Social Media Gets An Ass-Whooping From Google, Email

Over four years ago, in a post entitled Looking For Volunteers, I wrote the following…

“TAC predicts that when the frenzy over Facebook, Twitter, and other social media calms down and the dust clears, email and search will continue to be the dreariest and most productive forms of online advertising.”

In an article on Monday entitled “Email Is Crushing Twitter, Facebook for Selling Stuff Online” Wired had this to say:

“An endless stream…of advice from marketing consultants warns businesses that they need to “get” social… Despite the hype… it’s relatively antique tech that appears to be far more important for selling stuff online.

Wired’s source for this article was a company called Custora that studied “72 million customers shopping on 86 different retailer sites.” Their conclusion: search and email are far more effective at generating sales results than Facebook, Twitter and banner ads.

New Durban agency launched by three ex-TBWA\Hunt\Lascaris staffers doing well

by Herman Manson. A new Durban based agency, Conversation LAB, launched August 1 after three TBWA\Hunt\Lascaris staffers broke away to go it alone, has successfully been picking up significant new business.

Demystifying the CTR vs. CPA debate

MarkLives asked Michelle Pearman, a media planner at Digivox, to discuss what determines a successful online media campaign. Here Pearman tries to demystify several metrics used for measuring the success of your online campaign and weighs which one brings you closer to meeting your marketing objectives.

Have a question about digital marketing? Email or Tweet it to us and we will go looking for answers!

In a world of measurable marketing initiatives, what exactly constitutes a successful campaign? You design a great ad. People click on it. Objective met? Unlikely.

CTR (Click-Through-Rate) has been considered the benchmark for many years surrounded by debates on what constitutes a good CTR. Is this a discussion worth having?

If the objective is to sell tickets to an event, wouldn’t you care more about how many tickets you sold, and what the return on investment on your marketing buck is?

Look beyond digital campaigns to long-term goals – Antti Kupila

This year Antti Kupila (@akupila), the technical director at Sid Lee in Amsterdam, was invited as an international representative on the panel judging advertising entries. He spoke to us about the standards of SA work, emerging trends in digital marketing and the lack of a global reputation in our digital sector.

Gloo eyes expansion to Middle East

Digital agency Gloo is seeing budgets dedicated to digital going up by as much as 50%, says Gloo ECD Pete Case, as corporate South Africa keeps shifting budget towards digital platforms. And it’s going towards more than marketing in its traditional sense, says Case, who cites Spur as one client investing in digital as a means to manage brand material going out to franchises.

Idea Bounty eyes UK future

Idea Bounty crowdsources creative ideas. Organisations put out a pitch, thousands of creative minds from around the globe conceptualise possible campaigns, Idea Bounty shifts through the deluge and places the best ideas before their client. Client picks, creative get anything from $1 000 – $10 000 for their concept, which client now owns.

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