Marketing Mix Back In Review.
It appears online marketers are turning to affiliate programs to replace lost revenues from failing PPC campaigns. With more advertisers turning to paid search, the likely cost per click is rising and in turn driving up a merchants CPA.
But are affiliates the answer? The tone from discussions on forums regarding Google adwords recent landing page updates seem to have hit a number of big players hard. This coupled with diminishing SEO listings, I personally feel that other marketing opportunities need to be thrown into the mix.
Affiliate marketing has always been more profitable than paid search and media, for the simple reason that you are paying a fixed CPA not variable CPC in turn creating a variable CPA.
So have a think about....
Affiliate Marketing - Start pushing back on your agency to recruit new partners, simply working with existing sites is not an option. Your agency can use simple techniques to recruit new partners and not rely on the ones which are simply already in the network! Get them to check search engines and visit sites who rank highly for common terms, searching blogs for similar content or finding ones which have an audience which fits your brand profile.
Paid Search - Are you enhancing your spend around a TV, Print & Press Campaign? Get your agency to look deeper, what parts of the search are working and why. Simply reporting lower CPA results is not acceptable you need your agency to back this up with theory and rationale!
Social Networking & Community Marketing - With more people turning to blogs & spaces to communicate, have you consider branded opportunities. Take a look at facebook.com, bebo.com, myspace.com & then portal opportunities like MSN Spaces
Portals are still king! - Most feature in the top 10 destinations for time spent online. Diversify your advertising think about what users are going just because you are a travel company doesn't mean you can test Ads in News, Gaming or other channels. if there is a demographic fit with the general audience its worth experimenting. Remember 80% of your media plan should be about 'safe bet' placements however 20% should be testing & experimenting.
Communication - Email, Messenger/chat are key areas to be promoting in. But remember simply developing 1 campaign to ruin across all media is not an option. You have to cater your creative message to a given medium which is not longer simply 'digital'
Multimedia Activities - Have you thought about moving money into Digital Radio? Online gaming is also popular, entertainment sites remember you can associate your message with a movie and therefore run campaigns alongside film releases.
Retail - Think about it people shop online, work with a specialist agency to coordinate retail partnerships and competitions. These may not be a high on acquisitions but are great for brand building and expanding your audience. Think ebay, amazon, food retailers, specialist retailers!
Mobile - This is not just about advertising on mobiles but developing mobile portal relationships aswell.
Final word is that Internet real estate is growing, as is the way in which we interact with it. For your media plan to be current they must be ever evolving!
But are affiliates the answer? The tone from discussions on forums regarding Google adwords recent landing page updates seem to have hit a number of big players hard. This coupled with diminishing SEO listings, I personally feel that other marketing opportunities need to be thrown into the mix.
Affiliate marketing has always been more profitable than paid search and media, for the simple reason that you are paying a fixed CPA not variable CPC in turn creating a variable CPA.
So have a think about....
Affiliate Marketing - Start pushing back on your agency to recruit new partners, simply working with existing sites is not an option. Your agency can use simple techniques to recruit new partners and not rely on the ones which are simply already in the network! Get them to check search engines and visit sites who rank highly for common terms, searching blogs for similar content or finding ones which have an audience which fits your brand profile.
Paid Search - Are you enhancing your spend around a TV, Print & Press Campaign? Get your agency to look deeper, what parts of the search are working and why. Simply reporting lower CPA results is not acceptable you need your agency to back this up with theory and rationale!
Social Networking & Community Marketing - With more people turning to blogs & spaces to communicate, have you consider branded opportunities. Take a look at facebook.com, bebo.com, myspace.com & then portal opportunities like MSN Spaces
Portals are still king! - Most feature in the top 10 destinations for time spent online. Diversify your advertising think about what users are going just because you are a travel company doesn't mean you can test Ads in News, Gaming or other channels. if there is a demographic fit with the general audience its worth experimenting. Remember 80% of your media plan should be about 'safe bet' placements however 20% should be testing & experimenting.
Communication - Email, Messenger/chat are key areas to be promoting in. But remember simply developing 1 campaign to ruin across all media is not an option. You have to cater your creative message to a given medium which is not longer simply 'digital'
Multimedia Activities - Have you thought about moving money into Digital Radio? Online gaming is also popular, entertainment sites remember you can associate your message with a movie and therefore run campaigns alongside film releases.
Retail - Think about it people shop online, work with a specialist agency to coordinate retail partnerships and competitions. These may not be a high on acquisitions but are great for brand building and expanding your audience. Think ebay, amazon, food retailers, specialist retailers!
Mobile - This is not just about advertising on mobiles but developing mobile portal relationships aswell.
Final word is that Internet real estate is growing, as is the way in which we interact with it. For your media plan to be current they must be ever evolving!
