How Internet Ads Work or "I am Watching You!"

Probably the single most frequent question I am asked is some variation of “How does Internet advertising work?" "Why do I keep seeing the same ad on multiple web sites? Are they following me?"

Yes they are. 

Here is a link to an interesting slide show that walks you through the progression of how ads are served up to you on web sites.  “The very best marketing comes from observing consumer behavior and inserting your message into their behavior.”  And today’s ad servers follow this principle to the letter… 

As soon as you visit a web site, the ad server is looking at you.  Not you specifically, but it is looking at the cookies on your hard drive, building a profile of the individual who uses the computer.  Every web site you visit drops a cookie (a small piece of code used for tracking) on your computer.  In most cases, it is your profile that determines which ad is place on a web site during your visit.  Visit a lot of health related sites and you are likely to see ads for medical practices.  Looking at the latest fashion?  Ads for Nordstrom’s, Zappos and even Amazon will show up.

Search retargeting works much the same way.  Ad servers pour over your search history and serve up ads based on your actions. 

If you prefer some to maintain some privacy, it is a simple process to eliminate these cookies.  Here is the link showing you how to delete existing cookies on a PC.  However, keep in mind that if you delete all cookies, you may find that a web site requiring a user name and password will ask you to provide your credentials every time you visit.  No more automatically recognizing you when you appear.

This same link will also show you how to block cookies from being placed on your computer.  The downside is that many web sites today simply will not allow you to visit their site without allowing cookies, so there is a tradeoff.   A more practical approach will be to follow the rules for Customize Cookie Settings which allows you set up specific web sites to allow or block cookies. 

Visit the link to slide show and let me know if you have any questions.

Email - What Days Have the Highest Open Rate?

Great question! 

If you follow the link to the Marketing Charts article, at the bottom is the following:

Open and Click Rates by Day of the Week

There was less variance when sorting by day of the week (these results not limited to US accounts), although some patterns were apparent. During H1 (first half of the year), email open rates were lowest on Sunday (8.5%), Saturday (9.4%) and Thursday (9.4%), while during H2 (second half of the year), Saturday (6.1%) clearly had the lowest open rate, followed by Sunday (9%) and Thursday (9.6%). While there seemed to be a clear trend for lower open rates during the weekend, the sluggish rates on Thursdays was a fairly curious result.

During H1, open rates were highest on Tuesdays and Wednesdays (each at 10.7%), while during H2, they were highest on Tuesdays (10.7%) and Mondays (10.4%).

Click rates followed a different pattern. While Sundays sported generally below-average open rates, they had the highest click rate during both H1 (2.2%) and H2 (2.6%). Also of note: the next-highest click rates were reserved for Tuesdays (H1: 2.1%; H2: 2.5%), which had the highest open rates, suggesting that drawing conclusions regarding the relationship between open and click rates is a perilous endeavor.

During H1, the lowest click rate was on Monday (1.5%), while during H2, Saturday had the lowest average click rate (1.3%).

Average Open Rates for Email

Digital Marketers

Email marketing will remain a significant portion of our digital marketing plans for the foreseeable future.  The reason – it works and is readily accepted by many consumers. 

One of the questions I am frequently asked deals with “average open rates”.  (In fact one of you asked me this very question!)  Off to the research center.  Below are links to four articles that all bring some form of thought to this question.

MailChimp Email Marketing Benchmarks

MailChimp offers free research based on industry and company size.  Open Rates High - 48.6% for Religion.  Low Daily Deals/E-Coupons 19.3%

My favorite section of this article is Tips for Improving Your Stats.  Ideas on handling hard and soft bounces.  I like “When it comes to subject lines, boring works best. When you write your subject line, don’t sell what’s inside—tell what's inside. Read our study on writing effective subject lines.”

Mailer Mailer

Open rates have dropped over the previous five years.  In 2008 they averaged a high of 13.2% and by 2012 it had settled to approximately 10%.  They also show open rates by industry and now is a time to remind you to look at research methodology.  The reported open rates for Mailer Mailer are considerably less than MailChimp reporting.  But they tend to trend the same.  MM also reports “The next chart demonstrates the cumulative percentage of opens in the hours after your message is delivered. So, a message delivered to 500 recipients may receive 50 opens, and this chart shows when those opens occur in the hours after deliver.”

It continues, “Our findings reveal that about half (51.7%) of all opens occur within the first six hours after delivery. At 18 hours after delivery, about three quarters (74.9%) of total opens have occurred. In general, most opens occur in the first few hours after delivery, after which point they taper off until all opens have occurred — approximately 2 weeks after the message has been sent.

Marketing Charts

This report, using data from Mailer Mailer shows the Email Open Rates, by Hour adjusted for local time.  “Generally speaking, much as with last year’s study, emails scheduled to be sent between the early evening and the early morning achieved the best open rates.”

“While emails scheduled between the evening hours and early morning tended to lead to the best email open rates, emails were actually opened at a much greater rate during the workday than during those overnight hours.”

Marketing Profs

 “Average email open rates continued their downward path during 2011 and the first quarter of 2012, though click-through rates (CTRs) increased slightly during the same period.”

Some key US findings for the five quarters ended 1Q12:

·       Open rates averaged 19.9%, down from a 2009 average of 21.3%.

·       CTRs averaged 5.4%, up from a 2009 average of 4.5%.
·       Unsubscribe rates (0.27%) were in line with previous studies overall, but varied dramatically by industry type.

My answer to what is an acceptable open rate?  It doesn’t matter.  The key to any good marketing is to test and measure.  Whatever today’s open rate is, tomorrow’s should be better.  This is a great time to brush up on ideas for A/B Testing. 

Targeting Difficult to Find Consumers

Targeting Difficult to Find Consumers

 

The Challenge

A leading fashion retailer was looking to engage a very specific target:

• Hispanic Females
• Age 18 to 49
• Income below $40,000
• Spanish speaking dominate
• Living in a major metropolitan area within 12 zip codes

The Strategy

 

Use the PNS multi-layer Targeted Display program to reach the targeted consumer:

• Geographic targeting to isolate the desired zip codes
• Demographic targeting to identify Hispanic Females, age 18 to 49, with income of $40,000 or less
• Target web sites primarily with Spanish Content 
• Overlay behavioral targeting focusing on shopping interests
• Use Keywords and Phrases to dynamically insert ads into articles that contained content matching the Keywords Utilize Mobile Advertising

•Hispanics Lead as Web Users Who are Truly Mobile-First

A/B Testing

Two sets of creative were used:

• One set of creative was focused on branding with a special price on a fashion item
• The second creative promoted a Register to Win a Valentine’s Giveaway
• The campaign was launched with 50% of the impressions targeted to desktop, 50% targeted to mobile
• The creative message between the two platforms were identical

 

 

Results

 

The first objective was to out perform a national average CTR of 0.05% - 0.08%, then optimize weekly towards better results.

 

After the first week we learned:

• The Mobile response far outperformed Behavioral, Content and Keyword Targeting 
• Average CTR for the overall campaign was 0.40%
• Mobile 0.46%
• Keyword 0.16%
• Content  0.11%
• Behavioral  0.00%*
  

Creative  

Across both platforms the “Register to Win” creative performed well:

 

•Mobile   0.38% CTR

•Desktop    0.37% CTR

 

However, the Mobile platform (0.37%) clearly outperformed the desktop (0.12%)  with the branding creative

 

 Findings

 

The mobile results clearly validate the research showing the propensity of  Hispanics to use mobile access for the internet over desktop

• However, the creative using “Register to Win” resonated with all consumers
• The branding creative works best on the mobile device

The PNS Digital optimization reallocates impressions based on predetermined results. In this case CTR. While the initial plan was to allocate the impressions 50% / 50% between desktop and mobile, the short campaign timeline (7 days) required us to push impressions to the mobile platform due to superior CTRs. 

From a research prospective it would have been interesting to see if the results held up if we forced the 50% / 50% distribution plan. But campaigns are measured by results, not research!

More to follow as the campaign unfolds.

 



Five Ideas to Launch a Mobile Campaign With Little or No Money Down

Now that the excitement of the holiday season and the Super Bowl are behind us, it’s time to get back to looking at some research and best practices. 

33%Of Paid-Search Clicks Coming From Mobile Devices

“Mobile devices drove consumers to spend more time online while on the go. Paid-search marketers worldwide allocated 34.4% to mobile devices in 2013, with phones capturing 17.7% and tablets receiving 16.7% -- up from 20.5% in 2012.”

Retailers Are Driving Huge Increases In Mobile Shopping And Buying — This Is How

“On Black Friday this past year, sales on mobile devices accounted for more than 20% of U.S. e-commerce spending. Traffic from mobile was even bigger, accounting for almost 40% of total online shopping visits that day.” 

Six Trends for 2014 in Mobile Marketing and Advertising

“With over 75% growth in mobile advertising in 2013 (AdAgeMobile Fact Pack) mobile is no longer an emerging channel.”

“The very best marketing comes from observing consumer behavior and inserting your message into their behavior.”

Knowing that consumers are stampeding to mobile devices doesn’t mean that you are ready to engage them on mobile devices. 

Recently I worked on a display campaign for a client with a mobile component.  So I visited the “mobile” landing url and saw that the client did not have a mobile friendly web site.  What I found myself staring at was a large web site smashed into a little 4 inch screen.  It could have been the best offer in the history of retailing, but I would never know.  I simply could not see what the company was offering, much less be able to navigate to find it. 

Five Ideas to Launch a Mobile Campaign for Little to No Money

·       First have a mobile enabled web site.  Ideally you have a responsive web site (or plans to launch a responsive web site). 

·       But if your site isn’t mobile friendly, you can still have a mobile campaign. 

o   Build a mobile site.  There are tools that allow you to build mobile web sites for a very small investment.  $Hundreds, not $Thousands.  If you don’t have these tools, contact me.  If the only thing that is stopping you from mobile advertising is a mobile site, I am going to fix that problem. 

o   Keep in mind that most of our clients do not need a fully function ecommerce mobile web site.  They need a way for the sales prospect to contact them in the manner most convenient to them – email, phone, walk in the front door. 

o   Make sure you have the basics in place. 

o   Import a logo and few graphics/photos.

o   Add your contact information – Name, address and phone number. 

o   Add a “Click here for directions”. 

o   Post your hours of operation.

o   It is a mobile site.  Use Click to Call.  Questions?  “Click here to talk to a real human!”  (When was the last time a business encouraged you to call them?)

o   Add a mobile offer.  “Bring your phone in, show this coupon for a free dessert, save $5, Save 10%, etc. 

·       Eliminate clicks.  Make sure the ad takes you to the page where the customer can say “Yes, I’ll take it.” 

·       Want to know if the mobile site is working?  Use an offer or tracking code that the consumer would not see anywhere else.  Save $5.55!  Make this offer unique to this mobile campaign.

·       Track the results.  If you don’t have a computer system to track the sales, use a shoe box.  Print a stack of coupons with the mobile offer on it.  Every time a consumer uses the “mobile coupon”, write the total sale amount onto a coupon and throw it in a box.  At the end of the day/week/promotion, add up the amounts and see how successful the promotion was… 

Mobile advertising is exciting and frightening at the same time.  But there are ways to engage customers without initially spending a lot of money…

Seven Facts Marketers Need to Know About Mobile Users