SponsoredB2B Touts the Impact of Sponsored on Offline Conversions

A good friend of mine, Rick Tobin from SponsoredB2B wrote today about a new study released by ROIResearch on quantifying the effect of sponsored search on offline purchases. This is the age old question, and by age, I mean as far back as when blinking banner ads encroached upon our beautifully designed plain HTML 6 page sites.

And, even though this study doesn't give us a real strategic look at how this connection can be improved or harnessed to maximum effect, it does give us some details on the correlation between the Sponsored Campaign and the Offline Sale, proving what we have suspected all along, that Brand and Search do have a considerable impact.

Rick has introduced another study as well by MarketingSherpa from earlier this year that asked Brand Marketers what marketing tactics they felt were either very effective or somewhat effective, and based on that input, Paid Search Advertising was second overall with 32% selecting it as "very effective".

What this information is proving is that, what we felt was happening strongly coincides with what we now know IS happening, and that all this research is helping to push this analytics oddity into the light.

iPod Huge for the Holidays, Podcasting... Not so Much

On Tuesday, Apple shares hit an all-time high, climbing as far as $88.14. Expectations are high this holiday season for the iPod, where analysts are expecting that 14 million of the units will have been sold by the end of the quarter, even with the launch of the brand new Microsoft Zune last week.

There has also been a research study performed recently by the PEW Internet & American Life Project about the adoption rate of podcasts, originally named after the iPod itself, as it was this technology that gave Podcasts a reason for being. This study states that only12% of internet users polled claimed to have ever downloaded a podcast, and only 1% said that they would download a podcast on a typical day. Compare that to the growth of internet users with an iPod or another MP3 player, which earlier this year rose to 26%. Now, an iPod or MP3 player isn't necessary in order to subscribe, watch or listen to podcasts, but they certainly make it easier to tune into your favourite podcast whenever or wherever you are.

Now, iTunes has come a long way in making podcasts more accessible; building them into a seamless menu option in the interface, sorting the library into so many categories that you are bound to find something that you like, and allowing anyone to submit a podcast of their own and make it available through the iTunes Store. But because this is an industry that isn't really generating a lot of income at the moment, there aren't really a lot of advertising dollars behind it and podcasting .

Overall, very few internet users are hooked on podcasting. It has the potential that blogs are experiencing now with the widespread grassroots attraction, but this time the larger media companies decided to get in a little earlier. Though, I have to say, they have done it tastefully for the most part.

For the larger organizations, this is a practice in brand awareness and community rather than pushing a product. And for them to appeal to today's user, having a good product isn't enough, they really have to appeal to a lifestyle and generate a feeling. Why not appeal to more of the human senses than reading does? Why not use video or audio? It's like TV, made for you, chosen by you, that you can watch wherever, and whenever you want.

Tell me that doesn't sound like a good idea...
Spread the Podcast Love.

Here are a few of the Podcasts that I get a kick out of, feel free to share any that you enjoy or find useful:

• The Onion Radio News
• Strong Bad by Homestarrunner
• or almost anything from within the Technology Category

Engagement vs. Recall - Small Eye-Tracking Usability Study

Recently at Enquiro, I performed a private study for one of our clients who services both B2C and B2B customers with a fairly short consideration process. Because it was a private study, I am not at liberty to share the name of the organization, but I did want to share some of the findings, as I thought they might be of interest to you.

This was a fairly small usability study, consisting of 2 groups of 5 users. These users were prompted with either (1) a stripped back text based page with a selection of information, one text based and one simple graphical call-to-action or (2) a graphic intensive page, including engaging imagery, much more visual calls-to-action integrated into that imagery, and the same selection of information as the text based page and a video element.

Where we found the biggest difference, as indicated by the title of the article, was between the engagement on the page and the recall of information. It was expected that participants would be able to recall more of the information from the text oriented page, and this expectation was met, recalling 3 times as much specific information as those viewing the alternate graphic page.

But this appeared to be where the benefits of the text based page ceased. As mentioned above, there was one simple graphical call-to-action on this page that, according to our eye-tracking of each of the participants, appeared to have performed like a fish out of water. This is indicated by the white box in the heatmap on the left. Instead of an attractant, this element acted to deflect the eyes of the participants, causing a banner blindness effect, even though the call-to-action fit well into the organization's look and feel.

What this shows is that each page has its own momentum, if you're going to give the user a primarily text based page, then design accordingly, by placing the calls-to-action inline and be sure that they are mainly text based themselves.

As for the Graphic based page, participants found it difficult to recall specific information after viewing the graphic based page, however, they did have a considerably higher impression and comfort level with it. They were more willing to visually explore each of the page areas, more willing to take it all in.

By reviewing actions on the page during the sessions as well as responses from an exit survey that were collected there was a considerable variation in the level of impression between both types of pages. When converting the likert scale to numerical values, the Graphic page scored a 29 out of a possible 35 when participants were asked to rate their level of comfort with submitting a quote on this site, as compared to a score of 23 for the Text based page. And when comparing how quickly and easily they felt they could have submitted a quote, the variation widened further, with the participants from the Graphic session scoring 30 out of 35 compared to 22 by the Text based participants.

The elements on the Graphic page struck a level of comfort with the participants, which, depending on who you talk to, is worth more to you than your customer remembering specific information. The participants from the Graphic page session took a feeling away with them, a feeling that they will associate with the brand going forward.

Specifically those participants who viewed the video embedded into the page. Which was a 30 second commercial spot, allowing the blend of offline and online marketing efforts to engage the potential customer. One of those participants even made a point of expressing specifically that she "felt they really care about me" after watching the spot. Not only that, but after viewing, she was far more willing to spend much more time on the site.

All in all, you can learn a little bit from everyone. In this case it really showed that, by beginning with the end in mind, your customer or potential customer can always leave with what's important to them. If it's facts, then display it like facts, if it's a feeling, then generate a feeling, just know what it is you want them to leave with, otherwise you might both be empty handed.

LiveLogger & World Usability Day Sessions

Well, the Usability Testing Methods webinar that i attended as part of World Usability Day was informative and well worth the time. Frank Spillers, who has been performing Usability tests for 10 years now was the host. Much of the first part of the presentation was to help level the table a bit, bringing those with no experience in the field up to speed on some of the simple goals (ease of use), different types of basic Usability testing (down the hallway, low-fidelity, mixed-fidelity and high-fidelity) and measurement types (qualitative vs. quantitative). And with the best practices stuff out of the way, we delved into Frank's insight and experience in testing.

It has always been my belief that everyone brings something different to the table, so for all of us in the Usability field, fresh or experienced it can't hurt to have an open mind when it comes to different styles. For instance, some of the major players in the industry have found the most effective number of participants to be 5 in order to minimize costs and time. But experts like Frank tend to think that if most of the time is spent in the setup of the study, then what is an extra couple of hours running a few more participants through in order to have some more concrete data to supply the client.

The Forgotten Metrics
Frank also discussed what are referred to as the "Forgotten Metrics", which include ease of learnability and ease of understanding, which can give valuable insight into your study, often times more value than the ever important "time on task" metric. One practice for determining ease of learnability is what is called a loop-back task, which essentially has the participant perform a very similar task to an earlier task to determine if they are able to streamline the experience this time around.

Time on Task is a metric that can also be misinterpreted. There are 2 trains of thought when it comes to this one, and i tend to believe that as long as a user is moving towards their goal successfully, then time is not as much of an issue. And Frank is of the same opinion on this issue. As long as, when you tie in the quantitative and qualitative results, the user has a positive experience on the site, because ultimately that is what they will bring with them. If you have the analytics in place already, or if you are measuring 2 very like sites, then it's worth it, but otherwise, don't knock yourself out over it.

LiveLogger
The LiveLogger tool for Usability testing was released today to mark World Usability Day by Experience Dynamics. This appears to be a really helpful and simple tool that shows the most benefit in letting you focus on your participant, the real reason you're performing your Usability test in the first place. What it does is acts as a dynamic notebook that tracks the time for you and allows you to choose from certain actions so that when you choose that action, it marks the time and lets you make a note regarding the circumstances. As anyone trying to take these types of notes can agree to, it's not always easy to keep this type of information in order and still pay full attention to your participant. Of course the tool is much more dynamic than that, for instance, all of the export features that allow you to categorize each of the user's data, from the errors that they experienced and any points of confusion along the way. But this is where i really saw the value in it.

The presentation itself was really worthwhile, Frank keeps you interested and brings a lot of insight that you can only get from spending this long in the industry. And their new product, LiveLogger, looks well worth a demo download. If you plan on performing a small usability study in the next little while, I would really recommend giving it a shot, it'll make organizing those sessions a lot easier.

Happy World Usability Day!

Congratulations to UPA on what looks to be a very successful World Usability Day, surpassing the number of events from last year! I myself am scheduled in for a webinar very soon, and am looking very forward to taking part. I will be posting some feedback on the session later on today. Great job on pushing the industry forward!

A Second Life to Make a First Impression

If you're in or around my age, and so I don't have to say what my age is, I'll just assume that you are, then you are among the first generation to have grown up with computers, and have spent a fair amount of your youth dropping quarters into Gauntlet, Kung Fu and Street Fighter 2 down at your local arcade. During those years, you spent your days at school, and your nights playing outside with your friends or down at that same arcade spending your allowance. Being the first generation to really have grown up with this type of technology has skewed other generations opinions of us, and not always for the best. Video games are associated with little boys entertaining themselves, but it is likely that is the perception because that's what we did as children and no one before us really set the standard, so it's up to us to make a stand for our childish games!

Anyways, what I'm getting at is that since leaving school and moving into the real world, many of us have been partly shut off from the social routine that we enjoyed as kids. Many of us are employed, working full time in an engaging (or not) career and even married, meaning that you generally go to work, stay until the work is done, go home to your best friend, go to bed and do it all over again. We don't generally have the time that we did as kids to socialize every day and night of the week.

This is where I find sites like Second Life really fascinating. A good friend of mine introduced me to Second Life about a year ago and everytime i think about it, I find it fascinating! Linden (the company behind Second Life) has developed a virtual world that has been in existence since 2003 and can now claim to have almost 1.5 million inhabitants. See the trend below of search volume over the past couple of years:


What this means to those of us taking back our video game roots, is that social networking sites and applications like this give us the ability to interact with other people, all over the world, in a way that we haven't been able to since school. By signing up for an account with Second Life your daily routine doesn't have to change, and you're able to interact with groups or individuals all without leaving the couch, for as long or short a time as you'd like. There are many facets of this application that mimic the real world, even appealing to the desire for status. You can go so far as building a home and outfitting it with all the furniture, bells and whistles that you can think of. Of course, this requires a paid subscription to this virtual world, and for some it is well worth it, but I don't plan on going into that here!

The schoolyard used to be where we found out what was cool, who was a jerk, who had a crush on who, all of which really doesn't mean a thing on an individual basis, outside of enjoying the moment, but it's the moments that define us. We would be entirely different people if we didn't have the social interaction that we had as kids.

I'm not telling you to spend all your time ignoring the real world and spend all your time online in a quasi-real world, i mean, go to the pub if that's what you do. But for those of us that miss that comraderie, and that connection that you can make with a good friend, look into it. Those of us that got beat up in school, I'm sorry, there are nice people out there...

We're all Verklempt, Discuss Amongst Yourselves, We'll Give you a Topic... Google vs. MSN vs. Yahoo!

If you've read the original Google Eye-Tracking White Paper released by Enquiro, Eyetools and Did-It, you'll know the impact and discussion it has caused in the industry with the unveiling of the Golden Triangle and accompanying insights giving the search marketer an edge with their Google specific strategies. Quotes from this article have been picked up all over the industry, from sources such as Danny Sullivan and Anne Holland, and is used as training collateral for many organizations with an interest in online marketing.

Well, prepare yourselves because the next wave of insight is at the industry's doorstep! A few of us here at Enquiro have been working dilligently on the last few pieces of information for the new Eye-Tracking White Paper with Gord Hotchkiss at the helm, a White Paper that broadens the scope of the original by 2 engines, MSN and Yahoo! This new paper definitely offers insights for the search marketers out there by digging into topics like the the effect of sponsored listings on each engine by area, banner blindness and the growth of navigational search. But this paper also has plenty of new information that those usability and the onsite experience junkies will find very interesting. For instance, have you ever thought about the impact that the MSN or Yahoo! portal page might have on the rest of the search experience? How positive or negative news stories or images might affect the success of the searchers experience? No? How about perceived relevancy on the engines? Which engine is really the most relevant? Is Google always number one? We all have our theories, and this paper will help to quantify some of them, and generate discussion around others..

Do we have your attention? I haven't seen the final version yet, but I'm really curious! Be sure to check it out!

Download a sample of the impending report here.