. In tandem with #1, Google will experiment more with Semantic Apps in '08. The Knols project, although not overly semantic, is a hint of this direction.

3.The big Internet companies will surprise us all by embracing open standards, and attempting to compete with each other with features instead of data lock-in ( maybe we have seen that trend emerging in 2007 itself with Google's open Social )

Marshall Kirkpatrick, Lead Writer, ReadWriteWeb:

1. Twitter will be acquired.

2. Most ad networks will start producing their own content to advertise against; and some content companies today will get acquired by ad networks.

3. Online video will become so ubiquitous, including live and mobile, that everyone will wonder how the internet existed without it. It won't feel like a big deal, though.

4. A handful of big companies will let you start logging in with an OpenID associated with your account.

5. The value of recommendation engines will become all the more clear; the era of data will be celebrated.

Emre Sokullu, Feature Writer, ReadWriteWeb

1. Facebook will acquire companies that do the following, in order to strengthen their advertising unit: personalization, behavior tracking, image recognition (Riya?)

2. Facebook will release a browser.

3. However, despite all that... Facebook will decline.

4. Google OpenSocial will be a failure; Google will try to create its own social networking empire by making acquisitions in this space.

5. Microsoft will become more aggresive and buy many popular companies at once (remember Ballmer's quote). Candidates include SixApart, Technorati.

Sean Ammirati, Editor, ReadWriteTalk

1. Google will really start looking vulnerable in 2008. While the 'one trick pony' comment by Steve Ballmer drew sarcastic responses, this will begin to look prophetic. While they'll maintain market share in the search industry, the lack of traction in any other of their other initiatives will start to cause frustration. Plus, they will increasingly be perceived as the 'evil' company in many of these new initiatives.

Goodbye 2007:Looking back on the Year It has Been

The end of another year . As we finally bid goodbye to 2007 as the tradition goes, look back on what has been the most defining development in this year .

The Stock markets zoomed to unprecedented levels and all the cassandras that had written off the Indian capital markets in 2007 was in for a mighty shock.After giving phenemenol returns in 2006.Year 2007 gave a lot of investors some great moments to cheer .FRom 11,000 the sensex zoomed to 20,000 in November .This was a fitting reply to all those who left that the Indian growth story is over for good.

Its true that sensex does not determine a nations's exhaustive growth story . But Markets, specially capital markets are not isolated from the overall economic structure and they convey some idea on where exactly the macro economic growth story is happening.

But that should not cause a great deal of happiness to our Communist Friends who supports the Congress led Coalition . As Mr AB Bardhan had once comented before th 2006 Budget .Only 2% of indians invest in stock markets and we should not get carried by and frame policies to cater to these miniscule minority.

Going by the same reason I am sure Mr Bardhan's heart should bleed for the farmers of nandigram and Singur since I would presume that Agricultural workers make up a significant part of the Indian Population.

Indian Win at the 20-20 Inaugural Cricket Tournament showed very well "what happens if we can get the right team in the right place" No one actually imagined our rag- tag team of young and largely inexperienced team to win the 20-20 World cup . While I do not consider age to be a limiting factor to being successful in any activity,be it in sports or Corporate activity. But what I do feel is indeed an differentiating factor is the "attitude'. The attitude to challenge limits, the intense passion to win, the attitude to test yourself and benchmark yourself against the very best in the world are some of the traits that can be easily observed in some of the best companies and sports persons.

While paradoxically India's world cup cricket disaster in the 50 over version left a bitter taste in the minds of die-hard cricket fans and it culminated with the exit of the "Guru Greg" .Greg Chappel was never at ease with the indian way of doing things and was a mismatch right from the start .Starting from the start of the spat with sourav ganguly to his showdown with saching tendulakar. Greg has been a disaster when it came to man-management skills.

I think it would be interesting analogy to perhaps compare the role of Coach in Cricket to that of the Corporate world mentor and a coach. A few things marketing students or management executives can perhaps learn from the Greg Chappell and Indian Cricket team episode.

• Ther Role of the Coach is to manage the team and make them perform as teamn
• Not everyone will be stars in the team and neither will everyone be mediocre, The role of the coach is to make sure , that everyone plays to their strenghts and compliments each other
• There is place for only one star in the team .. and that is surely not the coach . Ther coach should build the team and handle the backend support . The front end should be handled by the team once they are on the playing arena
• Charisma is certainly not a key ingredient or a qualification coaches need to have . Charismastic people enjoys the spotlight on themselves .. An idea coach would try to be as low ley as possible .. and make the spotlight turn on the team
• The Role of the Coach is to motivate, gell the team and bring about flexibility in the team. Enabling knowledge sharing, unravelling hidden talents, a sharp eye for details are something he needs to have
• A coach need to teach players the basics .. but more importantly should communicate the vision and the larger picture by making the team grow

Key Marketing and Branding Lessons From Narendra Modi

Narendra Modi's election victory can be a model Marketing Case study in many Management Institutions. Narendra Modi succeeded in doing which few very Indian Political leaders or for that matter very few Indian Companies could have achieved it right.That is getting the correct marketing mix . Right from segmenting the market,reaching out to the right audience and positioning himself as a messiah of Brand Gujarat . Modi penetrated his market position across demographic segments and managed to cut right across the narrow caste and class on which most Indian elections are often based on

So what made Moditva a Brand . Lets study a few things Modi did correctly to brand himself the way he did

• Branding Himself as Gujarat's savior: Modi knew exactly what he stood for.He branded himself as Gujarat's savior who knew what was best for his state and did not hesitate to portray this very effectively. While the opposition struggled with a variety of issues and befuddled thinking. Modi's objective regarding what he meant to Gujarat was spot on.Branding lesson 1: Know your objective and focus on that singlehandedly.
  

• Undiluted Brand Message:Moditva stressed on a few key messages like development, good governance, zero tolerance against terrorism and industrialization.Modi did not try to mean different things to different people.Traditional Branding theories tells us that a brand has to communicate a universal message across segments . The Moment your brand starts to mean different things to different audience. Your heading for the end of your brand .The opposition was guilty of this more than once. From statements like" mauth ka saudaga" only helped to strengthen Modi's brand appeal.Brand lesson no 2: Brand Messages need to be kept simple and easy to understand.
  

• Modi's Brand Personality: Narendra Modi's brand personality was overpowering to say the least . In fact I don't think we have witnessed any election when one man continued to dominate singlehandedly.The sheer force and power of brand Modi so was brute and magnetic that no one could stand up to the man:Brand lesson no 3:Spent time on developing brand personality that results in "Pull "effect rather than "Push". We all know how a few brands have become generic in nature.For example few few of us goes to a shop and demands a detergent powder. We either ask for Ariel or Surf . We don't ask for just any bacterial soap we either ask for Dettol .Likewise people in Gujarat wanted only Modi ...
  

• Communicate the right USP(Unique sales proposition). Mr Modi communicated his USP very well to the Gujarat electorate.His vision of a safe,secure, developed industrialized Gujarat ( without any hint of a vote bank politics ) showed himself as a person who was not ready to compromise any of his principles convictions he stood for. His USP lay in the fact that he was able to communicate his product attributes regarding Gujarati pride and all the middle class sensibilities of an average Gujarati.While the opposition failed to even communicate what it stood for. Modi was a master in communicating his brand message and succeded in making his USP so pronounced that even areas that no one expected him to do well, gave him thumping margins. Brand lesson 4: Find a differentiated USP
  

Brand Modi: What Moditva can teach Marketers

Brand Modi continues to surprise . The sheer power and charisma of this man continues to puzzle everyone, including our friends from the media who finds it beyond their comprehension that in spite of their exit polls projection,endless debates about the political landscape of Gujarat, the so called urban poor divide and even the rebel within the BJP in Saurastra and the much talked about polarization of votes caused by the Hindu Muslim divide have failed to make any dent in Mr Narendra Modi's Popularity. In fact The Gujarat results must come as a surprise to even the die-hard supporters of BJP.117 Seats out of 182 was nothing short of a spectacular victory and that too without the absence of any emotional or volatile issue unlike last year elections which was held in the backdrop of Godhra and Gujarat Communal carnage

I wont be dwelling much on the political implications of Mr Modi's Victory since most of the national media's obsession with Mr Narendra Modi and his past will continue to haunt us in the days to come . I wont be surprised if we have a one hour regular slot on most mainstream news Channels only Dedicated to Modivta.

As a marketer, I think one of the things I am fascinated by Mr Modi,is his marketing machinery and the way he ran this marketing campaign to get himself elected.Without going into the details of my own political views and biases in any, Lets accept this. You either hate him or Love him. Mr Modi evokes no middle ground for most of us .Moditva is now beginning to acquire an ideology in Indian Politics and to some extent Narendra Modi has positioned himself as a brand which goes to to say that everything Modi does or every action he takes, it would be a shrewd marketing move .

Most marketers will agree that Brand Modi is an excellent marketing machinery at work.In fact there are many a lesson that marketers and marketing companies can learn from Mr Narendra Modi's art of marketing himself to his core constituency. In you cut out all the rhetoric form Modi's campaign, You will see a distinct roadmap emerging, which integrates all the P's of Marketing, all the classical brand building skills most marketers have imbibed .

Embracing Career Change : Need For a Course For HR Marketers

Change is something most of us would be happy to avoid, some of us would never do it, and a minuscule of us would probably be forced to do it . I am not talking about change for the sake of changing . I am talking about a conscious choice of taking the less traveled path, sticking to your convictions and making something work for you.

Most if us resist change because of the fear of unknown. We feel unknown is always uncomfortable compared to" known "thing.In professional life this is a syndrome which I would liken it to reaching "Professional Puberty"which means you are at that stage of your career, where you feel indispensable but at the same time, you realise that the top management no longer feels good to have you around, but also they dont or cant avoid you . You'r stuck at a mudslide,not knowing whether go get your feet away from it or to go down with it.

This syndrome typically strikes when you are at a middle level in your career and have spent around 5 years with the same company . You are probably at that point in life where you are married happily or unhappily.. have kids or thinking of kids . Most of the time we tend to feel more strongly about our family rather than our career.But this is the time when you need to focus on exactly what you want .

Its high time the HR Guys really started to think about how to handle their middle level executives . Most Indian Companies , I know or have worked with lacks any quality HR managers to re-train, and re-manage middle level employees .

At a time when quality manpower is at a premium. Its imperatively for these companies not to loose their middle managers.Most Middle managers would not find it difficult to get a job, but the benefit the older companies could get my retaining them is manifold as compared with the than the new ones

Vodafone Replies Too Little Too Late

Well , It seems someone has read the blog , or the email to vodafone really have done something . Or Lets say that the "small dog" is now beginning to get bigger . I just got an email from Vodafone from a lady who wrote

" This is to let you know that You vodafone connection will be activated from tomorrow(not again) Also I am no longer on the position . Mr( Name ) has taken over my place. Pls direct all email conversations to him.Regards"

well even if the Vodafone, Hyderabad connection gets activated . Its too little, too late . I fail to understand why big corporates like Vodafone fail to understand that they no longer can rule the Indian markets the way they used to earlier .We all know bad news spreads quickly. And on the internet bad news becomes real filthy and spreads virally. Is this sheer callousness ? ineptitude or just plain Bad management..? hard to say . But what I can say with certainty is that Vodafone has lost one customer for life and I will make sure none of the people I know ever subscribes to Vodafone at least in Hyderabad

Hopefully This would be the end of a long drawn Doggie battle

Pathetic Service From Vodaphone at Hyderabad

Its been almost 10 days, I am in Hyderabad and for a start I have begun to like the city .Hyderabad is not among the 4 metroes of India. But once getting there you will hardly feel your not in a metro city.You will feel the city throbbing with life and energy ,with Shopping Malls,Theme Restaurants,Multiplexes and all the trappings of an A1 Indian metro city . Coming from Kolkata it was good to see buses following lanes and not stopping anywhere they wanted. But like Kolkata the Auto-Rickshaws wallahs are the true ruler of roads. I like the undulating landscape of Hyderabad.Banjara Hills where my current office is is around 10 minutes from my residence near City center.

However one incident left a bitter taste in my mouth ,which I want to share with my readers.I opted for a Vodaphone corporate connection since most managers were using this and recommded me to use Vodafone which I promtly did . Since I was already a Hutch subscriber and was pretty much pleased with their services in kolkata , I did not have second thoughs over this . But My nightmare has just begun. Let me illustrate how Vodafone has mastered the art of loosing customers

day 1: SIM Card given and was told the activation would be done in the next day

Day 2: No Activation done.

Day 3: Vodaphone tells me to confirm address which I did

Day4: Vodafone Connection still not activated

Day5: On Calling Vodaphone a person comes to my Office ,says sorry and tells me Vodafone connection will be given next day

Day 6: Vodaphone asks me to mail them the address once more .. which is promptly done

Day 7: On calling up Vodafone Hyderabad Office, One gentlemen asks me to email from my corporate account..

Day 8:On calling up the lady , she asks me to email the address again . I bang down the phone and asks her to forget about it . I wont be a Vodafone subscriber again in my life

I emailed to Vodafone Hyderabad office from the web site and told them about the kind of service they provide to even corporate cutomers which till now has not elicited any replies from them till now

I guess the "Old Dog" was better

Adtech Research Reveals lower click through rates

Click-through rates by IAB format and country:

	Average	DE	UK	F	Italy	DK	FI
Pop-ups/ Layer	0.58	0.59	0.69	2.39	0.16	0.13	0.04
Video Ads	4.64	4.79	5.31	3.92	5.12	3.51	3.72
Button 2	0.05	0.42	0.13	0.38	0.07	0.02	0.08
Skyscraper	0.11	0.10	0.16	0.07	1.00	0.12	0.02
Wide Skyscraper	0.15	0.11	0.16	0.11	0.19	0.10	0.20
Medium Rectangle	0.20	0.20	0.25	0.09	0.19	0.12	0.14
Fullsize	0.20	0.14	0.08	0.19	0.38	0.17	0.08
Leaderboard	0.12	0.14	0.32	0.13	0.24	0.11	1.00
Ø	0.18	0.17	0.20	0.24	0.23	0.11	0.09

The table below shows the click-through trends of the last three years:

Nov. 2004	March 2005	June 2005	Nov. 2005	June 2006	Sept. 2006	Nov. 2006	Dec. 2006	March 2007
0.33	0.24	0.27	0.23	0.35	0.2	0.19	0.22	0.18

ADTECH, global providers of ad server technology has today revealed the results of its latest browser analysis and has revealed that just two out of a thousand viewed banners trigger a reaction from European Internet users. The current click-through rate of 0.18 per cent is the lowest since ADTECH started banner analyses in 2004. Then, the average was 0.33 per cent.

"We know from our regular ad analyses that click-through rates oscillate,“ commented Dirk Freytag, CEO at ADTECH. "They typically take a hit at the beginning of the year and rise with the temperatures and then hold a stable level until the end of the year."

Freytag continued: “The decreasing numbers overall in my opinion are due to the fact that the users have increasingly gotten used to online advertising during the last years. Banners are now commonplace on the Internet. New formats, such as video ads are needed to draw attention and generate clicks. Layer and Leaderboards in contrast have a high reminder potential even beyond the Web.”

Click-through behaviour also varies significantly between banner formats and countries. On average, the majority of clicks results from video ads (4.6 per cent) as well as pop-ups and layer ads at 0.6 per cent. Users click on the traditional full size banner more often (0.2 per cent) than the new large-format ad spaces such as Skyscraper (0.11 and 0.15 per cent) or Leaderboard (0.12 per cent).

The research identified the French and Italians as the most eager to click. Their click-through rates of 0.24 and 0.23 per cent respectively are double the rates of the Danes and Finns (0.1 per cent each).

About Adtech:

source: adtech.com

Christmas Holiday Gifts Countdown: LCD Photoframes beats Digital Cameras

A recent report from Hitwise shows that the "Nintendo Wii is currently the most searched for console in the UK . The iPhone now accounts for one third of all searches for a specific mobile phone. However, one gadget that has crept up slowly without a huge amount of fanfare is the digital photo frame – those small LCD photo frames that show digital photos either via a USB connection or memory card slot. In fact, they are now so popular that last week searches for them overtook searches for cameras – digital or otherwise."

This sudden popularity has led to flurry of bidding and optimization on digital photo frame related terms – primarily from gadget shops and sites set up specifically to cash in on the trend, but also from more mainstream retailers such as Amazon UK ('digital photo frames' was the 28th most popular search term sending traffic there over the last 4 weeks). All of the four sites charted below receive the vast majority of their search traffic from digital photo frame related terms (with the exception of RedSave - around three quarters of its traffic comes from other terms).

Affiliate Marketing : Tips for working succesfully with affiliates

Imagine a promotional tool, where you give money to your sales partners only when you are guaranteed a 20-30% increase in your sales. This is affiliate marketing in action. Affiliate marketing involves the publisher( generally the affiliate) and the advertiser( the merchant) comes together and partners in such a way,by which the publishers markets and promotes your site through links and your software tracking tool monitors the click through and the conversion rate and once a sale is made, you pay the affiliate a commission.

This is a win- win situation for everyone. However most merchants with the exceptions of the big shots like ebay and Amazon find it difficult to work with affiliates . lack of transparency, problems over affiliate commission, increasingly competitive business and lack of communication are some of the problem areas.

A visit to an affiliate site results in a click through to the merchant or destination site which is managed and tracked by tracking software. If a purchase, or other agreed action occurs on the destination site, a commission fee is paid to the affiliate site from the merchant. The tracking software places a cookie file on the visitors’ PC to prove they visited the site and this is set to expire after a period such as 30 days. Payment then occurs for any period after 30 days.

"The most obvious benefit, which is unique to affiliate marketing, is that the advertiser does not pay until the product has been purchased or a lead generated. It isreferred to as ‘zero risk advertising’. Contrast this with all forms of offline promotion where there is not a direct link between the cost of promotion and the revenue gained. The approach is also in contrast to Pay Per Click search engine marketing, where the retailer has to pay for the visitor irrespective of whether they purchase anything. As a result it is relatively easy to control affiliate expenditure and a company can readily ensure that spend is below the allowable cost of customer acquisition." ( Dave Chaffry in Introduction to Affiliate Marketing)

A further benefit for the advertiser is that the nature of affiliate sites enables them to expand their reach to a wider audience than is possible through larger portals such as news and magazine sites.

How To make a Affiliate work:

Pay good Commision:The key metric for the value of each merchant for the affiliate is Average Earnings Per Click (EPC). This will depend on the conversion rate to action on the merchant site and the average order value for retail products.

It is worthwhile for merchants to calculate their average order value and lifetime value for referrers from affiliates to see whether they can boost the EPC for their affiliates, if needed.

You can get an idea of commissions paid by searching on the client part of the Commission Junction site For example, a search on ‘Lingerie’ shows commission rates varying between 3 and 8%. Clearly affiliates will favour retailers offering 8% with more prominent placements (unless the merchant site has a significantly lower conversion rate). A search on credit card shows a fixed amount varying by lead or sale. Again, larger amounts will be more favourable to affiliates, dependent on conversion rates.

Be Flexible with your Commission Rates :Common generic products will have a low commission rate and niche products tend to pay well. Be reasonable with the structure of commission. You cant have a one size fit all policy. A new product that has a high profit margin and is volumes driven cannot have the same commission as a niche products that has a high cost.

Also try to have a weekend deal or a holiday offer for your affiliates . This is a great way for affiliates for bringing something new to their customers. Often you will see that the affiliates will go out of their way to promote you.Take Steven Rothberg, president of CollegeRecruiter.com, a career site for college students and recent graduates. He pays about 50% more than many other companies in order to attract the best affiliates possible. About 10% of his revenues come from his affiliate

Increase the Cookie expiry period: A affiliate will work more with a merchant that sets the cookie expiry for 20 days rather than working with someone who has set it for 5 days , because of the fact that he can drive more sales in 20 days.However when using an affiliate network, only the most recent affiliate is credited.

Remember the 20:80 Rule :This often quoted marketing rule works here too . your 80% of your sales will be made by the top 20% of your affiliates . Work closely with the super affiliates and pay special attention to them.

Optimise Your Creatives:Rich text media, Great copy, good color combination and site usabilty designs are as important in handling sales through your affiliates . Try to give frequent feedbacks to your affiliate in terms of managing campaign tracking and feedback control.

One Tier or two Tier Commissions:Some merchants use Multi-Level Marketing arrangements, where some affiliates use a referral network to generate more sales for the company and commissions for themselves. An affiliate that is working with a particular company’s program will attract other partners to join up. It, then, receives commissions from any activity those newer affiliates generate. The system ensures more income for partners throughout the chain and greater visibility for the small business.

Affiliates should Compliment , Not Compete : One the of the most debatable points in affiliate marketing often results from the fact that affiliate and the merchant often compete in the same space and this often results in higher prices, more competition and less of sales However, the single biggest problem of working with affiliates is competition on Pay Per Click networks (PPC). Imagine a situation where you have 100 affiliates promoting a retailer . Often these affiliates buys traffic via PPC which drives traffic to your site too .These may inflate the advertising cost of the retailer, even to advertise their own name and brand.

Sometimes they may place ads which offer to compare your deals to competitors. Fortunately, the PPC networks will usually stop what is effectively trade mark infringement as long as the merchant is aware of it and asks it to stop. Also with these affiliates compete with organic search rankings too and often this may result in one of your affiliates ranking above you in a particular keyword. if the affiliate promotes multiple merchants, your sales may not eventually increase even though your affilate may get good cuts in commissions.

Use of Sypware and Adware in Affiliate programs:With the affiliate networks providing potentially thousands of affiliates there is reputational damage possible from less ethical affiliates. Some may have salacious content that a merchant does not want associated with their brand. Some may use spyware, adware or scumware software applications to get their links. Typically affiliate networks will exclude these practices in their terms of agreement, but it may be impractical to monitor some exceptions.

Watch out For Affiliate Scams and Spams:There are a variety of scams out there, so be careful. One common type works this way: An affiliate earns a commission on an order that they actually place themselves, after which they return the product. “The merchant ends up paying a commission on a product they didn’t really sell.”As for spam, you can be held legally responsible for the actions of your affiliates that send out junk mail on your behalf, thanks to the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003.

You can find more information on Successful tips on working with Affiliates at

• Affiliate Marketing Introduction
• Understanding the basics of Affiliate Marketing
  

(Special thanks to Dave Chaffry )

Email Marketing Trivia

Fun facts and Trivia About Email Marketing

Did you know...

• Users spend an average of 51 seconds reading the average newsletter. It's critical that the newsletter layout and writing need to be relevant and easy to use in order to survive a user's crowded inbox.

• 23% of newsletters are read thoroughly - 50% are skimmed or partly read and the remaining 27% were never opened! (Nielsen Norman Study)

• 50 characters could be all that stands between you and the success of your next email campaign. Many recipients use the subject line to decide whether or not to open or delete an email.

• 35 percent of email users open messages because of what's contained in the subject line and, including your company name in the subject line can increase open rates by up to 32 percent to 60 percent over a subject line without branding. (Jupiter Research)

• The most significant decline in email performance comes two months after recipients opt in. The new subscriber needs to be immediately engaged which includes a welcome message, followed by the current newsletter or promotion or an email-exclusive offer just for newcomers, for example.

• 53% of buyers always prefer to receive a courtesy email and 53% said they never prefer to receive a sales call as initial follow-up. The study found that buyers tend to give a valid email address more often than any other piece of registration information.

Email marketing works, as long as it:

• Provides unique information that reflects a particular insight
• Maintains constant relevance to the reader's interest and needs
• Is clearly written, concise, and provides clear thought
• Gives the reader the ability to scan quickly( make use of bullets and points)
  

And how do most people compare email newsletters with other media?

"Bottom line, I'd rather have it in an email newsletter than in the regular mail. I can click delete if I don't want it; I don't have to throw anything away; and it is usually easier to unsubscribe if you don't want to get anymore."

Convenience rules!

Websites That provides Contextual Advertising Services

Contextual advertising is now largely proffered by publishers these days,since this provides site owners the opportunity to target relevant ads in front of the user , thereby providing more incentive for users to click on the ad . Google Adsense is the granddaddy of Contextual ads service. Google adsense revolutionized the entire Online marketing Industry as even Small and medium Publishers and Bloggers could now monetize their content.Suddenly banner ads which were a ubiquitous now began to slow signs of weakening due to the banner blindness . Banner ads clearly started to become less than effective and Contextual advertising led by Google Adsense dawned a new era

here are some list of websites that provides Contextual ads .

• Google AdSense the first truely successful contextual advertising service

• Yahoo! Publisher Network also known as YPN. Yahoo's answer to AdSense. Still in non-public Beta.

• eBay AdContext - Currently in non-public Beta. To apply for the beta, Join the ebay

• Affiliate Program via CJ and send an email to adcontext@ebay.com with the request to be accepted for the beta testing.

• Amazon.com Omakase Links - contextual Book Ads by Amazon.com associates center

• MIVA Monetization Center - three services for web publishers. Content Ads, MIVA InLine Ads and Search Ads.

• Clicksor.com - Auction based Contextual Advertising Network. CPM/CPC based. Webmasters can select from a wide range of media such as Text banners, Graphical banners, Pop-Under advertisements, Search boxes, Contextual inline links, Layer ads and XML feed to host on their websites or blogs.

• Now called: "Microsoft Content Ads". Formerly known as Microsoft Active Search. See new story at ClickZ

• Contextual Ads from Microsoft - Currently in non-public beta (announced 8/29/2006).

Contextual Advertising Keyword Checkers, Simulators and Research

• AdSense Dominator - over 1,050,000 Google Adsense Keywords... + Keywords Analyzer ($97-) comes free.

• Google AdSense Sandbox Tool by DigitalPoint. Simply enter the URL or keywords and you will see up to 20 sample AdSense ads for the URL or keywords.

• Google AdSense Tool by PromotionWorld. Like DigitalPoint Google AdSense Sandbox Tool, but you can select the Google Ad Format and Color Scheme to get an actual preview of how the Google Adsense Ad would look like.

• AdSense Preview - Simulates what ads would appear on a given URL and how they would look like based on the selected Ad Size

• AdSense Calculator Calculate Daily, Monthly & Annual Clicks+Earnings based on some basic Ad Performance Data

Semi-Contextual Advertising - Keyword Targeting:

• BrightAds by Kanoodle - Smart Sponsored Links - Matching Ads to Content.

• Text Link Ads at TextLinkAds.com - direct HTML links that can drive targeted traffic and help your organic search engine rankings. Get $100 fee Credits with Code: STARTER KIT - Free Link Buying Guide.

• BidVertiser Get $20 in FREE clicks. Publishers, Monetize your Website or Blog with BidVertiser

• BlogAds place ads on America's most influential blogs.

• CrispAds - Keyword Targeted ads on Blogs and in RSS Feeds.

• pheedo.com RSS marketing solutions provider - Monetize your Blog and News feeds

• Findology.com publisher solutions provide customized tools for Webmasters to generate revenue with their Websites

• AccessoryAds.com by 7Search.com - Keyword targeted Ads like the Ad further up on this page.

• Chitika Display targeted products and you get paid for clicks. You can select the product category you would like to get product ads being pulled from.

• AuctionAds.com - Increase the Bid on Your Site's Income! Auction Ads allows you to display live eBay auctions on your website next to your content. You are in control of which type of auctions are shown.

• TTZ Media - Keyword targeted product ads based on the Shopping.com comparison shopping API. Ideal for product review or other product related content sites with 250K+ impressions per month.

A very comprehensive list of classic PPC Search Engines (including Google, Yahoo, MSN/MS Live and Ask.com), Networks and Services is available at Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Search Engines List.

Blog Review Pay for Blog Post Services and Brokers

• ReviewMe.com - Advertisers, can get their service or Web site reviewed by bloggers. Blogers get paid to review services and Web sites that are of interest to their readers.

• PayPerPost.com - Pay bloggers to talk about your product or service. Bloggers, make money by blogging about products you like, Publishers add reviews to your site or blog.

• SponsoredReviews - High quality matchmaker between the advertiser and blogger for paid reviews

• Blogvertise - smaller and less strict review broker that connects bloggers with advertisers that are willing to pay for reviews (links)

• CreamAid.com - join the conversation via CreamAid's conversation Widget, Participate and earn royalties if your contribution is selected and syndicated.

• PayU2blog.com, Blogitive.com, Smorty.com are additional blog advertising services

source:cumbrowoski.com