This blog is about everything I encounter in my life - both work and private - that I consider worth sharing. My work related posts will be about online marketing and the media industry. The posts concerning my private life will focus around my interests, such as literature, music, politics and video games. I'm glad you stopped by. Enjoy the read and join the conversation.
Easy to miss: A fatal mistake on Facebook Campaigns
Facebook has, since several months, improved security settings for users. Users can define in their account settings under “security settings” that they want to have “safe browsing” enabled.
This basically means that every content delivered through Facebook will be pushed through a SSL encrypted connection.
This also applies to fanpages, which are frequently used by Facebook advertisers as landing pages for campaigns.
What advertisers also like to do is: include content from their own domains (e.g. a form field), to allow direct conversions in the Facebook frame.
The problem: If this content isn’t pulled through a SSL connection for users that have enabled secure browsing, users will see a fatal error.
The Marketing Team of World of Warcraft shows nicely, how you can blow a lot of money out of the window, by ignoring this technicality. Users with secure browsing have the following landing page.
I always enjoy “the-medium-is-the-message”-style of advertising. Jobsintown.de created this ad campaign a while ago, and while it failed to generate much traction in real life, the creatives are quite brilliant.
Was will uns bloß Ergo mit diesem Hintergrundbild auf der Anzeige für ihre Zahnersatzversicherung sagen?
Behavioral Email Marketing
Email Marketing can be beautifully relevant, if it is a push communication based on specific user behavior.
Let’s take Immonet as an example.
When you unsubscribe to any search alert regarding flats, Immonet rightfully assumed: You have found one.
The email marketing template triggered on that action is: “Let us help you find the most affordable moving company”
It’s quite clever to look into your users behavior and focus your email marketing on on-site actions that indicate certain off-site developments (e.g. “I found a flat”).
“Front end premiums” are what marketers call the inclusion of a free gift in a direct mail envelope.
It usually massively increases the first conversion - the opening of the letter, and based on the premium, with the psychological obligation that you already received something for your action (e.g. free name labels), people feel more compelled to take the desired action in return.
Attached is a strange example of a non-profit that asks you to “return the nickel”. Rightfully Reddit asks: “Why the fuck didn’t they just keep it?!
National Geographic uses a very clever twist for lead generation.
Their site is structured into thematic areas - and each article within that area functions as a landing page for lead generation.
Let’s say someone comes through reddit.com on a picture page - NG assumes that this user has an interest in photography. They therefore offer a free “field guide for photography” as a download in exchange for an opt-in and a valid email address.
This dataset is later used for subscription marketing and doesn’t only contain the users personal information, but also a first indicator on what kind of products (e.g. photography-related) would be relevant for the user.
Nicely done and an excellent example on how publishers can turn content pages into lead generation pages.
