By Adam Carroll, Senior Marketing Strategist

It was not long ago that display advertising, in the form of banner ads, was becoming the dinosaur of online marketing. Declining click through rates and poor brand engagement meant that marketers were allocating their budget to more effective online channels. However, in the last couple of years key developments in targeting technology and media buying platforms have significantly boosted the effectiveness of display advertising.

At the forefront of these advancements is the concept of ‘Audience Centric Buying’. To understand why this new approach is such an important development in online advertising it is important to understand the existing model for buying ad units online:

Typically the editorial environment was considered to be a critical piece of ad placement and targeting, so advertisers would attempt to reach their target audience by purchasing placements on contextually relevant sites. For example- a car tire manufacturer would place ads on automobile sites, hoping to find customers looking to purchase car tires. While this form of targeting certainly goes some of the way to reaching a responsive audience, it does not take into account the behavioral, demographic and financial characteristics of individuals that will influence the likelihood of them making a desired action. Furthermore, a targeting strategy focused on contextually relevant placements means that you are often vying for limited ad units with your competitors, forcing up media costs and cluttering the space with similar ads.

Wouldn’t it be great if there was a way to identify browsers who we know are most likely to respond to a particular message and serve them an ad across any site, rather than simply casting a wide net by placing ads on what are believed to be relevant sites? ‘Audience centric’ targeting makes this concept a reality, providing a more scientific approach that ensures ads reach the most engaged and relevant audience.

So how does it work?

‘Audience targeting’ works by analyzing customers who have already completed a desired action on an advertisers site (such as making a purchase) and using this to identify and target other browsers with similar characteristics across virtually any site or network. Ultimately, this means you are buying and targeting a qualified audience, as opposed to simply buying pre-fixed ad placements across set sites.

Let’s take a slightly closer look at this process:

From Drop Box

1. Cookie based technology collects data on customers who have been to an advertiser’s site and/or completed a desired action eg: purchased goods; requested further information etc.
2. This data is used to build a profile of a browser most likely to complete a desired action. This profile includes multiple layers of behavioral, financial and demographic characteristics (eg: browsing history, age, gender, income etc)
3. Through ‘ad exchange’ buying platforms, advertisers are able to match the data they have collected with that of 3^rd party providers and effectively bid for individual ad units (impressions) across the web that are served to browsers whose cookie information is aligned with that of the ‘ideal’ customer profile.
4. A display ad is served, with copy and message that is targeted specifically for that browser, significantly increasing the likelihood of a desired outcome.

Essentially this process ensures that only the customers who are most likely to respond are served an ad no matter which sites they are browsing on.

Apart from the obvious advantages of reaching a more relevant audience, this form of targeting provides further benefits. Firstly, the advertiser knows the exact characteristics of their target audience and the online behavior they are able to segment this audience and deliver a more timely, customized message in the ad creative this compounds the level of engagement and value from the advertising spend. Additionally, being able to target an engaged audience in a non-contextual environment can help ads to stand out as they do not get lost in the clutter and ultra-competitive space of contextually aligned sites.

For advertisers this new technology really is a big step forward. Rather than simply landing on the target, advertisers can now have the data required to hit the bull’s-eye.

Whether the campaign objective is getting a direct response (lead, sale etc) or brand awareness the result is going to be a more responsive and engaged audience and less wastage on poorly targeted ad placements. I believe this is going to see display advertising once again become a vital component of the online marketing mix.

It is no secret in the industry that this is going to be a key trend in online advertising in 2010 but the biggest opportunity will be in the first half of the year where advertisers who adopt audience centric targeting will reap the full benefits of reach and cost advantages whilst the rest of the online advertising world catches up.

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Craig Hordlow, Chief Strategist

Marketers should only be as serious as the consumer takes their product. I’m not saying if the consumer doesn’t take your product seriously you don’t have to show up to work, but rather calibrate your work to their depth of interaction. This concept is a common oversight on landing pages that starts with the marketing message and is reflected in design, copy, and layout.

For most marketers, being less serious means stop talking about value propositions and start focusing on the consumers’ emotional drivers. Research tells us time and time again that consumers purchase largely for emotional reasons, so stop trying to appeal to their reason with logic when you should be making them feel guilty for eating that, fear of not using your product (Minoxidyl, Viagra), or salvation when you save them from their own laziness.

Not all products are bought for emotional reasons as evidenced by commodities and RFP’s, and many products have both logical and emotional drivers. If you can’t understand why someone would logically buy your product, neither can I. But I can help you emotionally manipulate consumers, and I am happy to do so.

Primary Motivators & the Seven Emotional Drivers

From Drop Box

Before you select which emotion you’re going to manipulate, there are business inputs to start with. Obviously, you should know the ethno graphics of the consumer, but beyond that, it is also helpful to know:

Industry Inputs:

· Sector

· Sales cycle

· Price / consideration level

· Alternative products

Consumer Inputs:

· New vs. return

· Depth of interaction

· Language

· Technical abilities

These inputs will have some impact on which emotion you manipulate and how you go about doing it.

Selection an Emotion to Manipulate

Avoid selecting multiple emotions unless you are sure they work together. While it is tempting to make a complete and thorough argument for your product, when it comes to emotions it only takes one to trump logic. The child who stands on the high dive hesitant to jump can hear everything known to man about gravity and bodies in motion and be no closer to jumping, whereas one supportive and comforting cheer from an older child and the leap is made. Adults are no different. Choose one emotion and be powerful.

It should go without saying that the emotional motivator you select is communicated to every member of the team.

Secondary Motivators

While primary motivators are the reason why the leap is made, secondary motivators either contribute or detract from that intent, and for that reason I am listing them in two columns.

From Drop Box

Each of the five secondary motivators should be considered for each landing page element. Ask yourself questions like, “is the call to action urgent?” and “does my copy create confusion or is it clear”? If you have too much information, you can cause anxiety, or too many links and you’ll create distraction.

Pairing Primary and Secondary Motivators

Now we are at last ready to effectively and efficiently emotionally manipulate our beloved consumer.

EXAMPLE: PRIMARY EMOTIONAL DRIVER IS FEAR

If we select fear as the primary, then the secondary motivators becomes evident. Urgency can be expressed as before something bad happens, trust through awards, a BBB logo, images of happy families we’ve helped, etc. Iterate through the secondary list with your primary emotion and you’re landing page becomes emotionally coherent and you are now effectively manipulating the emotions of your consumer base.

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By Craig Hordlow, Co-Founder and Chief Search Strategist

The Apple iPad, introduced by Steve Jobs in San Francisco on January 27, 2010, is unusual for Apple products in that the media knew most everything about it before Jobs’ presentation, and could only speculate for whom the device is meant and why they would use it.

The iPad is not filling any pressing unmet need, nor is it introducing us to any new technologies.  The iPad is an evolutionary step towards device integration.  If this step had been made by a less significant company, like Sanyo or Casio, it would have received little attention.  But Apple’s brand capital creates media fanfare, and its cultish following provides a forgiving consumer base.

There is speculation that the iPad will compete with e-readers. But the iPad has a computer screen that is hard on the eyes and while its portability may make reading easier, it is simply not an e-reader.

Apple knows that many people use computers primarily for getting on the internet and sending emails, and it streamlined this device for those people. The $700 price tag is welcoming but nothing more than that, especially in this economy. The virtual keyboard, while meant to simplify the device, is unorthodox, meaning it will be met with everything from confusion and frustration to satisfaction and joy. 

The risk that Apple runs with the iPad is cannibalization of its own products.  In his keynote address, Jobs said that “netbooks aren’t better than anything”, which was his inspiration for the iPad.  But having little more functionality than the iPhone, Seth Jayson (Senior Technology Analyst of The Motley Fool) quipped that the device reminded him of pictures in The Onion a year ago with Jobs telling his faithful following, “You must buy a large iPhone.”  The iPad, being something of a cross between a netbook and an iPod Touch, is not positioned to convert any segment of the consumer base to its theocracy.

Despite all of this, marketers and advertisers must be alert because anything Apple introduces to consumers has the potential to be a game-changer or at the very least, another opportunity to market to Apple’s faithful following.  The iPad will host the next generation of Apple-approved applications.  While the iPad has more processing power and memory than the iPhone, one might think that the next wave of apps will consequently be more robust.  The problem with that logic is that iPhone apps are either designed to be streamlined for the very limited capabilities of the iPhone, or for the mobile, location-aware attributes of the device.  Therefore it is difficult to imagine why a new catalog of iPad applications will be a game-changer.

If the iPad doesn’t sell an impressive number of devices, marketers and developers may dutifully build iPad apps for consumers who feel entitled by the explosion of them on the iPhone. The absence of a clear, de facto sense of purpose for the iPad among industry analysts has created confusion where excitement was expected.  Unless Apple can create a large customer base, marketers and advertisers will curb their enthusiasm, waiting for either another evolutionary step (such as a comparable Google product) or mass adoption of the device.

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Be Human. Get Personal with your Customers

Take time to get close to your customer base, because in 2010 customers will continue to dictate your marketing efforts. Take care to polish up your company’s blog and social media channels, like facebook and twitter, and keep them healthy by posting regularly. If your communications are sparse, users won’t respect you as an authority. It is necessary to participate in conversation and contribute valuable content to be respected in your marketplace. Providing direct and timely responses to customer feedback is a powerful and effective marketing tool.

Follow the Search Funnel

In-depth conversion tracking and analysis can shed light onto the profitability of search campaigns. Just as some keywords or ads may provide a great number of clicks but low conversion levels, high-converting keywords and ads provide different levels of customer engagement and revenue over longer periods of time. These sorts of ‘deep dives’ into conversion tracking will provide more customization, optimization, and ROI in the long term.

Analyze and Synthesize

Research and invest in new tracking technologies and tools in the marketplace which will benefit your marketing campaigns. Social media tracking, for example, gives concrete insights into what your customers are saying about your brand. This newfound ability to listen to and adapt to customer trends in real-time is a valuable resource. Likewise, a comprehensive and properly configured analytics platform is probably the most important tool that a marketing team can have. If your marketing data isn’t interpretable and actionable, it isn’t useful.

Diversify and Integrate

Your many marketing channels should be working as one. Integrated campaigns consistently perform better than campaigns running separately. When insights are shared among functional marketing teams, a comprehensive strategy may then be developed which incorporates findings and best practices from each marketing channel.

Audit and Update

Everything has a ‘Best By’ date, and your website and marketing collateral are no exception. Consumer tastes change as quickly as the seasons, and the images and copy which will generate positive responses need to be refreshed frequently as well. Update your paid search ad copy – revamp your homepage! Optimization of imagery and messaging are often overlooked, but the results are valuable marketing assets.

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 By Peter Vaughan, Copywriter

On the eve of December 9^th VEVO took over New York City with a launch party that included celebrity musicians like Bono, Lady Gaga and John Mayer. At the same time, millions of internet users waited eagerly for the return of music videos, an art form that television networks like MTV and VH1 slowly started moving away from years ago. As the clock struck midnight and the site went live, VEVO’s traffic servers struggled to handle the flood of eyeballs that flocked to the music video revolution.

But make no mistake about it, this wasn’t some kind of happy accident. Red Bricks Media worked closely with VEVO to architect an effective social media strategy that included tactics on channels like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and even eBay. At the heart of our campaign were viral videos featuring popular musicians in an act of defiance against obsolete media, a sentiment that would come to embody VEVO’s brand message.

To help seed these videos online, Red Bricks Media contacted influential bloggers in the music world offering exclusive video access and b-roll footage. The result was over 300,000 combined views in just three days. Additionally, these viewers were prompted to check out VEVO’s blog, Twitter and Facebook accounts to engage in pre-launch discussions, trivia contests and charity events like an eBay auction of 3 signed copies of Adam Lambert’s latest CD.

In the end, the best indicator of our success came from the mouths of consumers themselves. On the night of launch we became a trending topic on Twitter, sharing the conversation spotlight with keywords like “Christmas” and “Tiger Woods” (one week after he dropped his now famous ball). Using Techrigy’s buzz tracking capabilities we could also react to real-time conversation trends like usability feedback and brand shout-outs in order to keep engagement levels high throughout the night.

So what’s our best piece of advice for brands wishing to achieve the same success? Harnessing the power of social media isn’t just about creative thinking and intensive strategic planning – it’s about a willingness to have an engaging, transparent and collaborative conversation. Until marketers understand the fact that they can’t control everything that’s said about their brand, they will never be able to truly reap the rewards of platforms like Twitter and Facebook. Listening to what consumers are saying and encouraging them to become partners in shaping products and services will create the best possible result.

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By Micah Fisher-Kirshner, Search Strategist & Resident Analytics Guru

What would we do without Web Analytics? They provide the data necessary to make performance marketing possible. This allows for more efficient campaign optimization and higher ROI for businesses large and small. For most marketers, however, getting to that point is not an easy process. Most marketers will jump through hoops in order to pull the data they need to analyze, and merely end up with results which are confusing or difficult to interpret.

Web Analytics has evolved from log server files and stat counters into software packages whch provide a wealth of valuable data about website usage.. As such, Web Analytics as a practice began mostly as an arm of web development and developed in importance to the point that most companies now require an additional division to understand online profitability. However, the fundamentals of Web Analytics software which were originally built for website audits have yet to fully escape their roots in web development.

When one launches one of the well-known Web Analytics software packages today, whether it be Omniture, Google Analytics, or Coremetrics, the question that drives the user is usually “How is my website doing?” rather than “How are my online marketing campaigns doing?” These Web Analytics packages are structured by the process one would use to audit specific pages or searches, and how they are performing concerning website usability.

This is not to downplay the importance of these kinds of views and metrics, but rather to point out that Web Analytics should play a larger role in online marketing, rather than merely providing information about a website’s usage. There are changes afoot within Web Analytics that are providing deeper, more insightful, and more useful information to online marketers.An example of this is Coremetrics’ user-interface tagging or Google Analytics’ new ‘Analytics Insight’ section.

Yet, Web Analytics packages truly need to go through a full restructuring in order to avoid feeling like an add-on of an add-on, charging by the number of users or by the number of reports one creates. When an online marketer logs in to a Web Analytics interface, the first thing available should provide an overall view of performance by marketing channel, allowing any online marketer to dive into their own data and gain insights into their specialty without having to navigate through multiple areas in order to get data that is relevant to them.

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by Craig Hordlow, Chief Strategist

With so much excitement about the iPhone amongst both businesses and consumers, as well as the vertical market share growth charted by the device (from 5 to 10% between 2008 and 2009), it’s puzzling to see a recent Gartner Inc. report predict that Google’s Android, currently at 2% market share, will leapfrog to 14.5% by 2012, making it the second-largest mobile platform at the great expense of the iPhone’s market share.                  

The Gartner report predicts that the iPhone’s growth will become stagnant, growing a few points to a whopping 12% by 2012.  Why such a slow-down for the iPhone? And what does this mean for marketers who are just now catching onto the surge of client interest and investment?

Most of the projected growth is attributed to Google’s own ability and efforts to promote the Android, as well as its own apps and the large number of manufacturers making the open source device, which will make it a cheaper option than the iPhone. Additionally, the iPhone, not being open source, has limitations, whereas an open platform allows developers to implement functionality the platform providers haven’t gotten around to yet, are not good at, or simply put: other people could do it better

What should marketers be doing?

• Follow Android’s market share growth and start talking to your clients or in-house teams about the emergence of Android so they are comfortable with the change if and when it happens
• Study the mobile apps already on Android, and what your competitors are doing on the platform
• Get your technical teams up to speed on Android by downloading the SDK:
  http://developer.android.com/guide/index.html
• Create your demo project long before anyone else does!

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New service offers complex, comprehensive performance assessment and monitoring solutions.

San Francisco, CA – November 3, 2009 – Red Bricks Media, a full-service digital marketing agency, announced its new Analytics & Insights practice. Offerings will help clients better utilize marketing and website data to make more intelligent business decisions.

In order to meet the increasing and varied demands of digital marketers, Analytics & Insights will provide solutions that are both highly customized and platform independent. From defining analytics requirements to ad-hoc report development to generating robust data visualizations, the new service focuses on providing the data needed to make informed marketing decisions on budget and resource allocations.

“While a lot of agencies offer one-size-fits-all reports, our solutions focus on determining exactly what drives the success and failures of our clients’ digital marketing campaigns,” said CEO Elliott Easterling. “Whether we are analyzing the performance of a single channel or pulling together complex information from multiple campaigns, our goal is to provide custom, data-driven recommendations that will improve performance.”

The first offerings within the new practice will address the core elements digital marketers need to get analytics configured and intelligence uncovered:

• Analytics Platform Implementation Consulting
• Customized Reporting Solutions
• Deep Dive Analyses
• Cross-Platform Analysis Tools

For more complete information please visit www.redbricksmedia.com.

About Red Bricks Media:

Red Bricks Media is a full-service global marketing agency headquartered in San Francisco, with offices in New York and Hong Kong. Since 2003, they have offered services in search engine marketing, interactive media planning, email campaign management, creative, web design, and social media marketing. Their client list includes top brands like Microsoft, Hearst Magazines, THQ and the Los Angeles Times. To learn more about Red Bricks Media’s Web Analytics practice, please contact sales@redbricksmedia.com.

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By Andrew Leinicke, Senior Director and Joe Van Remortel, Vice President

Chances are good that your search engine marketing program is an underachiever. The growing complexity of search engine marketing can often result in higher costs and lower conversions. If your paid search campaigns have not accounted for the 20-25 variables that influence results they are likely candidates for reassessment.

Deciphering the root causes of search engine marketing performance is not easy. In fact, many seasoned search engine marketers miss opportunities for campaign improvement because they stray away from core performance-enhancing principles and fail to migrate campaigns through the dynamics of efficiency and volume.

Performance Enhancing Principles

The upshot is that marketers can boost the performance of their search engine marketing and PPC campaigns by 30%-50% or more by acting on four fundamental tenets of PPC advertising.

1. Simplify the Inherent Complexity of Search Engine Marketing

Search engine algorithms, policies and functionality are in a continuous state of evolution. And with 20-25 variables (such as match type, messaging relevancy, bid strategy) influencing search campaign performance, your PPC program becomes a complex, dynamic system that requires insightful management. Success is earned through finding the unique set of performance variables that drive efficiency and volume.

2. Iterative Campaign Management Influences Performance

There is no magic wand to wave over a search campaign to generate immediate, breakthrough success. A common pitfall in search engine marketing is an over-reliance on technology and automation. Automation can create process efficiencies, but too often campaigns are auto-piloted right into mediocrity, as the value of insightful human intellect is discounted. Cultivating new opportunities are what sophisticated PPC strategists do. Keyword universe segmentation as well as testing and landing page optimization are never complete.

 3. Messaging Relavancy is a Critical Performance Factor

In the beginning, there was keyword research: a means to build a semantic foundation for your PPC campaign. Visitor quality and conversion rates are directly correlated to the consistency of the relationship among keywords, queries, ads and landing pages. Thus, “messaging relevancy” greatly influences conversions, ROI and quality score. Get control of your messaging relevancy and you will go a long way to improving performance. 

4. Focus on Relative Value to Optimize Yields

Don’t become mesmerized by the most obvious metrics. Develop a portfolio of high-yield campaigns based not on click-through rates, but on customer value generation. Measure and optimize the highest order campaign metrics—customer acquisition, revenue, cost savings to make true ROI optimization decisions. Investigate relative campaign performance at the adgroup level, and then apply a performance-tiering approach to restructure the campaign to give you more control over feeding the winners and starving the losers.

Efficiency-Volume Matrix

When working with existing campaigns, Red Bricks Media applies these methods through the looking glass of our Four Quadrant PPC Analysis™. This approach is designed to identify the core drivers of PPC success and develop strategies based on the advertiser’s industry and location on the Four Quadrant diagnostic grid. Our Four Quadrant methodology assesses PPC campaigns along two critical dimensions: efficiency (cost) and volume (conversions). All PPC campaigns strive to be in Quadrant 1 in the matrix below—a state of maximized volume and efficiency. Our diagnosis places each campaign in one of the four quadrants. Depending on its location in the matrix and campaign parameters, we prescribe a specific set of strategies and tactics aimed at migrating campaigns to Quadrant 1.  

For example, in the matrix above, a company in a highly competitive, mature sector—consumer banking, mobile phone services, or retail — is likely to have PPC campaigns constrained in Quadrant 4.  

As depicted, our approach uncovers the key performance drivers and inhibitors, and then conceives an improvement program built on moving the campaign to Quadrant 1, with expanded volume and improved efficiencies. One must first analyze past and current performance data in light of current inventory and CPC rates in order to properly locate a campaign on the grid. Experiential knowledge of PPC campaigns and rigorous testing and optimization scenarios expose the success drivers and inhibitors that power the migration to greater levels of success.

The benefits of this approach can be significant. In a recent case when Red Bricks Media adopted an existing search program for an entertainment client, we applied the methods described above. The program had been deemed optimized, but, in fact, was languishing in Quadrant 3. Within six months, the Red Bricks Media team reduced the cost-per-click from $1.24 to $0.19, while more than tripling campaign volume. In order to achieve such results under the old campaign regime, our client would have been required to invest an additional $2.8 million. That is found money.

Search engine marketing isn’t getting more simple, but rather more complex. The way to penetrate that complexity—and simplify campaign management—is to focus on the four principles described above. Structuring that analysis within the Four Quadrant model enables campaign strategists to identify a powerful set of performance-enhancing strategies and tactics that can turn the underachieving campaign into an overachieving success.

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Red Bricks Media was among the 31 vendors featured in the latest Forrester’s Search Vendor Report. This report gives details and research on the changing state of the search industry, as well as advice to companies looking to select an agency. Visit Forrester’s site to purchase a copy of this report.

We’re also happy to announce we made B2B Magazine’s top agency list for 2009. This list includes agencies from all sizes and verticals that provide outstanding service to B2B clients.

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