Everyone agrees that banner ads should be optimized. When a client pays for advertising, it’s a given that sophisticated ad servers will be matching ads with user profiles to optimize this element of a campaign. So why are we not doing the same thing for landing pages? Having a pool of multiple landing pages for a sophisticated landing page serving technology to choose from, is a whole area of campaign optimization that has been ignored by most advertising technology companies. There is no reason that every element of an ad campaign should not be optimized.

This is the focus of my article Landing PagesServing, which appeared on the marketing measurement site Online Behavior .

The article is based on real optimization results from Traffiliate, DMG’s new landing page and optimization funnel technology.

Readmore: http://online-behavior.com/testing/landing-pages-serving-654

Gilad Hellerman, CTO

Of all the elements that raise the cost of an advertising campaign, landing pages are often the toughest things for clients to rap their heads around. There are a few reasons for this trend. First off, the client often sees landing pages as superfluous, especially when they were always taught in sales to keep the layers between contact-to-close to a minimum. Landing pages just feel like an extra layer, not to mention an expensive one at that. The client has already went through a similar headache with a designer when trying to frame their message exactly the way they wanted to see it , and now that message“feel” is about to be changed again.

Aside from the obvious answers that landing pages are a more targeted creative for specific campaigns than are websites, and therefore more likely to produce conversions; and the fact that a landing page is not redefining a clients brand but rather defining a specific initiative of the brand – There are some additional bonus features of landing pages that are sure to enlighten a client’s perspective on what a powerful tool they can be.

Just as a client recognizes the value of banner placement to attract specific consumer demographics, with a new landing page optimization technologies, they should see the value in even further refined, post click targeting. Optimization technologies allows for targeted landing pages to match various user profiles. DMG took this approach one step further with their Traffiliate, by creating a technology that intelligently alternates between multiple landing pages for even further optimized results. For those of you unfamiliar with what I’m talking about, post click optimization technology, allows for the millisecond profiling of a click through consumer, followed by smart decisionsto serve a specific landing page that has been statistically proven to bestmatch that consumer’s profile group. After the client is presented with the landing page, their conversion behavior is monitored to further the statistical refinement of profiles, which increases the likelihood of future conversions down the road. This requires a premade set of landing pages meant to match aset of profiles, but the extra initial setup effort is well worth the results.

Once a client realizes the conversion numbers that lie behind an optimized landing page program (they can range from anywhere between 30 – 200% increases), closing them on the deal should be a no-brainer, and there’s no need to optimize specific pitches for specific clients. All clients think alike in this respect; as we said earlier, numbers bring smiles to clients’ faces.         

The Key to Success in 2010 --- Multi/Cross Platform Integration

Our analysis of the challenges we will face in 2010 has placed a high priority on maintaining our heightened alert, rapid grasp and immediate integration of the multitude of new platform, including mobile, display, contextual, etc. 

Our commitment to improving value and ROI for our clients translates into an ongoing mastery of this increasingly complex maze of online platforms and data – and the provision of enhanced aggregation and optimization capabilities. 

Throughout the year, we will continue to utilize our proprietary technology and productivity tools that enable full integration of data management with all aspects of campaigns optimization. Our solutions will increasingly ignite the mobile advertising sphere, expanding results-based campaigns by providing clients with a single source for mobile media buying and optimization – for WAP, iPhones, and other web platforms. 

 Running online campaigns across multiple ad serving and exchange platforms will enhance diversified streams of quality traffic - enabling increased ROI, volume, and reach. Our ad network offerings include a new specialized premix ad network - dedicated to brand advertisers - that boosts their exposure and brand awareness across qualified top-tier publishers worldwide in diverse channels, and enables measurability and accountability in their online campaigns.

And, of course, DSNR Media’s robust performance ad network - running advertisements on a large scale using a vast range of publishers as well as optimization and targeting solutions - ensures a significantly increased ROI. Taken together, this full range of online advertising solutions bodes well for a productive and profitable 2010.

As the most critical stage of the campaign, the LP generates the actual results, thus should ensure the higher possible Conversion rates.
Hereby are several recommended principals for Landing Page creation:

1.     Optimize the loading speed
This is a crucial step in the process: the faster the LP loads - the lower your bounce rate will go!
An outstanding design that takes time to open up will probably won’t be able to keep the potential buyer to see your design (or at least complete the conversion process). 

2.     Define the Objectives for the Landing Page
the content of the page should be determined by the desired results:
generating leads, product acquisition, brand/product awareness, etc.

e.g. A: for online acquisition results, the page should comprise of the minimum necessary details for the actual purchase – to make it quickly and effectively without any hassles to the buyer.

e.g. B: If you want to direct the leads to a calling center, in order to improve their scoring, you can add more qualifying questions, which may have a direct effect on the lead's Value for both the calling center and cost.
On another case, when a higher volume of leads needs to be generated for a huge calling center, it is recommended to “untie” the qualification fields.

3.    Ensure the best possible design of text and structure
The major info should be positioned on the "heating" areas of the page, to increase visibility and attention of the users for maximum responsiveness.

e.g.: when the text orientation is from left to right, the "heat (and hitting) area" is at the upper left side of the page. All major messages should be located there.
An additional info will be located at other areas. Again – make sure to keep it on the heat area. The attached Heat Map demonstrates this concept:
"Hot"/ High hit areas – in red color 
"Cold"/Low hit areas- in blue color

By Inbar Chap, co-CEO

Don't Judge a Banner by its Cover!
http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=107890

• Website marketability
• Offer
• post click conversion

 On the side of the Service provider or, in our case, the "network" - we complete the picture with our expertise in providing the playing field and the optimization tactics. As a representative of the media side of the business, my responsibility is with the playing field or accurately; the rich Blend of traffic that provides the opportunity for the conversions to happen. This is fundamentally made up by a 2 level media pool: 
1. The base – the mass amounts of various traffic that provide multiple types of traffic from channels and placements that have some  slight relevance to the advertising offer.
 2.  Highly targeted, highly convertible traffic. Together these traffics create a blend that provides the advertiser with enough momentum to take its first baby steps in making the beginning conversions happen.

Once those occur it has to be provided with enough fuel to be able to learn and grow and be optimized using our technology, expertise and tactics into a significant volume campaign. One may ask why a campaign isn’t run on the second level traffic only where the highest likeliness of a conversion would occur.

The answer lies partially in the fact that this traffic is limited in its quantity and furthermore we have seen that to grow an advertiser to limitless expansion it is important to provide it with both types giving it the necessary bulk it needs to be a strong long lasting campaign. 

If the issue of the perfect blend of traffic isn’t enough; in order to keep going a long lasting successful campaign the traffic pool must remain forever fed by a continuous flux of new traffic in both of the levels. This compliments the continuous changes and optimization tactics made on the back end side of the campaign that creates each moment with a rich starting point for the new seed conversions. 

By Gal Avidor, Account Manager

In this post we will demonstrate how a properly planned and funded test campaign can ultimately produce the desired results: lower eCPA, better reach of leads and new clients, and of course the major bottom line - higher ROI. 

For the past two years we have witnessed the emergence of many ventures looking to utilize results-based online advertising to drive potential customers to their website, and convert relevant traffic into sales dollars.   
 

Today, it is especially important for advertisers to maximize the utility of every dollar spent while casting a wide net in the vast online marketplace. Many advertisers have already invested a great deal of time and money developing a “designer” site platform and home page for incoming traffic, and are looking to test out the effectiveness of their designs before devoting a great deal of money to an advertising campaign.   In many cases, the size of the initial investment in the site creates a sense of urgency to quickly launch a test advertising campaign, with the hope that maximum performance can be achieved instantly on a small test budget. Our vast experience in this field has revealed that many advertisers make some common mistakes while developing online marketing plans for their websites, leading to a loss in efficiency and effectiveness, and costing more money in the long run to reach their goals. Here you will learn some of the essential elements of effectively testing an advertising campaign to maximize value over its lifetime. 

 A. Planning and Setting Objectives Set campaign objectives and define the value of your customer acquisition chain. Sample Objective: To achieve online sales while maintaining a daily sum of leads to support your calling center.  For this example, we get a mix of 3 options for a conversion process:  

1. Short qualifying process (for online sales).
2. Llong qualifying process (for enhanced lead quality).
3. Mix of short and long processes.

 Defining a clear objective and putting a true price tag on the value of each component within the acquisition chain enables you to measure and evaluate how performance at the beginning of the process affects the value of other components within the value chain.  You can follow the chain to the final conversion and beyond, even analyzing each component’s affect on up-sell opportunities.  This critical level of analysis will ultimately increase your ROI. 

B. The Optimal Landing Page Mix
In order to ensure achievement of your objectives, you will need at least 2-3 optimized landing pages which are properly designed and structured, giving the right incentives for viewers to click through your acquisition chain. 
Sample Objective: One of our clients was seeking to achieve an eCPA (effective cost per acquisition) of $250 from online sales of a financial product with 3 landing pages: 

1. Home page (not recommended)
2. A “call for action” page
3. Special incentive page

Testing these three, distinct landing pages gives us the ability to better understand the end user interaction and behavior in regards to our sales efforts. We can find out: Is the end user impulsive or is he more incentive driven?  Is he committed to enduring the whole conversion process or is he more comfortable with a short lead process, paving the way for an up-sell at a later date?   To summarize, the optimal landing page mix is an extremely important piece of information to maximize the reach of our conversion process, while enhancing our understanding of client behavior, and ultimately maximizing ROI. 

Landing Page Types – Pros and Cons: 

   C. Choosing a Test Budget:
Advertisers often commit a great deal of resources to building an online platform, but allocate minimal budgets to the testing phase, underestimating the capital needed to achieve a truly successful test that will translate to maximum ROI. The growing diversity of online traffic sources embodies many opportunities for advertisers to tap into new market opportunities, but it poses a great challenge of distinguishing between highly relevant, revenue-generating traffic sources and less relevant sources.  In order to calculate the ideal budget, one must take into account the different variables being tested during the campaign, these variables may include the CPA target goal, the number of creatives and Landing pages being tested and the number of traffic sources sampled during the learning process.It is important to point out that these variables differ from one advertiser to another, both in type and significance and depend much on the type of product or service being tested and the advertiser’s main and secondary objectives.These variables will dictate the size of the “Optimum budget” which is defined as the ideal budget to achieve a statistically viable conclusion to maximize ROI. To demonstrate how an Optimum budget can work for you, let's examine a real case study. 

D. Case Study 
Going back to our financial products example, where the advertiser was looking to achieve an eCPA of $250, he had created 3 landing pages and two creative sets totaling 10 creatives: CPA goal = $250Creatives tested = 10Landing pages tested = 3 Recommended test budget for the combination of number of variables and CPA goal is: $15,000With the test budget calculated the test campaign looks as follows: 

Phase 1: Preliminary AB testing The 3 landing pages were exposed to the same amount and mix of traffic in order to establish a general idea of potential for yield. This was done in order to plan the general distribution of traffic to be implemented during the actual testing phase. 

 Phase 2: Learning Phase (campaign) The test campaign was conducted for 4 weeks, constantly monitored and optimized. The results were as fallows: 

 From the test results we can conclude that although the test did not yield the desired eCPA of $250, and did not produce a high ROI, it did exhibit a number of positive key elements, allowing us to make meaningful changes before launching a full campaign. 

1. A positive trend in the number of new leads and new clients
2. A positive trend in leads\new client's ratio.
3. A decline in eCPA.
4. A relatively large number of leads fit for potential up-selling.

  These elements play a key role as you will see in the phase 3 – the optimized campaign:

 Phase 3: Optimized Campaign After the learning was complete, the number of high performing landing pages was narrowed down to 2 and the number of creatives was narrowed to the 5 highest performers. With the proper test exercised, and traffic sources carefully analyzed, the optimized campaign was launched with a 75K budget, with the following results: 

From this data, we can conclude the following: 

1. The number of leads and new clients increased dramatically.
2. So did the leads\new client's ratio.
3. The average basket value for new client decreased but in exchange for higher reach and higher volume.
4. The eCPA dropped drastically and registered below the client's initial goal.
5. The total revenue generated by new clients, when added to the revenue from the test campaign, yielded a higher ROI.

 When summarizing both the testing phase and the optimized phase, the full picture becomes clear: 

 To summarize, defining and carefully planning the different aspects of a results-based online advertising campaign are crucial to achieving maximum results in the long run.

When selecting the right mix of online advertising payment models there is
more than one way of getting the results you want.

Everybody's talking about results and the inherent 'measurability' of online advertising campaigns.
Does all this buzz mean that pricing models with no risk, such as cost-per-action, are the way to go?

Read my full article on iMediaConnection UK.com

Inbar 

In response to "Global Budgets to Boost Online Advertising" 

An article posted in November on mediapost:

http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=93914 

I commented on this article when it was published, and now approaching the half of Q1 2009 - i find it, not only still relevant, but also actually happening.

International growth in general, is what companies need to be looking for now days. In our industry, CPM 's are falling and opportunities are rising...

Here is the original comment: 

This article demonstrates one of the good things that come out from these bad times: looking for extra monetization.

When big U.S. advertisers are cutting budgets and are looking to get their campaigns better targeted, publishers will increase their efforts to better serve their American clients, and on the other hand, better monetize the leftovers.

In the last 4-5 years, we have also been pursuing this slice of the pie, and built a successful business on the 30%-40% non-U.S. visitors on U.S. properties.

Most of the time we find it very difficult to convince Americans that there is a world out there, that, among other things, visits U.S. Web sites such as yahoo.com and alike

Here's our 1st Year B'Day cake! You're all wellcome to have a bite! 

There are many more photos you must check on Facebook :)

Morning Gathering...

What a day!

What a day II!

Thank you all!