DC Interactive Group’s SmartMarketing Blog

Back in November we covered the Firefox add-on/desktop application Yoono. As a Christmas present, the folks over at Yoono HQ gave us an updated version of the application a couple weeks ago, and is it ever sweet.

Upon downloading the newest version, I immediately noticed a change in aesthetics and in operations: Yoono now sports a slick silver look and runs much smoother than previous versions, minimizing browser slowdown when streaming multiple updates at once. But these changes were in the rearview mirror once I realized the following.

The new version of Yoono now supports multiple Twitter/Facebook accounts.

For those of us who maintain multiple accounts (On a given day I have anywhere between 3 and 5 Twitter accounts to keep an eye on), this is an unbelievable time saver. Instead of logging in to each individual account, finding something cool, relevant material and retweeting it, then doing the whole process again and again, now Yoono lets me see all of my Twitter accounts’ updates in real time, streaming in my sidebar while I’m free to do other things. It’s a level of efficiency that simply wasn’t possible before.

The screenshot above is what my Yoono sidebar looked like this morning. You’ll notice three different Twitter accounts and a lone Facebook account at the top of the image. I’m still giddy over the freedom it gives me.

Hopefully I already made this clear, but I’ll say it anyway. If you maintain multiple social media accounts on the same platform, Yoono is officially a must-have. The few minutes it takes you to install and set up will save you hours of time down the road.

Social Media provides some really great benefits to marketers. So do Web 2.0 strategies and PPC buys. But these tools represent just a small part of a good online marketing program. The key is to bring these all together in a nice, synergistic package that’s easy to create, easy to manage and easy to analyze

Welcome to “Sparking”, the web marketing program we created almost two years ago that provides an incredible ROI by building relationships with customers through online networks, blogs, eblasts and more.

To find out more, click here and learn about Sparking and how you can benefit by romancing your customers online.

Just a few short years ago, advertisers would spend thousands on ads placed in traditional media to drive people to websites in order to sell a product or service.  Flash forward to today and we all know what happened:  traditional advertising is declining, web advertising is increasing, and people are still buying (albeit at a lower rate) — all at an incredibly low cost to advertisers (as compared to past years).

Blame it on the economy, but most advertisers still demand even better results from even lower budgets.  How can that be accomplished?

The debate often centers on search engine optimization (SEO) versus pay per click advertising (PPC).  Both cost money — SEO being upfront and through keyword buys related to the content optimized on the site, whereas PPC is purely by clicks on ads that appear on seemingly unrelated sites.  Both get results, depending on the industry/product/services offered.  So which is better?

I’ve always liked PPC.  It costs you nothing except the service, until someone clicks on your ad.  Then the price is anywhere from ten cents to ten bucks per person and even higher based on auctions.  PPC can be targeted geographically and behaviorally, and also directed toward those viewers who have shown an interest in products or services similar to the clients’ offerings.  The key is getting the person to fulfill your goal before you lose them.

I was pleasantly surprised to see the results of a new study by Engine Ready who analyzed the goal conversions of 26 e-retail sites over one year ending this past June.  According to the results, visitors who arrive at a retailer’s site from paid search ads (PPC) are 50% more likely to buy at that time than those who arrive at the site from clicking on an organic search link (due to SEO). The conversion rate from PPC is 2.03% versus 1.26%.

Those who are most likely to buy are consumers who arrive at a retailer’s site by typing in the web address or clicking on a saved bookmark, as their conversion rate registered at 7.38%.  These are people who learn about advertisers through other methods, like word of mouth, traditional advertising, and general searches.  Consumers who linked from a different e-commerce site or from an e-mail were buyers 6.58% of the time, per the study. The overall conversion rate for all traffic was 3.6%.

The study found that:

Paid search visitors spent the most with an average order value of $117.06 compared to the $109.27 in sales that were derived from links from other sites.  $106.64 was spent on average from visitors who originated from organic search. Last, an average of $95.29 in purchases came from direct referrals, such as from a bookmark or from directly linking to a web address.
This Engine Ready study is based on an analysis of 20.8 million visits and 108 million page views to 26 e-commerce sites from July 1, 2008, through June 30, 2009. 21 of the 27 companies in this study also provided data for an earlier Engine Ready study.

By the way, this study is analyzes purchases made after the viewer clicked on links.  It does not take into account those people who visit a site one day (via any method) but do not buy, only to return at a later date to finalize the purchase.  Many sales are made after the viewer compares sites and prices, so I’m interested to find out more information related to viewers who return to sites.

Most of us have been told to write copy for 7th graders because that’s the average age at which most people read.  At least that’s what “they” say.  Who “they” are is a mystery to me, but “they” get a lot of credit for some pretty basic stuff.

I never liked this idea simply because advertising isn’t supposed to appeal to everyone.  Are “they” going to call me out?  I’ll take my chances.

If an ad is targeted at Wall Street Journal readers, why should we communicate with 7th grade readers who are almost certainly not reading that publication?  I’d rather talk intelligently to an intelligent audience, and I believe the audience would agree.

So when we get into a discussion with web designers about the size of the screen for a new site, and they insist that it be 800 x 600 because that’s the lowest common denominator, I cringe.  Why should a site talk to everyone — especially those who aren’t familiar enough with websites to have a larger screen?  Sure, if my site and advertising are talking to people who use a modem, I shouldn’t bog it down with graphics that will take hours to load.  But if I can create a powerful site by using more screen, and my market is identified as one that works well with computers, why limit my creatives?

So to end the debate quickly, I refer to this site that shows the size of browser displays since 2000.  This chart shows that in January, 2009, 93% of web users set their displays at either 1024 x 768 or higher.  Just 4% have their displays set at 800 x 600.

Case closed, right?  Wrong.  Some web people can’t get past the fact that some people won’t see the full site no matter how small the number, and they will practically insist that we design our sites smaller for everyone to see easily.

This is wrong, so don’t buy into it.  If you notice the trend on the site, you’ll see people are moving faster and faster toward larger screens.  So don’t buy into the one (small) size fits all mentalilty.  Instead, subscribe to the “we create the best site we can” and watch how people will react.

The great thing about the Internet is that it gives an almost equal opportunity for everyone to be heard. It’s about as democratic of a world you can imagine where people vote with their clicks on everything . One of my favorite things to experience is the incredible photography on Flickr.  Some of the most incredible shots are taken by people who aren’t professional photographers. I’ll pull up Cooliris and glide through photos for hours, just as I used to do when I would hang out at the Art Institute.  But now I can do it from my couch and iPhone.

Make no mistake, after all the talk and hand-wringing about the demise of our culture and The Cult of the Amateur , apparently people still prefer professionally-created content over homemade stuff. Visible Measures , a company which tracks video metrics, released a report on online videos which have received 100 million views or more. There are 18 videos — and 17 of them are either professionally produced, professionally produced and uploaded by a regular user or are a user’s comments about a professionally produced TV show . So what was the one user-generated video that got over 100 million views? It was a :56 second video about two kids called Charlie Bit My Finger…Again .

Videos showing over 100 million views as of May 1, 2009

Soulja Boy: Crank That | 356,300,000 views
Twilight | 266,500,000 views

Mariah Carey: Touch My Body | 230,200,000 views

Jeff Dunham: Achmed the Dead Terrorist | 196,500,000 views

Susan Boyle (Britain’s Got Talent) | 186,000,000 views

Leona Lewis: Bleeding Love | 185,600,000 views

Avril Lavigne: Girlfriend | 176,000,000 views

Chris Brown: With You (Disabled Linking) | 175,000,000 views

The Dark Knight | 172,500,000 views

Alicia Keys: No One | 160,300,000 views

Evolution of Dance | 147,000,000 views

Miley Cyrus: 7 Things | 143,000,000 views

Charlie Bit My Finger… Again | 136,000,000 views < User Generated Video

Rihanna: Please Don’t Stop the Music | 122,000,000 views

Paul Potts (Britain’s Got Talent) | 118,800,000 views

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince | 104,800,000 views

Lezberado: Revenge Fantasies | 103,000,000 views

Hannah Montana: The Movie | 100,100,000 views

According to the statistics, homemade content, while it can be amazing, just doesn’t have the same power that professionally-produced content does. And keep in mind that in order for a video to go massively viral it needs serious marketing help from the offline world. All of these videos, except for Charlie and his brother, are either attached to a television show, music video or a major motion picture in some way. Of course, the real question here is who is Soulja Boy and what in the heck is that dance ?