One of my favorite ads is this curious little classified ad alleged to have appeared in a London newspaper around 1914 to recruit crew members for Ernest Shackleton’s famed expedition to the Antarctic:

This ad was targeted squarely at men of adventure willing to risk life and limb to earn fame during the era of the great explorers. It has clear, dramatic benefits, filters out the faint of heart and has an implied call to action of applying at Shackleton’s residence. Any online ad that can capture the same passion and energy as this offline ad has done will certainly perform well.Well-crafted online text ads share a number of common characteristics:Well-targetedSpeaks to audienceClear, dramatic benefitsFiltering languageSuccinct headlineSimply stated offer

via Back to School Time: A Refresher Course on Writing Great Ads.

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This event will be live on August 13, 2008 at 1:00PM EDT.

In this webinar, marketers will learn how to increase their spend on SEM to dramatically boost sales and branding, while maintaining – or even increasing – overall ROI. Wister Walcott, VP of products at Marin Software, will outline five simple and practical strategies to help you “spend more and spend better” on your paid search marketing campaigns.He’ll explain why SEM consistently delivers the highest bang for your buck – some studies show that SEM converts at twice the rate of email and banners – and show marketers how to obtain the highest ROI on paid search, even while increasing spend. In these unpredictable economic times, it pays to invest in the marketing methods that deliver the best sales results. So sign up now for this informative and insightful webcast, and learn how to get more out of your search marketing spend today.

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Update: One really cool feature is the ability to assign a name or any moniker to an IP address. Certain companies visit my FaxChronicle.com website that are in that industry and I like to know how often they do. Again, this is a great product. I cannot recommend it enough. Try it out now.

Link to User home | Performancing Metrics

Technorati tags: tracking, analytics, sem, performancing, google, spy, visitor tracking, IP logging, log tracking, behavioral tracking

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Of course as I always say, you then have to test and track the value of the lead or customer. Make sure it all ties together.

The unique visitors data was more “traditional” or “predictable in its results.

Local markets aren’t created equally. Nielsen//NetRatings tracks the top 10 markets by time spent online and unique visitors for the month of April.

The data are part of the MegaView local set. Nielsen//NetRatings uses a random-digit-dial panel and metering technology to report audience measurement and advanced tracking.

Source: Top 10 Local Markets online, April 2007

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Great content alone doesn’t cut it. Marketers need to put their online video content to work across a number of different channels. With promotional campaigns, high-quality destination sites and custom channel branding, marketers can increase user interaction and participation while communicating their message to a wider and more engaged audience than ever before.

The real challenge of online video is about what (as in what makes good video content, if you don’t have good content then you’re toast anyways) and it’s about where: figuring out how and where to use online video, while still maintaining the integrity of brand. If done right, there are a variety of ways for companies to distribute and display online video to grab an audience and retain their attention.

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A great example of a recent successful promotional contest is the collaboration JVC developed with VMIX. VMIX provided a platform and a JVC custom channel for the “Create Our Commercial Contest,” which asked individuals to submit self-produced ads that they filmed with their new JVC Everio camera to the VMIX JVC channel.

The online video contest produced more than 80 quality entries for JVC, garnered national print and web publicity for JVC and the winner, and ultimately provided a major grassroots marketing campaign for JVC, targeting lifestyle, college, retail and events. The winner of the online promotional contest received $2,500 and saw his commercial aired on Spike TV.

Source: iMedia Connection: Veni, Video, Vici: Conquer Online Video

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Salesforce.com will become the first on-demand reseller of Google’s AdWord platform under a strategic alliance to help both companies win small- to mid-size ad accounts.

The alliance, first reported in the Wall Street Journal last month, will allow Salesforce.com to be a distribution channel for AdWords in 43 countries, the companies said in a statement released today. Financial terms of the deal weren’t disclosed.

“This deal changes the competitive landscape,” said Jeff Kaplan, an analyst at Think Strategies. “It gives additional firepower for both companies to expand and target smaller customers who didn’t have access to these kinds of services before.” It also puts pressure on Microsoft in the ad business, he added. “Salesforce’s entire set of business applications is fair game, and this is a powerful attraction to small companies who find their way onto the platform via AdWords.”

Salesforce Group Edition featuring Google AdWords is available today in a five-user edition for a 30-day promotional price of $600 a year, including a $50 AdWords credit. The $50 AdWords promotional credit is available to new AdWords advertisers in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico only. (The list price is $1,200 per year.)

Source: Salesforce.com, Google in AdWords Alliance

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When panicked pet owners typed “pet food recall” into search engines during the recent contamination crisis, the paid results included affected and unaffected brands hoping to reassure consumers, plus lawyers, news outlets and even politicians trawling for plaintiffs, readers and votes.

Bounce is among the package-goods brands that are beginning to buy into search advertising.

But there was one even odder interloper — Procter & Gamble Co.’s Bounce dryer sheets. Bounce wasn’t trying to capitalize on the misfortune of sibling brands Iams and Eukanuba. It was simply running a previously scheduled ad around the word “pet” to drive pet owners to BounceEverywhere.com to show how to use dryer sheets to get hair off clothes.

Here’s the money quote though for this industry and in fact everyone marketing online that wants to do search. Its a difficult thing to manage and if you throw the IT department at it as some might suggest, it will fail. You need a strategic mind.

One problem companies have is figuring out who owns search, Mr. Blackshaw said. Agencies aren’t necessarily equipped or required to create search ads, he said, and it’s often unclear internally whether marketing or information-technology staff is best-equipped to manage search.

Source: Advertising Age – Digital – Package-Goods Marketers Finally Find Value in Search

Technorati tags: advertising, sem, search advertising, google, adwords, yahoo, msn, ask.com

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