For quite some time I’ve been following OX2, an interactive marketing agency with a pretty interesting tagline, “The Other Web Agency”. I met these guys in the context of Web analytics in 2005 - back in the days, when I was still working for Fireclick. And it’s only recently, at Perenety, that came to realize how different their approach was.
Different because unlike most marketing agencies today, (a) they recognize the importance of Web analytics for effective online marketing, (b) they are not afraid of building their own tools when needed (they built a custom CMS for their clients), (c) they innovate even in complex technological areas such as multi-variable testing (there again, they created their own tool).
Sounds familiar? This is exactly what all major Web analytics vendors are trying to be nowadays - digital marketing agencies with a wide range of services including e-marketing consulting. OX2’s strategy makes a lot of sense to me, because they are marketing-centric, not product-centric.
Huge difference, particularly in a market where expertise, not products, is most valued.
What strikes me most about the new IAB numbers on the state of online advertising is the tiny fraction of ad spend that goes to email (2%).
It’s also widely recognized that email CPMs have dramatically come down recently - with some people paying less than $1 depending on volume. By contrast, Search keeps expanding with CPCs constantly increasing.
If people keep ignoring promotional emails - or, if these emails are getting blocked by spam filters - what’s left for loyalty marketers? Re-acquiring these existing customers with Google campaigns.
Great stats via Paul Kedrosky via Seeking Alpha… from the IAB.
Anyway - here it is.
I called Ofoto to inquire about an order I placed 3 weeks ago and still hasn’t been received. Got the automated voice, cleared all the questions OK, but in the end I didn’t get the info I was looking for. So frustrating.
Thinking back, I spent 5 minutes on the call, max. Much less than the 20-30 mins I spent on their site looking for the information. So why did I get upset after the automated voice? (a) I called to talk to a “human”, not a machine, and (b) It’s painful to spelling out all the info (name, order number, etc), hear it back, etc, and (c) Lack of feedback. I wasn’t in control and never knew if I was headed in the right direction.
So when I call, let me talk to someone, please.
It’s been busy at Perenety, as one could expect. We’ve been in private alpha for 4 months now, i.e. 120 days or so. 20+ releases, hundreds of bugs found, dozens of features implemented by the tech team. On my side, I made it my personal goal to know our customer as best as I could. In 4 months, we’ve built and dramatically improved our internal analytics platform but I must say that nothing replaces going out and meeting new people.
Our internal process for testing something new with users is as follows: first, we formulate the hypothesis and setup an A/B test on the site. We generate clicks and measure the results online. We take these results, refine, and run a “street A/B test” with random people we meet at Target, Starbucks or Jamba juice. We pay attention to the words they use, body language, and what I would call “eye spark”. Might sound a little crazy - but excitement is hard to measure. It’s a human experience you only can feel, in person.
Wow - can’t believe I haven’t posted anything since July 21st! Added a few new categories to the blog, I’m planning on talking more and more about a/ experiences as an entrepreneur (if that can be useful to anyone), b/ communication tools (in connection with Perenety), c/ random stuff.
And since I am fundamentally a numbers freak, I’ll still post a lot about Web analytics (nobody’s perfect!).
The blog’s been down for a few days. MySQL error 28… Since I don’t have lots of empty cycles I strongly considered moving this blog away from my basement Linux PC to a something like TypePad - but I’m cheap and also like the idea of having a web server downstairs.
On another note, the comments have been closed for months. Way too much spam for me to deal with. Looked for a few wordpress plugins, but there again, I don’t have time to take care of this… Maybe in the next few weeks.
