Tracking Ad Success in the New Era

SANTA MONICA, Calif. — Few things thrill online advertisers more than metrics — those magic statistics that, at least in theory, enable them to know exactly who is viewing their ads and whether those viewers successfully made a purchase, clicked on the ad or signed up for a future mailing. But what worked during the heyday of static banner ads hasn't necessarily translated to today's online advertising. Instead, the industry has struggled to come up with metrics for tracking newer forms of marketing that use video, social media and user-generated content platforms. And with no way to measure the success of their campaigns, businesses have no clear guidance on whether an ad was a success. Figuring out the answer now may be more critical than ever. Advertising sans metrics makes brand owners very nervous, so measurable metrics "couldn't be more important than in this current economic environment," according to Mark Ghuneim, CEO of digital agency Wiredset, who moderated a panel discussion here on the topic at the Digital Hollywood conference in Santa Monica, Calif. Panelists agreed the industry needs to better understand in area in particular: "engagement," which they described as when the consumer enters into a relationship with the products and brands they use. It's not enough to simply buy stuff anymore; ideally, consumers buy into the whole brand experience. In some successful cases, like Apple or Harley Davidson, consumers see a brand as an extension of their lifestyle. One problem is that most consumers have little interest in engaging deeply on a profound level with every product that they use. Worse, panelists seemed at a loss in terms of how to better grasp or measure engagement, which is a notoriously elusive concept, said Charley Shoemaker, director of video measurement products at Nielsen Online. Lessons From the PastThis craving for measurable statistics led to an overreliance on "click through" back in the formative years of the Internet — after all, what could be a better predictor of the success of an ad campaign than counting the people who saw an ad and responded to the call to action by clicking on it? Well, as it turned out, simply clicking or not clicking on an ad is not a strong indication of the success of a marketing effort. People may not need the product being advertised at that moment, but may remember the ad — and the product — when they do need it, later. Klutzes may click accidentally. People may click through out of boredom but never buy the product. These days, advertisers know they need to look beyond the click. But that might be easier said than done. For one reason, panelists said culling together actionable metrics from today's fragmented media market proved difficult for many advertisers. The general rule of thumb is that statistics culled from a large group will provide more accurate information than those culled from a smaller number of people. But if you have thousands of Web sites and channels and media outlets, each appealing to ever smaller groups of people, you have to work with much smaller sample sets, which may or may not skew the across-the-board accuracy of the statistics," said Ken Papagan, president and chief strategy officer at Rentrak, an audience measurement firm. Others thought they had worked out a solution to getting granular data. "People naturally segment themselves. With regard to video, we correlate video consumption within each segment, and when we start to see that certain types of segments favor certain video, we know what to expect," said Ryan Burke, managing director of sales and business development at Compete, an online marketing research firm. "It's sort of like a collaborative filter," Burke said. "We don't ignore metadata and transcription data. We layer this on when coming up with predictive advice — If they like 'X' video, they'll like this one. We're doing this for Fox TV Web sites now." Marketers are also trying to track the "velocity," as Wiredset's Ghuneim described it, of what people are saying to each other on Twitter, blogs and forums, to see how fast information moves across social media and what impact fast communications have on advertising. Do ads have more of an effect on mobile devices? Does Twittering have a measurable benefit for a company? Are blogs devoted to a single topic working? No one really seems to know yet. Other media create other hurdles to accurately quantifying brand engagement. For example, interest in measuring advertising success on peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing networks is fading, due to lack of cooperation from the owners of the sites, according to Shoemaker. But marketers continue to be enthralled by the idea of measuring consumers' conversations online to find out how people really feel about their brand. "I think there's tremendous value in monitoring all of these forms of discourse, whether it's blogs or other social media," Rentrak's Papagan said. "What is going on in the cosmic consciousness of America is what we've been trying to understand for hundreds of years. We need to understand what people are thinking so that we can bring them the products that suit their needs." If marketers can't measure what consumers are thinking, what will happen? According to Nielsen Online's Shoemaker, if we don't have stats, then we don't have advertisers. And if we don't have advertisers, the profitability of the Internet will come tumbling down, Shoemaker said, just "like a house of cards, as it did 10 years ago." This article by David Miller appears courtesy of InternetNews.com.


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Google Analytics Upgrade: Detailed Reports, AdSense Support

Google recently announced seven new features for its free analytics service, aimed at providing advertisers with a more detailed picture of their return-on-investment by offering custom reports, advanced segmentation and integration with Google AdSense. Editor's Picks» Web Analytics Primer: Five Basic Metrics Demystified

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» SEO Tips: Courting Google with Your Content The move is also designed to make Google Analytics more competitive with other enterprise-level analytics programs that online sellers have to buy, such as Ominiture. Avinash Kaushik, the company's analytics evangelist, announced the news recently at a Web metrics conference in Washington, D.C. Features in the upgrade include: advanced segmentation, custom reports, a data export API (in private beta), integrated reporting for AdSense publishers (in private beta), multi-dimensional data visualizations called "Motion Charts," and an updated user and administrative interface. The ultimate goal is to give users more granular data on who is looking at their ads and then let them segment the information most relevant to their campaigns in charts, reports and graphs that are easy to read. As for the API, that will allow developers to export Google Analytics data to other sites, widgets and publishers. Advanced segmentation, custom reports and motion charts will be added to all accounts in the coming weeks. Meanwhile, integration with AdSense is currently in a private test phase and is slated for "a more gradual full release," according to the Google Analytics blog post by Jeff Gillis. Details of the new features, along with video tutorials are at the Google Analytics Blog, but here we highlight some of the key points as outlined by Gillis. Advanced Segmentation enables you to isolate and analyze subsets of your traffic. It is true on-the-fly segmentation of visits. Select from predefined custom segments such as "Paid Traffic" and "Visits with Conversions" or create new custom segments with a flexible, easy-to-use segment builder. Then, you can apply one or more of these segments to current or historical data, and even compare segment performance side by side in reports.

Custom Reports are reports you create, save, and edit to give you a specific view of your data. You can choose the information and metrics you want to see, organized in the way you want to see it, by using a drag and drop interface to populate an Analytics report. You can also create tabs if you want to see related data — similar to a "Goal Conversions" tab — in effect creating multiple levels of sub-reports.

Motion Charts add sophisticated multi-dimensional analysis to most Analytics reports. By comparing metrics visually over time you can expose data relationships that would be difficult to see in traditional reports. Motion Charts will be available through a new "Visualize" button at the top of reports.

Integrated Reporting with AdSense lets AdSense publishers see their revenue and impression data alongside their site traffic data in Analytics. This integration will give publishers even more metrics to help them measure visitor activity and the performance of ad units, as well as discover areas of revenue potential on their Web sites.

By using AdSense in conjunction with Analytics, e-tailers will be able to tell which pages of their site are netting the most revenue from AdSense ads. It should also let them determine what content is most popular and which referring sources and geographies are garnering the most revenue. Visit the AdSense blog for more details.

Michelle Megna is managing editor of ECommerce-Guide.com.


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eBiz Briefs: Google's Holiday Tips, Amazon's Redesign

This week in e-commerce news, Google launched a site providing e-tailers tips for the holiday season while Amazon unveils a newly redesigned Associates Central Web site. Plus, an expert on landing page optimization shares tips for testing landing pages to determine how they're performing.


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Google Still Gearing Up for Yahoo Ad Deal

LAKE WORTH, Florida (Reuters) — Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt said on this week the company had agreed to keep talking with the U.S. Justice Department about its proposed online advertising deal with Yahoo Inc. Under the deal announced in June, Yahoo would turn over some of its online advertising space for Google to sell. Schmidt had said in August the company would move forward with the Yahoo search partnership in October, with or without approval from antitrust reviewers at the Justice Department. "We agreed to extend our discussions ... with the DOJ," Schmidt said when asked for an update on the Yahoo deal after he participated in an economic summit in Florida with Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama. Schmidt was repeating a decision first announced on October 3 that it would not begin sharing advertising immediately in order to give the Justice Department time to assess it, said Google spokesman Adam Kovacevich in Washington. "He was reiterating what we announced several weeks ago," he said. The advertising deal is unpopular with some advertisers because Google and Yahoo dominate the U.S. Web search market. They fear their rates could go up. Google's market share widened to 63 percent in August, while Yahoo's dropped to 19.6 percent and Microsoft Corp's slipped to 8.3 percent, according to comScore Inc. The deal to share advertising has been widely seen as an effort to help Yahoo fend off Microsoft by bringing Yahoo an additional $800 million in annual revenue. (Reporting by Deborah Charles, writing by Tim Dobbyn, editing by Leslie Gevirtz, Richard Chang)


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EBay Competitor Launches Storefronts, Affiliate Plans

Wigix Offers New Storefronts and Affiliate Plans

Wigix, an eBay alternative that provides a unique stock-market style method for buying and selling goods, today announced a new service for sellers. Called Storefronts, the service lets sellers build and brand their own customized online shops through the Wigix Web site.

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Browsers and Affiliate Marketers: Who Wins?

If you're involved in affiliate marketing and need to track where sales are coming from to pay or collect your commissions, experts say you may want to avoid tracking options that use cookie- or pixel-based technology.

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» Turn Clicks into Cash: New ShopAds Affiliate Widgets Companies such as LinkShare say that the new browsers such as Google Chrome and Internet Explorer 8 will block this tracking activity in its privacy settings.

"Online marketers should take a good look at the cost per action as it applies to their business and how these browsers — Chrome and IE 8 — might have an impact on the CPM or CPC advertiser models," said Ed Bendy, director of product management for LinkShare, a company that helps advertisers track marketing referrals from affiliates, or publishers.

Evan J. Andrews, an analyst at Forrester Research, agrees. He said, "Browser privacy settings can be set such that they block affiliate cookies, which have potential to severely damage affiliates' commissions if these settings become ubiquitous."

Meanwhile, Google, which runs an affiliate network that includes DoubleClick, countered claims that Chrome is particularly a problem for marketers.

"As with most browsers, users can modify their cookie setting if they choose to do so, but this is not unique to Chrome," a Google spokesperson said in a statement to ECommerce-Guide.com. "There is no reason to believe that affiliate marketers will be more adversely affected by the privacy settings in Chrome than they are with other current browsers in the marketplace today."

According to Google, Chrome's default settings accept all cookies.

As for Microsoft, the browser and search giant took the middle ground on the interests of consumers and advertisers. "We believe that transparency and trust are vital to balance consumers' desire for both privacy and content with the needs of advertisers and publishers to ensure the long-term vitality of the online industry," a Microsoft spokesperson said in a statement.

"Our goal is not to block their content by default, but to give users a choice about how their online presence is tracked," Microsoft said. "Microsoft believes those who embrace consumers' desire for notice and control will benefit from a higher degree of consumer trust, and that increasing accountability in business practices benefits publishers and advertisers alike."

According to Microsoft, the company is working with the advertising and publishing communities to "provide guidance on user consent and accountability for their ads and content that they serve."

Bendy used the example of Overstock.com as an advertiser looking to track referrals from comparison-shopping or blogging sites. "When the user clicks on those links and goes back to the advertiser's Web sites, LinkShare's technology makes sure we're keeping track of where the traffic is coming from," he explained. If there's a sale on Overstock.com, LinkShare would ensure payment of commission to the affiliate, he said.

"They want to make sure that whatever network they belong to, they want to make sure that the they're being properly attributed for the sales they're driving to the merchants Web site," Bendy said.

Server-to-Server OptionAccording to Bendy, rather than a cookie or pixel-based solution, the company uses a server-to-server transmission to track sales coming from affiliates. "LinkShare doesn't drop cookies to track that information," he explained. "Because we're receiving the data from the merchant's Web server as opposed to the browser, it's a lot more secure in terms of the data we receive and attributing it back to the affiliate.

"Because we're not relying on cookies that we drop and we're not relying on a pixel to transmit that data back to us, we think our tracking solution is inherently more secure and reliable," he said.

Forrester's Andrews explains that LinkShare's method of server-to-server transmission allows for a direct link between the advertiser and LinkShare, eliminating the browser from the equation.

According to Bendy, being able to accurately track where sales are coming from is crucial to online marketing. "If you have some questions about the reliability of the tracking from an affiliate marketing provider, it makes it harder to make key online marketing decisions for the future. The CPA model is quite important, so I think the future bodes quite well for affiliate marketing," he said.

Vendors using LinkShare's tracking solution include Neiman Marcus, Walmart.com, Macys.com and Dell.com, he said.

JupiterResearch's Andrews hints that the privacy settings in browsers spell bad news for affiliate marketers' using cookie-based methods. "Unless publishers themselves are equipped with more sophisticated tracking technology, like batch or server-side scripting, then you could argue that they will be more reliant on the affiliate networks that do offer such solutions — or affiliate technology vendors that exist to find ways to track and deliver advanced ROI and conversion and accounting metrics that subvert cookies or other browser limitations."

Brian T. Horowitz is a new contributor to ECommerce-Guide.com, and is a freelance technology writer based in New York. He has written for publications such as Fast Company and USA Weekend, and writes a blog about innovation at InternetNews.com.


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Ask.com Overhauls Site to Stay in Search Game

Ask.com unwrapped a major set of improvements to its search engine as part of its core mission to deliver better results to users more efficiently than the competition — even as it continues to be dwarfed by the likes of ever-growing Google. The site's enhancements aim to bring Ask.com steps closer to its goal of providing users with the best answer to their search queries the first time they ask — and, with the answer appearing on the results page itself, according to Ask.com president Scott Garell. "The data still says it takes three to four clicks with the major search engines. With this launch, we've made great strides toward reducing that," Garell told InternetNews.com. He also said the site delivers results about 30 percent faster than a year ago. For Ask.com, the changes serve as the latest move to set itself apart from the larger giants of search. Google, for instance, held 63 percent of the market in August, according to comScore research — up from 61.9 percent in July. Yahoo! came in second in August with 19.6 percent, followed by Microsoft, with 8.3 percent. Ask.com, meanwhile, ranked No. 4, with 4.8 percent, just ahead of AOL's 4.3 percent share. There are several patent-pending technologies in the revamped Ask.com, as well as a sleeker, simpler home page that's even a bit more Spartan than the basic Google page. For those that don't prefer a basic-looking page, Ask.com also offers "skins", a series of colorful backgrounds to enable users to personalize the otherwise white background. They can also upload their own background. "When someone does that with a photo of their kids or other personal image, we've seen as much as an 80 percent jump in the amount of searches they do," Garell said. However, Ask.com's effort to stand apart comes chiefly in the form of a design that aims to deliver immediate answers to search queries along with links to useful related matter. An area called "Ask Q&A" appears in the right hand column of search results — where other sites place text ads &3151 and features a list of questions related to a user's search, designed to expose a different set of relevant results to a query. For example, a recent search on "John McCain" produced 4,744 "questions about John McCain" under Ask Q&A, including such questions and results for "Who Would Bin Laden Vote For, John McCain or Barack Obama?", "What is John McCain's religion?" and "Was John McCain ever a Democrat?" (Answer: No.) The Ask Q&A list appears as a link that expands when clicked. A list of related searches appears under the link. In the case of a search for Barack Obama, the Related Searches list starts with "Barack Obama Biography," "Where was Barack Obama Born?," "Facts About Barack Obama," and so on. Tapping Long-Tail ContentNew technology taps hundreds of thousands of user-generated content sites to bring so-called "long tail" content to the fore. Garell said Ask has also focused on deep research into high-volume search areas, including Entertainment, Health & Nutrition, Jobs and Reference. For example, ask the question, "What time is Heroes on?" and the top of the Ask.com results page is chock-full of reference sites for the NBC sci-fi television show, including information on when it airs. The same query on Google results first in a link to NBC's official Heroes site, followed by several results unrelated to the TV show — save for a UK-based entertainment site. Jupiter Research analyst Evan Andrews credits Ask.com for trying some new things to set itself apart. "No one is going to grab Google's market share overnight, but I do applaud Ask for making an effort with blended search results and universal search," Andrews told InternetNews.com. "They are arguably the pioneer of the blended search, including images and other kinds of results. For people who use search a lot, more information is better, and I think Ask is catering to those kinds of users." While the term "Google" has become synonymous with search (as in the expression "Google it" when looking for something), Andrews said his research has shown users will often go to another search engine if they don't get the results they want on the first try. "I think, with these new sets of results, Ask is hoping more folks will come over from Google," Andrews said. Ask.com has also always had a certain appeal to newbies. Ever since its original AskJeeves incarnation, Ask has been designed to accept full-sentence English language queries, not just a set of search terms: "What teams are in the baseball playoffs?" versus, for example, simply "baseball playoff teams." "Ask has always done innovative work with its results pages, structured feeds and certain categories of data," said analyst Charlene Li, who heads the Altimeter Group consulting firm. "Their ambition isn't necessarily to take on Google. What they're defining as success is hyper-serving their core users to make sure Ask is their first choice." One way Ask can do that, Li said, is by focusing on popular search areas like health, entertainment and jobs. "I think Ask knows where its strength is going to be, and it's very smart of them not to try and be a Google slayer," she said. "They're very amenable to try new things, and my hat's off to them for that." This article by David Needle appears courtesy of InternetNews.com.


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eBay Expecting Weak Fourth Quarter

The roller-coaster ride in markets amid the credit crisis has barreled through eBay's third quarter and outlook for the end of the year. The online auction and e-commerce giant said it expects a much weaker fourth quarter, largely due to a drop-off in consumer spending. "We saw weakness across our entire portfolio of businesses," said Bob Swan, eBay's chief financial officer, during a conference call this week to discuss eBay's third quarter results. John Donahoe, president and CEO, said the significant slow down that eBay experienced in the second half of the quarter suggests the company will be operating in a difficult economic environment for the near future and early next year. Revenue was $2.1 billion for the third quarter ending Sept. 30th, up by 12 percent over the same time last year. Net income was $492 million, or 38 cents per share. A year ago, eBay lost $936 million, or 69 cents per share because of a charge related to its purchase of Internet calling company Skype. A strengthening dollar and a tougher economic climate as the quarter ended left consumers pulling back on spending and have become the watchwords for the largest e-commerce player on the planet. In addition, eBay is under pressure to improve its competition with Amazon. Officials described how eBay is strengthening its platform for providing buyers with a stronger mix of auctions and fixed prices sales, as well as adjusting its fixed price fees for sellers, as just a few examples. "Clearly a tough economy makes our job more difficult," Donahoe said, "but we remain committed to reinvigorating the growth in our business." Buyer and seller expectations have been rising and eBay needs to keep up, Donahoe added. eBay did have bright spots to note in its profitable quarter. Paypal revenues were up by 27 percent year-over-year to $597 million. Web-based calling service Skype rose to $146 million, up 46 percent. Classified ad revenue — a fairly new area for eBay — rose by 59 percent and revenues from its ticket-selling business StubHub.com rose by 46 percent, helped by its partnership with Major League Baseball. But eBay is pulling back on its expectations for the fourth quarter. Revenue is now expected to come in at $2.17 billion, officials said, or about 39 cents to 41 cents earnings per share. Prior guidance had been $2.44 billion for the quarter. Its full-year expectation is now between $8.53 billion and $8.68 billion, lower than the range of $8.8 billion to $9.05 billion analysts for Reuters estimates had expected. eBay said the lowered revenue range is also wider than it normally gives in order to reflect the uncertainties it sees in the consumer spending environment, which is similar to what Intel said on its quarterly conference call. "I wish I could provide more clarity [about] the critical holiday season," Swan said when asked about the Christmas selling season. "But honestly, there is not." Shares had fallen by 4.5 percent to $14.64 during after-hours trading. This article by Erin Joyce appears courtesy of InternetNews.com.


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October Holiday E-Mail Marketing: Segment, Don't Blast

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Can Iozzia Get the CRE Loaded Love Back?

This is one in a series of columns on the open source commerce (OSC) industry.

Last week CRE Loaded e-commerce founder Salvatore Iozzia was reinstated as Chief Visionary Officer, CEO Michael Valverde left the company, and former CFO Greg McGraw was appointed Interim CEO.

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After winning $5 million in venture capital only a few months ago, the company had removed its founder and president Sal Iozzia. Almost immediately the company began to act like a dictatorship, nearly destroying itself along with its community and goodwill. Without warning, the company began charging a recurring annual fee for even its most basic entry-level software program, CRE Loaded Standard Edition. When community members complained on its forum, the complaint was removed or the complainer banned.

The newly-capitalized company also dropped the community beta testers who are the opinion leaders of the community. Affiliates and resellers were likewise ousted. A no-refunds policy was instituted. And those customers who had paid hundreds of dollars for the last few copies of the old 6.2 version were told tough luck, pay twice, you get no discount to upgrade to the new version.

Failed Attempt to Charge for All Open Source Products

The company returns to a policy of free standard edition after a short-lived attempt at charging users failed. One of the implicit tenets of the open source community is that a basic version will be offered free of charge. This is not explicitly part of any open source license, and indeed, the only free thing guaranteed by open source licensing is the freedom to look at and modify the code.

However, CRE Loaded became one of the first to attempt to charge for all open source products, and community judgment was swift and brutal. As Iozzia said in a message he sent this week to the community, "You spoke out with your words and with your wallets."

Brief Flirtation with Censorship on the CRE Forums

For over five years, the CRE Forums had enjoyed a large, active, energetic community and had become a popular alternative to other open source commerce forums, because the forum's policies allowed members to speak openly and honestly about all open source e-commerce programs.

In contrast, the forum policy of the other of the Big Three programs — osCommerce and Zen Cart — has been to promptly censor or delete postings that mentioned another program, person or subject with which the moderators disagreed. Banning forum members from posting was also common.

Since Iozzia's brief departure, the CRE Forums had become just another place of heavy-handed censorship and banning of members who expressed discontent with the group's sudden changes. Resignation and despair colored many of the posts, and eventually there became too many negative posts to remove. Long-time community members disappeared. Moderator Gerald Scott says he was operating under the directives of the short-lived management team, and his advocacy for the members fell on deaf ears. Something had to be done to turn things around.

Colorful Founder Iozzia Returns with Fanfare

Almost as suddenly as the company changed in the wrong direction, the company changed back. Late Thursday evening in a message sent to all members registered on the site, Iozzia announced his return to the helm. In a stunning and well-crafted mea culpa, saying, "I need you to forgive us. I need you to give us a chance to regain your trust. We will put our money where our mouth is. Given a chance we will earn your trust back." The same message was also posted on the CRE Forum.

Deafening Roar from the Community

In the days since Iozzia's announcement, reaction from the community has been mixed — and boisterous. Many former members trickled back to the forum to see who was there and what others were saying. Comments ranged from, "Greed has NOT prevailed. What a change of course! I have renewed faith in CRE," to "CRE has wounded me and I am still trying to heal."

Iozzia encouraged community members to come and yell, and to tell him how they feel. And tell him they did. Whether happy or disgruntled, all members of the community are passionate. Time will tell if the suggestions by the disgruntled members will have an effect.

The Product Changes

CRE Standard Edition is free once again. Serial numbers will still be required, but if a serial number expires, the user will not be locked out of their own store. Customers who purchased CRE Loaded 6.2 recently will receive a free copy of 6.3. Users of CRE Loaded 6.2 will receive "decent discounts" to encourage them upgrade to 6.3. And the company is now giving a thirty-day satisfaction guarantee instead of its short-lived "no refunds" policy. This is all in addition to recent announcements that the company will extend the free product support from thirty days to a full year. The company is also instituting new aggressive Reseller programs — which give financial discounts to developers who resell — and Affiliate programs which give commissions to developers who refer purchasers.

The Community and Other Changes

As difficult as it may be for a while, Iozzia promises that forum members will no longer be censored. Forum members who had been banned, will be "unbanned." These members have already begun to re-appear. Volunteer product testers known as "community beta testers" will once again be a high priority.

Usability changes to the Web site were almost immediately apparent, with the axing of the forum's heavy Flash header navigation. The result? The forum is loading faster. The non-intuitive domain name getcre.com is being "dumped" and the familiar domain name creloaded.com has returned.

The Web site is being improved as well, according to Iozzia.

Former CEO Michael Valverde states, "Having accomplished the necessary preparations and subsequent funding of the company, I am moving on to pursue my next venture. I leave CRE in capable hands knowing they will continue on the course to success."


Things are Looking Up

Within five days of the announcement, Iozzia says that the number of downloads of the CRE 6.3 Standard product had increased ten-fold. The long-awaited release of CRE 6.3 B2B will happen this week, Iozzia promises, after a number of delays. Bearing the official moniker Founder, President, and Chief Visionary, Iozzia has long been known affectionately. Other competitors do not have a charismatic leader like Iozzia, and his ability to impassion his community members may be what saves the company.

Kerry Watson is a consultant and author of 12 books in the OSC industry, including the latest "ShowMe Guides' CRE Loaded Users Manual for All Versions." Her Web site is osCommerceManuals.com.

 

Open Source: CRE Loaded 6.31 Released…for A Price

YouTube: Eight Ways to Market Your Small Business

Everybody loves YouTube. In January 2008 alone, Americans watched more than three billion videos on the site, according to an analyst report from comScore. Capturing even a fraction of a percent of those eyeballs could reap big profits for a small business. But how do you cash in on all that love? We suggest you read, YouTube for Business: Online Video Marketing for Any Business (Que Publishing, 2008), by Michael Miller. But until you pick up your own copy, take a look at these eight ideas the author outlined for us during a recent interview. One of the biggest advantages that YouTube offers small businesses is its low barrier to entry. "Uploading videos to YouTube is free, and you don't need high-end production values because the video plays in a such a small (320 x 240 pixel) window," Miller said. "By using simple camcorders and consumer-grade equipment, you can keep your costs well under $1,000." As impressive as YouTube's massive audience is, it does present a challenge. "The technical aspect is easy. Finding the right concept and reaching the appropriate subset of customers is tougher," said Miller. "A video that attracts an audience must provide entertainment, educational or informational value. A video with one or more of those qualities will get eyeballs." In an excerpt from his book, Miller recommends eight ways to market your businesses on YouTube: 1. YouTube for Brand Awareness Instead of focusing on individual products or services, use a video to push your company's brand, just the way you would with a traditional television ad. According to a Millward Brown study, online videos are better at imparting brand awareness than are traditional TV ads [generating] 82 percent brand awareness and 77 percent product recall versus just 54 percent brand awareness and 18 percent product recall for similar TV ads. Experts agree this is because online viewers are more engaged than television viewers. 2. YouTube for Product AdvertisingIf you can use YouTube to push an overall brand, you can use it to push individual products, too. This requires a direct approach while keeping the video informative, educational or entertaining. Include lots of close-up product shots and link back to your own Web site where more product information is available. 3. YouTube for Retail PromotionYou can use YouTube to promote a company's retail stores. They can be general in nature or more specifically targeted to shorter-term promotions. Consider recording a short store tour or highlight individual departments or services within the store, rather than resorting to claims of 20 percent off and "this weekend only" specials. You'll have a better chance of grabbing eyeballs. 4. YouTube for Direct SalesYouTube is a terrific channel for generating direct sales for products and services. All you have to do is show the product in action or provide a clip of the service in question, and then ask for the sale by directing the viewer to your Web site. One of the best ways to showcase a product is in an instructional video — the online equivalent of an old-school infomercial. The key to converting eyeballs to dollars is to generously highlight your company's Web site address or 800-number within the body of the video. Put the contact information at the front of the video, at the end of the video and overlaid at the bottom of the screen during the body of the clip. 5. YouTube for Product SupportConsider some of the most common customer problems and questions, and produce one or more videos addressing those issues. If you can help your customers help themselves, you provide them with a useful service and reduce your company's support costs — all with free YouTube videos. 6. YouTube for Product TrainingYou have a new product to introduce and a sales force to train. In the old days you'd fly salespeople from around the country to a central office and put on a day's worth of hands-on training. Doing so is both time-consuming and expensive. Instead, consider using YouTube for your product training. Create a series of short training videos, upload them to YouTube and provide access to all of your company's salespeople. This way you are creating an archive of product information that anyone can access at any time. 7. YouTube for Employee CommunicationsInstead of holding a big company meeting, have the big boss record his or her yearly state of the company address and post it on a private channel on YouTube. Employees can watch from the comfort of their own desks, while they're on the road, or even at home. Done right, YouTube gets employee information out there in near-real time, with all the benefits of face-to-face communication. Much better than sending impersonal memos via e-mail. 8. YouTube for RecruitingIf you have a company welcome video, post it on YouTube and make it public. Think of this as an exercise to attract new talent to your company. You can link to the video from all your recruiting materials, even from any traditional ads you place. Produce separate videos for individual departments, as well as to illustrate company values, employee benefits and facilities. Bottom LineMiller believes that YouTube offers business owners both value and opportunity. "It's one of the lowest-cost marketing vehicles you can find," he said. "Your only serious investment is your time, but you can reap a big return on that investment." This article by Lauren Simonds appears courtesy of SmallBusinessComputing.com


YouTube Sows Seeds for E-Commerce

GoDaddy.com and Microsoft Announce E-mail Progeny

GoDaddy, the flashy patriarch of online presence and Microsoft, the mother of all software companies, are the no doubt proud parents of the latest arrival designed for small business at GoDaddy.com: mobile and group e-mail plans with Outlook, powered by Microsoft Exchange Server 2007. The offspring take the form of three plans — Personal Outlook, Outlook with Mobile and Group Outlook with Mobile — and aim to help small businesses enhance their productivity and communications from any location whether employees are in the office or on the road. GoDaddy said the benefits of these e-mail plans, which are available for both Mac and PC users, include: Anywhere-access to calendar, address books, tasks and e-mail over the Web, on mobile devices and, of course, on computers at work or at home. Core features of Microsoft Exchange Server 2007, Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 and Microsoft Entourage 2008, including appointment scheduling, assigning tasks, delegating access to e-mail and a common address book. Corporate-grade IT services without any upfront hardware and software costs. Help desk support and ongoing system maintenance.Currently, the e-mail plans work with virtually any mobile device, with the exception of the Blackberry. However, the company noted that Blackberry support would be available soon, within a month or two. GoDaddy manages more than 31 million domain names and sells its own proprietary e-mail service. Yet in this, its first foray into hosting a Microsoft application, the company sees value in offering Exchange and Outlook, which could be construed as a competing e-mail platform. Jonathan Cottrell, GoDaddy's general manager of productivity applications, said that offering Outlook through a hosted Exchange platform makes sense for the company. "It's the next logical step in our business considering our customer base." The three tenants GoDaddy built the plan around, Cottrell said, are affordability, simplicity and centralization. "Our customers get the power of Exchange without the hassle and expense of setting up and maintaining an Exchange server and a free download of Outlook or Entourage. And they can manage everything – e-mail, domains, Exchange, hosting – from one central location." According to Rich Cannon, a marketing manager with Microsoft, research commissioned from Edge Strategies shows that small business are beginning to rely more on mobile e-mail. "One third of small businesses with between two to 20 employees say they use mobile e-mail on a daily basis," said Cannon. "In small companies with 20 to 100 employees, that number increases to 52 percent," he added. Another benefit, Cottrell noted, is that small businesses can focus more on their business instead of worrying about IT maintenance. "Simplicity is an important element. Even if you have no technical know-how, you can get up and running with the help of our 24/7 state-of-the-art tech support staff," he said. All of the plans include MS Exchange, MS Outlook (or Entourage for Mac users) and support for POP3 and IMAP. he Personal Outlook includes one e-mail address, 2GB of storage, and costs $6.99 per month. Outlook with Mobile comes with everything in the Personal plan, plus mobile access, and costs $9.99 per month. Group Outlook with Mobile includes 20 GB of storage, five e-mail addresses and mobile access for $9.99 per month. This article by Lauren Simonds originally appeared Oct. 6, 2008 at SmallBusinessComputing.com.


Virtualization Reality Spurs Microsoft to Change Licensing Rules
Yahoo’s Blueprint for Mobile Commerce

Yahoo Rolls Out Web Analytics

Yahoo yesterday announced the introduction of Yahoo Web Analytics for Yahoo Merchant Solutions, now in a test phase with continual rollout slated throughout this year and 2009.

The result of Yahoo's acquisition of IndexTools earlier this year, Yahoo Web Analytics will provide the company's advertisers, publishers, partners and developers with data and customer insights they can use to maximize their online marketing.

This first release of Yahoo Web Analytics will include integrated reporting and analytics for Yahoo Small Business' 13,000 hosted e-commerce customers. That means that Web shop owners can see in real-time how shoppers are behaving at their Web sites, which in return will help them employ strategies aimed at converting more browsers into buyers.

The service is also available to brand advertisers, delivering enhanced analytics for custom-built and hosted micro-sites. Additional phases of the rollout will happen throughout 2008 and 2009.

Yahoo Web Analytics is being released to stores on a server-by-server basis. As each server is updated, the Yahoo stores assigned to that particular server will be provided access to the analytics tools. There are no specific selection criteria for a store's access date, according to the company.

E-tailers can enable Yahoo Web Analytics when a new "Yahoo Web Analytics" section and "Get Started" link become visible in Store Manager, at the bottom of the Promote column.

The analytics data is aimed at showing online sellers what draws visitors to their sites, how they navigate the site, on which pages they immediately exit (or "bounce" from), what leads to conversions and what causes shopping cart abandonment.

Yahoo Web Analytics standard tracking will capture and report data for almost every scenario a merchant needs to track, according to the company, including: Site visits, site referrals, navigation paths, page views, most requested pages, entry pages, exit pages, and bounce rate of all visits . Visitor information, including visitor demographics, time spent per page visited, average visit duration, page views per visit, first-time vs. returning visitors, unique visitors, and system information (browsers, operating systems, and screen resolution). Conversions, including conversion by search phrases and by entry page URL. Product sales performance, including product views, add-to-cart actions, product conversion (includes SKU information, the number of units sold, and revenue per product). Products sold together in a cart, for cross-sell analysis. Referrals, including search engines, search phrases, referring domains and referring URLs. Keyword conversion rates. Internal site searches (store pages built with Store Editor only). Site actions, including signups, subscriptions, contact forms and canceled sales.

The Yahoo Web analytics site states, "With standard tracking enabled for your site, you can also use the scenario analysis feature, create ad-hoc scenarios, track campaigns, and set up fallback campaigns as a 'catch-all' for campaign tracking. Standard tracking allows you to compare reports and segment data, as well as create custom reports."

Other key features of Yahoo Web Analytics include: A browser-based tracking system that uses first-party cookies to collect important visitor data. Automated set up of standard tracking for checkout pages and store pages built in Store Editor. Tracking code for store pages built with Web Hosting tools, and for merchants who wish to use customized tracking variables. Real-time reporting of visitor information and site activity. Over 100 reports, with the ability to create custom reports based on your business needs. A default executive dashboard that provides a snapshot overview of your site, and the ability to create additional dashboards customized with the key performance indicators (KPIs) and reports you choose to add. Custom scenario analysis and ad-hoc scenario reporting. Campaign tracking. Internal site search tracking (available for stores built using Store Editor only). Report segmentation. Custom e-mail alerts, event management, color-coding and more.

For an introduction to the Yahoo Web Analytics interface and an overview of key features, you can download the Reporting Interface section of the Yahoo Web Analytics User Guide. (This document is in PDF format and requires Adobe Reader to view.) You can also read more at the analytics blog.

Michelle Megna is managing editor of ECommerce-Guide.com.


A Nip & Tuck for Yahoo Site Explorer
Yahoo’s New Strategy: ‘Open’ Offensive

YouTube Sows Seeds for E-Commerce

By Yinka Adegoke NEW YORK (Reuters) — YouTube, the world's most popular video-sharing site, will start to sell music and video games and experiment with new advertising formats to grow revenue, executives said on Tuesday. The Google-owned business is taking the first steps toward building an e-commerce service through which it will sell music, films, TV shows, video games, books, concert tickets and other media-related products featured on the millions of videos on YouTube. Visitors to YouTube.com can buy songs from music videos they watch on the site by clicking on buttons that take them either to Amazon.com Inc's MP3 store or Apple Inc's iTunes store. YouTube users will also be able to buy video games, such as Electronic Arts Inc's sci-fi game "Spore" through the Amazon link. Amazon and iTunes will share revenue with YouTube when users buy content through the partnership. Investors have been asking Google when it would start to generate meaningful revenue and earnings from YouTube, for which the Web search leader paid $1.65 billion in 2006. Google does not break out YouTube's financials, but analysts at Piper Jaffray Research estimated that the video site would earn about $200 million in revenue in 2009, compared with estimates of around $27 billion for Google. Until now, YouTube has mainly pointed to advertising sales as its main source of income. It is still experimenting with a range of formats to take full advantage of the massive popularity of the site, which has nearly 13 hours of video uploaded every minute. YouTube had 330 million visitors in August 2008, according to comScore, which measures Internet audiences. "There'll be lots of different solutions for lots of different problems," Shishir Mehrotra, YouTube director of product management, said in an interview. "We've tested a lot of things already, and we're going to be testing more in the future. Some will work, some won't." One format with which YouTube is experimenting is InVideo advertising, which runs text ads along the bottom of videos as they play. Other formats include contests sponsored by advertisers and home page video ads. YouTube executives said pre-roll advertising, where a 10 to 20 second ad runs before a video starts, is not always the best format for some of the shorter video clips on YouTube. But they did not rule out using pre-roll ads altogether. The company is also betting that its video ID system will help drive advertising. Video ID enables content owners, such as music and TV producers, to know when copies of their video clips are uploaded to YouTube by users, YouTube said. The content owners can then share in advertising generated around that copied clip. The content owner could also use the video ID system to remove the videos.


Yahoo’s New Strategy: ‘Open’ Offensive
Google & Verizon Becoming Frenemies?

Seller Profile: Auctionwally on Breaking Up with eBay

Ask any online auction enthusiast who they admire and it's very likely that you'll hear the name 'Auctionwally' many times over. Actionwally, also known as Walt Kolenda, has been involved in the auction business, both online and off, for more than 25 years and has earned a loyal following.




eBay Sets Bargain Basement Fees for Larger Sellers

eBay Cuts Jobs, Buys Bill Me Later

EBay is cutting its work force by 10 percent and will spend over $1 billion to buy companies that handle payments and classifieds in a move to shore up its bottom line during a tepid economy, according to news reports. The job cuts would affect about 1,000 employees and several hundred temporary workers.


eBay Watch: DSR 4.3 Tips, Tactics and Seller POV

Yahoo, Google Try to Curry Favor for Ad Deal

Things are finally getting serious in the industry-wide debate over the Yahoo-Google deal. When the two companies announced their blockbuster ad deal in June, they said that they would wait three and a half months before putting it in place, giving regulators a chance to review it. The companies have until the end of next week to walk away before the contract takes hold and Yahoo begins importing a certain amount of ads from its larger rival to place along its own search results pages. Now, as the self-imposed moratorium draws to a close, and on news that the Department of Justice had hired renowned antitrust litigator Sandy Litvack — perhaps to pursue a lawsuit to block the deal — the past week has seen a surge in lobbying from concerned parties on both sides of the matter. Most recently, Yahoo President Sue Decker broke the company's long public silence on the issue in a company blog post. Writing under the headline, "Myth-busting and the Yahoo-Google Agreement," Decker took aim at opponents' principal objections, such as the contention that the deal would see Yahoo slowly exit the search market by ceding its advertising business to Google, with the ultimate effect of raising prices for advertisers. "You may have heard that the agreement gives Google control over 90 percent of search advertising," Decker wrote. "That's just plain wrong." Decker repeated her contention that the nonexclusive Google deal is simply a way of "backfilling" search queries with relevant ads that Yahoo doesn't have in its network. The idea is that with millions Yahoo users making so many search queries, it is simply not possible for any one company to maintain a large enough repository of ads to make a relevant match with every query. "Not even Google," she wrote. "The core idea is limited use of Google ads to deliver more value from our [search results pages] and other inventory in circumstances where we aren't delivering the best advertiser value today, and then to use resources gained by that strategy to accelerate our investments in the technologies and marketplaces of the future." To Microsoft, that idea sounds a little disingenuous. A company spokesman declined to comment for this story, saying that the testimony of Brad Smith, Microsoft's general counsel, before a Senate subcommittee earlier this year still reflected the company's position. Smith testified that any form of deal between Google, which commands somewhere around 70 percent of the search market, and its nearest competitor would be patently illegal on antitrust grounds. Mounting RhetoricThe stakes in the debate are high: Yahoo expects to rake in an additional $800 million in annual revenue and Google would certainly expand its own formidable search-revenue stream. Microsoft — a committed opponent of the deal — has warned that an alliance of the two leading players in search advertising would bring the market dangerously close to a monopoly. Of course, Yahoo's ad deal with Google also comes on the heels of its protracted rebuff of Microsoft's takeover bid, a gambit Microsoft made in the interest of creating a viable competitor to Google in search advertising. So far, Microsoft's position has been to encourage regulatory authorities to step in to halt the companies from working together. Google and Yahoo's partnership has been under a formal antitrust review by the DoJ since shortly after it was signed. In the following months, regulators in several states and Canada have opened their own investigations, as have antitrust authorities in Europe, though the ad partnership would only apply to Yahoo's sites in North America. Because the deal is a business partnership, not a merger, Yahoo and Google did not need regulatory approval. They instead opted for the voluntary delay after a preliminary meeting with DoJ officials. So while the regulatory purview is a little nebulous, and the deadline is something of a moving target, the stakeholders' increasing rhetoric signals that the issue may finally be coming to a head. Privately, both Google and Microsoft accuse the other of leading the lobbying charge either for or against the deal. Google, Yahoo and Microsoft have each set up microsites advancing their position, and representatives of all three companies have been meeting with officials from the Justice Department and lawmakers. In addition to the key players weighing in, the DoJ's antitrust division has received at least two letters in the past week from concerned lawmakers. One came from a group of California Democrats, including Reps. Anna Eshoo and Zoe Lofgren, urging the department not to hold up the deal. "To our knowledge, the DoJ has never before taken preemptive action against a nonexclusive contractual agreement of this type," they wrote, warning that increased regulatory scrutiny could threaten the growth of the industry. The tenor of that letter contrasts with one sent by a bipartisan group of members of the House Judiciary Antitrust Task Force, warning that "competition in the online-advertising market could be significantly constrained under a prospective Google-Yahoo agreement." The letter urged the DoJ to closely examine the deal. A spokesman for Rep. Steve Chabot, R-Ohio, one of the letter's signatories, said the DoJ had not yet responded. Spokesmen for both Google and Yahoo offered statements reiterating their belief that the deal will ultimately benefit competition. Some of the concerns expressed in the House Judiciary Antitrust Task Force's letter, including the absence of details about the partnership's contract, found voice in a white paper authored by Norman Hawker, a law professor and senior fellow at the American Antitrust Institute (AAI). Hawker concluded that the anticompetitive risk depended on whether Yahoo remained a significant player in the search market. His somewhat ambivalent takeaway was that the deal, on the whole, had significant anticompetitive risks, but it could also be good for the market if it helped reinvigorate Yahoo as a viable No. 2 in search advertising, as both Yahoo and Google are promising. Still, Hawker concluded, "The parties' statements of good intent cannot be relied upon to override the economic incentives that may be generated by this agreement to engage in what may turn out to be anticompetitive conduct." He urged regulators to broker conditions with the two parties that would create competitive safeguards such as a pledge that Yahoo wouldn't import a search ad from Google when it had one of its own to sell. In a statement e-mailed to InternetNews.com, Google spokesman Adam Kovacevich said, "While we disagree with AAI's conclusions, it is noteworthy that even a group that has opposed most deals acknowledges the pro-competitive elements of our agreement with Yahoo. We believe strongly that this deal is good for competition and will benefit advertisers, Web site publishers and consumers." A Microsoft spokesman said the Redmond, Wash. software giant believed that any form of deal, even with the conditions the AAI recommended, would presage Yahoo's gradual exit from the search market and would be therefore unacceptable from a competitive standpoint. This article by Kenneth Corbin appears courtesy of InternetNews.com.


Advertisers Cry Foul on Yahoo-Google Deal

Microsoft Offers Prizes to Searchers

In its ongoing quest for a bigger share of the search market, Microsoft has unveiled another incentive program designed to get more consumers using its search engine. Consumers who enroll in the SearchPerks promotional program accumulate tickets for any searches they do using Microsoft's Live Search service. The virtual tickets can be redeemed for prizes, such as airline miles, music downloads and games for Microsoft's XBox video game system. The news comes as Google continues to widen its lead in consumer search. Last month, Comscore reported Google had extended its lead to 63 percent of the U.S. search market in August with its biggest monthly gain in five months. Yahoo came in with a 19.6 percent share, followed by Microsoft with an 8.3 percent share. "Our experience with other incentive-based programs demonstrated that there is an opportunity to increase user loyalty in the search space," a Microsoft spokesperson said in an e-mail sent to InternetNews.com. "Building audience requires innovation in the product as well as a diverse set of marketing programs to communicate with consumers. We are actively pursuing both to continue growing our search share." Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said in a recent appearance that winning in search isn't about using "brute force," but redefining the experience for users and the business model. "To go up from nine percent in any market is going to take a while," Ballmer said. "We've improved the core relevance of our search results in an amazing fashion. The market leader has the brand; we need to try and fundamentally reinvent the search business." SearchPerks isn't the first incentive related to Microsoft's search efforts. In May, the company launched Live Search Cashback, a program that pays cash rebates to customers who find and buy products using the software giant's search service. IDC analyst Karsten Weide said it makes sense for Microsoft to employ these kinds of programs if it has any hopes of catching market leader Google. "You can't be a big player in online advertising if you're not big in search because 40 percent of online ad revenue is spent on search," Weide told InternetNews.com. "That may change in years to come, but not in the near term. Microsoft trails Google badly in market share, but the quality of Live has now pulled even with Google." Weide say the SearchPerks is a good idea, but will likely be a small part of any plan to gain significant market share. "Microsoft is very determined and it's investing a lot of money," he said. This article by David Needle originally appeared Oct. 2, 2008 at InternetNews.com.


Google Tops in Customer Satisfaction? Ask Those Who’ve Suffered Through Outages
Google & Verizon Becoming Frenemies?

Web Shop Design: Using Text with Images in Photoshop

As compelling as a product shot or Web shop photo may be, sometimes an image needs a little something extra — and often that is some text to enhance it. In the realm of e-commerce, text and images work well together.

For instance, they're often used in tandem when creating a logo for your business. In many other cases, you might add text to an image to reinforce the visual message or to explain better the product or service the image is introducing to your audience. Photoshop has tools for working with type on an image and in this article we will look at how to use type for effective messaging and branding.

Transform Selection and drag the selection over a good part of the image. Click the Add Layer Mask button at the foot of the layers palette to convert the selection into a mask — now only the part of the image that was under the text will show.

Using the type mask tool you can create a photo filled text effect.
(Click for larger image.)A second text effect works in a similar way, but this time the bottom of the image morphs into the text. For this effect, open an image and convert the background layer into a regular layer by double-clicking it and press OK.

Punch text from the foot of an image using the type mask tool and a Photoshop mask.
(Click for larger image.)Using the Horizontal Type Mask Tool type some text across the bottom edge of the image. Choose Select > Transform Selection and use the Move Tool to move the selection into position at the very bottom of the image and size it to suit. Click the Rectangular Marquee Tool and from the Tool bar click the Add to Selection button. Drag a rectangular marquee from the top of the image down to touch the top of the text characters. This makes a rectangle selection with a text selection attached below it.

Click the Add Layer Mask button at the foot of the Layer palette and the image will be clipped to the shape of the selection. You can add a new layer behind the image and fill it with a color to show off the cutout text.

Design should be fun, so don't be afraid to experiment with your images and messaging to see what works for your particular online business. Helen Bradley is a respected international journalist writing regularly for small business and computer publications in the USA, Canada, South Africa, UK and Australia. You can learn more about her at her Web site, HelenBradley.com.


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eBay Watch: Where Have All the Google Results Gone?

eBay Watch : EBay's Google glitches, eBay.ca clashes with media shipping limits and new Web shops.

Bloggers Discuss EBay's Lack of Results in Google
Over the past month, eBay sellers have been reporting drops in traffic coming to their stores from Google. Starting with fluctuations at the end of August, eBay listings in Google have steadily dropped to an unbearable level for eBay sellers.


eBay Alternative Action: Resources, Launches, Updates
eBay Watch: DSR 4.3 Tips, Tactics and Seller POV