Kerstin Baker-Ash

Mothercare's Not-So-Subtle Upsell

It's that time of the year again when shoppers, tired of the crowds at malls and showering before they go out, turn to the internet for some holiday relief. I'm one of these shoppers (not the un-showered, I like to be clean), and most of my holiday shopping this year will be done in my house with a cup of tea and a credit card. There are lots of little people in our world now, and we're delighted to be doing some gift acquiring for our expanding family in the UK. Mothercare has a great 3 for 2 deal on, and I'm a big fan. 

No surprise that the "interstitial" page takes me to related items for an upsell pitch. As an internet marketer, I think that using upselling pages before checkout are a fantastic idea - it's logical and it's a great way to achieve incremental sales goals. What I don't like is that companies treat consumers like they're idiots online when they're actually pretty savvy. My upsell page from Mothercare was just that:

Okay, so it's not the biggest deal in the world, but I wish that IT people or even search consultants who are the architects of the site taxonomy would use something just a bit less obvious. The subtle play goes down a lot smoother.

Shoddy Results on the Content Network

I'm for matchmaking as much as the next person - the world definitely needs more happy people. I'm even for advertising dating sites on the content network, just possibly looking at the context of where you're targeting before you let loose on an unsuspecting population.

I was looking for an iCrossing report on paid and natural search synergy (very interesting, if you're looking - the report from 2007 is here). This is where Scribd's AdSense gets a bit interesting:

How the first ad passed through editorial is que$tionable, but how a search report on paid and natural search synergy manages to trigger a Tamil LifePartner ad is a big headscratcher. Perhaps somewhere in the myriad keywords there's a "partner" or "synergy" insertion, but this is the big reason why people don't trust the content network fully for a professional marketing campaign.

Sure, it's up to the individual site owner and the person targeting the content network to make site exceptions, but you can't guarantee anything because the content network is blind. Site targeting has improved the way you can make sure you're targeting the right audience, but Google's content network as it stands is pretty shoddy.

To the folks at BharatMatrimony.com, maybe map out your ideal audience and switch to site targeting - free advice to get a much better return on investment. To the people at Visman, please try to hire a copywriter who speaks English.

Who Set This Ad Live?

Come on. Fess up. Who did this?

When I clicked on this ad yesterday, it directed to a Google error page. I was in DART training at the Google offices in Victoria when I saw it, so maybe it was some kind of internal test unavailable outside of the Google network. Still, whoever set this live deserves a chuckle award for making me smile while trafficking URLs.

Marketing Fail - Bacardi Breezers

In 2008, McCann Digital launched a new social media campaign for Bacardi Breezers, aimed squarely at women who accessorize and drink girly drinks which taste like sweat. Want to look amazing this summer? Why not spice up your wardrobe with an ugly girlfriend? Keeping her by your side makes you "the most desirable piece of meat on the grill," so why not choose from a range of situations and pick the ugly friend most suited to your outings.

I half suspect that this might've been a poorly thought out, local viral; Lucy's number (above, +972 3 606633) doesn't work. Also, who would put a country code (and miss out the local "03" for Tel Aviv) at the front of a telephone number when the target market is squarely within Israel's borders? While there was a Facebook page in Hebrew and a dedicated bilingual landing page, it seems like someone who didn't have the sense before this was kept live had the sense after this weekend's backlash (went the English-speaking blogosphere picked it up) to take it down. 

For those of you looking to pair up with Sally, whose "97 kilograms of femininity, strength and double chins" can help you get play on the beach, I'm afraid you're out of luck.

HSBC: No "goodservice" in Sight

In the past few years, companies reaching out to a new generation of consumers have oft-used "search for" slogans in their above the line communication.Orange's poorly planned "I am" campaign has presumably taught us that in order to make sure you're searchable on the terms you're telling people to search on, you have to do a little behind the scenes legwork beforehand. Sadly, one advertiser that has followed Orange's example of putting the cart before the horse is HSBC. 

HSBC's new outdoor campaign suggests that instead of calling their 0800 number (that's like a 1-800 number for the Yanks and Canucks among you), you should search on "goodservice". The first result is poor; Google suggests an alternative spelling, and returns two top results from Canada, as well as a "goodservice" result from a Portuguese site. HSBC could've got around this by using paid search as a bridge until their SEO ramps up, but instead Audley Travel are they only ones showing up in sponsored links:

Fair enough that Google suggests I've made a spelling mistake, so I searched on "good service" with a space in between:

HSBC doesn't pop up anywhere. In fact, the first instance where they do show up is... nowhere. They're not to be found in natural or paid search results. Duncan Bloor first wrote about HSBC's goodservice campaign nearly two months ago, and they did seem to be using paid search to prop up their abysmal SEO. However, someone has massively dropped the ball and either let PPC budget run out or not ramp up a successful SEO strategy.

Thanks to my colleague, Jonathan Keane, for spotting this search #fail.

Are Vodafone Targeting Cannabis Users?

A bit of an interesting target market there.

I haven't used personalized search on Safari, so it's highly unlikely that this is one of those odd combinations. Perhaps Vodafone should rethink their keyword inventory, or employ some negative match optimization to their keywords? Just a thought...

The Holidays Might Be Over, But Are Yours?

Living in a world where technology has evolved in service of our business and personal needs, you'd think brands would understand that changing ad copy over the holidays would be beneficial to their brand perceptions. It surprises me how far pay per click marketing still has to come to be regarded as a profession; right now, it seems like it's still chock full of half-baked attempts by offline marketing managers interested in "that internet thing".

As simplistic as the process of ad scheduling (dayparting for you old school types) is, it seems to have escaped a number of retailers this year. In the spirit of the holidays, I'd like to offer a very quick and easy way to ensure that 2009 is the year you start looking like a rockstar to your board.

Step 1: Create two campaigns - one for pre-holidays and one for after. This is especially important if your business is expecting to put on a Boxing Day or January Sale.

Step 2: Create a list of keywords and copy them across both campaigns so that your keyword inventory is identical. This only makes sense if you don't have any seasonal-specific keywords (we'll get to sale keywords later); don't copy "Christmas Turkeys" over into your post-holiday campaign - chances are the people that are searching for that keyword might be looking for something else.

Step 3: Write some ad copy. Keep it relevant to the season - Christmas Special: Socks on Sale, Guaranteed in Time for Christmas is great for your pre-holiday searchers, but make sure you create an equally relevant ad for your post-holiday traffic. Something along the lines of 20% Off All Socks - Boxing Day/January Special! usually works a treat.

Step 4: In "Edit Campaign Settings", opt in to ad scheduling (i.e. turn it on!):

Step 5: If you've never turned Ad Scheduling on before, you'll have to specify your time zone. For single time zone countries like the UK, it's relatively easy. For US and Canadian marketers, make sure you select the right time zone for your business (if you have a physical location in Houston, it makes zero sense to set your time zone to pander to Yankees on the East Coast; make sure you set it to Central). Setting up different campaigns for different time zones is another post altogether, so we'll keep it relatively simple. Remember - you cannot change your time zone once it's been set. Make sure you don't accidentally set it to Tapei (GMT +8); it can get a tad confusing.

Step 6: Christmas Day was on a Thursday this year, so you can set your ads to go off  without interrupting your turkey conquest plans. Name the time you need your pre-holiday campaign to go off, and it'll go off. Then, all you need to do is make sure that you do the same for your post-holiday campaign - except this time you schedule a time to turn it on.

This is a pretty simple way to protect your brand reputation online. For instance, I'd be very unlikely to purchase something from the retailer at the top of this post, just because they haven't shown me that they care about their products or their brands enough. I know it's not advanced PPC techniques, and there are a load of programs out there that can switch on and off by specified date - this is just a ridiculously simple, band-aid fix to make sure you look like you want your customers' business post-holidays, even if you're still sipping mojitos in Varadero.

Social Media Fail

I protect my updates on Twitter. I'm a big social media fangirl, I'm just wary of over-exposure. By accepting or declining followers, I also can cut through the crap and have a follower list of people I've actually engaged with (i.e. not eejits looking to be spammy or ego chasers looking to artificially boost followers by trying to get people to auto-follow them).  If you're going to be king of spamland though, please - try not to follow me with the same name (or a diminutive) at once. Come on. 

And you want people to think you're the grand master of social media and SEO? Oy.

Why I'm Not Compelled To Advertise On Facebook, Part II

After last week's post about Facebook serving me a sponsored poll about birth control, I wasn't too surprised to see other poorly targeted ads being served when I log into Facebook. This latest one takes the cake though:

As most of you probably know, I'm Canadian - born and raised. My accent hints to my roots every time I open my mouth (although sometimes, okay, I kind of sound American), and I'm pretty open about representing my hometown on my profile:

My husband has concocted a story about being born abroad to parents who got in through the skilled worker program, never taking up Canadian citizenship in the process. Now that I'm an adult living in the UK, I want to return - and that's why Facebook targeted me for immigration ads. I'll just put it down to extra-poor targeting capabilities; more choice needs to be available before advertisers should put their confidence in Facebook as an advertising platform.

Facebook Wants To Know About Birth Control?

A quick check of my Facebook account this afternoon got me wondering about advertising rules here in the UK, and how indirect one can be about gathering information in Facebook feeds.

First of all, where did it pick up the information from? In my profile, I tell them my date of birth (without year), my school and city networks, my hometown, and that I'm married. Obviously, it's picked up somewhere that I'm female and over the age of 18, but I wonder where they set the threshold for birth control questionnaires? 16? 18? 25? The people who have set this sponsored poll have either poorly targeted their audience or Beacon delves a bit deeper into Facebook profiles than one had previously thought, making assumptions on age, gender (obviously) and marital status.

In an October 2004 article, the Committees of Advertising Practice said "Although they can be advertised to the medical and allied professions, prescription-only medicines (POMs) quite sensibly should not be advertised to the public. Not only does the CAP Code forbid POMs being advertised in this way but medicines legislation also prohibits any ad to the general public that is likely to lead to the use of a POM." Since birth control in this country (and many others around the world, for that matter) is left largely to medical professionals prescribing them to women, it would seem as though this information-gathering for a birth control pill could be falling foul of those standards.

If it's just a study, why is there an option for advertising? Unlike the United States, the UK seems to have quite strict controls over prescription medication advertising, and I've never seen a birth control ad in the years that I've lived over here.

It seems that Sponsored Polls' own limitations are to blame. Apparently, if you choose to target by location, you can't target by interest, gender or age.

I've signed up to make a new sponsored poll, and these are the options I get:

I can then choose from the drop-down list, but the other options in the list become unavailable after I type in that I only want to target people who watch the Office. This seems a bit strange to me - mainly because the UK version of The Office (and correct me if I'm wrong here), is much more popular and well-known than the American version of The Office in the UK and vice versa. I'd be hesitant in paying money for a "Are Pam and Jim Meant for Each Other" market research poll if I were targeting the world; it's likely that the questions won't register for fans of the original UK version.

The conclusion? Poor targeting by US-based advertisers who were restricted in the options they could choose for their poll. The message? Sponsored polls for market research are a bad idea, even if they're relatively cheap and easy to set up. You're never going to get meaningful results when you can't split out simple segments like age and gender in the same poll.

Another case of questionable marketing, and the resounding answer: mind your own business.