Comparing Football to Online Marketing

Written by Pablo Palatnik on September 10, 2007

I love football. Sundays are a great day to sit, relax, and turn on the tube to watch your favorite team play. Why do I love this sport so much? I’m also, and probably more of a fan of soccer, but football is different in the sense of strategy (not to say soccer doesn’t take strategy because it does, a lot!)

A football team has two sides as should an online marketing strategy…offense and defense. Launching a successful campaign must take a good offensive strategy and have everything in place as well as your plays. Once you launch, you want to be ready to take on whatever happens. This can be a great launch in which you take the next steps to make it as successful as possible (starting a drive, getting a couple of first downs and trying to reach the end zone) OR a very slow start and having your defense get your offense back in the game (first drive turn over, defense steps in the game, stops the other team in 4 downs, back to your offense.)

I couldn’t help to think while I was watching how so many people are involved in the strategy of the team which takes about 7-10 coaches maybe. Many times as online marketers we are only one or two taking on the strategy of a campaign which can be stressful but nevertheless, the only way to do it is strategize.

Know Your Opponent- Like a football team studies its other team, our opponent is usually the channel which we advertise. Social media sites, search engines, etc. That’s why we spend so much time reading other blogs and what other people have to say. We want to know what they are doing to beat the system.

Strategize: Like coaches strategize to convert on drives to as get as many 1st down plays or touchdowns as possible, we strategize our website and traffic to convert to our goals.

Know When To Risk: So many marketers have left campaigns which just have no hope running. When do you end them? When do you switch strategy? Put yourself in a 3rd and 25 situation…do you run or pass? If you’ve studied the other defense enough, you may risk, but when dealing with a client, you may want to play it safe. After certain drives and no touch downs, it’s time to switch the game plan up a bit.

ValueClick Story Continues

Written by Pablo Palatnik on September 7, 2007

I have gotten a lot of feedback about the story I ran on the Search Engine Journal, “Valueclick Ad Network Serving Bogus and Incentivized Leads.” Two media sources have contacted me which I will post their articles if they are written.

A story came out today on MediaPost and quotes, “ADDING FUEL TO THE CONTROVERSY attached to the business of lead generation, another shareholder class action suit has been filed against ValueClick Media.

The latest complaint was filed Thursday by law firm Schiffrin Barroway Topaz & Kessler, LLP in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California on behalf of all purchasers of securities of ValueClick. It alleges that the company’s lead-generation practices violated the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and Federal Trade Commission Guidelines.”

Some comments from the story yesterday:

-“Unfortunately valueclick has engaged in many unfair business tactics. Doubly unfortunate is their ownership of commission junction, which is a quality service.”

-“ Pablo, I’m really sorry to hear about your experience. I think it confirms what a lot of folks are saying about those guys right now. I believe this started to come to light when Jordan Rohan (stock analyst at RBC Capital Markets) wrote a scathing report on them a few months back. You can find that at http://www.internetoutsider.com/files/rohan_vclk_070426.pdf It is pretty damning.”

-“ Looks like you got a raw deal. This is an insane story. I’m surprised no one else is covering it. They shouldn’t be allowed to get away with this!!!”

-“ This should be in the business category. this article was very well written and very informative. I would be pissed if that was how a marketing company was driving traffic to my site.”

-“ I can’t believe they wouldn’t refund your money after you showed them the lead feedback. Thanks for the warning about Value Click, talk about oxymoron.”

-”Your first mistake is to pay everything upfront. You lose all of your leverage for settlement when disputing lead quality. Plus your contract should have outlined several unacceptable practices. This puts more on them to deliver quality leads once they realize you won’t pay for garbage.”

To Be Continued…….

Yahoo Enhances Ad Testing To Panama Platform

Written by Pablo Palatnik on September 7, 2007

Panama has yet encountered another change in its platform to make it easier and more efficient for marketers to create multiple ads. If you asked me 3 days ago what I would change to make it more efficient, it would be the ad writing portion of the platform which took SO LONG to create a second and third ad.

YSM BLOG explains a bit on this new upgraded tool for advertisers. “Thankfully, technology continues to take the drudgery out of writing, even out of writing ads for your Yahoo! Search Marketing campaigns. You can now create, edit, copy, delete and view all saved ads (up to 20) for an ad group in one place. More importantly, you can view the performance of your ads against one another with one click.

Still getting writer’s block? A recently released feature lets you view examples of ads by other advertisers using selected keywords, which we’ve enhanced for better usability. There’s also a handy best practices cheat sheet, right in the interface.

You’ll also notice that once you create a new ad you’ll be prompted to create another one. Creating a second (or third or forth) ad activates ad testing, which lets you compare how ads in a specific ad group are performing against one another in order to help you improve your quality index score.”

Top 10 Search Trends From AOL

Written by Pablo Palatnik on September 7, 2007

If you are an affiliate marketer in any of these industries, AOL just released their search trends for certain industries.

Top Searched Purse Brands on AOL Search
1. Coach
2. Louis Vuitton
3. Vera Bradley
4. Gucci
5. Chanel
6. Prada
7. Burberry
8. Dooney and Bourke
9. Brighton
10. Cartier

Top Electronics and Gadget Searches
• 1. iPhone
• 2. iPod
• 3. Computers
• 4. Cell Phones
• 5. GPS
• 6. Nintendo Wii
• 7. PSP
• 8. TV
• 9. Digital Cameras
• 10. Blackberry

Top Auto Searches
• 1. Toyota
• 2. Honda
• 3. Ford
• 4. Nissan
• 5. Jeep
• 6. Lexus
• 7. Dodge
• 8. Chevrolet
• 9. Chrysler
• 10. Hyundai

Top Vacation Destination Searches
• 1. Hawaii Vacations
• 2. Las Vegas Vacations
• 3. Disney Vacations
• 4. Mexico Vacations
• 5. Florida Vacation Rentals
• 6. Outer Banks Vacation Rentals
• 7. Maine Vacations
• 8. Orlando Vacations
• 9. Cancun Vacations
• 10. Myrtle Beach Vacation Rentals