24 Jan 08 What are offer impressions and interactions and why are they important?

When using a medium for advertising that can’t track down to conversions (which is ultimately the right success metrics for a business) it is important to find the right metric to measure ROI. It should be simple to understand, and accurately contain a measurement of the goal you are looking for.

Traditionally, newspapers have used “Readership” and “Circulation” as a proxy for measuring advertising effectiveness - however, this is merely a measure of reach - not of advertising effectiveness. Similarly, TV has be measured by similar metrics that were calculated in an even more dubious manner - without any kind of third party auditing. The has always been allegations of “dumping” to inflate figures.

So when is advertising effective? It is most effective when it converts, next would be when it elicits a reaction from a reader/ viewer, and still further from the goal would be when it reaches a reader/ viewers eye balls and communicates a message.

So with traditional media - none of these three are measured, all that is measured is how much air time, how many newspapers your ad was in, and you are charged by that amount as a factor of the publication reach.

With digital media, if the digital chain isn’t broken, you get all three. Cost Per Acquisition (CPA), Cost Per Click (CPC) and Cost Per Impression (CPM) respectively.

Offer Impressions and Offer Interactions are essentially a measure of Impressions and Clicks respectively.

 

Offer Interactions – Every time a user interacts (or clicks) with an offer

Offer Impression – Every time an offer is loaded onto a users screen and it isn’t interacted with.

 

It is important to use the right metrics for the job because as the Web changes, things like “Time Spent on site” and “Page Views” may become irrelevant as information delivery and Web page design becomes more efficient. However, the Offer Impressions and Interactions should always go higher if a communication advertising platform is to be effective.

29 Nov 07 You got one shot

A story about Lasoo recently ran on “A Current Affair” and resulted in a massive amount of interest in Lasoo.com.au. You can view the video under “Shopping revolution” at the ACA home page. Traffic to the site increased by a factor of 4 and hasn’t shown much sign of decreasing outside of standard weekly trends.

 

I believe this is indicative of “one shot marketing”. You get one shot to show your value proposition, and usually, from a usability stand point, about 10 seconds in that one shot. So, you must be compelling to maintain a stickiness with users. Following this, WOM marketing kicks in. This is what allows large web companies to grow organically purely through WOMM.

 

When considering the chicken and the egg principles of web marketing, consider letting the product market for you primarily, and then making lots of noise as a secondary tactic. This is incredibly important on the web, but probably just as applicable to products in the real world - except maybe commercial music (but is that the real world?)

 

 

 

18 Nov 07 Lasoo makes some big moves

“According to Hitwise data, Lasoo.com.au in its short existence has managed to capture 5.34% of the Shopping & Classifieds – Department stores classification and is ranked as the 7^th Australian website (today) in this classification.”

It has been a busy couple of weeks, but the trends and feedback have been overwhelmingly positive. Growth continues to steam ahead towards a much more efficient market benefiting retailers and consumers. Christmas spirit seems to be in full swing with the top search terms being; camera, ipod, wii, dvd, television and Christmas

One can only imagine the impact this will have when people begin to browse Lasoo on their phones - quite possibly with the release of Opera Mini 4 Beta.

It seems, when market information is unlocked it enables a far more efficient market by providing information without the cost of transport and time, and by providing real-time feedback for supply and demand management. A fantastic case study of this is outlined in this economist article on how mobile information effected a fishing market.