Ted Baker - Modern fashion costs more

If you fancy a nicely designed and impressive shirt or top you might find yourself on the Ted Baker website. After your purchase however you need to limit your quality demands down to a zero (0). Washing is not an option for these clothes as they will dissolve after a couple of washes.
Ironing is also a no-go, I mean you can attempt to iron them but it will not really make a difference.

Unfortunately Ted Baker has joined the likes of other high street retailers that believe in the new wear once and throw away trend. Well done guys, I am staying away from you for the next 50 years.

Gossip marketing

Adestra is a well known leader in email marketing and delivery services for a reason. The guys have been demonstrating some of their in-house skills in an email sent out to their prospective clients database.
The first part of the email discusses data collection in email marketing as well as news about Windows Live Hotmail changes. Very interesting stuff.
It is signed by Client Strategy Consultant Hollie Williams who happens to be a very presentable young lady. Her picture signature is a bright example of clever email marketing.

Now to introduce the concept of gossip marketing (aka plain gossip) I had a look on Facebook. Hollie's profile is however restricted. Thankfully her mate Hannah lend us a hand with this picture posted back from a 'girly holiday' in 1998.

Tracey Cheffey invents Search Marketing 3.0

In a highly innacurate article on Travolution, the travel marketing publication, Tracey Cheffey, Category Director at Yahoo Search Marketing has an attempt at creating a new buzzword, namely Search Marketing 3.0 (see Web2.0). In the article she claims that "while websites have evolved to introduce new opportunities for travel advertisers, so has search marketing – and some have dubbed this phenomenon Search Marketing 3.0".

Unfortunately for Tracey a Google search reveals two results only and shows that 'some', as claimed in the article, are none other than herself trying to start a new hype.

She goes on to suggest six features that provide functionality "essential for travel marketers in the future". Again, very difficult not to notice that most of these features have been available on the AdWords platform for years (in the past). So what is exactly new?

Wait, this article is getting stranger. Some paragraphs below she claims that:
"With 90% of travel purchases occurring after the initial session and 45% more than four weeks later".
Does that mean that there is 135% of conversions?
Impressive.

Good on you Tracey.

Original article.

Guardian testing transatlantic visitor targeting

Interesting news from the Guardian Online this week. Apparently the cutting-edge online publisher is testing a system that tracks Guardian transatlantic business travellers using their laptops on planes and across the pond.
The information is then used to target visitors with relevant advertising regarding their destination.

The initial obvious question is how many people can this cover in terms of volume and how many trips (IPs) does one need to change to have the relevant content served to them?

As advertisers love such initiatives we are looking forward to more news about these geo-targeting capabilities from Guardian and other publishers.

What do you think about geo- and behavioural targeting?

EU in Google privacy probe

It took the European Union far less time, than in the case of Microsoft to probe search giant and hopeful internet monopolist Google for its privacy policies.

Google as the lone major player in the search market has set the tone and is guided by what many think of as its own laws and regulations.

'Privacy' translates in 'secrecy' in Google. The main areas to watch out for are:

- AdWords pricing (the least transparent method of charging advertisers)
- AdSense revenue share (another black hole in the industry)
- User data (the company has accumulated so much information that is now considered a global information agency)

But its not only the EU that is concerned about privacy. Several internet activists and copyright and freedom of information sharing advocates as well as members of the open source community are increasingly voicing their concerns about the giant's domination of what was formerly known as a free information highway.

Google knows better than not to react to this. Microsoft was slated about its monopoly over the software market and the brand damage was as large as the payments Mr Gates still makes to third world countries.

Your thoughts?

Consolidation war, MSN, Yahoo and Google

Many movements are witnessed in the online space of marketing and advertising of late. The big search engines have moved in all directions.

Google has become a social media publisher in buying YouTube and a major player in the metrics and management of display and other online advertising when purchasing DoubleClick. This in combination with the past purchase of Urchin (Google Analytics) for web metrics and visitor analysis. A fairly multiple role for a:
- search engine
- online marketing agency
- web publisher
- web analytics provider
- video sharing site
- news aggregator
- email provider
- free blog service
- calendar management
- publisher network
- local directory
- software provider (picassa)
- offline advertising (radio)

On the other hand Microsoft is not lacking width in terms of forms and services. Recent aquisition of aQuantive means that the software giant also has a multiple personallity:
- software provider
- search engines
- web publisher
- web metrics provider
- ad display platform
- online marketing services
- email provider
- business directory
- peer to peer (MSN)
- blog service (ad funded)
- hardware maker

Yahoo is not lacking behind with various properties that make it amongst others:
- search engine
- email provider
- peer to peer (Yahoo Messenger)
- social media (delicious, flickr)
- price comparison site (kelkoo)
- news aggregator
- business directory

We can only wait and see where the battle takes us. No doubt that there is more consolidation to come and many entertain the thought of a merger between Yahoo and MSN, something that will bi-polarise Google's current monopoly. What do you think?

Google refreshes Analytics

The Google bunch has surpised Analytics users by slowly introducing a brand new and completly revamped interface that not only offers new features but also changes the was stats are being presented, read and interpreted.

As radical this may sound, the usability gurus at Google have made a very good job out of making things simpler to understand, speeding up the process and generally adding to the whole experience.

Nice one guys.

Other posts about Google Analytics:

• Google Analytics in major revamp

More news for mobile pay per call

More news on the mobile pay per call front, this time from provider Ingenio. A collaboration with JumpTap the mobile search provider behind Alltel and other carriers is adding to the company's offering. JumpTap count Microsoft and AOL amongst their mobile partners and getting stronger by the day.

Ingenio claims that mobile searches on the network have been changing from impulse or at-hand searches. Considered purchase categories for financial services, travel, satellite and cable TV are now up to 25% of the total.

Search marketers are starting to recognise these new opportunities, understanding how much a call is worth to their clients. Keywords for "considered purchase" categories are reaching as much as £3 to £15 per call compared to a £1 to £2 for lower value impulse buys.

Pay Per Call on mobile

Despite Pay Per Call not really taking off as a mass consumer product on the internet, companies continue to make attempts to integrate it into various alternative offerings, as it has obvious benefits for both the consumer and the advertiser.

Latest to jump on the Pay Per Call bandwagon are internet giants MSN that partner with Ingenio to deliver pay per call ads on the mobile platform. As many marketeers still have doubts about the internet to telephone conversion, it does make more sense for people to call when they are on their mobile. Increasing internet access via mobile means that searching for information and services is going to be the future norm.

The main difficulties here are poor mobile interfaces and fiddly buttons on mobiles but MSN are convinced they can make this work.

Google testing Click to Call in the UK

Google has begun beta-testing Click to Call (Pay Per Call) for a limited number of keyword searches. There have been no official reports as to how successful the testing has been however the market is still moving very slowly with low user and business adoption rates.

It seems that small businesses without a web presence are not only unaware of the benefits online marketing can offer, but are also extremely sceptical about investing in a technology they don't understand.

Industry players are trying to educate both SME's and blue-chip corporations without much success so far.
The general feeling is that if Yahoo and Google do not officially launch the product the future of Pay per Call might remain uncertain.

Greenlight on Pay Per Call

We all have a phone. In fact most of us have a least three – home, work and mobile and we use them every single day of our lives. Pay-per-call, launched in the US just over six months ago, is finally combining the convenience and mass penetration of the phone together with the phenomenal search capabilities of the Internet. What's more is that it is now open to companies that do not have a website and have traditionally only been able to advertise online through services such as Yell and other directory listings.

Pay-per-call works by producing advertisements that are similar to those that appear on search networks such as Google or Yahoo!, however retailers rather than paying when a prospective customer clicks through from an advertisement, pay when they receive a phone call. When the customer clicks on the pay-per-call advertisement he sees a browser window that includes text requesting he phone the retailer on a given number.

Pay per Call (Who are the players?)
Greenlight are currently running Pay per Call ads in the US and UK for clients. In the UK companies that currently have live inventory are MIVA (formerly Espotting/FindWhat), and Callgen.

Recently, Kelkoo have launched Pay per Call across their UK properties, the service is already available on Yahoo Cars and will also be introduced into other e-commerce properties such as shopping and Travel. While, Kelkoo owners Yahoo are using Ingenio to trial Pay Per Call for use on their Pay per Click network Overture.

Google have recently announced that they are beta testing Click to Call, which they are showing intermittently on Google.com within the current adwords listings, the only visible difference being a small telephone icon appearing ot the right of the listing. See attached factsheet for more info and screenshots of Google Click to Call.

Pricing
Pricing is currently sector based, and the minimum call charges on MIVA are 2 pounds per call, while Callgen are 1. Current pricing is working on a model of current average CPC x 10, this however has been capped at 25 pounds as competitive sectors such as Mortgages could have been paying up to 40 pounds per call. Travel campaigns from the outset will be looking at a cost per call of around 5/6 pounds.

More here.

Google tests Pay Per Call

Google is carrying out a pilot in the US of a new search service pay-per-call which sees online advertisers effectively call interested users back, writes Kevin May.

Users will click on an advertiser's sponsored link and then be offered the chance to enter their own telephone number, before the advertiser is contacted and a call made back to the user.

Miva, the online performance marketing company, has a similar service, but questioned what it sees as a potentially lengthy process in order to make contact with the advertiser.

Miva said this week that it welcomed the addition of another new pay-per-call service to the market, as an "awareness raising" exercise for the model for consumers, but it believed the Google system would provide too many barriers to the user.

Seb Bishop, director and chief marketing officer for Miva, said: "The web is all about instant gratification and we question how effectively a call-back-style model meets this demand", Media Week reports.

Yahoo to launch Pay Per Call

The service is already available in Yahoo! Cars and will be introduced into Yahoo!’s other e-commerce properties, Shopping and Travel following an initial introductory period beginning in early August on its shopping comparison portal Kelkoo.

Pay-Per-Call is billed as an alternative to traditional pay-per-click search advertising.

The advertiser is only required to pay for the adverts that result in phone calls, in much the same way pay-per-click advertising only charges for visitors sent to a website.

Users who have selected the retailer and offer, which best fits their needs, will be able to contact the advertiser directly by phone to make a purchase.

The pay-per-call option will facilitate the development of personal customer communications and bespoke customer services through the internet. The service will also introduce additional cross-selling opportunities via telesales. In this way, the Pay-Per-Call model hopes to encourage more advertisers to take advantage of its e-commerce advertising opportunities.

More here.

What is Pay per Call?

Your company is promoted on-line under search terms relevant to your business through search engines and other distribution partners. When a user searches for one of your key-phrases, say "car insurance" they find your ad, in much the same was as Pay Per Click.

When the user clicks on your ad, instead of being redirected to your website, they get a 'Click to Call' pop up box that allows them to enter their telephone number and be directly connected to you.

As you are connected you are notified of the inbound Call and are free to do business with your potential customer.

When the call comes through the Pay Per Call fee is deducted from you account. You only pay for calls generated through the Pay Per Call system.

You will be provided you with detailed monthly reports on how many calls you've received, time of call, telephone number etc. When your account balance runs low you simply top-up your funds again.

Will this be the new Pay Per Click?