Brought to you by Jason Kincaid
Here’s a new one. As Facebook continues to grapple with the negative press over its privacy overhaul, it’s now suggesting a new way to protect your personal information: lie about it. At least, that’s what Barry Schnitt, Facebook’s Director of Corporate Communications and Public Policy, told the Wall Street Journal in an article this evening. From the story:
Facebook also made public formerly private info such as profile pictures, gender, current city and the friends list. (Mr. Schnitt suggests that users are free to lie about their hometown or take down their profile picture to protect their privacy; in response to users’ complaints, the friends list can now be restricted to be viewed only by friends).
Of course, this directly violates Facebook’s own Terms of Service, which stipulate that users may not provide false information.
Registration and Account Security
Facebook users provide their real names and information, and we need your help to keep it that way. Here are some commitments you make to us relating to registering and maintaining the security of your account:
You will not provide any false personal information on Facebook, or create an account for anyone other than yourself without permission.
Update: I reached out to Facebook, and Schnitt has clarified his position:
I think WSJ is paraphrasing. What I said is profile picture and current city are optional. You don’t have to include a profile picture or you can include a picture of your dog or anything you like. Similarly, you don’t have to indicate your current city or you can indicate that your current city is “Atlantis”, “Valhalla” or, again, anything you like. We hope people will use accurate information if they are comfortable doing so because that information helps them to be found by their friends, which is part of the point of joining the site.
Facebook has always been heavily reliant on its users being honest, and it has thrived because of it. It was among the first social networks to mandate the use of real names rather than aliases, which has made it easier to find friends and also forces users to take more responsibility for their actions. If Facebook is actually going to start suggesting falsifying or removing information as a means to maintain privacy, then it’s making a serious mistake.
I’ve made no secret of my dislike for Facebook’s privacy overhaul. And while there have been plenty of articles questioning Facebook’s motivations, I think we’ve yet to really see the true backlash begin. This is just the tip of the iceberg.
To read more, please visit techcrunch.com.
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
What Google Wants With Its Own Phone: Control
Brought to you by Rita Chang
SAN FRANCISCO (AdAge.com) -- With all the attention Google's plan to launch its own phone is receiving, a sensible question remains: Why, when it makes billions off the high-margin business of search and online advertising, would it get its hands dirty launching a mobile handset?
Google's fortunes come from advertising, making money off eyeballs and user experience. As the online world matures and growth from advertising revenue slows, Google is looking to reap ad dollars from mobile. EMarketer has online advertising revenue growing 6% next year, compared to 40% for mobile.
Consider that the search juggernaut last week showed off its vision of mobile search -- from the promises of visual search to using voice commands to find stuff -- it makes sense that Google wants to have a direct hand in accelerating the promise of these applications and control the user's experience with them.
Control its destiny
"Mobile is the next frontier for everyone," said Bill Ho, analyst at Current Analysis. By directly controlling the handset experience and its specs, "they can control their own mobile destiny. At the end of the day, it's adding more subscribers, adding more eyeballs," Mr. Ho said.
Google has already hinted at how it plans to be the go-to service on Android handsets for everything from local search to the ability to retrieve coupons. Already services such as Google maps and Google voice are on every Android device. To activate the inaugural Android handset, the T-Mobile-exclusive G1, for example, users were required to have a Google e-mail account. "It's all about making Google's core services stickier," Mr. Ho said.
Trying to wrest control away from handset makers and carriers that have the most say on the user experience is also fueling Google's motivation to get into the handset business, observers say.
"On the Web, Google has near-total control over its relationship with consumers," said Harry McCracken, a Google-watcher who edits Technologer. "A true Google phone would give Google the opportunity to control the look, feel and functionality in a way it hasn't so far."
Bypass carriers
If Google can successfully bypass wireless carriers and sell its phones directly to consumers, it would be testing the same waters that Apple tread before but without much success. When Apple tried to sell its first-generation iPhone for upward of $400, it didn't move many units. It wasn't until AT&T subsidized the handset that the iPhone became a mass device.
Google has not confirmed its phone's launch, other than by posting a blog entry from Mario Queiroz, Google VP-product management, which said a select number of employees were given a device to test new mobile technologies. Still, reports suggest Google is looking to bypass the carriers and sell the device directly to users online, presumably through outlets such as Amazon.com and its partner Best Buy.
By some accounts, a number of technophiles outside the company have played with the Google device, and reviews have been positive. Although questions swirl about whether the Google phone could give Apple a run for its money, the real issue isn't whether the king of smartphones can be unseated. The test is whether Google, which has been a vocal advocate for an open mobile ecosystem that would loosen the stranglehold dominant U.S. carriers have on the market, can offer a viable alternative to how consumers buy their handsets in the U.S.
It's common for handset makers to circumvent carriers in Europe and Asia, where prepay plans are popular, but in the States, carriers subsidize the handsets, making back the money they shell out for aggressive subsidies on the long-term contract plans that tether subscribers to their services for two years and beyond. As Forrester analyst Charles Golvin sees it, Google would lean on advertising to recoup its handset development and manufacturing costs.
Enough mobile dollars?
"They're not getting the service revenue," Mr. Golvin said. "The only scenario is subsidizing it on ad revenue." One scenario could be installing specific ad-supported apps on the Google phone. Either way, Mr. Golvin sounded a note of skepticism that ad subsidies could realistically offset the phone's costs, considering that, on average, smartphone users pay $70 to $80 per month for voice and data plans. When you add everything up -- even supposing Google's operating costs are lower than the operator -- "it's a pretty strong statement about what advertisers are willing to pay to advertise on those devices," he said.
In the near-term, given Google's cash position, it can afford some losses on the device, but for Mr. Golvin the question is whether mobile-advertising revenue will accelerate fast enough in the long-term to make the investment worthwhile. Mobile ad spending worldwide will grow 74% this year to $913.5 million, according to Gartner, but not really ramp up until 2011, when advertisers bulk up their digital budgets with mobile buys.
For a company like Google that has a sizeable cash trove, this undertaking is a test to see if the mobile ecosystem can be pried open. "This could be an interesting experiment to see if they can sell directly to the public," said mobile analyst Greg Sterling.
SAN FRANCISCO (AdAge.com) -- With all the attention Google's plan to launch its own phone is receiving, a sensible question remains: Why, when it makes billions off the high-margin business of search and online advertising, would it get its hands dirty launching a mobile handset?
Google's fortunes come from advertising, making money off eyeballs and user experience. As the online world matures and growth from advertising revenue slows, Google is looking to reap ad dollars from mobile. EMarketer has online advertising revenue growing 6% next year, compared to 40% for mobile.
Consider that the search juggernaut last week showed off its vision of mobile search -- from the promises of visual search to using voice commands to find stuff -- it makes sense that Google wants to have a direct hand in accelerating the promise of these applications and control the user's experience with them.
Control its destiny
"Mobile is the next frontier for everyone," said Bill Ho, analyst at Current Analysis. By directly controlling the handset experience and its specs, "they can control their own mobile destiny. At the end of the day, it's adding more subscribers, adding more eyeballs," Mr. Ho said.
Google has already hinted at how it plans to be the go-to service on Android handsets for everything from local search to the ability to retrieve coupons. Already services such as Google maps and Google voice are on every Android device. To activate the inaugural Android handset, the T-Mobile-exclusive G1, for example, users were required to have a Google e-mail account. "It's all about making Google's core services stickier," Mr. Ho said.
Trying to wrest control away from handset makers and carriers that have the most say on the user experience is also fueling Google's motivation to get into the handset business, observers say.
"On the Web, Google has near-total control over its relationship with consumers," said Harry McCracken, a Google-watcher who edits Technologer. "A true Google phone would give Google the opportunity to control the look, feel and functionality in a way it hasn't so far."
Bypass carriers
If Google can successfully bypass wireless carriers and sell its phones directly to consumers, it would be testing the same waters that Apple tread before but without much success. When Apple tried to sell its first-generation iPhone for upward of $400, it didn't move many units. It wasn't until AT&T subsidized the handset that the iPhone became a mass device.
Google has not confirmed its phone's launch, other than by posting a blog entry from Mario Queiroz, Google VP-product management, which said a select number of employees were given a device to test new mobile technologies. Still, reports suggest Google is looking to bypass the carriers and sell the device directly to users online, presumably through outlets such as Amazon.com and its partner Best Buy.
By some accounts, a number of technophiles outside the company have played with the Google device, and reviews have been positive. Although questions swirl about whether the Google phone could give Apple a run for its money, the real issue isn't whether the king of smartphones can be unseated. The test is whether Google, which has been a vocal advocate for an open mobile ecosystem that would loosen the stranglehold dominant U.S. carriers have on the market, can offer a viable alternative to how consumers buy their handsets in the U.S.
It's common for handset makers to circumvent carriers in Europe and Asia, where prepay plans are popular, but in the States, carriers subsidize the handsets, making back the money they shell out for aggressive subsidies on the long-term contract plans that tether subscribers to their services for two years and beyond. As Forrester analyst Charles Golvin sees it, Google would lean on advertising to recoup its handset development and manufacturing costs.
Enough mobile dollars?
"They're not getting the service revenue," Mr. Golvin said. "The only scenario is subsidizing it on ad revenue." One scenario could be installing specific ad-supported apps on the Google phone. Either way, Mr. Golvin sounded a note of skepticism that ad subsidies could realistically offset the phone's costs, considering that, on average, smartphone users pay $70 to $80 per month for voice and data plans. When you add everything up -- even supposing Google's operating costs are lower than the operator -- "it's a pretty strong statement about what advertisers are willing to pay to advertise on those devices," he said.
In the near-term, given Google's cash position, it can afford some losses on the device, but for Mr. Golvin the question is whether mobile-advertising revenue will accelerate fast enough in the long-term to make the investment worthwhile. Mobile ad spending worldwide will grow 74% this year to $913.5 million, according to Gartner, but not really ramp up until 2011, when advertisers bulk up their digital budgets with mobile buys.
For a company like Google that has a sizeable cash trove, this undertaking is a test to see if the mobile ecosystem can be pried open. "This could be an interesting experiment to see if they can sell directly to the public," said mobile analyst Greg Sterling.
Monday, December 14, 2009
How to Integrate Social and Email Marketing
Brought to you by Chris Marriott
With the holidays upon us, let us give in to our innate desire to get social. And by that, I mean let's talk about the right ways to integrate email and social networks.
Over the past year or so, marketing writers have often spoken of email and social networking as mutually exclusive channels -- if one, then not the other. The growth in social networking, many have said, comes at the expense of email. Some data, notably comScore web traffic data, show a rise in time spent on social networking sites and a decline in time spent on webmail sites. First of all, these numbers do not include the time spent on PC- or mobile-based email or social networking, so the true extent of any shift from one to the other remains unknown.
But more importantly, these channels work together. Before social networking, email acted as the online social sharing channel. People emailed pictures, updates, and, yes, bad jokes to one another. With the advent of social networking, people shifted a behavior from one channel to another. Email remains the de facto requirement of social networking membership. Neither channel will eliminate the other.
On a grander level, social and email inform one another. Many marketers have used their email lists to drive social activity in two ways: 1) share-with-your-network (SWYN) calls to action and 2) friend/follower recruitment. While the emphasis today seems to fall on driving consumers from email to social, the potential exists to drive the opposite behavior as well. So let's explore the possibilities.
SWYN
In essence, SWYN represents the social equivalent of forward-to-a-friend (FTAF), the feature that allowed consumers to use the marketer's email system to send along emails. That approach had a major limitation: It took more effort than simply hitting the "forward" button and dropping in names from the user's own address book. SWYN allows sharing with one button push.
As with any tactic used in email, applying SWYN universally has its limitations. So first of all, don't assume that every offer or piece of content merits sharing. Take a hard look at what goes into your emails and only share the things that really stand out, such as a once-per-season sale or an exclusive piece of content.
Similarly, design the SWYN call to action with discretion. Learn what social networks your customers use the most, potentially by polling. Also, test different designs for the SWYN call to action to learn which design drives the most clicks. Lastly, ensure that the content or offer has an appropriate thumbnail image and descriptor for easy scanning on the chosen site.
Friend/follower recruitment
Recruiting email opt-ins to become friends or followers on social networks offers an opportunity to open up a secondary channel to consumers. For email addresses that have become unresponsive, social messaging may allow for an opportunity to re-engage. Even for active email respondents, the social networking channel offers the prospect of an officially unofficial channel -- a forum that conveys a sense of being an insider to the consumer.
Accordingly, the CTA for recruitment should offer something of value for the consumer, whether it be a discount or access to information first. By the same token, messages sent via social network should not repeat email messages. If you can't commit to doing something special via social networking, you shouldn't bother.
Social networking lacks the measurement capabilities of email, but that shouldn't stop a marketer from measuring it completely. By embedding distinctive links in the social communications and measuring usage of those links via web analytics, the marketer can get a rough idea of success.
From social to email
Many marketers overlook the opportunity to recruit email opt-ins from a social environment. Status updates and tweets are natural places to put in a link for an opt-in, provided the offer has appeal. For instance, a marketer can use social networks to promote email newsletters or sales emails.
More aggressively, a marketer can create applications for social networks that encourage email opt-ins. The trick here is to create an interesting application. Games, contests, and fun interactive applications can engage consumers with a brand, thus giving them a reason to want to opt-in to email.
Clearly, there is much left to be written about integrating social networking and email. These ideas should give any marketer exploring social networking a good start. While the holidays will end soon, this story will not.
Chris Marriott is vice president and global managing director for Acxiom Digital.
With the holidays upon us, let us give in to our innate desire to get social. And by that, I mean let's talk about the right ways to integrate email and social networks.
Over the past year or so, marketing writers have often spoken of email and social networking as mutually exclusive channels -- if one, then not the other. The growth in social networking, many have said, comes at the expense of email. Some data, notably comScore web traffic data, show a rise in time spent on social networking sites and a decline in time spent on webmail sites. First of all, these numbers do not include the time spent on PC- or mobile-based email or social networking, so the true extent of any shift from one to the other remains unknown.
But more importantly, these channels work together. Before social networking, email acted as the online social sharing channel. People emailed pictures, updates, and, yes, bad jokes to one another. With the advent of social networking, people shifted a behavior from one channel to another. Email remains the de facto requirement of social networking membership. Neither channel will eliminate the other.
On a grander level, social and email inform one another. Many marketers have used their email lists to drive social activity in two ways: 1) share-with-your-network (SWYN) calls to action and 2) friend/follower recruitment. While the emphasis today seems to fall on driving consumers from email to social, the potential exists to drive the opposite behavior as well. So let's explore the possibilities.
SWYN
In essence, SWYN represents the social equivalent of forward-to-a-friend (FTAF), the feature that allowed consumers to use the marketer's email system to send along emails. That approach had a major limitation: It took more effort than simply hitting the "forward" button and dropping in names from the user's own address book. SWYN allows sharing with one button push.
As with any tactic used in email, applying SWYN universally has its limitations. So first of all, don't assume that every offer or piece of content merits sharing. Take a hard look at what goes into your emails and only share the things that really stand out, such as a once-per-season sale or an exclusive piece of content.
Similarly, design the SWYN call to action with discretion. Learn what social networks your customers use the most, potentially by polling. Also, test different designs for the SWYN call to action to learn which design drives the most clicks. Lastly, ensure that the content or offer has an appropriate thumbnail image and descriptor for easy scanning on the chosen site.
Friend/follower recruitment
Recruiting email opt-ins to become friends or followers on social networks offers an opportunity to open up a secondary channel to consumers. For email addresses that have become unresponsive, social messaging may allow for an opportunity to re-engage. Even for active email respondents, the social networking channel offers the prospect of an officially unofficial channel -- a forum that conveys a sense of being an insider to the consumer.
Accordingly, the CTA for recruitment should offer something of value for the consumer, whether it be a discount or access to information first. By the same token, messages sent via social network should not repeat email messages. If you can't commit to doing something special via social networking, you shouldn't bother.
Social networking lacks the measurement capabilities of email, but that shouldn't stop a marketer from measuring it completely. By embedding distinctive links in the social communications and measuring usage of those links via web analytics, the marketer can get a rough idea of success.
From social to email
Many marketers overlook the opportunity to recruit email opt-ins from a social environment. Status updates and tweets are natural places to put in a link for an opt-in, provided the offer has appeal. For instance, a marketer can use social networks to promote email newsletters or sales emails.
More aggressively, a marketer can create applications for social networks that encourage email opt-ins. The trick here is to create an interesting application. Games, contests, and fun interactive applications can engage consumers with a brand, thus giving them a reason to want to opt-in to email.
Clearly, there is much left to be written about integrating social networking and email. These ideas should give any marketer exploring social networking a good start. While the holidays will end soon, this story will not.
Chris Marriott is vice president and global managing director for Acxiom Digital.
3 Ways to Fight Site Abandonment
Brought to you by Andrew Edwards
It's like the Swiffer commercial, where an old sponge-mop is outside a window, peeking in at a housewife who has moved on to better mops, while "Love Stinks" plays in the background. The old mop is trying to win her back, even going so far as to hire a Mariachi band to court its perfidious ex-partner.
In this case, you're the sponge-mop.
We're talking about site-abandonment, and especially early abandonment -- the kind that leaves you feeling like a toddler dropped off at a nunnery, and you never know why, though you spend your life trying to find out.
Digital marketers, especially those who rely on campaigns to drive ecommerce, suffer greatly from abandonment rates, which can run as high as 80 percent for a typical landing page. All marketers are affected by it, even if their KPIs don't involve selling something online. In fact, any failure to complete a scenario -- any loss of traffic anywhere in the funnel -- is a symptom of abandonment: The target audience just didn't want to proceed. And isn't that the entire reason we perform web analytics at all? To find out why we can't get every single site visitor to do what we want them to do?
Perhaps a thousand types of measures have been devised about visitor behavior. The sheer number of report choices can nearly suffocate any search for the truth. There are so many interconnected measures that, at a certain point, it becomes like a house of mirrors -- no one can tell what's the real number or which measure can be relied upon for some type of objectivity.
In your search for objectivity, have you ever wondered if people's behavior is affected by how long they have to wait for your page to load? Have you ever abandoned because of load time?
Here are three ways, based on understanding load time, to help put abandonment in perspective -- and perhaps even decrease your abandonment rates:
Step 1: Admit you have a problem
The latest data shows that abandonment increases dramatically after a wait time of four seconds. In net time, four seconds is like four hours of driving: "Are we there yet?" becomes "Let's just pull over." And all of your marketing efforts suddenly become road-kill.
Slow load time can be caused by a number of problems, some of them obvious, some of them hidden, and all of them addressable.
The first thing you'll want to look at is content richness.
Ouch.
You may be thinking content richness is what everybody is looking for. How can you survive without Flash, without embedded video, without whirling, dancing eye-candy for a user base that seems to think a chance browser encounter should be as glittery as a stroll down the Las Vegas Strip?
Your content might be too rich, and yes, it might take too long to download. It might ask for too many plug-ins. It might be unsupported by your target user's browser.
Or, your page load problem may be caused by something that has nothing to do with over-rich content. It could turn out that your server is slower than a dinosaur in a dunce-cap; then again, you might have a peerage issue somewhere between you and Timbuktu. The hunt for KPI completion does not begin and end with earning kudos from your colleagues in a closed environment where everything runs at optimum speed and every link works just the way it ought to.
You need to get out of the conference room and into the real world. That's where the real story of page load begins and ends. And, as noted above, the trouble may not even be content richness. But how do you measure that? Read on.
Step 2: Measure with the right yardstick
There are a number of tools available to measure load time: Gomez, Keynote, TeaLeaf, Atomic Labs -- these are just a few of the companies with load time measurement offerings. There are also some clever ways to tag pages for load time information, but few of these options are bundled products as yet (though they may be available from your web analytics professional services vendor).
The products mentioned above tend to work in a somewhat different way than the typical analytics tools do. In other words, they don't concentrate on click-stream data and don't need tagging or log files in order to function. In fact, they are, generally speaking, separate architectures that look at all of your traffic, all of the time, and do a variety of things with that information. Sometimes they are called "sniffers" because they sit somewhere between your server and your user and pick up all the traffic (kind of the way a bloodhound sniffs an evidentiary trail).
So for instance, where an analytics tool will know whether a particular tag loaded, a "sniffer" will know much more about how long it took for the page to be requested, how long it took the server to get it out the door, and how long it took for the various packets sent by the server to show up in the remote user's browser.
I had indicated above that some of the tools have significant other uses. TeaLeaf, in particular, has a core function that allows the marketer to play back, literally, a browsing session. Some folks call it "Tivo for web analytics." It may be a bit much to deploy all of that solely for the purpose of locating a page-load problem, but if it is taking place, TeaLeaf will probably see it.
A tool like Gomez, on the other hand, sets up a network (around the world) of synthetic testing nodes, enabling them essentially to mimic requests from anywhere and measure your response time for anything and everything you want to measure. You can look at certain parts of your transactions and find out, for instance, how long that is taking in Albuquerque, Inchon, and Luxembourg all at once. The only drawback is that generally these tests are synthetic (in other words, not involving actual users).
A clever tagging solution will have its drawbacks too; for instance, it won't be able to know when the server request was made, or how long it took for the first tag to load. But then, the moon is not the sun, yet both have recognizable assets.
Linking load time directly to abandonment typically requires an additional integration step. For instance, if you are trying to find out how a sniffer-tracked load time problem is affecting your campaign ROI, you should be prepared to do some fancy dancing with your analytics tool -- but with the right kind of integration, the dancing can lead to marriage, and you'll see stars.
The important takeaway is this: While I'm not going to claim it's easy, you can certainly find out how long your pages take to load, and you can, with the application of some elbow grease, understand whether that is affecting abandonment and conversion overall. In all likelihood, load time is affecting abandonment. Now you'll know how much, and perhaps even why.
Step 3: Come back armed with the facts
This part is probably the least fun, but most rewarding once it's done and accepted. Armed with load time data, your task now becomes a matter of breaking the news.
Your creatives, your developers, and/or your IT folks may all dislike your news intensely, but you've got bigger worries than that if people aren't completing scenarios.
I know from experience that creatives have a soft, mushy spot in their hearts for visual extravaganza. For them, a day without Flash is like a week in the pokey, and they will start to complain that they can't deliver value without it -- and some of that may even be correct.
I also know from experience that IT folks will defend their architecture to the bitter end -- or at least until management coughs up enough bucks for some faster servers. But even the best server jockeys must sometimes face the fact their horse is not in the money.
Developers will say it can't be fixed. The work that's been put into your current site cannot be taken apart and reassembled in a more efficient way "just like that." And they are right (but they were, perhaps, wrong for building it "like that" in the first place.)
In any case, while your developers may be architects of the best parts of your site, they are also architects of the worst; and when people are bailing before your pages load, that's the worst. As a marketer, you may need to force-feed them some facts, and hold them accountable for making sure you don't have to tell management that the site's most important pages aren't even being seen by the audience.
Conclusion
You've probably long sensed there was some "other" problem out there that was keeping users from delivering for you. You could never be sure what it was. There were fingers pointing 'round the table during your last review, and nobody seemed to be at fault. Knowing about load time will help reduce the blank stares at meeting time, and set you up for better success at conversion.
Often, it's the unturned stone in the path that hides the all-important clue. My suggestion: You should at least turn over that stone.
Andrew Edwards is managing partner of Technology Leaders.
It's like the Swiffer commercial, where an old sponge-mop is outside a window, peeking in at a housewife who has moved on to better mops, while "Love Stinks" plays in the background. The old mop is trying to win her back, even going so far as to hire a Mariachi band to court its perfidious ex-partner.
In this case, you're the sponge-mop.
We're talking about site-abandonment, and especially early abandonment -- the kind that leaves you feeling like a toddler dropped off at a nunnery, and you never know why, though you spend your life trying to find out.
Digital marketers, especially those who rely on campaigns to drive ecommerce, suffer greatly from abandonment rates, which can run as high as 80 percent for a typical landing page. All marketers are affected by it, even if their KPIs don't involve selling something online. In fact, any failure to complete a scenario -- any loss of traffic anywhere in the funnel -- is a symptom of abandonment: The target audience just didn't want to proceed. And isn't that the entire reason we perform web analytics at all? To find out why we can't get every single site visitor to do what we want them to do?
Perhaps a thousand types of measures have been devised about visitor behavior. The sheer number of report choices can nearly suffocate any search for the truth. There are so many interconnected measures that, at a certain point, it becomes like a house of mirrors -- no one can tell what's the real number or which measure can be relied upon for some type of objectivity.
In your search for objectivity, have you ever wondered if people's behavior is affected by how long they have to wait for your page to load? Have you ever abandoned because of load time?
Here are three ways, based on understanding load time, to help put abandonment in perspective -- and perhaps even decrease your abandonment rates:
Step 1: Admit you have a problem
The latest data shows that abandonment increases dramatically after a wait time of four seconds. In net time, four seconds is like four hours of driving: "Are we there yet?" becomes "Let's just pull over." And all of your marketing efforts suddenly become road-kill.
Slow load time can be caused by a number of problems, some of them obvious, some of them hidden, and all of them addressable.
The first thing you'll want to look at is content richness.
Ouch.
You may be thinking content richness is what everybody is looking for. How can you survive without Flash, without embedded video, without whirling, dancing eye-candy for a user base that seems to think a chance browser encounter should be as glittery as a stroll down the Las Vegas Strip?
Your content might be too rich, and yes, it might take too long to download. It might ask for too many plug-ins. It might be unsupported by your target user's browser.
Or, your page load problem may be caused by something that has nothing to do with over-rich content. It could turn out that your server is slower than a dinosaur in a dunce-cap; then again, you might have a peerage issue somewhere between you and Timbuktu. The hunt for KPI completion does not begin and end with earning kudos from your colleagues in a closed environment where everything runs at optimum speed and every link works just the way it ought to.
You need to get out of the conference room and into the real world. That's where the real story of page load begins and ends. And, as noted above, the trouble may not even be content richness. But how do you measure that? Read on.
Step 2: Measure with the right yardstick
There are a number of tools available to measure load time: Gomez, Keynote, TeaLeaf, Atomic Labs -- these are just a few of the companies with load time measurement offerings. There are also some clever ways to tag pages for load time information, but few of these options are bundled products as yet (though they may be available from your web analytics professional services vendor).
The products mentioned above tend to work in a somewhat different way than the typical analytics tools do. In other words, they don't concentrate on click-stream data and don't need tagging or log files in order to function. In fact, they are, generally speaking, separate architectures that look at all of your traffic, all of the time, and do a variety of things with that information. Sometimes they are called "sniffers" because they sit somewhere between your server and your user and pick up all the traffic (kind of the way a bloodhound sniffs an evidentiary trail).
So for instance, where an analytics tool will know whether a particular tag loaded, a "sniffer" will know much more about how long it took for the page to be requested, how long it took the server to get it out the door, and how long it took for the various packets sent by the server to show up in the remote user's browser.
I had indicated above that some of the tools have significant other uses. TeaLeaf, in particular, has a core function that allows the marketer to play back, literally, a browsing session. Some folks call it "Tivo for web analytics." It may be a bit much to deploy all of that solely for the purpose of locating a page-load problem, but if it is taking place, TeaLeaf will probably see it.
A tool like Gomez, on the other hand, sets up a network (around the world) of synthetic testing nodes, enabling them essentially to mimic requests from anywhere and measure your response time for anything and everything you want to measure. You can look at certain parts of your transactions and find out, for instance, how long that is taking in Albuquerque, Inchon, and Luxembourg all at once. The only drawback is that generally these tests are synthetic (in other words, not involving actual users).
A clever tagging solution will have its drawbacks too; for instance, it won't be able to know when the server request was made, or how long it took for the first tag to load. But then, the moon is not the sun, yet both have recognizable assets.
Linking load time directly to abandonment typically requires an additional integration step. For instance, if you are trying to find out how a sniffer-tracked load time problem is affecting your campaign ROI, you should be prepared to do some fancy dancing with your analytics tool -- but with the right kind of integration, the dancing can lead to marriage, and you'll see stars.
The important takeaway is this: While I'm not going to claim it's easy, you can certainly find out how long your pages take to load, and you can, with the application of some elbow grease, understand whether that is affecting abandonment and conversion overall. In all likelihood, load time is affecting abandonment. Now you'll know how much, and perhaps even why.
Step 3: Come back armed with the facts
This part is probably the least fun, but most rewarding once it's done and accepted. Armed with load time data, your task now becomes a matter of breaking the news.
Your creatives, your developers, and/or your IT folks may all dislike your news intensely, but you've got bigger worries than that if people aren't completing scenarios.
I know from experience that creatives have a soft, mushy spot in their hearts for visual extravaganza. For them, a day without Flash is like a week in the pokey, and they will start to complain that they can't deliver value without it -- and some of that may even be correct.
I also know from experience that IT folks will defend their architecture to the bitter end -- or at least until management coughs up enough bucks for some faster servers. But even the best server jockeys must sometimes face the fact their horse is not in the money.
Developers will say it can't be fixed. The work that's been put into your current site cannot be taken apart and reassembled in a more efficient way "just like that." And they are right (but they were, perhaps, wrong for building it "like that" in the first place.)
In any case, while your developers may be architects of the best parts of your site, they are also architects of the worst; and when people are bailing before your pages load, that's the worst. As a marketer, you may need to force-feed them some facts, and hold them accountable for making sure you don't have to tell management that the site's most important pages aren't even being seen by the audience.
Conclusion
You've probably long sensed there was some "other" problem out there that was keeping users from delivering for you. You could never be sure what it was. There were fingers pointing 'round the table during your last review, and nobody seemed to be at fault. Knowing about load time will help reduce the blank stares at meeting time, and set you up for better success at conversion.
Often, it's the unturned stone in the path that hides the all-important clue. My suggestion: You should at least turn over that stone.
Andrew Edwards is managing partner of Technology Leaders.
Friday, December 11, 2009
How To Launch Your Web Site On Schedule
Brought to you by Jennifer Shaheen
If you want to build a Web site for your small or midsize business that's both on time and on point, you'll have to plan accordingly. Here are the steps you'll need to follow.
Every time I give a presentation on developing a Web site, a popular question always comes up: "How long does a web site take to create?"
There are many factors that come into play when developing any Web site, and each element can have an effect on the time it will take to design and build your company's site. These factors come into play whether you're doing the work yourself from scratch, using a pre-made site template, or hiring a Web design and development firm to do it all for you.
Sitemap, Planning And Research
Before you begin designing your company's Web site, you need to outline the sections you'll need on the site. We call this your sitemap. This process will help you outline the content and the flow of the entire site.
Next, I recommend creating a wireframe to illustrate where you want your information to be placed and the functions your Web site will need. Before you start picking out images or writing your text, it's a good idea to research your competition and identify the right keywords for your Web site. Depending on how much time you can devote to them, these steps can take a few days or a few weeks.
Design and Copy
Have you ever heard the saying "Which came first, the chicken or the egg?" When building a Web site, you often have to ask a similar question -- which comes first, the design or the copy? I don't have a hard and fast rule on this because everyone works differently, and some people need a design to write their content to match.
Another approach is to sit down write all your Wweb site content first, and through this process you'll find the inspiration for the design in the words. The important point is that you have an alignment between the two areas. Your copy and design need to feel cohesive.
You don't have to have all your copy finished to start the design, but having a sizable percentage will help you have a strong idea of the direction you want for your design. If you're doing all of this yourself, commit to tackling your content for an hour or two every day. Use your wireframe and sitemap as a guide to help you cross-reference the material and create marketing call-outs for the design.
If you've decided to use a pre-designed template instead of a custom designed look for your Web site, you may want to spend time finding some fresh stock photography to add to your site to help differentiate the look and enhance your content.
Coding And Content
Custom-designed Web sites will need to be converted to the code that makes them work online. This process may take a few days to a few weeks depending on the complexity of the code for your custom Web site. The next step is to drop in all the content. This isn't just copy and paste, but also styling the text and creating cross-links within the copy.
When using pre-packaged solutions, you'll still want to spend some time looking over your content and finding ways to make it work on the screen.
Don't Forget To Test
No matter how your company's Web site is built -- even if you completely outsource it or have a professional development capabilities in house -- you should always make time to test its functionality. Browser testing is one of the most important items to check -- is the site looking and acting correctly on Firefox, Internet Explorer, Safari, and Chrome?
If your Web site uses security, is it working correctly? Do three or four test orders and make sure the transactions are working properly.
How much time does it take to build a Web site?
As you can see, it depends on many factors. Set dates and milestones, and be sure that they're realistic. Remember to leave time for revisions and testing. Most important, a Web site is meant to change, so it's OK to launch your company's site even you feel like it's not completely finished and perfect, provided all the functionality and testing is done. You can always add more content or products as you go. This will keep you motivated and give you some new things to e-mail your customers about.
Jennifer Shaheen, the e-marketing and Technology Therapist, has more than 10 years experience working with small- to mid-sized businesses on their e-marketing and web development needs. You can learn more about her by visiting her web site, TechnologyTherapy.com.
If you want to build a Web site for your small or midsize business that's both on time and on point, you'll have to plan accordingly. Here are the steps you'll need to follow.
Every time I give a presentation on developing a Web site, a popular question always comes up: "How long does a web site take to create?"
There are many factors that come into play when developing any Web site, and each element can have an effect on the time it will take to design and build your company's site. These factors come into play whether you're doing the work yourself from scratch, using a pre-made site template, or hiring a Web design and development firm to do it all for you.
Sitemap, Planning And Research
Before you begin designing your company's Web site, you need to outline the sections you'll need on the site. We call this your sitemap. This process will help you outline the content and the flow of the entire site.
Next, I recommend creating a wireframe to illustrate where you want your information to be placed and the functions your Web site will need. Before you start picking out images or writing your text, it's a good idea to research your competition and identify the right keywords for your Web site. Depending on how much time you can devote to them, these steps can take a few days or a few weeks.
Design and Copy
Have you ever heard the saying "Which came first, the chicken or the egg?" When building a Web site, you often have to ask a similar question -- which comes first, the design or the copy? I don't have a hard and fast rule on this because everyone works differently, and some people need a design to write their content to match.
Another approach is to sit down write all your Wweb site content first, and through this process you'll find the inspiration for the design in the words. The important point is that you have an alignment between the two areas. Your copy and design need to feel cohesive.
You don't have to have all your copy finished to start the design, but having a sizable percentage will help you have a strong idea of the direction you want for your design. If you're doing all of this yourself, commit to tackling your content for an hour or two every day. Use your wireframe and sitemap as a guide to help you cross-reference the material and create marketing call-outs for the design.
If you've decided to use a pre-designed template instead of a custom designed look for your Web site, you may want to spend time finding some fresh stock photography to add to your site to help differentiate the look and enhance your content.
Coding And Content
Custom-designed Web sites will need to be converted to the code that makes them work online. This process may take a few days to a few weeks depending on the complexity of the code for your custom Web site. The next step is to drop in all the content. This isn't just copy and paste, but also styling the text and creating cross-links within the copy.
When using pre-packaged solutions, you'll still want to spend some time looking over your content and finding ways to make it work on the screen.
Don't Forget To Test
No matter how your company's Web site is built -- even if you completely outsource it or have a professional development capabilities in house -- you should always make time to test its functionality. Browser testing is one of the most important items to check -- is the site looking and acting correctly on Firefox, Internet Explorer, Safari, and Chrome?
If your Web site uses security, is it working correctly? Do three or four test orders and make sure the transactions are working properly.
How much time does it take to build a Web site?
As you can see, it depends on many factors. Set dates and milestones, and be sure that they're realistic. Remember to leave time for revisions and testing. Most important, a Web site is meant to change, so it's OK to launch your company's site even you feel like it's not completely finished and perfect, provided all the functionality and testing is done. You can always add more content or products as you go. This will keep you motivated and give you some new things to e-mail your customers about.
Jennifer Shaheen, the e-marketing and Technology Therapist, has more than 10 years experience working with small- to mid-sized businesses on their e-marketing and web development needs. You can learn more about her by visiting her web site, TechnologyTherapy.com.
Thursday, December 10, 2009
What's the Next Marketing Platform? How to Measure Success?
Brought to you by Michael Bush
NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- At this year's Media Mavens annual luncheon in New York, Advertising Age honored 16 of the industry's most innovative thinkers from big name marketers including Kraft, Coca-Cola, Ford and Burger King.
Honorees, however, had to earn their lunch by answering questions that show off just how smart they are. Here are six bits of wisdom that Ad Age's Media Mavens imparted this year, including what their clients are looking for, what the necessary elements for a successful social media campaign are, how to evolve a well-known brand into a services company and what technologies have the potential to be successful marketing mediums.
What do marketers really want from media planners?
In a word? Integration, said Bob Bernstein, chief media officer at Interpublic Group of Cos.' DraftFCB, along with leadership. Going forward, agencies and individuals who can provide integration will be paid a premium. "Agencies also need to see the big picture from a consumer standpoint and understand their decision journey," Mr. Bernstein said. "Media planning agencies must have the ability to work closely with creative agencies in order to elevate the message, and they have to be able to apply analytical thinking."
What are the elements for a successful social-media campaign?
Three elements responsible for the success of a campaign including being "courageous, credible and transparent," said Connie Fontaine, manager brand content and alliances at Ford Motor Co., who was behind one of the most successful social-media efforts of the past year -- the re-entry of the Ford Fiesta. Also crucial was thoroughly vetting the consumers who took part in the campaign and having executives and agency partners who were committed to the effort. "Staying courageous was difficult because we had to let 100 people take control of our [messaging]," she said. "But we had to be credible and to do that we had to stay out of the mix and that was a tough thing for all of us to do. And by screening all of these people we knew they were going to tell effective and fun stories."
How do you turn a known brand marketer into a service company?
Mark Stewart, VP global media services at Kraft Foods, said in today's environment marketers have to provide utilities, solutions and real services to their customers, citing Kraft's iPhone application. "There's real connectivity between consumers, brands and content that they love," Mr. Stewart said. "Our application is bringing in new people for us who haven't been customers before. The future is about how you add utility to your brands, and by doing that how do you help solve problems beyond helping people decide on what to eat for dinner tonight."
What can the digital world learn from the offline world?
Shiv Singh, VP-global social media lead at Publicis Groupe's Razorfish, believes it's getting much harder to separate offline from digital and that the silos between the two need to come down. "Digital can learn a hell of a lot from traditional and still needs to," Mr. Singh said. "Consumers don't say to themselves, 'This is a traditional moment and tomorrow I'm going to wake up and have a digital moment.' So it's about time we get beyond that ourselves."
Mr. Singh said digital marketers should take heed of the work taking place in the offline word-of-mouth sector and how the relationship between marketer and influencer is developed and how their influence is measured. "What's going to happen next in social is that we will get a lot more rigorous and technical about how we identify, nurture and measure the impact of online influencers on the customer," he said. "And rather than thinking in terms of audiences we will be thinking in terms of audiences and the impact influencers can have on those audiences."
Just what is the impact of buzz?
As far as big name marketers go, Burger King may very well be the king of buzz. But there are critics who think all that noise doesn't amount to much in terms of sales. Tia Lang, director-media and interactive at Burger King, respectfully disagrees and said it all depends on how you define buzz. "Social media is very important in today's environment and we think that generating buzz is a positive result in and of itself," she said. "We have done that with some innovative campaigns that have helped lead to 20 consecutive quarters of positive comp sales. We're pretty proud of that and that's how we would respectfully answer our critics.
What is the next marketing platform?
Paul Leys, director of Ignition Factory East at Omnicom Group's OMD, said agencies and marketers alike have gotten a lot of mileage out of what's happened in the smartphone sector and believes e-reader will soon be offering up the same opportunities. "The platform is showing a lot of innovation for the print industry -- how you can read magazines and how social can be integrated," he said. "Just imagine being able to read GQ and see someone else on the other side of the country reading the same article at the same time and being able talk to them about it. Suddenly there's a different social aspect being added to e-readers. We don't know exactly what this aspect will be yet, but we are excited as there continues to be innovation in the platform."
NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- At this year's Media Mavens annual luncheon in New York, Advertising Age honored 16 of the industry's most innovative thinkers from big name marketers including Kraft, Coca-Cola, Ford and Burger King.
Honorees, however, had to earn their lunch by answering questions that show off just how smart they are. Here are six bits of wisdom that Ad Age's Media Mavens imparted this year, including what their clients are looking for, what the necessary elements for a successful social media campaign are, how to evolve a well-known brand into a services company and what technologies have the potential to be successful marketing mediums.
What do marketers really want from media planners?
In a word? Integration, said Bob Bernstein, chief media officer at Interpublic Group of Cos.' DraftFCB, along with leadership. Going forward, agencies and individuals who can provide integration will be paid a premium. "Agencies also need to see the big picture from a consumer standpoint and understand their decision journey," Mr. Bernstein said. "Media planning agencies must have the ability to work closely with creative agencies in order to elevate the message, and they have to be able to apply analytical thinking."
What are the elements for a successful social-media campaign?
Three elements responsible for the success of a campaign including being "courageous, credible and transparent," said Connie Fontaine, manager brand content and alliances at Ford Motor Co., who was behind one of the most successful social-media efforts of the past year -- the re-entry of the Ford Fiesta. Also crucial was thoroughly vetting the consumers who took part in the campaign and having executives and agency partners who were committed to the effort. "Staying courageous was difficult because we had to let 100 people take control of our [messaging]," she said. "But we had to be credible and to do that we had to stay out of the mix and that was a tough thing for all of us to do. And by screening all of these people we knew they were going to tell effective and fun stories."
How do you turn a known brand marketer into a service company?
Mark Stewart, VP global media services at Kraft Foods, said in today's environment marketers have to provide utilities, solutions and real services to their customers, citing Kraft's iPhone application. "There's real connectivity between consumers, brands and content that they love," Mr. Stewart said. "Our application is bringing in new people for us who haven't been customers before. The future is about how you add utility to your brands, and by doing that how do you help solve problems beyond helping people decide on what to eat for dinner tonight."
What can the digital world learn from the offline world?
Shiv Singh, VP-global social media lead at Publicis Groupe's Razorfish, believes it's getting much harder to separate offline from digital and that the silos between the two need to come down. "Digital can learn a hell of a lot from traditional and still needs to," Mr. Singh said. "Consumers don't say to themselves, 'This is a traditional moment and tomorrow I'm going to wake up and have a digital moment.' So it's about time we get beyond that ourselves."
Mr. Singh said digital marketers should take heed of the work taking place in the offline word-of-mouth sector and how the relationship between marketer and influencer is developed and how their influence is measured. "What's going to happen next in social is that we will get a lot more rigorous and technical about how we identify, nurture and measure the impact of online influencers on the customer," he said. "And rather than thinking in terms of audiences we will be thinking in terms of audiences and the impact influencers can have on those audiences."
Just what is the impact of buzz?
As far as big name marketers go, Burger King may very well be the king of buzz. But there are critics who think all that noise doesn't amount to much in terms of sales. Tia Lang, director-media and interactive at Burger King, respectfully disagrees and said it all depends on how you define buzz. "Social media is very important in today's environment and we think that generating buzz is a positive result in and of itself," she said. "We have done that with some innovative campaigns that have helped lead to 20 consecutive quarters of positive comp sales. We're pretty proud of that and that's how we would respectfully answer our critics.
What is the next marketing platform?
Paul Leys, director of Ignition Factory East at Omnicom Group's OMD, said agencies and marketers alike have gotten a lot of mileage out of what's happened in the smartphone sector and believes e-reader will soon be offering up the same opportunities. "The platform is showing a lot of innovation for the print industry -- how you can read magazines and how social can be integrated," he said. "Just imagine being able to read GQ and see someone else on the other side of the country reading the same article at the same time and being able talk to them about it. Suddenly there's a different social aspect being added to e-readers. We don't know exactly what this aspect will be yet, but we are excited as there continues to be innovation in the platform."
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Businesses To Make Greater Use Of Social Media In 2010
Brought to you by Lawrence Perry via NewsPR.us and OfficialWire
LONDON, ENGLAND - The growing popularity of social media and the global economic conditions will push more companies to find greater use for social media next year. According to a survey conducted with 328 companies, businesses will use social media to communicate with its employees.
According to the same study, 80 percent of all companies surveyed already increased their use of electronic communication in the last two years. Fifty percent of the companies have also reduced their use of printed communication materials in the workplace.
This survey simply shows the growing significance of social media in business and how social media are really set to change the way people communicate. For businesses, social media will play a greater role not just in external communications of businesses but in internal communications as well. Though there are still factors that affect the use of social media in business aside from the willingness of the business owner such as the availability of technology, the lack of IT support and other factors, it can still be expected that social media will stay. Especially since such a big percentage claim they will use social media more next year even though about 40 percent of the 328 companies surveyed claim they have limited knowledge of social media. This means there is willingness on the part of decision makers and business owners to really take advantage of social media. Forty five percent of the companies surveyed claim they have lack of resources and staff.
Non-traditional methods of communications offer companies with opportunities to communicate more effectively internally with employees and externally with clients, investors and business partners and at more affordable costs. With the recovery of the economy still at very slow pace, companies are looking for ways to improve business productivity and profitability without raising operating costs. Utilizing social media for internal and external communications is just one of the ways businesses can really triumph over these trying times.
Even without a tough economy, companies are always looking for ways to become more productive and effective. Business communication is just one area of business that companies look into when they want to streamline business operations and when they want to really make things run more smoothly in the workplace.
LONDON, ENGLAND - The growing popularity of social media and the global economic conditions will push more companies to find greater use for social media next year. According to a survey conducted with 328 companies, businesses will use social media to communicate with its employees.
According to the same study, 80 percent of all companies surveyed already increased their use of electronic communication in the last two years. Fifty percent of the companies have also reduced their use of printed communication materials in the workplace.
This survey simply shows the growing significance of social media in business and how social media are really set to change the way people communicate. For businesses, social media will play a greater role not just in external communications of businesses but in internal communications as well. Though there are still factors that affect the use of social media in business aside from the willingness of the business owner such as the availability of technology, the lack of IT support and other factors, it can still be expected that social media will stay. Especially since such a big percentage claim they will use social media more next year even though about 40 percent of the 328 companies surveyed claim they have limited knowledge of social media. This means there is willingness on the part of decision makers and business owners to really take advantage of social media. Forty five percent of the companies surveyed claim they have lack of resources and staff.
Non-traditional methods of communications offer companies with opportunities to communicate more effectively internally with employees and externally with clients, investors and business partners and at more affordable costs. With the recovery of the economy still at very slow pace, companies are looking for ways to improve business productivity and profitability without raising operating costs. Utilizing social media for internal and external communications is just one of the ways businesses can really triumph over these trying times.
Even without a tough economy, companies are always looking for ways to become more productive and effective. Business communication is just one area of business that companies look into when they want to streamline business operations and when they want to really make things run more smoothly in the workplace.
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