MarketingSherpa Blog

When shoppers visit supermarkets and large retailers, they’re bound to see branded in-store displays. The stores add revenue while helping brands stand out. Why not apply this idea to ecommerce?

That’s just what Doug Miller, Global VP, Media Solutions, Expedia Inc., and his team have done with several Expedia Inc. properties including Expedia.com, Hotels.com and Hotewire.com.

The team started leveraging their reach into the consumer travel market when Miller joined about five years ago. Miller says about 61% of visits to travel websites are to Expedia properties.

“They are very few places, probably nowhere else, where you’re going to be able to reach an online travel audience in such a concentrated way.”

This qualified high-volume travel audience presents a great opportunity to sell media. Expedia’s world-wide media business, a which encompasses more than Miller’s team’s work, accounts for about 10% of their total business and growing fast, Miller says.

Take a look at these four media options. They might give you ideas for leveraging your own audience:

StorePoint Ads

The team’s first program offered display ads that reached several Expedia Inc. sites. The banners are shown:
o Adjacent to search results
o On the homepage
o On browsing pages
o On content pages for various destinations

“This is where Hawaii or Mexico or American Airlines will call out to you and say they have a special opportunity for you at the point of sale,” Miller says.

Expandable StorePoint Ads

The team later updated the StorePoint technology to offer marketers the option to integrate interactive rich-media ads. The Flash-based ads expand over site content when clicked, and retract to their normal size when visitors move away.

Once expanded, the ads can offer a range of functionality, including:
o Audio and video
o Data capture fields
o Interactive animation
o Send to a friend

TravelAds

The team offers marketers a bid-for-placement, sponsored listings program specifically designed for hotels. The ads are featured at the top of search results pages on Expedia.com and Hotels.com for location-based searches bid on by marketers. These marketers can bid on specific locations and time periods, and set a maximum budget to control their spending.

PassportAds

This year, the team launched a behaviorally-targeted ad format that reaches Web surfers after they’ve left an Expedia site. For example, an Expedia.com visitor might search for and browse for hotels in Venice, leave the site, and later see ads elsewhere for Italian vacations.

The team works with several ad networks and sister companies to make the program work across a wide range websites, some in the comScore top 100, Miller says.

One great thing about social media networks is they’re cost-free. Sure, they can be time consuming. You might even need to hire a manager. But you won’t have to write checks to Facebook, MySpace or Twitter to be there.

Also, social networks are showing some marketers big returns. We ran a great article this week on how Threadless, an online community-based tee-shirt retailer, used Twitter to give more life to a promotion. Check out how they micro-blogged their way to a record sales day.

We spoke with Cam Balzer, VP, Marketing, Threadless.com, for the piece. Balzer mentioned that, apart from their main feed, they also experiment with different Twitter feeds. Hey, why not? Feeds are free to create. Here are two alternatives they’ve tried:

– Customer service

In November, they launched a Threadhelp feed to handle customer service inquiries through Twitter. The thread is managed by members of Threadless’ customer service team. Other companies have tried this strategy as well.

Separating customer service and community-oriented feeds helps keep the fun and useful messages apart from the frustrated customer messages. It also helps customers get the attention they need more directly.

– Single promotion feeds

For Halloween, the team set up an account alleging to be maintained by a zombie. The joke feed put some spin on a holiday promotion. Although it did not capture many followers, the feed was an inexpensive experiment that helped the team learn more about the channel.

Has your team experimented with multiple Twitter feeds? Or different Facebook groups perhaps? Let us know in the comments…

Marketing and sales teams should work together to achieve the best results possible. Dave Mossop, Interactive Media Specialist, Expedia CruiseShipCenters, is no stranger to this concept.

Mossop’s team handles much of the online marketing for the brick-and-click cruise agency’s 2,500+ sales agents. We published an article today describing the team’s effort to support agents with customized marketing via email, a website, and a customer relationship management system.

One interesting tactic we did not mention is the team’s “sell-sheet” emails. Ordinarily, Mossop’s team manage email sent to prospective customers. The emails are customized as if they were sent directly from cruise agents to clients.

However, agents can identify cruises that individual clients might be interested in and send them a sell-sheet email. These emails are integrated into the CRM system agents use regularly.

“With basically one click, type in an email address and they’ll get a copy of what the itinerary is, what the ship looks like, a little about the weather, and it’s personalized with [the agent’s] information as a contact,” Mossop says.

You’ll also notice that the emails are customized with the agent’s contact information. They are just one more way that Mossop’s team uses customized messaging and streamlined processes to help agents save time and sell more.

You can find out more about how Expedia CruiseShipCenters combines email, social media and mobile marketing at MarketingSherpa’s 2010 Email Marketing Summit in January.

Marketers at multichannel music equipment retailer Guitar Center this week launched customizable wish lists to help customers steer friends and family toward their desired holiday gifts.

The lists are designed by professional concert poster artists to resemble posters from different musical genres, says Scott Archambault, Director, Customer Acquisition, Guitar Center.

Shoppers can browse, click to add products, and launch a browser-based Flash app to choose a design. Dragging-and-dropping automatically blends products with a design, and shoppers can add a title and an image to certain lists.

Shoppers can click to share lists on several social networks including Facebook, MySpace and Twitter.

The posters won’t appeal to everyone, and shoppers have the option to create and share a more traditional list, Archambault says.

Why offer sharable lists? Archambault says that gift shopping for musicians can be difficult due to the range of product choices and each player’s preferences.

“It’s not enough to just buy a guitar off the shelf,” he says.

The team created the effort with Organic of San Francisco and expects it to extend into next year. They later intend to drive custom marketing efforts based on the products customers select.

“If you have a lot of guitar instruments or something that maps toward an instrument preference, the emails that you get and the reminders that you get will speak to those very specifically.”

Marketers have increased response by segmenting online consumers by location, especially with paid search marketing. These strategies often use IP addresses to target online ads to visitors from specific regions or cities.

Now GPS is being added to mobile devices. The coordinates are accurate within a matter of feet, rather than miles. This is opening an opportunity for much sharper location-based advertising.

GPS-based location-driven ads have the potential to be very effective, according to a survey by Marketing Research Services Inc., on behalf of NAVTEQ. NAVTEQ provides digital mapping services to companies including Garmin and BMW.

MRSI sampled 757 users of NAVTEQ ad-enabled GPS devices who were 18 and older with an average household income over $50,000. They found:

o 72% viewed the ads as acceptable to the navigation experience

o At least 50% of respondents recalled seeing an ad for each of the advertised brands (aided and unaided)

o 19% of people who recalled seeing a specific ad clicked through for more information

o Up to 6% visited a business location because of seeing an ad on their navigation device

The release describing the survey lacks some important details, such as what the ads look like, if they included offers and what “up to 6%” really means. However, I do not dispute the validity of the data. I expect that GPS-targeted ads will become very popular and effective in the mobile advertising world.

Twitter’s rapid growth this year has given the micro-blogging service a reputation as a powerful way to reach and research consumers.

I recently interviewed Craig Greenfield, VP, Search and Performance Media, Performics, about his team’s Twitter use. They use it to help promote Performics’ marketing services, as well as enhance their clients’ campaigns and research.

Here’re six ways Greenfield sees Twitter contributing to his team’s success:

#1. Improved natural search

– Content promotion – A simple tweet with a short URL link is enough to drive traffic and capture more links to content, and in turn, help search rankings.

“Depending on who re-tweets our links and how they do it…we tend to see a snowball effect that results in more and more valuable SEO links,” Greenfield says.

– Keyword research – Through Twitter’s search and the team’s proprietary tools, they are able to mine Twitter’s data to look for new keywords related to their client’s products.

#2. Capture paid-search opportunities

Twitter helps Greenfield’s team monitor trends in consumer interest. By tracking non-branded industry keywords (such as ‘jeans’ and ‘shirt’ for clothing retailers) they can see both positive and negative reactions to new brands, styles or features.

#3. Reputation management

Twitter is one of many social media sites that Greenfield and his team uses to monitor consumer sentiment around brands and products.

By using software to identify statements about a company or its products, the team is able to see whether consumers are talking about the company in a positive or negative light and respond appropriately.

#4. Landing page design

Greenfield’s team started mining conversations on social media outlets like Twitter to develop new landing page designs. They monitor conversations related to a brand or product and create a “tag cloud” based on the feedback. The team references these groups of text when brainstorming new ideas for landing pages, he says.

#5. Driving direct sales

Threadless, a tee shirt design and retail company, and one of Greenfield’s clients, has attracted more than 1.2 million followers to its Twitter feed and uses Twitter to generate sales, Greenfield says. Threadless tweets about promotions and content, and typically includes a URL link to their website.

#6. B2B lead generation

Greenfield and his team use their Twitter feed to update followers on:
o Company news
o Blog posts
o New whitepaper downloads
o Monthly webinars

The last two items are often used for lead generation, making Twitter one of several ways the team increases their pool of qualified leads for sales.

The folks at PETCO  tested an email registration overlay ad that helped lift subscriptions more than 400%.

Carol Ott, Director, Finance Reporting and Web Analytics, PETCO, and the team used Amadesa’s Customer Experience Suite to A/B test the ad (and other offers) on the homepage since June.

As you can see in the image below (click for a larger one), the overlay offers visitors two rewards for submitting email addresses:
1. Chance to win a $500 gift card
2. A free shipping offer

“We were impressed with the results. We were testing offers that we thought would drop our average order value and were pleasantly surprised when it did not have any effect,” Ott says.

The Federal Trade Commission on Monday published the final version of its Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising. These new rules will govern how companies can use consumer, expert and organizational endorsements to make claims about products.

There are many important updates, which become effective Dec. 1. MarketingSherpa is working on an article describing the changes that marketers need to know. In the meantime, I want to point out one change that should concern anyone who sends free products to bloggers to generate buzz.

If a blogger writes a positive review of a product that you sent free-of-charge, that post may be considered an “endorsement.” It depends on the value of the product and whether the blogger routinely receives such requests.

“If the blogger frequently receives products from manufacturers because he or she is known to have wide readership within a particular demographic group…the blogger’s statements are likely to be deemed to be ‘endorsements,’” according to the guidelines.

“Similarly, consumers who join word-of-mouth marketing programs that periodically provide them products to review publicly (as opposed to simply giving feedback to the advertiser) will also likely be viewed as giving sponsored messages.”

Now here’s the kicker: if the post is deemed an “endorsement” and the blogger writes false claims into the review, the blogger and the advertiser are liable for the misleading statements.

So if you, a phone manufacturer, send a free phone to a popular tech blogger who writes a positive review that the phone also makes a fantastic life raft — you are liable for that claim.

The guidelines suggest that advertisers who send free products to bloggers (directly or through a service) make sure that they provide guidance to ensure that the bloggers’ statements are truthful and substantiated.

“The advertiser should also monitor bloggers who are being paid to promote its products and take steps necessary to halt the continued publication of deceptive representations when they are discovered,” according to the guidelines.

So if you are sending out free products to bloggers, your job might be more difficult after Dec. 1. Stay tuned for more info as MarketingSherpa digs into the details.

I was doing some much-needed browsing of the blogs this afternoon when I noticed a post from Steve Rubel pointing out this Internet Stats tool on Google’s UK domain.

The tool lets you search and browse data on:
o Macro economic trends
o Technology
o Consumer trends
o Media consumption
o Media landscape

The topics can be broken into subcategories, and the data is supplied by a few dozen research companies. The tool does not seem to have a ton of data, which gives it a more random than comprehensive quality. But nonetheless, there are some interesting stats, such as:

o Users are 1.5 times more attentive when browsing YouTube than when watching TV.
– Motorola (with Mindshare) and GM, partnered with YouTube, December 2008

o 5% of all time online is spent on Facebook.
– Comscore, April 2009

o 34% of Brits spend a whole day trying to find the best holiday deal online.
– Greenbee.com survey, January 2009

o 50.1% of online shoppers who placed items in their shopping carts did not go on to place an order.
– Core Metrics, March 2009

o Japanese etail giants can make as much as one quarter of their sales via cellphones. Nearly half of Tokyo’s single females are accessing the mobile web more than five times a week, with the peak shopping time between 1pm and 3pm reflecting the part-time employment status of many young Japanese.
– Internet Retailing, May 2009

I do not believe that the tool has enough data to  be useful, yet, but there is plenty of potential. One thing is certain: the data is really, really interesting.

While we wait for the Federal Trade Commission to release its updated testimonials and endorsement guidelines, I’ve been talking to several experts to get a better idea of what the revisions might mean.

Last week, I spoke with Todd Harrison, Partner, Venable LLP, who focuses his practice on consumer protection agencies’ rules and regulations on drugs, foods, dietary supplements and other products.

Harrison went over situations where an advertiser might have to disclose more information, or remove certain claims, to be within the FTC’s proposed guidelines. Other practices might be explicitly prohibited altogether. One method in particular stood out to me: flogging.

‘Flogs,’ or fake blogs, are set up by companies or affiliates to look like independent websites, but in fact only promote a company’s products. There are variations on this theme with sites posing as product review sites and news sites. All the content — the articles, the comments, the ratings — is false.

“They’re not real testimonials, but they’re representing real testimonials,” Harrison says.  “The FTC is probably going to make it clear that you can’t have ‘flogs’…Even under existing law, those material connections are supposed to be disclosed.”

Harrison mentions that some companies may have affiliates that are flogging without the companies’ knowledge. They might be selling products through an affiliate network that attracts unscrupulous sellers and have no idea.

My suggestion is that marketers to take a look at their affiliates’ websites and tactics to make sure that they’re not deceptive or unsavory. If you use an affiliate network, contact its administrators. A simple checkup should help ensure that you’re providing your customers with an honest experience, and that you won’t attract any unnecessary attention from the FTC.