Griping Online? Comcast Hears and Talks Back

Brandon Dilbeck, 20, a student at the University of Washington, was complaining recently on his blog, Brandon Notices, about Comcast’s practice of posting ads in its on-screen programming guide. Shortly afterward, he received an e-mail message from Comcast, thanking him for the feedback and adding that it was working on a new interactive guide that might “illuminate the issues that you are currently experiencing.” Mr. Dilbeck found it all a bit creepy. >>Full Story

Thoughts// Every blog your write, we're watching you'. Perhaps the Police should re-release this song for the blogging era.

This interesting article in the NY Times focuses on the challenges and opportunities facing brands as they reach out to consumers over social media with a special spotlight on Frank Eliason, Comcast's "digital care manager". Eliason monitors public comments on blogs, message boards and social networks for mentions of Comcast and its services and is empowered to solve customers' problems. In the case of Comcast, while the overwhelming response appears to be positive, some consumers have found the practice "creepy" and have labeled it yet another ‘Big Brother’ tactic. (Ok, the Times quoted one!)

So should you not engage in social media? Hardly. We believe in respectful, meaningful and empathetic conversations with consumers.

As we've stated many times in this blog, engaging in a two-way conversation with your customers can be a vital prong in your digital marketing strategy. Consumers are blogging and raving (or ranting) about your products and your destination online with or without you. Not listening or engaging in dialogue is a critical opportunity missed not only to build deeper relationships but also for brand cache. Technology has now afforded us an unprecedented "direct connection" to consumers and according to Brian Solis, a new media PR agent quoted in the article, "if you don't respond, someone else will, most likely in the form of competition seizing the opportunity to convert your dispirited customers into new prospects."

So what can Comcast tell us about lessons learned? According to Eliason:

"We learn a great deal from our customers through this channel and we learn better ways to present information, and what the pinch points are in the relationship."

"...customers that had complaints but never reached out to us to correct them. It is so much better to see them have the service we intend.

"...companies should be where their customers are. Social media is just another channel, similar to the phone, chat or email."

"It makes it much more personal and it provides the opportunity to provide clarification when necessary....we do not do this from a PR perspective...My team concentrates on the customer experience."

The State of the American Traveler - July Report

Our friends at Destination Analysts passed along the newest edition of their extremely informative 'The State of the American Traveler' report. You can view the entire report here (.pdf), but here are some interactive-specific highlights:

Plus, be sure to take a look at the larger chart on page 4, for the question 'In the past 12 months, which of these resources or internet technologies have you used to specifically help plan your leisure travel?' Some of the results:

UGC Reviews of Hotels - 23.2%
UGC Travel Itinerary or Blog - 16.7%
UGC Destination Reviews - 16.1%
DMO Pages on a Social Media Site - 6.8%
Mobile / PDA To Access Travel Info - 17.2%
Google Earth - 19.2%
Online Travel Videos - 8.8%
Word of Mouth - 32.1%

The numbers that really jump out at me are the 16.7% who used an 'UGC Itinerary or Blog' and the 6.8% that used a 'DMO Page on a Social Media Site.' Both of those are pretty healthy numbers.

As far as the 17.2% who used a mobile device, I would like to see a deeper analysis into those results. My guess is the majority of those mobile visits are for such activities as checking flights, checking-in for flights and weather, rather than actual requests for decision-making travel info.

'Google Earth' seems surprising high, but it should be a little red flag that causes you to examine your organizations possible uses for Google Earth. See our recent post about Walt Disney World.

'Online Travel Videos' seems a little low, but I would attribute that to the lack of quality content. The majority of 'travel videos' currently online are simply re-purposed TV ads, not useful or informative travel pieces. Once that content becomes available, I would expect to see the number increase.

And finally, remember that while even those online, social, interactive marketing efforts might not result in convenient to track conversions, they could be increasing the 'word of mouth' about your destination. Which is still one of, if not the, best way to get your message out.

Travel Trends: Google AdPlanner & Quantcast

Google AdPlanner - In another sign that Google is going to just take over every fathomable task in my life, the giant recently unveiled a new ad-planning tool for agencies and marketers. AdPlanner, is designed to help agencies identify sites where their target audience might be active. While it uses audience measurement data (from Nielsen), AdPlanner also combines it with search engine data and information from third parties, to determine with more precision what sites attract a certain demographic audience. Via a simple interface, buyers can enter basic demographic target information and potential sites to buy into Ad Planner, and then can quickly generate a potential media plan. The product also calculates the plan’s total estimated reach.
http://www.nytimes.com/

Quantcast - Those of you reading this blog know how obsessed Troy and I are about measurement and analytics and inconsistency that's rampant between what the various measurement tools out there. Qantcast recently announced a plan to hopefully "reconcile the difference" between what publishers say their traffic is (using Google Analytics, Omniture etc.) versus what Nielsen and ComScore report out (using online panels). The new mechanism will offer "people-based traffic counts" for sites registered with Quantcast, basically a "a hybrid of panel-based data and cookie-based measurement", using a formula to account for the inconsistencies from cookies.
http://adage.com/digital/

Top 5: Our Favorite Posts

Since the Travel 2.0 blog just celebrated our one year anniversary, we figured a quick look back...for all you new readers...at some of our favorite posts, thoughts and stories was in order.

So, in no particular order, here are 5 posts that you should read.

...and for those of you who skipped out early that one Friday like 7 months ago, you should read these too.

Top 5:

1. Word of the Week - The Long Tail
2. When Fewer Clicks Are A Good Thing
3. Travel Trends - .travel, JetBlue, Privacy
4. Bloggers? We Don't Need No Stinkin' Bloggers!
5. Who's Been Clicking On My Banner?

Ah, so many great posts...hard to pick just 5.

Enjoy!

Travel Trends - Panoramio, Priceline.com, Offbeat Guides, Tripology, Google TV Ads

Google Introduces 'Look Around' with Panoramio - Last week Google, via it's recently acquired subsidiarity Panoramio, introduced a new 'Look Around' feature, which allows the visitor to click through images, view different angles and essentially take a virtual tour of the area. If this sounds familiar, it should...Microsoft has been showing off Photosynth for a year now...unlike Photosynth, it appears that Panoramio and Google have actually launched the product for public use. The technology behind the 'Look Around' feature, and Photosynth, is quite impressive and with so many images available via Flickr or Photobucket, the possibilities to combine hundreds of thousands of photos into one tour...of a specific area...could prove to be a powerful tool to further encourage travel.
http://google-latlong.blogspot.com/

Priceline's Sunshine Guarantee - As part of its summer promo Priceline.com...and Mr. Shatner...has launched a Sunshine Guarantee for your vacation. Book via priceline to 100+ destinations and if it rains (more than .5 of an inch) you get your money back. An interesting promo...that I am sure if valid in Arizona!
http://www.priceline.com/

Off Beat Guides Launches - TechCrunch has a great review of the newly launched beta of offbeatguides.com. Started by Technorati founder Dave Sifry...TechCrunch also has a video interview with Dave...Off Beat Guides combines online content, maps, weather, current events etc, etc all specific to your travel dates into a printable .pdf guide or as an actual paper guide (complete with your name on the cover). However, unlike competitor Nile Guide, Off Beat Guides charges $10 for the .pdf and $25 for the printed copy...which brings up a concern (as mentioned by TechCrunch readers) of selling Creative Commons and public domain content for a profit. Something doesn't add up there. Overall, an intriguing product and another example of print on demand technology becoming more and more prevalent.
http://www.offbeatguides.com/beta

Tripology - Launched a few months ago, Tripology, like Off Beat Guides, spins the online travel planning market back around. Instead of planning your trip online and breaking free from the dictatorship of the travel agent, Tripology allows a user to enter a travel destination and finds a travel agent to plan your trip for you. LendingTree for travel, I suppose.
http://www.tripology.com/

Google Begins Tracking TV Ads Via Google Analytics - Yes, more Google...but, they just keeping doing the right things to make our lives easier. Another post from TechCrunch summarizes how Google has begun using it's Analytics program to not only track you online stats and campaigns, but also TV ads purchased via Google TV Ads. As the review notes, there is not a direct correlation between online visitation and the TV ads, but if your goal is to drive traffic to a website, you can at least view the spikes and dips in website traffic after the TV ad has run. Add that to the fact that Google is now selling ads online, TV (with satellite provider Dish Network), in newspapers and on radio and you can begin to see how Google Analytics (and Google) will and could quickly become the centralized location to track all of your advertising.
http://www.techcrunch.com/

State of the Industry Conversations

After a bit of a delay, State of the Industry Conversations returns with an answer (one, among several) to a previous guest question.

For all of those who missed the original post:

Question:

We have been experimenting and optimizing our online campaigns, but are repeatedly disappointed in the click through rates (.01% to .5%) and conversions coming from our banner advertising. We have a tested several strong CTA’s such as vacation give-aways, free gas, and great price points. We have tried behavioral targeting, content targeting, and run of network on travel research sites. We have utilized ad networks and purchased direct from the publisher. Are our expectations too high, or have others found the secret to successful banner ads when promoting travel to their State?

Answer:
(Submitted via LinkedIn)
From a CTR standpoint, yes .01% can be abysmal, but a .5% in the travel category can indicate good performance. Try running a test to see what gave you the higher CTR…then do more of that. However, I think the real answer is to look beyond the click on a banner. Take a look at your entire digital media mix. Make sure you are employing tools that allow you to track the effect of a banner view or click on your organic search, paid search and email conversions. If you think about your online marketing in regards to feeding the funnel, you realize that your banner campaign is feeding the top of the funnel by building awareness and consideration. The bottom of the funnel is where people are converting and this will typically take place on a search click. Measuring path-to-conversion will make you feel much better about how your banner campaign is feeding the top of the funnel (just as is your offline media - generating awareness, consideration and intent).

Use a tool like Quantcast to understand if your media is driving the qualified audience to your site and compare your efforts of driving traffic (i.e. awareness) to other state travel destinations. When it comes to booking travel online it is mostly being done at hotel and travel websites and third-party booking engines like Orbitz, Expedia, so make sure your expectations are properly set with regards to conversions.

Use a page-tagging analytics tool that allows you to measure how much traffic you are driving to your hotel and destination partners by tracking outbound links. Consider engagement as a metric. How much time are people spending on your site after they click? Consider using richer media that allow a travel seeker to engage with your brand in the banner without leaving the site they were on.

Also, consider cost. Depending on what you are paying and how many impressions are driving a .01% CTR, you may be getting a very efficient cost-per-qualified lead to your site.

Thoughts// While at first glance the question seems to fit in perfectly with our engagement discussion, if the ads in question are not only resulting in a low CTR (start of the funnel), but also a low conversion rate (end of the funnel) that would point to an issue beyond a simple mis-use of analytics.

So, assuming this fellow reader is following her results throughout the advertising process, what is going wrong? Is banner advertising being ignored by everyone? Are people outside of your demo (see our post, Who is Clicking on Your Banners...Probably a middle-aged, sweepstakes-loving, Midwestern woman who likes junk mail and the Packers) the only ones paying attention to your ads? Are display ads too often looked at as the entire 'interactive strategy'?

Personally, I am starting to pull further and further away from display advertising while looking (and demanding) for an integrated advertising plan that places my message in front of the audience at key points.

With those thoughts, let's open it up to the group:

Your Lowdown on the Smackdown

As we reported here last week, an elite group of marketers from around the country surreptitiously assembled in Portland last week for a no-holds-bared, two-day "smackdown" at the Heathman Hotel. Unlike your typical smash-mouth wrestlemania event, this gathering represented a collaborative and congenial discussion on "best practices" for destination marketing.

Representing the collective wisdom of about 25 states, the conversations covered every conceivable topic destination marketers face on a daily basis: how to bring non-traditional partners into co-op programs, marketing tactics that worked (or didn't), quirky PR techniques, analytics and digital marketing—and of course the requisite debauchery and fun that invariably happens when marketing folks congregate!

Thoughts// I've been to many marketing conferences and workshops but nothing comes remotely close to the education, inspiration and genuine camaraderie I experienced at "smackdown". United by common challenges and the reassurance of unassuming peers, the two day event is an honest forum for sharing best practices and breeding new ideas. The following are my opinions on some highlights (in no particular order) from "smackdown":

1. Most Interesting Contest /Partnership Idea: Montana's Cast & Camp "glamping" (think glamor + camping) giveaway partnership with Orvis (the giveaway is worth $17,000 and yes, you can still enter to win!)

2. Cool Use of Guerilla Tactics: South Dakota's "Street Team" for a promotion inviting Minnesotans to visit the state (six Cowboy re-enactors were brought in to ride the trains and roam the streets of the Twin Cities for a week)

3. Most Fun Viral Idea: My Favorite Minnesota campaign; the campaign has been up for a while and basically is a user & agency generated video collection of local favorites such as - "Best Places to Eat a Burger" and "Favorite Shopping Spots"

4. Most Ambitious Infrastructure Project: Wyoming Tourism leading all state agencies in building a comprehensive GIS map of the state's infrastructure (visitor and also transportation)
   

5. Best Brand Story: Mississippi's embrace of the idea that the state is the "Birthplace of America's Music"; this idea is manifested and embraced across all mediums...including a 24/7 live streaming Mississippi radio station

On the digital front, Troy and I led a conversation on the need for a common "engagement matrix" for the states to gauge the effectiveness of both their web presence and also online campaigns. After a brief discussion, the group agreed on the need for such a matrix to reinforce the directional "click thru" and "unique visitor" numbers and suggested that the following essential "engagement points":

1. Bounce rate

2. Time on site

3. Orders of travel guides
   

4. Downloads of travel guides (or other defined items)

5. Feed subscription

6. Forwards/Sharing

7. Trip planning activity

8. Ratings/reviews

9. Videos watched

10. Site Search
    

11. Other engagements as defined by individual sites (e.g. taking the "Passionality Test" at Virginia.org)
    

Our next step now is to take this feedback, assign "weights" to each engagement point and then present a draft "formula" at ESTO in August.

Finally, I'd be remiss not to mention the most thought provoking presentation of the conference by Ian Yolles, founding member of Nau, a Portland based sustainable clothing manufacturer. Nau's embarked on an ambitious goal to "show the world that business can be a force for positive social and environmental change....and creating a sustainable future for humans and the planet." Ian's moving story on the founding principles of Nau and how they went about provoking "change" in the world was not only insightful but also deeply inspirational and moving to anyone looking to defy conventional wisdom.

For more on Nau and their unconventional charge into the retail world, please read "Nau: ahead of its time?"

~ Happy Monday...umm Tuesday! (Sorry too much partying in honor of our birthday!)

The Open Rate Must Die

The email open rate is simply a tired, inaccurate and irrelevant metric that no longer measures what it was originally intended to. As a result, it gives you the wrong picture of your subscribers’ interest in and involvement with your mailings. (”Engagement,” if you want to use the buzzword). >>Full Story

Thoughts// Frequent readers of this blog are all too familiar with our opinions on the collective reliance of the "click rate" as a measure of success in online campaigns. This thought provoking blog by MediaPost's Email Insider extends this argument to e-mail. The author makes the valid point that using the default "read rate" as calculated by your e-mail platform is a flawed metric, akin to the music industry "measuring sales based on the number of CDs sold."

In most e-mail clients, the read rate is based on the display of a tracking image on each e-mail displayed. The author lays out the following scenarios of why there are inherent flaws with this method of tracking.

1. The e-mail is “opened” (launched), but images are blocked: not counted as an open.

2. The e-mail is not opened (launched), but images are enabled and is read in the preview pane: counted as an open

3. The text version of a message is read on a BlackBerry. The HTML version (with images blocked) is later opened in Gmail (or other email service/client). The email has been opened and read twice — but zero opens are recorded.

4. A text version is opened and read but not clicked: not counted as an open

5. A text version is opened and read, but the user clicks a link: not counted as an open with some email software. Others assign an open because the email was clicked on, which assumes an open.

To the author's point, consumers engagement with your e-mail could be tracked by measuring clicks on actionable calls to action...but as illustrated by the examples above, you don't necessarily have to click to be involved.

As an example, the image above is a rendering of my May Colorado e-newsletter. While I didn't enable images or click on any links, I did get the message that "May is archaeology month in Colorado" and that there is "no better place to celebrate than Mesa Verde Country."

Engaged? Yes! Tracked? No! My privacy intact? Most definitely! :)

We're curious... how are you measuring the effectiveness of your e-mail newsletters?

State of the Industry Conversations

This week, we have our first guest question for our Conversations series. I am sure this is a common question in offices and conference rooms across numerous states.

We will open the question up to our readers first, then thoughts from myself and Mo.

State of the Industry Conversations
Bringing the Travel Industry together…one question at a time

Question:

We have been experimenting and optimizing our online campaigns, but are repeatedly disappointed in the click through rates (.01% to .5%) and conversions coming from our banner advertising. We have a tested several strong CTA’s such as vacation give-aways, free gas, and great price points. We have tried behavioral targeting, content targeting, and run of network on travel research sites. We have utilized ad networks and purchased direct from the publisher. Are our expectations too high, or have others found the secret to successful banner ads when promoting travel to their State?

Answers:

Post your answer in the comments field below or via the Answers section of LinkedIn.

Note: You do not have to be a member of Blogger to post a comment to the Travel 2.0 blog. Anonymous comments are allowed, however we would appreciate if you signed the comment with your name.

Manifest Destiny…Conquering Oregon via the Oregon Governor’s Conference on Tourism

First and foremost, a very big 'thank you' to my fantastic hosts at Travel Oregon. The staff and associates are a credit to the leadership and hospitality of the industry, which not only resonates within the Travel Oregon team, but the entire travel industry in Oregon.

Let’s get to the recap:

Weather:
Being a true son of Florida, I love the rain. But, thanks to Todd, the rain held off (at least as far as I could see) until yesterday (Tuesday) morning. Even with the weather being cloudy and cool, it was great. But, I do love cold weather…go figure.

Portland:
First time to Portland, but alas not enough time to explore the city. However, what I saw was great…Columbia River, green trees (everywhere), the Pearl District, some more green, PDX and more green. A charismatic city and certainly a location for a future, non-business trip.

Speakers:
Between preparing for my own portion of the panel presentation, I was lucky enough to hear several great speakers.

‘New Media Strategist’ Josh Hallett, who also spoke during ESTO in Phoenix, presented a thorough, yet easily digestible discussion on new / interactive media. I enjoy Josh’s presentation style which uses common language (no words over 4 syllables) and actual examples to introduce the audience, as well as provide a solid overview, to the subject of new media.

In addition to myself and Mo, we were fortunate to be joined by Paul Wille on our web analytics panel. After about 30 seconds of speaking with Paul prior to the panel I knew he got it…not to mention agreed with me. Just like Josh, Paul has a clear presentation style that seemed to be well received with our audience. He also cited a social media project with a Hawaiian hotel which would make a great case study for the Travel 2.0 blog. Once he gets a free minute, I will have him pen that post.

Steve Pinetti from Kimpton Hotel Group provided some fascinating insights into the enormous challenge of instituting and maintaining a true sustainable program within the travel industry. While Steve had some great stories, particularly the tale of converting the housekeeping staff to green cleaning products…which took 12 – 15 months and to which the housekeeping staff said, ‘if it does not foam, it is not working’…the largest take-away for me was that adopting a sustainable program for your organization is an endless, but rewarding, process. As Steve said, it is more that simply placing a sign in the break room, it is a complete, life-long, company-wide, vendor-wide, overall commitment to protecting the beauty and resources we promote to consumers.

And with more and more consumers actively searching out these green travel organizations, the importance of adopting an eco-friendly mindset has the very real possibility of being a choice you adopt and embrace or the reason you went out of business.

Speaking of green, Jonathan Tourtellot, Director of the National Geographic Center for Sustainable Destinations, presented on the topic of geotourism, which seemed to be very well received by the crowd. After the pleasure of enjoying dinner at Andina with Jonathan, I can say first-hand that his knowledge and experience with the natural world (or just the world in general) is impressive.

Finally, the conference concluded with an active presentation from Paul Wesselmann. Usually most conferences end on a quiet note and most people skip the last 1 or 2 presenters, but that was not the case for Paul's presentation. Hard to describe via the written word, but it was thought-provoking, entertaining and funny. If you are looking for a great final act, I would recommend Paul.

Engagement:
Circling back to an interactive topic, a lot of time was spent during our session discussing the meaning of engagement. Several members of the audience asked what numbers should they pay attention to...that certain programs (Omniture) produce too many metrics and they don't know which ones are important...and if they should worry about page views.

As we said during the panel, engagement is different for each organization. Personally, I find it fascinating that someone would ask me what numbers to track. My response would be, what numbers are important to you? Are you booking hotel rooms or giving away maps? Whatever your primary website objective is, that is your primary engagement metric. Now, you can of course add additional metrics to that formula, but it should all center on a few key metrics.

Let's take unique visitors as an example. You receive 10,000 unique visitors a month. Some percentage of those 10,000 are on your site for less than 10 seconds...and the number (bounce rate) is probably higher than you think...but let's say that number is 40%. So, right off the top, 4,000 visitors to your site spent less than 10 seconds there. Unless you have a remarkably brief message, no one is getting any benefit out of your site in 10 seconds. So why would you report to your superiors, peers, counterparts, etc. that you received 10,000 unique visitors...almost half of them did not do anything!

Why would you report that number? Report on a number than actually means something...email sign-ups, brochures ordered, rooms booked, etc, etc.

Now, that is not to say you can ignore a number like visitation, but put it in perspective with some sort of an engagement metric.

Secondly, don't send raw reports from your analytics tool to your staff or superiors. I am sure they are very intelligent people, but they don't have the context or perspective that you do...nor do they care about all those numbers. If you have to send out a monthly report, sit down with your team and discuss which numbers would be most beneficial to see...hopefully an engagement number...and send those. Then, if they want to know the visitation per minute for last month, you can send that to them separately.

New Media:
If you read our Random Thoughts post from earlier in the week you have an idea of how this topic was discussed at the conference, but it is worth repeating.

You do not and should not do everything that is out there!

Just because someone else is doing it, does not mean you should!

Stop launching 'Web 2.0' projects without (A) planning, (B) goals and (C) determining if your audience is right for it!

There, 2 or 3 Web 2.0 conferences summarized in a few sentences.

Final Score:
A

Great conference, great speakers (including yours truly and Mo, thank you) and a great location. If you are planning a tourism conference in the near future, I would highly recommend any of the speakers we mentioned above (including us!), I am sure they would be a strong addition and provide valuable insight to your constituents.

Comments:
If you were at the conference, let us know your thoughts and how we did. Always open to more questions and suggestions!

One Night Only!

Warning, shameless plug.

A few weeks ago, Mo was good enough to invite me to participate on a panel about web analytics at the upcoming Oregon Governor's Conference on Tourism. And I was more than happy to accept. Those folks in Oregon need to listen to me more.

So, if you are going to be in the Portland area April 6-8, stop by and say hello. Or, even better, sign up and attend the Oregon Governor's Conference on Tourism. Mo and I are speaking on the 7th, with the always charming Paul Wille from opus:creative.

Details

Where:
Palace Hotel Ballroom, I mean, Red Lion Hotel on the River

When:
Sunday, April 6 to Tuesday, April 8

Web:
http://www.oregontourismconference.com/

About:
Analyze this…Analyze That! A Conversation on the Maddening Science of Online Analytics

See you in Portland.

Travel Trends: Tracking You, Engagement Mapping & Click Thrus

The Web is Watching You: The NY Times reported recently on a new analysis of online consumer data thats shows that large Web companies (i.e Google, AOL, MySpace, Microsoft & Yahoo) are learning more about people than ever from what they search for and do on the Internet. The analysis conducted by comScore analyzed consumer touch-points on these networks (searches, purchases, etc.) and then looked at how many times this consumer data was sent back to the servers. Not surprisingly, Yahoo came out with the most data collection points in a month on its sites; about 110 billion collections, or 811 for the average user; on the other side of the spectrum, publishers such as Condé Nast only recorded 34 data collection events for the average site visitor.
www.NYTimes.com

Engagement Mapping: Digital marketers everywhere rejoice! Seems like Microsoft wants to try and take a stab at figuring out how to put a value and measure online advertising. Microsoft recently announced the launch of "Engagement Mapping", a new approach to "managing and measuring the effectiveness of online campaigns". The tool attempts to give advertisers a holistic view of how to plan a campaign online and tries to convey of how the sum total of a consumers' exposure to your brand—be it display, rich media or search, seen multiple times on multiple sites and across many channels—can influence the desired result of the campaign. "Engagement" as we've written many times on this blog is obviously the ultimate metric for digital media; Microsoft's intentions are of course far from egalitarian given their recent acquisition of aQuantive, the digital marketing/ad serving network. Nevertheless this will be interesting experiment to watch. For another viewpoint on this topic, check out this article from Seeking Alpha.
www.Microsoft.com

Please Stop Asking About Click Rates! If you've ever been in one of those meetings where someone is always focused on the proverbial "click rate" this is a great read! The writer laments about our obsessive love for the "click thru rate." My favorite line from the article has to be this one:

In the offline world, how many times have you seen someone hop into a taxi cab as a result of seeing an ad on the cab, and ask to be driven to the store featured in that ad? This is the functional equivalent of tracking click-through rates — and if you look at it in those terms, it sounds a little silly.

Blogs.Mediapost.com

Who's Been Clicking On My Banner?

A new study reveals that "heavy clickers" distort reality of display advertising click-through metrics. The study conducted by Media agency Starcom USA, behavioral targeting network Tacoda, and digital consumer insight company comScore calls into question click-through rates as a primary source of accountability for Internet display advertising aimed at brand-building. Called “Natural Born Clickers,” the study reveals that a very small group of consumers who are not representative of the total U.S. online population is accountable for the vast majority of display ad click-through behavior. >>Full Story

Thoughts// Given the similarity to the results of an AOL study that we reported on late last year, I'm frankly not surprised by this new study. But if you need more convincing that reign of the "click thru" as a tangible measure of success for digital campaign is over, you might want to pick this report up. According to the study, just 6 percent of the online population (“Natural Born Clickers”) are responsible for more than 50 percent of display ad clicks! These serial clickers are reportedly drastically different than the general online population and tend to:

1. Be between the ages of 25-44 with a households income of under $40,000.
2. Spend more time online (four times as much) while spending proportionally less than non-clickers.
   
3. Spend more time at auctions, gambling, and career services sites.
   

Most significantly however, the study suggests that there is no connection between measured attitude towards a brand and the number of times an ad for that brand was clicked.

So what should you do? The reality is that at least for direct response or sweeps types of promotions, the click thrus (and resulting leads) might be a more relevant measure of success; but when it comes to online branding campaigns, you might have to dig a bit deeper.

At Travel Oregon (and at AOT as well), the click thru has now become just a cursory indicator; to examine whether a given sets of clicks are meaningful and relevant to the messaging, we dive deep into "time spent on site" plus a host of other measurables that we fondly call "engagement". Engagement to us is any tangible action a user takes on our site including: ordering a travel guide, subscribing to e-mail or RSS, opening a travel planner account, adding stuff to their travel planner account (events, restaurants etc.), downloading a ring tone, signing up for a contest etc.

When expressed as a percentage of overall traffic from a particular site, it can quickly tell you the relevance of that "click thru" number. Long live the click thru!

(Note: As of this writing, we have not been able to get the full published 'Natural Born Clickers' report; as soon as we get our hands on it, we'll have it here for download)

Travel Trends: What Do Women Want ?

What Women Want - If you've wandered in here looking for insight into the female psyche this Valentine's Day, we might have something for you. Unfortunately, unlike Mel Gibson in the movie of the same title, our thoughts are restricted to online user behavior of women.

Travel marketers have long known that women are the "deciders" when it comes to travel research, planning and booking. New studies summarized in AdAge show that women's online activities are getting sophisticated and complex. Not only do women comprise of more than 50% of the online audience but they're also spending more time online and are increasingly catching up with men when it comes to social media, gaming and other channels. Consider:

• The number of unique visits to women's community sites jumped 35% to almost 70 million from 52 million.

• 43% of women watch videos on YouTube (up from 27% in 2006)

• Women are increasingly playing games online and they're also more likely to pay for games online

• Women 45-54 are more likely to shop on impulse online -especially if given an incentive such as a discount or e-mail offer
  

• Travel continues to be the #1 most purchased item by women

Markers Rate The Best & Worst Online Tactics - What’s the best performing marketing tactic in online marketing? Whose budget got the biggest increase this year? A new report by MarketingSherpa gives a bit of insight into what our peers are doing. According to the report:

• Behavioral targeting is generally favored and marketers are moving away from poorly targeted display ads (yep no surprise there)

• While paid search is still an important tactic, marketers are increasingly turning to SEO due to it's better ROI. (This seems like a no brainer but you'd be surprised at how many of us ignore SEO)

• E-mail continues to deliver strong ROI (yes, as we wrote a while back, e-mail is not going away!)

• Analytics continues to be a hot button issue with more than 60% of those surveyed looking at ways to integrate "offline and online" tracking and overlay web analytics to search and email

Random Thoughts: They Came to My Website

Reading the postmortem on Super Bowl ads on Advertising Age the other day, I was struck by an article detailing the results of that annoyingly tacky GoDaddy.com. According to estimates, two million users hit the site on Super Bowl Sunday to find out why Fox had rejected the ad and to see if Danica Patrick really exposed herself. Go Daddy CEO Bob Parsons hailed the ad as a rousing success even though 17% of males and 16% of females disliked the ad; in fact he said "I would be happy with that number even if it was 37%" because "they still came to the website". Which led me to the thought:

What if the GAP, Target, Wall-Mart and every other brick and mortar store started talking about foot traffic and web traffic as a measure of success instead of sales and "engagement" with the brand?

Quick Case Study: Google Trends

Last week I discussed using Google Trends to monitor and gain insight into your web presence, and with Super Bowl XLII this past Sunday in beautiful Glendale, Arizona (Go Grand Canyon State!), I thought this would be a good case study for the system.

As a refresher, Google Trends shows a graphical representation of search volume for (up to) 5 keywords over a period of time.

The graph above shows the search volume for the keywords 'superbowl,' 'glendale,' 'arizona,' ' phoenix' and 'scottsdale' during the month on January. In looking at this graph, I was surprised by the late build-up of the word 'superbowl,' which only overtook the works 'arizona' and 'phoenix' around the 16th or 17th of January. And notice the pattern for 'arizona,' it really does not fluctuate to greatly during the month of January...any assumptions that the Super Bowl being in Arizona would result in a direct spike in online traffic appears to be unfounded (at least in terms of Google Search).

Unfortunately, Google Trends does not allow us to look at the data a granular level, such as a keyword like 'arizona travel.'

For another look at the data, let's drill down to the states of Massachusetts:
And New York:
Another interesting note, notice that the keyword 'arizona' (orange line) is pretty consistent in New York, but certainly takes a larger jump in Massachusetts. A possible explanation is that we do limited advertising in Boston / Massachusetts, but a bit more in New York...so the volume of search was already high in New York.

Some of you are probably asleep at this point, but for the rest of you, try out a couple of searches using Google Trends. It does provide a good look at search traffic...especially the volume of that traffic during a major event.

More FREE Ways to Track Your Web Presence

Due to the popularity of our post last week, 'Easy and FREE Ways to Track Your Online Presence...Plus, See What California is Up To', I thought we would mention a couple other online tools that can help you track and understand you presence on the web.

Not to mention kill off a few hours at work obsessing over your Google Page Rank.

Google Trends: Speaking of which, Google Trends is a good (and fascinating) look at trends relating to keyword searches via Google. For example, you can enter two keywords...such as 'ski resorts' and 'cruises'...and be presented with a graphical representation of the number of searches for those words. See the chart above. Of course, very granular or specific keywords might not show any results, but it is an interesting way to determine search volume, on a timeline, from a high level.
http://www.google.com/trends

Microsoft adCenter Labs: Ah, probably my favorite, not to mention the (at times) most confusing, free stats / SEO tool out there. While Microsoft commonly gets overlooked by Google and Yahoo! in the ad sales space, the adCenter Labs offering is a great look into some of the data available from search engines (not to mention a scary look into how much Microsoft and Google know about your search patterns). Stats available include basic information such as Ad Text Writer, which automatically generate text ads for an input URL, and Keyword Group Detection. However, if you have a computer science degree from Oxford (or a lot of free time) you can investigate topics such as 'Entity Association Graph' and 'Context-Based Acronym Resolution.' In all seriousness, adCenter Labs is another great free tool.
http://adlab.msn.com/

Quintura: Our final example is the 'visual search engine' Quintura, which displays your results as well as a related keyword cloud. The cloud results provide an interesting (and slightly addictive) view of your key search terms as well as some insight into other keywords that you might have been unaware of.
http://www.quintura.com/

Easy and FREE Ways to Track Your Online Presence...Plus, See What California is Up To

Like a lot of you, the Arizona Office of Tourism uses quite a few web statistics / analytics tools to track web presence. Some are free, such as Google Analytics, and others are fee-based, such as WebTrends or Omniture. But aside from those major players, there are a few other free tools available to track not only your online presence, but the presence of your competitors.

Oh, and did I mention they are free?

(Note: Like most things free, there is usually a fee model with some of these services. The fee model just includes more features, if you want them)

Let's review:

Alexa: The most well-known of the 'open (free) internet ratings services,' Alexa was created in 1996 and then purchased by Amazon.com in 1999. Basically, the service gathers data from users who have the Alexa toolbar installed in there browser and then generates reports based on that data. While there has been a lot of debate about the accuracy of the Alexa user base as a reliable representation of internet users, the service does offer some in-depth statistics and comparative tools.
http://www.alexa.com/

Compete.com: A relatively new internet rating service, compete.com gathers information from 'a diverse sample of 2,000,000+ U.S. internet users' who have allowed compete.com to 'analyze the web pages they visit and ask them questions via surveys.' The site allows you to compare two websites against each other for a competitive view of visitors, 'engagement' and growth. See the Troy (blue) vs. Mo (red) graph pictured above.
http://www.compete.com/

Quantcast: Another new service, this one directed at advertisers, quantcast offers the opportunity to view audience reports for perspective sites. While it does offer similar statistical data, quantcast also attempts to put a demographic overview on the data.

For instance, arizonaguide.com reaches:
a very slightly female biased, primarily older group.The typical visitor stays at Choice Hotels, uses Frommers, and reads gardenweb.com.

Or, visitcalifornia.com reaches:
a very slightly female biased group.The typical visitor rents cars from Budget, uses Yahoo! Travel, and sails on Norwegian Cruises.

Probably not 100% accurate, but interesting none the less.
http://www.quantcast.com/

Popuri.us: And to sum it all up, you can use popuri.us. This 'check at-a-glance' tool allows you to view data about your site such as Google PageRank, Alexa, Compete, Quantcast, Google BackLinks, Technorati Links, del.icio.us Bookmarks, amongst others. A good tool for a quick look at your web presence.
http://popuri.us/

Again, most of these services are not reporting 100% accurate information. Assumptions are made, audiences are not exact. But, if you are looking for some additional statistics or analytics about your site, I would suggest you give one of these products a try.

After all, they are free!

Random Thoughts: Time Spent

For the last few months Mo and I have been pushing the concept of engagement rather than numbers when it comes to website statistics / analytics. One of the main pieces of that engagement puzzle has been time spent. In talking with some peers over the past few days I noticed that most viewed time spent on page as a good thing. However, I wonder what the other site of that argument is...if someone is spending a substantial amount of time on a page does that mean they cannot find what they are looking for?

Is more time spent always a positive (good) metric, or can it be a indication of an issue with the site?

Has anyone encountered this issue? Thoughts?

The Top 10 Most Underappreciated Metrics To Track in 2008

This post is the continuation of a topic I started yesterday all about the right metrics to focus on and how many marketing teams may be using the wrong ones without realizing it...as a whole, the single word that defines the old view of metrics is to focus on impressions. A more sophisticated model measures engagement or interaction (ie - a more active consumption of content). Eyeballs are not enough. So, to help you start thinking outside your typical metrics, here are some of the underappreciated metrics that I believe more brands should focus on in 2008. >>Full Story

Thoughts// A great post from Rohit Bhargava (of Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide) that complements our previous posts on the Travel 2.0: Interactive Trend Report discussing what new metrics marketers should be measuring with interactive marketing campaigns. Basically, Rohit makes the same case that Mo and I have in regards to focusing greater attention to engagement, rather than impressions.

Here is a summary of his 'The Top 10 Most Underappreciated Metrics To Track in 2008':

1. Inbound Links (from influential sources)
2. Direct URL Access
3. RSS Subscribers
4. Email Link Referrals
5. Time Spent (engagement)
6. Organic Keyword Referrals
7. Email Longevity and Multiple Opens
8. Abandonment
9. Clickstream
10. Microsharing

And just so you can see what you can stop tracking, here are Rohit's 'The Top 10 Most Overused Metrics of 2007':

1. Impressions
2. Technorati Authority
3. Comments
4. Trackbacks
5. Time Spent (searching)
6. Keyword Conversion Rate
7. Number of Pages
8. Email Open Rate
9. Popover Click Rate
10. Page Views

I would encourage you to click thru to both of Rohit's posts. He offers a good explanation of why you should and should not be tracking (or at the minimum, paying so much attention to) these metrics.

My two personal favorites are his explanations of pages views...'no list of useless metrics would be complete without (them)'...and number of pages...'more pages is not necessarily a good thing'.

Thank you Rohit. Please, everyone, stop reporting page views. They mean nothing.