You Give Leads A Bad Name

You Give Leads a Bad Name Jay “Don’t Call Me Jon Bon” Weintraub You Give Leads A Bad Name “You Promise Me Heaven…” Then Put Me Through Hell At Least They Didn’t Say Free! Part 1 - Monetization is Tough • SEO Publisher of Lyrics • Low Value Content • 16 Different Ad Spots • Spans Thousands of Pages Display Arbitrage Among the Toughest Buying on CPM Making Money on Subscription (Not the Lead) Takes Constant Improvements & Innovation Using IP Address to Personalize • Dynamic Data • Scrolling Ad Gets Attention • Skips to Appropriate Step • Good Carry-through from banner • Clean and Obvious Increased Success with Customization Focusing Intent Appropriate Landing Page NexTag Was the Pioneer • Different text depending on which button in the banner is clicked Some Consistent Themes • Catchy but not misleading banners • Clean, clear landing pages • Lots of testing Part 2 - Good, Bad, Ugly – Mostly Bad & Ugly Ads Placements Tactics Debatable Tactics – Trick Banners • The more things change… • No joke – they still exist • Maybe we are in a media recession after all Debatable Tactics - Likeness • Good thing Oprah probably doesn’t check Facebook • Media references are smart; notice how they don’t endorse the product just the sector. Clever. Debatable Tactics – Unfilled Promises Step 1 - Landing • Where’s the ad context? • Well-designed • A little misleading • Not 100% inaccurate • Not 100% accurate, though • Arbitrage is tough… Step 2 - Layer • Ad Context Reappears • Designed for signup not retention / user value Debatable Placements Debatable Placements – Revenge of the Quizes Debatable Placements – Reg Path “Unfortunately, helping stop the killing does not earn credit towards your iPod” Debatable Tactics – aka “Why They Hate Us” RIP George Carlin. George Carlin Has Passed Away But Will He Be Remembered? Vote Now www.VoteOnTheNews.com Debatable Tactics – Forced Use Debatable Tactics – Expectation Setting You didn’t say it would be up to eight people. Debatable Tactics - Disclosure • What’s going to happen to my email • Disclosure does exist for mortgage form Debatable Tactics – Extracting Action • Purely guilt based • Easy to see the age range being targeted Debatable Tactics – What’s in a Name • Remington-coliege.com • “Coliege” versus “College” Debatable Tactics – aka “Why They Hate Us” You Have (1) Message Find Out Right Now Who. Hint: They Are On Your Friends List myluvcrushmsg.com Is It Love? Take The Quiz Enter Your Names To Check This Is So Accurate, It's Scary! NewCrushAlert.com I bet you can’t wait to find out can you? Debatable Tactics – aka “Why They Hate Us” Debatable Tactics – aka “Why They Hate Us” Debatable Tactics – aka “Why They Hate Us” Debatable Tactics – aka “Why They Hate Us” Debatable Tactics – aka “Why They Hate Us” Debatable Tactics – aka “Why They Hate Us” Debatable Tactics – aka “Why They Hate Us” Debatable Tactics – Key Takeaways o No Surprise that incentive and mobile lead the way o Pure traffic arbitrage leads to focus away from what is best for the user and advertiser and towards what works for the buyer o Not as simple or as just blaming it on the affiliates o Now, for the Hall of Shame Hall of Shame – Bait and Bait and Bait and Switch Hall of Shame – Misleading? Who? Me? Which Jobro is Cuter? Is it Joe or Nick? VotingForGifts.com Part 3 - Hall of Fame - Lead Gen 2.0 o In past, enough to bring consumers to buyers o Now, must add demonstrable value outside of aggregation o No longer about slapping up a site and buying traffic o Arbitrage a factor but not the business model o Key themes - Repeat users, tighter integration, building trust o Lead Gen 2.0 sites add efficiency to matching of consumers and companies, often by focusing on building services for consumers Lead Gen 2.0 - KnowBeforeYouApply • Advanced technology behind the scenes • Simply value proposition – both good and bad • Unique offerings for user retention / repeat usage Lead Gen 2.0 – Bill Shrink • Aggregating and simplifying data that is complex and often deliberately confusing • Low barrier to entry – no signup required to test out the service • Complete consumer control Lead Gen 2.0 – Vitals.com • Over a year in product development • 99% organic traffic • 0 to 1mm uniques in 9months Lead Gen 2.0 – Mint.com • Perhaps no better user interface • Great example of lead generation as a component but not the primary objective Lead Gen 2.0 – Compare and Contrast Doesn’t say required • Dynamic checking • Great flow • Constant reinforcement of value proposition Summary o Great companies exist – bad ones just get more attention o Impact of arbitrage – quest for money leads to questionable decisions o Better practices will win in the end – perhaps by default because others will be driven out of existence o Questions?