Ad:Tech Report: Predictions on the Future of Online Advertising

While Ad:Tech was a lively show this year – it was not quite as mobbed as it had been the last few years. You can make your own assumptions about the cause, but for me it is evidence that the marketing budgets of advertising services companies are tightening.

But what is not totally clear is, why. Are recession fears driving reduced revenue expectations for these advertising services companies? Or has the ridiculous number of conferences, seminars, and events finally reached an inflection point? My guess is both. But I am not-so-secretly hoping that we have reached a point where the industry cannot support this many events. My family is openly cheering for it.

Aside from a decline in sponsorship and attendance, here are a few trends we saw last week and predictions for next year …

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IAB Lead Generation Best Practices: Transparency is the New World Order

Earlier this year the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) released a set of best practices for online lead generation. As I’ve written about in the past (here, here and here), online lead generation is a smart strategy when it is executed well. But when you work with shady partners who are more interested in fulfilling invoices than in creating great subscriber experiences, your ROI and even your brand reputation can suffer.

So it shouldn’t surprise you that we at Return Path have been involved in the creation of these lead generation best practices. And we are proud of the contribution the IAB has made to the overall health of the lead generation industry. It reflects our view of the world …

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Affirmative Consent is the New Trend for 2008

Permission and privacy are the big issues in the email universe particularly where the FTC is concerned. The FTC’s proposed Behavioral Marketing Self Regulatory Principles could have a direct impact on ad targeting for all marketers including mailers. Couple this with the proposed legislation spearheaded by Governor M. Jodi Rell to make behavioral targeting “opt-out” in the State of Connecticut; marketers have some cause for concern.

The FTC’s call for “greater transparency and consumer control” along with the protection of sensitive data is of particular interest to those companies utilizing behavioral advertising to influence consumer behavior. Marketers who rely on behavioral targeting to create relevancy are concerned about their response rates, but is what the FTC proposing really so terrible? Let’s examine.

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Strength in Numbers

The strength and diversity of our publisher network makes the Postmaster Network one of the best places for marketers to reach their audience. This belief is hinged on the fact that the entire network is strengthened by the diversity of its many publisher members. It’s a cliche, but the whole really is worth more than the sum of the parts.

So you can see why we are pleased to publicize the addition of a few premier publishers, which really add a lot to that whole sum. Return Path today announced that Forbes.com, Fotolog and TravelerID have joined the Postmaster Network.

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The Future of Online Lead Generation

As I’ve written before (here and here), online lead generation is a great channel for acquisition but can be fraught with problems that smart marketers need to be on the look out for. My goal here at Return Path is to create an online lead generation network that marketers (and publishers) can use with confidence.

This is why I’m very excited about one of Return Path’s newest hires, Evan Adlman as Director of WebLeads, our online lead generation product.

He has a great background for this position, having come to us from the agency Trafficbuyer Digital where he managed lead generation campaigns for companies like Get Smart, Lending Tree, ING and eDiets. In addition to advising clients on every aspect of their program, including offer, creative and media, Evan was focused on tracking the performance of every data source – both on the front end and the back end. He would then make recommendations on adjustments to their buying and steer clients away from problematic data sources. So, in short, Evan “gets it.”

So what does this mean for Return Path, and, more importantly, for Return Path clients? …

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The Letter After "CP" Matters Less than the Quality of the List

Late last week Diedre Cook wrote a timely “hot vs. not” column in Email Insider. We agreed with about 99% of her list – especially her points about reputation and relevance, but disagreed with her assertion that CPM list rental is “out” and CPA list rental is “in.” Specifically her assertion that with CPA you have “nothing to lose.”

While this sounds sensible – pay for performance seems low-risk – it actually isn’t. The problem is that you get what you pay for; and many of the lists that are available for CPA advertising are often the worst ones. Quality, permission lists are expensive to build and maintain. Quality publishers do not spend a lot of time and money doing so, only to hock their lists to the first buyer. So the lists you often get lack real permission, are over mailed with irrelevant offers, have high complaint rates, and therefore can destroy an advertisers reputation. So while your media buyers are happy, the marketing team is left to contend with angry customers, and poor ISP deliverability on their most precious internal mailings. It may be that your marketing budget is only paying for the emails that generate a response, but your brand reputation is paying for the rest.

Of course, CPA can work. …

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Email Marketing Spending Predicted to Eclipse Postal

Email marketing for acquisition has often been treated like Rodney Dangerfield – it just gets no respect. Well, for those of us who know how great email is at establishing and building relationships with customers and prospects, it is time to celebrate: new data from the DMA shows that email acquisition is about to explode. And for those of you coming late to the party, welcome!

We are talking, of course, about the DMA 2007 Postal and Email List Report which found that marketers are increasingly turning to email, both in addition to and instead of, postal lists, for prospecting. (See the full story in DMNews).

The DMA found that …

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Multiple Impressions Impress Consumers

eMarketer recently ran a report that found that multiple impressions across online media work best in driving sales and acquiring new customers. In fact, the quoted study found that ads seen on multiple websites were twice as likely to convert as those seen on a single website. Moreover, 86.1% of ads which led to a responsive action had multiple placements.

While the article didn’t specifically mention email, our experience is that clients who use email acquisition consistently, and as part of an integrated online marketing strategy – creating multiple impressions with the same audience – have a much higher ROI than those who use email haphazardly.

In fact, it is sometimes possible to …

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Email Recipients Spend More Money, More Often

About six months ago I wrote that customers acquired through email have a higher value for most marketers than customers acquired through other methods, particularly search.

Well, there are some new stats floating around that back this theory up.

First, in March Forrester found that consumers who buy products advertised in emails spend 138% more online than peers who don’t buy through email…

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Direct Mail or Email: It's Not a Choice

We found ourselves intrigued by Bill McCloskey’s Email Insider column last week about his experience at the Annual Conference for Catalog & Multichannel Merchants. In summary, he found scores of people who weren’t doing much of anything with email and weren’t really concerned about it. “Direct mail works just fine, thanks.” You buy a stamp, you get delivered. No problem…

It’s a bit amusing to hear anyone praise the Post Office, especially in light of the fights going on right now over rate hikes. But the bigger point is that we interactive marketing folks have to work harder to convert these latecomers to the email bandwagon. Yes, it can be challenging. But few rewards come without a little sweat and hard work. Return Path works with lots of catalogers and there is no question that they see huge success from the email channel. Have they thrown out their paper catalogs? No way! They still print those suckers – but now they do it smarter and augment the customer experience with relevant, well-timed email. …

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