Email Marketers Love Email

Get a couple email marketers talking about their industry, and you would think that any marketer who doesn't do email is an idiot. According to them, nothing works better for marketing than email, and "nothing is worth doing unless it is measurable," as moderator and Inbox Marketing exec Barry Stamos told the crowd.

Oh great! All those campaigns I've created, but not measured, was for nought. And all those times that I didn't attach an email follow-up to them, well, that was just the dumbest thing I could have done.

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Paid Search Rank Impact on Traffic & Conversion

The iPod. Ladybugs. Danny DeVito. Sometimes little is good. The ad: tech session "Paid Search Rank Impact on Traffic and Conversion" was certainly a testament to that fact, with a pared-down panel, minimalist audience attendance, and an uber-brief Q&A (as in two questions). No matter, 'cause this proved to be a smart session with some great insights on the correlation between rank and conversion, the impact of cookies, and buyer latency.

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Successful Word of Mouth Requires Enabling Conversations

Word of Mouth Marketing Association CEO Andy Sernovitz opened the session, "Word of Mouth Marketing: Create a WOM campaign in five easy steps," by suggesting five steps needed to make a word of mouth campaign successful:

• Find the right people
  
• Give them something to talk about
  
• Create tools to make it easy to talk about
  
• Participate in the conversation
  
• Track and measure
  

Sernovitz also clarified that word of mouth marketing can involve other advertising tactics (other than true word of mouth) such as buzz marketing, viral marketing, product placement, grassroots marketing, referral programs and brand blogging.

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'Don't Do. Be.' ... I Don't Get It

With a title like "Don't Do. Be." I was intrigued enough to get a back-of-the-room seat to hear Ray Podder of a company called Grow do his thing. Most everyone else was flooding over into "What Blogs Are Teaching Us About the New Rules of Marketing" session next door. I should have gone with the herd.

What I got out of "Don't Do. Be" I don't get. It was a strategic branding session for no particular brand, and a presentation so full of esoterica that I didn't know if I was at ad:tech or that Friday 8:30 a.m. anthropology lecture that I never seemed to be able to sit through.

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Achieving Balance in Your Search Mix (a.k.a. The Need for Feeds)

Moderator Dan Boberg, Senior Director of Partner Programs & Technology at Yahoo opened things up by sharing some quick user stats on search and shopping engines (no big surprises, lots of people are using both, conducting multiple searches, etc.) and went into a discussion of structured data feeds, one of the more neglected areas of search behind sponsored search and organic SEO. Benefits of feeds include an ongoing data link between engines and marketers with opportunities for continued optimization.

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Valuing Online and Offline Promotions (and Staying Crunchy in Milk)

Just as that plastic toy at the bottom of the cereal box isn't going to cut it for today's kids, neither are old-school promotional tactics. Dave Friedman, President of Avenue A/Razorfish opened the ad: tech session "Valuing Online/Offline Integrated Promotions" with an audience poll on cereal toys which set the tone for a lively speaker/panel hybrid session that managed to go over an hour without losing any momentum (or losing its crunch in milk).

Other participants included: Moderator David Herscott, Managing Director of MEA Digital; Megan O'Connor, Director of e-Commerce, Rodan and Fields; and Anthony Schneider, Co-Founder of Peersuasion.

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Blogs Provide a More Personal Medium for Advertisers

Led by Jupiter Media's Gary Stein, the panel entitled "Blogevertising, RSS and Podcasting Opportunities for Marketers," provided session attendees with an overview of how blogs can be used as an advertising medium. Weblogs Inc. President Shawn Gold began with a bit of blogging 101 explaining that blogs are an empowering and efficient means through which marketers can deliver advertising. Along with blog publishers, blog advertisers benefit from weblog's propensity to climb high in search results for topics covered on a given blog thereby helping to insure increased, targeted eyeballs for blog advertisers.

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Blogs Add Valuable Conversation to Marketing

Led by Intelliseek CMO Pete Blackshaw, the panel, "What Blogs Are Teaching Us About The New Rules of Marketing," provided the audience with a broad over view of the issues companies need to consider when debating the launch of a corporate weblog or marketing-related weblog. The recurring theme throughout the session centered on the need to stay true to the brand and to live within the company guidelines both legal and otherwise.

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Viva la Blombsicle

The Chicago Interactive Marketing Association teamed up with Leapfrog to offer the biggest open-access Ad:Tech party Monday night. By 7:30, the rooftop of Rock Bottom Brewery was packed shoulder to shoulder, soaking up the free food (the soft pretzel bites were a fun touch) and beverages.

Please, in the comments, send a line if you recall what was in the Blombsicle, the blue raspberry lemonade drink that also had Bacardi and vodka. Thanks to Ross Sandler of Revenue Science for the tipoff. His word of mouth had half the crowd downing 'em. Meanwhile, Google "blombsicle" and not a single result comes up.

Guide For Revolutionaries Is Good Schtick

Guy Kawasaki can hack it as a stand-up comedian if his job as director of VC firm Garage doesn't pan out. This guy had the ballroom audience cackling with laughter at his snarky asides of Apple culture and astute jabs at the advertising industry.

Along the way, he introduced 10 Rules For Revolutionaries (well, 12 if you count 0 and a bonus rule) to the audience, culled mostly from two of his latest books: "Rules for Revolutionaries" and "Art of the Start." Although it seems his directives may be better aimed at the start-up crowd, his lessons were equally relevant to marketers and interactive types who are looking for ways to break their business into Yahoo-land.

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Integrating Online into the Traditional Media Mix

By now, most marketers have moved beyond the question of Should I be marketing online? to ask more advanced questions, such as What are the latest and best ways to market online? and How do I build my online brand presence more efficiently?

Despite this evolution in thinking, the integration of online and offline marketing efforts remains an afterthought to most. The ad:tech panel Integrating Online Into the Traditional Media Mix takes a look at several tactics marketers can use to get these efforts in sync and by doing so, grow their business.

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Car Talk

In "Automotive Research Insights," comScore Chairman and Co-Founder Gian Fulgoni and Vertis Director of Marketing Research Scott Marden shared their smarts on car buyers. Marden focused on car shoppers' trends broken out by life stage, and he had so many stats that it's hard to recount any here. One interesting notes: he says African Americans represent the greatest consumer opportunity.

Much of Fulgoni's focus, meanwhile, was comparing car manufacturer sites against third party sites, and comparing how consumers search and shop for different car brands online.

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Creatives Kick Ass, Pat Backs, Toss Fluff

Preconceived notions that the session entitled "Kick Ass Creative" would be drenched in self-congratulatory praise for pet creative work and new age strategies were clearly confirmed. The session, led by Ad Age Publishing VP and Editorial Director David Klein, included panelists Carat Interactive EVP Creative Director Mike Yapp, Agency.com Creative Director Dorian Sweet, Avenue A/Razorfish ECD Brooke Nanberg and Organic Inc. ECD Colleen DeCourcy.

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Do the IMC Tango

This session presents the often complicated task of coordinating integrated marketing communications between multiple internal teams, outside agencies and vendors. It also boasted nearly as many panel speakers as participants.

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Kick Ass Creative (Take One)

Some pretty cool online advertising was presented by seasoned interactive creative directors at the Kick Ass Creative session. I won't describe the more than a dozen campaigns for Adidas, Chrysler, 1-800 Flowers and Miller, among others. We're savvy Internet hobos and marketing junkies; we've probably seen them all before on our online peregrinations.

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Buying Mass Reach with Optimal Frequency Online

Five? Ten? Fifteen? Twenty? How many ads does it take to reach your target consumer? How do you as a marketer walk that fine line between aggressive and annoying? How can your campaigns maintain ROI without sacrificing volume?

Young Bean Song, Director of Analytics & Atlas Institute at Atlas DMT and Greg Rogers, Director of Strategy & Insights at MEC: Interaction set out to solve this complex question in one hour or less at the AD: TECH session “Buying Mass Reach with Optimal Frequency Online.”

First up was Song, who gave this simple definition of that ever-elusive “optimal frequency”:

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Mighty Morphin SupahMega Online Trends

"SupahMega Trends Global in Online Media" boasted a powerhouse speaker lineup discussing how various internet trends are playing out on a global level, and how marketers are taking advantage of them (or not, as Ann Green from Millward Brown repeatedly pointed out). Moderated by K-Town Group's Peter Storck, the panel included Ann Green, DoubleClick's Rick Bruner, AOL's Mark Lopez, and Nielsen//NetRatings's Charlie Buchwalter.

Overall, some of the panelists could have had a more global focus, and there could have been more debate (Charlie and Rick had a fun back and forth when discussing broadband, but the controversy fizzled afterwards). Still, these folks are so darn smart that they're worth a listen anytime.

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Emotive Advertising

Apparently, Descartes had it all wrong. Instead of pronouncing “I think, therefore I am,” he should have instead quipped “I feel, therefore I am.” That’s one of a number of key points to consider after hearing Dr. Bruce Hall, a partner at Merrell & Partners, speak at a panel called “Emotive Advertising.”

Ad folks like us have always used the power of emotion to push our brands, but never with a clear understanding as to what about emotions really drive brand perception and consumers’ opinions. The rise of neuroscience study and availability of MRI technology is leading marketers to re-evaluate the power of emotive advertising in total.

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