Is Burstly Going to Burst The Mobile Ad Network Bubble for App Developers?

When you see an ad in an app, ever wonder where it comes from?  More than likely the developer signed up with adMob, inMobi or a host of other mobile ad networks.  In general, the  amount the developer makes is generally very low in comparison with what they could make from more targeted ads. Burstly

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When is Google Getting Into CPA On Mobile?

If Google’s Next Frontier is Mobile Advertising – So Where’s Cost Per Action Fit In? Recently, Google held its Q3 earnings call with analysts.  Google touted a $1B annual revenue number from mobile ad revenues.  They also revealed they feel that display will be a large part of the ad revenue going forward.  But nowhere

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The Truth About Cross Published Offers for Affiliate Marketers

So you are poking around in Offervault and you see the same offer like 10X from all different networks, and at all different campaign rates.  WTF? So now you believe that an offer that is listed at $10.50 can’t be the same offer that another network has for $7.25.  You click on the landing page

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Mobile Affiliate Marketing Basics

Mobile is now officially the most overhyped latest buzzword in the Affiliate Marketing world. There is quite a buzz going on over a few courses touting the riches that can be made with mobile marketing. If you have been sucked in by the hype, well one can understand as the numbers are quite compelling. -

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MobiRescue Saves Cart Abandons With Text – 833% ROI

April 21, 2011No comments

833 percent ROI. That’s what one payday loan website experienced in a 10 month case study using MobiRescue’s SMS Cart Abandonment Solution.  A health and beauty site saw 400% ROI.  Impressive when you think that only 160 characters can achieve this.  Using mobile phones to save shopping cart abandons is the latest (and I am thinking the smartest) solution yet to win back customers after they have flown the coop, so to speak.

Solutions for saving shopping cart abandons have grown up a lot since the earliest days of eCommerce.  Since the first online transaction in 1979, online consumers have jumped from shopping carts in greater numbers than lemmings into the sea.  Thirty-two years later, nearly 80 percent of the population have internet access in the US and 154 million people in the U.S. made online purchases totaling $155.2 billion in sales.  That’s over $1000 per person.

 

In a recent Forrester report on cart abandonment, they estimate that 71 percent of the time consumers abandon online merchant’s  shopping carts.  If you total that up, that is a huge amount of missed opportunity in the order of billions of dollars.  According to the report, here are the major reasons why carts get left behind:

  1. Shipping and handling costs were too high     44%
  2. I was not ready to purchase the product     41%
  3. I wanted to compare prices on other sites     27%
  4. Product price was higher than I was willing to pay     25%
  5. Just wanted to save products in my cart for later consideration     24%

Except for the shipping costs, all the rest of these issues can be reduced through a campaign to better follow up post abandon with the customer.  In fact, the passage of time coupled with engaging relevant message content can actually play into the favor of merchants looking to get the customers back.  The key element is actually doing something to get them to return and purchase.

There are several remedies to the maladies of cart abandonment.  You can optimize your cart experience.  This is the first place to stop the bleeding.  The second line of defense are  “chat bots” that pop up and try to emulate the salesperson in the store who will help you with your questions or issues with your purchase.  Although they were initially effective, their average “save rate” is between 2 percent and 7 percent.  Even live person chat bots fail to raise the meter much higher.

The cousin of the chat bot is the exit pop.  You know the annoying rectangles that send you screaming to push the right button to let you get on your way.  These can be minimally effective, but are still very poor at converting the determined cart jumper.

The next logical remedy is to send an email.  This assumes that a merchant has actually thought to design their cart with Ajax or the more old fashioned method of adding a 1st page to the sales process that collects vital information like name, email and phone.  Then using a solution such as Listrak’s triggered event email shopping cart abandonment email series you can recoup a few more percentage points.  (If you are a glutton for punishment and want to actually see how much you are losing, try this shopping cart abandonment calculator.)

But with email open rates averaging around 20% and click thru rates from those opens at 3.74 percent, you have a 1 in 5 chance of getting them to open, and of those only 1 in 26 of those will actually click back to the cart page again.  Out of 1000 cart abandons, an online merchant can expect only 7.5 of the original 1000 cart abandons will click and only 2 of those might actually re-engage and buy.  That sucks.

This is a gratuitous video moment, click the clip below and see what online merchants have been experiencing.

Click it.

But with nearly every adult in the US (and certainly the tech savvy cart jumpers Forrester identified) possessing a cell phone, and a text message open rate of over 98% according to Foster & Sullivan it just makes sense that you would want to use a mobile device to extend your efforts of re-engaging your customers.  This is where MobiRescue really comes to the rescue of online merchants.

If the Forrester report can be trusted and cart abandons are driven by the need to get a better deal, or delay the purchase until they have done more research, sms can be the right message at the right time.  If you have used all of the above methods and haven’t moved the needle much, MobiRescue will give you an additional channel that you can not only help to save sales with, but increase additional sales opportunities by being able to send additional messages with discounts and coupons and know that at the very least a majority percentage of your visitors will be seeing your brand and your message in the palm of their hands.  Repetition builds familiarity and sets the stage for future purchasing decisions.

Using SMS text messages to save cart abandons is of course already happening, but only a small percentage of retailers use this highly effective method.  Those that do are seeing incredible results.  MobiRescue reports ROI between 50 percent and 1291 percent.  Using a simple 10 percent off message for one Health and Beauty merchant who averaged a 400 percent ROI.

MobiRescue has really thought this all out.  The first step is to review your privacy.  In the age of do not track and permission based marketing, this step is essential to make sure you can send your customers text messages.  Next it is a simple one step code install to send an automated response.  You then need to ensure that you are collecting mobile phone numbers early on in the shopping cart process.

The last step is all about timing.  This is where you can have fun testing how long you want to wait to send your message.  Varying send timing on sms messages can result in some very interesting results.  For example, if you vary timing by category you may find those who buy sporting goods need to optimally receive their message within a  few hours of abandoning whereas an electronics purchase may benefit from sending out after a 24 hour period (after they have had a chance to compare a little bit).  The possibilities of this method may reveal insights into a customer’s buying behaviors that can increasingly improve all aspects of the shopping sales funnel overall.  This feature is baked into the MobiRescue solution.

But you aren’t done, you’ve only just started.  You are now in a very personal conversation with the consumer, you have their mobile number and they looked at your message and they possibly clicked on the link in the text message or called the toll free number to take advantage of a special cart saving offer.  But now you can send another text, this time with a coupon or a discount on a similar or like product and have a good idea that they will at the very least see the message, and in the best case scenario respond.  Merchants like Best Buy® or Sears® can learn from this as they can drive online cart abandons to their bricks and mortar locations.  The possibilities are only bounded by the imagination of their marketing managers.

If tech savvy users are abandoning carts to get a better deal, then waiting a little while to send them a reminder may just put your brand and products in front of them at just the right time.  Think about it, they have now had time to do their due diligence and possibly hitting them at the right time to get them to return with a small discount is just the thing that pushes them over the edge.

MobiRescue makes starting the conversation simple and easy, and actually affordable, as MobiRescue only takes a percentage of a closed sale.  There is no risk, no up-front costs, or per message fees to their clients. MobiRescue takes all the risk and integrates between the customer’s website and their SMS gateway.  This performance model is not new, but it is for a mobile based cart abandonment solution.

MobiRescue only gets paid if they rescue sales. They predetermine their fees in writing with the client, either a percentage of sale or mutually agreed dollar amount.  Sure it isn’t 100% of the sale, but you have gained an even more valuable asset, the right to be in someone’s pocket.  If you don’t abuse it and treat the customer with respect while engaging them in a relevant way, you might just be able to increase their lifetime value to your brand.

So what do you have to lose.  Oh yeah that’s right – your customers.

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SMS Mobile Marketing Has Its Legal Risks

March 17, 2011Comments Off

mobile sms text campaignsFor over a year now I have been immersing myself in mobile marketing.  And for over a year I have been inundated with advertisers and publishers questions regarding the legal issues surrounding mobile sms campaigns.  The sending of text messages to mobile devices can carry some large risks, but when done correctly can also reap new revenues for those advertisers and publishers who take the time to get it right.

In my quest to find the answer I asked a good friend of mine, Richard Newman, an attorney who specializes in Internet Law and is a seasoned litigator in the performance marketing space, to give me his thoughts and opinions on what advertisers and publishers need to know about the current state of regulation as well as record keeping practices.  He has very elegantly provided me with the article below that should serve as a good initial guide for anyone who wants to run SMS text promotions as a way of promoting their campaigns.

The Exponential Growth of Mobile Marketing and Associated Legal and Regulatory Risks

The use of consumer’s mobile devices to deliver targeted advertisements is increasing at an exponential rate.  Given the current legal and regulatory landscape, companies must proceed with extreme caution in order to side-step potential state and federal landmines, including class action litigation.  Text messaging, mobile applications, e-mail messages, and social media platforms are all racing to secure the attention of consumers.

There are, however, specific state, federal and regulatory standards that apply to mobile marketing.  For example, the federal CAN-SPAM Act and/or the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (“TCPA”) may indeed serve to restrict the ability of companies to forward marketing materials to a consumer’s mobile device.  The overriding consideration in this space, is informed consent.  Best practices, not to mention the avoidance of consumer complaints, dictate that companies in this space obtain consumer consent prior to sending marketing messages to consumers’ mobile devices, particularly if those consumers are on the federal Do-Not-Call registry.

Other considerations involve state Do-Not-Call and commercial e-mail statutes, as well as state and federal consumer and child protection laws, such as the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act.  In some circumstances, state lottery laws could apply to mobile marketing campaigns.  For example, a recent lawsuit filed by the Federal Trade Commission illustrates some of the risks inherent in mobile marketing.  FTC v. Flora, No. 11–299 (C.D. Cal. complaint filed 2/22/11).  In that case, the FTC alleges that a mobile marketer violated both CAN-SPAM and Section 5 of the FTC Act by sending allegedly deceptive text messages and then selling the cellular phone numbers of consumers who responded to the advertisements.  This lawsuit serves a reminder that companies should, at a bare minimum, require advertising affiliates to comply with applicable notice and consent standards.

Clearly, both CAN-SPAM and the TCPA can potentially apply to marketing-related text messages because text messages can be transmitted either to a wireless domain name, or to a mobile telephone number.  The TCPA prohibits using “any automatic dialing system” to make “any call” to “any telephone number assigned to a … cellular telephone service.” It also restricts calls to parties listed on the federal Do-Not-Call registry.  CAN-SPAM contains requirements that businesses must follow when transmitting unsolicited commercial e-mail.  Thus, if an SMS message goes to the wireless domain, CAN-SPAM applies (no private right of action), otherwise, the TCPA applies (provides for a private right of action).  As a result, a mobile marketer that sends unsolicited text messages could potentially face investigations from regulators at both the FTC and the FCC.

Various state rules must also be kept in mind.  Numerous states have laws that restrict the transmission of certain types of electronic commercial messages, particularly to children, and others are considering them.  For example, both Michigan and Utah have child protection laws on the books that require marketers to scrub their marketing lists against state registries.  The laws prohibit the sending of ads for items like tobacco, firearms, alcohol, knives, gambling, and pornography to children, and carry stiff civil and criminal penalties.  Legislation was also recently introduced in Iowa that would create a similar registry.  In California, legislators are currently considering a pair of bills that could have an impact on mobile marketing.  The proposed legislation would potentially require sellers of mobile devices with “geotagging” capabilities to disclose those capabilities to a consumer.  The proposal would prohibit the sale of those devices without prior written consent to that capability.  Additionally, the proposal would expand California’s existing prohibition of unauthorized electronic surveillance to include tracking via any electronic tracking device, not merely those attached to vehicles or other moveable things.

Given the foregoing, companies in the mobile marketing space are well advised to maintain accurate records pertaining to a consumer’s express opt-in and opt-out records prior to sending marketing messages to mobile devices.  Relevant records, including disclosures and terms of use should be retained from the time that a consumer opts-in and for at least one-year after a consumer has opted-out.  In addition, mobile marketing companies should ensure that advertising service providers agree to comply with applicable state & federal laws and regulations, utilize contractual indemnity provisions, and scrub against federal and state databases.

If you have further questions, please feel free to email Richard Newman at rnewman@hinchnewman.com.

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Privacy Bill Of Rights – Are Two Agencies Better than One?

January 19, 2011Comments Off

FTC and DOC watching online privacyOnline Privacy is a hot button issue, and now the US government wants to have two agencies pressing the button on who’s not playing fair.  The question is, is this really necessary.

The FTC, the primary watchdog for domestic consumer fraud protection, and the Department of Commerce, the main agency responsible for facilitating US business’ goals globally, are both vying for a piece of the privacy regulatory pie.  In separate statements they have both been lobbying for a beefed up Privacy Bill of Rights intended to protect consumers from advertisers knowing too much about their prospective customers actions and information online.

FTC chairman Jon Leibowitz has suggested that advertisers & agencies that represent them design their online campaigns with Privacy measures “baked in by design”.  Threatening that if this doesn’t happen they could face everything from congressional action to a national do-not-track list.  The response of the IAB, The 4A’s and others has been to allow consumers to opt into or out of tracking with a new symbol that will be attached to online ad units.  They have also been encouraging members to provide a basic level of privacy protection for their visitors.

The Department of Commerce has issued a “Privacy green paper” which recommends and calls for certain narrow legislative measures, including a nationally consistent set of rules for data security-breach notification as well as a review of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act for the “cloud computing” environment.

I found a terrific article on the Privacy Bill of Rights that explores this issue in depth from the legal perspective by Richard Newman of Hinch Newman LLP where he describes the dual roles of each of the regulatory entities and gives insights into what advertisers can do to keep a step ahead of government regulations.  The main point that Newman makes is that the environment will likely become extremely regulated if advertisers don’t take proactive steps now to shore up their Privacy practices.  It is one thing to have a Privacy Policy, it is quite another to actually abide by it.

When advertisers “bake in Privacy by design” as the FTC chairman has suggested, they avoid the risk of government intervention, but unless this is adopted universally even the most stringent advertiser guidelines could be called into question.  So how far does an advertiser need to go when dealing with Privacy?  I think the answer is simple and one that most of learned in kindergarten:

- Respect Others.  This is central, giving users a choice in what they do and what they do not want in terms of tracking their behavior (in the name of better and more relevant targeting) should be a given and not an option.

- Don’t Lie. This may seem redundant with the above, but advertisers who allow users to see what information advertisers are collecting as well as the methods this is achieved by needs to be central to their commitment to their users.  Transparency in what is being recorded and used should always be available for consumers.

- Play Fair.  If the playing field is unduly skewed towards advertisers using less than scrupulous methods of culling data (screen scraping social media outlets, augmenting data from data aggregators or other non-opted in data sources) then the advertiser should revel these tactics in their Privacy Policies.

Dave Morgan, the ex-owner of Tacoda, the Internet’s first behavioral targeting darling (now owned by AOL) writes in an article for Media Post that “Our more reactive efforts to “retrofit” strong privacy protections into our existing businesses are fine, and need to continue, but we also need to be thinking and acting in parallel to those efforts to make privacy protection a fundamental part of everything that we do going forward. Significant benefits await companies that do this well.”

I agree with Dave, as the benefits include not having the government monkey on your back as well as consumers who will be more able to trust brands that make the effort to provide a better Privacy Bill of Rights.  In the long run, there will more than likely be government regulations that will be enforced by both the FTC and the Dept.o of Commerce, and yes most advertisers will grumble.  But the net outcome will be a more secure digital environment that can more seamlessly integrate with consumers daily live.  Privacy online is a joke in many cases, but if advertisers want their customers to continue trusting them, they will make it a priority to beef up their security of the data they are entrusted with and be transparent in the ways they use that data.

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An App with No WAP Is Crap

January 18, 2011No comments

It’s true.  If your long awaited App for iOS, Android, Blackberry or W7 doesn’t have an associated WAP (Wireless Application Protocol) enabled mobile website, then you more than likely just blew a large chunk of your marketing budget like a freshman at a Jack Daniels chug fest.  Just hope you didn’t get it all over your shoes.

Mobile device applications are creative to say the least, from farts to fantasy girlfriends, to kissing lessons and Trekky tricorders.  There’s an app for that, but for most companies, there’s no WAP for that (brand).

It’s sad really, when you think of all the effort that goes into creating an app that the marketing team would miss the entire point of the execution.  The reason companies build apps for themselves is to increase customer retention and brand awareness and in some weird extended metaphysical blended with mobile technology way, endear the brand to their customer.  That’s a lot to ask a few lines of code to do.

A brand’s app, or apps, need to be first and foremost relevant to the user as they relate to the brand.  The brand messaging needs to scream from the app but not through branding.  The sheer usability should prove its necessity.  And most important, the customer has to want to raise their hand and ask for more.  But when they do, developers rarely think about extending the hand back to grab it, and the customer slips away into the unknown abyss.  And you as the marketer, will never to have had the fleeting moment of joy capitalized on.

Thus I have coined the equation:

App + (-WAP) = Crap

There are already something like 4 times the amount of mobile phones in the world compared to laptops and PC’s.  If this fact alone doesn’t make you respect the smaller screen, think about this.  In many parts of the world, the mobile phone is one’s only connection to the world.  It IS their PC.  And if you think this is only for 3rd worlders, think again.  A good proportion of those under the age of 30 use their phones for more “web” tasks such as banking and checking email.  If that weren’t enough, by the end of this year, mobile wallets will be widely in use making the phone now a pocket sized ATM.  Everyone has one, so why are you forgetting about it?

“OK, so what of it.  I have an app and if they want to connect with me they will simply use the app.”  Touché.   But what if the app doesn’t have the information they are looking for?  Where are they going to go?  I would think they would turn to their old friend the mobile browser.  What’s that, you don’t have a mobile version of your website?  And this is what leads me to the (-WAP) part of the equation.  If you are not accessible on all screens today, you simply don’t exist to a growing part of your customer base.

If you spent all that money on an app and you didn’t collect a single piece of information about the user, what have you gained?  Actually, the better question is, what measurable gain have you achieved?  Anyone can spend  their ad budget to get their app in the top rank in iTunes or Android Store for a few days using AdMob or inMobi.  But it is the true marketer that can actually prove that the app did more than satisfy the boss’s ego because his other CEO buddies have apps and he didn’t.

This is where having a mobile enabled website comes in.  From the moment someone downloads your app and engages with your brand, you should be thinking “what can I do to extend this relationship.”  “How can I better serve and delight my customer.”  I am willing to bet you could do sell more (of anything) if you knew more about your precious customer.  Once they have engaged, and I mean almost immediately, ask them for their help in serving you better.  Ask them to fill out a short survey and leave their information so you can send them a terrific gift.  That can be in the form of a coupon, a free sample or some other promotional item that once again reinforces that your brand is relevant to them.  Heck, give them a choice of what they want from you (works for Kiehl’s).

In this way you are giving your customer a benefit, meanwhile you can also show that your hard work actually did something other than get downloads.  In using your WAP mobile website as your always on, always in your pocket go to site for what they need (assuming you have made it easy to navigate and useful to the customer), your customer will reward you with giving you the feedback to know how to better serve their needs.  Okay say it with me – they’ll buy more.

If you still need convincing on why a WAP site is a must, take a look at your server logs.  Chances are good, mobile visits to your website total 3% to 12% of total traffic.  That’s 3% to 12% of the people to your site you are simply driving away because you have neglected the one piece of machinery you yourself cannot live without.  A mobile site is not always as complicated as you might think, in fact most can be done for less than $5,000.00 for a well functioning cross platform compatible site that can mimic the most important customer facing elements of your “desktop” site.  If you need the mobile redirect code, I will even give it to you here.

The point is, if you are proud of your app, then you should go the full monty and get your WAP in order as well.  While an app is technically always with the user, so is your mobile website.  In fact, most users while they are surfing the web on a mobile browser will rarely stop to open an app, preferring to go to your mobile website instead.  In addition, you can effect changes to your mobile website much easier and faster than you can to an app.  And as if you needed one last push over the proverbial edge, the this one goes to “11” nudge, here it is: your WAP mobile site works on all phones.  Apps only work on some phones.

Please don’t build a crappy app, because that’s just wrong.  And don’t compound your miserable slide into marketing mediocrity by neglecting the unwired.  App’s and WAP’s should live in complimentary harmony, not in a struggle for resources.  Collecting and using information users are willing to give you, from any interface, is important to the survival of any company in today’s have to be everywhere at all times digital environment.

So here’s an example of an excellent execution of integrating a mobile website and a mobile app.

-          Build a scaled down version of your website and install mobile redirect script. Chase Banking has a great mobile site (mobilebanking.chase.com) simple and only has navigation that is relevant to a mobile user such as Log On, Branch Finder, FAQ’s and Contact.

-          Encourage users to engage with you by giving up email or phone and then send relevant messages via email and text. (90%+ of text’s get read).  Chase sends out text message alerts and emails simultaneously when my balance drops below a certain amount, or if I get a deposit.  I always read these texts.  They could even put a marketing message or a click to call for an offer in them and I would click on it.

-          Build an app that users cannot live without.  Once again, the Chase Mobile Banking App gives users the ability to manage their account right from the app on the go.  Check balances, transfer money, make deposits (using my phone’s camera), and make payments all from the convenience of wherever I am.

Wasting your ad budget is a terrible thing.  Don’t forget to chime in at your next “what are we going to do in mobile meeting” with the formula, an app with no WAP is crap and BE the hero for your customer (and your career).

——–

BTW, as a side note, If you are in need of an App and a WAP or just how to get your share of the mobile market, feel free to contact me, and the team at Wheaten & Wheaten will make it a reality, complete with revenue.  No pun intended, but we know our crap.

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Party Time mobile app for Affiliate Summit West 2011

January 07, 2011No comments

Want to know where all the parties are at while you attend Affiliate Summit West 2011 in Las Vegas? Got an iPhone? Now you can be the party maven you always wanted to be with Flux Ads new iPhone app, Party Time.

This ultra handy mobile app will keep you in the party know when you are on the go. This simple to use app lists out all the parties by either Upcoming or All. Once you install the app, all of the known parties happening during Affiliate Summit in Las Vegas are at your fingertips.

Click on a party listing and you will be taken to a Party Info page where you can get the details, map it (through Google Maps) and even add it to your calendar so you can get an alert when a party is about to happen. Pretty cool.

What is really cool about this is the way networks and sponsors might use it. For instance, a sponsor might want to throw an impromptu party, and through the app, they can give out a custom SMS number on their page that the party goer can text a message to and get an invite to the party through their phone.

The app will also be available for parties at Affiliate Summit East, AdTech, LeadsConn, iDate, DMA, and AFF.

I am also told that the app will also be adding functionality to send out real time party updates from the party goers while they are at the event. I am sure that will be interesting.

If you want to download the app, click here. Or go to the App Store on your iPhone and search “Affiliate Summit”. You will find it right there in iTunes.

See you out there on the party circuit, cuz we all know that free drinks makes the deals flow. Or at least that’s the theory.

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