New Marketing Fronts and Advertising Data…

Web Radio Said To Be Ready For Ads - New York Times

Internet radio companies such as AOL Radio@Network and Live365.com are starting to attract the attention of advertisers, says this piece. There are two key reasons: "The protracted legal and regulatory battles involving so-called Webcasters, the recording industry and the federal copyright authorities have dissipated, while the number of consumers who listen to the radio over their computers has risen to the point where the medium should begin to gain respect from mainstream advertisers." Interestingly, 20 million Americans listen to Webcasts at least once a week, while 39 million tune in at least once per month. The article covers the basics of a new advertising deal involving AOL and Yahoo and takes a look at other recent activity in the Internet radio space. This story may now be in the paid archive section of the NYT. http://www.corante.com/internet/redir/42468.html (Corante, March 22, 2004)

Attention, Wal-Mart Shoppers: 88-Cent Downloads - News.com

Wal-Mart, in partnership with Liquid Digital Media, is ready to launch its 88-cent digital music download service after a three-month test period. Wal-Mart customers will be able to play downloaded music on Windows PCs, burn songs to CDs or transfer music to portable devices. The key question facing Wal-Mart: Will low prices be enough to win over consumers from other online digital music services such as Apple and Napster? http://www.corante.com/internet/redir/42744.html (Corante, March 24, 2004)

We Interrupt This Search To Show a Full-Motion Ad - New York Times

Online advertisers may have stumbled upon a more effective way to reach millions of Internet users: TV-style video ads. In fact, in a recent study of 1,700 Internet users conducted by Dynamic Logic, only 28% of those surveyed found the full-motion commercials to be "annoying." The number could be significant, say advertisers, since 38% of TV viewers claim that TV commercials are annoying. Notes one online advertiser: "I was astounded by the results. There's absolutely no question we'll be doing this again." In contrast to these new full-motion ads, streaming video ads are considered to be "choppier and more prone to glitches." This article is in the paid archive section of the NYT. http://www.corante.com/internet/redir/41610.html (Corante, March 11, 2004)

While consumers loath telemarketing and SPAM, they accept Web advertising nearly as much as they accept TV commercials and most welcome print advertisements.

These findings by Dynamic Logic add another layer to data released last week by the research company that Web viewers tolerate up to two pop-type ads per hour http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/3095.asp

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The rate of e-mail that was successfully sent either remained stable or improved during the fourth quarter of 2003, with media and financial service messages delivered 92% and 90% of the time, respectively, according to a study from Bigfoot Interactive.

Once delivered, editorial messages from automotive firms realized a click-through rate of 20.7%, up from 18.7% in third-quarter 2003. Bigfoot attributed the jump to model-specific "owner news" mailings.

Editorial messages, such as general and political news alerts, boasted a 13.1% click-through rate, up from 10.3% during the previous quarter.

Messages from consumer packaged goods companies yielded 12.4% click-through rates for the quarter, largely due to the holiday shopping season, while retail marketers sending out promotion messages generated rates of 8.6%.

Financial services, which saw higher delivery rates as a result of taking advantage of hygiene and opt-out technologies, generated unique click-through rates of 10.2%.

"Long gone are the days of blasting email with irrelevant messages to everyone in your database," said Al DiGuido, CEO of Bigfoot Interactive, in a statement.

DeGuido added that the results "validate the power of permission-based, contextually relevant email and the increasingly important role it plays in driving commerce, customer service and the overall relationship between marketers and their customers."

New York-based Bigfoot Interactive provides e-mail communication services and marketing automation technologies (Direct Newsline March 10)

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Acquisition e-mail marketing spending in the U.S. will climb steadily from $720 million in 2003 to $1.8 billion in 2008.

According to Jupiter’s latest report, over the course of 2003, the average U.S. online consumer received 3,920 unwanted commercial e-mail messages. This number will grow to reach 6,395 by the end of 2008.

But, the volume of messages sent by legitimate marketers, rather than spam, is the largest barrier to reaching consumers, noted Jupiter. Sponsored e-mail messages in the U.S. will grow at nearly twice the compound annual rate (19%) of total message volume (11%) between 2003 and 2008

Return Path's latest Email Blocking & Filtering Report, shows that more permission-based email are being blocked than ever. In fact, nearly 19 percent of permission-based email does not get delivered by ISPs. That's a 1.7% increase over the previous study period.

While the delivery failure rate continues to rise overall, Return Path believes you can stem the tide and improve your specific results by continuing to measure and optimize your email deliverability practices. In fact, it is clear from the data that you can avoid most ISP blocking by paying attention to things like list quality, acquisition/permission, bounce removal, email churn, your unsubscribe policy and sender identification.

To download the full deliverability study (it’s free) click here.

Direct mail drives customers to retail stores. That's according to a Direct Marketing Association study on response rates that shows 50% of customers responded to direct offers by visiting the retail stores that mailed them out.

A key objective reported by the majority of retailers surveyed (58%) was to build store traffic. The focus of another 27% was to solicit orders and 15% use direct channels to generate leads.

"Last year, U.S. retailers generated nearly $189 million in sales to consumers through direct mail, telephone, newspaper and other marketing channels," said H. Robert Wientzen, CEO of the DMA in a statement.

Some 63% of retailers said they use direct mail, and 42% use e-mail. Other direct media used includes coupons (18%), catalogs (12%), inserts (10%) and dimensional and telephone (both 9%).

Direct mail achieved the highest response rate of 4%. Mailings to prospect files had a slightly higher response rate than mailings to house files.

Catalog rates for retail stores were 3%. And e-mail offers delivered 2.3%.

(Direct NewsLine March 1)

Hyatt had one goal in mind when for its online marketing campaigns: to increase reservations through the Web site or through the toll-free number.

Just by focusing on one particular niche target group, clickthroughs went up from 0.26% to 1.04% during the 18 months of the campaign. Reservations increased 88% and online reservations ballooned 161%.

Carat Interactive, who handled Hyatt’s campaign had a few obstacles: the travel category is cluttered; inventory is at a premium. Another is that cheaper rates often garner clickthroughs in the travel space, but Hyatt's prices weren't inexpensive.

The decision then was to focus on a smaller, more targeted market.

To accomplish that goal, Carat sponsored articles on sites like the Wedding Channel.com. Links to Hyatt hotels in Hawaii were sprinkled throughout the editorial and the ads for Hyatt bordered the editorial content.

Behavioral targeting of ads through Yahoo worked, too, ads were served to visitors who had viewed the travel areas of Yahoo in the past.

Geographical targeting didn't work. Instead, Carat turned toward using search engine marketing keywords that contained geographical locations.

Niche-oriented, high-end travel sites like Fodor's and Concierge.com brought the best response rates for Hyatt's ads. Broader travel-oriented sites like Expedia didn't perform well. Powerful portals, such as Yahoo, delivered volume.

In general, long-term partnerships with high-performing sites worked best for the Hyatt campaigns.

Some 75% of conversions occurred some time after the Web visitor had viewed the ad. In fact, conversions peaked two weeks after the ad was viewed. Cookie technology allowed Carat to track this. (Excerpted from Direct Newsline March 3)