Jivox

Archive for October, 2009

29 October 2009

Man Cannot Live By PPC Alone. Can He?

by Debra Northart ; featured on Search Engine Land

Almost like being on TV!

Online video is one of the newer ad formats available to advertisers. Advertisers have used video on television for decades, and now video format can be viewed online. If a small business already has a local commercial running on television, the video from that television commercial can be linked to the online campaign for a dynamic means to convey the ad message. If an advertiser website has no video,  Windows Moviemaker and Jivox are just two sources available for creating video for online ad campaigns.  If your ad campaigns are outsourced, have your provider create a video for you! Read the whole story > >

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26 October 2009

Online Marketing Musts: Online Ads

Online ads are a vital component of any online marketing program. These can take the form of “banner” ads that can contain text, images, animations, and videos – and standalone video ads, which either run before, during, or after online video content. Display and video ads differ from search ads, which are usually text-based and sometimes contain limited images and which are purchased and placed using the online bidding systems on Google, Yahoo, and MSN (Bing).

If you want to purchase some targeted online ad placements, the first step is to create your display and video ads. As a small business, your best bet is to use a free online service to create your online ads. Jivox allows you to create compelling video ads, entirely for free, using easy-to-use editing tools. Services like Google Display Ad Builder or Wave2 help advertisers create banner ads.

 After your ads are ready to go, you’ll need to work with an online advertising network to place them on targeted websites, to make sure your ideal audience sees them. Work with an online ad network that can ensure your ad shows up on locally-, demographically-, and contextually-targeted websites. A few examples of major display ad networks that offer local and contextual targeting include AOL Advertising, Yahoo!, Google Ad Network, ValueClick, 24/7 Real Media, and Burst Media –though these large networks take a bit of expertise to use. (This article offers a comprehensive list of the different display and other ad networks out there today.) A new ad network targeted specifically to small businesses in the B2B space is Inflection Point Media.  Meanwhile, Jivox allows you to place your video ad on a network of over 1,000 locally-focused websites for as little as pennies per video view – offering precise, zip-code level local targeting. 

The price you pay to run your ad on these ad networks – usually charged on a cost-per-click (CPC), or cost per thousand views (CPM) basis – will vary depending on which ad network you choose, as well as variables such as the level of targeting you want (city-level, zip-code level, behavioral, demographic etc.), as well as the content quality and traffic volumes of the sites where your ad will appear. Whichever ad network you choose, make sure it offers comprehensive reporting; you need to know if your ads are getting clicked on, whether they are driving people to your site or into your store, and whether they are delivering sales. You also want to know which ad creative is working and which isn’t, so you can fine tune offers and ad copy to most effectively engage your audience.

From classic banners to interactive video ads, paid media placements can have a massive impact on sales, especially if your ads include calls-to-action, such as a link to your site, a downloadable coupon, an 800-number, or another way for viewers to reach your business. Online ads are one of the most critical components of a brand-building program. Even if an ad doesn’t drive someone to make a purchase, it still has a lasting impact on them.  When potential customers see your ads, they engage more deeply with your brand and recall it down the line. Try out a few online ads today and see where it leads. You might be surprised at how effective they can be for a small investment.

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20 October 2009

Online Video Ads Drive Customer Engagement & Interaction

By Diaz Nesamoney, Founder, President & CEO, Jivox

The biggest trend with the Internet is its transition from a passive medium to an active and engaging medium. By that, I mean users can look forward to Internet technologies that deliver much more than static Web pages, search, and blogging to rich media, highly interactive sites, visual, more interesting search (like Bing), and more active media like Twitter. Once this happens, the internet will truly have delivered on its promise of being an interactive medium.

In the online advertising space, ads have been evolving over the last 15 years from the early text to highly interactive video ads. Research has shown that users generally respond better to visual presentations than written text, video is a compelling way to present products and services that are easier to show and harder to describe.

Our industry started with trying to replicate the closest offline medium i.e. TV ads on the Internet. This was a good start, but the results were good but not great as measured by ‘clicks’. The industry has now moved on to make the ads more interesting by introducing interactive elements in the ad. The users actually like interacting with ads rather than just watching them. Advertisers now can actually measure the level of engagement and the response the ad is generating, and if it isn’t generating can perhaps try changing the interactive elements to make it more effective.

Video advertising is a medium for communicating with customers not just the way TV ads did but to become pervasive across the various online ‘channels’ users spend their time on.

For entrepreneurs, this industry is creating a tremendous number of opportunities; however, there are some pitfalls and challenges. Investors have retreated by and large, and so it is hard to come by anyone interested in investing for even the most compelling ideas. Second, the space is evolving very rapidly so entrepreneurs need to be very nimble and opportunistic to take the turns in the industry and rapidly respond with the right solutions. Last but not the least, distribution, i.e. getting a large scale customer base, is critical in order to deliver revenue and profits that the investors require today. This is often challenging, given the small size and footprint of most startups.

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6 October 2009

Online Marketing Musts: Social Media

Your potential customers are undoubtedly spending more time on social networks like Facebook and Twitter. Your company needs to be there, too. And the good news it, it won’t cost you any money to get started, though it will require a time investment. Both Facebook and Twitter allow you to create free accounts; on Facebook, your company can create a Group Page, and on Twitter, you simple create an account in your company’s name. Then, of course, you have to fill your Page with content your audience will find compelling – reviews, coupons, funny musings, or whatever else will grab people’s attention.

On Twitter, you’ll need to post regular tweets about your business and work hard to assemble a group of “followers” – which is what Twitter calls people who subscribe to see your posts in their news feed. The best way to get followers is to start following relevant people yourself, and to continually post tweets that are relevant to your audience.  Make sure to include a lot of keywords related to your business in your posts, so that new followers can find you.  Once you get a large following, you can offer “flash discounts” and coupons to your followers and announce new products and services first on Twitter.

Facebook enables you to have fun with your company’s brand. You can create a brand Page and populate it with photos, posts, promotions, and updates about your company. For example, if you own a restaurant, create a Fan Page where you can connect with your customers and others searching for your type of cuisine. You can put up your menu, photos of your dining room, offer coupons to your Facebook friends, and interact with diners who post comments.

B2B companies should also create a LinkedIn profile that details your business profile, lists key company contacts, and provides information about your products and services.

(Note: you can also buy paid ads on social networks, but start with free methods to get a feel for the medium before shelling out for paid ads.)

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6 October 2009

U.S. Web Ad Spending Fell 5.3% in First Half BUT video ads up 38%

by Scott Morrison of The Wall Street Journal

U.S. advertisers spent $10.9 billion on Internet ads in the first half of 2009, a 5.3% decline from the same period last year, the Interactive Advertising Bureau said Monday. Search advertising continued to represent the largest percentage of overall interactive ad spending, with search revenues reaching more than $5.1 billion in the half of 2009, up slightly from that same period in 2008, the group said in a report produced with PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Display-related advertising–which includes display ads, rich media, digital video and sponsorship–totaled nearly $3.8 billion in the first six months of 2009, a 1.1% decline from the same period in 2008, the IAB said. Digital video ads remained at tiny segment of the market with $477 million in spending, but the sector continued to show robust growth with a 38% increase from last year. The report largely confirmed what Internet giants such as Google Inc. and Yahoo Inc. have been saying for months – that the economic downturn has taken its toll on Internet advertising, but not in an even fashion and not the to degree in which the offline ad market has suffered.

“We are in one of the most difficult economic slumps in decades. Interactive is one of the advertising sectors that has been least affected,” Randall Rothenberg, president and chief executive of the IAB, said in a statement. Read the whole story > >

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