Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Digital Marketing- Understanding Online Banners, Shosh, Page-tear, CTR, Clicks

Online banners or Display advertising is a tool which is regarded as a branding tool. There are various formats and sizes available for Online banners. Some publishers call it LREC, North, 300 X250, 728X90 or in game advertising. I feel advertisers and brand managers have realized the importance of Online banners. At-least I did sometime back.

Online banners may not result in a direct buy/sale or lead but it achieves its objective of making the brand visible. In my early days i thought its only search which performs on brand presence and performance. But with time I have realized the importance of Display advertising. I have seen the interaction level with display advertising is far more as compared to search. With display advertising the product features can be shown, explained properly to the user. Let's look at few recent examples which we implemented-
1) We launched our IM product and wanted users to download our mobile application. As it was the first time we decided to advertise so we had to make sure the users understand its features like-interoperability factor, photo sharing, file transfers, free trial period & price etc. The brief to the agency was to come with ideas which a layman can understand. The agency came with some brilliant communication ideas where all the features were explained properly and the interaction level was also high. Sorry I could upload only jpegs.



2) The second product launched was SMS. This category is very competitive in India and you need to clearly differentiate yourself. The brief to the agency was to be cheeky as well as at the same time show the features of the product- the SMS application can be downloaded on your mobile, desktop and can be used through the website as well, the first 25 were free.









Result- We acheieved the desired result of getting the users to interact with our brand.

Display advertising is similar to TV advertising where you showcase your product- its advantages/features/USP. And if the message is clear, your potential target audience will reach to the destination through search or directly. I have tried various kind of formats for display advertising the plain vanilla banners on ROS basis as well as roadblocks, page-tear, ingaming advertising, shosh, expandables, etc. I feel one should do a mix of all the above in any campaign. Like in conventional media press- you launch a product with full page or half page which is followed by 120cc or 100 cc ads for visibility. Similarly a shosh, expando, in game advertising will do justice for the launch and ROS can be used for visibility.

The other advantage of display advertising is you can track each and every penny spent. Every advertiser can put a metric in place to judge the efficacy of the campaign- it can be CTR(click thru rate- percentage of clicks delivered on the number of impressions served), clicks, CPL(cost per lead ie total cost divided by leads), CPA( cost per acquisition ie total cost divided by total number of sales/acquisitions) and very importantly Impressions(brand presence).

The next level of display advertising is behavioural targeting. In India its not big as of now, but it has a huge scope. Imagine you can target a user basis his/her reading habit, preference or website usage pattern. What else does a brand need?

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

How Digital Marketing came in my life?(SEM, SEO, Display advertising, Email marketing, Affiliate marketing, Social media optimization, blogs, banners)

My first interaction with digital marketing came in April in 05. Coming from conventional/traditional advertising background, I didn't have much clue about digital marketing except for Email/messengers and visiting few big sites. In this new job I was asked to handle digital marketing with a colleague. Well it was like I was thrown in a rough sea and had no clue how to manage the big waves (of questions on digital marketing- Search Engine Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, banners, Emailers, Web analytics).

For me branding or reaching out the potential target audience was only possible through advertising on TV, Press, outdoor and to an extent radio. We have seen brands like HLL(HUL), P&G, Pepsi, Coke, reliance etc doing big time TV advertising/hoardings and reaching out audiences. Internet and digital media was not even in the consideration set for them in India. As a novice I use to think who will come to Internet to buy and how can you buy on Internet. I use to feel it’s a wrong decision, which I have taken in my career. Then the ray of hope was my wife who joined the booming dotcom business sometime before me and was able to sell advertising on portals. I started reading about Internet marketing on the net. This made me realize the potential of this medium. Even to understand the medium I am using Internet as a medium. From thereon I googled everything...

I feel digital marketing is the only medium where you can figure out end to end solutions for any brand. You can figure out who is the customer, what he did with your product (searched, reviewed), interaction with brand (how long he stayed on the site), what he bought, when he bought (time), from which city (place), where did he leave your site (exit page), the list goes on….

Digital Marketing has grown leaps and bound in last few years in India. I will try and take up a topic on daily basis(SEM, SEO, affiliate marketing, email marketing, web anayltics) and would share my knowledge and would welcome inputs/discussions from users/visitors.

Sunday, April 12, 2009

Samajwadi party Manifesto

Some of the Key points in Samajwadi Party Manifesto released yesterday...

They are talking about abolishing-
1) English education from most of the schools(pvt and public)
2) Usage of Computers
3) Usage of all agricultural equipments(tractors, etc)
The list goes on... & yes cut in high Corporate salaries.
Its tough to choose my favourite from the list or should I say its tough to choose the best which will hit Indian economy...
I feel Samajwadi Party have got it wrong somewhere....
How can someone even think of abolishing English language- this language is providing so many jobs. its helping us grow. Fluency in English is one the major advantages Indians have over other countries. I am not saying that we should forget our regional languages, i believe those should be taught in parallel but not a cost of English language.
I think Samajwadi party is still focusing the rural India and completely ignoring the urban India. They feel computer literacy is killing jobs...Nobody(atleast the people i know) will agree to that, I feel they have go it all wrong instead of reducing computer work, they should have focused on something like- How in this world they can make computers eco (enviormentaly) friendly? What will be the measures they will take to save electricity(Global warming) which is consumed at a high rate by these computers and latest technology?
Usage of Agricultural Equipments- I don't know why Samajwadi party believes in ancient techniques and want the farmers to go through the pain of harvesting manually. If we will stop using machines the time taken to harvest will be more and the farmer may end up losing money.
And my favourite cut in high corporate salaries- In this time of recession when people in Urban India are already under tremendous stress of pay cuts and job security. This statement from samajwadi party has done no good...

It feels Samajwadi party main focus is to create Rural jobs at the cost of grwoing Indian economy. Had the manifesto been more focused on future, they would have been the flavour of gen X or Y even. They should think again and look at the large scheme of things and create jobs for both Urban India and Rural India....

Wednesday, April 8, 2009

Bowlers(zaheer khan, Irfan pathan, Kumble, Harbhajan singh, ishant sharma) V/S Batsmens(sachin tendulkar, yuvraj singh, M.S. Dhoni, rahul dravid)

With the current form of Indian cricketers. It made me think who is the better of the two?

Is it the dashing, aggressive, defensive(the famous wall) batsmen
or
the more accurate, fast & spin bowlers.

Lets look at some series which India has played/won since the debacle at world cup 2007. First up was the Bangladesh series(to boost the morale), South african series(in Ireland), England series, T-20 championship, Australian series at home, Australia Series(Away) , South African Home series, Asia cup and the famous New Zealand series.

England Test series- man of the series- Zaheer Khan. He took most wickets in the series- 18, kumble-14, R.P.singh- 12. As compared to leading England bowlers Anderson whose tally was 14 wickets in the series.

20:20 championship- man of the match in final- Irfan pathan. 3 crucial wickets in final. R.P.Singh- 12 wickets was the second best to Umar Gul(best bowler in the series, 13 wickets). The highest individual score by an Indian was 75 by Gautam Ghambir.

Australian ODI Series at home-

Australian Test and Tri Series in Australia- The test series led India to find a genuine fast bowler- Ishant Sharma. The series was fought very well. The lone test match which we won was led By Irfan pathan's swing bowling.
ODI series- Out of the total 11 matches played(2 were abondened) only 9 had result- Indians had 4 MOM(3 by bowlers, Praveen kumar(2), Ishant sharma and Sachin tendulkar).

South Africa Home Series- The test series was won by India and Man of the series- Harbhajan Singh(19 wickets).

Asia Cup- India lost the finals. But our batters did well there. India played 6 matches(4 won, 2 lost). All the four man of the matches won by Indian batsmen- Suresh Raina(3), M.S.Dhoni.

India In Sri lanka- India won the series comprehensively. Man of the series- Yuvraj singh.

India in New Zaealand- Indian won ODI & Test series. Man of the series ODI- Virender sehwag. But will equal contribution from the bowlers Harbhajan(he was the highest wicket tacker in the series) took 5 wickets in the series.
Test series- Even in the test series had great batsmenship from Sachin, Gautam, VVS, rahul. But Harbhajan(16) and Zaheer were just fabulous in the series.

The point I am trying to make is, its the bowlers who leads you to more victories than the batsmen. We have had the same set of batsmen for ages now(no offence made to any batsman's, they are just class apart) but with our bowlers also maturing and doing well we have started winning more series/matches. We in India are more inclined with the dashing batsmenship and long sixes. But its time that we should recognize the true ability of our bowlers.

Three cheers to Zak, bhaji, Irfan, R.P, Ishant, Mishra, Balaji.... The list is endless now.

Sunday, April 5, 2009

As we all want to save time while texting, just wanted to share some shortcuts of texting. This will help you save time and learn the latest lingo of SMS.

Some SMS lingo/shortcuts:-
SMS Short Cuts:
1dRfl - wonderful
2 - to/too/two
2dA - today
2moro - tomorrow
2nite - tonite
3dom - freedom
4 - for
4get - forget
4N - foreign
ADN - any day now
AFAIK - as far as I know
AFAIR - as far as I recall
ASAP - as soon as possible
ATM - at the moment
B - be
B4 - before
B4N - bye for now
BB - bye-bye
Bf -boyfriend
BG - big grin
BION - believe it or not
BK - big kiss
BTDT - been there, done that
BTW - by the way
By - busy
C - see/sea
CB - call back
CUL - see you later
CWYL - chat with you later
DUZ - does
DUZNT - doesn't
F2F - free to talk?
G2G - got to go
Gf - girlfried
Gr8 - great
Grr - angry
H2 - how to
HUH - have you heard?
IC - I see
ICCL - I couldn't care less
IK - I know
ILU (or ILY) - I love you
in4ml - informal
KISS - keep it simple, stupid
KUTGW - keep up the good work
@ "At"
MSG "Message"
W "With"
ATB "All the best"
NE "Any"
W/O "Without"
B "Be, Bee"
NETHNG "Anything"
WKND "Weekend"
BCNU "I'll be seeing you"
NE1 "Anyone"
XLNT "Excellent"
BWD "Backward"
NO1 "No-one"
XOXOX "Hugs and kisses"
B4 "Before"
OIC "Oh, I see"
YR "Your"
C "See, Sea"
PCM "Please call me"
1 "One, Won"
CU "See you"
PLS "Please"
2 "Too, To, Two"
DOIN "Doing"
PPL "People"

:) Original smiley
:-) Classic smiley
;-) Wink
:-)) Very happy
|-) Hee-hee
:-D Laugh loud
:-o Amazement
:^D" Great! I like it!
:-* Kiss
<3 I love you
:-s Confusion
{} No comment
:-C Totally unbelievable
%-) Confused
*:* Fuzzy face
:-@ Screaming
:-7 Wry remark
:-p Sticking out tongue
:-( Frown
:> Develish grin
(:-|K- Dressed to kill
:-|| Angry
::=)) Seeing double
:-> Hey
|:-0 No explanation
#:-) Hair in a mess
>;-(' I am spitting mad
#-) Partied all night
:-| Hmmm
:-& Tongue-tied
L8 - late
L8r - later
LMK - let me know
M8 - mate
MOF - matter of fact
MT - empty
MTE - my thoughts exactly
NAGI - not a good idea
Ne - any
Ne1 - anyone
No1 - no one
nrg - energy
OIC - Oh I see
OK - okay
ONNA - oh no, not again!
OTT- over the top
PCM - please call me
Pls - please
Ppl - people
PTL - praise the Lord
R - are
Re - regarding
RUOK - are you okay?
Spk - speak
Sry - sorry
SWAK - sealed with a kiss
THX - thanks
TTYL - talk to you later
TXT - text
U - you
U@ - you at? (where are you?)
UOK - you okay?
UR - your/you're
Usu - usually
W8 - wait
W84M - wait for me
W/ - with
Wan2 - want to
wn - when
WMF - works for me
XLNT - excellent
Y - why
YM - you mean
YR - yeah, right
GONNA "Going to"
SUM1 "Someone"
3SUM "Threesome"
GR8 "Great"
STRA "Stray"
4 "For, Four"
H8 "Hate"
THNQ "Thank you"
:-) "I'm happy"
L8 "Late"
THX "Thanks"
:-o "I'm surprised"
L8R "Later"
U "You"
:-( "Sad face"
LUV "Love"
UR "You are "
d:) "Baseball cap "
MOB "Mobile"
WAN2 "Want to?"
;-/ "Confused"
2DAY "Today"
F2T "Free to talk"
RUOK "Are you okay?"
2MORO "Tomorrow"
FWD "Forward"
RGDS "Regards"

(:-... Heart-broken
%-) I'm tipsy but happy
#:-o Oh no!
:-# My lips are sealed
8-) Sender wears glasses
:+( I'm hurt by that
:*)? Are you drunk?
<:-0 Eeek!
:-e I'm disappointed
(-: Sender is left-handed
<:-) Dumb question
~o~ Bird
:@ Ouch!
:-(*) Sick comment
(:-) Bald
:// Frustrated
:3-< Dog
d:-) Hats off to your great idea
:-$ Put your money where your mouth is
:-{) Sender has moustache
|-| Going to sleep
:@) Pig
\o/ Praise the Lord
*<:o) Clown
:-{)} Sender has moustache & beard
:=8) Baboon
8^ Chicken
~#:-( Bad hair day
:'-( I am crying
:*) I' tipsy
:-o Oh
O:-) Innocent
&:-) Sender has curly hair
 
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