Follow, Reach, Convert: Innovative Retargeting/Remarketing

Erin Heffernan, Paid Search Account Manager, Optimedia US
Seth Meisel, Remarketing, R&D and New Opportunities, Walgreens

The first half of this session focused on static display remarketing on the GDN. The second half dealt with dynamic remarketing. All the value I receive came during the first half.

• Retargeted consumers are 70% more likely to convert than consumers who are not retargeted.
• Cross-sell recent purchasers with accessory and related item ideas
• The more you segment your audiences, the better you target and the better you convert – the closer you will get to where the consumer’s mind is at the given time
• Measure audiences in GA
• Use Smart Lists in GA to create custom lists for remarketing
• Use time on site, avg pages viewed for segmenting. You MAY not want to remarket to bounces
• Ads – test “what’s new,” sales, “come back!” copy ideas
• Always use mobile ad sizes and address mobile remarketing needs.
• Set frequency caps -use the data on the Dimensions tab in Adwords to find your customer’s limits
• Bottom line: Segment as finely as possible, and create ads targeting each segment. Generic, branding ads are typically not going to perform well here.

Online Display Advertising Unwrapped: Key Tools and Trends

Pete Kluge, Senior Product Marketing Manager for Advertising Solutions, Adobe

There’s always that one session where the actual content doesn’t meet the expectations set by the session title and description. This was the one. It was really not more than an overview of the different ways to engage in display advertising. No tools were revealed. None. It’s like shrimp – you can bake it, you can broil it, you can grill it…

You can buy direct, you can buy via an ad network, you can buy via an ad exchange (auction). I think what the guy REALLY wanted to do was talk about the Adobe advertising platform and data management systems, but that was against the rules.

Okay. Next session, please.

Marketing in a Multi-Screen World

Amanda DeVito, Vice President of Engagement, Butler/Till
Susie Hume, Director, Digital Marketing, Excellus BlueCross BlueShield

By far the most entertaining duo – it was like Open Mic Night down at the Comedy Club. I have never heard so many uses of the word “fuck” in a training session. It was great! (Note to Blue Cross/Blue Shield – it was the OTHER lady using that word. And it was great!)

• Today’s consumer is “always on”
  • Behavior: distracted multi-tasking
  • Media: delayed viewing, choices easy to ignore
  • Messaging: inundated
• Concerns:
  • Targeting & technology – is it the same person?
  • Time & device – what time do they use each device?
  • Creative – has to fit the form and time
• Just because you can reach consumers on every screen, should you? What does the consumer want/expect? What can they tolerate? When are you going to piss them off?
• If your brand is loved, consumers are more tolerant of being bombarded on every screen
• Some brands are hated (cable companies, phone companies) and consumer tolerance is very low
• The vast majority of brands are treated indifferently – neither loved nor hated.
• Blue Cross/Blue Shield did a promotion called lifehasaplan.com – people upload “life” photos that might appear in a TV commercial. Very popular, and has increased brand awareness by 21%.
• Tablet & mobile will dominate within 5 years. Desktop may become mostly irrelevant. Now is not the time to wait and see what is going to happen. It’s already happening!
• Video and native advertising are poised for large growth and increasing dominance
• Screens will be everywhere – your car, your fridge, your stove, and wearable
• The “always on” consumer is also human. So be cool!
• Test, test, test.
• Respect and embrace the technology. Don’t fear it.

Tactics and Strategies to Fill the Middle and Bottom of the Funnel

Matthew Aster, Director, Internet Marketing, Embrace Pet Insurance

If you think selling insurance is hard, try selling pet insurance. Of all the pet parents in America, less than 1% have pet insurance.

Not a session packed with new information, unfortunately. Plus it was the last session of the conference – I think they do that on purpose. Half the attendees had already taken off.

• Mid-funnel keywords:
  • [brand/product] reviews
  • [brand/product] vs [competitor]
  • [brand/product] alternative
• Lower level keywords:
  • buy [brand/product]
  • [brand/product] price
  • [brand + product]
  • [model name/number]
• Less than 10% of social postings should be promotional – that seems to be the sweet spot for not annoying your followers.

A final word…

There were some really sweet ideas and nuggets of information that I haven’t shared here. I’m reserving those for the people who paid my way. As with any conference like this, a lot of it is “oh yeah – I knew that! Why don’t we do that?” and a smaller percentage of it is “holy shit – I can’t wait to get back and propose this!”

As a conference overall, I’d give this one a solid B. Maybe even a B+. The speakers were, for the most part, quite good. The crowd wasn’t huge – as these shows go, this one was kind of small in number of attendees, but the sessions were as good as you get at the larger meetings (IRCE, eTail, Omniture/Adobe Summit, etc.), and the sessions were MUCH less focused on SAAS companies pitching their products. That part I really liked. No vendors accosted me in the men’s room (which has happened). One complaint – the chairs in the salons were not very comfortable. And since my dad was in the furniture business for many years, I have an educated behind.

The hotel was top shelf. The food they catered for lunches was excellent, and the staff is world class. I’d stay here again without a second thought.

And now I take the 11 minute walk down Wabash to grab some soul food and listen to some great blues music at Buddy Guy’s club. Tomorrow morning I meet with our Chicago-based Google team, and then it’s back to O’Hare for the flight south to my honey in Baton Rouge!

Keynote: Finally, We Know for Sure Mobile Marketing WORKS! (And here is how it can work EVEN HARDER)

Greg Stuart, CEO, Mobile Marketing Association

Predictably, this address was all about the glories of mobile marketing, with scant attention paid to the challenges. Nevertheless, Greg was a very energetic and engaging speaker. A VERY fast talker, taking notes was tricky!

• He gave us permission, in fact encouraged us to use our phones during his speech. Something about “impressions.”
• US market penetration of smart phones is >40%
• 19% of web traffic is mobile
• The average US teenager sends over 100 text messages every day. That’s over 3,000 a month, for those of you who don’t do math.
• Mobile is the closest you can get to the consumer – closer than any other medium
• 68% of marketers agree that mobile is the best/fastest way to transform your business
• 72% of marketers agree that mobile is the best way to build ROI
• All other marketing mediums are mature, but mobile is still the Wild, Wild West – the growth is just starting
• There is a huge “knowing vs doing” gap in mobile marketing – everybody knows it is crucial, but few are taking advantage of it.
  • Case in point: When Motorola promoted their new MOBILE SMART PHONE, Moto-X, only 1% of their ad spend was in mobile. Think about that.
• The MMA has a lot of incredible research that will be released before the end of the year.

How To Leverage Customer Experience to Connect with Digital Natives in a Mobile World

Olivier Sartor, Vice President Account Services and Social Media, Nowspeed
Cassidy Shield, Vice President Marketing, Platforms Division, Alcatel-Lucent

VERY interesting session with good nuggets of information.

• Digital Natives: Anybody born in 1990 or later
• Digital Immigrants: Everybody else
• The Digital Native’s customer service expectation: “Don’t fall in love with your product. Fall in love with my problem.”
• Many companies give the Customer Experience lip service because it is very difficult to measure. Customer SERVICE, which is one facet of the Customer Experience, CAN be measured so we tend to focus on that. This may be a huge mistake.
• Most marketers think of mobile as an extension of their web site and not as its own unique channel with unique needs. DIGITAL NATIVES DON’T CARE ABOUT YOUR (desktop) WEB SITE. AT ALL. In fact, they may never visit it.
• Hotel Tonight is a mobile app only business. Growing like crazy among Natives and expanding their offering to become more like “traditional” hotel booking sites, but still mobile only.
• Mayday on Kindle is a great example of customer support for Digital Natives. “Amy” isn’t there to help you use Kindle. She is there to help you decide what to buy next. On Amazon.
  • Amazon.com for the most part is “human-free.” Mayday is one of the best “human touch” features on the entire internet. And last Christmas day their response time was 9 seconds.
• Digital Natives expect you to turn a bad customer experience into a good one.
• Digital Natives demand expectations to be set, and to be clear.
  • A Marriott restaurant serving Natives organized their new menu by the length of time it takes to get each dish to the table.
• 53% of customers expect a response within 60 minutes when they post it on Twitter. Monitor your hashtags (and realize that the internet will create new hashtags you need to pay attention to).
• Digital Natives see mobile as both a point of contact and a point of sale.

From PLAs to Shopping Campaigns: Hacking The New Product Search

Mosheh Poltorak, Customer Insight Specialist, Blinds.com

Good content, but probably 6 months too late for most people.

• Images can make a massive difference in performance and they should be tested.
  • Try different angles, different backgrounds, close-ups, even glamour shots and lifestyle shots
  • If a product comes with accessories, see if you can show everything together
  • If a product is a “kit” don’t just show the primary item. Show the kit. Most retailers won’t.
• Only the first 70 characters of the item’s title are displayed. Make them count. Look at the competition and see if you can make yours more compelling (hard to do if you have a large selection)
• The “Product Type” attribute in the feed (and in Adwords) is OUR categorization and can be used to report
• Create an “On Sale” campaign with a high priority and populate it with sale items. Use a custom label to identify.
• Use negative keywords for targeting (not so much to prevent bad queries).
• If you have more than 1 PLA displaying, count on a lot of people clicking on all of them – this will raise your bounce rate for PLAs and drive down your conversion rate. And you will pay for each click, of course. Adjust your KPI expectations accordingly.

Assess, Diagnose, Fix: How to become a Leading SEO Mechanic

Carolyn Shelby, Director of SEO and SEM, Tribune Publishing

Not as detailed as I was hoping for, but the presenter doesn’t seem to spend much time down in the weeds doing hands-on SEO. Nevertheless, she knows her stuff.

• SEM Rush will tell you what you’re ranking for that you aren’t tracking (unexpected ranking surprises). You can leverage this info.
• Tools she recommends: Searchmetrics, Raven, Conductor, YSlow
• Run Screaming Frog on problem pages, not your home page. If you just start at the home page you may never get to page-level issues.
• Check Webmaster Tools regularly for warnings, sitemap issues, penalties, and page speed. Check mobile AND desktop data. If you have received a penalty, Google WILL tell you about it.
• Add a tag to GA for EVERY development and marketing change you make. No exceptions! Makes it much easier to track problems back to the source.

How to Create Kick Ass Native Content

Lauri Baker, VP Brand Strategy & Sales, The Huffington Post

She was the best presenter so far.

• “Native Content” is what I have always called “advertorial” content
• There is 60% more native content in the Huffington Post news feeds than 2 years ago
• Content is currency, social actions need to be viewed as transactions
• Native ads are part of a content marketing strategy
• It’s not enough to have a content strategy. You have to document it and measure it.
  • 72% of B2C companies do content marketing, but only 23% track ROI
• How have times changed? Waiting on a new Pope, 2005:
• Photo from the Washington Post
• Waiting on a new Pope, 2013:
• 
• Photo from theidealists.com

• INFORM from an original perspective
• STAND OUT – evoke emotion, use your unique voice
• BE TIMELY – in-synch with the news cycle
• HUMANIZE – inspire conversation and action
• Digital Natives are the PARTICIPATION generation!
• 71% of consumers will help a brand promote their products and services if there is a good cause behind them.
• Be AUTHENTIC – clarity/transparency, compelling quality, authentically connected
• If you are phony, you won’t last 5 seconds
• Think with a long view. Build relationships.
• Don’t oversell.
• She shared this is an excellent native ad – viral like crazy, and barely mentioned the product. And it’s freaking hilarious: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEcZmT0fiNM

And thus ends Day Two!

Opening Keynote: The A.R.T. of Engagement

Brian Solis, Award-Winning Author, Futurist and Principal Analyst, Altimeter Group

Great keynote – Brian was very engaging and delivered some excellent information.

•  23% of major media time is on mobile, but only 4% of ad spend is mobile
• The “Connected Lifestyle” is on mobile, is VERY social, and is very real-time
• 1 Facebook Share has the potential value of 200 Facebook Likes
• Point of Sale revenue in grocery stores is plummeting – people are looking at their phones while waiting, instead of looking at magazines and candy
• Experience Architecture: describe the intended experience, then design for it
• In July 2014 58% of time spent with online retailers was on mobile
• Most web sites are designed for the people approving the project, not the consumer!
• A.R.T. Engagement: Action, Reactions, Transactions
• Your brand is defined by those who use it, and they’re much louder than what we say about ourselves
• We live in a strange world when somebody gets excited because they received good service
• 90% of people use multiple screens sequentially. 67% do so while shopping online (they have to in order to complete a transaction properly in many cases)
• “Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value.” – Albert Einstein

Panda, Penguin, Penalties, & More: Staying on Top of Algorithm Updates

Not NEARLY as dry as the title suggests. These guys were good.

Nate Dame, CEO and Founder, Propecta
Matt Koulas, Senior SEO Specialist, Grasshopper

• Google’s revenue from advertising has fallen below 90%; they are trying to compete with organic listings for clickshare
• Google’s SERP and algorithm updates are meant to benefit them, not us (advertisers).

(from http://moz.com/rand/google-seo-dont-actually-change-much/)

Google Updates and the Knee jerk reactions and Big Picture realities:

• Panda
  • Knee jerk: Stop scraping content, nuke low-quality content
  • Big Picture: Google hates poor user experiences
• Penguin
  • Knee jerk: Stop keyword stuffing.
  • Big Picture: Ranking factors not focused on user benefits will continue to decline in performance. Traditional on-page factors are on the decline in importance. Content must be share-able.
• Knowledge Graph
  • Knee jerk: Update our Wikipedia page!
  • Big Picture: Google would prefer to keep people on Google.com whenever possible.
• Pirate
  • Knee jerk: Don’t pirate content!
  • Big Picture: Don’t pirate content.
• Hummingbird
  • Knee jerk: Will it kill link building?
  • Big Picture: Just a back-end upgrade to the Google technology. Not an algorithm update. So remain calm.
• Pigeon
  • Knee jerk: Proximity to the City center
  • Big Picture: Local & standard SEO content is merged

• In the future, Google will probably focus on user experience and social signals as much as, if not more than, traditional ranking factors
• Target user intent, not just keywords; don’t be keyword-centrc! The keyword does nothing for the user.
• Create content with TOPICAL authority
• Create SEO landing pages that influencers will amplify (by sharing them, blogging about them, linking to them, etc)
• It is no longer acceptable not to have social sharing buttons on every page of your site, especially content pages
• Link building is being replaced by influence building
  • Create content worthy of linking to
  • Perform outreach worthy of a response
  • Build influencer relationships worthy of a second (and third) date

Diverse Paid Search Strategy Puts More Patients in Dr. Offices

Christine Bon, M.A., Manager, Digital Marketing and Communication, Advocate Health Care
Rod Holmes, Partner, Chicago Style SEO

This session focused fairly tightly on the medical industry. However, there was a nugget worth jotting down.

• Outbrain.com is a PPC vendor that promotes content.

Next Generation Website Usability: How to Optimize Your Site for the Best User Experience

Shari Thurow, Founder & SEO Director, Omni Marketing Interactive

I was hoping this session might break some new ground, but in fact it didn’t though some good info was shared.

• She discussed the User Experience Honeycomb (from http://www.melodiesinmarketing.com/2011/03/13/ux-user-experience-honeycomb-design-aspects/):

• Gray and especially dark gray is very difficult to read on a tablet and almost impossible to read on a phone
• Instead of a site map page, use a site index page. CDC has a great example: http://www.cdc.gov/az/a.html
• Findability is a combination of browse, search, and ask
• Findability has to be resolved before usability can be
• Cool tool I had read the $300 Million Button before but forgot about it: http://www.uie.com/articles/three_hund_million_button/
• When it comes to deciding what content to create, just ask your customers. They’ll tell you! Really, ASK them
• The Stanford Guidelines for Web Credibility remains highly relevant.

Improve Lead Quality to Increase ROI: Unclog Your Pipeline of Poor Leads

Mike Nierengarten, President, Obility Inc.
Jamie Rowe, Lead Generation Program Manager, ABM

This turned out to be 100% B2B, with a strong Salesforce.com component. Nevertheless, it was good to attend and provided value.

• Add a “contact me immediately” option to contact forms to fast-track hot leads/prospects
• VERY cool keyword research tool/toy: http://soovle.com/
• Another one: http://keywordtool.io/
• Competitor targeting is one of their best-performing campaigns
• Target competitor domains in Gmail Promotions
• Target compeitor’s followers on Facebook and YouTube

That’s all for today, friends!

ClickZ Live – Chicago

Whatever.