Is Behavioral Targeting Really Internet Stalking?

July 18, 2008 – 10:52 am
Fresh out of college, and with only traditional marketing tools under my belt, I started at Knotice a couple of months ago with only a little bit of knowledge about the digital marketing world. In my first blog meeting, everyone started tossing around the term behavioral targeting, a term I wasn't completely aware of. The end result is this blog post, and a series of future posts, intended to help others that are new to this space and are afraid to ask questions.

You may be asking yourself, what exactly is behavioral targeting and how does it affect me as a marketer? I did a bunch of research and here’s what I found.

First, there are two different types of behavioral targeting, which are very different from each other. There is onsite behavioral targeting and network behavioral targeting. Both have their respective advantages and disadvantages. Onsite behavioral targeting is when a company collects data for a specific user only on their site. The company then takes the data they collect and uses it to post more relevant offers to that user while they’re on the site. For example, an eCommerce company knows the past purchase history of a customer, and offers complementary products when they return to their site.

Network behavioral targeting is when a company collects a user’s data across an unlimited number of Internet sites. This means that they track you no matter what site you’re on and then serve you ads and offers all over the Internet based on your past online activity. For example, you visit several different eCommerce sites in search of horse attire. Then when you go on to a site like Yahoo, you’d see ads related to horses; or, on a site like Ebay you’d only see content that relates to horse gear when you first hit the homepage.

Recently, there’s been a lot of concern among consumers about behavioral targeting. I’m not an expert, but it seems like onsite targeting is less invasive and creates less “ad noise.” I can see how some consumers see network behavioral targeting as an online stalker. To me, onsite behavioral targeting is like a sales person making suggestions to me.

Here are a couple articles I think are great for beginners to find out more about behavioral targeting and how marketers are utilizing it:

http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?id=1006362&src=article1_newsltr

http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3630107

By Lesley Matt | Posted in Knotice, New to Online Marketing | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments (0)

What Makes Good Software Good, Part 2

July 16, 2008 – 11:12 am
Bill LandersTend to Your Marketing Profile Database
Your profile database is a living environment composed of dynamic individuals that should be carefully nurtured. Think of your profile environment as more than a series of static lists consisting of a handful of custom fields; it's composed of real people, and should be capable of evolving over time.

Maintain a vibrant profile environment by consistently adding fresh individuals, following best practice opt-in techniques, and growing each person's value by learning more about the person’s likes, dislikes, activities and inclinations. Tools such as surveys, behavioral tracking and analysis are necessary to flesh these profiles out beyond their skeletal origin in flat lists.

Prune away the dead wood of inactive profiles, and – most importantly – make sure you respect each individual’s privacy preferences by allowing self-removal through simple opt-out mechanisms. Keeping your profile database clear of this overgrowth will bring to light the personalities contained within. You don’t have to discard the inactive profiles; try isolating them and attempting to bring them back to life with special marketing tactics such as incentive programs.

On the flip side, an untended profile database will go the way of nature – into chaos – and will eventually become unmanageable. Software that helps you continually maintain your marketing profile database will help it to bear the fruits of increased loyalty and return on investment.

This is the second of two posts from Bill Landers providing key best practice and work-flow insights from his more than a decade of experience developing software platforms. In case you missed it, check out the first post.

By Bill Landers | Posted in Best Practices Insight, Knotice, Software Development | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments (1)

Email Marketing is a Commodity

July 14, 2008 – 12:04 pm
Josh GordonWe try to make our company blog more about ideas, strategies, tactics and trends. On occasion, however, something happens at Knotice that warrants specific mention, and it just so happens that today is one of those days. Last Friday, July 11, Brian Deagan (our co-founder and CEO for you new readers…welcome! ) had a commentary he wrote on the commoditization of email marketing picked up, and 1to1 Media decided to publish it in their "Expert Opinion" section.

Here’s some quick background. The inspiration for his commentary comes from watching two things. First, watching how and why the consumer interacts with new media and marketing communications. Second, watching how the industry has, and is, developing, and reflecting upon Knotice’s core channel-agnostic beliefs (and the software we designed with that theory in mind).

So, if you have a few minutes left after reading this post, check out Brian’s worthwhile commentary.

If you want some additional background on Brian’s article, leave a comment or email him at bdeagan@knotice.com.

By Josh Gordon | Posted in Knotice, Online Marketing Tactics | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments (2)

What Makes Good Software Good, Part 1

July 11, 2008 – 10:58 am
Bill LandersSimple Sophistication
First-class online marketing software should reflect patterns found in nature. The most important of these patterns is presenting an elegant exterior that veils the tremendous complexity contained within.
Marketing professionals are sophisticated users who expect their software to simplify the planning, execution and analysis of complex multi-stage, multi-channel online marketing campaigns.

Software developers should remember that simpler is almost always better, and they should resist the temptation of exposing all of the intricate details of the systems and subsystems they have worked so hard to bring to life. I am not suggesting dumbing things down. Rather, balancing the inherent complexity with an uncluttered user interface and an experience that is a natural extension of the way marketing professionals work.

The days of the 500-page user manual and a week of training have come to an end. Users today expect software to have a natural resonance with their tasks and goals. The user should think, “This software fits perfectly, and I cannot imagine any other way of accomplishing this task.” There are many examples of superb software capable of achieving this expectation; software we use every day to perform both personal and work related tasks – without ever reading the manual. Effortless interaction where users learn the software simply by using it, or watching brief screen cast demonstrations, is becoming the expected level of usability.

This is the first of two posts from Bill Landers providing key best practice and work-flow insights from his more than a decade of experience developing software platforms. In case you missed it, check out the second post.

By Bill Landers | Posted in Best Practices Insight, Knotice, Software Development | Tags: , , , , , , , | Comments (1)

The Data Is Your Base

July 9, 2008 – 12:02 pm
Dutch HollisIt's terrible to watch an idea get squashed. Really, no one wants to watch it happen, and yet we see it everyday. Our best stratagems die a premature death at the hands of our inadequate data and the lack of an appropriate marketing platform to support it. You can put together a consumer-centric, relevant, multi-channel campaign, but if you don't have or can't get sufficient data to make it consumer-centric, or relevant, it's just one execution across a few channels.

So where do you get started to have an effective campaign? What are the requirements for the data, and how should it be managed so that your ideas don’t get pancaked or watered down? There’s no one answer that fits every industry or every company, but there are a couple of questions to get you started.

How will you make your message relevant and engaging?

The answer, of course is by targeting your messaging. You can:

  • target based on behavior

  • target based on segment

  • target based on demographics

  • target based on geography

  • target based on predictive modeling

  • personalize

Hopefully your final strategy uses some combination of all of these for the greatest effect. That means demographic, geographic, behavioral and personal data will all need to be readily available to deploy across multiple channels in order to adequately craft your campaign.

Imagine a campaign that employs email to a certain customer segment. We’ll reach others with similar demographics to our segment using display ads. Clickers are taken to a personalized landing page. Behavior on the landing page determines what offers that person sees on the rest of the website. This is the type of “tight” integration that is possible when the appropriate data is leveraged to its full potential.

Where will that data live so that you can maximize its value?

If all of that data lives on one platform, it will make putting together a multi-channel campaign much quicker, easier and more cost effective. In some cases it simply makes the campaign possible, since the behavioral targeting is done in real time across channels. It also makes measuring the success of the campaign easier since the metrics will live in the same place.

An article in DM News points out that once the marketing platform is in place, it not only provides infrastructure for relevant campaigns, but also begins to inform the strategy for the campaigns themselves. From message frequency to the appropriate channel mix – it’s all in the data. The marketing platform leverages that data to create an environment where it becomes easy to put the customer at the center of your communications.

By Dutch Hollis | Posted in Knotice, Online Channel Trends, Online Marketing Database | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments (0)

Forrester’s Financial Services Forum, Part 3

July 7, 2008 – 12:01 pm
Bryce MarshallIn my two previous posts, which you can read here and here, I communicated some of the insights and tidbits of important information I picked up at Forrester Research's Financial Services Forum. Here are the rest of my notes.
Josh Bernoff, Vice President, Principal Analyst, Forrester Research in his seminar "Social Strategy for Financial Services":
  • Social networks can work for Financial Services companies if the marketer has specific objectives clearly established beforehand.

  • Remember that unlike an online or offline ad campaign, it’s very difficult to just discontinue a social media effort like a community or blog without offending some customers. Social media efforts require a commitment.

  • In a heavily regulated industry it’s imperative that legal and regulatory staff is involved in social network planning early in the process.

  • Know your audience! Don’t expect active participation in social networks and communities out of just anybody. It’s not a build it and they will participate proposition.

Action Item: Josh has built a tool to help you profile your audience. Go to http://www.forrester.com/Groundswell/profile_tool.html and check it out.

James McGuire, VP Online Strategy, RBC Financial Group and Joey Wilson, Director of Marketing Strategy, Sapient in the Sapient Guest Executive Forum address “Demystifying 360: Gaining a Complete Customer View to Change the Way You Market Online”:

  • A legacy of sound database marketing practices and recent, significant investments have enabled RBC to maintain a complete customer view and integrated online marketing practice. “This enables us to market to a person, not a persona” Mr. McGuire states.

  • RBC maintains a fairly complex series of business rules, where certain customer behavior triggers notifications and up-sell/cross-sell promotions.

    • RBC’s series of business rules are layered over a foundation of strict contact guidelines so no customer is touched too often no matter what their behavior may dictate. The guidelines prevail. In fact, notifications and marketing based on behavioral triggers has allowed RBC to all but do away with scheduled online campaigns.

    Factoid - 22% of online adults are classified as “content creators.” Interesting, but, this can be misleading, because:

    • On average only 2% of the participants in any community are creating content.

    • This means that people are out there creating content, but not necessarily in your community or network. Don’t assume they will.

    Feel free and post any comments or questions.

    This is the third and final post from Bryce Marshall highlighting the key insights from Forrester Research's Financial Services Forum Jun 23-24, 2008.

By Bryce Marshall | Posted in Knotice, Online Marketing Tactics | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments (0)

Relevance With A Bang

July 4, 2008 – 12:31 pm
Micah HattonJuly Fourth is upon us, and the fireworks season is in full swing. While I was perusing the Internet for this year's hottest sky candy, I came to a realization - there really isn't any targeted online marketing for fireworks. Sure, I've gotten catalogs and direct mail ads, but not once have I been served relevant online content based on my fireworks purchases.

This crevasse-sized flaw in the fireworks industry’s online marketing armor proves that relevance can be implemented in almost any industry. When you think about it, the online retail channel should be used as a vehicle to drive more customers to a website and develop a stronger brand loyalty.

Relevant content is possible simply by knowing the customer better. Does the fireworks customer host a Fourth of July bash every year with mortar shells and roman candles? Do they have a nice quiet evening at home with sparklers for the kids? Are they like me, and want to exactly replicate the greatest night of my life – when I snuck out of my parents’ house to see the KISS farewell tour concert from Cleveland, Ohio on May 5, 2000, complete with spark-shooting Les Paul guitars and explosions timed to the crescendo of Shout it Out Loud? Remember what customers want and they’ll be back with a fistful of cash every summer.

Now, granted I’m taking a few liberties with this whole scenario. Nevermind the inherent danger of amateur pyrotechnics or that most of the fireworks we use on our nation’s birthday are made in China. In my perfect world, us fireworks customers would all be getting newsletters and offers bursting with smoking deals on cool products we care about – and are most likely to buy – to satisfy our fireworks fantasies.

On behalf of everyone at Knotice, have a fun and safe holiday weekend.

By Micah Hatton | Posted in Knotice | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , | Comments (0)

Forrester’s Financial Services Forum, Part 2

July 2, 2008 – 11:56 am
Bryce MarshallIn Part 1 I highlighted the central themes of Forrester's Financial Forum as a "setting the stage" approach. There were some very meaty and specific insights from the conference that also deserve mentioning - especially for those who prefer more actionable insights.
A quick bloggers digression: I looked up "actionable" because I wasn't sure if it was an actual word or just a buzzword I use far too often. Results? I'm surprised to find that it’s actually a word - but by definition applies only to the legal arena (not to the arena I live and work).

Back to the bonanza with some specific insights and tidbits from the Financial Services Forum.

Benjamin Ensor, Vice President, Research Director, Forrester Research in his keynote address “Building Differentiated Customer Experiences”:

  • “The Internet is ‘commoditizing’ retail banking relationships.” (This is not unique to Financial Services.)

  • “Smart executives do not leave customer experiences to chance.”

Fredrick F. Reichheld, Founder of Bain’s Loyalty Practice and Creator of the Net Promoter Score in his keynote address “Winning the Loyalty of Financial Services Customers”:

  • “Bad profits kill loyalty.” (Mr. Reichheld drew a very clear distinction between “good profits” and “bad profits,” and the definitions are driven by common sense.)

  • Does loyalty really pay? What is the value of a loyal customer or customer-advocate? In the Net Promoter Score scenario, a “promoter” is 3.4x more profitable than a “passive” customer.

  • Loyalty and advocacy should be tracked at the individual level, not as a statistical model. Individuals are loyal, segments are not.

  • Note: If you are not aware of the Net Promoter Score model for evaluating and analyzing your customer satisfaction, you need to look into this here: http://www.netpromoter.com/

Kelli M. Negro, Director of Marketing, Schwab Investor Development in the case study presentation “Hearing the Voice of My Customer with Private Online Communities”:

  • Schwab teamed up with CommuniSpace to create dedicated, private online communities to provide an online focus group, and much more.

  • Kelli emphasized that for an online community to succeed it is imperative to find the “social glue” that will bind the community together and spur interaction. What’s needed is a common point of interest that crosses demographics or life stage barriers.

I’ll have one more post in the coming days to close out my thoughts on the information from the Financial Services Forum.

This is the second of three posts from Bryce Marshall highlighting some key insights from Forrester Research's Financial Services Forum Jun 23-24, 2008.

By Bryce Marshall | Posted in Knotice, Online Marketing Tactics | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments (1)

Forrester’s Financial Services Forum, Part 1

June 30, 2008 – 12:31 pm
Bryce MarshallI was in New York City June 23 and 24 for the Forrester Research Financial Services Forum. This event brings together a stable of Forrester Research analysts and hundreds of administrators and marketers from some of the largest Financial Services providers in North America.
Two days of keynote and breakout sessions focused on three central themes that helped frame discussion on the state of the Financial Services vertical:
  1. Improving the customer experience, enterprise-wide.

  2. Implementing an intelligent, multi-channel communications approach.

  3. Demystifying and leveraging Web 2.0 technologies such as social networks and online communities.

It’s no coincidence that points 2 and 3 really tie into, and support, the overall customer experience agenda.

As these themes unfolded it was clear the Financial Services industry shares some things in common with an industry Knotice is very familiar with: Cable and Telecom.

A short list of some of the traits and challenges the Financial Services industry and the Cable and Telecom industry share:

  • Both providers typically index very low in overall customer satisfaction surveys. On average, customers just don’t like their providers.

  • Both legal and regulatory compliance issues beyond those of most other industries.

  • Both have a relatively limited portfolio of services and products (lines of business), with marketing success tied closely to cross-selling these services to all customers.

  • Both industries widely recognize the need to break down silos between lines of business to enable a more cohesive and customer-centric communications approach.

  • Both are taking a closer look at some key Web 2.0 technologies and wondering aloud, “Is there value in this for our customers and for our brand?”

Take a close look and ask yourself, “Is there value in this for our customers and for our brand?”

What we know from our legacy in Cable and Telecom is that relevant communications can drive effective marketing while at the same time improving the overall customer experience. There is a very simple litmus test. Simply ask, “Does this tactic add value for our customers?” If a marketer takes an unfocused or lazy approach to development of the message and targeting requirements the answer, with few exceptions, will be, “No, this is not valuable to our customers.” The communication is serving the marketer’s interests only.

When communication is carefully planned, business rules are clearly followed, there is a targeted execution to ensure relevancy – a well-timed cross-sell offer, for instance – the answer is usually, “Yes, this adds value for our customers.” We find that this approach, with a simple litmus test to validate, meets the marketer’s goals.

This is the first of three posts from Bryce Marshall highlighting some key insights from Forrester Research's Financial Services Forum Jun 23-24, 2008.

By Bryce Marshall | Posted in Knotice, Online Marketing Tactics | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments (2)

The Online Marketing Database - Webinar Recap

June 27, 2008 – 12:29 pm
Brian DeaganMuch of my presentation during last Friday's webinar, Taking Shape: The Online Marketing Database, focused on real-world approaches and best-practices you can use to get your online marketing database up and running successfully.

The first thing I covered is precisely what an online marketing database looks like. Once defined, I discussed how you can dramatically streamline implementation utilizing web services to integrate it with your existing systems, data sources, and online marketing infrastructure.

After touching on the role of the online marketing database, we discussed the following 4 keys to success:

  1. The importance of selecting a unified data model and not trying to cobble The Online Marketing Database together

  2. Having robust segmentation tools available to synthesize data and enable scalable segmentation strategies

  3. Tightly integrating content execution platform(s) to make data more actionable and marketing operations more agile

  4. Incorporating easy-to-use testing tools to ensure campaigns and experiences are optimized for top performance

Last, we ended with a case study where we put our own principles and platform into practice to promote the webinar. The objective of our own campaign was to increase sign ups for our webinar. I won’t give everything away, but we had a whopping 81% conversion rate on our most personalized, and relevant messaging.

As I mentioned in my post Wednesday, this subject often brings with it undue complexity. I hope the webinar is helpful in cutting through the complexity, and offers a level of clarity on how these concepts are put into practice.

By Brian Deagan | Posted in Knotice, Online Marketing Database | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments (0)