Leadpile’s Blog

Thanksgiving is a time to give thanks and express gratitude. The LeadPile team would like to express our appreciation for your business! In combination of saying thank you, we thought we would share some helpful ideas on increasing your sales during this holiday season:

- Send Thanksgiving cards to your customers, everyone likes to hear thank you!
- Send out an email blast to your clients offering discounted services. This keeps your name in front of your customers and potentially brings them back for more services.
- Get involved with your community and do local sponsorships, to get your name in front of more people. Now is the time to share and people appreciate companies that help the community.
- Look at utilizing social networking as a source for advertising and building relationships, because families and friends stay well connected over the holidays.
- Emphasize family in your communications with your customers.

These are all ideas that might help you jump start your sales during this holiday season.

LeadPile wishes you a warm and happy holiday.

Fifteen years ago today the first banner advertisement was displayed on www.Hotwired.com. At the time there were only about two million internet uses in the United States and the only way of getting connected was through a slow dial up connection. When banners advertising was first introduced, many companies were very hesitant and weary about such advertisement. Some of the very first companies to sign on to this new way of advertising were MCI, Volvo, 1-800-Collect, and AT&T. The banner ads were a simple static image located at the top of a web page almost acting as the header. Some of the ads did not even have a call to action or show anywhere in the creative what the product being advertised was.
When it was discovered that an ad could be clicked on and have the consumer redirect to the page advertisers did not know what to think. Some loved it, and others not so much because they did not want to seem like they were being pushy. Volvo had their consumers who clicked on their ads be redirected to simple questionnaire about the Volvo they might be interested in.
Banner ads have come a great distance since 1994 when they first started to appear. No longer are they just static images with no call to action on the top of a web page. They now expand, float on the page, have movies/sound embedded, and even can have the user interact and play games within them. Whether the advertisers are just tracking impressions/CTR or are going the distance and tracking CPA/CPL, the ideas and possibilities seem endless for online advertising. I am sure that we are still at the tip of the iceburg with what we have seen so far. It will be very interesting to see what the next fifteen years will bring to online advertising. Leadpile will attempt to keep up with the innovative ideas of the online advertising world!

Seeking services (lead generation) online, communicating with others (social networking), and reading the top news stories, is now all being conducted through everything EXCEPT our nation’s newspapers. In recent years, many newspapers realized this need for immediate information, therefore created an online version of their newspaper. Unfortunately, this scrambling did not prevent the potential elimination of alot of the newspapers. It’s a sad day in the newspaper world when NPR reports the fact that our nation’s newspaper circulation has dropped 10%, just in the past 6 months. Newspaper’s loss of revenue is largely caused by a decline in advertising dollars.
What does this mean to all of us? In many ways, it takes away an old tradition that many of our parents and grandparents have experienced their whole lives. More importantly, it takes away a source for all of us looking for reading material, jobs, coupons, store ads, obituaries, local and national news. The question is, where on the internet can we go to now for this sort of resource? This is something very difficult for one “website” to be able to provide, so I am not sure how we are all going to potentially survive without the irreplaceable newspaper?

It is not a surprise to anyone in the online advertising business that the CTR (click through rate) of your campaign does not always determine how strong or well your campaign is doing. If you are like most people you will just ignore the banner ads, or even more the annoying pop up ads while you are serving the net. Maybe only clicking on one, by accident when you are trying to close out of the page, won’t hurt.
So why do advertisers even bother with display advertising? Even though CTR may not be the best way to measure your success rate (but sure seems to be one one of the easiest) it still drives traffic to the advertisers site. According to adage.com, “Consumers exposed to a display ad were 65% more likely to visit the advertiser’s site than users who never saw the ad.” Personally, I think that advertisers should be focusing more on conversions rather than CTR. Having a high CTR is great, but you need a low CPA (cost per action), and high ROI (return on investment) to maintain/increase revenue.
Even with display advertising becoming more advanced over the past few years with expandable, floaters, and even interstitial, it still does not seem to cut it. Display advertising is great if you are just trying to get your name out there, but if you are looking increase and revenue there are defiantly many other better options to look into.

Sitting at my desk I can look around and see a LG phone, Dunkin’s cup, Apple computer, and the list can just go on and on. Whether it’s billboards, magazines, people’s clothing, or on the internet, advertising is literally everywhere. But where hasn’t advertising really tapped into yet? Your cell phone.
Mobile advertising is a market that many companies are trying to get more into. With everyone and their mother having a smart phone, it only makes sense for this to be the next big step in advertising. According to emarketer.com, the projected spend for 2009 in mobile advertising is 416 million, and it will soar up to $1.56 billion by 2013. Currently, the main forms of mobile advertising are through texting and banner ads. The mobile banner ads work in a similar fashion as internet banner ads. With mobile texting advertisers can purchase packages to meet their needs (packages can include a certain number of texts per month along with keywords) and then send them out to all their contacts.
Personally, I think that mobile advertising is great. Just the other week, I received a text for free admission to a concert because I had been at that same venue earlier that week. All I had to do is just show the text at the front door and I was in. No strings attached! Marketing strategies with incentives always seem to work the best. It gets the consumer in the door (for free in this case) and it still brings in revenue with other purchases such as food and beverages. If this isn’t a win win situation, then I do not know what is.

Grand Marnier a liquor that has always been presented with class, is launching a new advertising campaign in October revitalizing it’s image and hoping to attract a younger demographic. French images with a more of a modern twist than seen in previous campaigns, will be intertwined with social media and consumer involvement. According to Adweek , Grand Marnier who is new to the social media world will be hoping to attract attention from new and existing buyers through banner ad placements on Facebook.
In addition to the more commonly placed banner ads, using one of the more “on top of the trends” approaches Grand Marnier has developed two iPhone applications that will promote consumer involvement. A game that consumers are able to pour drinks with a simulated shaker, and e-cards that feature animation will encourage people to connect with the efforts to revamp the brand.
Does consumer involvement attract additional dollars? I know that given the opportunity to have a fun new application on my phone would entice me to possibly bring up the brand name in conversation. Heightening awareness of the product…however, does not change my likes or dislikes, suddenly developing a taste for Grand Marnier will probably not happen even though I do like the look and feel of the new campaign.

Almost anything or anyone you want to know more about can be found on the internet. However, when you go to a website is there something that stands out as something that makes you “trust” that website as a reputable source versus another website? There are in fact certain reasons consumers seem to trust one site over another. Nielson Global did a survey on consumers to see what makes them trust a particular website and it’s advertising versus another.

What this information really tells all of us in the lead generation industry is, that maybe we need to continue to focus on how we can really become a more trusted source by consumers. TV, newspaper and other sources came out ahead of methods such as banner ads, mobile and other online lead generation methods. The question then is how do we increase the trust level our consumers have for websites we are working with to generate leads? Brand recognition is pretty high on the list of trusted sources, however not everyone has a brand that is known, or the financial ability to generate that awareness.
Leadpile, and I am sure all other lead generation companies, are all looking at this sort of information as informative, but how can we take this information and apply it to what we do?

Tuesday it was announced that Leadpile was named #3 on Inc. Magazines top 5000 companies amongst other Advertising and Marketing companies with 14 or fewer employees. The other great news is Leadpile was ranked #1 on the West Coast amongst the other Advertising and Marketing companies in total revenue. Leadpile ranks number 2637 overall on Inc. Magazines third annual Inc. 5000, an exclusive ranking of the nation’s fastest-growing private companies. Way to go Leadpile!

The days of newspaper and magazine advertising seems to be becoming more and more extinct as businesses turn to online direct response advertising. Online direct advertising incorporates lead generation, search and online directories into one category and then there is national and local digital media. Businesses seem to be turning more and more to generating clients through search and other more “targeted” media because of the better end result = more business. The costs to print newspapers and magazines has not become as profitable as in previous years because many are not turning to print to get their news, they are turning to a more instant “fix” like the internet. Knowing this, publishers and advertisers are also turning to the internet for customer’s attention. Lead generation companies, like Leadpile, have become more and more in demand as the cost to convert even things such as a television ad to a interested customer rise.
Biz report points out that, “Besides online search, the forecast predicts that online direct response marketing, a new category in 2009, will increase by 2.9%.” Other reports show that by 2014 this sort of advertising is set to increase by 10%. This is great news for lead generation companies and our search engines. However, the picture does not seem as good for national digital media (rich media, online video, email, display and mobile) which is set to decrease by 11%, and local digital media (ie: television, radio and newspapers) to decrease by 5%. The good news is the report also points out that both are set to rebound in future years.
My question is how are other advertising sources, besides online media, going to adapt to increase their revenue? This has to be something that is very challenging for many companies who have built empires by using these non-online media companies (ie- newspapers and magazines). I can’t imagine how people survived in earlier years without the internet, and the capabilities it has to reach so many people in such a little place (computer). This reminds me of growing up and parents stating they did not have televisions or things like calculators in their daily life. I could never understand how they survived, which I know now sounds silly. What will be the next innovative creation that will change our world???????? Who will discover it?

Can it really be? Facebook to make billions within the next 5 years? Reuters is reporting that one of Facebook’s board members is predicting this. It seems that promoting more advertising, to really capitalize on the massive amounts of traffic frequenting the social networking site, is key. 225+ million users are on the site, so there has got to be some way to monetize this site to maybe earn these billions that are being predicted. However, will it follow the trends of Twitter where there are massive amounts of traffic not being capitalized on yet? I think the future of social networking really depends on these sites figuring out an effective way to capitalize on the users on their sites. What way(s) of monetizing the social networking site(s) will work best? What are the demographics of the Facebook? Who is coming and going on the site?
The users on Facebook seem to be a lot more diverse than the other large social networking site (myspace.com). However, where did myspace go wrong………. or did they NOT go wrong? They dominated the net just a few years ago, yet times seemed to have changed when the site became more of an advertising site than a place for people to network. Let’s keep an eye on Facebook and see if they stay on the right path to really do the right thing for their network… AND earn this BILLIONS of revenue! Maybe Facebook should contact Leadpile to do some lead generation!

Google has implemented a way for advertisers to sell on mobile phones. Google is partnering up with mobile applications to allow the Google AdSense to be incorporated into their applications. DMNews states that mobile app usage is starting to exceed mobile web usage, therefore there is a lot of potential here with this partnership. Ads will be presented to the mobile users that match up with geographically in a text or image format, just like on the traditional AdSense ads.
This is great news for the Leadpile publishers that are looking for additional ways to generate online revenue. These potential consumers that are downloading the mobile applications are a more targeted consumer, versus those just “surfing” the net. I am sure this is just the beginning of learning new ways to monetize the mobile applications.

In years past, online media was not an option. Years ago you did radio, television, mail or things like billboard advertising. However, in recent years performance advertising has been something most companies are venturing into to promote their product(s). Lead generation is a performance type of advertising, however not all are embracing it because of various objections they have to it.

1. No money to do lead generation
2. Lead generation does not work
3. They do not know how to set up CPL campaigns
4. They do not have any creatives to do a lead generation campaign
5. They don’t have any incentives to offer the consumer on a CPL campaign
6. They don’t really care about leads
7. They don’t have the time to work on a lead generation campaign

These are all commons excuses companies will make instead of moving forward with a lead generation campaign. Mediapost.com points out all these excuses companies have on why they are not getting into lead generation.
These are all legitimate objections to lead generation, however companies like Leadpile are open arms to speak with anyone that has any questions or concerns about doing lead generation. Where else can you get a targeted consumer that is opting in for a specific product or service? Lead generation allows companies to focus less on generating clients and more on handling the targeted ones that they are working with in their lead generation campaigns. As a company trying to generate business, would I want to send out a 1000 mailings or purchase leads of 50 people who opted in for my service? Hands down lead generation produces a higher ROI if you are utilizing your lead generation campaign effectively. Ask a lot of questions of the lead generation company you are potentially working with, so you know the process from A to Z. Know how the leads are being generated, where they are being generated and what the cost to you is. You will see, lead generation will be an effective way for you to spend your advertising dollars.