The Turducken Disconnect Revisited: Some sites wise up, others not so much

Posted November 24th, 2009, by Stephen Cobb

Thanksgiving MealAbout a year ago, as Thanksgiving 2008 drew near, I wrote an article about a phenomenon that I dubbed the turducken disconnect. The full title was The Turducken Disconnect: An SEM Fable for the Holidays and the main point, hidden among some seasonal yarn spinning, was this:

If you are A. selling things online, and B. trying–through paid search or organic search–to get people to come to your site to buy those things, then we can reasonably assert C: someone who searches for one of those things and clicks on your link in search results should land on a page featuring the item they were seeking.

I went on to say–by way of example–that if you sell turducken and someone clicks on your paid search ad for turducken, your site should greet them with a turducken. It does not have to be a talking turducken. It doesn’t even need to be a specially-priced turducken (although that could be a good way to convert first-time visitors into first time buyers). The point is, your traffic from the search term “turducken” should be met with turducken, not sausages or fish stew, regardless of how mouth-watering those other items might be. Read the rest of this entry »

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Posted in Industry, Strategy, marketing

Email Marketing & Personalization Summit, Monday, February 22nd

Posted November 19th, 2009, by Stephen Cobb

Desert-SpringsSome blog posts have a specific task to perform and the role of this one is a formal announcement:

Monetate is sponsoring the “Email Marketing & Personalization Summit,” an intensive, one-day, attendance-limited event, to be held at the JW Marriott Desert Springs Resort in California, on February 22nd.

Now I can get back to being informal: I think this is going to be great! The summit is an information-packed event that features a series of round tables at which retailers can get seriously practical advice on a variety of hot marketing topics like the one that is being presented by Monetate CEO David Brussin:

“Up Close And Profitable: How Segmented, Targeted Marketing Drives Revenue Lift On Retail Sites”

David will be joined by a senior marketing executive from one of today’s most successful online retailers. (BTW, David is a master of this subject and if you’ve not had an opportunity to hear him talk before, this is a great chance to do so, in a controlled setting where there will be plenty of time to ask questions and engage in one-on-one discussion.) Read the rest of this entry »

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Posted in Events, Industry, Personalization, marketing

Can You Ever Have Too Much Traffic? Yes, but you can never have too much conversion

Posted November 12th, 2009, by Stephen Cobb

Lines to get in to ad:techTraffic. Sometimes it’s a bad thing, like when you’re stuck in it while driving to work. Sometimes it’s a good thing, like when you’re running a business. Then you want traffic. Traffic to your restaurant, movie, hotel, airline, or store. And you definitely want traffic to your web site. You want people coming to your online store, your booking system, or the digital place where you promote whatever it is that your business is about. So I’m going to have to defend my assertion that you can have “too much traffic” because it borders on heresy in the world of digital marketing.

But before I do that, a few words about this world of digital marketing. It was on display last week at the ad:tech event in New York, an event that had plenty of traffic of its own. Ad:tech is billed as “the #1 event for interactive marketing” and I don’t doubt the claim. The event outgrew the New York Hilton last year and has moved to the Jacob Javits Convention Center, a bold gamble given the state of the economy back when the decision to move was made, but it seems to have paid off.

At one point the registration line stretched almost the entire width of the Javits then doubled back on itself. And when you got into the exhibit hall the aisles were jammed. (I did a short radio interview from the show floor with Bryan Eisenberg and you can tell from my voice that I’m having to shout to be heard above the noise of the crowd: WebmasterRadio.fm Interviews Stephen Cobb). Read the rest of this entry »

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Posted in Industry, Personalization

Marketing Around Real Events Means Marketing in Real Time

Posted November 9th, 2009, by Stephen Cobb

The MarketA few posts back I suggested that the launch of Windows 7 presented several opportunities for creative online marketers who were nimble enough to roll out campaigns and promotions to take advantage of emerging trends. This past weekend I encountered two articles that speak to this.

The first is from The Guardian: Microsoft boosted as Windows 7 sales outpace Vista. The article says early sales figures for Windows 7 suggest “shoppers are switching to Microsoft’s new operating system in their droves, shrugging off the cloud cast by its predecessor, Windows Vista…figures by research firm NPD Group suggested that sales of Windows 7 in the United States were 234% higher than when Vista launched in January 2007.” This is good news for sites hoping to convert visitors with W7 hooks like the ones I outlined (7 Ways Microsoft Windows 7 Can Help Online Retailers: Even if you don’t sell PCs).

And the other article, from CNET a few weeks ago, backs up my thinking that W7 hooks can work beyond the inner circles of Windows devotees: Apple sees Windows 7 as an opportunity to sell Macs. The article talks about Apple looking forward to the release of Windows 7 because “frustrated Windows users will [in Apple's opinion] buy a Mac.”

My point? Savvy marketing means keeping your finger on the pulse of our world and spotting opportunities to connect with your target market wherever, and whenever, they arise. If you have competition–and who doesn’t?– this is not an optional strategy: Your competition will take advantage of those opportunities, potentially at your expense.

Smart marketing also means putting in place a marketing platform that can react quickly to emerging trends. Creating a new Google Adwords campaign takes a matter of minutes but a lot of that ad spend will be wasted if it takes the I.T. department a week to make the appropriate changes to your web site (appropriate coding and placement of messages, graphics, discount codes, and so on).

Why will ad spend be wasted? If your web site does not carry on the conversation you start in those ads, and carry it from the landing page through the entire site experience, then your conversion rate will probably be dismal, and it will certainly be lower than if you have created continuity from the ad through to entire site experience (and all the way to the checkout if you’re an online retailer).

We live in a real-time world, from “as-it-happens” cable news to instant consumer intelligence on Twitter. Simply put, to compete online with a reasonable hope of success you need an online marketing platform that works in real time.

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Posted in Industry, Personalization, Strategy, marketing