Performance Design : Part 1 : Mailer Design

Ever wondered why a registration page design is the way it is. Why certain times a advertising mailer in you mail box has a certain format. 

I will try and make design decision easier for you w.r.t digital marketing collateral being designed by you for a performance campaign. 

First Off the block is "Mailer Design".

Why am I choosing mailer design, because in India this tends to still work the best when it comes to performance campaigns. 

Based on experience , here is my take on it.

Name : " The Data Gen" 

The above Wire-Frame has been used as one of the most effective form based mailer schematics. This type works best with lead generation campaigns.This design gives the user visual information and a brief description about the offering before showing any inclination to fill in the form .
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Name : "Footer Shooter"...

A very interesting wire-frame, this design enables the user to go thru all the details in a very detailed manner. I had recently seen a mailer by a real-estate company that had used this wire-frame. The Most interesting part of this mailer design is the simplicity of the mailer and also the user does not have to scroll all the way back up before filling in the form.

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Name : " Deal-a-rator"

The new entrant in the mailer design format, specially with the entry on the deal sites. The user gets the deal of the day and an opportunity to get registered & avail the offer instantaneously. Have seen some very interesting results with this design implementation.

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Name : "Smart eCommerce"

This is one mailer design that has been abused by eCommerce sites to the core. One way this can work is, if the user interests and buying data can be integrated to the mailing system.This will enable generation of email specific to the user resulting into better response. 

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Name : "The BIG Daddy"

Similar to the one above, the only difference being that this one should be used a little less frequently. This design should be used for a very very special offer or coupon code distributions. Typically a little heavy on the delivery side, so optimize the images in this implementation.

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Name : "The Flyer"

Interestingly this format works best for destination Marketing & Holidays, as this is totally about the visual delight, nothing more... nothing less.Usually take the user to a page where more information is displayed.

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Having given some design aspects please also look at technology before sending out mailers. 

1. Check your spam score regularly.
2. Get white-listed servers for doing mailing.
3. Get a third party tracking solution for get open rate / click thru and conversions. 
4. Map user interest based on clicks and visits on the site.
5. Use your Facebook & Twitter connect logos @ the bottom of the mailer enabling one more medium to connect to the user.

Note : 

Optimize your mailer on the screen resolution based on the screen size available in the email service providers mail display area. 

Eg. 

Hope you have a great time

Happy mailing. 

 

The Magic Number : On Site Conversion : OSC

Another day another term.... OSC . On site conversion or visitor to conversion ratio.

The best way to gauge a campaign is the OSC Number. Now when I say gauge the campaign it is meant for the complete 360 degree of the campaign.From Communication / Interaction / engagement to fulfillment / gratification can all be measured by OSC.

Don't believe me, think of it as your test result score... ah!! you are getting it now... 

All your preparation / study / notes / exam paper written sheet and then the teachers interaction with the answer sheet and the final score all reflect on the entire process you followed before appearing for the test .

The result was the final score to that preparation. 

So OSC has a similar impact. 

So you are still skeptical, as to why I am harping on this number... My explanation is as follows. 

OSC defines the following only "the visitor to conversion ratio" but on a whole it also says lots of things about the campaign, communication, website, quality of traffic, pricing of the product being offered or even the navigation of the website. 

A good / high OSC would mean

1. The banner communication is correct insuring that the user is getting the call for action very clearly.
2. The navigation on the site is easy enough for the user to navigate thru to the offering and complete the desired action.
3. The on page communication is also interesting enough for the user to engage with the brand.

I am saying this because of the following user journey.

Now if any of the parameters are not correct your OSC will get hit. Even a slight drop can be an area of concern. 

On the other had this number can be used for A/B testing of communication / navigation / user flow / pricing etc.A slight jump in this number can change your desired action cost.

Having said that, don't get over board with it, it is just an indicator but a very important one so do keep a watch.

Buying Efficiencies : Continued ... CPA ( Cost Per action)

So we are back to the basic again. 

Buying CPA or Cost per Action / Acquisition. Now people would say, what are we talking about here, this is the last currency that you can buy digital media on, so what efficiency are we talking about. 

People understand that CPM / CPC inventories are where efficiencies will yield better results with CPA. So what would CPA efficiencies yield. 

Good question my dear Watson. But the answer resides with the question it self. 

CPA or cost per action is often confused with cost per sale(CPS) campaigns. That should not be the case. Action = any fundamental or desired user behavior predefined by the advertiser.  so it could be any on the followings 

1. Cost per sale 
2. Cost per registration / signup 
3. Cost per download 
4. Cost per resume upload 
5. Cost per lead
6. Etc.

or Hell.. it could well be

1. Cost per visitor on the site.

So here are the some of the tricks of the trade that you should know while dealing with CPA purchases.

It all about efficiencies so think of this all the way.

1. Cost per lead.
1. They all say, a lead is a lead is a lead...I say "qualify them". Use every trick in the trade to do so as this is the starting block for the business that works on leads. 
2. Qualified lead will drive efficiencies all the way to better sales. 
3. Better quality lead with a higher intent will get at-least 30-40% efficiencies on the call center.[the call center people will love you for this.]
2. Cost per registration 
1. Registration = future distributions lists so ensure that they are reachable 
2. Registration data should be slice-able.
3.  Cost per sale 
1. First rule : Attribution has to be present. with out it, Its a "no go".
2. Do a balancing act with first time buyer and repeat buyer.
3. Handle repeat buyers a little differently.

  So what are the validation process that you can incorporate while you are doing cost per action performance campaign. 

1. Voice Call authentication 
2. SMS Verification 
3. CLIP based verification
4. Email Verification 
5. Captcha Verification
6. IP validation 
7. Using Facebook connect

So let me try and explain a few of them and the various  nuances of each verifications process.

1. Voice call Authentication : In this the user is called on his phone and pre recorded message is played, which has certain cal fro action like " Would you want our sales representative to call you" etc. and also disqualification lines  like "press 3 if you dont want our sales representative to call you."

This will yield you interested parties from the campaign in which the Intent to engage with the brand is very high.

Some issues : Due to TRAI guidelines, calling can only be initiated if you are closing a sales process, so only some type of companies are allowed to do so like travel agents , airlines etc.
[NOTE : Pls check the updated TRAI guidelines before implementing]

2. SMS Verification : In this the process user is sent an SMS while he is registering on the site. the SMS carries a pin code that the users needs to enter at the time of registration. this insures that the number in genuine and is reachable for future communications. This process is also governed by the TRAI guidelines.
[NOTE : Pls check the updated TRAI guidelines before implementing]

3. CLIP based verification  : or "Caller Line Identification Presentation" this has been used in a lot of places internationally but only came to limelight recently in india. here the user has to dial a number which captures the CLIP and informs the server that "A" specific number called. In this some bit of coding is required at the server side to insure that the number called information is notified to the session in which the user is registering enabling him to get verified. A live example of this can be found on "http://timesdeal.com/campdgm.php"

4. Email Verification : This is pretty standard procedure, user is sent a link on his email id to verify the email address. "Interestingly I have seen with one of the advertisers that this process has increased his sale thru rate, not sure why but it has. Maybe it is to do with the fact that user has to log into an other system to verify and he would only do so if has a desperate need for the services being offered."
 
5. Captca & IP validation : I am sure you are aware of these, they eliminate the use of BOTS or automated tools to register. The IP validation is also used for elimination of clicks that come from the same IP address on a COST per VISITOR model.

 
6. Facebook Connect : An interesting way to eliminate all kinds of issues this also gives a lot of insight into the user profile. the only question is that the offering has to be superb enough to get the user to sigh on using Facebook connect as it can potentially give the advertiser a lot of information some times even more information than desired.
 

Pls note verification process in a CPA kind of efficiencies buying is important as it enables the better conversions / sales / interaction / engagement with the user.
 

Happy buying & a great campaign execution. 

Clicks Vs Visitors : Sounds Fishy.... what goes unreported

As digital marketing professionals this is one of the most biggest unsolved mysteries of digital advertising.

The clicks I buy don't result into visitor on the Analytic side... I am sure you would have thought of this as well even if you have run a small insignificant campaign on the Internet.

Some of the most common answers are like this.

1. Its your analytic tool that is under reporting 
2. Are you tracking the visitors using unique parameters.
3. I dont think you are using a paid tool, the free tool is not very efficient / sufficient. 
4. This is a common problem !!
5. I think you need to check the code, talk to your tech team
6. you should use analytic only as a  indicator and not precise.

Having said that I am now embarking upon a journey to seek out the real truth behind this mystery.

Tools are packed & ready... let us see what searching for this yield on the all seeing eye. "GOOGLE".

and the lightning strikes.

Read this.
http://support.google.com/googleanalytics/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=63917

I am not surprised by some of the answers on this. But even after doing all this I have seen advertisers cribbing about the discrepancy of up to 50%.

So my mystery study went on to see what other people think about this.

This is what i found out.

Article one .

http://www.receptional.com/blogs/advertising/click-vs-visits-why-discrepancy

Article two.

An old one this only says that the problem has been in existence for a long time.

http://groups.google.com/a/googleproductforums.com/forum/#!category-topic/adwords/campaign-management/x7UlTKT4tcA

As back as 2007 people were discussing this.

http://www.webmasterworld.com/google_adwords/3397109.htm

On SEOMOZ  a recent discussion.


http://www.seomoz.org/q/google-adwords-clicks-v-s-google-analytics-visits

One more on seomoz.

http://www.seomoz.org/q/can-anyone-explain-why-there-is-a-disparity-in-paid-search-clicks-vs-visits-in-google-analytics-and-other-analytic-platforms

Still no answers.... the mystery deepens... why and why on earth can technology not solve this.

I saw people saying things like.

1. I dont Know 
2. Its a common problem 
3. Maybe this, maybe that.... 

But no body had a concrete solution.

So here is my take on the age old mystery. Do test out and share results. I have done the same for a few campaigns that we mange and the results are quite promising

1. Get your analytic code way up on the html execution order. First line after body tag.<this will eliminate the question of people navigating to other pages before the complete page loads>
2. Get IP address along with date time stamp of each visit on your site. < This will eliminate the issue of multiple clicks per user in a short span of time>
3. Remove All third party scripts from the initial page load.  I don't know if you have noticed on your status bar , if you are using third party ad-servers the amount of time that take to load the banner or some ad unit.<This will eliminate the load time issue>
1. See that all third party scripts are loaded after real content of the page along with the navigation has loaded.By then your analytics scripts should also have fired.
2. Facebook connect, some times can take a lot of time to load
3. twiter feeds and other RSS feeds can also take some time to load
4. Active API's with third party servers can take time to load
5. Load adserving tools after the page is loaded.
4. Always get your server-logs out from the cold storage of the server and run them thru some log report management tool . <Not sure if shared hosting website provide this, but asking wont kill you.> 

The mystery machine is still on this trail, will post update of new adventures and log reports... 

Brand Bidding : To "do" and not to"do"

As digital marketing professionals I am sure you would come across this critical question some time or the other.

"Brand Bidding" on search engine marketing.

I dont believe there is a straight forward answer. "Why!! you ask" ??

ok. lets do some soul searching . 

some of the thoughts that come to your mind are as follows.

On the bright side

1. Better - if its me : the potential of  robbing you of your sales and the issue of customer loyalty is very high if competition starts bidding on your brand name.
2. Ads are ads. : One good thing about advertising is that you control the message and you can take the user straight to the offer page and provide a better user journey.
3. Link saturation: Increase the probability of the user to click on your band, by bidding on your brand you potentially double your opportunity.
4. Higher top of the mind recall: by adding an other link on the search page you are letting the user know you are serious about your business and he can just do a one step shopping. If required provide a clear choice to the user and reducing distraction

On the down side. 

1. Anyone can get a good CTR of your own brand keyword : Ask any one who runs a brand based PPC campaign the CTR's would always be off the charts compared to non brand keywords.
2. Conversions for sure will be higher on your brand term : Same hold's true for conversion.
3. Money Spent = Money Spent : If your brand keyword get you the first link on the search page natural listing then why spend money to get the same traffic. 
4. being mislead : your agency might mislead you on believing that your cost per conversion is very low. ;-)

here is the puzzle that you need to solve before talking a call. 

1. Are you eroding your "Own" margins by spending monies on your "own" brand bidding.
2. Are you able to attribute sales to the last vist and also see the user journey. eg.three clicks on non brand and the last one was brand.(it will help you get out of brand bidding after some time).
3. Are you ethically bidding for other companies brand keyword.
4. by adding brand bidding your overall CPA will go lower than management expectation...[For some this is important.]

So what's your pick... To do or not to...

let me know, I am still trying to figure this one out... HUh!!

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If you have the answer : think of this one .... Should you allow your partners to start bidding on your brand keyword.... \\!!//