Datalicious Blog - Data Driven Marketing

Trada marketplace: Outsource your SEM and have multiple search experts compete for your $$$

I just had a chat with the guys from Trada and wanted to share some of my insights with you as I think this could be a very interesting way of managing search for advertisers and even some agencies.

Trada is basically a marketplace that allows search experts from around the world to compete against each other on search campaigns. Instead of one or two search experts optimising a campaign in the standard agency model you now have multiple resources optimising an account all trying to outdo each other. More brains is always good and I think it's definitely a cool idea but there's pros and cons.

The model itself is quite attractive as it allows you to set a target CPC or CPA and the search experts only get paid if they can do better than that target, i.e. they can keep the difference between the real cost and the target you set them so there's a clear incentive. You can brief and communicate with the search experts that have decided to work on your account and change the target CPC or CPA daily if you want, but you have to commit to a minium monthly spend of USD 3,000 and an optimisation period of 3 months which is only fair I think.

Now here comes the catch, you cannot import existing accounts into Trada but have to create new ones for Google, Bing and Yahoo through the Trada platform which means you will use your quality score for existing campaigns. This might be a big deal for some people and less for others, I think it's not the end of the world but definitely has to be considered. Also, the search experts don't compete per keyword but on an ad group level which has potential for overlap and I'm not entirely sure what happens if one of the guys decides to stop working on an ad group or entire account. Finally, the way the model is set-up it leads to an initial burst of optimisation and set-up of ad groups similar to a normal agency relationship which peters off after a while when the search experts are looking to cash in on their initial time investment. That's not a bad thing, it's just normal and means even if you decide to give Trada a go you will have to keep in mind that you are working with humans that have to be managed and motivated, how you do that is up to you.

All in all, I think the Trada platform is pretty cool and I can only recommend to look into it and decide for yourself if it might help you business or agency, watching the below video might be a good start. I definitely see potential for small to medium size businesses to get access to some top international search optimisation talent and for agencies to basically grow their capacity over night.

E*Trade: Omniture SiteCatalyst implementation review including media attribution and optimisation

Challenge

To quantify the impact of offline and online media spend on new customer acquisition, along with the construction of a reporting and analytics framework to continually optimise media budget allocation using a better understanding of customer vs. non-customer navigational paths. 

Solution

Major review and upgrade of the existing Omniture SiteCatalyst deployment to build a data collection foundation that could properly address the core business KPIs. A controlled display exposure test was used to quantify the incremental conversion uplift from online display advertising and to determine the real media cost per acquisition. In addition, a website entry survey was used to further analyse the impact of existing brand equity and offline media activity on online channels, specifically navigational search and direct to site visits. It was particularly important to look at the differences between customers and non-customers.

Results

E*Trade now has the ability to report on and de-duplicate conversions across all paid and non-paid media channels as well as to clearly differentiate between customers and non-customers. The marketing team can now not only optimise the company's media mix for maximum acquisition efficiency but also use the data to develop a smoother customer experience and media attribution model. The developed reporting and analytics framework provides the client with the ability to analyse a range of core KPI's on an ongoing basis, putting the business in an excellent strategic position moving forward.

Testimonials

"E*Trade Australia was originally looking for a provider who could help us optimise our media spend and Datalicious brought with them best practice analytics to demonstrate the true value of our marketing dollars. Since then, they have become a critical business partner in their support of our Omniture analytics implementation. They've provided great insights which have driven key business decisions." Trang Young, Senior Internet Marketing Manager, E*Trade Australia

 

360 Omniture services from implementation consulting to fully outsourced platform management

Are you thinking about implementing one of the below Omniture Online Marketing Suite products or would you like an independent view on how to get more value from your current implementation? Is your company beyond passive web analytics and ready to implement a bid management, testing or merchandising platform? 

Then email us at insights@datalicious.com, we have significant experience in implementing and managing all parts of the Omniture Online Marketing Suite of products and would love to support your company in taking the next step in online business optimisation.

Read our case study: making Vodafone Australia datalicious, which ranks our implementation of the Omniture platform among the top 10 globally, if you're still hesitant about involving an independent 3rd party or are not quite sure about what kind of service to expect from Datalicious.

You might also be interested in our recent announcement of becoming the exclusive Atomic Labs Pion reseller for Australia, if web analytics tag maintenance or the increasing amount of mobile traffic from smart phones are a problem for your company. Pion is a new server based data collection method that allows you to populate your Omniture reports without ever having to touch your page code again. As Pion doesn't rely on JavaScript it also tracks all forms of mobile devices with or without JavaScript support out of the box.

New integration: Use Omniture SearchCenter to manage and optimise Facebook media buys

This is an interesting new integration, something one would have expected to happend between one of the big search engines and Facebook but Omniture clearly stole them the show on this one, nice one Omniture! 

Omniture and Facebook announced that they will provide online marketers with solutions to optimize Facebook as a marketing channel. This partnership builds on the Facebook analytics and Facebook application analytics capabilities Omniture announced last year.

As the industry moves beyond marketing that 'interrupts' the consumer's online experience, companies are increasingly seeking ways to join the conversation and have more relevant interactions with their customers. This alliance can help companies more easily integrate Facebook as a marketing channel in order to connect to and have relevant conversations with Facebook's more than 400 million active users.

Omniture customers can now utilize Omniture SearchCenter Plus, which is the combination of the company's search engine marketing management application with new functionality for purchasing Facebook Ads. Omniture customers can now more easily ramp their ad spend on Facebook and compare Facebook ad campaign metrics alongside other media channels.

Marketers see the opportunity to build and reward customer loyalty on Facebook. To help in these efforts, Omniture customers can now generate reports specifically designed to understand ad effectiveness for some of the unique elements of Facebook such as Facebook Pages and applications.

Contact us at insights@datalicious.com if you would like to find out more or enable this integration for your company.

Read the full story here on MarketWatch 
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/omniture-and-facebook-join-forces-to-optimize-social-media-for-marketers-2010-03-03

Tourism Western Australia: Omniture SiteCatalyst and Traction integration for smarter email targeting

Challenge

Implement, maintain and manage a combined email-marketing and web analytics platform designed to enhance visitor profiling and thus increase content relevance and user interaction.

Solution
 
Design, implementation and ongoing management of an integrated Traction email and Omniture web analytics platform. The final solution enabled Tourism WA to identify and profile individual travellers based on their campaign and website behaviour and allowed us to segment website visitors according to their specific destination interests as well as types of holiday packages.
 
Results

Using interest based customer segmentation with smart targeting and trigger based email campaigns we were able to increase email open and response rates by almost 100% compared to the travel industry average. Combining user profiles with website behavioural data generated valuable additional insights that will be influencing the planning and execution of future campaigns.
 

   
Click here to download:
Tourism_Western_Australia_tag_.zip (1957 KB)

MultichannelMetrics: Cool interactive flow-chart to trouble shoot drop in traffic or conversions

Check out MultichannelMetrics's interactive flowchart if you're experiencing issues with a drop in traffic or conversion rates, it's a great starting point to figure out what to do.

Click on the below link to get to the interactive version of the chart

http://multichannelmetrics.com/WebAnalyticsQuestionSupportSystem/WebAnalyticsQSS.html

Website Testing Tools

Here is a useful collection of various tools for online marketeers, conveniently classified into groups ranging from usability testing, site performance testing, SEO ranking to web analytics. No doubt that there are a range of other tools that this list missed and therefore by no means this is comprehensive, nevertheless this is a great starting point.

http://www.testing-web-sites.co.uk/testing-tools/

Google launches new special search engine designed to enhance user experience on retail sites

Google Commerce Search is a search solution designed to optimise the on-site search experience on retail sites but interestingly this product is not for free this time, pricing starts at $50,000 (pretty hefty for Google). 

Google has been offering on-site search services for a while now so this isn't an unexpected move but I'm surprised the pricing model is not the usual cost per click or cost per conversion. Please comment on this post if you know what the underlying platform is (is this another acquisition?).

Google Commerce Search offers the following features
  • Enable visitors to find the right products faster
  • Filter results by category, price, brand or other attributes
  • Provide user-friendly spelling options and synonyms
  • Increase website conversions and sales
  • Boost or promote chosen products within search results
  • Deploy search solution in days, and scale effortlessly
  • Customize, track, and optimize performance
Find out more on the official Google website here

Omniture Test and Target update coming

Omniture have finally spent some time fixing Omniture’s Test & Target interface and will be releasing it on 5th of November.

What you’ll see in the new release is:

  • Setting up targets is much easier with a better layout and more logical organisation
  • AJAX – no more page refreshes
  • No more having to use Edit Classic for targeting campaigns and the .5 updated one for normal campaigns.

Our biggest frustration with Test & Target has always been the resource time to manage the programs, particularly if you’re using it to target weekly promotions - hopefully this should make the process faster.

Omniture, we ’d still like to see bulk uploads through csv’s or an API – this would be a great platform to integrate with a CMS. Integrating targeting information from other applications such as a CRM into the campaign interface would also be nice rather than having to manage this process outside of Test and Target.

http://teamoffermatica.com/launch/campaign_edit.html

Call to Action Buttons: Examples and Best Practices

Another awesome usability article from Smashing Magazine, couldn't resist posting a summary and I recommend everyone sign-up for their Twitter feed.

Key recommendations from the article

1. Draw user attention with size
2. Draw user attention with prominent positioning
3. Use whitespace to detach call to actions from other elements
4. Use highly contrasting colors
5. Offer secondary alternative actions
6. Convey a sense of urgency
7. Tell users that taking action is easy
8. Tell users what to expect

Read the full article including best practice visual examples here
http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/10/13/call-to-action-buttons-examples-and-best-practices/