Leadpile’s Blog

Many of you may be thinking that I am crazy saying that there are benefits to the H1N1 virus. Getting the flu may not be fun, but if you are are in the business of household personal care items, you could not be happier. Brands such as Johnson & Johnson have been seeing a large increase in sales on many of their germ killing products. Purell hand sanitizer, Clorox, and cold medicine are just a few of their germ products that people are reaching to. Just looking around the office I can see all three of the above products with people using them constantly. With that being said, it comes to no surprise that in October along with Johnson & Johnson saw at 10.7% sales increase. That was the larger increase among all companies in this market.
People are going to do whatever it takes to not get sick, if that means buying a bottle of hand sanitizer and disinfectant wipes a week, they are going to do it (at least until the H1N1 virus subsides). If you are a marketing there is no reason why you should not be taking full advantage of this. Especially since we are still in a “recession”, having the biggest sale increase for that market is amazing. For all you green enthusiast who do not want to get sick and do not want to hurt the environment, there is a whole line of environmental friendly disinfectant products. Whatever the case may be, it definitely pays to work with what is out there and target what people are buzzing about.

In years past YouTube tried to roll out in-stream ads (in 1997), however the acceptance of it did not go to well with viewers. Time has past and there are other sites that have incorporates such ads, so YouTube is now looking at taking another stab at it. It makes sense because YouTube is utilized by so many people in so many ways, that incorporating some sort of ads had to become part the of “YouTube Revolution”. The good thing about what YouTube is doing, is that they are creating these ads that are actually able to be skipped. However, what they are finding is that if you have a short 15 second ad, more people are not “skipping” over the ad. This is great news for the advertiser trying to get their ads played. Maybe the future of high priced Super Bowl ads will continue on from our televisions to our computers?
Leadpile has incorporated YouTube into our marketing efforts to help get our name out there, and we can certainly see a potential with bringing in ads to these videos. YouTube has to learn to make money, so what other options do they have but to look at cashing in on all the eyes they have on their videos? I think it is a good marketing idea…..

Canada is no longer an out of the way market that U.S companies do not want to do business with. Many of the hot Canadian companies are all coming together to try to sell themselves. These agencies are going to be traveling around the United States to show marketers that cities like Montreal and Quebec are the ideal new hot spot for market testing. Why is this? According to adage.com, “its language barrier prevents much outside media from seeping in, and vice versa — makes it an ideal place for U.S.-based marketers to experiment with new ideas and approaches before rolling them out to wider audiences.”
Several larger companies such as MasterCard and Mazda are way ahead of the game and have been utilizing Canada as a test market for several years now, both with great success. By testing in a smaller market with a smaller budget, marketers are able to see what works and what does not with out throwing their whole budget out the door. This also allows companies to try a more “out of the box” method.
LeadPile is a head of the game when it comes to working in Canada. Currently we are generating Canadian payday leads in Ontario. We are finding great success generating leads in Ontario and have plans to expand to some of the other Canadian markets.

It comes to no surprise that economist are saying that spending will be down this year for the holiday season and Halloween is no exception. Consumers are cutting their spending across the board this Halloween. From candy to costumes to decorations, it is predicted that consumers planning to celebrate the holiday this year will be down two percent. Even the pumpkin patches are taking a hit!
What is one market that thrives this holiday? The alcohol business, specifically Captain Morgan rum (number 2 in rum sales). Adults love Halloween just as much as the kids do and Captains realizes that. Their new slogan of, “Calling All Captains” is being pushed through several of the marketing verticals. They have made a huge push this season not only coming out with new television ads, but also three Halloween parties, and a photo content. According to Tom Herbst, Director of Marketing, “We feel like Captain Morgan sort of owns Halloween. No other brand markets as much as we do and sees the return from it…Halloween has always also had an adult component to it and when that adult component reached mainstream, we felt that this was an opportunity to jump on it and bring the unique Captain energy to it.”. This time of year is one of the busiest for the brand. With the captain always being in costume it makes sense that this is his time to shine. I am sure that there will even be many individuals who dress up as him for Halloween. So this Halloween when someone asks what you would like to drink, go for the Captain. Why you say? Because you and the Captain can make it happen.
It is amazing the effects a “captain” can have on a company’s marketing. Leadpile and all other companies I am sure wish we had a catchy mascot like the “captain” to spread our marketing message!

Have you ever received a coupon or incentive via email and then forget about it or lost track of it because you didn’t print it right away? Good news! JCPenny has selected a handful of it’s stores to test mobile coupons.
According to ONLINE MEDIA DAILY, 16 JCPenny locations installed “2D” capable scanners at registers that have the capability to read the barcode off the coupon directly from consumer’s cell phones with email capabilities. Customers can download a free application at cellfire.com/jcpenney or by texting “JCP” to 28888 from their cell phone.
JCpenny will be promoting several different incentives to test this during the holiday season. Pending the results of this trial, JCPenny will possibly expand this feature to additional stores.
“Ten million digital coupons were redeemed in the first six months of 2009, up 25% from a year ago.” For the high percentage of Blackberry and iPhone users that have their phones within reach every moment of the day, this could be potentially a great new thing! The incentive to use the coupon could be much greater given that printing, saving, and finding the coupon could be a thing of the past!

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.

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!

I don’t think there is a day that goes by where something about Twitter is not being talked about. That’s great for them, but what is it really bringing them as far as money in their pockets? It seems they are still working on long term initiatives that would help them make money off it’s popularity. However, for now they are continuing to come up with ideas that will help the current users make money. In the next few days, they will be rolling out the first phase of educational information for businesses on how they can effectively use Twitter to generate revenue for their own company (big and small). Twitter will continue to roll out educational information so they can help their users become more Twitter savvy with Tweeting. They see their site as a great tool for businesses to use to help generate revenue. Does this mean if they are going to help educate businesses on how to make money, then they must have something planned for themselves on how THEY are going to make money? I hope so!
Twitter is looking to be looked at more like a communication network, versus a social network. They have forecasted that they will have revenues of around 4 billion for the 4th quarter, but I am not sure how they will achieve that with the way the site is currently. Maybe they have something “big” up their sleeves????? Leadpile Lead Exchange uses Twitter on a limited basis, however maybe with some new tools available we could look at using it even more! Are other lead generation companies using Twitter to generate leads? I would be curious to see how affiliate marketers and other lead generation companies are utilizing this “communication network” to help their business?

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?

Is there really a good time to capture email addresses and other secure information from consumers that are visiting your website(s)? Bizreport.com thinks there is an optimal time to get the consumer to provide their email addresses, when doing their online shopping (or other online activities). So, when is an ideal time to capture this sort of information from the consumer?? The report says, “At the highest engagement level, and most times this is at the point of purchase or while consumers are beginning to shop your site. .” Why is this? Capturing this sort of information creates more customer loyalty. If you want the customers to come back to your site, or eventually react to future emails you send them, they have to trust you and the site. The report also found that since mobile marketing (SMS marketing)is so popular right now, capturing their email addresses to send them mobile updates is something a lot of consumers are open to.
These sort of rules also apply to other online experiences, such as lead generation. For instance, Leadpile captures email addresses on all it’s leads, however there are some lead types such as payday loan and auto finance where additional secure information is captured. Capturing this information at the right time is certainly key to the trust factor with the consumer submitting online requests for things such as loans.

Day in and day out I have great conversations about what a publisher thinks they should do to become an effective affiliate in the Leadpile Marketplace. Like other networks, there are certain things that any affiliate should do to become an effective affiliate marketer. The Examiner points out some good points on becoming a successful affiliate marketer.

1. Create a website
*Don’t just throw a website together and not put any thought into it. Add some creativeness and content to the website, so others can enjoy their experience too.
2. Create a website about something you enjoy
*Design your website around something you enjoy and will want to work on. If you are excited about the website then that will come through to the visitors, and they will enjoy their experience too.
3. Take the website seriously
*Unfortunately, just having a website is not enough. The website has to flow well. Putting the right type of design and content on the site will ultimately make the site attractive and EFFECTIVE.
4. Build links
*Once you have a completed website, you want to try and get ranked in the search engines. Having other sites link to your site will ultimately help with this search engine ranking, but you have to have something on your site to make others want to link to you. Once you have others linking to your site, you now have 2 ways for people to get to your site- search engine AND other sites that have linked to you. Having traffic to your site is ultimately the goal because that potentially = more $$.
5. Develop affiliate partnerships
*Monetizing your website with offers and banners is a great way to make money with your completed website. Using companies like Leadpile allows you to capture leads from your site, and then earn revenue from those leads selling. The other way is working directly with traditional affiliate networks like CJ. Do your research and find offers that will flow with the website you have created AND make you money. Once this project is working well, look at doing it all over again with additional websites to maybe run other sorts of offers. Find your niche and what you are good at doing effectively. Is it financial offers, product offers, work from home offers, or a combination of them all?
6. Track statistics of your website
*To help you determine what is working well for you on these sites, then you might want to implement some sort of tracking system. Monitoring your statistics will allow you to make necessary changes with your campaigns. Utilize various sources of traffic and see what works with the particular site. Some networks will control how you drive traffic to the site, so you will always want to find that out. Finds networks that even have their own tracking available for you so you can have that as an additional source of information. You can never have too much information to be successful in the affiliate world!
Become a Leadpile Super Affiliate………

Are you ever watching your favorite television show and some sort of advertisement comes on that really you have no interest in? I know I know a lot of us don’t really care for advertisements at all, but what if the ads that are on your t.v. are things you are potentially interested in? How about if you’re watching a show like Home Shopping Network, and you can then use your remote control, push a few buttons, and charge a purchase from your television? How about voting for your favorite reality show contestant without using your phone?
All these are things that our televisions are going to be soon allowing us to do in addition to relevant commercials. NPRNews points out, “Consumer advocates worry about marketers compromising our privacy by rummaging through our viewing habits and getting us to trade personal information for coupons.” Potentially these marketing companies will know everything you have purchased, however they will not know detail information such as your name. Is this sort of thing crossing the line on your personal t.v time? This sort of thing is already happening with the internet (behavioral targeting) and websites you are visiting (cookies), so why not with your television too? Leadpile Lead Exchange does not use cookies with our lead generation, however many affiliate marketing networks do.