Best Little Blog

We're Changing Online Advertising!

As some might be aware, I recently stepped down as President/CEO of AdOn Network to focus full time on the growth of FetchBack. The very capable Steve Armstrong has accepted the position at AdOn and will continue to build the organization to reach new heights.

Our vision at FetchBack is really quite simple. We’re changing online advertising! We’re changing how people think about spending their advertising dollars and we’re changing the entire experience.

The majority of the market for online advertising has been focused on driving a new lead to their website. Marketers spend major bucks on TV, print, paid search and display advertising. The dollars spent drive prospects, who typically look around a bit and than leave, begging the question “What about post-visit-marketing?”

We believe that the product offerings FetchBack brings to the table will become a standard for online advertising, a must for any smart marketer. We all know that it’s far cheaper to convert a warm lead than create a brand new one.

Currently, advertising online is painful, complicated, full of misinformation and riddled with lifeless companies providing horrible customer service. We intend on changing that. We’re a purpose filled organization that strives to create a bond with our customers and provide them value beyond any competitive product.

We’re changing online advertising! We’re taking things to the next level and we’re going to have a blast doing it.

Come join us, we’d love to help you recoup some of those lost advertising dollars!

Retargeting: BT’s Last Mile

by Phil Leggiere

The “last mile” conundrum of how to deliver broadband connectivity from a communications provider to a customer’s home is famously known in telecommunications circles. Less often acknowledged but equally vexing is the last-mile challenge faced by marketers in moving prospects from initial click-through to regular customers. In the conversation below Chad Little, founder of retargeting specialist Fetchback, outlines a new orientation to marketing’s last mile, one he calls “post-visit marketing.”

Behavioral Insider: Retargeting has of late become a very fashionable term. Many, if not most, large ad networks, for instance, offer what they call retargeting. How is what Fetchback’s doing going to be different?

Chad Little: The analogy I like to make is going to a heart surgeon versus going to the family doctor. Both have their role, but one is infinitely more expert in a particular area. So as far as retargeting goes, yes, many ad networks include retargeting capability within their network — but what we aim to be is the heart surgeon, the specialist within this realm.

The main difference is that we show how retargeting can be correlated to reach. If an advertiser works with an ad network, even if they do it well, their reach is limited to specific publishers on the network. But the potential universe for retargeting is far broader than that. What’s been missing is a single interface to work across all the publishers and networks you deal with — a single interface for developing and customizing creatives, tracking and monetizing potential customers who’ve already visited your site.

BI: How specifically does it work?

Little: Advertisers add a single line piece of code to specific Web pages they want to retarget. Each visitor to the site receives an anonymous cookie, which is then tracked by FetchBack wherever they go. Based on the guidance provided by an advertiser or agency and our own proprietary technology, ads can then be customized by ad types, units, sizes, frequency and content.

BI: What are the biggest gaps you see in how retargeting is currently understood?

Little: All of the financial and intellectual resources on the buy-side have been devoted to the front end, to creating the lead. But as marketers become more ambitious and learn to demand more efficiency in their spending, it becomes obvious that it’s a lot more expensive to get that first cold lead than to resell to people you know are already interested. Many marketers only look at retargeting as a way of repurposing the same ad that brought the consumers to their site in the first place over and over again. What’s been missing in retargeting is the ability to target a more specific and customized message.

BI: What are the biggest challenges advertisers face when trying to implement a retargeting strategy?

Little: Lots of advertisers don’t know what to say, literally. They’ve never really thought through how to creatively keep the dialogue going once an original ad has made whatever impact it’s going to make.

BI: What is the ROI case for retargeting as you explain it?

Little:Post-visit targeting, as we call it, isn’t meant to be an investment used in place of front-end spending. In that sense it means advertisers do need to spend incrementally more overall. But the value proposition is compelling. The additional spending is best thought of as a way of recouping a portion of money from visitors who would otherwise be lost.

Payment is on what we call an ‘investment per visitor’ basis. So if you’ve spent, say, 50 cents a click-through to reach 10 thousand visitors. You’ve spent five thousand dollars and converted a miniscule portion, say 2% or 3%, which is actually quite good. You can stop there with 200 or 300 customers, or you can invest another few cents per visitor in trying to build a further dialogue with the other 9,700 prospects you’ve already attracted.

BI: How do you see the demand for post-visit marketing evolving?

Little: The initial goal over the next year or so is to make post-visit marketing a critical part of the planning cycle. Between here and there there’s an education curve to traverse. Right now at least a third of the advertisers are simply not aware. They haven’t yet considered how to recoup the ‘loss’ from their front-end ad spend. Another third are somewhat aware there could be another way to increase the productivity of their ad dollars, but just aren’t sure how to get started. Then finally there’s a third who are aware of the current gaps in how they deploy ad dollars and have been looking for a solution.

(This article was written for and by Behavioral Insider)

Can Google Maintain Focus? - Originally Posted Mar. 2007

In September 1998, Google officially opened for business in a rented garage with a staff of three. From that inauspicious beginning, Google quickly grew into the biggest and most powerful Internet search engine in the world. When they launched AdWords in 2002, Google revolutionized advertising on the Web with the introduction of the a cost-per-click (CPC) pricing model.

While Google has branched off into numerous other Internet technologies ranging from Gmail to maps, their core strength and primary focus has remained search technology and contextual advertising. This focus has led Google to grow from a few guys in a garage to a corporate giant with a $138 billion market cap.

In the hyper-fast-paced world of Internet technology, however, competition can cause giants to fall at the same speed that it produces new millionaires from the next “I’ve got a sweet office in my garage” genius. While Google has clearly established their dominance over contextual advertising they are facing new competition from smaller ad networks like Quigo and Industry Brains among others. At the same time they are trying to extend their dominance into the offline advertising world. As a result, Google finds itself fighting battles on two fronts.

On the Internet side, Google is facing increasing competition from smaller ‘transparent’ ad networks. In a transparent network, advertisers can place ads on specific publisher Websites and publishers have the ability to control who is advertising on their Website. The key is the flexibility and control given to the publisher and to the advertiser.

At issue is the fact that a growing number of publishers want unfiltered control over who advertises on their Website. High profile sites with strong traffic volume are beginning to command this and companies like Quigo are there to serve them. While Google is beginning to offer limited transparency they will have a hard time providing the necessary tools and flexibility because this isn’t a case of technology – this is a case of culture.

Giving up control is not a phrase that you will find anywhere in Google’s mission statement. However, with the emergence of transparent ad networks that is exactly the kind of strategic decision that Google finds itself wrestling with.

Over the past year, a number of articles have been written about smaller ad networks that have begun to challenge Google’s dominance. The NY Times, USA Today and Business Week, just to name a few, have all published stories related to the growing competition for contextual ad market that generated $2 billion in 2006.

While Google is ready and waiting to take on anyone who challenges them on their home turf of Internet advertising, they are simultaneously mounting a new offensive trying to force their way into TV, radio and print ad sales, and they’re finding quite a bit of resistance.

There are numerous reasons for the resistance, as Ari Rosenberg wrote about recently in his Online Publishing Insider article. One of the reasons I believe that poses a stumbling block is Google’s attitude as much as anything. Traditional media, and the channels that exist there, are also going to want the same flexibility, visibility and control that their online counterparts are now asking for. To date, Google hasn’t offered a model that traditional media is willing to embrace.

What Google has tried to do is leverage the sheer volume of advertisers that they control to gain access to the lucrative world of offline advertising. Advertiser volume alone, however, doesn’t appear to carry the same weight within the traditional media circles as it does online. While early returns aren’t promising in this endeavor, we can be assured that they won’t simply concede defeat and go home quietly.

That’s not to say that Google’s advertiser relationships are insignificant when it comes to traditional media. I believe that there is a way for Google to leverage those relationships and successfully cross over into traditional media.

The key is maintaining the focus that enabled Google to get to where it is at today. Google should stay focused on their core competency of contextual search and invest in businesses that focus on the offline media categories they want to penetrate. Rather than trying to force an entire industry to adapt to their way of thinking, why not create alliances with or purchase companies that are well established within the print, TV and radio industries?

With this approach, Google could utilize the expertise and old-media savvy of industry insiders and give the freedom and autonomy to do what they do best in the way that has proven to be successful. These established companies could then leverage Google’s advertiser relationships to in a way that Google has not been able to do as of yet. Google’s current approach, trying to force their brand and their technology on this market, hasn’t proven to be a winning approach so far, just ask the founders of dMarc.

This is, of course, just my opinion. While Google’s management team is probably not anxiously awaiting my next suggestion as to how they should run their multi-billion dollar corporation, they may want to heed the sound of the growing chorus of competition in the online world along with the echoes of opposition from the offline world and consider where they should be focusing their efforts in order to be successful in both worlds.

(This article was also published on ADOTAS.com)

In September 1998, Google officially opened for business in a rented garage with a staff of three. From that inauspicious beginning, Google quickly grew into the biggest and most powerful Internet search engine in the world. When they launched AdWords in 2002, Google revolutionized advertising on the Web with the introduction of the a cost-per-click (CPC) pricing model.

While Google has branched off into numerous other Internet technologies ranging from Gmail to maps, their core strength and primary focus has remained search technology and contextual advertising. This focus has led Google to grow from a few guys in a garage to a corporate giant with a $138 billion market cap.

In the hyper-fast-paced world of Internet technology, however, competition can cause giants to fall at the same speed that it produces new millionaires from the next “I’ve got a sweet office in my garage” genius. While Google has clearly established their dominance over contextual advertising they are facing new competition from smaller ad networks like Quigo and Industry Brains among others. At the same time they are trying to extend their dominance into the offline advertising world. As a result, Google finds itself fighting battles on two fronts.

On the Internet side, Google is facing increasing competition from smaller ‘transparent’ ad networks. In a transparent network, advertisers can place ads on specific publisher Websites and publishers have the ability to control who is advertising on their Website. The key is the flexibility and control given to the publisher and to the advertiser.

At issue is the fact that a growing number of publishers want unfiltered control over who advertises on their Website. High profile sites with strong traffic volume are beginning to command this and companies like Quigo are there to serve them. While Google is beginning to offer limited transparency they will have a hard time providing the necessary tools and flexibility because this isn’t a case of technology – this is a case of culture.

Giving up control is not a phrase that you will find anywhere in Google’s mission statement. However, with the emergence of transparent ad networks that is exactly the kind of strategic decision that Google finds itself wrestling with.

Over the past year, a number of articles have been written about smaller ad networks that have begun to challenge Google’s dominance. The NY Times, USA Today and Business Week, just to name a few, have all published stories related to the growing competition for contextual ad market that generated $2 billion in 2006.

While Google is ready and waiting to take on anyone who challenges them on their home turf of Internet advertising, they are simultaneously mounting a new offensive trying to force their way into TV, radio and print ad sales, and they’re finding quite a bit of resistance.

There are numerous reasons for the resistance, as Ari Rosenberg wrote about recently in his Online Publishing Insider article. One of the reasons I believe that poses a stumbling block is Google’s attitude as much as anything. Traditional media, and the channels that exist there, are also going to want the same flexibility, visibility and control that their online counterparts are now asking for. To date, Google hasn’t offered a model that traditional media is willing to embrace.

What Google has tried to do is leverage the sheer volume of advertisers that they control to gain access to the lucrative world of offline advertising. Advertiser volume alone, however, doesn’t appear to carry the same weight within the traditional media circles as it does online. While early returns aren’t promising in this endeavor, we can be assured that they won’t simply concede defeat and go home quietly.

That’s not to say that Google’s advertiser relationships are insignificant when it comes to traditional media. I believe that there is a way for Google to leverage those relationships and successfully cross over into traditional media.

The key is maintaining the focus that enabled Google to get to where it is at today. Google should stay focused on their core competency of contextual search and invest in businesses that focus on the offline media categories they want to penetrate. Rather than trying to force an entire industry to adapt to their way of thinking, why not create alliances with or purchase companies that are well established within the print, TV and radio industries?

With this approach, Google could utilize the expertise and old-media savvy of industry insiders and give the freedom and autonomy to do what they do best in the way that has proven to be successful. These established companies could then leverage Google’s advertiser relationships to in a way that Google has not been able to do as of yet. Google’s current approach, trying to force their brand and their technology on this market, hasn’t proven to be a winning approach so far, just ask the founders of dMarc.

This is, of course, just my opinion. While Google’s management team is probably not anxiously awaiting my next suggestion as to how they should run their multi-billion dollar corporation, they may want to heed the sound of the growing chorus of competition in the online world along with the echoes of opposition from the offline world and consider where they should be focusing their efforts in order to be successful in both worlds.

(This article was also published on ADOTAS.com)

YaWho? - Originally Posted Feb. 2007

At times I’ve wondered if Yahoo! should consider replacing the exclamation point at the end of their name with a question mark. In light of some of their decisions and actions over the years, it seems that Yahoo? would be more fitting, as in Ya who do they want to be?

Do they aspire to be a media giant? The leading online ad platform? An information destination? All of the above? Depending on which mission statement you come across on Yahoo!’s Webstie, their mission is either to A) Be the most essential global Internet service for consumers and businesses, or B) Connect people to their passions, their communities, and the world’s knowledge.

Where is Yahoo! going? What do they want to dominate in and why? I’m not exactly sure. If you were to ask the same questions about Google, the answer is clear. Google’s stated vision is to “Organize the world’s information” (and make enough money doing it to finance the creation of a new world). Do I agree with that statement? I’m not sure I do as a lot of their actions aren’t congruent with the statement. I find them to be a large media company looking to utilize technology to distribute their advertisers wherever and however they can…but I digress. Agree with it or not, they at least have a vision statement that is clear and concise and their performance to-date backs it up.

How did Yahoo! arrive at its current place playing second fiddle to Google? There was a defining moment in the history of these two companies that has had ripple effects that we can still see today. In a recent article on wired.com, Fred Vogelstein suggests that Yahoo! blew it during the summer of 2002 when their $3 billion offer to purchase Google was rebuffed and Terry Semel, Yahoo! CEO, balked at the higher $5 billion dollar valuation of Google.

After that failed merger Yahoo! subsequently purchased Overture. While it was a strategic move they needed to make to compete with Google, Yahoo! was already at a competitive disadvantage. Google was able to build their ad platform from scratch and seamlessly integrate it with their search technology. Yahoo!, on the other hand, had the monumental task of consuming Overture, a company I personally characterize as culturally dysfunctional.

I had business dealings with Overture dating back to their pre-Yahoo! days and one of the common criticisms shared by my peers in the industry was how difficult it was to do business with them. Their culture appeared to be dysfunctional from an outsider’s perspective. If you’re familiar with the story of the Good Samaritan, Overture would have played the role of the other guy – the one that walked past the man in need. They often gave the appearance of a company that would just as soon ignore its partners/traffic providers/customers rather than offer assistance. This isn’t to say that this type of behavior is uncommon for companies that grow to a certain size, but Overture excelled at it.

Now, fast forward a couple of years to Yahoo!’s hiring of Terry Semel, the Hollywood deal-maker. Yahoo! had its sights set on becoming the next media giant so bringing on a seasoned and accomplished Hollywood insider was the logical choice at the time. In hindsight however, one might question the logic of hiring a CEO with very limited technical knowledge to guide a company that is defined by technology. This lack of technical savvy would be an extremely difficult hurdle for anyone to overcome when leading the merger of two technology-centric companies like Yahoo! and Overture, in addition to the challenge of overcoming the cultural differences.

Here we are almost five years later and Yahoo! has just launched their revamped ad platform named Panama. While Yahoo! touts this as a strategic leap forward, the bottom line is that Panama was a task that needed to get completed just to remain in the game. Early returns have been good for Panama, as evidenced by Merrill Lynch’s positive outlook for Yahoo! stock and their 13% increase in ad-related revenue from one year ago. The response from advertisers has been positive for the most part, however, some smaller companies are finding it difficult to switch platforms and transition their existing accounts. Panama is an important upgrade for Yahoo!, but the battle for dominance in paid search has already been won by Google.

Second place in the paid search industry is certainly not an insignificant position, but the same questions still remain. Do they have the leadership, vision and focus to reassert themselves as a leader, pioneer and dominant force that they once were?

Yahoo! is an amazing company, and a brand that has defined the Internet as we know it, but they have missed the mark recently and lost opportunities to surge ahead. What’s next for Yahoo!? I have my own theories, but they all depend on who is leading the company and if those people can define a clear and concise vision for the future that can take Yahoo! to new heights. I am curious to see what that vision will be and if it will give them the ability to regain the competitive advantage they once held.

This article was also published on ADOTAS.com

Flip Fraud - Originally Posted Dec. 2006

At the recent ad:tech event in New York, one of the most common words or phrases making the rounds on the exhibit floor (other than ‘Datran Media Party’) was ‘CPA’ or ‘Cost Per Acquisition’.

The CPA auction model is a natural response to advertiser’s fear of click fraud in addition to their desire to increase the accuracy of their conversion tracking. CPA advertising is a perfect example of the inherent benefits of advertising on the Internet because no other media can match its tracking ability. CPA advertising is also one of the primary reasons that affiliate networks, like the ones that overran the exhibit floor at ad:tech, are thriving.

Along with the benefits of accurate and precise tracking, however, comes the inevitable outcry from advertisers that a percentage of the budgets are being wasted on the “Joe Mc. Hremlin’s” of the world. In case you are not familiar with Joe, he is one of the made-up names from a made-up testimonial on the website www.clickingagent.com that sells click fraud software. Not to be confused with click fraud detection software, this is click fraud enabling software. For the purpose of this article, we’ll assign the name Joe to all of the mouth-breathing types that make a living off cheating and scamming their way through life.

This Website and their product is only the tip of the iceberg. I’m amazed at the marketing copy (I use that term loosely so as not to offend anyone who actually writes marketing copy for a living) on their site: “Take your chance, try to fool advertisement companies and earn money! It only gets better - 1) Make your site more interesting to others, and/or 2) simulate that traffic and ad clicks so that advertising company thinks you’re a hell of a web-master!” Overlooking the horrendous grammar and creative use of the English language, the claims on this site are pretty clear: “Lie, cheat and steal your way to a better life…and do it all from the comfort of your living room/garage/trailer.”

While much of the click fraud that occurs is caught before it ever gets to the advertiser, the industry will always be at disadvantage. As long as the Joe’s of the world can make money by defrauding ad networks, they will continue to develop methods to stay one step ahead (or they will purchase software from more intelligent people who actually develop it).

The irony of this issue is that our ability to accurately track views, clicks and conversions is also a disadvantage when compared to traditional media. Conversion tracking for off-line media is inexact at best. Advertisers seem to have a certain degree of blind trust when it comes to magazine advertising for example.

How do they know the circulation and subscription numbers are real? How do they know the people that did purchase the magazine actually looked at their ad? Where’s the discussion on inflated subscription numbers and fraudulent page turners? What if Joe has 100,000 copies of a magazine shipped to his house and the locals all come over to flip through pages to view the ads!? Where’s the outcry for flip fraud? But I digress….

Getting back to the reality of online advertising and tracking, the solution to creating a better online advertising model is simple. In my opinion, a big portion of the market will be moving to an auction-based CPA model. Google is already moving in that direction along with a number of leading edge companies like www.turn.com. Google’s moves into analytics and shopping cart functionality play into this strategy as well.

While ad networks of all sizes will continue to work extremely hard and preventing as much click fraud as they can, I believe we should move forward with the understanding that there’s a built in cost for fraud and I also believe it’s not going to go away. There are some very smart companies out there that will help keep it in check and prevent if from growing further, but I firmly believe they’ll never catch-up to Joe and his network of fraud-perpetrating friends.

For this reason, the move to a CPA model is the most logical evolution for advertisers and ad networks alike. Alternatively, we can choose to stay on the same path and continue to supply Joe with the discretionary income he needs to purchase that new set of rims he wanted for his truck (that may or may not be located on blocks in his front yard).

This article was published on ADOTAS.com.

About Chad

I’m one of those serial entrepreneurs. I love the process of creating something from nothing, building value and developing a culture where people love to work. I started my first company at the ripe age of 21 and never looked back. I didn’t have a clue as to what I was doing, but that didn’t stop me.

The first company, TRACER Design, was an interactive advertising agency. At the time that meant we were hauling around these huge luggable computers that weighed 50 lbs, but hey…it had a color monitor! Producing ‘multimedia’ training materials, marketing info…you name it, we did it. I had the time of my life, working way too much and staying hopelessly optimistic. We were self-funded and profitable since inception.

One day we had the bright idea to produce a game on the WWW. We launched www.cyberhunt.com somewhere in 1995 I believe. Cyberhunt was sponsored by IBM and to the best of our knowledge; it was the first sponsored game on the Internet.

Cyberhunt spawned the idea to create Sandbox Entertainment, a company designed to build entertainment on the web. Sandbox became an early leader in online fantasy sports (which we subsequently lost and it still haunts me today). If only we had we realized what we built. It’s amazing how many people I still run into that played our games, even when they don’t know I was involved. Sandbox raised over $30 million in venture capital, that we successfully spent, and strategic partnerships were established with such heavyweights as CNN/Sports Illustrated, Fox Sports.com, Yahoo! (those Yahoo’s went on and built their own, they should have bought ours, it was better) and others, before the company regretfully merged with Wall St. Sports in 1999 where they successfully drove it into the ground.

I founded AdOn Network (formerly myGeek) in November of 1998. Our original concept was a personalized shopping service - Your own web geek to find things for you. After realizing the holes in our model and the .com bubble burst, which happened 2 days after we closed our first round of financing, we rapidly evolved our model. AdOn Network is now one of the largest ad networks on the web.

That brings me to current day. My latest adventure is with FetchBack, The Retargeting Company. We help you reconnect with your lost website visitors and have a great time doing it. My duties as Chief Retriever include the definition of the company's business strategy and cultivating business development opportunities– helping our interns into giant dog costumes is just a bonus!

I’m actively involved in the Internet and software development communities. I speak frequently at leading industry events and has been featured often on established news outlets, including: Forbes, TIME, CNNfn, NBC Nightly News (that was fun), The Red Herring, iMedia Connection, ADOTAS, The Arizona Republic, AZ Business Magazine, and many others, as well as being a published author with Paramount Publishing. Damn, I feel so important.

I’m an avid mountain biking, martial artist, snowboarder, scuba diver…basically anything physical and if it’s outdoors that’s even better.

I’m one of those serial entrepreneurs. I love the process of creating something from nothing, building value and developing a culture where people love to work. I started my first company at the ripe age of 21 and never looked back. I didn’t have a clue as to what I was doing, but that didn’t stop me.

The first company, TRACER Design, was an interactive advertising agency. At the time that meant we were hauling around these huge luggable computers that weighed 50 lbs, but hey…it had a color monitor! Producing ‘multimedia’ training materials, marketing info…you name it, we did it. I had the time of my life, working way too much and staying hopelessly optimistic. We were self-funded and profitable since inception.

One day we had the bright idea to produce a game on the WWW. We launched www.cyberhunt.com somewhere in 1995 I believe. Cyberhunt was sponsored by IBM and to the best of our knowledge; it was the first sponsored game on the Internet.

Cyberhunt spawned the idea to create Sandbox Entertainment, a company designed to build entertainment on the web. Sandbox became an early leader in online fantasy sports (which we subsequently lost and it still haunts me today). If only we had we realized what we built. It’s amazing how many people I still run into that played our games, even when they don’t know I was involved. Sandbox raised over $30 million in venture capital, that we successfully spent, and strategic partnerships were established with such heavyweights as CNN/Sports Illustrated, Fox Sports.com, Yahoo! (those Yahoo’s went on and built their own, they should have bought ours, it was better) and others, before the company regretfully merged with Wall St. Sports in 1999 where they successfully drove it into the ground.

I founded AdOn Network (formerly myGeek) in November of 1998. Our original concept was a personalized shopping service - Your own web geek to find things for you. After realizing the holes in our model and the .com bubble burst, which happened 2 days after we closed our first round of financing, we rapidly evolved our model. AdOn Network is now one of the largest ad networks on the web.

That brings me to current day. My latest adventure is with FetchBack, The Retargeting Company. We help you reconnect with your lost website visitors and have a great time doing it. My duties as Chief Retriever include the definition of the company's business strategy and cultivating business development opportunities– helping our interns into giant dog costumes is just a bonus!

I’m actively involved in the Internet and software development communities. I speak frequently at leading industry events and has been featured often on established news outlets, including: Forbes, TIME, CNNfn, NBC Nightly News (that was fun), The Red Herring, iMedia Connection, ADOTAS, The Arizona Republic, AZ Business Magazine, and many others, as well as being a published author with Paramount Publishing. Damn, I feel so important.

I’m an avid mountain biking, martial artist, snowboarder, scuba diver…basically anything physical and if it’s outdoors that’s even better.