Based on the quantity and quality of leads generated, companies said email was their best lead generation program, followed by live events, website registrations and webinars. The effectiveness of online channels, coupled with the fact that prospects indicate the web is the first place they look for more information, makes it natural for companies to be increasing their investments in web design, email marketing and search engine optimization.
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According to a February–March 2010 survey from office services firm Regus, smaller companies see the most success, with nearly half of small businesses around the world having acquired a customer through social networks. Large companies were less successful, but more than a quarter had seen social success through customer acquisition. This was despite large companies being more likely to devote budgets to social marketing.
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Many social media marketers are eager to tie a hard number to the value of their efforts. To that end, firms have attempted to analyze the worth of fans and followers on social networking sites like Facebook.
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Digital consulting firm Syncapse and research company Hotspex have come up with an empirical formula that puts an average value of $136.38 on the Facebook fans of the site’s 20 biggest corporate brands. Most of that value comes from how much the fans will spend on the brand’s products, with additional dollars coming from customer loyalty, recommendations and earned media.
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The study found that people spent significantly more on products they were fans of, compared with consumers who were not fans. In the case of many of Facebook’s most popular food and beverage marketers, fan spending was more than double that of non-fans.
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The pattern of increased fan spending held across all of the top 20 brands on Facebook, with differences ranging from 51% for Oreo fans to 168% for fans of Nokia.
Read more at www.emarketer.com |
Criticism of behaviorally targeted ads by consumers, privacy advocates and the government has led to uncertainty in the market, which eMarketer expects to reach nearly $1.13 billion this year. Research from the Network Advertising Initiative (NAI) indicates the high value of those ads, for both marketers and publishers.
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The study, which looked at ads run on member networks during 2009, showed that among users who clicked on a behaviorally targeted ad, 6.8% converted. That compared with only 2.8% of those who clicked on a run-of-network ad. Clickers found behavioral ads more relevant, but the NAI did not study how likely they were to click in the first place, a key component of effectiveness.
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CPM rates were likewise significantly higher for behaviorally targeted ads, with the average price of a behaviorally targeted ad 2.68 times greater than that of a run-of-network ad. Retargeting also provided higher CPMs.
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Retailers that want to connect with their target audience online would do well to go where their customers already are. And according to the “2010 Social Media Report” from ForeSee Results, 69% of online shoppers regularly use social media sites.
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The overwhelming winner in terms of shopper presence was Facebook, with more than one-half of respondents using it regularly. YouTube took the second spot, with former giant MySpace far behind its rival. Only about one in 10 online shoppers surveyed used Twitter.
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SUMMARY: Competition between companies and their affiliates is natural. Affiliates can be very effective at creating revenue-generating traffic through search so there’s an inherent tension in the system. See the main attitudes/policies with which merchants attempt to deal with this issue. |
The Online Publishers Association and ComScore, both
seriously interested parties, did a study
of 80 campaigns for 50 top brands which was tracked across the top 200
highly trafficked sites and concluded:
1. The 80-20 rule applies to clicks. Eighty percent of the
clicks come from 20 percent of the people exposed to the ads. At very best only
1 in 5 ads draws a click whether that was the intention of the ad or not.
2. Displays Ads Prompt Search. Queries for terms exposed in
display ads were search 50% more often a week after exposure and 38% more often
even 4 weeks after exposure. If you see something that intersects your
interests or your personal wish list, you are more likely to search for it
directly when you’re ready to buy. Direct and brand advertising interact
synergistically online and offline.
3. Display Ads Drive Site Engagement. Those exposed to ads
spent 34 minutes per unique visitor on the sites exposed. This is hard to
believe in terms of the time spent on site and the amount of “lift”. Maybe it
just measures the vagaries of site architecture and navigation.
4. Brand Exposure Bumps Up eCommerce. Those exposed to brand
ads spent 7% more on average when they bought. This feels like advertising
orthodoxy; exposure drives awareness, consideration and purchase. It’s possible
that added impressions convinces customers to trade up a little. Read more at blogs.imediaconnection.com |
No big news, but nonetheless interesting to look at the differences.
- In the entertainment industry, a basic lead costs $0.80, while the cost for a premium lead is $3.00.
- In the CPG industry, a basic lead costs $0.87, while the cost for a premium lead is $1.13.
- In the health industry, a basic lead costs $0.60, while the cost for a premium lead is $3.36.
- In the non-profit industry, a basic lead costs $1.33, while the cost for a premium lead is $1.85.
- In the technology industry, a basic lead costs $0.43, while the cost for a premium lead is $3.75.
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- In the travel industry, a basic lead costs $1.40, while the cost for a premium lead is $2.50.
- The cost for a online retail basic lead is $0.59.
Read more at www.marketingcharts.com |
The 2009 Omniture Online Conversion Benchmark Survey, conducted in July, reveals that most marketers miss opportunities to increase conversions. About 80% of the 1,000 online or interactive marketers responding to the survey do not serve up personalized content to Web visitors, not do they promote Web site content based on performance metrics. |
Forty-two percent of marketers participating in the survey spend less than five hours per week optimizing advertising media. Less than one-third frequently test online content. And 70% of the content decisions that appear on Web sites are made by one person, unsupported by data. |
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Lead Gen Budgets Increasing
