OTOinsights

"Atlas Solutions, time to wake the hell up."

Coming off the heels of the last post titled "The New General Agency" by my friend and colleague, Charlie Ballard, I felt compelled to explain why he ended with the statement "Atlas Solutions, time to wake the hell up".

As a matter of full disclosure, Atlas is a vendor One to One Interactive uses for third party ad serving (Atlas DMT) and paid search bid management (Atlas Onepoint).  We have been increasingly frustrated with the level of customer service we have been receiving as well as the lack of any substantial product innovation specifically around AtlasOnepoint.  To that end, we have started to review alternative technology solutions in the marketplace (We are meeting with Omniture tomorrow to review their new bid management product called SearchCenter). 

However, before we got to far along in the process of identifying an new bid management solution, One to One Interactive wanted to make sure that we were not shooting ourselves in the foot by divorcing our third party ad server from our bid management solution.  Too often we have received requests from clients regarding the impact their display/rich media campaigns are having on their search campaigns.  Questions include:

• Are my digital display campaigns increasing the amount of searches for my brand?
• What is the optimal display media spend level, reach, and frequency to positively impact search queries for my product or service?
• What is the latency (amount of time) between when someone sees a banner ad and then conducts a search query for my product/service.
• What is the conversion rate of those who engaged in both my display and search efforts vs. those who just came through a single channel?  Is the ROI on those converts higher or lower?
• Etc.

Since Atlas uses the same cookie for their third party ad server and paid search bid management solution, it makes sense that they easily collect the data to answer the questions posed above.  Indeed, a few of us at the firm got pretty excited when we ran across a recent press release by the Atlas Institute, their in-house think tank that studies the most effective ways to use digital marketing, titled "The Combined Impact of Search and Display Advertising"(96k pdf).   

A phone conference was scheduled between representatives of Atlas Solutions and our marketing services staff to explore if Atlas had someplace on their product road-map to provide cross channel insights between display and search..........we were met with silence.  What came next was even more disturbing.  The conversation went something like this:

• (OTO) We are interested in understanding the time frames around when Atlas will provide data/insights regarding how a clients display campaign impacted their paid search campaign.
• (Atlas) Why would you want to ever do that?
• (OTO) <with a mixture of disbelief, shock, and horror on our faces> Did you understand our question correctly?
• (Atlas) Yes.  To be honest, you are the first company to ever ask that type of question.  We really do not see the value in how the two channels impact one another.
• (OTO) Buh-Bye <Click>

Obviously, the people we were talking with were not too up to speed on the recent research that their own company just published explaining why it was important that marketers measure across the display and search channels.  More frustrating is that they destroyed whatever small amount of confidence that we may have had left in considering them as a viable online cross channel management and measurement solutions provider for the long term.

To conclude, I feel compelled to echo the sentiments of Mr. Ballard: "Atlas Solutions, time to wake the hell up."  I will go on to add the following plea: Omniture, please build, borrow, or buy a third party ad server so that we can move all of our business your way.

Jeremi Karnell-President, One to One Interactive

CNET Should Practice What They Preach

Today CNET ran an article titled "Blue-chip ads, red-light content".  The reporter, Elinor Mills, went to rather great lengths to call out the fact that AT&T, Apple, and Comcast had online advertising that showed up next to mature content on iFILM.  Her specific example was focused on footage contained within iFILM's "Girls, Girls, Girls" playlist and Fortune 500 advertisement that was running within that part of thier site.

To be fully transparent, One to One Interactive buys online media for Comcast Corporate.  We were the ones that included iFILMs in the media plan currently in question.  In the event that a media partner may have mature content, such as iFILM, One to One Interactive secures contractual assurances that our client advertisements will not run next to said content.   I would assume that those agencies representing AT&T and Apple have the same measures in place. 

When this particular issue came up, our media planners quickly called iFILM, who took full responsibility, and quickly began to remove our client's ads in those section.  iFILM also provided an official statement from Roger Jackson, vice president of content and programming, for One to One to share with our client:

"IFILM is implementing a software-based fix this week to resolve the problem so even search results pages will not have any mature content in them that matches with an advertiser.

We are assuming it's a one-off bug and we are frankly astonished that the public has found a screen shot (of ads next to mature video clips) because we've spent thousands of hours as a company over several years coming up with systematic solutions to issues like this that keeps both our advertisers and our users happy."

This is the same quote they provided to CNET.  Regardless, CNET still decided to run with editorial that made it sound like major advertisers were blithely running their ads juxtaposed online video content of "arguably dubious taste".  She went on to report that this is the risk advertisers run as media sites capitalize on "user generated content--from blogs to podcasts to homemade video clips" and as ad buyers participate in networks in which they target a specific demographic.

Elinor---WAKE UP!! There is no story here (unless you are writing for The National Enquirer).  iFILM screwed up and they admitted it.  Regardless, you seemed hell bent to find a scandal.  Or maybe....(this is an even more interesting conspiracy theory)....CNET is hell bent on creating biased news that attacks its competition (iFILM vs. TV.com). 

Next time, you may want to spend time with your own employers sites before you start attacking others.  Below are a couple of examples of Fortune 500 advertisers running on CNET properties that have thier ads next to content of "arguably dubious taste" (click on pics to enlarge):

• Search results for the query "Sex" on CNET's Download.com: CNET Sponsor UPS Display ad appears above sponsor links for an adult escort review website, a legalize marijuana poll, and a list of mature/adult screen savers.
• Search results for the query "Suck" on CNET's Download.com: CNET Sponsor AMD display ad appears above sponsor links for DICK (on ebay.com), software to keep porn private, and link to a site with free chatrooms and webcams.
• Search results for the query "Sex" on CNET's TV.com: CNET Sponsor Verizon Display ad appears above sponsor links for the adult escort review website and a legalize marijuana poll that we found back on Download.com.
• GAMESPOT "Shooting the S*** with 50 Cent" Sponsorship: Lest we forget that CNET's GameSpot and MP3 sought out our client to partner with them on thier exclusive with 50 Cent for BulletProof (his game) and his new music video for Outta Control Remix last July.  The opportunity was turned down as the promotional graphic of 50 Cent holding a gun to another thugs head was deemed content of "arguably dubious taste".

Trackback (Ping) Spam

   It's nothing new...but its the first time its happened to me.  Yes, I have finally been effected by Trackback Spam (or Ping Spam).  For those of you that are still unfamiliar with some of the concepts and terminology associated with blogging, Trackback is a method by which a web publisher can reference another site or post by providing a link to it on their site. It acts to notify a blogger owner that someone has commented on that post in another blog. In this way, readers can see an aggregated list of which sites refer to the post and can read additional comments on that post.

Not only is a Trackback a good method to provide appropriate reference to original thoughts/ideas, its also used to establish link authority in many search engine's natural ranking algorithms.

Trackback Spam is a method where someone (insert: unsavory, bottom feeding, white trash, jackasses) submits a TrackBack URL to a bloggers post that links through to a site that has nothing to do with the post (generally hawking MP3 ringtones,  male erectile enhancements, college degrees for cheap etc.).  In my inaugural experience with this annoying trend, I had a trackback url submitted to a post that I had written in my personal blog about a club in Boston called Sanctuary.  The title of the Trackback was "Ringtone for Motorola"-click on image above.  It linked through to a site site offering...you guessed it, RINGTONES!

Since I require any Trackbacks to be approved by me first (instead of being automatically posted), I was able to delete it before the link was published.  Since that time, I have caught two more incidents of Trackback Spam on OTOinsights. 

Thankfully, I am using Six Apart's Typepad to manage both my personal and professional blogs.  They have been very committed to ensure that their platform helps bloggers stem the tide of Trackback/Comment Spam.  To that end, I see this trend as a minor annoyance, but nothing to get too worked up about.

Jeremi Karnell-President, One to One Interactive