Laffitte Conseil

Affiliate marketing delivers the most cost-effective customer acquisition

• 95 per cent of brands say affiliate marketing is ‘very cost-effective’ or ‘quite cost effective’
• An average of 18 per cent of the online marketing budget is spent in the channel
• Travel companies using affiliate marketing most effectively

Affiliate marketing is revealed as the most cost effective channel for driving customer acquisition in research out today from E-consultancy. Sponsored by buy.at, the UK’s largest independent affiliate network, the comprehensive research into how UK brands use affiliate marketing found that the majority of UK advertisers (merchants) say that it is either ‘very cost-effective’ or ‘quite cost-effective’ for acquiring customers. 44 per cent of merchants named it as ‘very cost-effective’ for driving customer acquisition compared with 34 per cent for paid search and just seven per cent for display advertising.

Paid search is the second most cost-effective followed by email marketing with these marketing channels viewed as ‘very cost-effective’ or ‘quite cost-effective’ by 90% and 82% of merchants respectively. Affiliate marketing is also a highly effective channel for driving volume, with three quarters of respondents (73%) saying that it drives either ‘high volume’ or ‘medium volume’. However, the best channel for driving volume remains paid search, with more than half of respondents (53%) saying that PPC generates ‘high volume’ for their businesses. Email marketing is the third biggest driver of volume, with 65% saying this channel drives high or medium volume. Mobile Marketing is still very much in the embryonic stage, with only 6 per cent of merchants saying that it drives high or medium volume.

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Kids, Teens and Virtual Worlds

The Walt Disney Company's $350 million purchase of Club Penguin signals a new focus of attention for marketers and media companies targeting kids and teens online.

Virtual worlds are becoming more frequent destinations as the percentage of children and teens who use the Internet increases.

"For marketers trying reach kids and teens on social networking sites, there is a new game in town: virtual worlds," said Debra Aho Williamson, eMarketer senior analyst and author of the new report, Kids and Teens: Virtual Worlds Open New Universe.

"Of course, virtual worlds are not new, but the level of development activity, venture capital investment and consumer interest in virtual worlds is unprecedented," she said.

Club Penguin is one of the fastest growing virtual worlds for young children. As of August 2007, it had 12 million registered users and 700,000 paid subscribers, according to Nielsen//NetRatings.

According to eMarketer estimates, 41.5% of children ages 3 to 11 will use the Internet at least once a month in 2007. In total, 14.9 million children will go online in 2007, rising to an estimated 16.6 million in 2011.

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E-Mail Top Digital Marketing Tool

Major marketers worldwide use e-mail in their campaigns, according to The McKinsey Quarterly.

In a survey of 311 marketing executives, McKinsey found that 83% used e-mail, ahead of display ads, paid search and online video.

McKinsey also asked about the future of online marketing. By 2010, respondents generally thought the Web would be part of the first two stages of the buyer decision-making process — product awareness and information gathering — for a majority of all consumers.

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How user friendly are your top internal entry pages?

In the world of long-tail searches, chances are pretty good that visitors are having their initial contact on your site by landing on an internal page of your site rather than your user-friendly home page. But have you ever had a look at one of your internal pages from a “brand new visitor” perspective? Because if you did, chances are good that you might be surprised to see that you are not really giving those new visitors a very sticky experience. So try looking at one of your top internal entry pages through a new visitor’s eyes.

Okay, so we all are just a little biased when it comes to how we see our own sites, especially ones we have poured blood, sweat and tears into. And while doing an eyetracking study can be expensive, you can easily do a poor man’s version of something similar. Sit a friend, preferably one who has little knowledge of your money website, or perhaps a bit of knowledge of the market area without having been a visitor of your site previously.

But first, you need to pick which pages to test. You will need to have a look at any analytics or stats program to find out which pages are your top entry pages (meaning the pages that new visitors on your site visit first), and pick a couple of internal pages that have the highest % of entry page visitors. Then you want to pick a page with a high bounce rate. If you have two pages that each account for 20% of entry page views, but one has an 80% bounce rate while the other is only 25%, it makes sense to use the page with the 80% bounce rate, because for some reason, 80% of all people that visit that internal page will view just that one page before they leave the site. Obviously it makes the most sense for you to figure out why so many people leave after their first page view on your site! You will also want to do a quick check of the page to make sure there isn’t something obvious that is accounting for such a high bounce rate, such as a coding error breaking the page after the header or another equally obvious problem that you can attribute the high bounce rate to. Nothing is more embarassing than bleeding money from a website due to your own mistake! But also look to evaluate what you think of the page overall.

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10 things you can do in response to traveler reviews

Traveler reviews have become part of the daily dialogue of web travel shoppers. The architecture of participation that is a basic hallmark of web 2.0 has resulted in users adding value to a site each time they write a review or upload a photo. It’s no wonder that up to 84% of people visiting a site hosting consumer generated content (CGC) have their hotel choices affected by what they see. Millions of travelers log on daily and may experience a property through hotel generated photos and written text, but they find reviews and candid photography much more believable.

Many in the industry feel review sites are not objective and may be manipulated. They feel the content is not controllable or actionable and reject the opportunity to manage these sites by saying the comments might be inaccurate. However, what matters in the issue of web 2.0 sites is whether guests perceive them to be accurate. So far, customer research indicates they do. Furthermore, the research shows increasing numbers of possible clients are researching on third party sites, even if they are booking on brand sites.

The model has changed from a brand or property image that was controlled by the supplier, to one that is forged in dialogue with consumers. And this image is being debated at the virtual point of purchase. The combination of increasing numbers of web-savvy consumers, the web 2.0 frenzy focusing on social media, and increased travel site volume, have created a ‘wild-west’ environment where hotels’ traditional comment card programs and advertising dollars are being trumped at the point of decision by dialogue in the public square.

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Online travel industry adapts to consumer wants

According to a recent report from Tealeaf, online travel sales will reach $142 billion this year.

According to the report about 90% of American business travelers first turn to the web to make their plans and about 83% of leisure travelers go online once each month to plan a trip.

However, many travel hubs are falling behind because the sites aren't offering what consumers really want. The report indicates that travel hubs which offer personalization services, peer-to-peer reviews, simple navigation and cross-channel experiences will do the best in the coming years. These sites will get the most benefit from the expected $213 billion that online travel revenue will bring in by 2010.

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Hotel websites will rule over online agents

Up to 86% of hoteliers attending the recent WORLDHOTELS 2007 Leadership Forum in Rome believe that in the next three years, consumers would use hotel websites in preference to online agents.

And 57% believed that over the same period, control over rates and inventory would shift towards the hotel industry rather than to intermediaries.

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SkyRock, MySpace et Badoo dominent les réseaux sociaux français

Trois mois après une première étude sur la blogosphère française, ComScore se penche cette fois ci sur l'audience des réseaux sociaux de l'internet français, des sites communautaires qui auraient attiré plus de 13,2 millions de visiteurs uniques en juillet, représentant un taux de pénétration de plus de 50%.

Sans surprise, c'est la plate-forme SkyBlog, déjà leader du segment des blogs, qui arrive en tête de l'étude ComScore avec 9,1 millions de visiteurs uniques, ce qui la place largement devant MySpace qui revendiquent néanmoins 2,2 millions de VU.

Derrière ce duo, ComScore place Badoo.com (1,3 millions de VU), NetLog.com (827 000 VU), Hi5.com (754 000 VU), Lexode.com (675 000 VU), Dada.net (495 000 VU), FaceBook.com (310 000 VU), MSN Group (310 000 VU) et enfin Viadeo (270 000 VU).

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Best Practices for Consumer-Generated Contests

When H.J. Heinz Co. unveils its $57,000 ketchup commercial contest winner on Sunday, the food producer wants to keep egg -- and ketchup -- off its face. Entries from 15 semifinalists show the company's predisposition to favor folksy, goofy, and polished videos.

That wasn't necessarily the case earlier this year after some strange or unsavory contest entry videos popped up on YouTube. One video, "57 Uses for Heinz Ketchup," suggests product uses, including shampoo, shaving cream, thirst quencher, and paint. The gross-out factor notwithstanding, Heinz says it received more than 4,000 qualified entries.

Despite the potential risk for embarrassment, Heinz and other companies still embrace these consumer-generated contests and media. Heinz is planning a second contest next month, offering another $57,000 prize and an opportunity for the ad to air on national TV.

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Youjob.com le Youtube de l'emploi ou le CV Video encore et encore ...

Depuis qu'internet existe, on voit surgir régulièrement des applications de CV video qui jusque là n'ont jamais convaincu. Monster s'y remet (avec des débits catastrophioques, d'où video hachée !!) et  Youjob.com se lance officiellement aujourd'hui avec visiblement de vrais moyens et soutiens. Mais cela suffira t'il ?

Le CV video continuera à se heurter à pas mal de freins dont les principaux à mes yeux sont :
    - la réalisation d'une video où le candidat se met en scène est un exercice extrêmement difficile même si les moyens se démocratisent. On peut imaginer une production plus pro, mais là on se heurte à un problème de coût.
    - le résultat est souvent mitigé (voire pitoyable) et dans ce cas dessert le candidat plutôt que l'inverse (discours soporifique, candidat dans l'ombre, plan fixe, décors "exotique", langue pas du tout "fluent",...)
    - le temps du recruteur : parcourir un CV papier ou un CV blog prend quelques secondes, regarder une video plusieurs minutes (exemple extrème avec celui ci : plus de 7 mn !). Sans doute la clé du CV Video : à quoi bon en faire si les recruteurs ne suivent pas ?

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