Natural Born Clickers - Your audience does not click on ads!

Coming from the iMedia Brand Summit, a few GREAT quotes that are very much in line with the theme of my blog:

If Not The Click, Then What?
“A click means nothing. A click earns no revenue and creates no brand equity. Your online advertising has some goal –and it’s surely not to generate clicks. You want people to visit your website, seek more information, purchase a product, become a lead, keep your brand top of mind, learn something new, feel differently, etc. Regardless of whether they clicked an ad or not, the key is to determine how that ad unit influenced a consumer to think, feel, or do something they wouldn’t have done otherwise.

”John Lowell, SVP Director, Research & Analytics, Starcom

"By measuring the last ad seen or clicked by a converter, they focus entirely on a brief time span at the bottom of the funnel. Evaluating only a single point of advertising contact oversimplifies the delivery and performance of any media channel"

Microsoft’s Atlas Institute

Ad-exposed non-clickers account for the vast majority of Internet users = 85% of all online users.

SEO and Social Media Measurement

Great blog post on Resource Nation related to SEO and Social Media Measurement. The concept of measuring how effective your social media is performing tied to SEO.

Links, Traffic, and Influence of the media landscape is measured in the same way that Google measures "Page Rank". Genius!

http://www.resourcenation.com/blog/make-it-your-business-to-analyze-social-performance/32440/

Technorati was an early pioneer in looking at the real time social map to understand influence. The Technorati top 100 became an iconic measurement of a blogs success, and for many years the measuring stick of influence.

Today influence is more complex, and really needs to be examined in more detail... yes in a similar way to how Google looks at Page Rank. Or in a better way, why Google will place one site over the other within a search result page. Relevance to the keyword, and relative influence to that keyword or key phrase.

This measurement is really quite standard across all media... correct? It's all about how relevant, authoritative, and influential the content is to the search query. So SEO is guide to success for all forms of media, from mainstream, marketing, to social.

Linked In IPO

Lots of chatter on the LinkedIn IPO from "is this another dot com bubble?" to "is now the right time to buy?", to "how can they support an $8 Billion valuation if they plan to lose money in 2012?".

Jeff Weiner appeared on the floor of the NY Stock Exchange this morning with CNBC, and was asked all of these questions and more. He simply said... "the market will pick the value, and we're just focused on the three core business'." They have 3 lines of business including advertising revenue, recruiter services, and subscriptions for advanced services by indv users. I think the big win for LinkedIn over time will be the recruiter services, and in-house recruiting tools they're offering to business'. With recruiter fees being very expensive, many companies are seeking lower cost, efficient tools to help them staff up.

Being a bull, I feel the economy is on its way to recovery, and thus hiring will be a huge pain point for business in 2011 - 2015. LinkedIn helps to reduce this pain point, and thus will benefit from a robust economic recovery. (even a modest one).

So, if you believe that LinkedIn is a strong investment, as I do, how do you buy. Well, hindsight will be best, but my IPO experience tells me to buy during the "quiet period", which is historically 30 days following the IPO date. Shares tend to drift downward after the first day of trading, and usually land somewhere near the strike price. (in this case $45).

So, buy LNKD @ $45 per share if you like the company.

Who Clicks, Why, and Does It Matter

Great post by Gavin O'Malley in MediaPost today....http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=149267

This is even more proof that clicks are not the intended measure of web advertising, and will likely go the way of the 468x60 banner. (Yes, I Occasionally see a random 468x60 out in the wild, and makes me chuckle a bit - I further digress to around 2002 @ SF Big party where Scott McLernon came to the front of the room with a casket for the dead ad unit size - "The Official Death of the 468x60" was declared!

Campaign measurement and performance is critical to understand the investment in ad spend. Many advertisers have become much more sophisticated and savvy with regards to understanding the impact their online advertising has for driving brand health metrics, or ROAS.

We're heading in an interesting direction here at BuzzLogic, and working to help brand advertisers to understand organic brand lift metrics within the conversational media space. Specifically, we're finding that when advertisers place media within dense conversations which are relevant, influential, and authoritative to the marketing communication strategy... we're seeing significant organic, positive lift. To me, this tells an insightful story for the brand which a click simply can't.

I'm glad to see that our organization and the industry in general is looking towards new solutions and advanced analytics that will hopefully power our industry to get off the "click-through-rate" reporting methodology.

The first step of change is simply to identify there is a problem... Love the MediaPost post this morning as it's further validation that the industry does indeed have a problem.

Munchies and Media: Delivering Insights That Matter Through Social Med...

John Donahue is a very amazing mind in media today... Having spent hundreds of hours of time discussing media targeting, analytics, and insights, it's very apparent that something special is cooking in his mind, and shown on his blog. JD aka Godzilla, nails the concepts and summarizes the struggles and opportunities that exist in targeting consumers. Many current models are indeed flawed or at the least somewhat limited in their ability to deliver context and audience. One of the key industry problems we're solving for at BuzzLogic. Here's his latest post, and some really interesting perspective to chew on a bit. Munchies and Media: Delivering Insights That Matter Through Social Med...: "My last post ended with talking about data slices that are relevant to the consumer segment you are trying to detail through some social med..."

BuzzLogic Announces New Executives

Some great news here at BuzzLogic. Today we have announced our recent appointments of Dave Hills as CEO, Peter O'Sullivan as CRO, and Seph Zdarko as COO. Very excited to be part of the team here at BuzzLogic.


BuzzLogic, an online media company that improves brand metrics through its scaleable media index and analytics platform, has appointed Dave Hills, formerly of LookSmart and 24/7 Real Media, as its Chief Executive Officer. The company also announced several promotions to its executive team, along with the addition of Jay Budzik, Ph. D. to its Board of Directors.

Hills has more than 30 years experience in the industry, including 17 years in online media. His extensive experience in online advertising, search marketing, audience and technology development, and subscription services provides Hills with a relevant, useful perspective and practical experience in all strategic and operational areas.

Before joining BuzzLogic, Hills was a General Partner with KPG Ventures, a venture capital firm specializing in seed-stage, consumer Internet technology companies. His influence has also been felt at LookSmart, Ltd (NASD - LOOK), where as President, CEO and Director he rebuilt the company’s ad network, quadrupled audience to LookSmart sites and licensed the company’s ad center to sites such as Ask.com. He also has served as President of Media Solutions for 24/7 Real Media and was COO and President of Sales for About, Inc., which owned About.com and the pay-per-click service, Sprinks. He currently sits on the board of BuzzLogic and Interclick, (NASD – ICLK).

Other appointments to the BuzzLogic executive team include Peter O'Sullivan as Chief Revenue Officer and Seph Zdarko as Chief Operating Officer. John Donahue remains Chief Technology Officer along with John Maley as Chief Financial Officer. Together, these seasoned executives bring to the company more than 50 years cumulative experience in online advertising, online publishing and digital media, as well as agency work. Their backgrounds include executive positions at Google, DoubleClick, Omnicom Media Group (OMG),Yahoo!, 24/7, Alta Vista and more.

BuzzLogic has also appointed Jay Budzik, Ph.D. to the board of directors. Dr. Budzik is Chief Technology Officer of PerfectMarket™, which helps publishers create value from their online content. He brings more than a decade of experience in unstructured information processing, product development and intellectual property management experience to his role on the BuzzLogic board.

“I’m really fortunate to have a team with the experience, drive and innovative spirit to dominate what we see as the next chapters in online marketing and media,” said Dave Hills, CEO of BuzzLogic. “Over the past year, the team has honed the company’s core assets in our media index and analytics, resulting in incredible results for an enviable list of advertisers through a differentiated view of conversations online. And we’re just getting started.”

Throughout the last year, BuzzLogic has focused its core technology assets on the question of how brands can improve brand metrics in a world where media is social and conversations exist everywhere. The company’s all-in-one technology platform combines indexing and analytics to determine which conversations are most critical to advertisers; it allows for scaleable media placements using standard ad units, and ensures the greatest ROI via optimization and reporting.

BuzzLogic can uniquely produce and place a customized, horizontal media plan across hundreds of publishers. This includes targeted placements around conversations, from points of inception all the way through to the most dense dialogues on the visible Web. The company’s proprietary tech platform utilizes indexing and ranking, versus cookies or other user targeting techniques.

About BuzzLogic

BuzzLogic’s proprietary index of content, unique analytics and scalable media capabilities enables brands to identify, impact and measure increases to their online brand persuasion. From content in the index, BuzzLogic’s analytics identify the genesis of discussions to help advertisers reach millions of potential customers with a customized media program, and understand the plan’s impact by measuring KPI’s critical to the brand.

BuzzLogic’s clientele includes HP, Wal-Mart, Toyota, HBO, Starbucks, Microsoft, American Express, MediaVest and Omnicom Media Group. BuzzLogic is headquartered in San Francisco with offices in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles. For more information, visit http://www.buzzlogic.com/.

Related Links:

Sys-Con
http://www.sys-con.com/node/1748537

BizJournal
http://wwwnew.bizjournals.com/sanjose/morning_call/2011/03/buzzlogic-names-executive-team-ceo.html

BuzzLogic
http://www.buzzlogic.com/2011/03/10/buzzlogic-appoints-dave-hills-ceo-unveils-new-executive-team/

BuzzLogic Can Help Agencies Become More Strategic

In today's ClickZ, Chris O'Hara writes about the new era of digital media agencies. Over the past several years the demands on agencies have continued to grow, along with the variety of choices for technology partnerships and media choices.

O'Hara specifically talks about BuzzLogic as it relates to agencies building better media strategies for their clients.
http://www.clickz.com/clickz/column/2025930/-agency-model

"3. Be strategic: This sounds obvious, but sometimes the definition of strategic gets lost in the weeds when it comes to digital. Sometimes, an agency feels it is being strategic when it partners with enough technology companies that offer their clients a variety of digital tactics (social, video, mobile). But having those partnerships and capabilities is far different than using them smartly and in a way that gives your shop the edge over your competition (they have access to all the same technology as you do). True strategy involves finding what works for your clients and creating repeatable processes that lead to long-term success. When your clients say they "want to do social," are you smart enough to determine whether they simply need to access the Facebook API - or are they looking to find their customers through conversational density around their products, such as BuzzLogic offers? How you offer "social" to your clients should come with a unique strategic model. (BuzzLogic makes software that scrapes the Web and looks for where people are "talking about" different products/concepts in the social sphere. Conversational density happens where there is a lot of focused conversation around a topic.)"

Here at BuzzLogic we're working hard to provide a strategic approach to our advertisers needs, enabling them to understand the conversation and activate media to help influence their audience.