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News and Events for August 24, 2007 |
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Consumers
to determine who and what gets rated next by TheRatingsGuy.com™
Consumers win when search engines fail: New company helps
consumers find the best Website sooner with TheRatingsGuy.com
Launched in April, consumer website rates quality of other
sites in popular lifestyle categories, with less than 3% making
the grade. |
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Will Mobile Marketing Work for your E-Business?
Mobile marketing is a viable new way to create customer loyalty,
boost sales and increase awareness about your e-commerce business.
But a mobile marketing campaign can be expensive — and if
handled improperly — it can backfire.
There are several forms of mobile marketing, according to
Neil Strother, analyst for Jupiter Research. Opt-in SMS (Short
Message Service) campaigns, in which a consumer provides a
business with his or her cell phone number in exchange for
special offers or alerts delivered via text message, is one
option. For example, a cosmetics retailer on eBay may send
SMS alerts to customers, reminding them when it's time to
reorder and offering a 15 percent discount coupon if they
buy now.
Ads designed specifically for mobile Web pages are another
form of mobile marketing and can be used to drive traffic
to your brick-and-mortar business. In a mobile Web campaign,
a consumer using Google on a cell phone to locate athletic
equipment may find among the search results an ad for a nearby
sporting goods store. The consumer could click on the ad for
more information or to call the store.
One reason why the mobile marketing trend is gaining traction
is that its growth potential is enormous. There are currently
over 2.8 billion mobile phone subscribers, according to the
Market Intelligence Center. The U.S. alone had some 233 million
mobile phone subscribers as of December 2006-more than 76
percent of the population, according to the Cellular Telecommunications
& Internet Association (CTIA). During December 2006, some
18.7 billion SMS messages were sent in the U.S., an increase
of 92 percent from a year earlier, CTIA reports. Globally,
the mobile ad market will reach $9.5 billion in revenues by
2011, according to EJL Wireless Research, with the U.S. market
reaching $2.3 billion. |
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Google Opens Click Fraud Resource Center
Google just announced that it created a new Web site to serve
as the single source for all click-fraud and ad traffic-quality-related
information.
The Ad Traffic Quality Resource Center features an overview
of what click fraud is and what Google's doing about it, a
Help Center for detailed FAQs and multimedia presentations
and a section called "Tech Talk," which features in-depth
articles and blog posts written by its engineering team and
other experts in the field.
About Face: Reversing Course on Click Fraud
Just over a year and a half ago, Google CEO Eric Schmidt hypothesized
that click fraud might not be such a big deal. "Let's imagine
for purposes of argument that click fraud were not policed
by Google and it were rampant," Schmidt said at the SIEPR
conference at Stanford University in March 2006.
"Eventually the price that the advertiser is willing to pay
for the conversion will decline because the advertiser will
realize that these are bad clicks.
"In other words, the value of the ad declines. So, over some
amount of time, the system is, in fact, self-correcting. In
fact, there is a perfect economic solution, which is to let
it happen." Google eventually changed its public stance on
click fraud. |
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Yahoo Edges Out Google in Satisfaction Survey
Nobody satisfies its customers more than Yahoo. Not even Google.
The University of Michigan's American Customer Satisfaction
Index (ACSI) report, released today, reveals Yahoo beat Google
in customer satisfaction 79 to 78. and Google dropped 3.7
percent.
Larry Freed, online satisfaction expert and president and
CEO of ForeSee Results, which sponsors the ACSI e-business
report, attributed Yahoo's gains to a successful update to
its homepage.
Yahoo, whose score was a 4 percent increase over last year's,
also introduced a new advertising platform in 2007, which
might have helped its results.
Google's score is down 3.7 percent from last year, the second
decline in a row, which Freed blamed on high customer expectations
for Google's services.
"Satisfaction is a combination of what you get and what you
expect," Freed told internetnews.com. "You may have a better
experience at a corner diner because your expectations for
the service were less than they would be for a five-star restaurant.
But on an even playing field, the five-star restaurant would
win every time.
" A Google spokesperson told internetnews.com that the company
is all for competition, as it forces it to work on providing
the best online experience for its users and helps drive market
innovation.
Still, Freed said, Google needs to do a better job of making
customers aware of its product offerings. Many customers go
to Google.com and see the same search box they did five years
ago and don't realize the company has more to offer, Freed
said. "Google has done a great job in the background. Their
systems are great. AdWords is phenomenal. But the average
consumer is looking at it and going, 'Hm. It's kind of the
same.
There's nothing different.'" Some Google customers complain
the company is too quick to experiment with new products it
won't sustain. When Google shuttered its Google Video sales
and rental business on Friday, users posted angry reactions
to the company's discussion boards. "This is really upsetting,"
one user wrote. "I have personally 'sold' Google products
to my friends and family because I trusted you to make smart,
fair and honest decisions.
" But if customers are in fact dissatisfied with Google, it
hasn't kept them from using the site's search engine. According
to comScore, 49.5 percent of online searches in June went
through Google. The next highest figure was 25.1 percent for
Yahoo. Search engine Ask.com, which was the biggest gainer
of all on the ASCI, saw 5 percent of June Internet searches.
The ASCI also measures customer satisfaction for news on information
sites ABCNews.com (74), MSNBC.com (74), CNN.com (73), NYTimes.com
(73) and USAToday.com (72). Customer satisfaction with the
e-business category overall slipped for the first time this
year, falling more than a point to 75.2, lower than the ACSI
national average across all industries (75.3) and the latest
ACSI average score for e-commerce companies (80). |
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Reverse
Engineering Company Moving Forward By Relaunching Website
It's not enough any more just to have a presence on the web,"
says John Armistead. "Now, almost everybody has a website.
The standards have gotten higher.
" The key objectives of the website redesign were to enhance
usability and bring the core business into sharper focus,
clearly communicating Armistead Technologies' expertise in
reverse engineering printed circuit boards (PCBs).
Armistead created his own branding and website development
team: designer Joe Santoro, principal at 3 Tuna Productions
in Yardley, Pennsylvania, and veteran freelance copywriter
John Kuraoka in San Diego, California.
Armistead's bicoastal team worked together seamlessly – and
virtually – through the web. As Kuraoka developed strategic
content and focused the marketing message, Santoro brought
an unerring eye for brand development to the look, feel, and
functionality of the developing website.
"Ten years ago, it would have been hard to put together a
team of this caliber," says Armistead. "Today, you can find
everyone you need online!" Armistead Technologies' new online
home showcases reverse engineering PCBs, but it's also a valuable
informational resource for companies seeking reverse engineering
services. What's more, this website launch marks the beginning,
not the end, of the process.
"Oh, this is just the start," Armistead says. "There are still
some details to polish as we refine the usability factor and
increase the amount of content value for our potential customers."
"But I'm happy with the direction it's going, and the main
thing is that it's now definitely communicating the right
message to clients and potential clients."
Armistead Technologies lauches a new website that puts the
focus on the user - and its core business of reverse engineering
printed circuit boards – through fresh, targeted content and
a strategic re-design. |
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