RE: More Online Advertising Discussion Please

From: Mitchell Kelley <esc1krm_at_ups.com>
Date: Thu 11 Oct 2001 10:48:27 -0500

I whole-heartedly agree with Kevin's suggestion that we
move onto subjects other than affiliate programs. I'm
sure we are all involved in more! I wanted to respond
with information on a cross-platform campaign I put
together last year. Generally we had only advertised
online because of cost and because our products were
online only, but I wanted to try something else to make
a big push of a business-targeted product.

So, we launched a 2 month campaign of Web banners,
billboards, transit, and radio. My company had a lot
of demographic information collected from our own site
and through market research about the people who bought
this product in the past. We used these data to pick
sites - small business research Web sites, heavy business
commuter highways, talk radio, etc. We also concentrated
the ads in three cities where we had the highest
concentration of existing users to play it safe. Total
cost of the campaign was about $125k, and we achieved
roughly 116% ROI.

My advice
- Go with what you know at the beginning - users,
locations, etc.
- Do use new creative, and make sure all the pieces
complement, but make sense alone.
- Make all vendors give you something extra for your
intial test - more impressions, an extra billboard (you
will still pay creative costs).
- Use cross-platform as a way to kick off a large campaign
or a new product or strategy.
- Devote resources - you will need in-house people
empowered to make decisions even if you work with agencies
(I managed our campaign single-handedly, and it almost
failed at multiple points).

Thanks,
Kelley Mitchell



Received on Thu Oct 11 2001 - 10:48:27 CDT