OBSESSED WITH RESULTS

Yes, the big blue guy and I have shared the same problem throughout the years – stuffing ourselves with too many cookies. Apparently though, my stomach isn’t the only recipient of cookie stuffing these days. As reported in ReveNews, eBay initiated a suit back in 2008 against an affiliate and alleging “numerous actions including fraud, racketeering activity under RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations), wire fraud and unauthorized access of eBay’s servers.” In June of this year, the FBI  Cyber Crimes Department brought indictments against this same affiliate for wire fraud and criminal forfeiture. Their crime? Cookie stuffing.

If you are not familiar with cookies, they are small files placed on your computer by the websites you visit. Cookies are actually useful and usually quite harmless. For example, Session Cookies are kept in your computer’s temporary memory when you visit a site and are used by that site to store session identification. They don’t collect personal information and they don’t identify you in anyway. When you leave the site, they leave your computer.

A Persistent or Stored cookie stays on your hard drive for a select period of time or until you delete it. These cookies collect data about you in terms of your web surfing behavior or your user preferences at a specific web site.

A Malicious or Tracking cookie is one that stores your online activity, following you about trying to build a profile about your web surfing habits and interests. Though they are not holding personally identifiable information about your identity (we hope) they are trying to learn enough about the kind of person you are so that they can direct the right advertising message to you at the right time. Why is this site showing me so many sports ads. . .hmm. . . ?

By now you are thinking, I am going to block or delete my cookies every day. Think twice though, you may find that on your favorite sites that allow you to personalize content your preferences will be gone. Many online shopping carts that use cookies won’t work either. In fact, with some sites you’ll often get a warning to turn on your “cookie allower” or you won’t see much of the site. If you are worried about your information, check the site’s Privacy policy to see how they treat cookies. If you can put up with the possible inconveniences, it’s best to clear cookies when you are done with your surfing and start from scratch each time you go online.

However, many sites now use Flash cookies which aren’t controlled by the standard cookie and privacy controls located in the Tools section of your browser. In a study by UC Berkeley of the Internet’s top web sites, only four of these sites mentioned these cookies in their Privacy policies. These cookies are created using the Adobe Flash plug-in (the one that allows you to see a lot of cool videos and effects) and because they are relatively unknown, can be used to store information and track users around the web. Use the Adobe Flash interface to get rid of these (see the Wired article referenced below).

But, what about this cookie stuffing business? Cookie stuffing is a practice where the website you visit decides to place a lot of cookies on your computer. In affiliate marketing, where an independent website owner sells other people’s stuff, making sure they get credit for selling you the item is important. After all, if you are shopping around you may end up making a purchase somewhere else. Some unscrupulous affiliates will resort to stuffing your computer with cookies to ensure that if you go to other sites run by other affiliates their cookies will override the new sites cookies.

More typical though is the nefarious activity alleged in these indictments, where cookies placed on a user’s computer cause clicks to secretly be made on an affiliate link allowing the affiliate marketer to defraud a merchant with phony activity. As described in the ReveNews article: “Hidden forced clicks are when an affiliate link is invoked without a physical click by the end user. Various forms of technology and/or coding are used so that the merchant’s site is not actually seen by the end user.” One reason for doing this may be to build traffic to a site and boost rankings. In this case it was to increase the number of computers storing their eBay affiliate tracking cookie. Interestingly, the “wire fraud” aspect of this case doesn’t involve money transfers, but “transmission of the tracking cookie between states and internationally.”

Though the majority of Affiliate marketers are by far honest business people, in an unregulated world many will push the limits of technology to gain an advantage. Prior to this case, cookie stuffing was not technically considered illegal. But as the average users and authorities become more technically savvy the criminality and creation of unfair advantage behind such actions can be discerned more easily. In this case, both judge and grand jury members were able to understand the fraud being perpetrated and act upon it. Though I am not an advocate of increased Internet regulation, as I would rather see the industry police itself, there is a lesson here for all black hat wearers. The honest will eventually catch up with you and take your cookies away. They might also stuff you into a small room with bars on the windows and doors.

http://www.revenews.com/kelliestevens/affiliates-indicted-for-cookie-stuffing/

http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2009/08/you-deleted-your-cookies-think-again/#ixzz0xZi8iVns

http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2009/08/you-deleted-your-cookies-think-again/

http://www.webopedia.com/DidYouKnow/Internet/2007/all_about_cookies.asp

In the last year I have been helping to launch our performance marketing division and I have put together a list of criteria I use in order to select the top vendors to launch my campaigns.  My job is to guarantee that my client will get qualified leads and will continue to recognize the importance and value in lead generation campaigns.

In addition to the selection criteria I also take into account how quickly a vendor can build the campaign, flexibility, and reputation. Here are the questions I ask the list of potential vendors before I launch a campaign:

• If you have your own proprietary co-registration path – How many offers do you run at any one time? Do you provide exclusivity for certain categories?
• If you have your own “house” email lists, how often are they updated and cleaned? Do you specialize in any verticals or particular demographics? Do you have third party emailers that you work with?
• Do you own or use incentivized sites or paths?
• Do you provide lead validation? If so, is it through a third party or a proprietary system?
• Do you have your own sites as well as distribution partners?
• How many unique visitors do you reach and what kind of targeting you can do? (Geo-targeting, age, demographic and etc.)
• Do you offer scrub rates?
• How do you rate your lead quality compared to competitors? Can you provide open rates and CTRs?

I have learned vendors will offer value added services along with leads at no additional charge. The key is keeping your client happy by providing quality leads and your vendors need to be accountable in helping you accomplish that goal.

Isn’t it great you don’t have to rely solely on TV or print to advertise anymore?!  After watching Don throw his client out of the door on Madmen’s premiere episode of season 4, I thought, poor Jantzen for not having other advertising options.   If you didn’t see the episode, Don presented a provocative swimwear layout to Jantzen.  A black bar covers the model’s top. “So well built, we can’t show you the second floor,” was the slogan.   Jantzen, a family oriented and conservative company didn’t like the risqué idea, thus making Don so mad he threw them out.   Can you imagine throwing your client out if they don’t like your idea?

Today, there are more opportunities than ever to advertise, anywhere really.  It made me thankful that I work at Ionic Media, in the advertising industry today, because we can be more creative than ever.  There are so many ways to reach the consumer…  iPhones, iPads, Blackberrys, portable TVs, Facebook, Wi-Fi everywhere (even on airplanes now!)!  How much you want to spend or who you want to reach is a good way to start.  You could advertise on TV or why not put the commercials on the web?   Utilize paid search or optimize your current website?  The key is to not depend solely on one element, which will in turn be more efficient and effective.   The trick will be to coordinate all elements to send a consistent message.

Wow, what a relief to advertise today where you truly can run with your imagination.

Well its been 18 months since Google started its Caffeine project and about 2 months since its been widely talked about.  I bet you are wondering “What now?”.   There are so many changes in the digital media and advertising industry that its hard to keep up with.  So, our team at Ionic Media would like to give you a quick update on what it all means in 5 quick points:

1. From months to seconds

September 11, 2001 marked a crucial turning point in Google history.  Because many news sites had a problem keeping up with demand and their sites were going down, Google’s team found that when they could cache the site, they could actually take some of the demand off of those sites and meet the needs of the spikes on the internet for real-time information.  This led to the creation of “Google News”.  This is where Google’s path began to change and they became aware that 30 days was not enough for larger sites and its standard of 4 months prior to that was even worse.   With the advent of social media (Twitter updates every half a second and Facebook about every minute), then Google really had no choice but to update its systems to accommodate these new “influential” sources of media.

2. Analysis in small pieces 24/7

Caffeine lets Google analyze the web in small portions and then updates their search index on a continuous basis (i.e. 24/7).  The goal is so that you (and your customers) “can find fresher information than ever before – matter where it was published”.  Google says that if “Caffeine” was a pile of paper, “it would grow three miles taller every second”!

3. Google Caffeine’s Effects on SEO

Page Load Time – Make sure your page loads fast.  If its too heavy, Caffeine will more likely index it faster if your pages are simple, fast and constantly updated (think Twitter)

Keywords and Phrases – The relevancy and quality of keywords is more important than its has been in the past.  Google is connecting the relevancy of pages based on the content more than it has in the past.  This update is about one thing – INFORMATION QUALITY AND RELEVANCY.  This means stop relying on any spammy links.

Ads – Caffeine puts more emphasis on organic search results rather than paid advertisements.  This means that your PPC Quality Scores are being affected for AdWords.

4. The response to Bing

Google Caffeine is also partially a response to Bing which is focusing on 4 areas: 1) Speed, 2) Relevancy, 3) Accuracy and 4) Index Volume.  To see more about some early testing of these 4 items regarding Google Caffeine, see http://mashable.com/2009/08/10/google-caffeine.

5. What Bruce Clay and Matt Cuts Say

We all internally talk here at Ionic about “blogger experts”.  But these thoughts from Bruce Clay and Matt Cutts do summarize my experience of Caffeine and Mayday (Google’s previous release) since January 2009.  Here are the highlights:

1) Caffeine Infrastructure:

• Get fresh
• Be engaging
• Lower your bounce rates
• Be relevant
• Spread your content around (think YouTube, Google Buzz, Feedburner, Google News, Google Blogger)
• Update your site maps
• Make sure your site’s speed is up to par

2) Mayday and the Long Tail Keyword

From Matt Cutts of Google, “We’re trying to find the best sites that match up to long-tailed queries.  It’s an algorithmic change that changes how we assess which sites are the best match for long-tail queries”.  Here are the suggestions that Bruce Clay makes which I agree with:

• Pick one: Select one page to act as a landing page for terms and long-tail qualifiers.
• Get focused: Concentrate link popularity on category landing pages. This will help maximize category relevance from the top down.
• Be first to publish: The first to publish will garner the maximum inbound links.
• Don’t forget the old school: Archive old content within the silo as category support.
• Share it up: Make content easily shareable among major link equity sites (links will point to the top silo page.) First to publish is moot if no one knows about it.
• Be social: There are strong indications that Google is reviewing a wide host of sites to observe users’ behavior and interaction with the brand. Domain reputation relies on more than site age and whois information.

Hope this helps!  As you know, we are always here for you if you get lost!

Marie Smith
Manager, SEO and Social Media

The Barcelona Principles Checklist

Well, the Second European Summit on Measurement held last week in Barcelona has come and gone, but its impact may be felt for some time to come.  The Summit was organized by the International Association for the Measurement and Evaluation of Communication (AMEC) and the Institute for Public Relations.  The most notable outcome of the Summit was the creation of the ‘Barcelona Declaration of Research Principles’.  The Principles were debated and voted upon by about 200 delegates representing 33 countries and five global PR and measurement organizations (AMEC, IPR, PRSA, ICCO, The Global Alliance).  David Rockland, Ph.D. chaired the debate.

Here are the ‘Barcelona Declaration of Research Principles’:

1. Goal setting and measurement are fundamental aspects of any PR programs.
2. Media measurement requires quantity and quality – cuttings in themselves are not enough.
3. Advertising Value Equivalents (AVEs) do not measure the value of PR and do not inform future activity.
4. Social media can and should be measured.
5. Measuring outcomes is preferred to measuring media results.
6. Business results can and should be measured where possible.
7. Transparency and Replicability are paramount to sound measurement.

See more at: http://metricsman.wordpress.com/2010/06/23/the-barcelona-principles-leaders-speak/

Jun 23, 2010

Mashable’s June 30th #smday Social Media Meetups: lessons from the trenches

I have not had the opportunity to update my blog for a few days. Feels kind of weird because it’s the first time since I started and there is so much to write about and share. I blame it on Mashable. Well, that’s not entirely true. I blame it on myself. Since I learned about Mashable’s Social Media Meetups I have been racing like hell to get aMeetup up and running.

But it was my choice. Personally, I’m not sure if we need a day to celebrate social media. After all, social media are just media, right?

Maybe Facebook or Twitter should have a day where they celebrate their users (especially since they know so much about them…). That would be more appropriate. Or even Mashable, to celebrate its fans and visitors.

See more at: http://www.socialemailmarketing.eu/2010/06/mashables-june-30th-smday-social-media-meetups-lessons-from-the-trenches.html

There are many ways to market your website online through various forms of search engine optimisation. Now days with the innovation to social media networks, blogs, forums and social bookmarking, sites it is very easy to do a successful campaign and get down loads of prize backlinks to your website, thus increasing your page rank.

So what were going to do is set up an Internet presence for your new site / company. Here is a list of SN (social networking) sites that we could use to advance our site / business enterprise, consider social networking is not the same as social bookmarking, which we will cover a little later in the article – but each point raised here are simply different forms of search engine optimisation.

• Facebook
• Twitter
• Digg
• StumbleUpon
• Squidoo
• Creamaid
• Yedda
• Tweako
• Xanga

So now to make this process a little easier for you to follow, this is a basic run through of what I would do with the above list.

• Submit my site / business to Facebook. Create page, ask for friends, start posting.
• Create a twitter account (if you don’t already have one) and start a little tweeting – 4 or 5 tweets should do it.
• Create a page on Squidoo – general write up on your new site.
• Digg and StumbleUpon your Squidoo write up and twitter tweets.
• Submit to more SN’s

See more at: http://googlekeywordsoftware.com/using-seo-to-generate-traffic-through-social-media-networks-and-blogs

Now that there are over 350 social media sites, there is an old rule that has become a new rule – Content is King!

The fun part about Web 2.0 and the looming Web 3.0 is that the world now has a channel to say anything that they want.  The cool part about nearly everyone having a voice is that new experts that the mass media and large corporations would never find in a million years start to surface.

What’s massively cool about new experts and all kinds of useful (and some not so useful) content is that advertisers can now more easily build powerful relationships and subject matter expertise on a daily basis without having a massive R&D budget or massive market research budget.  New content resources also mean that advertisers can recruit these new “under the radar” experts and content warehouses as sources to build out wonderful new types of copy, blogs and ideas for journalists to feature their products, services and/or company for greater reach!

Now I know that all of this may sound extremely complicated and convoluted.  But, I encourage you to seize the day, vivre la diference and have fun experimenting and opening your mind to a new world of access to billions of people with a lot to say that can help your business!

To see a wonderful content source that is an example of lots of people collaborating together, check out Freebase http://www.freebase.com.  This is a free database where people contribute “Wikipedia style” to all kinds of subjects.  There are now over 12 million posts in Freebase and its growing everyday.  This is a fun way to dip your toe in the world of content building.

Go ahead, dive in to the world of content building,  the water is warm and the waves are not that choppy!

Marie Smith
Manager, SEO and Social Media
Ionic Media

Here at Ionic Media, we are huge proponents of metrics-based marketing: measuring every dollar spent and analyzing for maximum effectiveness, whether leads, conversions, revenue, profits, margin, contribution, ROI/ROAS, or whatever other metrics you use. Analysis is the backbone of what any modern agency should do.

But social media presents quite the challenge for a numbers-oriented marketer. There are historic best-practices to measure offline conversions (especially in an increasingly online world), but there currently are few agreed metrics to measure what’s effective in a social media campaign.

Here are some ways that we think of measuring social media:

Rule 1: Seek the bottom line. Whenever possible, all metrics should be aligned with greatest bottom-line impact. Ideally revenues produced, sales delivered, or leads sourced through social media channels. There is simply no substitute for being able to measure against hard bottom-line goals.

Rule 2: Quantify the conversation. Social media is all about engaging customers and prospects in an ongoing conversation. At a minimum, you must be able to quantify the conversation points: page views, clicks, comments, etc. are all ways of measuring engagement. Make assumptions and try to quantify the value of each conversation.

Rule 3: Follow the friends and fans. Social media allows the general public to vote for your business/product/service through aligning themselves with you. Compared to traditional Google Page-Rank, this is an even stronger method of them passing authority to your business. They aren’t simply linking to you, they are actually seeking out a long-term relationship with you. That’s relationship is gold, and should be measured.

Rule 4: Treat social ROI as any other marketing ROI. In other words, quantify the value of a “friend” or “fan”, of a click-through or forum comment, in the same way you would quantify the value of a direct sale. Where possible measure direct sales/leads. A popular way to do this is by inserting tracking code and registration forms on landing pages and other important sections of your website to correlate between social media users IDs, email addresses and IP address. Where impossible, then value registration forms, newsletter sign ups or Facebook fans/Twitter followers. You may feel like you are guessing at the value, and you are at first, but those initial valuation assumptions should still be tracked (and charted on a weekly basis at a minimum). Assumptions can be refined over time, and that wild guesstimate of $5 value per Facebook fan can quickly be quantified over time (how many leads or sales had Facebook as a referrer? That’s one obvious way to quantify value).

So, just as with any hard marketing budgets, you would expect to measure results and be able to see performance changes as they occur – you need to adopt the same mindset for social media. Very few businesses engage in social media solely as a way to manage reputation or handle customer service issues. Most of us use it as a logical extension of our brand, and as a low-cost way to reach prospects directly. However, even in the wild west of social media, metricology must occur: are my numbers moving in the right direction, am I seeing the engagement I expected, can I quantify or measure the efficiency of these channels?

In this way social media metricology can result in just as refined a marketing understanding as whether Google’s ROI is higher than Bing’s, or whether display banner networks perform for your business.

Ted Huffman
Managing Director
Ionic Media