Optimize & Prophesize – @jonathanmendez

  • B2B Social Networks – Yes!

    On Tuesday I was interviewed by The Denver Post for an piece on Social Networks in the B2B space. The very next day I saw this poll on where Social Networks have the greatest business opportunity from participants and attendees (mostly VCs & C-level execs) at this week’s AlwaysOn conference. I was pretty shocked at…

  • Presentation on Branding & Strategy

    SlideShare is a site I’ve used and enjoyed since it was launched. In fact, since SlideShare launched I’ve uploaded every conference presentation I’ve given. It’s also a great way to get a pulse of thoughts and opinions pertaining to many subjects, especially digital. Yesterday I came across this deck below. Take 10 minutes out of…

  • Google: Landing Page Quality & CTR

    Some interesting data last week from Efficient Frontier on Search Advertising click-thru rates (CTR). EF quantifies the disparity between CTR on contextual and search advertising (search is 31x greater). Most interesting to me however was the chart below on Search CTR. Take a look at Google. You can see there was a CTR decline on…

  • The Brand Optimization Revolution – The Metrics are Coming! The Metrics are Coming!

    A common trait I find among many “red-coat” marketers is a lack of respect for the collective intelligence of consumers. This expresses itself in many ways. One is the “we know what our users want” mindset. Another is the Boston/NY-SF/LA view that folks in Middle America are unsophisticated and stupid. These attitudes are constantly reflected…

  • Platforms, Applications and the Future of Digital Marketing

    REST APIs, Rules and Relevance In the user controlled medium that is digital advertising success is predicated on delivering relevance. Nowhere is this exemplified better than the success of search where there is a data input (rule 1) and multiple additional rules (geo and behavioral) that results in the delivery of content believed to be…

  • Why We Need Many Metrics to Answer the Same Two Questions

    One of the things that has drawn my ire recently is the shouts from agencies, media buyers and advertisers that more ad spend would come into digital if there just weren’t so many metrics and tools for gathering analytics. I have news for them. The spend is coming and nothing will stop it. Digital is…

  • Can Google Make You Notice Ads?

    128 million unique people a month use Google. 53 million uniques a month use YouTube (an amazing 92% increase since Google’s acquisition a year ago). With millions of page views a day from people across these two properties you work that to your advantage. There has been conjecture about the cross-property strategies that Google may…

  • Convenience Always Drives Online Results, Not Just at Holiday Season

    Despite lots of negative predictions online shopping increased this holiday season by 22.4% according to Visa. That follows a 26% holiday lift in 2006 and 25% increase in 2005. This rise is attributable to <a href="http://www.optimizeandprophesize.com/jonathan_mendezs_blog/2007/05/convenience_mar.html “>the convenience of online that I blogged about back in May. The holiday season amplifies this but it is…

  • Top 10 Multivariate & A/B Testing Results from 2007

    This list compiles the most counterintuitive and therefore most interesting test results from multivariate and A/B (or split) tests I was involved in over the past year. I thought that this would be more valuable, a better read and more modest than just a rank list of tests that had the highest lift in conversion…

  • 2008 Forecast: The Year of Landing Pages

    If 2007 was the year that testing and targeting grew from a baby into a toddler, 2008 will be the year that this kid starts to walk. And like so much of leading edge digital marketing practices those first steps will take place in search, namely landing pages. Most industry experts agree that fewer than…

  • Optimizing Viral Marketing

    On the face of it, viral marketing optimization (VMO) bears little resemblance to more established digital marketing practices. In retail and lead generation the basic principle to optimizing conversion is long established as driving people into the funnel and then pushing them down it. Viral Marketing turns this funnel upside down. The viral marketing end…

  • Webinar, Podcast & Speaking on Personalization, Targeting and Testing

    Over the next week I’ll be doing what seems like a quite a bit of evangelizing — hopefully it is more of a knowledge transfer than anything else. 3 Proven Approaches to Delivering Targeted Content – Webinar This is an Omniture webinar I had the pleasure of doing with Charlene Li of Forrester Research. Charlene…

  • 5 Ways Google Might Monetize Natural Search Results

    One topic you don’t hear much about is monetizing natural search engine results. Lately however, I’ve been thinking about it in regards to Google. The vast majority of search behavior (roughly 70%) is taking place on the natural links — and this pattern seems to be rather stable. I don’t anticipate most of these ideas…

  • Creating Intent in Digital Media – Part 2 & 3

    Part 1 focused on three types of digital media and cross-media and looked at what the future may hold for intent creation in each. Part 2 looks strategically at creating intent and Part 3 is a case study. Goals and Intentions For the most part, people are consistently in goal or intent (I use these…

  • Results from Facebook Ads

    On October 19th I launched my first Facebook ad campaign. The results reinforce a number of questions and concerns about the effectiveness of advertising in social media. Namely, using passive media tactics in an active media environment. Results Summary: Ok, that’s typical banner response. Here is the ad I ran. My target keywords were “advertising,”…

  • MarketingSherpa Landing Page Handbook

    MarketingSherpa’s second edition Landing Page Handbook was released last week. I’m very proud that Anne Holland thought so much of OTTO Digital/Offermatica and myself to include six case studies and some extensive quotes from yours truly. Personally, I’ve worked hard over the past few years to promote the value of landing page testing, targeting and…

  • The Antidote to Chaos – Build & Deliver

    Jeff Jarvis has a post in The Guardian that echoes two key strategic ideas I’ve been harping on the past few months. 1. Companies need to build marketing and communications platforms themselves to connect with consumers. 2. Companies need to serve themselves and advertisers better by delivering more relevance. These strategies are not mutually exclusive.…

  • iPod Touch Commercial – Democratized Creative Hits Prime Time

    In case you haven’t seen it here is the new iPod Touch commercial that was created by an 18 year old Apple fan Nick Haley from the UK, put on YouTube, discovered by Apple and is now being used for a National Television Campaign. Nick mashuped some video from apple.com, added a soundtrack and edited…

  • Creating Intent in Digital Media

    In Part 1 I will look at three types of digital media and cross-media and see what the future may hold for intent creation. Next week in Part 2 I will focus on using creative and technology in synergy to optimize intent creation. The idea of creating intent is one of the touchstones of marketing…

  • Google vs. Facebook – Who Will Know More About You?

    “The goal is to enable Google users to be able to ask the question such as ‘What shall I do tomorrow?’ and ‘What job shall I take?‘” – Eric Schmidt, Google CEO May, 2007 Never underestimate Google. After driving the price of Microsoft’s investment up with what I believe was little real intention of partnering…

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