Tips to help you stand out in the crowded world of online marketing

With Ad Tech around the corner, we want to help refresh your memory of the importance of networking and building connections with others. Specifically in the industry of online marketing and advertising where more individuals becoming consultants and self-employed workers, it is imperative for us to understand the power of professional networking.  It allows you to connect with like-minded individuals, but where most people fail is that they do not exchange contact information or never follow up with the individuals that they met.

Here are a few tips to make it easier.

If you have an iPhone, then download the free app called Bump. Bump allows you to share contact information with other iPhone users simply by bumping your phones together.  This makes it simple, even allowing you to include a picture of yourself making sure you don’t get lost in the stack of business cards collected over time. You can download this app by searching for Bump in iTunes. The Bump app is now available for the Android.

When sharing contact information with individuals, make sure to include the following:

Your name, email address, that you check most frequently, accessible phone number, instant messenger handles (AIM, Skype, ect.), a picture of yourself, social networking sites, your business website or product site, and a few words to summarize yourself just in case the person forgets- ex: guy from xyz forum.  Text messaging is becoming more acceptable, as it is easier for people to reach and respond to others. Just make sure if you feel fine text messaging that you identify yourself.

Although you are giving individuals a lot of information, it allows them to reach you in their most convenient way. You have to understand that at these types of events, you can meet some major players and genius underground marketers.  By gaining contacts in this industry, you can build friendships that can turn into joint ventures, business partners and even private masterminds.

If you don’t have an iPhone, that’s OK too. Take the traditional route such as a business card. With a traditional business card, try to include the information that was outlined above. Also, try to keep the back with minimal text and graphics. Having an almost plain side on your business card allows individuals to take notes.  If you receive a cad, write a note or special information they shared.  This will help you out when you get home.

If you have a Blackberry, you can easily share your information with people via email.  Before you attend the event, make sure to create a contact of yourself with all the information stated above.  Then when it comes time to share your information, just select “compose” and ask for the individuals email address. Then select “attach content” and choose the contact you created earlier.

Never be intimidated when it comes to exchanging information.  You will never get what you never ask for, the worst they can do is give an excuse to why they don’t have their business card, so give them yours, or even exchange email addresses. If you are attending a seminar that is multiple days, make sure to get acquainted with your neighbor, but change seats from day to day, same goes for breakfast and lunches. Once the seminar is over, find out what people are doing after. Are some attendees going to dinner? If so, try to join them and continue the conversations and learning more.

These small recommendations can help you get comfortable with networking.  Once you do it more often you will become confident, making it easier to find your own personal plan. But you have to understand that you will need to be patient, it will take months to start benefiting from any contacts you have made. But it is true that if you start things off by helping others, listening to others, making connections for others, then things will certainly start happening for you.

Many factors come into place when looking to make a media buy, but the primary focus starts with budget, demographics, and what you’re marketing or selling.

Sure, if you had unlimited funds for unlimited campaigns you could just buy everything and look at the results later, but this is extremely inefficient and not result oriented.

The primary goal of media is targeting. Which vehicles target which demographics at what reach and at what price?

How to get here?

Start with research.  Your ads need to appear on the sites that your prospects like to visit. Once you’re clear on your demographics, we like to use these sites to start the research phase:

• Google Ad Planner – - This is an excellent tool that identifies media opportunities by demographic or by URL
• Magic Bullet System’s Demographic Tool – - Insert a URL of a site that is related to the offer your are going to promote to get specifics on who is visiting the site
• Compete  – - Very similar to Quantcast except broken down by keyword.  There is also a paid version where you can do more in depth analysis
• Alexa  – - Alexa is one of the original ratings sites providing free web traffic metrics, top sites lists, site demographics, hot urls, etc.

Once you get a decent read on what the research is telling you, create a media target list and dig deeper to start to indentify which of the sites provide the best returns.  This is a funnel process and by the time you’re down into the smallest part of the funnel, you should be looking at your most targeted sites based on your demographics with affordable rates.

How do you get affordable online media rates? 

Build relationships.  Media buying and planning is all about relationships.  A Media Rep is just as interested in selling you a successful buy as you are interested in executing on one.  You can work with your Media Rep to tell them what your goals are, how much you have to spend, what your campaign is about, etc.  Also ask your rep for recommendations.  At this point you are in your final phase of research and understanding how each of the media networks you’re most interested in will help you meet your end goals. And, don’t be afraid to negotiate rates – - media rates are based on negotiations too so once you get your initial rates, ask them how to get the best rates possible. There is always wiggle room here for the most part.

Finalize your research by creating a Media Buy Plan – - a spreadsheet listing all of your media channels, media rep contacts, website targets, ad size specs, and budgets. This puts your entire buy in one place for you to manage.

There are many different vehicles to use for paid online advertising.  Find the ones that work best based on these objectives and create a targeted media mix to run your campaigns.

Then, get your ad creatives and tracking together, launch, monitor closely for optimization, and Test, Test, Test! 

If you reach your break-even point then pause your campaign.

Be sure to start with remnant traffic when you are initially testing traffic out and gathering your metrics.

Also, start with at least two banners to rotate for each size.

Before signing an Insertion Order (IO) make sure you have the following terms in your contract.

- Remnant Traffic

- Net 30 Terms (if possible)

- Frequency Cap 1×24 with even delivery

- 24 hour out clause

- Billing based off of your reporting

-  US Traffic Only (Unless you are promoting a non-US offer)

 Contact Digispace Solutions for strategic consulting expertise for your nexts online media campaigns.

Pay per click (PPC) Advertising Tips for Online Advertising Campaigns

A ranking developed by Google, Quality Score is an algorithm that calculates how relevant your paid keywords are to the end-user you’re targeting.  Because of this, your Quality Score is just as important as your bid when it comes to where your ad will be positioned.

How does this really impact you? If two competitors have similar or equal bids, the higher Quality Score will earn a higher position.

Pretty important to understand right?

Here’s a few ways to analyze the data and create a plan to increase your Quality Score:

#1-Prioritize & Optimize

Review all of your current campaigns and sort based by:

- spend

- then > ad groups by spend

 -then > keywords by Quality Score.

In those top spending campaigns and ad groups, any keyword with a Quality Score below 7 should be the priority for Quality Score improvement.

#2-Coordinate Search Queries and Text Ads 

Since your Quality Score also factors in click-through-rates, the more you can refine your ad groups so that the keywords are highly relevant to the text ad copy, the better results you’ll see.

Make sure you have different ad groups set up based on how a user may search for your product.  If you’re selling beauty products, you wouldn’t want to have the keywords “anti-aging” and “mineral makeup” in one ad group.  You will want two separate ads to break out these products and target the ads specifically for people searching for these specific products. Hence, your ad copy and your ad groups should be aligned based on this type of user-search structure.

#3-Revise and Test Ad Creative

Now that your ad groups are aligned and organized, you need to make sure your copy is proving to be compelling and effective.  Persuasive and targeted copy is the most optimal way to get good click-through rates.

Take a look at all of your text ads now and analyze the current data.  Find your lowest performers by click-through-rate in your top Ad Groups (by spend).  Delete any non or poor performers and start to integrate and test copy that is stronger and even more persuasive.  Continue this exercise to weed out the under performers and gain higher Quality Scores.

#4-Eliminate Bad Keywords

Get rid of low performers. 

Take a look at the overall distribution of your Quality Score in your account.  If you see overall good performance, you don’t need a major overhaul.  However, this is all part of the vigilance needed in maintaining or increasing our Quality Score. 

Since your Quality Score also looks at historical click thru rate (CTR) on your keywords, you do need to review and  eliminate keywords and text ads that you see with historical low CTRs. These non-performers pull down your overall average and historical rates, which will impact your QS negatively.

Maintain and eliminate as necessary.

#5-Have an Effective and Relevant Landing Page

Your Landing Page can have a huge negative impact on your Quality Score if it’s not functioning, has irrelevant copy, broken links, etc.  If your Quality Score has been driven down, make sure to watch for the issues below and fix asap.  Because Google doesn’t look at landing pages as frequently, be patient, your improvements to your landing page will be soon be realized in a higher Quality Score.

-Pop-ups

-Landing pages that are “bait and switch” offers or that have very little to do with the ad or search query

-Very slow loading pages

Below are the factors you should have on your landing page to ensure a high Quality Score.

- Set up landing pages in Silo Structure

- Content MUST be relevant

- Have at least 5 pages of content

- Have a sitemap on your page: www.xml-sitemaps.com

And finally, include your business pages: Terms of Service, Privacy Policy,  Contact Us,  About Us

Digispace Solutions, is an online performance-based advertising and technology company focused on providing proprietary web technologies to power online advertising strategies and solutions.

Pepsi’s Refresh Campaign Blazes New Trails with Online Marketing Technology and Advertising

Pepsi has decided to blaze its own path down the advertising super highway forgoing their iconic commercials from one of the most-watched television programs of the year, The Super Bowl.  Despite the rampant decline of television viewership due to cable and sought after Internet options, advertisers are still willing to pay big bucks for a spot on such highly watched sporting event. As you may have noticed Pepsi decided not to advertise this last February in the Super Bowl, but instead they have generated a social campaign that allows Pepsi to be in direct communication between them and consumers by initiating “The Pepsi Refresh Project”.

Pepsi spokesperson Nicole Bradley says the project’s main goal is to create an accessible discussion between loyal and prospective customers.

“The Super Bowl broadcast can be an amazing stage for broadcasters, and [PepsiCo subsidiary] Frito Lay will be there in a big way,” she tells DMNews. “But our beverage brands’ marketing strategy in 2010 [is] less about a singular event and more about a movement. We are always looking to further develop our two-way conversation with consumers.”

This hits hard on the head of social engagement, attracting consumer thoughts on sustainability.  Rather then spending the money on the ads, Pepsi has allocated $20 million to fund thousands of projects from the ideas of Americans. Since January, the Refresh Project has been giving $1.3 million for 32 grants each month from literacy projects to programs that provide tuxedos for prom. Then online voters choose winning projects.

Recently, Pepsi added an additional $1.3 million toward ideas that will help refresh the oil spill that hit the Gulf of Mexico, proving that corporate contribution and social responsibility is an action Americans want to see, moreover, become involved with. 

But from a business point of view, is Pepsi seeing the social success?

Irbtrax, an independent SEO marketing firm has been closely monitoring the Pepsi Refresh Project resulting in some interesting analysis.

According to Irbtrax founder Scott Moir,  ”At its core it’s a well planned Internet Marketing campaign based on Advocacy that is utilizing it’s existing Social Media assets to spread the word virally. Its appeal has been enhanced by perception. A perception that was fueled by the publicity and Internet chatter they created when they ‘pulled’ their Super Bowl advertising.”  Using two core on-line marketing strategies, trends and timing, Pepsi used the trend towards social media and the timing of the Super Bowl to their advantage, gaining an on and off line buzz.

A further look at the Pepsi Refresh Project from an internet marketing research and statistical perspective, Irbtrax shows the following:

- Campaigns of this magnitude generally take months to plan, develop and refine – -refresheverything.com is a stand alone website. The Domain name was apparently registered on 11/30/2009.



-The top four traffic generators for refresheverything.com are Google searches, Facebook, Pepsi.com, and Twitter. This traffic experienced a huge spike just prior to and after the Super Bowl.

 Since the Super Bowl, the site’s traffic has increased about 800% and remained consistent. The result of this traffic spike is that refresheverything.com has a United States Alexa ranking of 4,083.  About 75% of the site’s traffic is coming from the United States.

International Refresh Project coming?

- The refresheverything.com Meta Title is ‘Pepsi Refresh Project’ and contains 21 characters.

- The refresheverything.com Meta Description is ‘Pepsi is giving away millions each month to fund refreshing ideas that change the world. The ideas with the most votes will receive grants, so vote for your favorites. Do you have an idea that needs support? Learn how Pepsi can help.’ It contains 233 characters.

- The Keywords are: ‘Fund your project with a grant from the Pepsi Refresh Project!’

With two votes casted every second, more and more people have been driven to Pepsi’s site to get involved, showing an increase in website traffic, which helps direct communication with no clutter coming in from third parties. This long term internet advertising plan also could be the beginning of many marketing strategies we may see coming from corporate giants.

The Ever Changing Dynamics of Online Advertising, Technology, and…Consumer Rights

Social media is changing the way individuals and online advertisers think and act every day.

According to Experian Hitwise, Facebook has now displaced Google as America’s most popular website this year with traffic to social networks also overtaking search engines in the UK.  The social media phenomenon is compelling advertising, marketing, and internet technology companies to be on top of the dynamic marketing opportunities that bear potential revenue through social and search engine marketing.

Facebook’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg will be meeting before the world’s advertising community as the social network strives to generate revenues that are parallel to its huge reach. “Most of the people making the big decisions [in ad spending] are not on Facebook,” Richard Pinder, chief operating officer of Publicis Worldwide, says. “They fear Facebook. Zuckerberg should explain what it is and why it works, and not make them feel bad about it.” Says Pinder.

And What About User’s Privacy?

With social networks popping up consistently every few months; so does the question regarding ones personal privacy.  Social Networking ethical standards have been sought after heavily since the inception of the major social networks like Facebook and Twitter.  However, this last Friday, June 18^th, 2010 at San Jose State, a group of computer scientists, lawyers, and privacy advocates gathered together pushing for “honesty” and “clarity” from social networks to the forefront, developing what are the first steps to a “bill of rights” for social-network users.

The Computer, Freedom and Privacy (CFP) conference included executives from large internet companies and government agencies from across the globe, however they did not participate in the 3 hour drafting and discussion on the bill of rights.  Instead the 14 principles were proposed and transcribed by the group of lawyers and privacy advocates ensuring the simple, easy to understand document is transparent for all social network users.  Some of these rights include the rights to informed decision-making, free speech and fair use, control of one’s information, freedom to leave - including a degree of data portability, due process, and accountability.

Facebook said in a prepared statement that while it shared the goal of ensuring “a safe and trusted environment” for its more than 400 million users, “we don’t agree with all of the proposed elements of the Bill of Rights for social-network users.” Some headway was shown when Facebook’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, said they have opposed allowing users to use pseudonyms; the social network says it is based on “a real name culture.”

As online marketers and internet technology developers, here at Digispace, we realize the fine balance between the revenue garnered through such huge online reach and the individual’s rights to maintain their own online presence without being hounded by irrelevant or spam-like advertising. 

As we grow and adapt our online marketing tactics, we look forward to keeping you informed on the changing face of online media.

Digispace opens it’s doors to revive Golden Hills art community with a summer jump off art show hosted by all the residents of the Art Union building.

Digispace Solutions will take part in this building wide event, Art Reunion, by showing urban inspired paintings and photography from local artists, not to mention live Dj’s and an array of current and up coming fashion trends from a local San Diego boutique.

The event involves all the neighbors in The Art Union Building with entertainment and art ranging from ballet demonstrations to cast resin body sculptures and live outdoor and indoor music performances.  The collaborations purpose is to reconnect the surrounding residents and businesses, welcoming them into our office space.  With the expectations that it will encourage everyone in the neighborhood to be a tangible source of social networking and local marketing, using each other as a reliable place for professional references and business support.

Now you still may be asking yourself, why is Digispace taking part in an event like this?  It has nothing to do with innovative technology or any of our successful services Digispace offers.  And your thoughts have a valid point, but we are looking beyond what makes us number one in the Internet Marketing industry, we are interested in making long-term relationships outside of our industry.  Because we believe in building lasting foundations locally and putting our personal touch on events such as this will set us a part from other technology companies who are not making an effort to be involved in the world that surrounds them.

If you are in the area on June 19^th, between 7PM-11PM please feel free to stop on in and enjoy the art, we would love to see you there!

The Ultimate Tracking and Optimization System for Media Buying

SAN DIEGO, California (April 30, 2010) – Digispace Solutions, a media and technology development company, has created an all-inclusive media campaign management system for CPA and Display Advertising.

“We’ve been using all kinds of systems in affiliate and internet marketing over the years and realized there were too many systems needed to launch and manage one campaign”, states Jose Rivera, part Founder and President of Digispace Solutions.  Amish Shah, part Founder and CEO mirrors this thinking and together Shah and Rivera pulled in their programming team to create the Magic Bullet System.

“No one had a system where you could build your website or landing page, pull competitive research and keyword groups, spy on competition, review bids and profitability scores to ensure campaign success , and then launch, track, and optimize your campaign – - all using APIs bridging the current industry standard systems and bringing them into our all inclusive system.” Says Shah. 

Digispace has been using the Magic Bullet System as their internal campaign management system for years to create and monitor their campaigns.  Because Digispace also has an ad network called yMultimedia, where affiliate advertisers can select exclusive CPA offers to run campaigns, deciding to launch a system externally, branded as The Magic Bullet System, was the next natural step to helping Digispace customers succeed with their own campaigns.

The initial soft launch of The Magic Bullet System, garnered over 500 customers in over 59 countries showing the breadth of activity and strength in international CPA advertising for affiliates and online marketers.  Digispace is committed to creating value in online media and technology systems that increase revenue internally and externally through its automated web-based apps.

Digispace Solutions, is an online performance-based advertising and technology company focused on providing proprietary web technologies to power online advertising strategies and solutions.

You don’t have to be a copywriter to create ads that work, but it’s crucial to understand what works and the methodology behind it all.

Let’s start with what headlines should do at minimum:

 -Grab Your Attention

 -Filtering the audience (speaks to your target market)

 -Generate Curiosity

 -Promise Benefits

 -Create an emotional attachment

 -Compel the reader to read more!

Essentially, your headline is like a first impression, but there are many other factors that convince prospects to keep reading….your headline needs to draw the user in and the rest of your copy should lead them the rest of the way…all the way to conversion.

 Here’s a great list of tips from Bob Bly’s, The Copywriter’s Handbook:

• Direct Headlines go straight to the heart of the matter, without any attempt at cleverness. Bly gives the example of Pure Silk Blouses – 30 Percent Off as a headline that states the selling proposition directly. A direct blog post title might read Free SEO E-book.
• An Indirect Headline takes a more subtle approach. It uses curiosity to raise a question in the reader’s mind, which the body copy answers. Often a double meaning is utilized, which is useful online. An article might have the headline Fresh Bait Works Best and yet have nothing to do with fishing, because it’s actually about writing timely content that acts as link bait.
• A News Headline is pretty self-explanatory, as long as the news itself is actually, well… news. A product announcement, an improved version, or even a content scoop can be the basis of a compelling news headline. Think Introducing Flickr 2.0 or My Exclusive Interview With Steve Jobs.
• The How to Headline is everywhere, online and off, for one reason only – it works like a charm. Bly says that “Many advertising writers claim if you begin with the words how to, you can’t write a bad headline.” An example would be, umm… oh yes… the title of this post.
• A Question Headline must do more than simply ask a question, it must be a question that, according to Bly, the reader can empathize with or would like to see answered. He gives this example from Psychology Today: Do You Close the Bathroom Door Even When You’re the Only One Home? Another example used way too much in Internet marketing guru-ville is Who Else Wants to Get Rich Online?
• The Command Headline boldly tells the prospect what he needs to do, such as Exxon’s old Put a Tiger in Your Tank campaign. Bly indicates that the first word should be a strong verb demanding action, such as Subscribe to Quick Fat Loss Secrets Today!
• Another effective technique is called the Reason Why Headline. Your body text consists of a numbered list of product features or tips, which you then incorporate into the headline, such as Two Hundred Reasons Why Open Source Software Beats Microsoft. It’s not even necessary to include the words “reasons why.” This technique is actually the underlying strategy behind the ubiquitous blogger “list” posts, such as 8 Ways to Build Blog Traffic.
• Finally, we have the Testimonial Headline, which is highly effective because it presents outside proof that you offer great value. This entails taking what someone else has said about you, your product or service, and using their actual words in your headline. Quotation marks let the reader know that they are reading a testimonial, which will continue in the body copy.

Digispace Solutions Celebrates One Year in San Diego.

Amish Shah and Jose Rivera partnered up over a year ago to create the San Diego based Digispace Solutions, formerly based out of New Jersey since 2002.

Now, in San Diego with a full team of marketers, media campaign managers, developers, and project managers, Digispace is thriving with a fun and family-like team.

Together, we have launched an exclusive CPA network called yMultimedia, an advanced CPA media tracking and optimization system, as well as several content-oriented, educational seminars for affiliates and internet marketers based on our media tracking and optimization system, The Magic Bullet System.

In our spare time (which we have to squeeze in!), we have focused on some charitable work here in San Diego and also in Uganda!  We have spent time in several off-site strategic meetings (while breaking bread and drinking!) sharing in the excitement and growth opportunities we brainstorm about. And, we have collaborated with some of the leading internet marketers in our industry to support and launch educational content and resources to our customers.

All in all, it’s been a great first year! We’ll be keeping you more and more updated in our blog  – watch us here!

This past Semptember, Puja Shah, a dentist at a private pediatric office in Riverside, CA., traveled to Uganda, Africa with the founder of Just Like My Child Foundation, Vivian Glyck, an organization whose goal is to alleviate the suffering of women, children, and families in rural Uganda. The organization uses an approach of deep development, which means empowering communities, village by village, to move towards self-reliance by creating their own long-term solutions to healthcare, education and microenterprise. The goal of this mission centered around healthcare and Puja was accompanied by her friends Lidia Trainer, an acupuncturist/herbologist in training who brought nutritional herbs for the patients of the local hospital, as well as Dr. David Smotrich, a well known IVF specialist from La Jolla, CA who helped with C section cases and consulted with patients.

The children of this area were in desperate need of oral health instruction/education and dental treatment, which was Puja’s role to provide while she was there. Since there was no dental clinic on site, Puja raised money for supplies via email blasts and even held a concert fundraiser with friends prior to her departure. With the help
of Amish Shah and Digispace, she raised enough funds to bring instruments and items to set up a brand new dental clinic at Bishop Asili Hospital in the village of Luwero, which will continue to survive via Dr. Jane Mandera, a recent dental school graduate of a university in Kampala, Uganda upon Puja’s departure. Puja also spent many hours visiting schools of local villages in the area to educate children on oral health instruction and providing them with basic necessities such as toothbrushes, toothpaste and floss, many of which they had never seen or had no access to obtaining.

Puja has been involved with a number of local outreach programs, but her long-term career goals include international outreach and education. She is also a freelance fiction writer and is currently working on a series of short stories based on women’s’ rights issues. She believes helping others fulfills not only her career goals, but also her spiritual goals, and thus creates a cycle of true development on all levels for everyone. She lives in La, Jolla, CA.