Increasing Your Profitability: The #1 Strategy
Guest Post by James Martell.
It’s a safe bet one of the biggest reasons you chose to go into business for yourself is to live by your own schedule. For many people I’ve spoken to since I started out in 1999 online marketing is a great way to stop punching the clock.
In fact, this is a great way to love not only what you do, but to also have a chance to enjoy life. Setting your own hours, leaves you free to spend time your free time as you see fit. An unscheduled day off in the middle of the week won’t get you fired. 🙂
Having this sense of control, and building your own paycheck means a lot less frustration. It also makes you far more productive. It’s important not to let old habits you might have learned in the 9 to 5 mindset hold you back.
Making Your Time Work For You
It’s easy to return to the grind that kept you bogged down in work that you don’t enjoy, or will take you more time than it would a pro with more experience in certain areas. From clerical help to an artistic makeover you can build your business using skills readily available to you from professionals at reasonable costs.
Use the 15-Minute Rule Guide
I’m not overly technical. I found that when I try to do something that requires that type of aptitude I’ll spend hours basically just making the situation worse, and then realize later that I’ve wasted time I could have spent on another task.
There is no reason to struggle this way because there are thousands of talented artistic, clerical, and yes, technical professionals waiting to do jobs exactly like the one causing me a problem. For these individuals it takes just a few minutes to complete a job that could keep me away from higher level, profitable work.
What I love best about the trainings I give is getting to talk to people active in online marketing. I know from these conversations that this is a struggle for a lot of people, but really, it’s unnecessary. If you find yourself wearing thin on the task at hand then try what I call the 15-minute rule.
If I am still frustrated after working on a problem for 15-minutes, and can’t resolve it, or get a project to work the way I it need it to, I will hire a service provider I can trust to do the job for me. Hiring one of the many experienced professions on sites like Elance, takes less time, and in the end, less money than it would if I squandered my day away struggling with an issue, and not getting anything done.
That 15-minute rule has worked well for me, because of the professionalism I found on websites such as Elance. In fact, one job in particular I contracted illustrates exactly what I mean as far as saving money and time working on even a small issue when you can find someone to complete any kind of job in no time at all.
Working on an Excel spread sheet I realized that I needed some of the files separated so I could work with them. As I kept working on different ways to accomplish this and getting frustrated, I realized I was in violation of my rule. I was also letting other projects wait while tried to work on this one issue.
After posting the job on Elance and reviewing my bid options, I accepted the bid of a gentleman to complete the assignment for $20. I was sure the job could be completed in 24 hours for that amount.
Except, after setting the terms for the job at 24 hours, I forgot one crucial part of the job, and I neglected to send him the file. Now, for the provider to be paid within those terms he would need to finish within that timeframe, and if I’d remembered to send the work itself I’m sure he could have done so.
Perhaps, being a professional he’d encountered this problem before, because instead of letting the assignment go when he couldn’t reach me to get the file, he wrote a short program.
What this program did was separate the files, and I all I had to do was install it. The files were separated and I could work with them right away.
If you take this one story, and then realize it happens daily on Elance thousands of times a day you will see why this is a valuable tool.
On these sites, there are thousands of professional service providers actively looking for your jobs, and they are knowledge about how best to help your resolve problems you might be having right now.
Outsourcing Doesn’t Have to Be Expensive If Done Right
Imagine you need a retouching photoshop for a banner add. After trying for awhile with no success it would be easy to exclude this from your website, and you would lose this item you want for your business only because it falls outside your own expertise.
When you only concentrate on what you can do alone due to either time issues, or know-how you’re limiting the professional quality of your endeavor. This is dropping the level of what you can do to promote and run your business, and crippling the vision, you have for all your projects.
One of the important points I make as part of my outsourcing course is that you don’t need to limit your business to those areas of expertise you don’t personally hold. Perhaps unlike me, you are a computer wizard. Chances are good you aren’t also a photo retouchers professional, writer, or software designer. You can go without being all those things, but your business will at some point need all those skills and more.
So many qualified providers and professionals with various skills sets willing to share their abilities with your site or business for a very reasonable price, that finding someone who has a specially skill or even time saving clerical support is too easy and too inexpensive to do without.
Really, the numbers of experts and professionals waiting to bid on your project is astounding. The process is simple and low in cost if you follow a few important tips.
Outsourcing Tip #1: The Myth of Expensive Outsourcing
Many people’s first objection to hiring a professional is based on the myth that outsourcing will be too expensive. Outsourcing is not expensive if you use sites like
Elance, or others where pros bid on doing your job for you. Through this process, you pick the price you want to pay.
As a job provider, you have control of the service providers you hire and how much you will pay.
The nice thing about most of the bidding for hire sites is that when you post the job, you can take the bid that appeals to you to based on the qualifications and how much you think the work is worth.
Outsourcing Tip #2: Outline a Clear Idea of What You Want
This is tip number two, but it is the number one mistake made by new job providers. A vague, undefined job posting will not get you the results you want.
Very clearly, describe what you want. A website designer for example, bidding on your project might be very good, but he or she cannot know in advance what you want without direction, and while this provider will try to give you a great results, it might not be what you need.
Instead, picture how you would like the end-result of your project to look like and write a short spec page outline with 15 or so points listed to let the writer what you want the job to include.
Outsourcing Tip #3: Protect Your Money by Setting Milestones
One very important tip is to protect your money by setting milestones, and using escrow. A milestone can be set for each phase of project. The total payment for the job can be split per each milestone performed.
On sites like Elance, the escrow system allows you to keep your money protected since you only release the funds when a milestone or the project is completed to your satisfaction.
When my wife Arlene first started outsourcing she found that through this method she had better control of each phase of her website. Since she needed many different new aspects to her site, having approval of each element from the banner to the links on the page was a useful tool for her, and is for anyone with a definite picture of what they want.
Outsourcing Tip #4: Use Feedback to Get To Know the Pro
Before you select who will work on the project check their feedback. As providers bid on your project, you can use the system to read what others they have worked for say about them. In a way, the feedback works much the same a reference.
Personally, I avoid those service providers who do not have any feedback, since their abilities, and work ethic are yet unknown.
Outsourcing Tip #5: Chose Your Own Price Through Negotiation
Negotiate the price. You can ask bidders to lower their bids through the system. Sometimes an overpriced bid represents a misunderstanding of what the job will entail or what kind of budget is possible for this work. Most bidders are open to some element of negotiation due to the competition for jobs and good job providers on the site.
One of the main reasons that my wife Arlene developed this knack for negotiation was in her experience working with her own site EpilepsyMoms.com.
Arlene noticed a need for a place online where parents could share information about Epilepsy, it’s treatment, and trade tactics for dealing with this condition. She wanted an easy to navigate site, a forum, and a recorded message that greeted visitors as they entered.
Going through some of the services out there could have been expensive, and doing this work alone would have difficult. She found that through discussions with the services providers she could get a price that was reasonable, without sacrificing expertise.
Outsourcing Tip #6: Keep in Contact and Respond to Messages
Elance provides a private message system. This function allows private emails between you and the service provider. Here you and the person working on the job can discuss aspects of different assigns and keep up with each step along the way.
The pro’s goal is to make you the customer happy, and this will mean touching base with you occasionally. Keeping in touch with the provider also lets you know that the project is staying on track, and that you will be happy the job’s results.
Elance holds these messages in the system allowing you and the service provider to keep a running record of your communications.
While it happens very infrequently, if you and the service provider disagree at any point these records are valuable in assisting Elance in resolving the dispute.
Outsourcing Tip #7: Everyone Likes to Get Paid—Pay Fast
After outsourcing more than 400 projects, I know that money is a motivator. Once you have a technical person, writer, data entry clerk, or any other sort of service provider you may very well want to become a repeat customer. Paying fast ensures the service provider would put your name at the top of their list of projects to bid on when he or she sees your posting.
When you are paying you can stagger the amounts allowing you to pay a part of the total agreed on price a step at a time, but there’s one other important tool that milestones give you. Once you’ve paid an initial deposit you can give feedback. If things start going wrong on the job, this tool allows you to have a motivator when working with the service provider.
Feedback on Elance works much the same as with other systems like eBay in which bad feedback can cost the provider future sales or work. Once you’ve made a payment through the system you have this added incentive for the service provider to do a great job.
Outsourcing Tip #8: Never Leave The System
There’s no legitimate reason for either the job provider or the service provider to want to leave the system either Elance or other service provider website has set up. If you leave you can’t use the many safe features the site provides for you.
A service provider might ask you to leave in order to avoid paying. Job providers only pay for the service provider, while Elance takes it’s fee from that total before paying the service provider.
Leaving the system is denying Elance it’s fee, and it takes away important safety features from you such as dispute resolution, a safe, private message center, and the ability to give feedback.
When service providers are used to getting good feedback they have no reason to leave the system, since while they are paying a small fee, the free advertising from a satisfied customer’s comments ensures them more work.
Outsourcing Tip #9: Build Service Provider Relationships
When you are a good client who pays on time and gets good feedback you will never have trouble getting great bids for you jobs. Once you know whom you want to work with from experience you can invite them back to work with you again,
On her own site this was a great discovery that Arlene made, once someone knows you, it’s easier for the person to produce work you will appreciate. In the case of her site past services providers who already knew her needs and her site could produce the work quickly.
Outsourcing Tip #10: Your Feedback is Important Too
Just as you are checking out the feedback of the service provider, they are looking at your past feedback to determine if you are someone they want to work with on the job you’re current listing.
Some comments such as being slow to pay, or not responding to messages can hurt you in finding future good professionals to help you. From the service providers perspective they are taking a chance that you will honor your agreement, and the best proof of that is an outstanding past record.
Your Incentive to Outsourcing
- Thousands of technicians, writers, network specialists, coders, copywriters,artists, web designers, and more professionals are competing for your business.
- Competition keeps the costs down.
- There is no cost for posting your job. The service provider pays the fee for the job.
- Feedback is an extra incentive for the service provider to do a great job for you.
- Elance has provided safety nets to ensure your privacy, and that disputes can be settled within the system.
People Like to Earn Money
From the start like many in this industry, I wanted my wife to also take part in the business. She wasn’t interested until one day she saw something she really wanted. A sofa that would exactly fit her plans for decorating. I think everyone can relate. We all see those things we want, and need then go looking for ways to achieve our dreams.
In this case the dream was at a reasonable price, but she also knew I had money set aside for the writing several articles I needed. She came to me with an idea, she could do the articles, and we both get a sofa.
She’d written before so this was a skill she possessed. We made the trade. In this case, I not only got the articles, but in writing those articles, Arlene saw what affiliate marketing was all about and started taking a big part in the business herself.
You don’t always have a professional or expert in the family, and even when you do drawing on them all the time can have a downside. You can draw on the professionals at Elance or a similar site whenever you need to for almost any type of service or skill.
Sometimes it might just be a person to go through a few administrative details to free up your time. Or you might someone to design your entire website. Either way, it doesn’t have to be too expensive, and this can immensely increase the productive or image of your site.
Over to You
What questions do you have about outsourcing? Tell us your thoughts on this way to increase your productivity.
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Recognized as a leading expert in affiliate marketing training, James Martell is President of Net Guides Publishing Inc. and host of the “Affiliate Marketers SUPER BootCamp.” A sought-after speaker, James has presented at Commission Junction University, Affiliate Summit, The System Seminar, Digital River Lab, Webmaster World’s PubCon, Affcon, and more. He is also the host the “Affiliate Buzz”, the 1st ever and longest running affiliate marketing podcast in the industry. James relies on outsourcing for the creation of his websites, graphics, articles, podcasts, and video in order to streamline his business, enabling him to break away from the daily grind.
Read MoreFive Strategies for Return Traffic
Guest Post by James Martell.
With over a decade’s experience in the online marketing business, I can tell you that things have changed. Just a few years ago, the best way to have success online was to get a high volume of unique visitors on a regular basis. To an extent, this is still important, but the key to success today is to have your visitors come back to your site on a regular basis.
Websites with a devoted following of users are among the most successful today, with a prominent example being daily deal sites such Woot or Groupon.
The significance of return traffic
In a recent interview I did for my Coffee Talk series with Ryan Allis, co-founder and CEO of iContact, a leading provider of email marketing software boasting more than 700,000 users, he told me that you will never see a whopping 70% of your traffic ever again if you don’t get them on your list. In other words, your time and effort would be best spent on getting your visitors to return to your website on a regular basis.
In general, if a product or service is expensive or complicated, a consumer must be exposed time and time again to the product or service before they will truly consider purchasing it. If a visitor to your website never comes back, they will not likely result in a sale or increased advertising revenue for you.
Search engines also play a very large part in this equation. Google and other search engines continue to monitor information about your website’s visitors, including how many times they return. Ranking highly in search engines for topics such as car insurance quotes, lift chairs, inflatable boats, wood routers, or doll houses requires you to get your users to come back.
In this article, I will discuss the five best strategies for creating effective return traffic.
1) Make use of RSS to Email
This is a fantastic piece of email automation software that can inform members on your list about the new content that you post. Best of all, you never have to lift a finger, with many options for automation.
Creating a weekly or monthly newsletter or sending email auto-responders can be incredibly difficult and time-consuming.
Fortunately, RSS to Email allows you to send out newsletters and auto-responders, but in a much simpler and easier way. Their automated service can allow you to notify your list members every single time you add new content to your website. This is a fantastic way to get your readers to return to your website and check out the new content you have posted.
My favorite feature on this program, however, is the scheduling tool. This allows you to send out a regular newsletter automatically with little to no work on your part. The scheduling tool can run as little or as often as you want, and it can crawl a number of websites, effectively combining different pages of content into one handy newsletter. It can even send out a newsletter to your list automatically, but you can also have it send you a preview newsletter so that you can approve its content yourself.
2) Release podcast updates
Considering the amount of people with online businesses today, very few marketers are making use of podcasts. However, they are easily one of the best ways to engage your visitors and have them return to your website.
Currently, I am the host of one of the longest running podcasts about affiliate marketing (The Affiliate Buzz) as well as my own series (Coffee Talk with James Martell). I use these podcasts to pique my visitor’s interest and convert them into devoted followers.
You could put together a 30-minute podcast in under an hour fairly easily. However, shorter podcasts (5 to 10 minutes) are becoming more and more popular. It is also very easy to automate your podcast publishing, allowing you to update your list members with very little work on your part.
3) Comment on your own blog
Users that are involved in your website will return regularly. One of the best ways to get your users involved on your website is to reply to comments on your own blog.
Thousands of visitors might read a post on your blog, but it’s typically quite rare for a reader to get involved and post a comment. For this reason, it’s important to write out thoughtful replies when someone takes the time to write a comment on your blog.
If you’re having trouble keeping track of comments on your blog, I would recommend WordPress plug-in called “Subscribe To Comments“. This plug-in can notify your website’s visitors when someone responds to their comment. It doesn’t cost anything, and it can be a fantastic way to deepen your website’s sense of community and get your visitors involved.
4) Utilize chat forums
Bulletin boards and chat forums have played a large role online since the birth of the internet. However, many online marketers tend to neglect internet forums. However, they remain one of the most effective tools for building a community on your website and getting your visitors invested. They also allow you to communicate with your visitors and have your visitors interact with each other, giving them valid reasons for returning on a regular basis.
My wife Arlene and I have had great success in building online communities with chat forums. Arlene’s website, EpilepsyMoms.com, has thousands of chat forum members that regularly participate in discussions about parenting children with epilepsy. These are the type of invested returning visitors that I consider to be the most valuable type of traffic.
5) Provide useful information
In today’s world, content is king. However, it is important to provide your users with well-written, informative content.
Try to remain open and interested to your community members, and provide useful information to all of your visitors. Through various forms of media, such as video, audio, or simple written articles, you can provide helpful advice, useful information, and fun, interesting content to your users, prompting them to come back on a regular basis.
Keep the visitors you have
If you wish to increase the traffic of your website and rank high in search engines for topics like car insurance quotes, Pride lift chairs, inflatable boats, wood routers, doll houses, and arc welders, it is likely a good idea to shift your focus from new visitors to return traffic.
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James Martell is a successful author, podcaster, and speaker. He’s a leading expert in affiliate marketing and outsourcing as well as a specialist in SEO. James is host of the Affiliate Buzz podcast on WebmasterRadio.FM (the first ever and longest running podcast about the affiliate industry), and creator of the Affiliate Marketers SUPER BootCamp where he teaches others how to make money with affiliate marketing. He lives in White Rock BC, a seaside suburb of Vancouver on west coast of Canada with his wife, Arlene.
Read MoreHow to Add Twitter Followers Every Day…And for Free!
Guest post by James Martell.
If you have a Twitter account but are clueless about how to get more Twitter followers, then you’ve come to the right place! I’m going to share with you three very useful strategies that will enable you to get free Twitter followers, guaranteed.
Be Careful:
Even if, for some reason, you decide not to use my strategies, I do want to caution you about using software programs supposedly designed to increase your Twitter following. Most of these programs don’t work, and they certainly don’t teach you how to get more Twitter followers.
What’s worst of all is that they are almost always against Twitter’s term of service. This means that they can actually cause you to lose your Twitter account, leaving you even worse off than when you started. So stay away from these programs, and instead follow my steps for how to increase Twitter followers.
What’s Twitter?
I have to tell you that I was once in your shoes – maybe even worse. Just a few years ago, I didn’t get the “Twitter” thing at all. But I decided it would be a good idea to at least try it out.
Now, it’s a huge part of my business. I might not have millions of followers like all the major celebrities, but I do have 5,403 loyal followers to date. Also, since I’ve started using the three strategies we’re going to discuss, I’ve watched my following grow a little each and every day!
I can promise you that no matter what you’re promoting with twitter- whether it be kids rocking chairs, dental services, or joovy caboose reviews – my strategies can and will work for you.
Strategy 1: Syndicate an Online Newspaper
So, let’s get going with Strategy 1! For this strategy, all you have to do is syndicate your own online newspaper based on a Twitter list, user, or a keyword. Then, you publish the newspaper to your Twitter followers each day.
My newspaper, The Guest Blogging Daily, was created using paper.li, my Twitter account, and a Twitter list. You can check it out here: http://paper.li/JamesMartell/1308523225.
I absolutely love paper.li, and I can’t recommend it highly enough!
Not only does the site create a lovely paper, but it’s so very easy! Everything, and I mean everything, is 100% automated, so you barely do any work at all. The site posts to your Twitter when each daily paper is released, and it even tweets to your followers.
Plus, contributing authors are tweeted as well. These writers will often follow you and –best of all- retweet the newspaper. This means that not only will you gain the writers as followers, but some of their followers as well!
It doesn’t get any better than this. So, start out with strategy 1 today! Simply pick an interesting and informative topic for your paper and then use paper.li to get your idea up and running!
Strategy 2: Become a Guest Writer
There are a lot of sites out there – this one included – that are always on the lookout for guest writers. Also known as guest blogging, writing for such a site is an excellent way to gain positive publicity and, best of all, more Twitter followers.
When acting as a guest writer, make sure that you are a good communicator and that you provide worthwhile information to your readers. Take the time to respond to their comments and/or emails. The more they feel they know and can trust you, the more likely they will be to follow you on Twitter.
Of course, it’s up to you to ask them to do just that! A great place to include the invitation is in your author bio. I guarantee if you follow these steps, this will gain you more followers, so get started today!
Strategy 3: Using Your “Thank You” Page
The easiest and most effective strategy is the last one. Once you hear it, you’ll wonder why you didn’t think of it yourself- it’s really that simple. I can’t take the credit either, though. It was my friend, Joshua Sloan, the former Director of Online Marketing for the world’s largest and fastest growing hosting company, 1&1 hosting, who shared the idea with me.
To carry it out, you simply set it up so that visitors who fill out your option form, either to request more information or sign up for a newsletter, are redirected to a “thank you” page.
On this page, you then invite them to follow you on Twitter. Remember that these visitors went the extra step to find out more or request more information, and they gave up their contact information in order to do so. This makes it very likely that they will follow you on Twitter if you only ask.
The Choice is Yours:
I’ve laid out my three proven strategies, and they couldn’t be any more simple! Now it’s up to you to put them to work and to make them work for you. I personally guarantee that no matter what you’re promoting – and I mean anything from a Bumbleride indie twin stroller to dental services to bar stools – these strategies will work!
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James Martell is well know for his podcasts and affiliate marketing trainings, as well as outsourcing and a specialist in SEO. James is host of the Affiliate Buzz podcast on WebmasterRadio.FM (the first ever and longest running podcast about the affiliate industry), and creator of the Affiliate Marketers SUPER BootCamp. He lives in White Rock BC, a seaside suburb of Vancouver on west coast of Canada with his wife, Arlene.
Read More12 Steps to Becoming an SEO Expert
Guest Post by Amber McDougon .
If you dream of becoming a successful freelance SEO consultant, or joining or creating a robust SEO Services company, this 12-step program details the path to success.
1. Know Your Basics
This step is simple for those familiar with SEO, like bloggers and web developers. For those unfamiliar with the intricacies SEO, do a search for phrases like “SEO techniques.” The links will uncover articles about respected techniques, as well as so-called black hat tactics that should be avoided. There are books on the topic abound, but honestly, most of the information can be found online.
2. Going Live
Start an SEO-related website once you have a command of the basics. Begin with an unambiguous plan. Clearly detail the site through a complete development life cycle: Initial capital and time investment, the right hosting plan, simple setup and administration, the best CMS for you, required optimizations, and monitoring of important metrics and dimensions.
3. Optimize and Thrive
Double and triple check that you are utilizing every optimization tactic in your newly-acquired arsenal: Effective keyword research, optimized tags, metas and headers, a properly configured robots.txt, compelling content, keyword-to-content ratio, etc. These will become first nature before long.
Take the time and the steps necessary to build your own page rank. Social media is immensely useful to this end. Prove to potential clients that you understand the finer points of SEO by building a quality site that gets results.
4. Establish a Base of Satisfied Clientele
Good references are a prerequisite to landing that big project, more often than not. Friends and family can play an important role in your success. Help build websites for them. Do to their sites what you did to yours.
Search in the beginning for the smaller fish in the pond. Once your portfolio boasts satisfied clients, many will personally vouch for the results they had due to your expertise.
5. Do the Legwork: Network
Standard business marketing applies; Word of mouth, business cards, cold calls, make bids for jobs, and so on. With enough legwork, projects are sure to flow your direction.
6. Have an Open Door Policy
Inform potential clients about the process you will implement. Be an open book when it comes to details. When a homeowner hires a renovation company, the homeowner wants specific details of the work to be done. A simple “We do it all!” doesn’t pass muster. Undisclosed changes made without the owner’s permission could end badly.
7. Research, Work, Research, Work
Search algorithms change with lightning speed. Follow closely the blogs of search engineers. Remember the basics that brought you this far. Distractions can cause simple oversights, so always double check your work. Update XML sitemaps after even minor changes so that spiders index those updates.
8. Silence is Not Always Golden
Do not tell a client some new feature will appear on their site in three days, then neglect to update them for two days. A quick phone call or e-mail will suffice. During these points of contact, elaborate on how well the feature works. Use screenshots or uploaded files to backup your claims.
9. A Good Name Equals More Sales
Up-selling is easier for those with reputations for honest work and full disclosure. Up-sell every chance you get.
10. Reach Out and Touch…Everyone
Satisfied clients almost always allow blurbs about how well you improved their business. Note on your site about what you did for them.
11. Entrepreneur or Team Player?
You have built a fine reputation and strong skills. Should you freelance some more, or join or start an SEO firm? Pros and cons are part of each choice. Weigh this decision with the same care you exercised in both yours and your clients’ businesses.
12. “Kaizen”
“Kaizen” is Japanese for “continuous improvement” and “change for the better.” It’s a business philosophy advocating the tweaking of any aspect that could be enhanced or streamlined, down to the smallest detail.
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Amber McDougon who is a professional writer and blogger with a particular interest in the open source Joomla platform. She has been helping companies build and maintain their online relationships with customers since 2005.
Read MoreChango Expands Search Retargeting
April 12th, 2011 (San Francisco @ Ad:Tech). Having successfully delivered fully managed search retargeting campaigns at scale for agencies and brands, Chango is now providing direct access to its technology for self-serve marketers and partners. As of May 2nd, clients will be able to harness the power of Chango’s Intent Marketing Platform to launch and optimize campaigns with the same level of control as they have with a SEM campaign. Clients already on board with Chango’s solutions include iCrossing, Booyah, AKQA and Clickable.
“While we continue to expand Chango’s fully managed solutions, the direct access we are providing to our Intent Marketing Platform satisfies a demand from marketers who are looking to get more hands-on, particularly search marketers. Using our dashboard, these marketers can now target in-market shoppers and keyword searchers right down to the keyword level” said Chris Sukornyk, founder and CEO of Chango.
Chris Wallace, SVP Media, iCrossing said “we are excited about the results we are seeing with Chango’s search retargeting offering and are looking towards a more enhanced integration. Search retargeting is positioned at the crossroads between search and display, using the best of both mediums. The use of search data as a measurement of consumer intent has already been proven in SEM and can be applied to display through this solution; enabling campaigns to successfully achieve both acquisition and brand messaging goals for clients.”
Whilst Chango’s first offering on the platform has been search retargeting, a highly targeted solution that finds those individuals who are expressing the intent to take an action in the form of a search action, other types of intent marketing include site retargeting that talks specifically to previous site visitors. The combination of both search + site retargeting in one platform makes for an intuitive and powerful combination.
Troy Lerner, President of agency Booyah commented on the performance they have been seeing for a variety of their clients. “Our clients expect us to bring them the newest and most effective methods for meeting ROI goals – Chango has been a top performer across all of our media options for the past several quarters.”
In addition to today’s announcement of self-serve access, partners can also connect directly into Chango’s platform through an API. Programmatic access allows search management platforms and other ad platforms to seamlessly launch and optimize hundreds of campaigns that use RTB (Real Time Bidding), including site and search retargeting.
“Search retargeting is not only a smart strategy on its own, it’s a great way to expand the ROI of your hard-earned and highly qualified paid traffic,” said Peter Chun, Senior Director of Solutions at Clickable. “We look forward to working with Chango to expand our retargeting solutions to search and social advertisers across our platform.”
Mazdak Rezvani (VP Engineering) elaborates. “Unlike most ad companies that rely on third party demand side platforms, our platform is directly connected to all major ad exchanges via our own proprietary RTB system and has the ability to bid on billions of ads today. This direct connection allows us to optimize media buying down to each individual, thereby efficiently optimizing campaigns. Customers of our Intent Marketing Platform can now access this power under their own terms.”
Customers interested in our self-serve dashboard should pre-register at: http://www.chango.com/.
New Liqwid Ad Unit Redefines Interactive Advertising
SALT LAKE CITY, Utah, April 5, 2011 — LeftsnRights, Inc. today announced that it will debut its new liqwid ad unit at ad:tech San Francisco, April 12-13, 2011. Liqwid ads (http://www.liqwid.com/) are the first ad units to monetize today’s unused web real estate, increasing revenue opportunities for publishers, advertisers and agencies while improving the visitor experience.
Liqwid ads dynamically fill the empty space between webpages and the viewer’s browser or screen, ensuring ads are always viewed when rendered without popping up, floating or blocking website content in any way. For the first time, advertisers will pay only for ads viewed for a minimum time.
Unlike today’s online ads, liqwid ads apply the media buying model traditionally used in TV and print advertising to the Internet. The liqwid technology that powers the ad units provides sophisticated delivery, monitoring and reporting capabilities that make it possible for advertisers to specify true reach and frequency by controlling the number of viewers who see each ad and the number of times they see it.
“Who isn’t tired of pop-up ads? Even my favorite sites have succumbed to blocking valuable content in return for cash,” says Eric Kavanagh, CEO and co-founder of The Bloor Group, a new-media analyst firm. “That trade-off drives down traffic and irritates the customer. What Liqwid offers is a viable solution that honors the separation of concerns that viewers want: content in the middle, ads on the outside.”
LeftsnRights co-founders, Jim Rowan and Nikolai Mentchoukov, decided it was time to redefine the interactive advertising experience with the development of liqwid ads in 2010. Rowan has an extensive financial and technology background, while Mentchoukov is one of the leading experts worldwide in rich media content and online advertising technologies. Due to their backgrounds, both founders have an especially in-depth understanding of the challenges facing today’s online publishers and advertisers and have found a way to solve these issues using their proprietary new liqwid technology.
“With liqwid ads, we’re creating a paradigm shift in the online advertising industry. Liqwid ads enable publishers to preserve the integrity of their websites while generating incremental revenue,” says Mentchoukov, LeftsnRights CEO. “And advertisers can gain complete control over their ad spend to accurately calculate and increase ROI of their online investments.”
The liqwid ad unit was recently chosen as a finalist for the Utah Innovation Awards in the category of Enterprise Software and Web-enabled B-2-B Solutions. The Selection Committee, comprised of seventy professionals from Utah’s business, technology and academic communities, made their selections after a month-long evaluation process. Winners will be announced on May 3, 2011.
Liqwid Ad Feature Highlights:
- Minimum size guarantees up to three times larger than banner ads
- Content can include any type of creative or application including games, rich media, video and social media
- Viewer-directed placement enables advertisers to choose number of specific viewers who see each ad and the number of times they see it
- Virtual board technology positions ads outside of web pages, guaranteeing ads are seen whenever rendered without disrupting content
- Minimum Viewing Time tracking ensures visitors view an ad for five seconds (MVT:5) before charges are incurred
