Building a List

The first and most difficult step in setting up an email marketing campaign is gaining a list of people who want to hear more about what you have to offer them. Starting from scratch can be intimidating, since you have to strike a careful balance between urging visitors to sign up, but you don't want to come across as too forceful. Here are a few ways you can build the email list:

-      Online Signup - Place a sign up form on your blog or website

-      Social Media – Request followers to sign up through tweets or Facebook news

-      Email signature – Include a link for signing up to your email list in your email signature

-      Offline Signup – place a clipboard on the counter in your business

All of these have their advantages and disadvantages, but the common ingredient is time and patience.

Sending Emails

Email services such as MailChimp or Constant Contact allow you to easily email thousands of people at a time. These services will provide templates for emails that are easy to set up even if you are not a savvy web developer. If your business is located in the United States, it is important that you follow all of the rules in the CAN-SPAM act to avoid facing penalties. A good automated service will help you stay within the guidelines. The most important part to remember is that you must give people the ability to opt out of receiving any additional emails.

Integrating with Display

Now that you know how to get your email marketing started, next you have to integrate your emails with display ads. Basically, you want to create a virtual loop between the display campaign, your website, and your email campaign. First, display ads serve as little online billboards that catch the attention of new prospects and direct them to your website. Once they are on your site, your email signup form will capture their contact info and add them to the email marketing list. The emails that you send will then urge them to click back to your website.  Anyone who visits your website is tagged with a cookie, allowing the display ads to be retargeted to them as they browse the rest of the web, reminding them that you are there.

Studies done by Smart Insights show just how powerful advertising campaigns combined with email marketing can be:

1. The combined use of email and display advertising increases advertising recall by 13%

2. Email advertising is more welcomed than other forms of advertisement, improving the reach of campaigns

3. Email and display campaigns boost web traffic by a factor of four

When you combine your email marketing strategies with your display advertising campaigns, not only can you reach more of your target audience quicker, you will have a more successful time interacting with your customers and increasing traffic to your main page. Remember if you give people high quality content there is a higher chance that they will click through to your website, thereby keeping the loop going and giving you the opportunity to grow your relationship with your audience.

For more insights on how to make display advertising a powerful part of your online marketing efforts, check out the blog at Vantage Local’s website. Vantage Local is the leader in online display campaigns for locally-minded advertisers.

Contextual Targeting

Contextual targeting applies context clues in search queries made by a potential audience in an effort to determine the needs and desires of the constituents. The primary technology it uses is through natural language programs.

Geographic Targeting

As the name implies, this type of targeting makes assumptions based on physical map location as well as a determination of the target's IP address. This type of targeting is frequently used in online political advertising.

Retargeting/Remarketing

This type of targeting takes advantage of a target's past behavior, namely ads that worked on this internet browser in the past. By finding what previously draws the user's attention, a strategy to meet their needs can be formulated.

Automated CPC Optimization

This strategy automatically purchases advertisements based on all available data. The goal is to find a good balance between purchasing advertisement space and data concerning the target audience.

Audience Targeting

Similar to the retargeting/remarketing method, audience target takes it a step further and specifically observing a viewer's past purchases and other online activity. Typically, audience targeting information can be acquired by an online data aggregation company.

Voter Data Targeting

Voter Data Targeting is a type of advertisement strategy that relies on a target audience's voter registration data. Typically, their voter registration data will be matched with a company that provides databases full of information, which in turn can be used to find appropriate audiences for your product. This type of targeting is particularly common with online political advertising.

When considering your target audience(s), be sure to leave nothing to chance. Ask yourself these questions in an effort to better assess your audience:

• How big is your projected audience?
• How much money can you spend on advertisement creation and distribution?
• Is your ad flight lengthy? And if so, is it appropriate to the audience?
• How accurately does your research relate to your campaign?

Consider working with an experienced provider like Vantage Local for your online display campaign.

Tracking in mobile requires some clever workarounds.

Why isn’t mobile the same as online?

Well, first you have to understand that tracking in generally done with the use of cookies. A wonderfully anonymous, easily-deleted, and low-file-size technology that is widely used on the desktop internet.

But there are two types of cookies. There are first-party cookies, which are the ones that remember your password when you log in to a website (and therefore keep you from having to re-enter your username on every mobile site you log into). They’re called ‘first party’ because they’re set on the same domain as the website you’re visiting, and have a very high acceptance rate (95%).

Third-party cookies -- the ones that advertisers place on websites -- track unique visitors across multiple domains or pages where you might visit. You might notice that you get ‘chased around’ the web by an ad for a product you may have viewed recently -- those are third party cookies at work. In that example, third-party cookies are being used for retargeting.

Apple doesn't make it easy

The Safari mobile web browser, which now accounts for about 25% of mobile web browsing (see Browser Wars infographic) by default does not allow third-party cookie tracking to be set. On top of that, Apple is currently deprecating UDIDs (unique device identifiers), which historically served as a workaround to third-party cookies for advertisers. This has left the industry scrambling for new ways to track an individual without using the hardware information.

Why is this important? First, because apps and mobile websites are two different sandboxes, without a way to tie the two together, one person on a single device can appear as two different people. Second, conversion tracking requires the ability to ‘follow’ a user from a click either on an ad to within an application to an advertiser’s mobile website, or from a mobile web ad to an app download action.

Some clever workarounds

Tracking in either of these directions can be tricky, even if passing unique identifiers in the click URL. It’s a testament to the great people in our industry that the mobile advertising business has solid solutions as workarounds to these challenges.

Because these two methods for tracking are so important to running a successful digital campaign, there are some great workarounds. At Mobile Theory, we have a close partnership with Collider Media for data and audience targeting. Our workaround for targeting involves using a common login identifier. Once a user logs in to a mobile website or app, Collider can recognize which user has logged in and target accordingly.

In a way, it’s a connection of the online and mobile spheres to find a common anonymous identity. That identity, once matched, can reveal rich, anonymous user data that combines both online and mobile browsing activity to develop a deep, comprehensive view of the user that can be used to serve relevant advertising to unique individuals.

For conversion tracking, one approach that is quite simple is to not try to work around the third party cookie issue and use first-party cookies instead. To do this, you simply configure the cookie to be set by the first-party website for the advertiser. We can either work with the client to set these up or use in-house landing pages. In this way, we can use first-party cookies to track the behavior of a user that clicks on an ad in an app all the way through to a conversion on the landing page, creating a bridge between the actions.

A mobile-specific approach to tracking & targeting

We’ve noticed that there seems to be a lot of misinformation on the subject of how all tracking and targeting works in mobile and what exactly makes it different from online. Since the mobile medium is growing faster than any new medium in history, and will soon eclipse online in terms of usage, it’s important to discuss and collaborate on how technologies and approaches that work in one medium require a different approach in the other.

The important thing to remember is that mobile is truly a distinct environment from online, and as a result, requires its own individual tactics and approach. The good news is there are a number of unique mobile-specific targeting and tracking approaches that work very well to accomplish marketers’ goals.

Retargeting is a hugely valuable tool for retailers. Here’s a simple scenario: A consumer comes to the site, thereby expressing interest in products and services in a manner by which there can be no confusion.  It’s a data point that is inarguable.  They do some research, perhaps make some shopping basket entries, and then don’t finish their business.  For whatever reason a transaction didn’t take place.

That’s where retargeting kicks in. By cookie-ing the consumer, you now can target them offsite and encourage them to complete their purchase.  With the advent of dynamic creative, ads can be tailored specifically to the exact products the consumer was looking at. These ads work at conversion rates comparable to search advertising. This technique must be in the quiver of every online retailer on the Internet.  By the way, since it is so successful, there are dozens of online media companies that feature this as a core offering. Underdog Media is one, as are Criteo, Dotomi and Fetchback.

Great. It works. Or does it? What I found though is a glitch in the system. Many of the companies offering retargeting don’t frequency cap the follow up ads. What that means is that when a consumer leaves a retailer site they have the potential of being inundated with ads following them virtually anywhere they go. The conundrum, in my opinion, is how to drive results and support the significant investment a company has made in establishing their brand. Reminding a consumer about a product’s features, making a special follow up price offer, even cross selling and upselling are all important techniques to embrace. If it’s not done in a respectful way, though, the retailer will drive the consumer away from their brand for good.

We have to make this both about the immediate transaction and about a brand relationship. We must start talking about lifetime value of a consumer, supporting the costs of driving consumers to the site in the first place, treating consumers with respect. There is a lot of conversation about privacy, and this fits right in. Respect is the core of the privacy conversation.

Let’s start talking about “polite retargeting“ folks, where we take advantage of the benefits of retargeting and do so in a way that works for all parties. Trust me, if retailers start to attribute their loss of brand value to uncapped retargeting, the results will not be good for anyone. Let’s use engaging advertising to do the job, do so with appropriate frequency capping and make this a practice that will continue to be part of every online retailers marketing programs. I’ll be asking retailers how many times they think they should reach out to the customer when they leave their store. I know that the answer will not be “infinity.”

I am starting to think about getting a new car. I have an Infiniti that I love, but which is rear-wheel drive and not making me comfortable in this snowy winter. So I'm looking for AWD and, because I don't drive a lot of highway anymore, a hybrid. Because I love my car, I went to infiniti.com to see if they had a hybrid.

They didn't. But they do have an AWD and, out of curiosity and a bit of brand loyalty, I went through the configuration process. At the end, I realized that really hybrid is the way I want to go.

Now, though, pretty much wherever I go on that computer, I am served ads for the car I configured and abandoned. From adwords to display to tickers on youtube, it's all infiniti. Now, this is doing one job, which is to keep infiniti on my mind. But the ads they are serving me are all awareness ads. They are not treating me as someone who came and left without buying. They should be changing their message to me to address common causes for abandonment. One can imagine an ad that invites me to select my reason for abandoning and tailors a positive response right in the moment. It's not hard to do. But you have to think to do it. Awareness has a latency period, no doubt, and reminders aren't a bad thing. But addressing abandoners with different creative than newbies would be a better use of advertising dollars.

In today’s marketing world where an increment in advertising ROI has become even more indisputable, an online campaign without a retargeting strategy is ‘advertising spend wasted’, because of the costs incurred to attract and get valuable traffic to a website. Retargeting is the ultimate marketing technology to fill in the ‘missing piece on the conversion puzzle’. Using a retargeting strategy increases the performance of online campaigns as budget wastes are tremendously cut down through effective targeting. It also has the ability to lower acquisition costs, and double return conversion. Despite its proven effectiveness, most online marketers still lack a retargeting strategy.

It is an indispensable marketing technology that perfectly compliment display and search campaigns.

Impressions-waste

Marketers continue to spend lots of money on getting qualified traffic to their websites, acquiring relevant leads, or specifically targeting a potential prospect through ad networks or in a RTB market place. All these are efforts geared towards increasing marketers advertising ROI. However, on visiting a website, the possibility that these visitors will immediately convert to customers is only 2%, for an average website. Meaning, 98% of them will end up leaving without completing any of the website owner’s desired action. What is more effective than increasing your conversion rates through specifically targeting those customers that are familiar with your products/services and have already shown some amount of interest by clicking on your ads? This makes retargeting a ‘must have’ marketing strategy to increase campaign efficiency and uplift conversion rates for all online advertising campaigns.

Retargeting has the capability to increase conversion from a repeat visit by more than 100%.

Retargeting in detail

Retargeting is the act of tagging web pages with special codes that enables cookie placement on a visitor’s browser. When the visitor leave the website without converting, they can be targeted afterwards while surfing elsewhere on the web with special text or display ads that relates to the areas they previously showed interest in while on the marketers website. Retargeting technology and services to help drive advertising ROI are already out there. With dynamic ads, real world campaigns can be created, personalized, and optimized on the fly, based on the target audience’s area of interest. This is a highly effective means to eventually increase the performance of online campaigns.

Think beyond the click to solve the ‘conversion puzzle’

I assume we are familiar with the AIDA (Awareness, Interest, Desire, and Action) buying process framework. The entire customer purchase lifecycle is a process, which has become more evident especially in today’s competitive marketing environment. Research has proven that it can take up to seven interactions with a prospect before they actually become a customer. After the first interaction, retargeting can help reinforce your message, arouse the interest of the individual, and move them to take action during their purchase consideration phase. The process begins from the moment the customer gets acquainted with your brand and end up on one of your pages. If they fail to convert, retargeting will help keep your brand on their minds every time they see your ad; this increases the chances of solving the conversion puzzle. Marketers pay to get visitors to their websites during a display or search campaign. Most of these visitors (98%) fail to perform any of the desired transaction (filling out a contact form, signing up for newsletter, or purchase a product or service). For products with a longer purchase lifecycle, it’s highly recommended to remarket your message to those visitors that do not immediately complete your desired action as they continue surfing beyond the walls of your website.

Bringing back lost prospects

How do you ensure that after showing some interest in your offerings, potential customers won’t just walk away and end up becoming a customer of your competitor? You may employ all other marketing strategies that are geared towards bringing in new traffic to your website, but that doesn’t mean your campaign work is accomplished. You will need a retargeting strategy to compliment all of these efforts you have invested your marketing budgets in. For ROI based marketers that are experiencing low conversion rates, if retargeting is still not part of your campaign strategy, then a big portion of your online marketing budget that seeks to drive traffic to your website is ‘budget wasted’

As marketers move to take advantage of the opportunities online, in many cases their efforts lead to an increase in traffic to their websites but failed to achieve desired results for them. In spite of its dramatic effect on advertising ROI, retargeting technology remains to be the most underutilized online marketing technology, according to 46% of marketers in a survey conducted by Advertise.com and Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization. Nevertheless, today’s marketers are still failing to realize the power of this efficient tool. Retargeting is the powerful and most effective means to improve conversion rates for marketers. On average, about 98% of website visitors leave without converting, compare that to a brick and mortar retail store with conversion rate of over 30% of people who walked in, no impression or click costs incurred.

With world internet users close 2 billion and increasing, average time spend online growing, and more and more consumers continue to use the internet to orientate about products and shop online, could there be a better time for marketers to earn more from their advertising than now? Why are marketers still slow to capitalize on this huge marketing opportunity? Is an online advertising campaign without retargeting a waste of resources for ROI based marketers?

I recently read about Didit's Blizzard tool on retargeting. Nice job. It is a low hanging opportunity to tie online search to remarketing. But it's only a first step, and why stop there? Why not integrate all the touchpoints that drive a consumer through the purchase process?.

Ted Shergalis, our co-founder and chief strategy officer, has written before about Ed See's theory that the traditional purchase funnel has become a continuous cycle (most recently in Online Media Daily), with search at its center. The theory posits that a consumer does not just wake up and want to search for a product; rather a stimulus drives one to search. And that's where we need to start as marketers.

Of course, many marketing tactics help create demand, and many of these are offline. When it comes to online, audience-based display advertising is a very useful tool.  Audience-based display refers to the approach of buying specific audience characteristics, regardless of the sites on which that audience is reached.  The advantage of this approach is two-fold:  Extremely high composition against the target demo (low waste) and efficient pricing.  In addition, a skilled and technology-enabled buyer can achieve these benefits without compromising reach.

So audience based-targeting enables a marketer to cost effectively influence what we used to call "top of funnel" metrics such as awareness or interest.  But what if we could recognize and manage those customers who are exposed to your ad through the phases of the purchase cycle? For instance, what if you knew which display ads customers were exposed to before conducting a search? You might give them a custom, personalized version of a search landing page based on that information.  Then you could use the behavior data on the landing page and website to inform an extending conversation through remarketing.

Regardless of the tactics used, at the end of the day it's all about data and your ability to hit the consumer with the right message at the right time. That means you have to manage the data and turn every marketing outreach into a customized experience. For example, we know from analyzing online behavior that exposure to a display ad leads to a propensity to search; in fact, one drives the other. We also know that optimizing a landing page to reflect an audience profile stimulates intent, dramatically increasing engagement and conversion rates. We've found doing so lifts rates anywhere between 30-125% percent.  But don't become too enamored with rules of thumb. We've found vast differences in consumer behavior among our clients, and between different industries. One client may find that exposure to display ads is positively correlated with a response to an offer on its site; another may find a negative correlation. In one case, non-response is a clue that the display offer is just not relevant to the consumer, in the other, display is building interest that is "paid off" on the website.  The problem is that you just don't know which is which unless you observe the behavior and analyze the data.   It gets back to data and targeting and insuring that the right offer is delivered at the right time to the right person.

Which gets us back to the purchase cycle. As marketers construct their campaigns, they need to be mindful of messaging's place at each point in the process. On the front end, which is all about demand creation, benefit- or position-based messages work best. Further along, specific offers will be more effective. What this means is that different messages will run concurrently, with data driven technology delivering the right message to each consumer at each touchpoint.  For example, you will likely have a broad-based, benefit-oriented display campaign running simultaneously with an offer-based retargeting campaign, along with a sweetened offer for certain consumers on the website.

The bottom line: retargeting is a powerful tool for driving results.  But it is only part of the job.  Don't stop there.  Pursue the still greater value of a more holistic approach that engages consumers no matter where they are in the purchase cycle.