Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Every Click Counts...

The other day I read one good Mediapost article on Metric. You won't be surprised that there are quite a few of them- Buzz Metrics, Engagement Metrics etc. And there is also our old traditional media currency- GRPs or Gross rating points. (Simply put, GRP is reach x frequency) The more you have, the richer would be the brand. However, as we see more and more new media evolve ( internet and mobile), the ground rules have changed. The communication flow is not just one way but it is interactive and more importantly, measurable (this is at the cost of being labeled as cliche).

So, what would be the traditional measure of success in the interactive internet universe. Is it only going to be mere GRPs (reach of the media vehicle times the frequency of exposure) or the measurement of interaction? The new line of thought is to quantify this engagement in a number of ways. Not just look at pageview and visitations, but also look at time spent on the site, number of pages viewed during a visit and proportion of single access visits to the total site visits. In a nutshell, all exposures are not equal, some are more engaging than others. In fact, the beauty of this metrics is that it is not precise and needs to be molded as per the site goals. You can find this discussion "the peterson calculation" by a gentleman called Eric Peterson (obviously :)) by clicking on this link.

And as I was reading through this article, I was also forced to think about media creativity. In fact, I initially tried to build this article around a few creative sites and hence how the measurement differs. But alas, there is no reference content available on this subject. Hence I will concentrate on the first step of this conversion journey, which is the click.

In this whole context of buzz, engagement etc how important is a click.? This click which might come from a search engine, a banner, a creative blog (like mine) and PR sources across the net. What is the value of this click? How relevant is it towards brand building? A click is a click and is measured by a CTR or Click Through Rate (clicks/impressions served%). How important is a creative in this context? And how "Creative" is a creative in an online space?

Traditional Media like TV and Radio is easy, we have Ad recall and various studies. And we have presentations and PR on how good a Television creative was. We have various ad forums like Cannes, which tests the creative mettle. A good creative gets awards and ad recall. But what is the measure of an online creative? I had read another great article, which substantiates that the memory on the internet space is limited (and hence the power to influence brands, I would love to hear your comments on this, if you have reached this point). And I can guarantee you that you
won't remember which banner have you clicked on, what colour was it, what was the messaging and call to action. There are very banners which can contradict this statement. So how do you measure the worth of a banner (or any such communication) in the internet space. In our performance marketing jargon we call it CTR, the definition I described before. CTR gives you the return on your media buys, it brings the browser closer to the website and it is the first link towards the conversion.

Someone rightly said every click is a wish. And the website is to fulfill that wish. The creativity lies in driving the CTRs, which means altering few creative elements here and there to optimise the media performance. I have tried to use bright idea through the banners, but they don't deliver CTR (or bring about the conversions on our website). Banners and text links are the lowest hanging fruits of the internet marketing domain, where the interaction starts.

The greatest impact on a brand through a website is through the website. There are a few links which I think is worth a mention, because they have done a lot good to the internet marketing and getting it closer to building brands (and not just limit it to a performance driver). They are the true testimonials to engagement/buzz/interactive marketing (the order is not a reflection of their ranking)....

1. Sunsilk Gang of Girls. They boast a decent traffic with 100K users within 4 months of its launch. Though originally, HLL had to use a lot of media muscle to drive traction, but they has been very persistent on this front. The best part is that the website is updated frequently, and now has a celeb zone with Priyanka Chopra, DJ Pearl, Piya Rai Chodhary, Dippanita sharma as contributors. The wesbite looks good, but the speed of page down load is very slow.

2. Mentoshelpline.com: I love their communication, (have you seen the latest one, which is called "the missing link"?). It is entertaining, engaging and very innovative. Checkout the helpline lady. You will also come across a great list of problems- love, professional etc. The site tickles you and has a huge brand rub-off. It has a new avatar called Mentosfriendsline.com . If you have any problem, just share.

3. MakeMyTrip.com: Some innovative viral, which is a buzz in the internet circle. I have seen a few guys using this link to define their personality.





There are a few more on these lines, developed by the same agency, Webchutney.

4. Bingo:, A good site, but as great as the communication.

The brand advertisers are definitely getting excited about the medium, pepsibluebillion.com, meethamoments.com (from Cadburys) are a good step in this direction which builds brands through engagement. None of the brand advertisers have a decent website, which interacts and engages the prospective consumer. In today's scenario, web needs to treated as a touchpoint and a medium that can't be ignored. Net is a medium that is designed and built to allow people to do things and get results from those actions.

Simplicity is the name of the game. The only thing that's unreasonable is the use of interactive technology simply to interact. More often than not, you end up with something that's overly complex. And although it may be creative, it doesn't match up with the desires (the wishes) of the consumer. Buzz and engagement is secondary.

Cheers!


AddThis Social Bookmark Button



Add to Technorati Favorites

Add to My Yahoo!

Monday, March 17, 2008

Confessions of a Web Analytics Manager

1. Its a mess out here.
2. Numbers don't add up and therefore the numbers are not accurate
3. Where do I belong? I'm having an identity crisis, I don't know if I 'm in marketing or technology
4. What is a visit & a pageview.? How is this different from a unique visitor?
5. How important is a click?
6. Why do I have to make the same reports again and again
7. What is my contribution to the business?
8. Am I a cost center or a profit center?
9. Should I switch over to a new Web Analytic vendor, i think the existing one is not good?
10.Should I pay or get free Web Analytic software?

There are many unanswered question for an budding webanalytics manager. The usual problems in his life will center around The server logs not matching the web analytic
results. He would frequently have to encounter Tech complains that the web analytic
codes are increasing the pagedownload time (There may be javascript error due to these measurement codes). And best of all, the support center may follow US timings and resolution is at least 24 hours away! What ever may be the reason, the position is not very easy, answer lies in the cliche- persistence and determination.

Simply put, a Web Analytics is a set of measurement software tools or hosted online service that records and measures the actions of visitors to a website. The existence of this tool lies in the fact that if you can measure, you can therefore improve. It emanates from the fact that since internet is highly measurable, so there should be a tool. And there is also the flaw- since there are no standard definitions and hence there are multiple interpretations. Case in point, the online publisher might give you a set of numbers affecting your marketing campaign, however, the web analytic tool might give you another picture and these numbers won't be necessarily same. The server side logs will indicate figures for a download, which might be 25% in sync with the Pageview report from the web analytic solution. This is not just the end of woes, there are hardly any marketing matrix available that can provide benchmarks eg how many pageviews are required to increase the visitations of the website by 10%. The Web Analytics manager will swing betweeen the Yin and Yang and discover the true dualities of this existential world.

The truth and lets be honest- most of us don't understand Web Analytics and it is still to be ingrained in the planning process in India at least. I have hardly come across people who judicious use this platform to define goal and not just for number reporting and diagnostics.

The origin of Web Analytics, dates a few years back, when the server side logs were used to identify the call made (and hence the relative popularity) to the server, which is called the log file analysis. This coined the word 'Hits' or the number of times call was made to the server. However of you had 4 images, stored on the server, you will get 4 hits on the website (and hence not accurate)which will be equivalent to a page download in the current context. An improvement on that was the server side web analyser, a good number of these tools is available on the net. One had to run these logs as a batch file in the analyser and you would get the relevant details. There is huge amount of data in these logs and has to be analysed periodically to check the web analytics data accuracy. The only limitation of these logs is that, you can conclusively track an event (defined as a goal) and study the possible cause for this event. There is also proxy/caching inaccuracies.

The method which is gaining popularity is the client side data collection systems, which involves coding each page on the site, which is usually a single snippet (tag) of the code referencing a separate JavaScript file. This is cookie based and data is collected from visitors web browsers. There are tins of advantages in using this method...

1. More accurate session tracking
2. More accurate information of the browser (what type, screen resolution, javascript version, windows platform etc)
3. Can track events (say payment and its entry page along with acquisition source) and hence a great tool for eCommerce
4. Real Time data, no procession of the information required.

The limitations is due to the cookie and its privacy (first party/third party). Most of the popular Web Analytic tool, like Omniture, Corematrics, Webtrends & Websidestory (now a part of Omniture) use this method. Omniture is far superior tool, but is cost effective only for large websites. Webtrends is great for content sites and Hitbox (a product of Websidestory and now a part of Omniture stable) is great for eCommerce business.

By and large the features offered are the same. The criterion that you should use for choosing a web analytic tool should be
1. Cost per event (you buy a block of events)
2. Service agreements, it is very critical, as all the support system is sitting in US.
3. Education and consultancy. You should make this a part of the contract, as it will a good platform for the management and stakeholders who sample the report
4. Implementation, 80% of the success of WA tool rests on thorough implementation and
testing.

The cost should range from 4-6 cents CPM (please negotiate hard before finalising the true Indian way with the firangies). Before anything, you should be ready with the standard Webanalytic definitions. WAA, has a a document which is available at http://www.webanalyticsassociation.org. It is a great site with a number of articles, but few chosen articles are only for paid member subscription.

There are a number of Web Analytics Solutions available in the market place today.

1. Omniture: (Clearly the leader in the market place). They have recently acquired Websidestory. In India, Futurebazaar is using the flagship product- Site Catalyst.

2. Corematrics: Have JC penny and circuitcity.com as one of their clients.

3. Webtrends: Though their site mentions Microsoft as one of of their clients, I still have to come across widespread use of Webtrends. It is a great product and is quite popular.

4. Visual Sciences (erstwhile Websidestory and now a part of Omniture): Airtel, MakeMyTrip and ICICIBank is using the flagship product, Hitbox (which is now Site Catalyst).

5. DC Storm: This is DGM's main technology platform. Please connect with them if you are considering DC Storm.

6. Clicktracs: Tribal Fusion Network and Pioneer use this for Web Analytics.

If you want to check out the web analytics platform for the website you are visiting, you can use this great tool. All you have to do is to submit the url into the browser and it will find the Web Analytic application.

There are other free tool available in the marketplace, the most popular is Google Analytics. It is a great tool, however, the data is not available realtime. There are other few products also...

1. AWstats: awstats.sourceforge.net
2. W3Perl: www.w3perl.com
3. Webalizer: www.mrunix.net/webalizer/

These analyse logs and are processed batchwise to give results.

Web Analytics have to go a long way in India. Though Omniture has opened shops, it is still to get aggressive with business development. The support center sits out of Hongkong and US. Like I said earlier, one critical stumbling block is the implementation and support, which will determine the success of this tool.

This is vast and interesting subject and very new in Indian context. Though we at Makemytrip have been using web analytics in India in some way through PPC and Impression and click tracking, however, the real utility is when Web Analytics will be seen when it is able to establish itself as a strategic tool. I hope I can share more on this subject in the near future ;).

Till then you can always look up Avinash Kaushik's blog. He's an institution on webanalytics and is the writer of Web Analytics an Hour a day. Currently, he's Analytics Evangelist for Google.

Believe me Web analytics is that simple. Just requires an hour a day!!

Cheers!



AddThis Social Bookmark Button




Digg!


Add to Technorati Favorites

Add to My Yahoo!

Monday, March 10, 2008

Affiliate Marketing- The Tip of an Iceberg


Amazon are the pioneers of Affiliate marketing, and have more than 500K affiliates. Expedia.com and Travelocity spend very little time in acquiring traffic through Google and other expensive online media, they too have a good network of affiliates. In India, the affiliate boom is still to come. Few of us realise that it is the best eCommerce Marketing tool that one can invest in.

Simply put, in affiliate marketing ecosystem there is a merchant along with an affiliate. Affiliate runs program to send traffic to the merchant and if that traffic
converts, merchant compensates the affiliate by paying him an agreed sum. Since in this equation merchant confirms a cost, the net outcome is high and positive ROI. Better still, you don't have to consider affiliate as a marketing arm, but a sales
channel. This channel needs to be nurtured with equal enthusiasm and zest as the
website.

Affiliate marketing requires a huge investment in technology and manpower. You may
decide to develop a program internally, in which case you will have to go in for ready solutions available in the marketplace. This also means you need to have a dedicated technology maintainence team and also an affiliate manager, who is very critical to the success (and on whom we will touch upon later). However, you might want to outsource the whole program and enroll in an affiliate channel, like commission junction or linkshare. In India, this is provided by Deal Group Media or DGM. Here the situation is almost like a Google Marketplace, where the affiliate will enroll in program of only that merchant who will bring profit to affiliates business. None the less effort and dedication is required in both the approaches and the sooner you start the better will it be for the business.

You might ask So why do we need affiliate marketing, my SEO ranking is high, my Google SEM is ROI positive and I'm running a good email marketing program. So why should I invest in technology and infrastructure? The answer lies in the plethora of genre that exists out there.

1. SEO Optimised domains and Pay Per Click Websites
2. Review sites
3. Shopping comparison websites
4. Niche content websites (parenting golfing etc)
5. Personal Websites and Blogs
6. Loyalty websites
7. Emailer websites
8. Unutilised domains

As an e-marketer it will be very difficult to focus exclusively on these websites, run campaign and optimise them. Advertising network do that, but most of them are blind, hence you will never know about the performance. Affiliate marketing enables
management of these websites, where the agreement is to pay on performance. Hence the
optmisation and making money is not the marketer onus, it is the prerogative of the
affiliate website owner. Affiliate marketing ideally can empower every single user on
the website to start earning, and the initial cost can be as low as Rs.5000 (registering fees for a domain). One of our affiliate partners, Shoogloo, which is
started by LD Sharma has 500 domains.

The affiliate program manager is key to such program. He is more like a relationship
manager and looks at different ways and means to increase the traffic and therefore
sales from these channels. One of the most common problems in affiliate marketing is
the wayward means to credit sales wich could be through any of these means

1. Forced click
2. False advertisement
3. URL Masking (where you can see the changing url, with the click
4. Adware
5. Mature and Adult content
6. EMail Spam
7. Brand and Trademark bidding

The affiliate program manager needs to ensure that the liberties extended to the
affiliate is not misused.

Technology is the backbone of a good affiliate program. In short the technology should ensure

1. Ad serving
2. Tracking and Conversion rule: whether it is last click first click or equal distribution of profit across all the clicks.
3. Sales tracking
4. Integration with Finance, so that the sales get validated and payment is ensured to the affiliate
5. Affiliate login, so that he can see the amount that is credited to him. This is the most important aspect of the infrastructure, as there isn't a motivator like money.

Whatever solution that you may decide on, please stick to one platform, as you don't want to pay the same affiliate multiple times over for the same conversion.

Affiliate marketing has to go a long way in India. As there are very few eCommerce players, dominated by Travel. Hence most of the affiliate are structured around this line of business. Also, we haven't seen much genre coming up. It is the same staple English content, news and Social Networking sites. The development of vernacular sites, special content sites, blogs and reviews, will definitely propel this fledgling industry.

Affiliate Marketing is truly the "Performance Marketing".

Cheers!



Digg!


Add to Technorati Favorites

Tuesday, March 4, 2008

Permission Marketing

I always thought that Seth Godin, the well known Internet Marketing pioneer, was great writer. He coined the term a revolutionary concept called "Permission Marketing". The concept severely criticises the traditional advertising method- whether it is TV ads that breaks into the favourite programme, or the telemarketing phone call, it is very intrusive. The goal is to snatch that piece of attention from whatever we are doing, and deliver the message. It might happen when you are watching your favourite movie or even while watching television, interruption is the approach. With the medium becoming increasingly fragmented and limited time, the only way to get through your TG is the noise factor.

The power of Internet as a medium is that extend the onus of decision making to the browser. The medium lets the consumer choose his options. He chooses the sites that he wants to go to, he chooses the content he wants to sample. He chooses the application he wants to downloads. More importantly he interacts and forms a perception. Instead of the interruption marketing, Seth Godin advocates PERMISSION MARKETING, which means that offer consumers incentives to accept advertising voluntarily. The marketer develops relationship, by getting the consent from his consumer and thereby building long term relationship and trust. Here the consumer is the advocate and the medium and advertising is done through the word of mouth, excellent experience and repeated interaction.

I came across the presentation sent by my one of my dear friends and discovered another facet of Mr Godin. This presentation is about Google and how it utilised permission marketing, spent $0 advertising monies, but still is the fastest growing company. Seth analyses the DNA, and goes through few more viral marketing concept of his. Please go through this in your leisure time, though it says 45 minutes, but once you start, you won't realise the time :) The presentation has an interesting subject- ALL MARKETERS ARE LIARS





Digg!


Add to Technorati Favorites