Ad Sales Blog

You've been "optimized" off the schedule

Has this happened to you?

A digital ad agency representing a Fortune 500 corporation sends you an RFP for a two week online campaign. You respond professionally and promptly. Like a shock, word comes back, they are in! The news travels through your organization like wild fire, "We just broke into a Fortune 500 Corporation's digital ad budget!" As dozens of congratulatory e-mails surge through your company the future looks bright. The media runs. The media stops running. There is no follow up RFP. You can't get the media buyer on the phone and she does not respond to your emails. When you finally hear back, the response is one sentence apologizing for the delay in getting back and a mention that your media will not be considered for the future of the campaign. Ouch! What happened?

Here is how someone at the digital agency described the same process:
"We had a three month campaign to buy media for. In the first two weeks we ran three different versions of the creative in several size configurations. We ran ads in a wide range of websites to test the response.

We ran the two week test, then optimized the buy.

Of the three creative treatments, the one offering a free download performed best. Of the three ad sizes the leader board size performed best. We tried 30 different websites and found that eleven performed best so we continued with them and dropped the rest."

On your next call.

Don’t be discouraged by this process. On the surface it may look like media evaluation is out of your control. Not true. While results rule the day, PEOPLE still evaluate the results. Your job is to help your buyer understand why a response from your unique visitor is more valuable, or at least different, from any other. When your respond to an online RFP make sure the buyer understands what kind of response they can expect from your media AND why that response is important for the campaign. Do this at the time of the sale, not later. Selling media is still selling. To be successful, you need to sell the unique value of your visitor and his or her response BEFORE it runs.

Why does your site exist?

Why does your site exist?

On a sales call, how do you answer this question? Many media reps jump into a canned pitch about the power of their print originated brand franchise and how their website extends the franchise online.

Baloney.

Media buyers, are driven by "What's in if it for me," and the best print brand does not guarantee online results.

The online word is results and measurement driven. You have to explain the functional benefit behind your online media first. Then go one to explain how this function can generate measurable results. Start with an explanation of what your website or online media DOES for it's visitors.

A great post on today's "Online Metrics Insider" lays out a guide for categorizing the functional benefit of a website for people who measure web performance. They need this as much as we do. If you can't functionally define a web visitor benefit you cannot evaluate a web sites result, nor can you explain the advertising benefit of that site to a media buyer.

From the post:

Your Web site exists for a purpose, perhaps multiple purposes, such as:

Providing information or data. Many sites entice people to visit for access to valuable, differentiated information or data. Traffic is then monetized primarily through site advertising. Many internal and external analytics packages will tell you where visitors come from and what they do on site, which, when combined with demographic information, can be used to qualify a specific audience to an advertiser.

Generating leads. A content asset is placed on a site and gated using a form. People fill out the form and download the asset. The information captured in the form is stored and used by the company that generated the leads or profitably sold to another company.

Selling products. The typical e-commerce model involves acquiring customers via some method or offer, providing a product catalog or landing page, and creating a strong call to action and funnel that persuades people to purchase a product.

Connecting people. The explosion of social networking sites where people connect to other people, interact with each other, and use widgets, apps, and data services, is a modern phenomenon in which many of us participate.

Read the entire post on the Media Post's "Online Metic Insider"

Alexa, the great attention getter!

Amazon.com owned Alexa, who claims to have had over 10 million downloads of its search tool bar since 1997, is here to help you get the attention of your client who is ignoring you. To do this you will use their site in a way it was not originally intended.

Alexa provides a nifty chart making interface that allows you to type in the names of up to five web sites, hit the "compare sites" button and zingo! a comparative web traffic chart appears. Cool!

Alexa's traffic rankings are not based on actual site usage reports but on the usage patterns of Alexa Tool bar users over a rolling 3 month period. A site's ranking is based on a combined measure of reach and page views. As with any system like this the larger the traffic on the sites you are tracking, the more accurate. For small sites with light traffic accuracy can be questionable. 

On a call:

This traffic measurement tool is a good way to compare your sites traffic with competitive sites. But there is a better way to use it.

Many of your clients care more about their competition than their customers, and all of your clients want to hear more about their competition than what you are trying to sell them. So use Alexa to compare your customers site traffic to those of it's competitors.

The chart above, compares site traffic of Best Buy, Circuit City, and Shoplocal. Don't ya think the media the buyer at Circuit City would find this interesting? Hey look at that big post Thanksgiving traffic spike. How come the Thanksgiving spike did not carry Shoplocal.com as far? This will be a great conversation starter. Then comes the logical question to ask the Circuit City media buyer..."Do need more expose through your offerings to compete with Best Buy?"

Go to Alexa.com and type in the name of the client you want to call on and their competitors. Now you can start a dialog with some information they will want to see!

go to the Alexa website