Ad Sales Blog

Recommend a URL in the next ad

One way to sell more print ad space is to encourage your advertisers to add a campaign and magazine specific URL to their next print ad. It is one extra step. But here is what happens; a readers sees the ad and is motivated to search the Internet for more information. By using a campaign and magazine specific URL the advertiser can track which campaign and which magazine drove the reader to their website.

A post on Clickz by James Hering offered tips on how to use campaign specific URLs. Hering references research that indicates many do not like to enter long URLs with a lot of extra slash marks. As result, some marketers now favor campaign specific URLs, often based on the the tag line of the campaign:

Examples include:

Burger King: haveityourway.com and subservientchicken.com

Mitsubishi: seewhathappens.com

Subaru: need-desire.com

Universal Studios: iwantmyvacation.com

Lincoln Mercury: oneandonlyclearance.com

Dish Network: stopfeedingthepig.com

Audi: neverfollow.com

Now add the magazine initials or just a number to designate a specific media and your client can have it all. Is it better to use a custom campaign URL or extensions of the brand URL? Using the brand URL, of course, reinforces the brand. Which approach is better? The answer: the one that gets your advertiser to include a magazine specific reference so your media gets tracked!

Read Hearing's column on Clickz

Keep the “pure plays” from cleaning your clock!

It is happening right now in many many industries and sectors. Web only competitors, "pure play" online publishers, are sneaking in and winning ad sales away from the online products of print publishers. How can they do this? Don’t we have an insurmountable advantage by having a print product continually advancing our brand in the physical world? How do the pure play Internet companies even stand a chance?

"Pure plays" routinely beat the products of print based publishers because they design a new newsletter, webinar, web section, or website, by starting with a clean sheet of paper. Since they have no print vehicle to get them started the "pure plays" design a media product desperate for attention. Every click through they get has is funneled from somewhere else so there has to be an amazingly good reason for a visit. This “clean sheet of paper” approach results in a high emphasis on focus and functionality. It takes an extremely sharp content focus to stand out against the millions of online destinations and when a visitor arrives there must be a high functionality that keeps visitors coming back.               

Print people are spoiled. Too often when a magazine launches a web product the editorial focus the same or similar to the positioning as the print product. As for functionality, too often the mission statement is, “To extend the magazine brand onto to the Internet.” Big mistake. Your website needs its own editorial focus, and mission. While it should compliment your print product it cannot just extend it.

To compete, pretend your print product does not exist, then ask, "Given all online destinations and content on the web, why should anyone visit my website?" To beat the pure play publishers, you have to think like one. You too have to start with that clean sheet of paper and work your way forward.

Google revenue to pass the nation's main commercial TV Channels...in the UK

Will the Google's revenues pass those of the main commercial networks in the US? Plausible or not this news clip broadcast on the BBC late last year gives us all a lot to think about.

From the BBC:

"Google is about to overtake the UK's main commercial TV channels in terms of advertising revenue, a study says. The internet search giant's 2006 UK revenues are expected to surpass Channel Four's predicted ? 800m. Hugh Pym reports."

Click to go to the BBC website and view the clip

Try this URL if the link does not work:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/player/nol/newsid_6110000/newsid_6111500/6111524.stm?bw=nb&mp=rm&nol_storyid=6111524&news=1

Magazine and search synergy

A study was released today from Jupiter Research sponsored by iProspect that examines the relationship between search and off line media.

This is an extremely valuable study. It proves that print (magazines and newspapers) is the top off line web traffic driver that results in a sale.

Key findings:

Chart #1: 57% of web users say search is more important than last year.

No surprise to see that search is of growing importance to on line users, but what may be surprising is the importance of off line media driving traffic.

Chart #2: Two thirds of the on line search user population has been driven to search by off line channels. Television and word of mouth lead with print as third.

Chart #3: But when Jupiter Research isolated just the searches that resulted in a sale, print and word of mouth clobbered the others.

On a call.

For media planners you might use a simple version of the study by printing the article from Direct magazine.

For marketing types download the entire study at the link below. I love the story the three graphs I posted here can make on a call. The first graph gets a positive response from marketers. Yep, everyone will agree that search is becoming more important. Nodding heads.

The second graph looks like to you are giving it up to television. You look very noble. Television is the top offline traffic builder.

Then, zing!, The third graph brings it home. Print drives the most off line traffic that results in a sale!

To make the point stick you can talk about how print is a more considered media that engages potential purchasers and provides a permanent record for reflection, evaluation, and holding in your hand while you type in a URL. 

If you work on a B-to-B publication you may choose to just use the first and third graphs as television is typically not part of your fight. Either way you can access the entire survey, including methodology through the link below:

Download the entire study

Video: iProspect CEO interviewed on the study

Anecdote to put search in place

   Here is an anecdote to share with advertisers who spend more money on search (and less with you) than they should. In the July issue of Practical Webdesign, tech columnist Dave Chaffey (www.davechaffey.com) was asked to comment on Google's purchase of the web ad serving giant DoubleClick,

"Stats show we only spend around three percent of our web time on search engines, and Google sees the remaining 97 per cent as a massive revenue opportunity. I think Google is really interested in the DoubleClick Advertising Exchange, which will give it a way to launch its own network for display advertising--one that won't work on a keyword basis , but by targeting demographics."

This is a great anecdote to share for two reasons:

1. Google , the unquestioned online search king, is extremely interested in web display advertising. For your advertisers who think search is the only online play tell them that Google, just spent $3.1 Billion (with a "B") to buy the leading online ad display serving company.   

2. Search only accounts for three percent of web usage time. Three percent! If "time spent" determined the proportion of dollars spent, "search" would barely make the media buy! But don't get carried away. Search is a valuable tool that your advertisers should be using. The way you get back your dollars that search is siphoning off is to put search into perspective. Sharing how little actual time is spent on search helps do this.         

Losing media sales to Google? Try this.

When your advertisers analyze how they get their web business it is easy to give more credit to search than it deserves. When the "last click" before the sale or lead is through a search portal, "search" often gets  credit for bringing in the whole sale.

I've seen many advertisers become so transfixed with search's  seeming power to generate leads and sales that they put all their money into it dropping all other media spend. But hey, that customer had to get the idea to type something into that search engine before it ever showed up as a lead!

Now, a new study from Atlas research lays this out cold. It is multiple media that combine to achieve the best desired result, not search alone. The study shows that when search is combined with other media, impact doubles.  Search plays an important role, don't dis that. But to keep your media business you need to put this into perspective. Search can't do it alone!

The study is called “How Overlap Impacts Reach, Frequency and Conversions”
Link to a fantasic article on Clikz that explains the study

Link a download page at Atlas for a 2 page PDF study summary as well as see a video   

Link to a 2 page PDF summary of the study

Use my "Google index" to measure your online involvement

When I start working with a publisher looking to develop/sell online products I ask, "Are you losing business to Google?" The answer immediately tells me the level of engagement of their sales staff in the online world.

I call it my "Google index." If the publishers are hearing conversations with advertisers about losing ad dollars to search, I assume their salespeople are engaged deeply enough in the selling dialog to understand that:

1. Selling online media is not just about placing ads
2. Online there are many competitors, besides other ad sellers fighting for your ad dollars

Today, if media sales people are not engaged in a broader marketing discussion with their advertisers, they will miss online sales opportunities, and in the process, miss finding out where the ad dollars are actually going (some to Google).

This problem comes from how we have been training media sales people for the past 100 years. Back in June 2001, in the Folio Magazine article "Don't Sell Print Against the Web", I asked publishers to rethink how their salespeople define their turf. If salespeople think their job is to fight for a bigger slice of their advertiser's "marketing mix" they limit themselves. 

The Internet has blown that away. Salespeople need engage in a dialog that includes any place their advertiser touches one of their customers. Why? Because you now compete with the your advertiser's internal web budget for your "ad dollars."

An advertiser could run banner ads on your site to promote a new product, or build up their own site to include with a viral marketing program. Different ways to spend the same ad dollars. Wake up! You have to start talking to them about how they are using their own website to touch customers. 

In addition, many online products we sell offer benefits that move beyond traditional marketing areas and into customers service (custom newsletters that reduce costly personal tech support), customer relationship management (webinars that maintain customer contact during slow buying times), customer retention programs (sponsored podcasts that engage customers), and even training.      

To compete in this larger world, media sales people need to expand the scope of their customer questions, and the dialog that follows, beyond the "marketing mix," into anywhere your advertiser touches one of their customers.

Stop asking about your advertiser's marketing mix, start asking about your advertiser's, "total customer interface."

My 2001 Folio article may be dated by Web standards, but I am proud to have put the idea out first, back in those ancient times...

PS: I know a lot of people didn't read it because I still meet publishers who don't know that Google is eating their lunch!

Click to read the Folio article: