Direct Response

Did you know that 98% of web visitors do not buy?

Retargeting, also known as Behavioral Retargeting, is a media buying tactic that allows Direct Response advertisers to retarget their ads to people that visited their offers but did not buy.  As the abandons surf the net, your ads will follow them from site to site.  Since retargeting serves your ads to the people that engaged in your brand but did not buy, it is a less expensive and more effient way to convert consumers.

The overall effect that retargeting has on consumers is vast.  Think back to the last time you visited a product offer online and spent a considerable amount of time considering buying.  For whatever reason you chose to jump off  the offer prior to purchasing.

You then visited WhitePages.com to look up the phone number of one of your friends.  Wam!  The same offer you just viewed has an ad right there in your face.  You take a second to notice it, then you plug in your friends address and Wam!  A new ad pops up from the same offer. This time you took note that this product must be “really popular” as you keep seeing it everywhere.

You then decided to hop on ESPN.com to check out this weeks NFL schedule.  Kaboom – ads come flying across the screen for the offer you almost bought.  After seeing the ad on credible site like WhitePages.com and ESPN.com, you are convinced this is a good offer.  You click on the ad and complete your purchase.

Congratulations – you just got retargeted.

Retargeted ads can last for days online.

The setup is really simple.  By signing up for multiple ad networks you will receive retargeting cookies.  Place these cookies on your offer page so that after people that leave your offer page without buying will see your ad on the next site they visit.   This tactic, when implemented correctly, will improve your conversion rates manifold.

Here’s a couple of great articles and resources on retargeting:

NY Times

 

The #1 way to light up an offer online is through media buying.  There are less than 10 media buyers in the world that consistently deliver 1,000+ leads a day.

Pulling on my direct observations of the 3 largest media buyers out there, who’s identities are kept private in this article, I’ve put together a comprehensive guide to media buying.  Please refer to the Direct Response Advertiser Glossary if any terms I use are ambiguous.

 

Items Prior To Placing Media

 

1.  Ads That Garnish Clicks

You need to create ads that attract clicks.

On CPC buys through traffic sources like Google, higher clicking ads cost you less money.  Since Google makes money off of every click, an ad that gets 10 clicks per 1,000 impressions is going to make Google a lot more money than an ad that gets 1 click per 1,000 impressions.  Google rewards higher clicking ads by lower the cost per click and yielding more impressions.

On CPM buys, your bid on the impressions determines how many impressions you win.  If your ad doesn’t receive a single click you’ll still win the impressions by placing the largest bids.  That’s why on CPM buys it’s CRITICAL that you have ads that click well.

Here’s a few articles I’ve written on improving the CTR of your ads:

5 Simple Steps To Tripling CTR On Google

5 Tricks To Creating Killer Banner Ads

1 Small Edit Causes $2.75 EPC Increase

If you don’t want to experience the trial and error of creating ads yourself, you can leverage the best Direct Response designers at our agency.  They’re the most expensive out there.  But as the saying goes, you get what you pay for.

2.  Presale Pages That Click Through

Once you’ve put the highest clicking ads at work, you’ll need a presale page that has a high click through rate (CTR) to your offer.  This is the one area that affiliate marketers consistently trip up on.  Either their presale page doesn’t click through or it’s a ripped copy of a non-compliant one that does click through.  Neither are an option if you want to enjoy longevity in the DR space and sleep with both eyes closed

In order to understand how to create an original presale page it’s important to first look at the psychology behind presale pages.  Presale pages are used to subtly create demand in DR offers through long copy.  Solid DR presale pages use Socratic sales techniques, gently guiding the consumer to their own conclusion that the product is trustworthy and worth trying out.

Examples of top notch presale pages are as follows:

Health Headlines  (this is the presale page used for Force Factor)

Try Sensa (notice that the main website for Sensa acts as a presale page)

Life Style Journals  (This is one of the lesser egregious affiliate presale pages that works)

How Life Works  (This is an advertorial type presale page that converts)

To put it bluntly, affiliate marketers pushing traffic to offers via affiliate networks are rarely provided the tools necessary to create presale pages that are both compliant and convert.  Moreover, most CPA network offers have a short lifespan – they’re mostly churn and burn offers.  In a matter of months they’re usually shut down by their processors.  Shortly thereafter they’re up and running again under a new name.    For those offers that aren’t shut down, it’s only a matter of time before advertisers get hip to what’s happening and pull the plug. It’s no wonder that affiliate marketers often revert to flogs and farticles to promote CPA network offers.  By the time they invest money and time into creating a solid presale page, the offer is gone!!!

And it’s also no wonder that tier-1 direct response advertisers rarely tap into CPA affiliate traffic sources.   Instead they go to tier-1 ad agencies to create a viable program for them.

It’s a sizable project to create presale pages that both convert and are compliant.  It’s mandatory that you have:

-  Powerful and real consumer testimonials.

-  Creative copywriters.

-  High end designers.

-  Experienced project managers.

It also helps to have celebrity endorsements, clinical trials, videos, professional sponsors, media stories, and programmers.

It’s a time consuming and expensive process to put together a solid presale page.  For that reason you need to make sure that you’re investing your time on an offer that’s here to stay.

3.  Top Converting Landing Pages

Ok, your ads are clicking good and your presale page has an awesome CTR.  The final step is having a landing page that converts its highly qualified visitors, who are already sold on the offer by the time they hit the landing page.

To do this you need to retain a top notch design team.

Give them as much info on your offer as you can.  Make sure to focus on the benefits of your product, not the features.

It’s taken me close to a decade to put together a team that can consistently churn out top converting offers.  Don’t make the mistake of cutting corners when it comes to landing page creation.  It’s an exact science and unless you can afford to lose a lot of money testing, make sure you use a trustworthy professional to put it together.

Here’s some free tips on landing page creation:

3 Best Direct Response Color Combinations

The Power Of Easy!

The Power Of Stronger, Longer Guarantees

There are also proven tricks that we implement on pages that I don’t reveal.  After all, we’ve gotta have an edge over the competition

 

Identify Your Audience

 

Make sure you clearly identify your audience before placing media.

WRONG WAY: An EDU Master’s offer wouldn’t click too well iCarly.com.   My 6 year old daughter wouldn’t find that type of ad too interesting.

RIGHT WAY:  An EDU Master’s offer would do much better on MSNBC.com.  There’s a lot of readers with bachelor’s degrees seeking knowledge on MSNBC.com.

One of the easiest ways to target your audience is to poll your customers.

If you’ve yet to launch and gain customer data, study your competition.  Where are your competitors ads popping up?

Mark down their placements and then go to sites like Quantcast to view the audiences info.  Voila!

There’s a few programs that let you spy on your competition.  One of my favorites is WhatRunsWhere.  Users can quickly discover where their competition is buying media at.  Then turnaround and view the demographic info via Quantcast.

 

Testing Placements

 

1.  Using Open Ad Networks

Traffic sources such as Yabuka, Pulse360, and AdSonar provide direct response marketers with visibility into the placements of ads.  This allows for quick testing of multiple variations of ads.

2.  Test 200 Clicks Per Placement

Test 1 or 2 placements at a time.  Run a total of 200 clicks to each ad variation, presale page, and lander.

As you test mark down the placements that back out.

Also qualify the effectiveness of your ads, presales, and landing pages.  Narrow down the combination that works best.  Then….

 

Go Direct

 

Setup Direct Website IOs

Once you’ve identified the best placements, highest clicking ads, highest CTR presales, and top converting landing pages, it’s time to GO DIRECT to the publisher.  Ad Networks charge a “middle-man” fee between you and the websites you want to advertise on.  By going direct to the website, you consolidate the value chain and save a lot of money.

Go in as an “agency” so you can get an agency discount.   Creating an agency is simple: spend $150 and register an LLC.  Then throw up a website calling your group “an agency.”  Wam!  There’s your agency discount.

Make sure you have a 24 hour out clause in the IO with the direct publisher in case something goes wrong..

 

The Final Result

 

Full control over your campaign’s destiny.  Congratulations on consolidating the value chain.  You just cut out the following 3 middlemen, all of which ate away at your profits: Affiliate Network, Affiliate, Ad Network.   You’re no longer an advertiser that relies on affiliate networks that get affiliate to run your offer via ad networks.   No sir.  You now go direct to the traffic source and are maximizing your profit potential.

 

The Shortcuts That Work

 

1.  EngageBDR

Clickbooth, Ads4Dough, and several other networks share the largest affiliate in the world.  This affiliate pulls top converting offers and buys his traffic exclusively from EngageBDR.

This one affiliate is also the largest customer of EngageBDR.  That means that he is going to have first rights to the best placements.  So how can you break into those placements?

To do that it’s important to understand how EngageBDR operates.  EngageBDR is a blind ad network that has years of data on the top display placements for just about every vertical.   Their staff acts as the media buyer by placing the ads the for advertisers and affiliates.

In order to gain impressions from the best placements on EngageBDR, you’ve gotta have a large spend.  The min. spend to get started with EngageBDR is $25k.   I can tell you from first hand experience that EngageBDR can blow through 25k in a matter of hours.  Don’t make the mistake of celebrating as hundreds of orders come pouring.   Your targeted CPA could be way off target.  When the orders abruptly stop you might find yourself one unhappy camper as the $30 targeted CPA might end up at $100.   And if that happens who are you going to blame?

Well, if your inclination is to blame EngageBDR then you’re way off.  When buying media from EngageBDR you need to get very specific as to the campaign goals. DO NOT LET THEM RUN WILD.  It’s your responsibility to ensure that the pixels are placed properly and direct EngageBDR on how to allocate your spend.

I recommend that you spread your spend out over a 2 week testing period.  Watch the stats like a hawk.  Once your stats are backing out per the placements they’ve tested, start to slowly scale.  Put thresholds in place with their staff to ensure that you are backing out at or below your targeted CPA.  Include strict instruction to pause the campaign if stats are off for more than a few hours.

 

2.  Work With Top Affiliates Direct

Creating direct relationships with the top affiliate marketers can save a lot of time and money.   The challenge is piercing through the sound to get a top publisher to run your offer.  That’s where we come in.

Some of our capital intensive clients would rather enjoy direct relationships with the top publishers in the world.  Instead of focusing time on media buying, they’d prefer to spend it on other areas of their campaigns.

My preference is to take destiny into your own hands and control all aspects campaigns.  But hey, to each his own, eh?

 

Useful Media Buying Tools

 

SiteScout: Cloud based ad server technology that allows for delivery of ads.  Great for testing placements.

Hitpath /HasOffers: Both programs are great for tracking leads.  Hit Path is purported to having better tracking technology.  I personally prefer HasOffers due to it’s ease of use and aweseome functionality.

Tracking202: Solid program for tracking multiple campaigns.

 

On Cloaking

 

One final observation.  If you need to cloak your pages to get them approved on a traffic source, then you’re not running a compliant program.  It is much more rewarding to create a high value offer that every publisher wants you to run.  I assure you that the end reward of creating a program that’s accepted on all exchanges is much more lucrative in the long haul.

 

Did you enjoy this article or other articles on this blog?  I keep this blog advertisement free to maintain it’s authenticity, passing the value to the readers.

My wife let’s me take family time on weekends and after hours to write articles.   This is very selfless of her.

At any rate, we are proud to announce that we are having our first son this January.   My wife put up this registry for our friends, family, and colleagues.  Any love you can show us by picking up an item for our son would not only give me a great excuse with the wife to continue to sneak away and blog on the weekends, it would also signify that this blog has helped you in some shape or form.  Much love !!!

I always get a good laugh when I see paid blog posts by designers that try to compete in the DR space.  Most of these guys have no idea what they’re talking about.  They put together a group of website designers from eLance and take directions from their clients on pages.  The problem is that their clients don’t know much about what makes pages convert, so the end results are non-competitive pages.  The only way to push those pages are through shady affiliate presale pages because they can’t convert on their own - there’s no longevity in that.

Good “graphic” design plays an important role in conversions, but it’s not nearly as important as the psychology behind the offer.

Top converting offers flow from beginning to end, selling an incredible story to the consumer.   Each section acts as its own chapter, guiding the consumer step by step to the climax, which in DR prose is the conversion.

Here’s an example of a landing page that sucks and needs a fake affiliate presale page to sell it:

 

 

Now let’s take a look at a top notch direct response page – one of my personal favorites

 

ForceFactor is the most successful “muscle” campaign the online direct response space has seen.   This offer was originally launched online and due to the enormous success, it made it to the offline space.

Apply solid DR principles to any halfway decent design and you’ll convert really good.  Apply those same principles to high end design and you’ll crush your competition

If you’re not already churning out massive leads from this traffic source, then here’s an insider tip:

Get on all the “deal day” traffic sources.

i.e.  LivingSocial.com, Groupon.com, etc.

These traffic sources are a killing it.  I don’t know how long it’s gonna last so you need to get on while it’s hot.

Consumers subscribing to these sites are in “savings mode.”  If you present them with “good savings” then you’ll find their in “super buying mode.”

P.S.  If this post gets me killed by one of our pubs then send some flowers to my fiance

Have you ever scratched your head and wondered why people don’t listen to you?  You have projects that are due and the people you’ve assigned to handle the projects aren’t handling them to your specification.  So you fire them.  Then you hire more people and it’s the same ole same ole.

This is a common problem that even some of the smartest guys in our industry have yet to surmount.

Here’s 3 tricks professional managers use to get people to do EXACTLY as they wish:

1.  Don’t Suggest, Instruct

If there’s something you need to get done, make it crystal clear.  Here’s an example of an email one of the smartest guys I know in the industry wrote earlier today:

WRONG WAY

“I would suggest replicating that data from the access db first, building out, then switching the domain name afterwards to minimize the downtime. Or you could just manually do a datalink for the missing days each hour later on to get the missing orders.”

RIGHT WAY

“Please follow these exact instructions in this sequential order:

Option 1

1.  Replicate the data from Access.

2.  Once replicated, switch the domain name to the new server.

3.  When finished please mark off in BasecampHQ and email me confirmation of completion.

Option 2

1.  Create a datalink for the missing days.

2.  Then……

3.  When finished please mark off in BasecampHQ and email me confirmation of completion.

NOTE: Choose the option by EOD and report back to me if this is going to take longer than 48 hours.”

Notice the difference.  The “RIGHT WAY” made the task clear.   A deadline was set with control measures.

The “WRONG WAY” left things wide open to interpretation.  When is the assignment due.  Is it even a real assignment or is this group think?

2.  Get Specific

Don’t expect people you work with to think like Marvin The Mindreader.  You need to get very specific as to what you want them to do.

You shouldn’t feel awkward about giving exact instructions.  This is business.  The goal is to succeed.  Therefore you need to let people know EXACTLY what you need them to do in order to reach that goal.

I make it clear with everyone I work with that we work in a meritorious environment.  Everyone is rewarded based on the value they bring to the table.  Outside of work we can kick it as friends, but inside it’s nothing but business.

I will promote someone just as quickly as I’ll fire them.  Just because someone is displaying great work product today doesn’t mean that they’re given a get-out-of-jail free pass in the future.  Every vendor we work with is acutely aware of this.  If their system is beaten out by a competitor, we have no loyalty.  We move on to the competitor.  This creates a “survival of the fittest” environment and pushes people to always give their best.

 

3.  Trust, But Verify

Ronald Regan once said “Trust But Verify.”  Exactly!

Don’t expect that people will automatically follow your word as gospel.  You need to put strict quality assurance measurements in place.

If it’s a new vendor or employee watch them like a hawk.  Micromanage them.

Once you have a level of comfort delegate tasks.  Put control measures in place so that if they start to slip, you catch them and have it corrected.

 

Avoid ambiguity at all costs.  When your vendors and employees have EXACT goals in place, there’s no room for failure.  Remember that communication is only as effective as the response it elicits

Leandro Andrade stole $153.54 worth of videotapes from a Wall Mart in California.  No one was hurt.   Leandro received a 25 year prison sentence.

Sterling Childers stole $260 from a Liquor store.  He was unarmed.  Sterling received a 30 year prison sentence.

Hmmmmmm.

Jesse Willms stole $460,000,000.00 from US consumers.  Jesse beat the system and didn’t get charged.  0 days in jail.

There’s no doubt that Jesse utilized deceptive marketing practices that duped customers into trials that they thought were legitimately free.  Instead of properly disclosing terms, Jesse deliberately hid them from customers in order to gain the highest yield possible on his media buys.

The media doesn’t quite get it.  They keep saying that he got in trouble for selling “free trials.”  NO!  There’s nothing illegal or even unethical about selling free trial offers.  When companies offer trial offers that clearly and conspicuously state the terms, consumers are afforded a great opportunity to try the product prior to committing long term.  Examples of consumer friendly trial programs are:

Carbonite

Force Factor

eDiets

Experian

These programs make it easy for customers to try the service/product.  If customers want to cancel, they simply go online or pickup the phone and voila, their membership is cancelled.

So then why is Jesse Willms getting sued for $460 million dollars for his trial offers?

Simple:

1.  He hid/obscured terms from consumers.
2.  He made it unreasonably hard for consumers to cancel and get refunds.

In return he received thousands of consumer complaints to the FTC, State AGs, and the BBB.  That prompted a federal probe into the myriad of other questionable practices Jesse engaged in.

Instead of shaping up he hopped from one scam to another in the DR space.  It’s all a power trip to Jesse.  He beat the US consumers, he beat the US banks, now he appears to have the upper-hand with the US government.

His schemes remind me of a quote from P.J. O’Rourke “Anyway, no drug, not even alcohol, causes the fundamental ills of society. If we’re looking for the source of our troubles, we shouldn’t test people for drugs, we should test them for stupidity, ignorance, greed and love of power.”

So, what are your thoughts on Jesse?

Evil Genius?
In Over His Head?
Clever Businessman?

Oh here’s my legal disclaimer: In America, You’re Actually Guilty Until Proven Innocent

Hey Guys,

One of our dear friends was recently involved in a very serious accident on his Harley.  His name is Keith Allen and I assure you he is one of the nicest human beings that’s walked the face of the planet.

He’s still in critical condition and has yet to make it out of his coma.  Keith has 3 daughters and a wife.  Unlike many of us, Keith works a 9-5 job and with his accident, he is out of work.  He needs our help as he is still in a coma.

If you guys are rocking it and have anything to spare, please make a donation to Keith Allen’s hospital and family fund that we started.  Also please leave a comment of support to Keith’s family: HelpKeithAllen.com.

Thank you guys for taking the time to read this post and for your support.

Do you remember the last time you were let down by an employee or colleague?  You had certain expectations in place that, to your dismay, were not met.

It may have turned out that your colleague had a faulty memory.  Or that she seemed unable to perform at the same level as you.  Your new hire had excellent typing skills but just couldn’t figure out excel.   He just wasn’t…”perfect.”  

If you’re a business owner or a perfectionist by nature, this articles applies especially to you.

Ok, chances are that you are a total bad-ass at what you do.  You’ve spent so much time and energy in your field that very few can compete on your level.

You want to find another bad-ass just like yourself.   The search begins…  You’re looking for the Michael Jordan’s and Tom Brady’s of your industry.

You search…

And search….

Each applicant has 1 or 2 awesome abilities, but the entire package just isn’t quite there.

Frustration followed by compromise.

You hire the closest thing to a bad-ass you can find.  They join your team and you start loading them up with work.  At first they seem to handle it all really good… But for some reason they start to tire out.  Their work product slowly withers.  You wonder to yourself whether it is just you thinking they’re slipping or maybe you’re over analyzing things.

You ask what’s wrong?

“Nothing” they assure you.

It gets worse…until… they burn out.  You fire them.

You’re left wondering many things:

-  Where did it all go wrong?

-  Could I have prevented this from happening?

-  Was there something wrong with the hiring process?

-  Why is it that every employee I hire ends up not working out.

The answer is simple: You expected too much from your employee.

Employees are not business owners, therefore they should never have the onus that comes with ownership.

Hiring the best and the brightest is a must.   The trick is that once you bring on talent, you need to place them in the RIGHT position from start.

Don’t fall into the trap of thinking that an employee who’s gifted in 1 area of the business would also be gifted in a completely opposite area.  Instead closely identify his talents right from that start and place him in a role where he’ll tap into his core talent.  If a new role opens up in your company, hire someone specifically for that role.  DO NOT mix match roles with current staff.

Here’s a real example of where my expectations were not sound and subsequently resulted in failure:

When I was getting started up, I recruited a super smart guy to handle the design, copywriting, programming, and hosting for offers I wanted to buildout.  I had never met anyone that could handle all of these areas, and sure enough my superstar knew exactly how to piece it all together…or so I thought.  After the complete buildout of our first offer, I placed an ad in rotation with one of our competitors.  I knew the exact eCPM the competitor’s ad was pulling in because I was the affiliate pushing traffic to it.

Our offer SUCKED!  No matter how much my superstar tweaked it, it didn’t convert nearly as high as the other page.  Eventually I asked him to rip our competitor’s page just to see if it had something to do with the design.  Sure, our conversion rates jumped, but we still weren’t able to convert has high as our competition.  WTF!

It took me a long time to realize what I was doing wrong.  I was taking an .asp programmer and asking him to be something that he was not.  He was NOT a professional graphic designer.  He was NOT a copywriter.  He was NOT a pro at .html.

Fast forward to today.  When I buildout an offer, here’s what my staffing looks like:

1 Bad-Ass Graphic Designer

1 Bad-Ass PHP Developer

1 Bad-Ass HTML Programmer

2 Bad-Ass Copywriters

1 Bad-Ass Systems Engineer

1 Bad-Ass CRM

1 Bad-Ass Project Manager

1 Bad-Ass Server Company w/ 24/7 Support

2 Bas-Ass Video Production crews

Seamless!  Each superstar is seated in a position that fits their strength.

The Result: One Bad Ass Portfolio (which showcases about 10% of our work)

NOTE:  If you’re a startup and cash is limited, you ought to incentivize your first few employees with stock ownership, awesome fringe benefits, or other devices that won’t be available to future employees.  You will need as much help as possible and those that provide it should get rewarded well.