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 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.

New business acquisition requires a lead generation strategy. The latest tactics have included traditional and online media, with the most successful being email, followed by live events and then webinars. With two out of the three being online campaigns, it is surprising the report found that 51% of the respondents said that their efforts online this year were below expectations. Truth is that this number is better than the 68% in 2009 who felt their efforts were lacking, but disappointing still the same. Many feel that their online programs are in need of improvement.

The number one cause for disappointment and the biggest lesson learned was that those who had good tracking in place did much better than those without. “As more lead generation efforts shift to the Internet, tools to help develop, execute, and track campaign effectiveness will become a ‘must have’ rather than a ‘nice to have,’” said the report.

Tracking issues aside, with email being the number one method to garner leads, moving forward, how do we factor in the steady decline of “open rates” around the world? MailerMailer’s “Email Marketing Metrics Report” shows email open rates steadily declining from 14% in 2007 to just 11.2 % at the end of 2009. Looking at the industries whose open rates suffered the most we see entertainment, banking, medicine and general marketing messages. The winners were classified as agriculture, religion, transportation and those from large businesses.

The report concluded that cluttered in boxes and the growing use of mobile devices might be to blame. If true, then the ability to track results in order to make on the fly changes in messaging to get those emails opened becomes crucial.

But, getting your emails opened is just the first step. Enticing people to read and then click thru to your web site is quite another. The MailerMailer report showed click thru rates on opened emails have also been on the decline with a drop from 2.6% to 1.6% in 2009 alone.

It is not surprising then that in this mediocre economy religious and retail emails have some of the highest click thru rates. In fact, Experian Cheetah Mail reports that though nonprofit emails get opened more, catalogers get clicked on the most. One of the conclusions we can maybe draw then, is that today’s consumer is looking for ways to help others and perhaps find some bargains for themselves.

It is not surprising then that Coupons.com reports that this year they and their affiliates have already distributed more than $1 Billion dollars worth of coupons! They attribute much of the growth to more brands offering digital coupons along with consumers’ broader use of printable coupons. But let’s face it – people are printing coupons because they have to! Searches on Google for “printable coupons” are up 67% from last year and according to Harris Interactive 8 out of 10 current US coupon clippers say they will continue even when good times return.

Putting it all together, if you want new business – try emailing some coupons, tie them in perhaps with some charity or good cause and then track, track and track those redeemers and their conversions.

Source: Marketers Put More Lead Gen Budgets Online JULY 27, 2010 http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?R=1007833, CSO Insight’s “2010 Lead Generation Optimization Key Trends Analysis”

Why Email Metrics are in Decline, July 26, 2010 http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?R=1007831

Digital coupon clipping surged in the first half of the year July 27, 2010http://www.internetretailer.com/2010/07/27/digital-coupon-clipping-surged-first-half-year

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.

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

Mass marketers such as Best Buy and Microsoft capitalize on their ubiquity. They have successfully infiltrated our homes and our spending habits and in doing so, now enjoy massive revenue.

On the other hand, direct marketers focus on a capturing a specific niche, getting terrific response rates and only then will they venture into expanding reach. They don’t need to be in every home, but they need to count in each home they actually get introduced to.

Godin says, “The key distinction is when you know it’s going to work. The mass marketer doesn’t know until the end. The direct marketer knows in the beginning.”

These things considered, Ionic Media prides itself in being prolific direct marketers – with a huge emphasis on testing creative thoughts on a well-researched niche, followed through with the ability to analyze results. Only then do we expand into a bigger reach with data at hand and calculated, educated risks. This is not to say we are unable to go big and handle ubiquity. With big brands such as B+L and Disney under our belt, we need to think like mass marketers as well. But we do so intelligently and profitably. It doesn’t always work. But it usually does. And when it doesn’t, we figure out why and do better on the next go.

Bottom line is, we care enough to do the work upfront to reap the benefits of being right (or wrong) in the end. We understand that the best mass marketers, it seems, start off as excellent direct marketers.

Ameetess Dira
Account Director

The nerds call it the “Semantic Web”.  Business analysts call it the “Personalized Web”.  This article from “How Stuff Works” suggests that “Many of these experts believe that the Web 3.0 browser will act like a personal assistant.”  An article in PC Mag from 2007, recalls “To many, Web 3.0 is something called the Semantic Web, a term coined by Tim Berners-Lee, the man who invented the (first) World Wide Web. In essence, the Semantic Web is a place where machines can read Web pages much as we humans read them, a place where search engines and software agents can better troll the Net and find what we’re looking for. “It’s a set of standards that turns the Web into one big database,” says Nova Spivack, CEO of Radar Networks, one of the leading voices of this new-age Internet.”

So you know what?  Its already happened.  Web 3.0 is building 10X faster than Web 1.0 and Web 2.0.  The telltale signs are the number of APIs out there from a site that just got acquired called Programmableweb.com.  The crux of Web 3.0?  A simple conversation between companies that goes a little something like “We love your application.  I’m just wondering….Do you have an API?”.

What will rule with Web 3.0 for you and your company if you are an advertiser?  The rule will be how helpful you can be to your customers with providing them with convenient data.  I guess old fashioned customer service and care will become new again.  Maybe Web 3.0 should be nicknamed “Back to the Future”!

Marie Smith
Social Media Manager
Ionic Media Group

The Advertisement:

1. Text and Tone:  Create a strong CALL TO ACTION (this is the #1 most important detail).
   1. Use strong call to action phrases and words.  Examples include:
      1. i.      Free “ex. Get your free copy by clicking here…”
      2. ii.      __% off  “ex. Get 25% off your online purchase…”
      3. iii.      Make the offer time sensitive…”for a limited time only…”
      4. iv.      List cost – example – only $19.99 in bolded text and eye catching color.
      5. v.      New, Premium, etc.
      6. Graphics:
         1. Use graphics that catch the users eye.  Keep in mind that your advertisement is competing for the user’s eye.  If it is text heavy and not appealing to the eye it will be overlooked.
         2. Make sure ads load quickly.
         3. Keep the ad simple to read (i.e. average sized text), no shaky banners (most sites will not accept these and you may not want to be responsible for an epileptic seizure…seriously they become annoying more than anything else and don’t convert into a true sale.)
         4. Adding the touch of human faces to an advertisement also helps the user ‘connect’ with the offer on a personal level.  Remember – many people out there on the web are visual and the competition is fierce to capture their attention and lead them into action.

The Sales Process:

1. You have a click…now what?
   1. The same practice should be applied to your landing page and purchase process as it is to your advertisement.  The key points to focus on are:
      1. i.      Reiterating your offer.  The landing page content/offer should match the advertisement.  If it doesn’t, your messaging will not be clear and the user may think he/she  has landed on the wrong site or that the offer was bogus.
      2. ii.      Strong CALL TO ACTION! Keep that call to action in every step.  What does the user need to do?  Keep it simple, snappy and easy to do.
      3. iii.      Keep the collection of data fields above the fold of each page.  This reduces drop-off rates.  The easier you can make a process for a user the more likely they are to complete the process and not drop off.
      4. iv.      Short transaction process (shorten the amount of pages a user needs to go through in order to hit that oh so important ‘submit‘ button.
      5. v.      Provide a safe transaction zone for the consumer. (i.e. secured shopping).  If you intend to use any  user information for future promotions you need to be up front and let them opt in to this.  Transparency gains trust and hopefully this consumer will not be a one-time shopper but become a loyal customer, fan on Facebook, etc.

Andrea Cravitz
Client Account Manager
Ionic Media

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/