E-mail marketing is becoming increasingly complex and costly. Spam’s negative implications affect consumer perception of commercial e-mail and reduce response rates. To better protect consumer privacy, new U.S. and European legislation restricts data use. Anti-spam measures are multiplying. All of these erect extra hurdles for the reputable marketer.
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Despite these facts, e-mail remains more cost-effective than traditional print mailings. It continues to attract spending. Jupiter Research (a Jupitermedia Corp. division) expects U.S. permission-based e-mail marketing to almost triple in size, from $2 billion in 2003 to $6 billion by 2008.
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At the heart of this activity is the gathering or procurement of e-mail addresses to target. Unscrupulous businesses harvest e-mail addresses in whatever way they can, then indiscriminately mass-broadcast unsolicited messages. Legitimate marketers, looking to achieve maximum response while maintaining a good reputation, must ensure they have documented consent from interested consumers prior to approaching them.
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The best chance of getting a response to commercial e-mail messages is sender recognition. To build recognition, first develop in-house prospect pools to communicate with. Implement a list-building strategy whereby prospects, driven to touch points via advertising and promotions, are actively encouraged to provide contact details and consent to future communications.
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If you don’t have an adequate in-house list but want to quickly grow one, third-party lists of e-mail addresses are available through providers and aggregators, such as Buongiorno Vitaminic, eCircle, and Experian. Marketers can buy or rent a number of targets based on certain selection criteria.
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Remember to be highly selective in what you buy. Seek quality over quantity to maximize open rates, help improve campaign efficiency, and protect your brand from potential negative responses. Ensure third-party lists satisfy a number of criteria, as outlined below.
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List Quality
Ensure list selections and subscriber groups are carefully profiled and segmented so the target audience can be closely matched. Consumers are most responsive to content relevant to their interests and desires. Make sure lists are freshly collected; lists atrophy quickly and always require updating.
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Opt-In/Opt-Out Procedure
Ask to see the related Web site and registration page to understand the consumer’s journey. Registration wording should be clear and explicit, data use policies clearly stipulated, and consumers shouldn’t be misguided when consenting to third-party communications. Consumers should be able to set personal preferences. Understand how unsubscribe requests are managed. If the data supplier can’t provide this information, and supply suitable verification and contractual warranties and indemnities, don’t rent the data.
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Cost and Volume
Try small, quality lists before progressing to larger samples. Negotiate price on volume, incorporating test mailings. Ask for case study examples of likely response rates and return on investment (ROI) through different approaches. Understand what’s included in the price to more accurately calculate ROI.
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Be wary of large file sizes. If the file is significantly larger than you expected, question the seller. Use selections to further hone in on your target audience.
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List Contact
Make sure receptivity to marketing communications hasn’t been detrimentally affected by over-mailing. Ask to see the content of previous correspondence. Better yet, sign up yourself, to understand how to differentiate your communication. Know who used the list previously. Negotiating exclusivity guarantees the same list isn’t made available to a competitor for a set period.
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Broadcast and Tracking
To better the chance of acceptance, list owners should deliver messages on the advertiser’s behalf through host mailings. Ensure the platform is adequately capable of dealing with campaign.
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Technical Details
Make sure resources are available to handle e-mail content and assets, and manage deliverability and bounce-back issues as they arise.
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For more guidance and list rental best practices, contact your local Direct Marketers Association (DMA) branch or the Federation of Direction Marketing (FEDMA) List Council in Europe.

By Julian Smith

Should you become a Google Advertising Professional or part of the Overture Ambassador program?
Let’s examine the very different ways in which Google and Overture have chosen to support the third-party professionals who make macro and micro decisions for thousands of advertisers. Third-party professionals, search engine marketers/optimizers, and agencies are critical channels for the pay-per-click (PPC) engines, just as agencies are critical to broadcasters and publishers.

If you’re looking for ways to demonstrate you have search engine marketing (SEM) expertise and you don’t yet have a reputation, all the more reason to consider joining one of the engine’s support programs. Your clients will feel more comfortable knowing you participate in the major search engines’ programs for professionals and agencies.

Google’s Individual Focus
Google Advertising Professionals recognizes many marketers don’t directly buy or manage their search campaigns. Even smaller marketers seek out professionals to manage campaigns. Unlike Overture’s Ambassador Program, Google’s program is more focused on individuals, not agencies or SEM companies.

To become a Google Advertising Professional, you must agree to adhere to rules as part of the sign-up process. You must also have used and maintained an AdWords account in the My Client Center for 90 days and spent $1,000 on accounts during that period. A mere $334 per month is quite a small budget, particularly when several clients are aggregated together. Finally, you must pass an online AdWords knowledge test. There’s a $50 fee for the exam. Don’t’ fail your test more than twice. If you do, you’ll not only have to pay $50 each time but have to wait a month to take the test again. As an aside, at deadline a bug prohibited AdWords account logins from registering if the same login is also used for AdSense. Google’s client services team can intervene to facilitate registration.

Google has also addressed multiple-staff-member certification for agencies. According to Salar Kamangar, a product manager at Google:

We recognize that at some companies, multiple people will manage AdWords accounts through the same corporate My Client Centre Account. In these instances, we expect that employees will share a My Client Centre account. Each individual represented as a Qualified Google Advertising Professional does need to take the proficiency exam. These individuals can register for the exam using the same My Client Center login ID and a different name.

Google’s My Client Centre is essentially the traditional AdWords interface but allows a single login to multiple accounts. Reporting is still at a client/login level. From the My Client Centre, you can add new clients to the centralized login with their login and password information. Once clients are added, campaign management is expedited.

Overture: More Service, More Spend
Overture also recently announced changes to its support program for professionals who help buy and manage campaigns. Previously, search engine marketers/optimizers participated in the Overture Ambassador program. Now, agencies are included as the lines blur between interactive agencies and search engine marketers/optimizers.

A key element of Google’s and Overture’s initiatives is the training programs. Overture Ambassador training and certification is geared to companies, not individuals. Google’s training is online only, with no additional human support.

Of course, companies comprise individuals, and both search engines know the value of empowering the individuals working on client accounts with information. As with traditional media, the more the media buyers and marketing staff know about available options, the more likely they are to increase budgets.

Overture requires a much larger agency-spending commitment for the high level of dedicated support that comes with being an Ambassador. If you or your agency manages over $20,000 per month in spending for several clients, Overture’s program may be for you.

The Ambassador program provides your agency with a rep, along with access to information and technology. The agency must commit to having your team stay up to date with what’s new in Overture’s systems.

Google and Overture don’t restrict their training initiatives to these or other internal programs. Both companies are active at industry trade shows, and both are generous Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization (SEMPO) supporters. That group also provides training and information about SEM and search engine optimization.

Other engines are also joining the fray by providing training online and off-. Rick Szatkowski, FindWhat’s senior VP/general manager, indicated the FindWhat team is considering rolling out additional support specifically for SEM professionals. Training in best practices, including the ins and outs of each provider’s system, is essential for marketing staff and agency professionals alike.

By Kevin Lee

Last Thursday, MSN announced the official beta launch of their search engine. Although a preview had been available on their sandbox site, the launch marked the official unveiling of the company’s proprietary search technology to the general public.
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What are your feelings about MSN’s new search engine? Are you impressed, or disappointed?
From major publications like The New York Times, NPR, and thousands of blogs, it seemed everyone had a comment concerning MSN Search’s launch. As with most releases of this size and coverage, responses varied. However, a quick browse of some of the SEO forums finds the opinion on MSN Search generally positive.
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The search engine audience’s response to MSN Search was also quick. On WebProWorld, a thread discussing the launch was filled with positives. Long time poster Greeneagle said, “I am impressed! - They seem to have worked out some serious bugs (referring to the sandbox version)!??? while BStone shared this experience, “They are very responsive to feedback. I sent feedback about my site not being listed and a few hours later the bot deep scanned my site and it was listed the next day. Very impressive.”
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On the WebmasterWorld forum, their MSN Search thread was spilt in two with 29 pages of responses. These reactions slid up and down the barometer with comments like “MSN’s results are junk” to others defending the relevancy of MSN Search’s results. One such defence came from a poster name Dvduval, who said, “I am very pleased with the results on the new search engine. One nice thing I have observed is there is a good assortment of both newer sites and older sites in the SERPS, while Google seems to be too weighted toward older sites.”
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However, as observed by Ownerrim there may be a potential issue with some aspects of MSN: “The Microsoft SE is not particularly adept at excluding link schemes. In one niche area, I saw one fellow’s sites, on the same subject matter; appear on the first four pages of the SERPs. And the content on nearly every one of these sites is nearly identical. If this is the best that MS can do, Google doesn’t have to worry. MS can run as many butterfly commercials as they want–hype doesn’t replace results.”
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Owner’s comment about the repetitive site’s content may have been explained by Nacho Hernandez on the SearchEngineWatch forum’s thread concerning MSN’s launch. In responding to a post made about content being king in MSN’s eyes, Nacho said, “Words of wisdom. It seems that MSN Search (beta) is exactly what it loves the most, because the pages you pointed out (along with other examples I have tested) demonstrate that.
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One of the more humorous “reactions” actually came from chief MSN competitor Google. On the day of MSN Search’s launch, Google announced the newly increased size of their search index. Google’s boast of over 8 billion pages eclipsed MSN’s expected 5 billion strong index.
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One area of concern among some users was the appearance of MSN’s search results page. To some, the ads were a bit distracting. This was noticeable in Pleeker’s post at WMW, who commented on differentiating between results and ads, “Note to MSN Search Team: those are not “web results,” and they’re not the first listings your algorithm found in the index. Those are paid ads. The opaque “SPONSORED SITES” off to the far right isn’t noticeable enough, and it’s disingenuous to list those under the “Web Results” heading.” While poster Skipfactor is a little more direct; “…ditch the Yahoo ad scheme of ads nauseam: top, right, and bottom is just too cluttered. Do what the leader does when you’re behind in the race.” This is referring to the method in which Google displays their ads.
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A great deal of reaction in all forums had to do with where a person was ranked compared to their ranking on another search engines; those that had high rankings generally like MSN’s results, while those that did not rank well didn’t seem too impressed. However, most seem to welcome another, highly visible, search engine, if only because it will increase competition.

Chris Richardson