When You Make Your Own Ads

We've spent a lot of time over here talking about the ways that mass market publications are trying to react to losing their mass market audiences, but we haven't had much to say about how you can go from yelling in a crowded room to talking face to face.

While AdSymetrix has been designed to help you make better advertising purchasing decisions, it's also been designed to help you make better use of personal connections.

One way that this can work is through the use of fliers, handbills or business cards. AdSymetrix gives you the tools you need to keep track of the responses you get from any of these more personal ways of connecting with potential customers.

Next time you place a print order, Tag Your Ad and watch as AdSymetrix tracks and monitors the responses. You'll be able to see which business cards are finding the most new customers, what fliers are attracting the most attention and what new ways of connecting with customers are working for your business.

When You Can't Interrupt Them, Join Them

Nissan is looking at a new way to integrate their marketing message into entertainment, placing their products inside video games. Starting with the launch of the new Forza Motorsport 2 game for XBox, people who buy the game at Circuit City, Best Buy or Game Spot will be able to get a free set of add-ons that allow them to download a tricked out Nissan Sentra into the game.

These kinds of extras again show how advertisers are desperate to get the attention of an audience that may possibly become interested enough to buy their products. The inclusion of marketer-sponsored areas within video games is a logical extension of product placement, albeit one that has some built in measurements.

Placing your products inside someone else's entertainment can be risky. What happens if the car you download always loses, or the game becomes less fun because of your product. The question that has yet to be answered is whether this kind of marketing brings new customers into Nissan dealerships, or whether it's just another game to be played.

When you're looking to do something new with your advertising, bring AdSymetrix along for the ride. AdSymetrix has been developed to give you the information that lets you make better marketing decisions. Simply Tag Your Ad and let AdSymetrix track and monitor your responses. Know what works and what is just wasting your money.

The Oncoming Rush of Online Advertising

With Yahoo replacing its CEO today, there's lots of talk about the ways that company makes money.

Arguably, the most important part of Yahoo's business plan is the way that it utilizes online advertising to make their bucks.

Today's Wall Street Journal looks at ways that marketers are using online advertising to hit just the target audiences they want and a fraction of the cost. The shift is important.

Moving from traditional advertising vehicles to more innovative ones allows for greater targeting and more flexible creative messaging. As technology advances, say with a certain pocket phone / computer, the ability to reach people using online means grows far larger than your ability to touch them using traditional mass media. Targeting geographically as well as demographically and psychographically will not only be necessary but made easier by the opportunities presented by online advertising.

And the best way to know what works is to use AdSymetrix. Simply Tag Your Ad and let AdSymetrix track and monitor your responses. Finally you'll know what works and how to make the best buying decisions for your advertising budget.

Sign up now, it's free

The End of Advertising As We Know It!

OK, so maybe things aren't quite as dreary as the headline says, but as more and more people splinter away from mass-market entertainment advertisers are looking at new ways to get prospective customers' attention.

The Washington Post front's today with a story about how the 30-Second Commercial may not be long for this world. With the advent of TiVo's and other time-shifting devices, not only do audiences no longer need to keep their ears open during bathroom/snack breaks while the commercials are on, but they can pause and fast-forward and miss the messages entirely. Now, advertisers are finding that the highly targeted advertising markets opened by online advertising are showing more potential for generating new business than the shotgun approach that mass-market marketing ever offered.

So without a need for a two and two break and with tighter targeting of audience desires, marketers may soon see the day when viral video surpasses television commercials.

Of course, the best way for you to know when you need to pull the plug on any of your advertising is with the help of AdSymetrix. Simply Tag Your Ad and let AdSymetrix track and monitor your responses, giving you the information you need to make advertising decisions that not only save you money, but generate new business.

AdSymetrix, sign up now, it's free.

Giveaways that Give Back

You've seen them before, silly tsochkes, corporate swag, seemingly useless client giveaways that somehow you never seem to throw away.

Giveaways can be a good way to continue your relationship with your customers during the time when they aren't thinking about your products or service.

Two new ideas popped up online recently that deserve a bit of attention, Reactee and QIGO.

Reactee is the more traditional of the two new ideas. Using the online interface, you can create a t-shirt that gives a text messaging address. Anyone who sees the shirt can then send a message to the texting address and make contact with your organization. The idea takes logo-wearing to a whole new level.

QIGO uses a different approach. Their idea is to build off of the Staples Easy Button and give your potential customers USB key chains that when plugged into a computer allows for one button access to any website anywhere.

They're nifty ideas, and a step further out than just slapping your logo on some gift bags.

Nicely, AdSymetrix can help you understand just how effective any of these methods are for bringing new business to your business. The contact information given through both Reactee and QIGO can be Tracked and Monitored through AdSymetrix. Simply Tag Your Ads - in this case, your t-shirts and key chains - and watch as the responses roll in.

Give AdSymetrix a try, sign up is free.

Brand Building - Non-Response Advertising

Advertising should yield measurable results. Everything else in your life does, from your miles per gallon to the calories in your afternoon snack, why shouldn't your advertising?

For the most part, advertising that includes some sort of 'call to action' on the part of the viewer is great for your business. Place a "Call Now" next to a phone number and you'll be one step closer to actually getting that viewer to call you. And AdSymetrix has been designed specifically to help you understand the relationship between your ads and the responses they generate.

But you can put more in your next advertising campaign than just a giant phone number. You can integrate your call to action with something a bit less tangible, your brand.

It's been a while since we mentioned it here, but Brand Strategy is an important part of your marketing mix. Your company's brand is its personality. It's the thing people think about when they think about your company. Not just how they use your products or services, but how they feel about your business and why they trust you with their money.

One of the smartest people in branding is a guy named David Aaker. Harvard Business Review has made available a pamphlet online that shows how some companies have reached out to their customers in ways that expressed the companies' brands while still getting those all-important responses.

Growing your business is tough work. You need to keep your eye on all the ways that your potential customers see you. AdSymetrix has been designed to help. Simply Tag Your Ad and let AdSymetrix track and monitor the responses. And in one simple to understand webpage you can see just how your advertising is working.

Give it a try, Signup is Free.

What to Worry About When Advertising Online

As if online advertising weren't difficult enough to deal with on its own, here's a whole new set of worries to contemplate.

Click fraud, Keyword Spamming and False Advertising, or so says this article from Entrepreneur Magazine.

The legal issues surrounding online advertising are still being defined. The more you know about your ads, the more protection you'll have. And alongside the legal questions are the core-business questions of how well your dollars are being spent. That side of the equation is where we come in.

AdSymetrix makes understanding your advertising easy. Simply Tag Your Ad and let AdSymetrix track and monitor your responses. At least that way you'll know where you money is going.

What the Big Boys in Online Advertising are Thinking.

You buy your music online, you reserve a table for dinner online, you probably even get directions to dinner, why not advertise online?

In the past few weeks, major players in the online advertising field have been gobbled up by even more major players in the online services field. Google, Yahoo and Microsoft have absorbed Doubleclick, Right Media and aQuantive respectively.

What's all this mean for the advertiser? The Wall Street Journal sat down for a few answers with David Moore, the chairman and CEO of 24/7 Media, an online advertising company that was itself recently purchased by WPP Group.

While the advertising landscape changes, remember that the best way for you to know how to spend your advertising dollar is to measure the value of every ad you place. And the easiest way to do that measurement is by using AdSymetrix. Simply Tag Your Ad and let AdSymetrix track and monitor the responses.

We're gearing up for a new beta test right now, stop by and give AdSymetrix a try.

About Our Name

As we're busily working behind the scenes to build out our next version of AdSymetrix - in preparation for next month's beta test (sign up for it while we're on your mind) - it could be a good time to talk a bit about our name.

AdSymetrix is an interesting word. Its one that we made up to, we hope, convey not only our brand but also our function. In part, we're talking about creating a system to understand the metrics of advertising. Our hope is that by using AdSymetrix, your business will have a better understanding of how your advertising works. You'll know who's visiting your websites, calling your phones and responding to your email messages.

The other part of the name AdSymetrix, has to do with the idea of asymmetrical information. Think about buying an ad in a newspaper. The newspaper knows how much that ad is worth to them based on the amount of space in their pages, the amount of subscribers that they have on any given day and the cost of caring for the sale of the ad. You just know that you need to reach a certain demographic and hope that this location will do the trick.

The newspaper salesperson has more information than you about any space in their paper. They may have a position that typically doesn't sell well, and that may not work as well as some others. That information is kept close to their vest. They don't want you to have any way to determine what locations inside their pages are better than others. This knowledge is an example of asymmetric information. They know more than you about something you're trying to buy.

And that's how AdSymetrix helps. We offer the opportunity to tip the scale in your direction. Using our tools to track and monitor your advertising, you can sit down with the salesperson and know how any position in their publication works. You can hold close to your vest the results of your last advertisements and strike a better deal for any of their properties.

AdSymetrix lets you hold the upper hand when placing your ads, giving you the asymmetrical advantage.

So stop by AdSymetrix and sign up to become a part of our upcoming beta test and know what advertising is best for your business.

Searching for Where They're Searching From

One of the first places advertisers think to buy ads online is their favorite search engine. And sure, using some of the Search Engine Optimization tools, refining your campaigns to take advantage of searching browsers is very helpful. But when it comes to generating new online leads, the smart business owner needs to do more than just upload a set of meta-tags.

Some online advertisers use company sponsored blogs to generate content that drives hits. Some scour comments pages of other blogs placing their URLs everywhere they can. Some even create 'viral' videos and place them on social networking sites as a way to get a bit more traffic.

AdSymetrix is the tool your business needs to use to determine what works and how your new efforts affect your business. Simply Tag Your Ad or in this case, your original content, and let AdSymetrix track and monitor your responses. That way you're doing more than reading blogs, you're generating business.

The Value of Website Statistics

Usually, when visiting Download Squad, you're apt to find a link to a new version of a program, or a helpful hint using a piece of your computer you rarely think about, or maybe just something that will kill a few precious productive minutes. But if you've visited the site lately, you may have found this article about the value of web statistics for small business.

In a way, the amazing amount of information that you can retrieve on your website's visitors makes the case for why any business could use AdSymetrix. When someone visits your website, the server can know where they're coming from, what time of day they're visiting, how long they're hanging out at your site, where else they've been recently and how many times they've checked you out. The potential data goes so deep that it's easy to get a bit frustrated with the relatively paltry amount of information you can get from print or broadcast advertisements.

So while you can work to continually focus the message on your website to reflect that perfect equation for converting interested visitors into ongoing sales, what tools can you use to make the best use out of the rest of your marketing portfolio?

AdSymetrix is here to help. Tag Your Ad and let AdSymetrix track and monitor the responses to any advertisement you place anywhere. Use our tools to refine and focus your messages so that everything you put out into the world is as action oriented as your website.

Microsoft, Late to The Table, Still Very Hungry

In the past few weeks, we've watched as Google's eaten up Doubleclick and Yahoo's dined on Right Media, it's only fitting that the other 800 ton gorilla in the tech world look to get a seat at the buffet. Microsoft announced today their deal to purchase aQuantive, a marketing company that not only owns advertising networks, but also creative agencies.

The purchase not only quiets some of the recent talk that Yahoo may merge with Microsoft, but shifts the model that's surrounded most of these deals. Now search engine companies - the new publishers that present advertising to the widest audiences available - are buying more than just advertising networks, their buying creative companies too.

And with large creative companies folding into advertising networks, the ability for your company to make independent decisions about the creative and targeting of your messages may be lessened. The only way to protect that ability is to know as much as you can about what works for your ad campaigns.

AdSymetrix is here to help. Use our system and know who, how and and where your responses are coming from. Simply Tag Your Ad and let AdSymetrix track and monitor the responses.

So that when you're asked about your next ad buy, you'll know more than where you want to place your ad, you'll know why.

Googling Your Business to the Top

Being smart in the 21st century is less about what you know and more about knowing how to find the information you need.

And thus is the crux of Google's amazing success. They've become the first place many people go to find the information that they need.

Knowing this, you can utilize pieces of the Google toolbox to build interest in your business. Business week starts you down that road with its article, How To Scale Mt. Google. Their idea is that if you learn the Google system, you'll be able to exploit it to your business's benefit.

Experimenting with advertising is important. Trying new things lets you grow and expand your business in new ways. But for every new effort you make, make sure that you have a way to measure that new effort's effectiveness. AdSymetrix has been designed to help you with just that problem. When you've decided on a new way to advertise, Tag Your Ad and let AdSymetrix track and monitor the responses. You'll get better information and be able to make better decisions.

Branding and Entertainment - A Way To Combat Shrinking Audiences

It seems to be a common problem: How can advertisers get their messages to an audience that increasingly doesn't want to be bothered with an ad?

Everywhere you look, there's a new solution popping up. I could be through cross cultural education at the hands of a large broadcast network, or it could come in the guise of doctored Diggs or even by way of pay for play Blog entries. The problem keeps showing itself, and it leaves many advertisers cold.

One other way to battle the shrinking audience is to change the way you view advertising. Using entertainment and branding to get people to think of your product when they're involved in something else. You'll see this as product placement in movies and television, or as co-branded games on your cell phone or even as the star of whatever you happen to be watching.

Removing the separation of advertisement and content can be helpful, but the only way to gage the effectiveness of this way of advertising is through the kind of testing that AdSymetrix can provide.

Simply Tag Your Ad and let AdSymetrix track and monitor the responses. Knowing whether people react to your message is as important as getting that message in front of them in the first place.

The Fun of Social Media

Recently, BrandWeek fronted a story about how Marketers are warming up to Social Media. The article talks about how the new new medium of social networks - like MySpace, Facebook and Friendster are opening up new means for connecting with potential customers.

There's some validity in exploring this new way of marketing. But if you're going to experiment, at least make sure that you've got a way to measure the effectiveness of the message. AdSymetrix is here to help.

Whenever you're set to try out a new way of reaching your audience, use Tag Your Ad with AdSymetrix and use our online tools to track and monitor your repsonses.

Give us a try, signup is free.