http://centuryinteractive.com/ Marketing Intelligence Wed, 10 Mar 2010 06:59:01 GMT http://centuryinteractive.com/marketing-blog.cfm?entry=56 One of our partners has rolled out a great new service that combines our call measurement technology with his consulting / coaching expertise. <a href="http://www.phoneupninjas.com" target="_blank" title="Phone-Up Ninjas"><u>Phone-Up Ninjas</u></a> was founded by Jerry Thibeau, who has been involved in the automotive industry for nearly 25 years. He's offering a full range of training services to help car dealerships handle phone calls and sales opportunities more effectively. <br /><br /> One of the common refrains we hear from busy dealerships is, "I wish our guys had the time to listen to every call that comes in or goes out of our dealership." Jerry has developed a really cool solution that takes the responsibility off of the dealership staff. The Phone-Up Ninjas team hand-selects calls that offer good teaching opportunities, and then Jerry splices himself into the recordings of these conversations. Check out <a href="http://www.phoneupninjas.com/members/review.php?coachingid=125" target="_blank" title="phone call training"><u>this example of an online coaching session</u></a>. <br /><br /> <img src="images/blog/phoneupninjas.jpg" width="413" height="297" border="1" alt="Dealership phone call training" /> <br /><br /> There are two main things I like about this approach. (1) It's really cool to see someone building a mash-up with our services. I believe there are tons of opportunities that are just waiting for the right people to come along and incorporate this new technology into an existing expertise. Jerry has really nailed this. (2) Most managers will acknowledge that their dealerships could do a better job of communicating with prospects. Sales consulting has always been viewed as an expensive and time-consuming burden, and GMs are skeptical that the lessons will "stick" once the coach has left the building. Jerry's approach is the perfect counter to all of these objections. Wed, 17 Feb 2010 03:25:42 GMT http://centuryinteractive.com/marketing-blog.cfm?entry=56 http://centuryinteractive.com/marketing-blog.cfm?entry=55 David Mihm started an interesting conversation about <a href="http://searchengineland.com/be-wary-of-call-tracking-numbers-in-local-search-26895" title="Search Engine Land">the pros & cons of using call measurement numbers on an advertiser's website</a>, ultimately suggesting that maybe <a href="http://gesterling.wordpress.com/2009/10/30/mihm-responds-on-call-tracking/">the advantages aren't worth the risk of jeopardizing the advertiser's organic search rankings</a>. This is a valid concern, but a properly-constructed dynamic website tracking number will not have any negative affects on a company's Local Search rankings. The javascript will know to make itself invisible when a search bot is crawling through, the advertiser's anchor phone number will be recognized by the machines, and life goes on. <br /><br /> How an advertiser chooses to display his contact information is a far more important topic. Since we've witnessed (and measured, of course) every approach imaginable when it comes to showing a phone number on a website, we're ready to come down from this digital Mount Sinai and share the following commandments. <br /><br /> <img src="../images/blog/moses.jpg" alt="Commandments" width="300" height="371" border="1" /> <br /><br /> <b>1. You Shall Properly Choose Between a Toll Free and a Local Phone Number</b> <li>This is a simple choice. If your business is looking to attract out-of-market callers, use a toll-free number. Examples: car dealer, pet supply company, resort hotel. If you're trying to attract local customers to your local business, use a local phone number. If you're not sure which category you fall under, then just pick one and don't worry about it. Most people are calling you from their cell phones anyway and don't care what your number is.</li> <br /><br /> <b>2. Remember That No One Knows What Number You've Been Using for the Past __ Years</b> <li>We've heard people say, "Everyone in town knows my number. I don't want to use something new on my website because it'll confuse people." My response to that is, "What are the last 5 businesses you've called? From memory, what are their phone numbers?" No one ever knows. I don't even know my own phone number, much less Paul's Plumbing.</li> <br /><br /> <b>3.You Shall Not List Multiple Phone Numbers for Multiple Departments</b> <li>It's a lot easier to contact a business when there's only one choice to dial. We've worked with plenty of companies who listed multiple numbers, and they tried every trick possible to get people to call the right number. It never worked; inevitably callers dialed the first number listed (or the biggest font). If you don't have an operator to answer and route calls that come in to a single phone number, then use a bridge greeting to efficiently route callers. We've studied these results exhaustively, and we're very confident about recommending this approach to our clients.</li> <br /><br /> <b>4. You Shall Not Use a Vanity Phone Number on a Website</b> <li>Vanities (phone numbers that spell words) should only be used for ads that allow a short window of exposure to the viewer. I'll begrudgingly admit that vanities can be helpful during 15 second TV ads, billboards and radio commercials. That's it, though. If your message isn't going to be yanked away from the viewer, don't force the caller to spell out your phone number.</li> <br /><br /> <b>5. A Website Shall Display a Prominent Phone Number at the Top of Every Page</b> <li>If your website's primary goal is to generate a phone call, then don't make the visitor search for your number. Best Practice is an 18 point heavyweight font in the top right corner of each page. Besides being easy to find, this placement also conveys the message that you actually <i>want</i> the visitor to pick up the phone and talk to you.</li> <br /><br /> <b>6. Fear the Consequences of a Phone Number Embedded in an Image</b> <li>The alternative idea would be Love Thy HTML. If you stick your phone number inside a graphic file, you're causing two main problems. First of all, guys like me can't access the number to do a dynamic replacement with a tracking phone number. Secondly (and more importantly), the search engine machines can't read your business's phone number. All they see is the image file, but they're unable to parse out the phone number listed as part of the picture. As the search engines become increasingly more intelligent about discovering a company's contact information, you'd be needlessly penalizing yourself by making your phone number invisible to non-humans. Display the phone number in basic HTML.</li> <br /><br /> <b>6.5. You Shall Not Settle For Simply Displaying the Phone Number in Basic HTML</b> <li>As an extension to Commandment Number Six, you should ask your web designer to provide intuitive labels around your phone number in the HTML code. Enclose the phone number within a span tag (<a href="http://www.w3schools.com/tags/tag_span.asp" target="_blank" title="What is a span tag?">what is a span tag?</a>), and then give the element a label like "phone-number." This will allow tracking programs to interact with your phone number without messing up videos or other scripts on your site. It will also help the search engines get the lay of the land as they crawl through your site (are you picking up a theme here?).</li> <br /><br /> We'll continue to update this list as other ideas emerge and get measured. <br /><br /> (image from Joey deVilla's tremendous <a href="http://www.globalnerdy.com/2007/07/18/laws-of-software-development/">Global Nerdy</a> blog) Thu, 29 Oct 2009 04:19:20 GMT http://centuryinteractive.com/marketing-blog.cfm?entry=55 http://centuryinteractive.com/marketing-blog.cfm?entry=53 A few months ago Wired told the story of Jorge Hirsch and his frustration with the way academic papers (and their authors) are valued. Link: <a href="http://www.wired.com/culture/geekipedia/magazine/17-06/mf_impactfactor" target="_blank"><u>The Genius Index: One Scientist's Crusade to Rewrite Reputation Rules</u></a>. <br /><br /> It's definitely a worthwhile read, but my main reason for tracking down the article was a conversation we had with a publisher the other day. Like Hirsch, the publisher was frustrated because he's getting shortchanged by conventional methods of assigning credit. His banner ads are creating a brand experience for his advertisers, but the advertisers are judging the value based solely on click-through rates and direct responses. <br /><br /> Consider this example that we recently used to remind car dealers about the importance of continuing their marketing efforts beyond just Google. <br /><br /> <img src="../images/blog/billboard.jpg" width="544" height="324" border="1" alt="Honda billboard" /> <ul> <li> <b>Is This Billboard the Greatest Ad Ever Designed?</b> <br /><br /> It would be odd to hear the dealership's marketing director say, "That billboard outside of our entrance is the last piece of advertising that people see before entering our dealership. Therefore it should receive credit for every person who walks in." <br /><br /> Strangely enough, this is how most businesses evaluate their website traffic. Here's an example: a potential car buyer discovers a vehicle on AutoTrader.com. He notices the car is being offered by XYZ Honda. Since XYZ has been popping up on a lot of the searches he's been running, the buyer goes to Google and searches for XYZ Honda in Phoenix. As soon as he hits the home page, he calls the first phone number he sees, asks if his preferred car is still on the lot, and then makes an appointment for a test drive. <br /><br /> Who should get credit for that phone call: AutoTrader.com or Google? Most marketers are giving all of the credit to Google. Alert marketers are recognizing that both sources should receive a share of the credit. </li> </ul> We still don't have the perfect solution for measuring the impact of branding efforts, but I know we're making progress. Just as Jorge Hirsch has struggled to get the academic community to recognize the flaws in the current ranking and measurement system, our first step is to help advertisers understand that a more holistic view is needed. Smart marketers should no longer limit their efforts to direct response platforms. Then our next challenge is to team up with the publishers and show them why. Tue, 06 Oct 2009 15:50:55 GMT http://centuryinteractive.com/marketing-blog.cfm?entry=53 http://centuryinteractive.com/marketing-blog.cfm?entry=54 <img src="../images/blog/help-wanted.jpg" width="510" height="310" border="1" alt="Help Wanted!" /> <br /><br /> We're creating a new position, but we don't know what to call it. In fact, we still haven't even nailed down exactly what the position will entail. But I can say with confidence that this is the perfect opportunity for a dynamic person who wants to roll up his / her sleeves and make a meaningful contribution to a rapidly growing company. <br /><br /> <b>The Position</b> <br /><br /> For 21 years, we've been a quiet wholesale provider of marketing analytics software. Our partners love us, and we appreciate all of the new relationships we've built as a result of referrals. There are a lot of interesting companies we'd like to be working with, so it's finally time to introduce ourselves to the world. How are we going to do this? That's for you to decide. Here are some initial ideas we've come up with: <ul> <li>Engage with bloggers and industry thought leaders to share our vision for marketing's future</li> <li>Organize our internal marketing efforts to ensure we're telling the right stories</li> <li>Represent our company as an evangelist for Marketing Intelligence</li> <li>Analyze trends and shifts in the marketing industry so our product can stay ahead of the curve</li> <li>Develop and implement a Public Relations strategy</li> </ul> You will be regularly meeting with the other leaders at our company (Operations, Product Development, Business Development) to help form a cogent vision of where we're headed and the best way to get there. This isn't a job that can be done properly in a private office with the door closed (which is a good thing, since our office is just one big open space). <br /><br /> <b>The Ideal Candidate</b> <br /><br /> There is no list of required experiences for this position. We're certainly impressed when we come across someone who has attended a great school or held important positions at related companies. But we're more interested in the actual lessons that were learned along the way. We're looking for an All Star, and we believe the key ingredients are (1) enthusiasm and a strong sense of initiative, (2) an eagerness to learn, and (3) broad intelligence. <br /><br /> This is going to be a very important position for our company, so we're taking this search very seriously. We're not sleepwalking through the motion of filling a meaningless spot with an ordinary person who just needs a job. Likewise, I hope you'll extend some effort on your introduction to us. Tell us about specific experiences that showcase the three traits listed above, and talk about why you feel prepared for a role that combines marketing, operations, technology management and visionary thinking. We're anxious to read anything you're willing to share. <br /><br /> <b>The Next Step</b> <br /><br /> Please reach out to me via email (rw@centuryinteractive.com) and let me know that you're interested. If we both agree that you might be a good fit, I'll follow up with some additional questions. Then we'll bring the finalists to Dallas to meet with Konrad, Jennifer, Marcus, me and the rest of the team. <br /><br /> <b>Details</b> <br /><br /> <ul> <li>Full-time position</li> <li>Based out of our office in Dallas, TX</li> <li>Competitive pay</li> <li>Start date is flexible</li> <li>Light travel (probably twice per quarter max)</li> <li>Inquiries will be kept confidential</li> </ul> Fri, 02 Oct 2009 16:17:24 GMT http://centuryinteractive.com/marketing-blog.cfm?entry=54 http://centuryinteractive.com/marketing-blog.cfm?entry=52 Our automotive users spend a ton of money on Google AdWords and other pay-per-click platforms, so we've been introduced to some great new partners who manage these ads for the dealers. Our hope, of course, is that the Search Engine Marketers will use our conversion data to improve the budget allocation process for our shared clients. <br /><br /> <img src="../images/blog/dealer-marketing-magazine.jpg" width="255" height="157" border="0" alt="Dealer Marketing Magazine" /> <br /><br /> This is nearly a year old, but I recently found a great post on Dealer Marketing Magazine's website. Michael Sweigart gives the <a href="http://www.dealermarketing.com/component/content/article/1373/1373.html" target="_blank"><u>Top Ten Ways to Waste Your Automotive Search Engine Marketing Budget</u></a>. (Don't you love it when the title saves you from having to provide further explanation on the article's topic?) <br /><br /> One item in particular jumped out at me: <ul> <li> <b>Mistake #4: Ignoring analytic reports and focus on traffic</b> <br /> Ninety percent bounce rates on pay-per-click ads mean that 90 percent of your customers leave almost immediately. If you are not looking at analytic reports then you are spending money on the wrong keywords, ads, sites, etc. It is unthinkable that anyone would ignore such great, free data. With a good analysis you can buy more good words and fewer bad words. </li> </ul> I agree with the larger point being made, but we're seeing lots of evidence that disproves that first sentence about bounce rates. Keyword terms like "acura oil change" and "nissan pathfinder parts" don't always lead to long website sessions. If the visitor hits the home page and decides the dealership looks legit, it's common for a phone call to immediately come from the first landing page. Even though a typical analytics package will tell you this type of visit "bounced" and had no value, a phone call is often times the dealer's ultimate goal for a website lead. <br /><br /> The opposite scenario also plays out. A generic term like "trucks" (which Sweigart warns about) might generate long website sessions, but this is to be expected of an early-stage researcher who uses a broad term. If the dealer is overly-reliant upon a standard analytics package, those visits might appear more attractive than they should because of the long engagements. <br /><br /> Thanks to Dealer Marketing Magazine for an informative article. We'll keep working on our side to provide tools that help dealers and other search marketers avoid these common mistakes. Wed, 16 Sep 2009 08:51:30 GMT http://centuryinteractive.com/marketing-blog.cfm?entry=52 http://centuryinteractive.com/marketing-blog.cfm?entry=51 During our time at the SES Conference in San Jose, the guys from <a href="http://www.seo-pr.com" target="_blank"><u>SEO-PR</u></a> caught up with Jennifer to discuss some of our services. <br /><br /> <object width="560" height="340"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/ZjgA-IE906w&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/ZjgA-IE906w&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="560" height="340"></embed></object> <br /><br /> Mon, 31 Aug 2009 14:31:04 GMT http://centuryinteractive.com/marketing-blog.cfm?entry=51 http://centuryinteractive.com/marketing-blog.cfm?entry=50 We're excited to have a presence at this year's big search engine marketing conference. If you're going to be at the show, please stop by and shoot darts with us for a few minutes. Make sure you pick up your t-shirt. <br /><br /> <a href="http://www.stupidsem.com"><img src="images/blog/im-with-stupid.jpg" width="400" height="250" border="1" alt="StupidSEM.com" /></a> <br /><br /> We're asking professional search marketers if they're stupid. It seems harsh, but it provided a good excuse for handing out I'm With Stupid t-shirts. Even if you're not going to be at the conference, I hope you'll take a minute to go through the quiz we've prepared: Are You a Stupid Search Engine Marketer? <br /><br /> <a href="http://www.stupidsem.com" title="Take the quiz!">StupidSEM.com</a> Fri, 07 Aug 2009 15:20:09 GMT http://centuryinteractive.com/marketing-blog.cfm?entry=50 http://centuryinteractive.com/marketing-blog.cfm?entry=49 According to Aristotle, "the soul never thinks without a picture." I could talk all day long about anecdotal evidence of more and more calls coming from advertisers' websites and online efforts. This chart tells a better story. <br /><br /> <img src="images/blog/media-type-chart.jpg" width="229" height="219" border="0" alt="Calls by media type" /> <br /><br /> I went through the data of 200 car dealerships and broke down calls from the past 60 days based on media type. Anything that contained the words Internet, Web, Website or Online appears in that top bar. I did similar groupings for other media types (ex: TV, Television, commercial, etc. became "TV"). The Internet category represented about 10% of the numbers that these advertisers are tracking in our system. As you can see from the chart, they're generating a lot more than 10% of the call traffic. It looks like I have several empty lines at the bottom, but those are actually holding bars that are too small to even be seen. <br /><br /> I don't mean to imply that non-Internet sources are ineffective. There are countless factors to consider, such as the number of callers who went to the dealership's website to get the phone number after seeing a TV ad. I was just surprised by how lopsided this chart actually turned out. Tue, 28 Jul 2009 01:14:00 GMT http://centuryinteractive.com/marketing-blog.cfm?entry=49 http://centuryinteractive.com/marketing-blog.cfm?entry=48 In its simplest forms, advertising can be split into two camps: <br /><br /> 1. Directional Marketing <ul> <li>Targeted toward people who have expressed a buying interest <li>Typically consists of media like search engine marketing, Yellow Pages, and direct mail <li>Goal is to elicit a direct response from the consumer (phone call, coupon redemption, click-through, etc.) </ul> 2. Above the Line / Influencing / Brand Awareness Marketing <ul> <li>Broad in scope <li>Educate people who aren't necessarily looking for you right that second <li>Typically conducted via TV / Radio / Print / Online display ads <li>Goal is to be top of mind when it's time for the consumer to make a Buy decision </ul> <img src="images/blog/directional-marketing-vs-branding.jpg" width="535" height="193" border="0" alt="Google search results - Britney endorsing Pepsi" /> <br /><br /> We're in the business of measuring the advertising dollars that are spent on Directional Marketing. Because of the direct response nature of these ads, it's easy for us to quantify the results and help advertisers draw decisive conclusions about whether or not a particular campaign was successful. The challenge has always been to relate the dollars spent on Above the Line advertising to conversions that occur down the road. <br /><br /> In tough economic conditions, it's common to see local advertisers (plumbers, gate repair shops, caterers, lawyers) shift their budgets away from branding and focus more on Directional Marketing. We're seeing the effect of this approach: when operating in a vacuum, direct response media suddenly doesn't grade out quite as effectively as it did when it was accompanied by brand marketing. This is a frustrating concession for me to make, seeing as how we (Century Interactive) want advertisers to think of every ad as a measurable exercise that can be reduced to a black-and-white ROI figure. <br /><br /> Google provides an interesting case study as a publisher who's playing both sides. For years, they sold the story of search marketing as the ultimate Directional Marketing platform. <i>If you're a wedding planner, what better place to show your ad than to someone searching for the term "Dallas wedding planner"? Even better, you'll only have to pay if / when the searcher decides to take action and click on your ad.</i> <br /><br /> After rolling out the Google Content Network and then acquiring DoubleClick, Google decided that maybe Brand Awareness advertising isn't such a useless thing. The sales reps now tout the benefits of coupling display campaigns alongside search marketing. This sounded like fluff until we began examining the results that trickled in from some split tests. Sure enough, advertisers who were investing in display advertising got higher click-through rates on the search marketing / direct response side. <br /><br /> <img src="images/blog/display-ad-car-dealers.jpg" width="416" height="453" border="1" alt="Are car dealers getting a Free Ride from display ads?" /> <br /><br /> Consider these three trends: <ol> <li>Most advertisers are cutting back their spending on Above the Line campaigns.</li> <li>The amount of content on the Web continues to grow at an increasing rate.</li> <li>In terms of media consumption, people are fleeing TV / radio / newspaper to spend a larger percentage of their time online.</li> </ol> For advertisers who understand the importance of Brand Awareness, all three of these trends are hugely favorable. There are fewer companies competing for an increasing pool of advertising inventory, which will be seen by a larger audience. Throw in the ability to measure and prove the ROI on a combined approach of display and search marketing, and this seems like an easy decision. I'll close with a Seth Godin quote that's relevant for advertisers who are trying to determine if they have room in their budgets for Brand Awareness campaigns. <br /><br /> <i>How often do you hear the marketing person say, "that's a neat idea, but we don't have the budget this year"? Shouldn't she say, "We have an unlimited budget for ads that work."?</i> Sat, 06 Jun 2009 22:16:12 GMT http://centuryinteractive.com/marketing-blog.cfm?entry=48 http://centuryinteractive.com/marketing-blog.cfm?entry=47 You may know Bethany as our on-the-ball Operations guru who oversees all of the telephone numbers we manage. We know her as a diligent, driven, talented, focused and hard-working teammate. She put all of those qualities to good use in recent months as she trained for a Triathlon. <br /><br /> <img src="images/blog/bethany-triathlon-action.jpg" width="273" height="206" border="1" alt="Bethany on the course" /> <br /><br /> This wasn't just any Triathlon; it was the Capital of Texas Memorial Day Tri, which consists of a 1 mile swim, a 25 mile bike ride, and a 6 mile run. As if those distances aren't challenging enough, the race is done through hilly Austin in the heat of late May. <br /><br /> So how did she do? Not surprisingly, Bethany kicked butt. Despite having to change a flat tire in the middle of the race (!), she still finished with a great time. Along the way, she also raised over $2,500 for the SPCA of Texas. <br /><br /> <img src="images/blog/bethany-triathlon.jpg" width="417" height="297" border="1" alt="Pep rally" /> <br /><br /> - Century Interactive Pep Rally the day before Bethany left for Austin Wed, 27 May 2009 05:00:00 GMT http://centuryinteractive.com/marketing-blog.cfm?entry=47 http://centuryinteractive.com/marketing-blog.cfm?entry=44 <b>The Position</b> <br /><br /> YOU are an expert at communicating important ideas to a variety of audiences. You will take the innovative marketing services that our team creates and then work with our partners to put these services into practice. <br /><br /> One day you'll be creating an eye-catching display ad to promote our company in a trade publication, and the next day you'll be flying to Canada to help a partner close a big deal. One hour you'll be sharing new ideas with our developers about how we can make our platform more useful for search engine marketers. The next hour you'll be leading a web presentation to train the 20 members of a partner's sale force. <br /><br /> This is a full-time, on-site position. <br /><br /> <img src="../images/blog/office-space.jpg" alt="Office Space" width="566" height="234" border="1" /> <br /><br /> <b>The Opportunity</b> <br /><br /> We are a growing company with ambitious goals. We've been doing things our own way since 1988, and our tight-knit team has been carefully constructed to keep us ahead of the game. If you're obsessed with things like organizational charts and bureaucratic mazes, this isn't going to be the right place for you. If you're afraid of taking big risks, then this environment might be a bit overwhelming for you. <br /><br /> Are you still reading? Good, let's turn the tables and talk about what you *are*... <br /><br /> If people tell you that you're a great speaker and a better listener, we want to meet you. If you read marketing blogs and books in your spare time because you're genuinely fascinated with everything that's going on right now, we're ready to appreciate your passion. If you're a self-starter who covets freedom and takes pride in the results you produce, then we need you on our team. <br /><br /> <b>The Company</b> <br /><br /> Remember those old <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tafMZsKJONk" target="_blank"><u>BASF commercials</u></a>? We're like the BASF of advertising and marketing. We don't make the ads you see...we make the ads you see *better*. <br /><br /> So what exactly does that mean? Here's an example: a big national advertiser is going to run $1 million worth of marketing across search engines and direct mail. Our partner company is managing the whole thing and uses our tools to maximize the spend. We're measuring every component of the campaign to determine which phrases convert at the highest rates, how the different waves should be timed, whether the postcard should feature a smiling kid or a comforting grandmother, what time of day the advertiser should double-staff its call center, what message the agents should be delivering when they answer the phone...you get the point. <br /><br /> In this example, you would be working with our partner to make sure they're getting maximum value from our services. You'd help them understand the results and convey the right message to the advertiser. <br /><br /> <b>Still Interested?</b> <br /><br /> We think our company is special, and we're flattered that you want to learn more. Please email us (<a href="mailto:jennifer.whaley@centuryinteractive.com"><u>Jennifer.Whaley@centuryinteractive.com</u></a>) and tell us about YOU. Rather than copying the same cover letter and resume you sent everyone else, we hope you'll be bold enough to tell us what really makes you tick. We want to hear about an experience when you took the reins and delivered a Big Win. It doesn't matter if you were a waiter, a marketing intern, a volleyball player or the leader of a Fortune 500 company when this experience took place. We want to see the real YOU. Sat, 07 Mar 2009 18:45:00 GMT http://centuryinteractive.com/marketing-blog.cfm?entry=44 http://centuryinteractive.com/marketing-blog.cfm?entry=45 <b>The Position</b> <br /><br /> YOU eat, breathe and sleep code. When you're thinking through cause-and-effect situations in real life, you imagine <cfif> tags. When you ride elevators, you mentally draft the conditional code that keeps all of the cars coordinated. You've sat on the floor of Barnes & Noble and read an entire programming book in one session. <br /><br /> You will handle most of the day-to-day development and maintenance of our platforms. This will require interaction with all types of people: developers at our partner companies, support team members, advertising managers, and of course other programmers at our company. <br /><br /> <b>The Opportunity</b> <br /><br /> This is an awesome opportunity for the right kind of person. This position will combine a cooperative team environment with the challenge of autonomously owning a project from start to finish. We're constantly looking for new ways to improve the product we deliver to our partners, so you'll be expected to spend 15% to 20% of your time exploring off-the-wall ideas that may or may not ever make it out of the lab. <br /><br /> <img src="../images/blog/honey-i-shrunk-the-kids.jpg" alt="Honey I Shrunk the Kids" width="480" height="326" border="1" /> <br /><br /> <b>What You Know</b> <ul> <li>ColdFusion</li> <li>SQL</li> <li>Javascript</li> <li>CSS</li> </ul> Yep, that's it. And we don't even expect you to be an expert at all of those. We're more interested in what you're willing to learn. If a project requires you to master a new technology, can you jump in and figure it out? Some of the coolest stuff we've produced was the result of our willingness to try new things. <br /><br /> <b>Still Interested?</b> <br /><br /> Please email us (<a href="mailto:reid.wakefield@centuryinteractive.com"><u>Reid.Wakefield@centuryinteractive.com</u></a>) and tell us about a coding project you're particularly proud of. We want to hear about the initial plans, the inevitable challenges that came up along the way, and some of the creative ideas which led to a final product that exceeded all expectations. Fri, 13 Feb 2009 12:45:00 GMT http://centuryinteractive.com/marketing-blog.cfm?entry=45 http://centuryinteractive.com/marketing-blog.cfm?entry=43 I've been catching up on some reading and finally got to some posts from the Karl Ribas Search Marketing Blog. One particular entry caught my attention because he covers a topic that's been at the top of our list for the past few days: last-touch analytics. I actually hadn't heard that phrase prior to Karl's post, but it's a good description. <br /><br /> Forgive the extra long quote, but Karl does a great job of explaining <a href="http://blog.karlribas.com/2008/08/are-your-campaigns-stealing-roi-from.htm" target="_blank"><u>the fallacy of Last Touch Analytics</u></a>. <ul> <li>Did you know that most analytics programs currently offer what is referred to as the "last-touch" method to tracking - meaning that whichever marketing channel "tags" the visitor last before he or she makes a purchase is ultimately going to get full credit for that sale? That's a problem, and a huge one at that. <br /><br /> For instance, let's say that a person, wishing to research the differences between several brand-name MP3 players, had placed a search on Google for the term "mp3 players". This person stumbles across your highly ranked organic listing, clicks through, reviews your products and pricing, and then moves on to yet another store for additional research. After a week of researching website after website, the person decides to purchase an 8GB Apple iPod Touch from your store - and why not... your products are competitively priced, right? There is only one problem... the buyer had forgotten the exact spelling of your web address, and so in order to re-find your store he or she placed a search on Yahoo! for your company's name. The buyer sees your paid ad, clicks through, and buys an iPod. <br /><br /> Under this scenario, any analytics program using the "last-touch" method for tracking conversions has just awarded 100% of the sale to your Yahoo! PPC campaign, while it's quite obvious that your Google SEO campaign is well deserving of some, if not all, credit. </li> </ul> We've noticed some clear trends across the car dealership websites that use our online / offline tracking program. (1) Visitor sessions that don't result in phone calls typically have double the number of page visits than sessions that become phone calls or chats. This tells us that a lot of visitors do heavy research without actually calling. (2) Visitor sessions that come from either a direct domain type-in or a dealership name search result in first page phone calls at a much higher rate than any other referring source patterns. And when we look at those visitors' IP addresses (obviously an inexact science), the original visit usually came from a less focused search term. This is consistent with Karl's example from above. The visitors who end up calling often (usually?) arrive with that specific intention. <br /><br /> <div style="width:100%; text-align: center"><img src="../images/blog/roi-theft.jpg" border="1" /></div> <br /><br /> Of course this all seems a bit familiar. When we first got into call measurement about 7 years ago, Yellow Pages was the bad guy stealing ROI from other publishers. The TV and radio managers claimed that their medium produced brand awareness, and the phone book was simply the tool that consumers used to complete the cycle. The Yellow Pages were claiming full responsibility for the resulting leads and pointing to the call measurement results as proof that advertisers should spend *all* of their budget on the phone book and ditch other media. <br /><br /> So what's the solution? How can we help our users make the associations between the original referring source / keywords and the last touch that leads to the conversion? We're going to explore some new approaches in the coming months, but I don't know at this point what the right balance will be. My initial hypothesis is that we'll still want to give the last touch a fair share of the credit. Even if the vanity keyword term wasn't responsible for the original visit, the conversion might not have been completed without it. Just as it's unfair to give the last touch all of the credit, we also don't want to swing the other way and only acknowledge the initial source. Thu, 22 Jan 2009 03:38:00 GMT http://centuryinteractive.com/marketing-blog.cfm?entry=43 http://centuryinteractive.com/marketing-blog.cfm?entry=42 <a href="http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=109&STORY=/www/story/12-16-2008/0004942851&EDATE=" title="PR News Wire">Microsoft Surveys 400 Small Business Owners</a> <br /><br /> <img src="../images/blog/microsoft-adcenter.jpg" alt="Microsoft adCenter" /> <br /><br /> The survey revealed that small business owners don't like self-serve models for online advertising. 70% of the respondents said they would rather prepare a tax return than try to setup a search marketing campaign. The survey points out what the market has already learned: <a href="call_measurement_blog.cfm?entry=36" title="The Paradox of Selling Local Online Advertising">small businesses are being introduced to online marketing by the local sales reps (Yellow Pages, newspaper, radio, etc.) who already own the relationship</a>. Tue, 16 Dec 2008 19:56:23 GMT http://centuryinteractive.com/marketing-blog.cfm?entry=42 http://centuryinteractive.com/marketing-blog.cfm?entry=41 <a href="call_measurement_blog.cfm?entry=36" title="The Paradox of Selling Local Online Advertising">Original post</a> <br /><br /> <img src="../images/blog/metro_directories_boomdash.jpg" alt="Metro Directories" /> <br /><br /> <a href="http://www.businesswire.com/portal/site/home/permalink/?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20081125005232&newsLang=en" title="Business Wire">It's happening</a> <br /><br /> Metro's Paul Hamilton has an interesting quote, "<i>We needed an affordable way to bring this portfolio of capabilities to our advertisers to effectively compete against incumbents and pure play Internet companies calling on our customers.</i>" Read that last part again. Metro Directories is an innovative group that knows where the local markets are headed. They've recognized that their customers are going to get this service from somebody, so it makes sense to empower Metro's sales force to fill that need. Mon, 01 Dec 2008 18:40:21 GMT http://centuryinteractive.com/marketing-blog.cfm?entry=41 http://centuryinteractive.com/marketing-blog.cfm?entry=40 We've always been proactive in going after spam / robot calls. The problem seems to have gotten worse in the past few months (not just call measurement lines - I've noticed a lot of junk calls on my cell phone and work line as well). We're rolling out a couple of new features that will go a long way toward fixing the problem. <br /><br /> <img src="../images/blog/spam-calls.jpg" alt="Century Interactive releases new spam call blocker" /> <ul> <li>Spam calls will be removed from reports</li> <br /><br /> <li>Area codes / exchanges that have been identified as spammers will be strategically filtered, so customers won't have to deal with nuisance phone calls.</li> </ul> We recognize there's a thin line between Effective and Overprotective, so our top priority is ensuring that customers don't miss a single legitimate call. The initial rounds of testing have validated our mission of fixing the spam problem without disrupting any real traffic. Wed, 26 Nov 2008 15:15:18 GMT http://centuryinteractive.com/marketing-blog.cfm?entry=40 http://centuryinteractive.com/marketing-blog.cfm?entry=39 <a href="call_measurement_blog.cfm?entry=36" title="The Paradox of Selling Local Online Advertising">Original post</a> <br /><br /> <img src="../images/blog/american_classifieds.jpg" alt="American Classifieds" /> <br /><br /> <a href="http://localonliner.com/2008/10/24/american-classifieds-webvisible-seeks-to-upsell-advertisers/" title="Local Onliner">It's happening</a> <br /><br /> This certainly isn't a bad idea for American Classifieds because it'll keep the sales team engaged with their advertisers. I just can't think of a similar situation where industries incidentally funded their greatest competition. Sat, 25 Oct 2008 12:30:04 GMT http://centuryinteractive.com/marketing-blog.cfm?entry=39 http://centuryinteractive.com/marketing-blog.cfm?entry=38 John Guhn, BDC Director (Business Development Center) at <a href="http://www.texastoyota.com" target="_blank">Texas Toyota</a>, recently congratulated his sales team for a successful sales blitz after they surpassed his goal of 20,000 outbound phone calls for the month of July. Texas Toyota has been one of our top users of outbound call measurement since the day we debuted the service in early 2006. We asked John to tell us about their incredible month: <br /><br /> "Everything in our industry can be broken down to numbers: Demo percentage, Commitment percentage, Be-Back numbers, closing percentage, etc. Its all a numbers game and making outbound phone calls is no different. <br /><br /> Weve had Call Measurement in our store now for about two years, but we only reopened our BDC on June 3rd. At the end of June our owner made a remark about how we had never hit 20,000 CTI calls (an outbound call thats picked up and lasts a minimum 45 seconds) in a month. After looking at our outbound calls and figuring out how many it took to generate a shown appointment (varied from 39 to 47 calls) as well as how many shown appointments it took to close a sale (at the time, 2 shown appointments usually equaled a sale) I decided to challenge the sales staff in July to hit 20,000. <br /><br /> "To keep the momentum going, everyone was on a daily schedule of at least one call per hour in the BCD. The results for the entire sales force and management staff were posted every morning so they could see how they did compared to their fellow salespeople. They also came up with several different spiffs during the month to keep the team motivated." <br /><br /> "As they got close to the end of the month, it became obvious that they were going to hit the 20,000 with almost two days left. Instead of telling everyone they were going to hit the number early, signs were posted in the new and used car desk offices and the BDC saying, <b>20,000 by close of business July 31</b>. I kept telling everyone we had a shot at hitting an all time record. Everyone seemed to get so motivated about hitting it that they stayed focused on dialing and setting appointments. When the number reached 19,828 at 11:34AM on Wednesday July 30, I changed the poster to <b>21,000 CTI Calls by Close of Business July 31</b>." <br /><br /> I kept telling everyone we were close to 20,000 and I thought with a little extra push we had a real chance at 21,000. By the time everyone quit dialing around 9:15PM on the 31st we had done 21,575 calls for the month. Oh, by the way, at the end of the month we averaged 40.6 CTI calls per shown appointment with a 47% closing rate for 249 sold appointments! <br /><br /> Before Century Interactive's Outbound Call Measurement service, there was no way to track our appointment setting process or our outbound call efforts. And there certainly was no way to set any meaningful goals that we could easily track. It's invaluable to instantly see an updated accounting of how many outbound calls are made every half hour, as well as being able to listen to the calls. We use these recordings for training purposes and to contact the customer back ASAP when we didnt secure a phone number or if we completely blew a presentation. <br /><br /> "Whats interesting is, like the first sub-4 minute mile that Roger Bannister ran in 1954, breaking 20,000 doesnt seem like that big of a deal now. As of August 13, with one less work day in the month, Texas Toyota is on pace to hit 23,126 CTI calls at 43.1 calls-per-shown-appointment and a 52% close ratio. Now if we could just get our closing percentage on fresh ups to 25%, wed have it made! Thu, 14 Aug 2008 22:02:16 GMT http://centuryinteractive.com/marketing-blog.cfm?entry=38 http://centuryinteractive.com/marketing-blog.cfm?entry=37 <i>Century Interactive designs innovative telephony services and then enthusiastically supports the valued customers who use them. </i> <br /><br /> That sounds like a half-baked Corporate Mission Statement, but it's actually the motto I keep repeating as our company plans our growth strategy. There are three key elements in that statement: <br /><br /> <i>"innovative telephony services"</i> - we're separating ourselves from the pack with some of the new services and features that we've already added this year: enahnced outbound call measurement with recording, dynamic offline tracking tools for online marketing, telemarketing blockers, and more. Now we're ready to introduce real-time call analysis, virtual receptionist capabilities, personalized marketing extensions, and an expanded API library. <br /><br /> <i>"enthusiastically supports"</i> - the success we've had over the past 21 years is directly attributable to our unique approach to customer service. Rather than building a team of customer service middlemen, we allow our engineers, marketers, accountants, and executives to work directly with our clients on an ongoing basis. While this sounds great in theory, it's not a cost-efficient way to do business because it tends to tie up expensive resources. Regardless of the costs, though, we're committed to this approach and we've even decided to double-down by formally adding "customer service" to the job descriptions of every one of our employees. <br /><br /> <i>"valued customers"</i> - we've recently introduced some new tools for partners that resell Century Interactive's call measurement services. By offering a white-label invoicing program and advanced administrative tools, we're doing everything we can to help our partners expand their businesses. Obviously we have a self-interest in seeing these guys succeed, but we want to make it clear to our resellers that we're committed to our role as a wholesale partner. We're focused on empowering our partners, and the key component of our growth strategy is "Let's find a way to elevate our resellers and assist their businesses." <br /><br /> We'll be updating our centuryinteractive.com website during June and July. Beyond simply offering a new look, we're going to articulate our value proposition and introduce the new direction we think call measurement is headed. I'll use this blog to give some insight into the rationale behind some of these decisions. As always, thanks for your interest. Sat, 31 May 2008 17:21:22 GMT http://centuryinteractive.com/marketing-blog.cfm?entry=37 http://centuryinteractive.com/marketing-blog.cfm?entry=36 Peter Krasilovsky pointed out an interesting announcement from Local.com's recent earnings call on his <a href="http://localonliner.com/?p=686" target="_blank" title="Local Onliner">Local Onliner</a> blog: <ul> <li>Local.com, which has previously relied on third party sales, is going direct in a big way. The company has outsourced contracts for 50 sales people, up from 10.</li> </ul> Like other IYP offerings, Local.com packages its online service with listings for Google, Yahoo, superpages.com and other portals. This is a crazy reality, right? In the past, each publisher would send in its own sales people to sell ad space specific to their publication. A plumber in Dallas would get solicited by a rep from Dallas Morning News, then someone from the Dallas Observer, then an SBC sales guy, then someone from a local independent YP book, then the local radio station guys. Now you've got the online publishers essentially serving as <a href="http://www.buyyellow.com/started/certified.html" title="What is a CMR" target="_blank">CMRs</a> for the local advertiser. <br /><br /> <img src="../images/blog/local_package.jpg" width="443" height="203" alt="Local.com's bundled package" /> <br /><br /> This means Local.com, Marchex, Idearc, Citysearch and countless others are footing the bill for a sales force to hit the streets and sell listings for their competitors. Local.com's guy will offer Joe the Plumber a package that gets him listed on Local.com plus Google, Yahoo, SuperPages, YellowPages.com and other sites. Then Citysearch's sales team will come through a week later and try to sell the same package. <br /><br /> Who's the big winner here? It's the big guys like Google, because the local advertisers will be more inclined to buy a package from Local.com if they know it will also get them some leads from Google. In the past I hypothesized that <a href="http://blog.centuryinteractive.com/?entry=11" title="Print media's most valuable asset">Google would ultimately need to partner up with YP publishers</a> to reach micro-local advertisers (plumbers, gate repair companies, wedding planners, etc.). Now that's not the case - they're getting a free ride. <br /><br /> If I were running a small business that survived on local advertising, I'd be most interested in a relationship with someone who could get me listed on all of the right portals<!---but wasn't necessarily attached to one particular site--->. The people at Marquette Group have figured this out in a major way - they're positioning themselves as the <a href="http://mqgroup.com/internet.html" target="_blank" title="Marquette Group">unbiased experts at sorting through all of the different online marketing options</a>. Oozle Media also has the right idea - they're <a href="http://www.oozlemedia.com" target="_blank" title="Oozle Media">leveraging prior experience in YP / IYP advertising to work directly with advertisers as independent advisers and consultants</a>. <br /><br /> I'm certainly not suggesting that Local.com and other IYP publishers are wrong to sell packaged listings...to the contrary, it seems to be the best strategy. I just think it's interesting how much the ad-sales model has changed in the past few years. Fri, 22 Feb 2008 16:04:23 GMT http://centuryinteractive.com/marketing-blog.cfm?entry=36 http://centuryinteractive.com/marketing-blog.cfm?entry=35 Earlier this week I spoke with a search marketing company that wants to provide call measurement services to its customers. It's a simple concept: clicks are already being measured, but a lot of advertisers want a better understanding of the value those clicks are bringing. For companies that are still conducting the majority of their transactions over the phone, it makes sense to evaluate clicks based on the number of phone calls they generate. <br /><br /> During the discussion, the search marketing rep asked if he should assign a unique call measurement number to every unique keyword term, or if it's sufficient to just use a different number for each campaign (a campaign typically contains multiple keywords that are related. Campaign = car repair, Keywords = fix car, body shop, car wreck, collision repair, etc.). I recommended using unique call measurement numbers (whether it's a whole number or an extension from a shared number or click-to-call) for each individual keyword term. <br /><br /> <img src="../images/blog/google_measure_calls.jpg" width="278" height="198" alt="Measure individual keyword phrases on search engines"> <br /><br /> We're a fairly active advertisers on Google's AdWords program, and I put a lot of faith in their objective computers to bring us traffic. They're only getting paid when they entice someone to click on one of our sponsored ads, so I figured our goals were aligned. I even deferred to their system to create new word combinations that might benefit our company. We initially sponsored 100+ keyword terms and I never spent a lot of time studying results for the individual phrases / terms. A few months ago I was thumbing through our results and noticed that one of the top search terms bringing traffic to our site was "track my cell phone calls". We were paying about $30 a month for traffic that had no real value to our company. This wasn't a click fraud issue - those word match up closely to what we do, but someone searching for cell phone tracking isn't going to find anything useful on our website. <br /><br /> We don't really offer an online checkout system - if someone comes to our website, the ultimate goal is for the visitor to contact us (either by phone or email). Since we're now relating specific keyword terms to individual call reports, it's easy for me to see if there's a disconnect between the amount of traffic on our site and the number of calls/emails we receive. If a keyword term drives 200 new visitors to our site each month, but none of them end up calling us, I now know to adjust that specific keyword term (or in most cases, remove it from our list). Sat, 02 Feb 2008 15:40:35 GMT http://centuryinteractive.com/marketing-blog.cfm?entry=35 http://centuryinteractive.com/marketing-blog.cfm?entry=34 These are exciting times at Century Interactive. As more and more partners recognize the value of our call measurement services, we're growing quickly. Our company owes its success to referrals from existing relationships, so it's important that we maintain the highest standards for service and engineering. In order to meet these goals, we're seeking three new team members who can thrive in a fast-pace environment. <br /><br /> We're looking for an innovative <b>Customer Service Director</b> to coordinate the efforts of our customer support agents and ensure every Century Interactive partner receives committed attention. We need a <b>Business Development Associate</b> to work alongside the valued resellers / partners that are marketing our services. And we need a code-loving <b>ColdFusion Programmer</b> who can keep our callmeasurement.com platform ahead of the pack. <br /><br /> For more information on these positions, please check out our <a href="century_interactive_careers.cfm" title="Careers @ Century Interactive">Careers at Century Interactive</a> page. Sat, 12 Jan 2008 17:54:53 GMT http://centuryinteractive.com/marketing-blog.cfm?entry=34 http://centuryinteractive.com/marketing-blog.cfm?entry=33 We work with some car dealerships that have 100+ employees handling customer phone calls each day. These dealerships are utilizing a call measurement feature that's been around for awhile: phone codes. Each employee is assigned a unique four digit code, usually the last four digits of his/her social security number (easier to remember). When the employee is calling a customer or sales prospect, he starts off by entering his four digit code before dialing the telephone number. Our system then automatically associates the call with this particular employee and he gets credit for placing the call. On calls coming into the dealership, the employee stays on the line at the end of the call to enter his/her phone code. Simple, right? Here is an earlier post about <a href="http://blog.centuryinteractive.com/?entry=17" title="Tracking employee productivity">using phone codes to track employee productivity</a>. <br /><br /> For smaller companies that only have three or four different people handling the majority of calls, the value of using phone codes isn't immediately obvious. A few of our customers, however, have figured out how to take advantage of this capability in a new way. Instead of applying unique phone codes to each employee, they are assign codes to different call results that need to take place. Here is a simple example of possible codes a company can utilize for classifying calls: <ul> <li>0001 - successful sale</li> <li>0002 - call requires follow-up attention</li> <li>0003 - research call, no action taken</li> <li>0004 - non relevant call</li> </ul> Since our call measurement system is now capturing the information, it can then be tied back into call reports. The company's manager already knew she could run a report showing which ad sources produced the most calls, but now she can also see which ad sources are producing the most calls that result in successful sales. If she's tracking calls generated from the company's website, she can now see which keyword terms generated the <i>right</i> kind of calls. <br /><br /> <img src="../images/blog/label_phone_calls.jpg" width="415" height="330" border="1" alt="Label your phone calls for greater clarity" /> <br /><br /> Additionally, processes can be setup to automatically notify team members whenever a certain code is entered. In this example, the company might want to alert its customer service agent any time a code of 0002 is entered at the conclusion of a call. By appending calls with subjective data, users can enhance the value of their call measurement services. Tue, 08 Jan 2008 21:26:25 GMT http://centuryinteractive.com/marketing-blog.cfm?entry=33 http://centuryinteractive.com/marketing-blog.cfm?entry=32 New Call Solutions is a valuable partner of our company. Ryan Pitz and his team do a great job of <a href="http://www.newcallsolutions.com" target="_blank" title="New Call Solutions"><u>introducing call measurement services to entrepreneurs and small business managers</u></a>. <br /><br /> <img src="../images/blog/ncs.jpg" border="1" alt="New Call Solutions" /> <br /><br /> Recently, Ryan participated in an interview with Ari Galper, a well-known <a href="http://www.unlockthegame.com" target="_blank" title="Ari Galper's Unlock the Game">sales trainer and creator of Unlock the Game</u></a>. The discussion lasts about 20 minutes and is filled with some great insights on call measurement. (If you are unable to access the audio clip below, right-click this link and select Save Target As:  <a href="../images/blog/new_call_solutions_ari_galper.wav" title="Download interview"><u>download</u></a>) <br /><br /> <a href="../images/blog/new_call_solutions_ari_galper.wav" title="Listen to inteview"><img src="../images/blog/audio_download.jpg" width="325" height="30" border="0" alt="wav file" /></a> <br /><br /> The following topics are covered along the way: <ul> <li>the need to measure marketing efforts</li> <li>identifying ad sources before the call starts</li> <li>tracking online advertising campaigns</li> <li>reaching out to customers with the call blast service</li> <li>using call measurement to build valuable prospect lists</li> <li>how to coach successful phone habits</li> <li>over-the-phone conversions following a website visit</li> <li>the value (or lackthereof) of existing business phone numbers</li> <li>the legal ramifications of recording phone calls</li> <li>call measurement reports that are available</li> <li>using call measurement to discover your organization's weaknesses</li> <li>appending subjective data to phone calls via phone codes</li> <li>"Google Analytics of the phone world"</li> </ul> Thu, 27 Dec 2007 19:43:47 GMT http://centuryinteractive.com/marketing-blog.cfm?entry=32 http://centuryinteractive.com/marketing-blog.cfm?entry=31 It looks like the naysayers are finally losing momentum with their doomsday predictions for Yellow Pages publishers. New local search platforms (Google, Yelp, City Search, et al) came charging in and expected to kick out the stale, boring ole' Yellow Pages. Unfortunately for the new guys, they were forgetting about something important that the YP guys already mastered: <a href="http://blog.centuryinteractive.com/?entry=11" alt="Print Media's Most Valuable Asset"><u>relationships with local advertisers</u></a>. YP publishers are quickly adapting and figuring out new ways to leverage their positions as the gatekeepers to hyper-local advertisers (plumbers, restaurants, body shops, etc.). <br /><br /> Mike Boland posted some <A href="http://blog.kelseygroup.com/index.php/2007/11/28/tkg-analysts-lay-the-groundwork/" target="_blank" alt="Kelsey Group Blogs"><u>research findings</u></a> on the Kelsey Group Blogs. <ul> <li> <i> Through lots of growth in online usage as well as advertiser interest, the Yellow Pages industry cant be forgotten as the local 800 pound gorilla. <br /><br /> As weve pointed out many times, the conversation here centers on putting a higher emphasis on the sales channel as the asset needed to capture a piece of this growing online ad pie. 89 percent of online ad dollars are currently pushed by the Yellow Pages sales channel, according to (Kelsey SVP Matt) Booth. </i> </li> </ul> We're currently working on several projects with YP publishers who recognized the unique role they're able to fill. By offering up their print ad sales representatives as Local Marketing Consultants, the publishers are introducing new revenue streams while retaining key advertisers. Wed, 12 Dec 2007 21:13:07 GMT http://centuryinteractive.com/marketing-blog.cfm?entry=31