So Many Clicks, So Few Sales

Pay-per-click advertising seems like a dream. But up to 35% of

all the clicks you pay for may be fraudulent.

It didn't make any sense. Kevin Steele, co-owner of Karaoke Star, a Phoenix

retailer of karaoke equipment, noticed that the number of people clicking on his

paid search-engine ads had shot from 200 to 800 a day. But despite the apparent

jump in traffic, sales hadn't budged. Steele and his partner, Diana Frerick, had

built their business on Internet advertising, and more clicks almost always

meant more revenueâ€"which the pair had invested in a new office, more inventory, and a call center to field technical questions.

Steele thought he had pay-per-click advertising down to a science. Karaoke

Star spent about $2,000 a day on search-engine ads at Google and Overture, a

subsidiary of Yahoo focusing on keywords like "karaoke","karaoke player,"

"karaoke song"to generate about $6,000 a day in sales. Suddenly, it had to

budget the same amount just to get $3,000. With each keyword costing

anywhere between 40 cents and $3 a click, Karaoke Star found itself being

nickel-and-dimed to death. "One day we were doing great, says Steele, "and

the next it was as if someone had turned off the lights."

The problem was click fraud, which occurs when people click on paid search

ads with no intention of buying anything. In some cases, the clicker is a

competitor that wants to force a rival to burn through cash. Other times it's

someone from an affiliate site that hosts search-engine ads and receives a small

commission for every click. It could be a team of users clicking repeatedly on

an ad. Or, most commonly, the fraudulent clicks are automated by "hitbot"

software.

Experts estimate that 20% to 35% of all ad clicks may be bogus. Whatever the

number, it's as if thousands of people are charging you for window-shopping.

Steele says the fraudulent clicking has cost Karaoke Star nearly $400,000 over

the past two and a half years.

The paid search ad market is essentially a grand auction. Advertisers bid on

specific keywords; the terms with the highest demand fetch the highest prices,

and the advertisers that pay the most get the highest placement on the search

engine's webpage. Because affiliate sites earn commissions based on how many

clicks the ads receive, there's a lot of incentive to claim as many clicks as

possible. Paid online search is a nearly $3 billion business and it's easy to

see why. Popular keywords can get very expensive very fast.

The major search engines all acknowledge that click fraud is a problem. In a

recent SEC filing, for example, Google warned investors that "if fraudulent

clicks are not detected, the affected advertisers may experience a reduced

return on their investment which could lead to loss of advertisers and

revenue.

What's an advertiser to do? If you think you've been charged for bogus

clicks, you might be able to convince a search engine to credit your account.

The problem is, getting a search engine to hand over a record of your

advertising activity is no easy feat. Search engines treat such data as

proprietary and are loath to share it. Karaoke Star's Steele and Frerick, for

example, expressed their suspicions to Overture and were given some "token

refunds, Steele says. But Overture steadfastly refused to tell them who was

behind the bogus clicks. Nor would it give Karaoke Star the data it needed to

figure it out itself.

Fortunately, Karaoke Star as well as a number of other online karaoke

stores received an anonymous e-mail tip from someone claiming to be a former

employee of Ace Karaoke, a competitor in City of Industry, Calif. Attached to

the e-mail, according to Steele, was a video that showed an automated click

fraud program employed by Ace Karaoke to target the stores. Frerick and Steele

retained a lawyer who has contacted Ace Karaoke, as well as Google and Overture,

and informed them of his intention to sue. Why target the search engines?

"Because Google and Overture make the most money from click fraud and have

the least amount of incentive for taking simple precautions to prevent the fraud,

says C. Tab Turner, a plaintiffs' attorney in North Little Rock, Ark., who

represents Karaoke Star. Overture and Google declined to comment on the matter.

Ace Karaoke's owner, David Su, denies the charges. "At this stage, there is

no way for advertisers to prevent fraudulent clicks from being billed to their

accounts.

Unlike Karaoke Star, many advertisers are reluctant to complain out of fear

that the search engines, which provide most of their traffic, could blacklist

them. "At this stage, there is no way for advertisers to prevent fraudulent

clicks from being billed to their accounts,says Jessie Stricchiola, president

of Alchemist Media, a click fraud auditing firm in Hollywood.

Fortunately, there are alternatives to taking legal action. There are a

number of click fraud auditing tools available including Click Lab, Click

Defense, and Click Detective that are designed to alert you to suspicious

clicks. The cost can range from $29.95 to several thousand dollars a month,

depending on the amount of traffic your site receives. Or you could hire a

consultant like Stricchiola to analyze your traffic and broker a deal with the

search engines. But Stricchiola, who charges between $250 and $450 an hour,

warns that it often costs more in time and money to identify the problem than is

actually lost to click fraud. There are also alternative search engines, such as

Brooklyn-based BlowSearch, which guarantees that its advertisers will not

receive any automated clicks on their ads or they'll get their money back. Of

course, BlowSearch gets only a tiny fraction of the traffic of the big search

engines and offers less bang for the advertising buck.

In the end, you may have little option but to accept fraudulent clicks as a

cost of doing business and recalculate your expected advertising ROI

accordingly. That's what Karaoke Star is doing. Of course, it's also reserving

the right to sue.

Reinvent your marketing!

One-way, top-down communication does not work as

well as in former days. Today, companies must create conversations with

customers and deliver useful content at the moment their prospects, clients or

constituents need it. Many firms will need to reinvent their marketing in

2013.

Marketers can't push products on people. They have to think like journalists and create a dialogue

with their audience to earn a prospect's trust. Free or low-cost applications such as blogs and

podcasts, in addition to social networking tools such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, have

changed the old rules. But above all else stands Interactive Maketing Communication...your only

way forward and totally accountable.

　

　

We becoming more and more distracted by the various media that continues to proliferate under advertising's largess.

As advertisers spend more, they extend media's restless tentacles, thus

distracting us to the point where marketers have to spend yet more to regain our

attention (if they ever had it in the first place!)

All the mounting evidence that advertising doesn't work goes totally ignored.

Recently it was written that most marketing (theory and practice) is wish

driven. The work on advertising effectiveness convincingly proves that there is

no evidence that advertising persuades anybody to do anything; advertising can

only be a 'weak' force.

The sad thing is that all this evidence is studiously ignored by many

sections of the marketing community, resulting in the terrible situation we are

witnessing to-day. Many goals set in marketing are unrealistic. They are

therefore doomed to failure from the start. Such romantic marketing dreams

include sustained growth, brand differentiation, persuasive advertising, and are

totally unrealistic!

Now, in addition, we have the craven-image of dotcom dementia 2.0

The problem is that the articles of faith among those who conquered their

fear, denial, blind faith and desperate attachments to the status quo

("Advertising works") now face the gathering reality of the chaos scenario! With

most advertising these days where is one iota of information which will

sell?

Mostly they don't tell consumers anything that matters, instead leaving that

heavy lifting to other, less sexy marketing efforts.

Customers said they would feel closer to your brand...

...if you listened to their opinions and responded to questions or comments.

Yours brands should throw out ideas or topics amongst customers in which

they can start their own discussions, which don't necessarily have to be about

your brand, and could involve negative comments.

Negative comments need to be answered, not ignored, and

comments kept up, not removed, as an exercise in transparency. Your

conversation with consumers has to be of interest to them, such as giving them

something to engage with, rather than directly asking for feedback on a project.

Your brand, by listening to friends or fans points of view and concerns,

and accepting criticism while giving users honest information, allows a deeper

relationship to be formed, thus increasing brand loyalty, and especially

increasing sales Further findings reveal that social network users become

largely irritated and tend to ignore promotions from brands and a

majority of users would not remain a fan, or friend of a brand, that regularly

sent them promotions.

Finally, The True Value Of A Facebook Fan

　

　



In days of yore, people were consumed by questions about the existence of God,

or the nature of the universe, or the fate of mankind. Today, however, we face a

problem that is apparently even more vexing: What the heck is the value of a

Facebook fan? Based on the alarming amount of literature on the topic,

this seems to be very nettlesome to today's highly sensitive marketing

professionals. I've been studying the methods of our industry's new

oracles -- the data analysts -- and trying to apply their methods and their

logic to the problem. And, good news. I think I've got the answer!

Here's what I've done. I've used real-world numbers, based on a real-world

case history and come up with what I believe is an unassailable value for a

Facebook fan. I have tried to keep this mainstream by using one of the

most famous brands in the world, and a very famous Facebook initiative to derive

my value. The formula I've used is a simple one highly favored by our

data wizards. I've taken the total change in dollar sales since the Facebook

program in question began, and I've divided it by the total number of Facebook

fans that were acquired. That should give us a dollar value for each Facebook

fan. The case history I'm going to use is the Pepsi

Refresh Project. According to Pepsi's marketing director " the

success has been overwhelming" so no one can accuse me of skewing the

data. The Pepsi Facebook page has acquired about 3.5 million fans as a

result of the Refresh project. In the most recent year, during which the Refresh

Project was ongoing, Pepsi sales dropped by about 350 million dollars.

Doing the math, we find that each Pepsi Facebook fan was worth about 100

dollars.

To Coke.

Dead Air More Effective Than Facebook Ads

The broadcast industry has a term called "dead air." It occurs when there's a

mistake or a technical glitch that results in no audio on radio, or no picture

on a TV screen. A blank TV screen is "dead air." In an absolutely

astounding experiment, the banner advertising equivalent of dead air -- a blank

display ad -- performed better than the average Facebook ad; twice as good as

the average "branding" display ad; and only one click in ten thousand worse than

the average of all display ads. Here are the details. AdAge

this week has a piece called How Blank Display Ads Managed to Tot Up Some Impressive Numbers The article was written by Ted McConnell, exec VP-digital for the Advertising

Research Foundation. Ted and a few friends (an astrophysicist from an

online analytics firm, a measurement expert from the Advertising Research

Foundation, and an ad-platform wizard from a buying and optimization company)

decided to do an experiment. The experiment was designed to discover how much

clicking of banner advertising was actual engagement with the ad, and how much

was just noise -- people clicking for no reason. To do this they created

a unique ad -- an ad with no message. A blank. According to McConnell...

"We created six blank ads in three IAB standard sizes, and two colors, white and orange. We

trafficked the ads via a demand-side platform (DSP) with a low bid. We started with run of

exchange, and in another phase trafficked to "named publishers" that would accept unaudited

copy." Here are the results:

The click-through rate on the blank ads was .08%. According to published

reports, the click-through rate on the average Facebook ad is about .05%. The

blank ad performed 60% better.

The click through rate for the blank ad was about double the average

click-through rate for a "branding" display ad (an ad without an offer.)

The click-through rate on the average banner ad is .09%. This means the

blank ad drew one click in ten thousand fewer than an average banner ad.

About .04% of the clicks were mistakes. Since the average click-through rate

for display ads is .09%, this indicates that it is possible that as much as 44%

of banner ad clicks are mistakes. The astounding thing is that with all

the data Facebook is collecting, all the geniuses we have analyzing display ad

results, all the space-age targeting we are constantly being beaten over the

head with, and all the young creative prodigies lecturing us on the magic of

online advertising, empty ads outperformed our online geniuses.

You simply cannot make this shit up.

We must dismiss the wretched word "Subliminal"

Can we please dismiss the meaningless word "Subliminal" from our advertising

jargon!

There was -- and still is -- little proof that these efforts to engineer action

through manipulation of the unconscious led to any behavioral changes

favorable to specific marketers. As for James Vicary's experiment in

subliminal advertising -- it was a hoax: Vicary later admitted that he

hadn't done what he'd claimed. Several subsequent studies of the

effectiveness of embedded messages have shown it to be virtually

impossible to use them to produce specific, predictable responses.

Still, faith in the power of the media to induce millions of people to

act contrary to their better judgment or conscious desires remains

profound. More than three quarters of the U.S. population currently

believes that marketers use subliminal messages to sell products or

services, according to the Journal of Advertising Research; consumers

themselves spend some $50 million annually on subliminal self-help

products, such as audiotapes that are supposed to teach one a foreign

language in one's sleep.

There is only one form of effective, accountable advertising and that is Interactive Marketing

Communication.

Consumers Are Fed Up with Corporate Advertising & Manipulation

Consumers Are Fed Up with Corporate Advertising & Manipulation

Today, the New York Times reports on a new poll showing that a majority

of Americans are fed up with the hailstorm of advertising we all

suffer through. According to theYankelovich Partners poll:

* 65 percent said they believed that they "are constantly bombarded with

too much" advertising; * 61 percent agreed that the amount of advertising

and marketing to which they are exposed "is out of control"; * 60 percent

said their opinion of advertising "is much more negative than just a few

years ago"; * 54 percent of the survey respondents said they "avoid buying

products that overwhelm them with advertising and marketing";* 69 percent

said they "are interested in products and services that would help them skip

or block marketing;"





The Times story is below.

As the kingpins of Madison Avenue gather for a major annual meeting,

there is further evidence of the growing challenge they confront in seeking

to break through the cacophony of advertising that surrounds - and

increasingly annoys - consumers.

At the 2004 management conference of the American Association of

Advertising Agencies, which begins today in Miami, senior executives will

learn the results of a survey of consumers conducted on behalf of the

organization by Yankelovich Partners, the market research company. The

survey, to be presented tomorrow at the opening general session of the

conference, shows that the effectiveness of campaigns that agencies produce

for marketers is deteriorating, said J. Walker Smith, president at

Yankelovich, because

The survey findings are significant because industry executives

are frantically searching for ways to forge more emotional connections

with fractious, and fractionated, consumers that differ from conventional

methods like running 30-second television commercials and print

advertisements.

The risk posed by some of the new approaches, like placing sponsored

brand messages or products in the entertainment content of programs

or publications, is that consumers will consider such selling strategies

even more obnoxious.

"People have a love-hate relationship with advertising," said Mr. Smith,

who offered a preview of the survey in an interview before the conference

began. "But a far greater percentage are saying they have concerns,

primarily related to its growing obtrusiveness."

For instance, Mr. Smith said, 54 percent of the survey respondents said

they "avoid buying products that overwhelm them with advertising and

marketing"; 60 percent said their opinion of advertising "is much more

negative than just a few years ago"; 61 percent said they agreed that the

amount of advertising and marketing to which they are exposed "is out of

control."

Also, 65 percent said they believed that they "are constantly bombarded

with too much" advertising; and 69 percent said they "are interested in

products and services that would help them skip or block marketing."

How to market an antimarketing product to people surfeited with

marketing? Ah, there's the rub.

Even when fewer than a majority of the survey respondents agreed with

a statement, Mr. Smith said, the results offered little solace for

agencies. For example, what he called a "fairly significant" 45 percent of

respondents said the amount of advertising and marketing they were exposed to

"detracts from the experience of everyday life," while 33 percent said they

"would be willing to have a slightly lower standard of living to live in a

society without marketing and advertising."

The results also offer some suggestions, Mr. Smith said, to help narrow

what he described as "the growing gap between how consumers want to

be communicated with and the way advertisers communicate with them."

For example, respondents said "there's an opportunity for advertising to

become a source of competitive advantage for a brand," Mr. Smith said, "if

it's focused on product features and services." "The marketing itself has

become part of how consumers view a brand," Mr. Smith said, "so if you have

two brands at parity with each other, more and more the one people are likely

to do business with is the one that does a better job in reaching them with

its advertising."

The association, which represents 1,196 agencies that place an estimated

75 percent of all national advertising, recognizes it must address

the consumers' changing attitudes, if some other topics on the conference

agenda are any indication.

Among the subjects to be discussed at the conference, which

continues through Friday at the Ritz-Carlton South Beach hotel, are

"advertising in the age of obesity," the title of a speech by Tommy G.

Thompson, the secretary of health and human services, and how agencies can

develop more effective campaigns, to be covered by August A. Busch IV,

president of Anheuser-Busch.

Other topics are how agencies can create campaigns consumers will like

more, or at least dislike less, to be discussed by Linda Kaplan Thaler,

chief executive and chief creative officer at the Kaplan Thaler Group in New

York, part of the Publicis Groupe, and how perceptions of the agency business

need to be improved, to be addressed by Ron Berger, elected last month as

the chairman of the association for 2004-6.

"Our industry must do a better job of talking about the tremendous value

we create for clients and the economy," said Mr. Berger, who is also

chief executive and chief creative officer at Euro RSCG MVBMS Partners in

New York, part of the Euro RSCG Worldwide division of Havas.

Although "the last few years for the industry have not been great

ones," said Mr. Berger, who offered a preview of his remarks in a recent

interview, "I just don't think other industries beat themselves up the way we

do."

Even if, as has been widely discussed, the traditional 30-second spot

has devolved into a much less effective way to sell goods and services,

Mr.
Berger said, "so what?"

"The great agencies don't say, The 30-second commercial is dead, so

we're dead. They understand that, and embrace that, and will reinvent

themselves and what they do to market brands and products."

"The idea that TiVo, remote controls, any technology, is fatal to

our business I find absurd," he said. "The opportunities of technology and

what it enables us to do are more exciting than at any time in our

history."

Mr. Berger's enthusiasm may be contagious, if judged by the

advance registration for the conference, typically a good gauge of how

optimistic or pessimistic agency executives are about prospects for the

industry.

Almost 330 people have registered ahead of the conference, said O.

Burtch Drake, president and chief executive of the association, known as the

Four A's, compared with the 257 who attended the 2003 conference and the 293

at the 2002 conference.

Although the anticipated attendance is lower than for the boom year of

2000, when 450 people attended, Mr. Drake said, "we're going to have the

largest member attendance since 1990," which is attendees minus

speakers, representatives of media companies and other organizations like

the Association of National Advertisers, spouses and reporters.

"I'm feeling really good about the meeting," Mr. Drake said, "finally."

Whether you interpret the market turbulence...

　


...as a source of risk or opportunity, it's inevitable that it creates pressure on marketers.

Interactive Marketing Communication, properly structured, is designed to help marketers develop future-proof strategies and plans, contact the Interactive Guru, Paul Ashby, 01934 620047 or paulashby40@yahoo.com to discover the building blocks of marketing success for 2013 and beyond.

Looking at solutions to some of the biggest challenges that today's marketing professionals face,  share invaluable experiences on:

Planning, measurement and ROI: get to grips with a clear and commercially sound framework for measuring and evaluating marketing performance and ROI.
Joining the digital revolution with confidence: explore how to join up campaigns across multiple channels and integrate digital throughout the marketing mix.
Closing the gap between promise and reality: discover how to deliver a consistent customer experience and align your business around common brand value.
Only on Interactive Marketing Communication!

Interactive Communication

"Interactive Communication, properly executed, is the foundation for improving marketing,
building business performance, enhancing productivity and streamlining critical processes. That is why the drive to embed accountability as a core marketing discipline will only increase.

With it will come enhanced marketing ROI."




And only with Interactive Communication!

Definition of Diversity

 
The meaning of diversity encompasses acceptance and respect.
It recognises that each of us is unique, as well as recognising our individual differences. These can be the dimensions of race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, age, physical abilities, religious beliefs,
political beliefs, or other ideologies. It is the exploration
of these differences in a safe, positive, and supporting environment.
It is also about understanding each other and moving beyond
simple tolerance by embracing and celebrating the
rich dimensions of diversity contained within us all.





Diversity is a huge topic. To comprehend that each of the 7 billion or so people is unique is almost impossible. To be useful we need to have some understanding of the different ways that people are different, in order to be effective at understand and managing diversity.

There are several frameworks available to us when it comes to understanding those differences. Here are a few that might be helpful:
Developmental differences
Cultural Differences
Regilious Differences
Values Differences
Personality Differences
Representational systems
Gender differences
　
What does it mean to live in a diverse community?
Diversity is a group of many different things; gender, race, religion, and ethnicity. So if a community had a variety of all those different things, it would be a very colorful place. I believe that living in a diverse place with people living together harmoniously as a community is something we should strive for

Living in a diverse community also means that different people can see and learn about our different cultures. Then they will understand the cultures and see why certain people do certain things. Also, we will live peacefully as a community.

Who's running your Organization?

Your customers, that’s who!

　

Or should be!

　

So don’t you think that you ought to start a regular dialogue with him or

her, as the case may be?

　

The word empowerment is a very overused word. However in the near future the primary strategic marketing communications battle will be to see who goes furthest in empowering their customers.

To empower your customers you will have to:
1. Provide them with far more information than you currently do.
2. Allow them to make decisions about you and your company together with your resources.
3. Give them plenty of choice.
4. Give them the perception of control!
5. Allow them to feel that they are running your organisation!

Because anything that tightens your relationships with an existing customer increases the revenue you get from your customer.

And the only form of communication that can do all the above so that you do tighten your grip on your customer is….interactive communication!

Because interactive communication allows you to have an ongoing debate with your customers and your prospects, make regular interactive conversations available where they can debate not only about your products and services but the very soul of your company. Because that will be much more powerful than just putting your advertisement on television (or wherever) or I’m going to sell my goods in Tesco (or wherever).

Then, when you get asked, "Who’s running your business?" you can honestly reply, "My customers through genuine interactive programmes!" and earn major brownie points!

I laughed when I sat down and read the headline

"Labour continues to turn away from ads as…"

Because it proved to me that somebody has some brains within the Labour Party!

Additionally both the main parties were reported to be ending their traditional billboard blitzes in the run up to the general election after they were dismissed as a waste of money by a Government-ordered inquiry.

It would appear that both main parties now recognise the fact that all advertising is a complete and utter waste of money. Would somebody please share this knowledge with Moray MacLennan, IPA President who, judging by his inaugural speech, still believes that advertising works…More on that later as it is a subject worthy of an article on its own!

However there is a way for politicians to communicate very effectively with their voters right now, it is known as "Interactive Marketing Communication" and you can use it to make existing media interactive and very effective!

Please also go to interactivetelevisionorinteractivetv.blogspot.com

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