New Year’s Resolutions in Interactive for the CMO

A few weeks ago I sat and watched with great interest at the Internet Summit a panel of venture capitalists as they gave their forecasts for when the economy would turn around. There were 4 panelists, and their answers started out with 12 months, 18 months, 24 months… And then it got to the last person, and I could kick myself for not remembering who he was… “I have no idea” was his response.

Finally! It is ok to admit that nobody knows… So why is everyone so intent on trying to guess what 2009 will bring for Madison Avenue? After 13+ years in this industry, you’d think that I’d understand that it’s just the “big guns” trying to sound intelligent, and the reality is all of us in the trenches who are actually defining the industry are still focusing on delivering tangible results for our clients. So with that in mind, I’ve created a New Year’s Resolution list for Chief Marketing Officers everywhere (regardless of whether ad spend in 2009 will go up or down in each channel):

Test something new: I still believe 20% of your budget should be set aside to test new campaigns, technologies, solutions, etc… And by “new” – it can be something that is simply new to you – you don’t always have to be the first out the door launching your new Facebook Connect campaign. But if you know text ads work for you, maybe give SMS ads a try in a controlled environment. Just keep testing, as people’s wants and needs are changing every day - so too should your testing.

Marketing through Search: Yes – I say this a lot… It is Search Engine MARKETING – so test different products on different keywords, test pricing and discounts, test in-store promotions… Some of you that stayed awake in Marketing 101 are starting to hear some familiar P’s… Don’t lose track of what got your company where you are today. Search is the medium - marketing is how you use it.

Set Your Metrics: This goes without saying – right? Well knowing your metrics and dictating your marketing to hitting them while keeping a good marketing mix are a lot more difficult than you may think. That being said, if you know that your product retails at $20, and you need a COGS of $10 to be profitable, make sure you have a media campaign set up as a whole that will accomplish that. Don’t judge one medium independently of another. Even though interactive may appear to be the cheapest, there are offline occurrences that affect your online campaigns.

Own Social Media: The words social media seem to now be what “emerging” media was 2 years ago… A catch all for everything you don’t understand. Grasp the areas of social media that are relevant to you. Set up Google Alerts on your company name, your competitors, etc… Own your online reputation. Set up a Twitter account for your company, set up a LinkedIn account for your company… These are all free tools that are available for you to communicate with your customer. If you find they’re not working (make sure you review your site analytics before you make that judgment), then move on. But allow your customers to interact with you in the way they want to… You need to own Social Media – not let it own you.

Happy New Year CMO’s!

No Rush Jobs? How about getting a clue (or a process)

I had a call earlier in the week with Steve Hall from AdRants… Specifically, our PR firm wanted to introduce us as he wrote a great article on media optimization trumping creative optimization. During the call – I realized that our personalities and thinking were really right on the same line – and it was refreshing to hear that my thoughts and frustrations were not being felt alone. What was even better was the fact that Steve is a reporter now – and is no longer even active in the day-to-day “doing” that we do here at Media Two Interactive, but yet his thoughts and hopes were much in-line with ours. That all being said – I gather the excitement of the introduction had to do as much with the non-excitement of the earlier IAB call I sat in on that discussed Best Practices for Interactive Campaign Setups.

So for years I talked about how I didn’t think the IAB was doing enough to help out the industry, and now that we’ve joined as one of only 14 advertising agencies – I now understand why it is more and more important for agencies to get more active within the IAB. The presentation centered around everything from handling RFP’s to set up to whatever you would need to know to run a campaign if you were a publisher. The problem was – what stuck in my head the most was the comment that was made of “Do NOT do 24-hour rush jobs for media buyers.”

The point that was trying to be made was that when things are rushed, that’s when accidents happen the most, problems occur, etc… The reality of it is though, is agencies are typically rushed because a client is typically rushing them. Our firm tries to educate all of our clients on the benefits of having at least 2 weeks to do a media plan and buy, but the reality of it is, is sometimes the plan and buy MUST be executed within 24 hours. In which case, as part of Media Two’s “After the Buy” process, we have a set plan in place for executing these rush jobs so that errors and problems don’t occur due to time constraints.

As I now have a much greater appreciation for the IAB and their challenges of educating beginner firms as well as advanced firms, I would implore them to create a follow up series that discusses a best practice for taking the rush job… After all, everyone knows that a publisher isn’t going to turn away revenue – so let’s help them take the revenue and not mess it up. The procedure we go through here requires us to be fast and flexible, and if publishers can’t keep up, then the industry as a whole will suffer the same fate traditional marketers are going through now. Agencies - it's time to get involved so the IAB has a voice on both sides of the fence. Don't let publishers dictate all of the rules - or you may never get a rush job done again.

Keeping it Real, Online

Well my first ten minutes on this post have totally been productive. The end result? The first sentence you just read. You are so in for a treat. Much of that time was spent trying to come up with a witty analogy that compares our media planners/strategists to something in the realm of pop culture. I landed on DJ (disc jockey). Ok, connecting the dots yet? I'll be the first to admit, not one of my best attempts at being clever. I'm suffering from an upper respiratory infection and the lack of oxygen has obviously slowed the nerves impulses to my brain. I had really hoped my pop culture blurb would provide the roots of this blog post with the moisture it needed to sprout into something magical and ground-breaking...ugh, square peg, round hole. I guess I can talk about the ever evolving media buy.

It seems with each month that passes the media buys around here become increasingly complex in an effort to gain the almighty conversion. Our media planners/strategists extend themselves to the very ends of the Internet to a find a media mix that delivers on the back end. With that said, it becomes increasingly important for the planner/strategist to develop a good rapport with the publishers, and the client for that matter. Crossing your fingers and hoping for conversions just doesn't cut it. This relationship is especially important when starting a new program, for instance, a CPT or Mobile buy. Furthermore, this communication has to extent to the client when the program utilizes a resource such as a call center.

The aforementioned buys (CPT and Mobile) are particularly concerning because all tracking occurs on the publisher's end. While the data can usually be accessed or requested with ease, our media strategists take a proactive approach to ensure the campaigns deliver results. Our media strategist will test the respective program from the onset and trouble-shoot, with the publisher, if a problem should arise. As for the client, they are constantly kept in the loop when new initiatives are implemented so that their resources (again, i.e. call center) are equipped to deliver conversions. These relationships are indicative of executing media "after the buy." It's a complex notion, but an essential one. What else can I say? We keep it real.

Quick hitter - Tidbit on Ad Networks

TIP: Let's face it. Clients are fond of visual representations and "fluff" in decks. So, the best place to find some quality "pre-made" charts is eMarketer.com. Sure, you may want to show something niche, but if you require something broad like industry trends, this is the place. This is my Tip of the Day. And while I'm giving out tips, here is another one, Big Brown will win the Triple Crown.

So, as I was going through some recent eMarketer articles, I came across a couple worth mentioning in the blog. Here is the first one. It was an article regarding spending trends involving ad networks called, Targeting, ad networks Spending Increase. It must be noted that the research for the article was provided by an ad network, so keep that in mind. Regardless, the point I found interesting was only 13.4% of the advertisers that use ad networks in their online marketing mix said the sole purpose was direct response. Wait, WHAT!?!!?!?!?? Furthermore, according to the data, more advertisers are using this category for branding purposes in 2008. This makes no sense. Ad networks spawned from sites aspirations to monetize remnant inventory to resell to the public at a discount in order to lure more DR advertisers to the web. So, now all of a sudden, this same tactic has become a branding platform. Don't get me wrong, there are secondary branding benefits from that many impressions (recall), but you can't convince me that you should be running on an Ad.com primarily for awareness. So, if you feel like throwing away your marketing dollars on branding efforts with ad networks, I have a better idea. Take that money and donate it to the Mike Atkinson Charity Fund c/o my wallet, or move your budget over to Media Two and sit back while we magically increase your sales volume and decrease your CPA (ok, it's not magic, we just know what we are doing).

Agen"see"

I read an interesting commentary today from a colleague of mine explaining why most agencies still don’t succeed at interactive advertising. The gist of the argument was that poor media buying led to ineffective campaigns. Very true, but I also think this points us to look at the evolution of the “big agency” take on interactive and why this is only half the equation. Truth be told, at first the failure of big branding agencies to succeed online was because none understood the level of trackability and functionality. It was thought that you just needed to get online because your competitors were there… or weren’t there yet.

A few years later and a few campaigns wiser, most are realizing the errors of their initial efforts. But to that point, are they really “getting” interactive now? In my humble opinion, the answer is no. So what if they’re producing multi-level Flash campaigns with interactive rollover banners and integrated video? That’s aesthetically pleasing and gives the business suits the warm and fuzzies, but does it really product results?

We constantly preach good design here at Media Two, but for most agencies I think that there’s a disconnect between what’s good design and what’s functional. Good design placed in the right places still doesn’t necessarily product results, and the converse is certainly true. But when good and functional design is coupled with innovative strategy, the result is a living and breathing media plan that grows and evolves.

So where I’m going with this is that success is two-fold in nature. It begins with the design team understanding the strategy side. Whether it’s copy, images, or functionality you’re talking about, the design team must understand the context in which their work will be viewed. For example, slap the Mona Lisa on the side of a building in East Harlem and it goes unnoticed, but speak to the locals through a blended mural and suddenly an artistic genius emerges.

The second part of this equation is ensuring that the strategy team fully understands the end result the designers are striving to achieve and then using that knowledge to find innovative ways to display it. After all, pictures always look better with a nice frame, right?

In the long run, I think the ultimate demise of most interactive campaigns comes from the inability of both groups in the equation to fully understand each other. It’s the old left brain/right brain conflict at its best. Those agencies that are capable of collective thinking with both brains will be the ones that excel in this industry by driving all parties involved towards a common goal.

What's The Next Silo?

For the first 8 years of Media Two’s existence, I spent 95% of my time educating clients that interactive was truly a piece of the marketing mix. So as of about 2 years ago, I came to the conclusion that everyone now “got” that – as interactive ad dollars continued to spike while traditional budgets dwindled. The only problem was – apparently we (Media Two and the IAB and the rest of the interactive community) did too good of a job selling interactive’s benefits as everyone started throwing their money into the interactive “silo” and abandoning everything else…

When this happens, it’s great for agencies like ours in the near term, but the long-term prospect for this client is a nightmare… By putting all of your money in one silo, and ignoring the fact that people interact with multiple channels is a death sentence to your marketing mix. I think people just tend to forget that old adage that there’s always going to be a worst performer. If you remove one, the 2nd worst now becomes your worst… So how about not replacing any, but maybe just reducing until you can find the magical combination that they’re all successful? Nah – probably too much work. But seriously, by putting all of your money into one silo now means your best silo is also your worst… So what happens then?

Exactly what we’re seeing… Interactive now gets divided into it’s own silo with Search being labeled the best, and traditional banner ads getting labeled the worst. So the first thing clients start doing is looking to cancel traditional ads and only run search… Now we’re sitting on millions of dollars that have been allocated to interactive, but we can only spend it on search – and best yet, search seems to be “drying” up and we can’t spend millions anymore – we can only spend thousands… Hmm… Should we silo search now and maybe hire an agency that only specializes in 3-word key phrases?

The point is – we’ve silo’d everything, and by doing that we’ve accomplished nothing. Search is driven by other interactive exposure, and interactive exposure can also be driven by offline events such as a newspaper ad, radio spot, tv, etc… Don’t drop your marketing mix – add to it and expand on it – but do it with firms that understand marketing, not just firms that are jumping on the hottest trend and soaking up the most coin.

Buy the Cow

Business is good I have to admit. Recession be darned, Media Two is continuing to forge ahead on the notion that one day soon the sleepy little town of Clayton will be the interactive capital of the world. With corporate marketing budgets becoming more and more focused on the DR that interactive media provides, the comment I’m hearing more from new clients is “We’ve tested online, but it wasn’t great. How do we make sure another test is successful?”

Hmm... good question! Unfortunately there’s rarely enough time for me to complete a response. Two things will generally happen. They lose interest and start snoring on the other end of the line, or I lose my voice. Either way, it’s a struggle to try and package all of that into a nice neat box. That said, if you want an analogy I say you should buy the cow rather than the steak.

It seems to me that over the last few years the buzzwords have been piling up. Quite often we’ll get referrals that want very specific campaigns… email only, behavioral, or affiliate for example. There’s certainly nothing wrong with that. In fact, it’s good to have a client with vision, but the thing that always comes up under those circumstances is that the “need” for a (insert buzzword) campaign is unfounded. I’m not trying to advocate that every campaign should incorporate every single element of interactive media. That would admittedly be a huge strategic mistake. What is important, however, is that the research and due diligence be done to warrant a campaign’s strategic parameters. Buy into the notion that success comes from a well rounded approach rather than trying to throw darts while blindfolded. So in keeping with our theme to define best practices, here’s a quick hit list of what should be done between both client and agency to ensure that another test is successful.

1) Set the bar – Is it a certain CPA, a target ROI, number of leads, or brand reach. Define goals from day one so the strategists and designers have a focal point. This helps not only as a negotiation point with publishers, but it ultimately leads to clearer communication between agency and client.

2) Study hard – The test we’re talking about here is not multiple-choice. As an agency, we need the opportunity to define all possible scenarios, identify all target touch points, complete competitive research, and bring that into a comprehensive media plan that aims squarely at numero uno above. If this is done and done right, the parameters will become abundantly clear before the first dollar is spent.

3) Let the play develop – My coach drilled this one into my brain. “Son, you can’t throw a fade route if you don’t let the receiver fade first.” Same thing goes for optimization. It generally doesn’t happen overnight. You have to let trends develop before you can accurately assess the situation and react accordingly. There’s rarely been a campaign that has achieved its objective in the first few weeks. Much less the first few days. Let all aspects of optimization take place before judging success.

Sure there’s a ton of other intricacies that play into meeting end objectives, but as a general rule, following these three will put both the client and agency ten steps ahead of the competition. Now what did that funny ad say about keeping your business plan a secret? Oops!!!