Andy Boyer

Category: Marketing

  • Thanks to all the Folks at the SVC

    I want to thank Larry Asher and everyone who attended the seminar on Social Media that Spring Creek Group principal Clay McDaniel and I hosted yesterday at the School of Visual Concepts.

    It was really interesting to see a roomful of people who wanted to figure out how to promote their blog and social media presence, from perspectives as varied as ad agencies, design firms, newspapers, aspiring authors, philanthropic endeavors, small businesses, freelancers and giant medical centers.  I don’t think Clay and I expected such a wide range of interest.

    (In a shameless plug, I want to extol the virtues of GotVoice’s Voice-to-Text service.  We were in the seminar about 7 hours and I never checked my voicemail.  It would have been a total pain if I had to listen to each one instead of being able to just read each voicemail as a text message.  Full disclosure: I do some work for GotVoice.  But it was very useful yesterday regardless.) 

    It sounds like we may put another one of these together in April or May.  If you missed this one, hope to see you then.

  • Are Lower Clickthrough Rates a Problem?

    Business Week asked the question this week:

    "Google: Are Ad Concerns Overblown? – The number of ad clicks fell in January for Google and Yahoo. But how important are those click-through rates, anyway?"

    "comScore (SCOR) said clicks on ads placed on Google were little changed in January from a year earlier, and that they fell 12% from the last three months of 2007. For Yahoo, ad clicks fell 3% from the fourth quarter."

    According to Google and Yahoo, Internet Advertising is alive and well.  But others have questions.  The detractors say:

    • "Advertisers are simply bidding on and buying fewer keywords."
    • "Credit-strapped consumers are simply doing less shopping online, and therefore clicking less often on the ads that direct them to retail sites.
    • "We remain concerned that a slowing U.S. and possibly global economy could further hinder Google’s growth," Stanford Group analyst Clay Moran wrote.

    But Google, Yahoo and their friends say:

    • Google co-founder Sergey Brin, contends that an economic downturn will accelerate a shift in spending from radio, print, and TV advertising to the Web. "It makes a lot of sense for advertisers, if they want to be careful about their spending and they want to make sure they are getting a good ROI to use the exact kind of advertising that we are offering.
    • Barbara Baldwin, senior director of Polycom’s global brand programs, says her company has no plans to reduce spending in 2008. "During a recession it’s really important to maintain a consistent presence, rather than dropping your campaigns and then trying to restart," she says.
    • "I think click-through was not a great measure to start with," says Michael Leo, co-founder of Avenue A/Razorfish, which was acquired by Microsoft (MSFT), and current CEO of ad software and consulting company Operative. "I don’t think clicks tell us what is going on."
    • "This myopic fixation on clicks really does a disservice to the publishers who are putting together the inventory and the advertisers who are not getting a real sense of the performance," says John Chandler, principal analyst at Atlas, a division of Microsoft’s advertiser and publisher solutions business.

    What do you think?  Will a decrease in ad clicks torpedo the ad sales industry, and cripple all the new start-ups relying on advertising revenue?  Does the loss of these start-ups spell major doom?  Or does it merely allow for consolidation?  And is this consolidation needed anyway?

  • The Fight to Keep the Sonics – A Hero Emerges

    simmons.jpgThe sad story concerning the absolute theft of the Sonics from Seattle by Oklahoma oilmen has gotten almost no publicity to date.  Considering we are the city that launched Amazon, Starbucks, Microsoft, RealNetworks, Cranium and Pearl Jam, you would think collectively we might have the phone number of one PR person in town.

    But amazingly, for the most part, no one outside of Seattle seems to take note of a very simple story:

    1. In 2006, Oklahoma guys buy team that’s been in Seattle for 41 years  A team that plays in a 17,000 seat arena, in the middle of downtown, that was renovated 10 years ago.
    2. New owners demand $500 Million new arena from taxpayers, an arena that would cost more than the 70,000 seat football stadium and 47,000 seat retractable roof baseball stadium.
    3. City tells Oklahoma City guys to stick it.
    4. Oklahoma guys claim they can’t be successful in Seattle and announce they have remarkably found a city willing to take the team – in Oklahoma City.
    5. Local Billionaires who were asleep at the switch in 2006 say they will buy team to keep it in Seattle.
    6. Oklahoma guys, who now have Kevin Durant and six 1st round draft picks in the next 3 years, tell the local Billionaires to stick it.
    7. David Stern looks at Seattle fans, and tells them to stick it.  Then stick it again for good measure.
    8. Everyone acknowldges the only question is whether they leave in 2008 or 2010.

    Thankfully, one national reporter has taken up the cause.  And the amazing thing is, he is the Sports Guy, Bill Simmons, as influential as any writer in sports today.  His letterbag column is a must read, and carries with it the potential that NBA fans from across teh country could tell David Stern, "Hey, this isn’t right.  I support the Pistons, but damn if I’m going to support a league that will let some oil baron rape and plunder a 41 year old legacy."

    So please, read Bill Simmons.  Send an email to thank Bill Simmons.  Join the Bill Simmons Facebook Group.  Send the Bill Simmons column on to your friends.  Blog about Bill Simmons.  Because this Bostonian has emrged as the only sportswriter who seems to care that the Sonics belong in Seattle.  

    Digg the Bill Simmons article here.

  • Why You Can’t Predict Viral

    Over at Spring Creek Group, we often get asked by clients if we can build something "viral" that will explode like the treadmill guys or the Diet Coke / Mentos mad scientists.  It’s hard to explain that you can’t make viral happen.  Unless you are so clever, that it looks like you are purposely NOT trying to be viral.   

    I don’t know if this was a direct attempt at mass blog acceptance, but today I point you to Drivl.com, a web site that has seated itself in my bookmarks with armed bodyguards.

    Speciifically, I point you to this article, "Why I’ll Never Make Digg." Well at the time of this writing, she has 7,205 Diggs, tops in the last hours.  So not only did she accomplish everything she said she couldn’t do,she did it so well that it renders the article irrelevant.  Forget Alannis Morisette.  This my friends, is irony.  And great Social Media.

  • Is This Ethical Online Political Advertising?

    (Disclosure: I have not publicly supported Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton.  This question comes from an unbiased political point of view.)

    A new web site launched today and was mentioned by CNN.com.  The site is called DelegateHub.com. Now, at first glance this site appears to be a neutral, non-partisan site in which questions about the delegate process can be answered.  But if you look at the writing,it is a blatant attempt at the Clinton Campaign to twist your perception of the delegate process.  The site claims to provide "Facts" not "Myths" about the delegate process.  Here are some "facts" it mentions.

    1)  The first fact is fairly tame and may lead you to believe the whole article is unbiased.  "Fact: The Democratic Party chooses its delegates in three ways: 1) through primaries where millions vote; 2) through caucuses where thousands vote; and 3) it gives a role to elected leaders and other party activists in the process."   However, read it carefully and you’ll see specific language was included to strip the caucus process of some of its legitimacy.  "Millions vote in primaries, thousands vote in caucuses." Nowhere does it mention that Obama basically sweeps caucuses.  That line is designed to show you that Caucus delegates are unrepresentative of the election process. 

    2) "FACT: Neither candidate can secure the nomination without automatic delegates."  There are 4,049 total delgates, of which about 3,200 come from state primaries and caucuses.  Obama has 1158 of the 2174 (Clinton has 1016).  So technically, Obama could mathematically sweep 867 out of the remaining 1100 or so.  So, this is unlikey, but not a true fact.  Another werid part of this statement is the claim, "These delegates represent nearly half of the 2,208 delegate votes needed for the nomination." CNN says you need 2,025, not 2,208.  And 2,025 seems to be the right math.

    3) FACT: Automatic delegates are expected to exercise their best judgment in the interests of the nation and the Democratic Party.  This seemes accurate, bu tmeans, "They don’t have to, and shouldn’t, listen to their constituents."

    4) FACT: Florida and Michigan should count, both in the interest of fundamental fairness and honoring the spirit of the Democrats’ 50-state strategy. Now, this is no more a fact than me saying I think it’s going to rain today.  This is like when you are playing kickball and a car drives up, so you yell "Time Out."  But the kicker doesnt hear you and pops it in the air and you catch it.  Then you claim the time out didn’t really count.  This is even more shady.  All the candidates adhered to the Democrats’ wacky decision to punish Florida and Michigan and not seat their delegates.  Now that Clinton "won" those states (no one else was even on the Michigan ballot) her campaign wants to take away the punishment.  Just plain slimy if you ask me. A revote could be fair, but simply counting votes based on a race only one person participated in seems wrong.

    5) "The race is currently a virtual tie, with the campaigns now separated by a small handful of delegates, barely 1% of all the delegates to the Democratic Convention."  Obama today leads  1319 – 1250, a margin of 69 delegates.  True, 40 delegates make up 1% of all delegates.  That is one way to look at the numbers.  Another way to look at the numbers is that Obama has 51.3% of votes between them compared to Clinton’s 48.7%, which is a 2.6% spread.  And another way to look at the numbers is to only count the "Pledged" delegates  – the ones from the primaries and caucses (aka the non-Super Delegates.)  In that race, Obama has 53.3% and Clinton has 46.7%, a spead of 6.6%.

    Why do I care? Because this kind of marketing seems non-genuine.  It feels a lot like a web page Mortgage companies put up in order to generate leads.  Or maybeit reminds me of web sites that sell "How to Get Rich" books.  So I’m curious if I’m over-sensitive, or if this carefully spun web site makes anyone else just a little uncomfortable.  

  • Social Media Event at University of Washington Tonight

    If you are looking for a fun way to spend a Wednesday evening, and especially if you are a Washington alum, come on down to the Douglas Forum at UW for an event focused on Social Media. Here’s the Facebook link.

    I’ll be lucky enough to moderate this great panel:

    – Rand Fishkin, CEO of SEOmoz.org
    – Gary Kamikawa, VP Mktg, Mpire.com
    – Justin Marshall, Social Media Architect, Zaaz
    – Jessica Michaels, Group Media Director, Wunderman

    The event runs from 6:00 – 7:30pm and is free.

  • How Much Should I Pay For a Click?

    Yesterday, I forwarded along a commissioned "report" that detailed why marketers shouldn’t care about Clickthroughs anymore.  (In case you couldn’t tell, I was mocking the report and anyone who found it to be credible.) 

    Now, for those of you who aren’t one of the 14 marketers nationwide who said, "Wow that was valuable insight," today we have stats about what you should be paying for the clicks you do get.

    This article comes from Search Engine Watch, based on a report from Efficient Frontier.  Is this what you are paying for clicks in these categories?

    Average Search CPC by Category, January 2008
    Category CPC
    Total finance 2.70
    Credit 2.95
    Mortgage 2.61
    Auto finance 1.68
    Travel 0.65
    Automotive 0.57
    Retail 0.36
    Dating 0.40

     

    However, if you are one of those 14 marketers that think clicks are over-rated, please email me immediately so I can get you in a nice expensive CPM deal.  I’ll even throw in dinner.

  • Good News For People Who Like to Play Mobile Phone Games For Free

    In the very early days of PC Casual games, you had to buy everything you wanted to try.  But once the internet hit, and you could try out demo versions of the games for free, the market absolutely exploded.

    Well, I think we’ve finally reached that moment in Mobile Games, thanks to our friends at Movaya.  Here is their latest release:

    The Movaya team is excited to announce the beta release of Movaya TryNBuy: the first off-deck, cross-carrier try-before-you-buy system for mobile game sales in the US.

    Movaya TryNBuy is a patent pending licensing system that allows consumers to download games over-the-air to their mobile devices and try games on their handset. Upon purchase, the games are unlocked.

    Try-before-you-buy was a major driver in the huge growth of casual games on the desktop and now Movaya is bringing this to the mobile marketplace.

    Movaya TryNBuy is configurable on multiple levels including length of play, and number of plays.

    Movaya TryNBuy is now available online at www.bustedthumbs.com and will be rolled out to Movaya’s publisher and merchant network over the coming weeks.

    To get more information on Movaya TryNBuy, please visit our website.

  • On Site Super Bowl 42

    So, I would love to go into detail about the NFL Experience, a giant travelling tradeshow attached to Super Bowl 42. And so I slogged out the 30 miles to God forsaken Glendale to file a report at 1:00pm on Friday.

     
    However, much to my chagrin, the NFL didn’t have an experience for the public from 1:00 to 3:00pm. During those hour, it’s only experience is for season ticket holders and special guests. Since I had already burned a half day and $10 in parking, I gamely decided to see what else the NFL had for me.

    Unfortunately, the only experience I was allowed, was Westgate Center.

    Now I need to properly frame Glendale Stadium. And I think the best way to do this is to weave in a popular conspiracy theory. You see, 10 years ago there was this giant expanse of desert wasteland far west of Phoenix. The conspiracy theory is that a bunch of rich guys bought up this worthless property. Then, for some unexplained reason, a highway was built through this wasteland, a giant loop that ran around Phoenix, from I-10, all the way around the city and back to I-10 on the other side. Shortly thereafter, legislators decided all this open land with this convenient highway would be an ideal place for a new sports stadium. And since the stadium was so far removed from ANYTHING, the natural solution was to build a hockey arena as well, and build up the property around the stadium with hotels, bars, restaurants, condos and shops.So if you google Glendale, what you will see is 2 huge stadiums, a shopping mall, and then acres of empty land in all directions.  Desert wasteland which is now worth a fortune.

    But I digress.

    Now I’m out amongst the cacti and my only option is to go hang out by the shopping mall and hope for the best.  To be fair, Westgate is pretty cool if you are looking for a place to grab food and drink before a game.  All the standard chain bars are there (Margaritaville, Bar Louie, Fox Sports, etc….)

    But this really re-iterated the point that at Super Bowl Weekend, you need VIP or Insider Status if you want to do anything cool.  Sure, they have parkinglot exhibits and stuff liek that, but without any kind of priority access, you are really getting about 10% of the total experience.  That’s not a lament or complaint, just a realization.  And now that I think about it, I kind of remember things like the NBA and MLB All-Star Game being the same way (but I had the access then, so I didn’t care…)

    So, no great report from NFL Experience.  I heard secondhand stories that it was crowded, there was no food and the exhibits were so so.   So, i probably lucked out.

  • How Come Only My Expensive Facebook Ads Get Clicked On?

    So here’s a question for you.

    I’m running a bunch of ads on Facebook, more out of curiosity than actually expecting success.  The Facebook Ad Manager Inerface is rudimentary, but fairly intuitive.  It has some definite limitations, but I’d expect it will start approaching par with AdSense this year.

    But here’s the interesting part.

    In one of my Ad Groups, I have about 2,500 impressions spread across 8 similar, but slightly different, ads.  I am offering $.45 CPC.  And in this group I have 0 clickthroughs. 

    In my other Ad group, I took one of the ads and EXACTLY replicated it.  The only change I made was to boost the CPC to $.90.

    Now, I expected that the $.90 CPC ad would get way more impressions from Facebook.  But what I didn’t expect, was that somehow it would generate a higher Clickthrough.  In, 1000 impressions my $.90 CPC ad generated 3 clicks.  While basically the same ad, generated 0 clicks in 2500 impressions when it is $.45 CPC.

    I’ll follow up with more data on this later.  But my initial question is, "Why does a more expensive ad get a better Clickthrough, when the user doesn’t know how much I paid for it?"