According to research conducted by ZenithOptimedia in 2010 over $64 Billion was spent in 2010 on online advertising. Over 64% of this revenue went to only five companies; Google, Yahoo!, Microsoft, Facebook, and AOL. You can see the graph below for the full breakdown showing the percentage that each controls.

With such a large percentage of the market being cornered by a small number of businesses where should smaller businesses be putting their online advertising budget? Marketing via social media seems to be a popular choice as businesses are starting to allocate more of their marketing budget in to this portion of online advertising. Facebook is already #4 on this list, how much and how quickly will they be taking over market share in online ad spending?

With everything that has happened in the financial market in the last few years, many question if the responsibility falls on the consumer or the lenders (or both)? Is the responsibility of the lender to make sure the customer 100% know what they are signing, or it is the responsibility of the customer to ask questions if they do understand what they are signing? There are advocates on both sides, however the government now feels it needs to step in. NPR is reporting that Congress has drafted legislation that would allow the government to oversee all consumer financial products such as credit cards, mortgage loans and payday loans. This measure would prevent consumers from getting any sort of “loan” that they did not fully understand what they were signing. I am not quit sure how something like this can be regulated, but the government wants to step in and try to protect consumers in these sorts of situations. Many legislatures feel that the past behavior of our banks was that they would shop around till they found a lender that would take on their “unique” client situation. Unfortunately, what this caused was those “unique” consumers to then fall behind on their mortgages because they really can’t afford that mortgage.
No matter what, if you agree with government intervention in our financial market or not, the bottom line is our country needs something to change. The right answer is not always that easy to figure out, however one thing I do know is that to change our financial market there needs to be a combination of many people/groups that need to come together to protect customers…and sometimes protect the lenders (the good ones).

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?

The innovative iPhone was released about a year and a half ago, and some are saying that there might be something new rolling out just in time for iPhone users to renew their contracts. According to Internetnews.com Apple might have something up their sleeves. Could it be an enhancement to the current iPhone, or something brand new and able to compete with the already popular iPhone?  Time will tell, however myself and everyone at Leadpile Lead Exchange will have their eyes open for the newest “toy” from Apple.  What will they come up with next?

Macys has announced that will cut 7,000 jobs. Well… I have been in the store few days ago, and thought the store is closed – appeared that no one is shopping anymore.

We understand that the economy is slow, but is this bad? Wallmart is cutting jobs, now Macys and Starbucks is closing another 300 stores.

Do you think people will start spending more when the tax returns will be done? Super Bowl definitely helped – lots of people in the Safeway at least.

Twitter has become a phenomenon. People connect to each other, following each other, and I guess create a different type of network. Even at a point where Evan Williams doesn’t know exactly how to monetize it, he is improving the core of the platform. Slowly, but surely, it’s becoming one of the new “things to do” online. From the networking perspective, Twitter is offering an amazing opportunity for companies out there to keep their readers informed with what is going on at the current moment. Apparently, even the journalists can make some extra money by releasing the news to their subscribers before the article shows in the paper. Of course the subscribers should pay a membership fee.

Leadpile will most likely use Twitter as well, keeping our clients informed with what is going on in the office. We can update the clients on new offers, increase in payouts, or the addition of new buyers in a certain verticals.

If you are using the Twitter, please follow our messages … Just search for vp_leadpile on Twitter, and you will find me.

That special day for “lovebirds” is approaching, and the many dating sites out there are competing to get some love matches for the big day.  According to DMNews, single consumers are shopping for love on the web. DMNews also states, “The US online dating market will reach $932 million in 2011, and European online dating will double by the same time, according to JupiterResearch. The beginning of the year is one of the busiest times for this market.” So is this true, singles have new resolutions and now are looking for that “cupid” online?
The statistics seem to show that those surfing the net for love, and those that actually click on advertisements/offers increased at the end of January/beginning of February. Based on this information, generating dating leads might be something we work a little faster to get into here at Leadpile Lead Exchange. It seems most of those lead buyers that are looking for dating leads, are looking for personal information about the consumer. This is something we are already capturing to a degree, so maybe this is something we start drumming up some business for.

Cupid + Leadpile Lead Exchange = Match?

According to Hitwise.com, in the last month of 2008 Google accounted for 72.07% of US searches. I know, this is no surprise, but the part that caught my eye was what categories people were searching.

This article breaks down the subject matters that consumers searched for on Google, and I was a little surprised financial related searches were so far down on the list.

Of the people who searched on GOOGLE, here is what categories they searched:

Health and Medical   44.45%

Travel  36.24%

Shopping and Classifieds  25.81%

News and Media  20.54%

Entertainment  24.83%

Business and Finance  19.19%

Sports  13.33%

Online Video  33.69%

Social Networking 17.87%

Leadpile Lead Exchange deals a lot with financial lead types so this is a little surprising to me.  People searching for a payday loan, new car, debt help and other finanicial assistance I would have thought would have more people looking versus the “travel”?  Are people traveling these days and trying to find deals still?  Maybe it is time to promote our vacation offer.

DMNews offers some helpful suggestions on maintaining your pay per click campaign (PPC) on a strict budget.
1.  Distribute your efforts- Utilize all search engines for advertising, not just Google
2.  Use Negative keywords
4.  Choose when your ads are “live” wisely
5.  Geo target
6.  Analyze your reports regularly

When starting out not everyone has all the knowledge and money to do advertising effectively.  Therefore, researching and trying to listen to other expert’s advice is probably the best way to roll out a new PPC campaign.  Many publishers I deal with at Leadpile Lead Exchange have an ability to have a large ROI, but not if they are not running their PPC campaign effectively.  No matter what network you are doing lead generation in, utilize the search engines reporting AND your affiliate manager to help you fine turn the pay per click campaign.  REMEMBER:  A successfull PPC is also beneficial to the network you are doing lead generation with.  Therfore, it is in the best interest of both sides to make the PPC campaign work effectively.

Thank you to all the affiliates that stopped by our Meet Market booth on Sunday!  We look forward to working with some of you in the near future.  Overall the Affiliate Summit was great turnout.   The only challenge I saw was the need for some more meeting rooms.  Meeting with current or potential new clients is one main reason for attending the summit, and I have to say finding a room to meet in was sometimes a little more difficult.  The other thing I noticed was that Vegas was just not Vegas.  The streets were more vacant and the casinos were certainly filled with less people.  Has the economy hit Vegas????? Overall a great show!  Thanks Affiliate Summit staff.

According to emarketer.com, 2009 is going to be the year of spending advertising dollars on online video.

US marketers responded on how they plan to spend their 2009 online marketing budgets.

Of the people surveyed, here is who plans on spending their budgets on what:

1.  Online video  (66.8%)

2.  Social media   (41.6%)

3.  Search    (34.1%)

4.  Podcasts/webcasts (32%)

5.  Rich media  (30.5%)

6.  Banner ads   (22.8%)

7.  Mobile  (17.4%)

8.  Other   (6.8%)

This shows that more than two-thirds of respondents said they would focus their budgets on online video in 2009. According to the article, “eMarketer estimates that spending on online video advertising will grow to $4.6 billion in 2013, representing a more than sevenfold increase from the $587 million spent on the format in 2008.”  Therefore, if you are not planning on doing any online video with your marketing campaigns, you might want to at least entertain the idea.  Leadpile Lead exchange is utilizing online video to educate the public on Leadpile. Take a look in YouTube and see for yourself. How will you try and utilize online video to help promote your company?  Time to start thinking about that.

After reading some recent advice from some DMNews contributors, I thought I would pass along these suggestions on how to maybe maximize your lead generation efforts.  One suggests providing feedback on the leads to the publishers/companies where you get the leads from. Publishers then can use this information to try and alter the traffic so conversions increase.  Good feedback and bad feedback is always helpful to the lead generation company providing the leads.
Another suggests keeping landing page information short, and try and minimize the information that is asked of the consumers. Others suggest making webinars as simple of a sign up process as possible.  This all kinda correlates together in the fact that the more “simple” things are for companies and the consumers they are trying to capture, creates more success.  One suggestion I would recommend is utilizing your affiliate manager/account manager for information.  They work with campaigns all day long and can probably offer some information that will also help to make your lead generation campaigns a success.  If you have no way of speaking with a live person, then that could make it very difficult to get that extra help.  Find a company that has “live” people to help answer all your questions.

Leadpile Lead Exchange, and I am sure a lot of other lead generation companies, are always looking for ways to improve.  Having a successful experience with us on the advertiser/buyer and publisher/seller side is also our goal.  Simplicity of landing pages and buyer feedback on leads are just a few things we also agree are very important to the success of our marketplace.  Got any any suggestions for a successful lead generation campaign?