Chris Dalrymple - blog

PPC branding in action - Northumberland Tourism

2009-04-27T19:28:00.003Z

I read this slightly cheeky article with interest recently - I'm a big fan of the Northumberland coast and it really is stunning - stunning enough, it seems for a Canadian tourist board to use it in their ad promoting Alberta:

So far, so interesting, but what's this got to do with PPC?

Well, it wasn't until a few minutes later while, inspired by the Telegraph article, I started searching for tourist attractions in Northumberland that I saw this ad for the search 'Bamburgh castle':

Funny, relevent and great branding with personality - something lots of brands could learn from.

6 Golden Rules for Corporate Twittering

2009-03-15T16:21:00.006Z

woah... Orwellian. A mention of LoveFilm makes them follow me. So... errr... Joan Holloway/MadMen... Bat for Lashes... free money! God? [link]

@NikeshShukla Sorry - we're not trying to be big brother, we just want to let people know we're here. Happy to unfollow if you want us too. [link]

As clear an illustration as is needed about the difficulties of corporate tweeting - @LoveFilm_UK have been spooking people slightly by auto-following anyone who mentions LoveFilm in a tweet.

So why are they autofollowing? Well it's the easiest way there is to get return followers, and it works - 1,100 followers for LoveFilm already. But it's clearly spooking people a little, or just plain annoying them when it's done badly or inacurately:

HA!!! I get it. Why are all the pet related companies following me? My name comes up in their when their brainless bots go-a-searching. [link]

So what are the alternatives? Well, by sending @replies to those users who have positive or negative experiences it gives them the choice to follow and LoveFilm can then follow in return. Of course that's much more difficult to automate (I suspect that's the point) and you always have to have something new to say.

There are other pitfalls too - should corporate accounts have an individuals name? Or just a brand? Is re-tweeting RSS feeds from corporate sites acceptable? (probably not if that's all you're tweeting). So, what are the golden rules..?

Reply, don't autofollow

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Think Visibility - a quick review

2009-03-09T21:52:00.005Z

As with most of the blogosphere, I thought I'd offer a quick review of Think Visibility, (probably) Leeds' only online marketing conference.

Thinking back, I think this is honestly the first internet conference I've been to outside of London, and I was very happy to make the short 4 mile trip down the road to Leeds Uni for the 9am Saturday start.

First impressions were a well organised and relaxed day, and there were some great presentations:

Rob Lee on the 'web of data'.

This was a great reminder of the principals of digital networks - focus on resources, essential services and key areas of your site and use these 'social objects' as the targets of your promotion. It's the way LinkedIn, Flickr and Twitter have become succesful - using points of aggregation to allow others to syndicate content.

Really good example of MusicBrainz and the BBC aggregating this content.

Katie Lips on mobile. [slides]

Great talk on options for mobile apps - something I'm not too familiar with truth be told. Really good overview of resources available and I found Blyk particularly interesting.

Finally, Dave N on SEO.

Entertaining as always, and the underlying frustration Dave seems to have with the majority of SEO-ers is always worth seeing! However a few good tid-bits around 'Silver Bullet' sites and the opportunities marketers should be taking within Google's SERPs, particularly as personalised search takes hold - onebox (maps, product search, image results etc) and site links all help to claim much needed real estate on results pages and in many cases are faily easy to obtain.

Overall, I was very impressed with the day - for thirty quid there was enough to rival conferences costing ten times as much. Well done The Hodge!

Mashups in action

2009-02-02T10:17:00.005Z

Ben Marsh has put together a nice mashup which shows a kind of social media weather map - #uksnow.

Twitter users can tweet '#uksnow [first-half-of-postcode] [snow-score]/10"' and the live map will update with latest snow coverage.

Great to see something become so popular so quickly (snowballed if you will? *ahem*) - I suspect it helps that us Brits as so obsessed with the weather...

More cuts in affiliate budgets

2009-01-29T15:16:00.004Z

A quicky post while I have a spare 5 mins, but it appear advertisers are reducing affiliate budgets - supporting a post I made a couple of weeks ago - Why are affiliate marketing budgets shrinking?

"The Affiliate Marketing Survey Report 2008, sponsored by R.O.EYE, shows that, compared to a year ago, merchants - on average - are investing less of their digital budget in affiliate marketing and getting a smaller proportion of their sales through this channel. Additionally, fewer merchants are reporting that affiliate activity provides them with high volume."

I'm sure the controversy over voucher code and incentive sites isn't helping - networks need to cut through any of the merchant concerns and show how strong a channel affiliate marketing can be...

My 2009 digital marketing predictions

2009-01-21T22:49:00.001Z

Now in video-y goodness.

Google Turning Off Print Ads

2009-01-21T10:22:00.000Z

I thought this was interesting.

Google's decided to shut down its service allowing advertisers to bid for newspaper space through their AdWords account.

I've always liked the concept - giving smaller advertisers access to marketing channels they otherwise find difficult to work with - but the difficulties in proving ROI surely run counter to the natural instincts of your typical AdWords user?

The TV and Radio ad services will continue, so is this just another nail in the coffin for offline newspapers? Or is this just Google's straying too far from their core business and being unable to make it work?

Two things you should know about Belgium

2009-01-19T14:05:00.007Z

1. Brussels Charleroi Airport is nowhere near Brussels - and the shuttle bus which takes an hour is €22 return.

2. Brussels South station and Brussels Midi are one and the same, and neither are anything to do with Brussels Centraal. Hilarity ensued.

Other than that a rather nice break in Amsterdam and Bruges this weekend, and I've uploaded a few photos to the moblog.

Normal bloggin service will be resumed shortly...

Think Visibility conference - cheap and northern*

2008-12-30T10:27:00.006Z

DaveN recently blogged about Think Visiblity, a new mini SEO/SEM/digital conference being held in Leeds on the 7th March which looks pretty good.

Dave himself will be speaking, as well as a few other notables, including some who spoke at the far more pricey A4U Expo this year.

My ticket's bought already and I'd recommend if fancy attending you do the same sharpish - they're only allowing 100 attendees and rumours are there are less then 30 tickets left. See you there.

_{*Well, £30 and in Leeds - see what I did there?}

Why I (almost) don't feel bad about blogging on Christmas Day

2008-12-25T16:25:00.003Z

Come on, you're all doing it. Admit it.

Affiliate marketing still low in marketers priorities

2008-12-21T19:51:00.003Z

Just read a post by Lee McCoy highlighting a report by Epsilon. It shows where marketers are (or aren't) likely to cut advertising spend if they have to and it's not good reading for affiliates.

Unsurprisingly CMOs are more likely to cut directories, radio, magazine and telemarketing which is understandable - cut spend you can't track and keep the spend you can.

However somewhat strangely (and worryingly) affiliate marketing seems to be pretty far down the list of those to keep, after Direct Mail, TV and online display.

Why cut a marketing channel which guarantees returns at a predictable rate in favour of above the line spend? I supect a few reasons come into play:

- Lack of understanding, especially in the upper echelons of marketing - affiliate marketing is still pretty unknown to a great deal of marketers, whereas SEM has managed to establish itself. I've spent many a meeting trying to explain exactly how affiliates work to exec-level marketers with mixed results.

- Belief that the sales aren't incremental - and this links to the third point, but there's still an underlying belief that these sales would have come naturally if the affiliates hadn't referred them.

- And finally, and this is the biggy, inability to de-dupe from other sales - It's the old referrer attribution issue again. Where do affiliates sit in the referrer process? Do search affiliates cannibalise SEO and PPC sales?

There's no easy solution to this - it will be helped by better technology and better awareness, but until there's more buy-in from senior markers into the channel there will always have an impact on affiliate and merchant relationships, and problems like this one.

The perils of affiliates and voucher codes

2008-12-16T20:01:00.002Z

Figleaves aren't having much luck with their affiliate campaign at the moment.

Seems that someone at figleaves HQ has decided to kill comission rates and cookie periods at very short notice after a sudden realisation that the majority of affiliates sending voucher code-wielding customers probably isn't profitable.

In this climate customers are hungry for voucher codes so merchants need to be careful that theirs don't go viral (if they don't want them to), especially after commissions, shipping and othe acquisition costs are taken out.

The most important lesson? Don't piss off your affiliates before your most important trading dates of the year. Unless that is you're planning on closing the programme altogether?...

SeaDragon on the iPhone

2008-12-15T19:32:00.004Z

Much blogged elsewhere, but what the hell, Microsoft launches SeaDragon iPhone app - the nifty tool which allows you to view gig-pixel images on any device, without biblically long load times.

And it's rather nice too - with a 3G connection it's amazingly smooth at displaying images and the all important zooming in and out. There's something very satisfying about being able to zoom so close, so quickly and it's a great fit for the iPhone's multi touch interface.

Unfortunately the browse PhotoSynth function isn't working so we have that to look forward to but hey, it's free right?

If you've not seen the original TED presentation of SeaDragon and PhotoSynth (PhotoSynth is particularly impressive), it's worth watching, and the app is free from the iTunes store:

Cdiscount.co.uk launches

2008-12-15T14:25:00.003Z

Cdiscount.co.uk launched last week after a few delays and it has the potential to cause waves in UK online retail.

Owned by the French retail giant Groupe Casino, Cdiscount was initially promising massive discounts over the likes of Amazion and DSG group.

Looking at the site, the prices seem to be comparible to other retailers (although they are offering 15% cashback), however what does stand out is the interest free credit available on the site.

Items over £75 qualify for '3discount', the option to pay in 3 installments interest free, and without a credit check. Given no other big retailer is currently offering this, and it makes a Sony Viao available for just £133.33 a month I suspect this may be a clincher for customers once it becomes more well known, especially as it seems to avoid the need for a credit check.

One to watch...

eConsultancy relaunch site

2008-12-15T13:39:00.001Z

eConsultancy have relaunched their site over the weekend, and rather spiffy it looks too.

As well as a much clearer design and layout, the site has pushed focus towards user profiles, encouraging visitors to update their account information using a 'your profile is X% complete' status on the front page - similar to that used by LinkedIn.

End result? My profile is now fully up to date, complete with dodgy picture. Works, then.

Back to the big smoke

2008-09-16T07:19:00.002Z

I'm currently sat on the 0720 from Leeds to London King's Cross on my way to The Search Sessions at Vinopolis.

In the vain hope that I might actually write up some of the notes that I'll take during the day and publish them here I thought I'd take advantage of the cripplingly slow wifi to prime the blog ready for an uncharacteristic update.

Listening to the wonderful Laura Marling and wishing I had green tea - the expolits of the weekend and two day hangover that followed have meant that green tea rather than beer is the preferred beverage.

It won't last.

Come on ad agencies, get some originality.

2008-06-04T19:48:00.003Z

Another example of ad execs not looking very far for their next idea, the brilliant Flight of the Conchords seem to have been ripped off by Coors Beer.

bears more than a little resemblance to:

But sadly it's not exactly uncommon. See Sugar Puffs vs Mighty Boosh, Pot Noodle vs Lazy Sunday and Sony vs Kozyndan.

I admit, it's always going to be difficult to come up with something genuinely new (see Copyblogger's latest post), but despite the fact that there are still some stunning , effective ads around.

The easy route is of course to borrow something cool from the internets that will appeal to the yoof market. But I'd suggest though that the longevity of something truly original will be a lot longer than something nicked off YouTube.

Internet World 2008 - random snippets

2008-05-05T20:59:00.007Z

So last week I popped down to the big smoke for Internet World, a online/media/marketing type trade show with seminars from a range of people from the BBC to Microsoft to Mozilla.

What was interesting was the general 'noob' vibe around the place (punter-wise at least). Not that I claim to be a veteran of online marketing, but there were huge crowds around the 'older' online seminars - Google University, basic SEO, PPC etc. Conversely, there seemed to be a lack of interest in the newer side - 'web 3.0' stuff like virtual worlds, in-game advertising etc.

Anyway, clientele aside, I took a few random (being the operative word - this is by no means a complete summary) snippets from the various seminars which I thought note-worthy.

> Mobile - Interesting talk from BBC Worldwide. Only 22% of UK mobile users have 3G. Google the most visited website through mobile in the UK, followed by the BBC and O2's mobile portal - simple, information driven content.

> Virtual Worlds - 80% of Internet users are expected to have virtual world self within the next 4 years (not sure of the source of that stat - slightly dubious myself). This being the way people will predominantly interact online in the future, including for ecommerce.

> Viral Marketing - Many commented on the difficulties of getting sufficient momentum for Viral. The key being the core proposition or product has to be rock solid and something the customer would ordinarily forward/talk about anyway (see the Dyson AirBlade). The value agencies then add is the delivery mechanism and 'packaging' of this idea to ensure it is passed along. 'Fun games' don't work any more and distribution costs need to be comparable to the creative costs to gain sufficient momentum.

> Presentation from Thomson.co.uk - currently the highest trafficked travel agent online. In general there is a 20% year-on-year movement from offline to online holiday transactions.

> They've made a huge investment in technology and agencies - WebCredible and FoolProof for Usability/User testing, IntelliTracker/Visual Sciences for Analytics. Lots of A/B and MultiVariate testing and a huge focus on removing obstacles to conversion. They use Tealeaf (http://tealeaf.com) for real time analysis of customer activity.

I realise this is a pretty random assortment of snippets - I might flesh it out a little more if I get chance. However the really interesting one for me was Virtual Worlds - Justin Bovington, from Rivers Run Red, Ed Bartlett from IGA and Phil Guest from Habbo Hotel did a great job of debating the ins and outs of virtual worlds, raising some interesting points along the way. I'll try to blog that fully over the next couple of weeks...

More complete write-ups can be found here and here.

This might be the geekiest thing I have ever seen.

2008-03-29T21:37:00.005Z

"Each of Mozilla's conference rooms is named after a deprecated HTML tag". Brilliant.

These noobs sure do browse funny.

2008-03-26T11:56:00.003Z

Great blog post from Cabel.name about adverts in Japan using search suggestions instead of URLs to guide people to websites.

The main reason is seems is the difficulties of using the internet with both Japanese and Latin alphabets - searching in Google means not having to switch keyboards. It also makes life easier when so many Japanese use the web via mobile.

However there's still lessons for UK marketers - a surprisingly high number of people never input URLs into the address bar: they either search for the keyword in Google, or better still search for the full URL in Google.

In fact, more people search for 'hotmail' in Google than search for 'DVD'.

The only problem is, once you've decided to publish a 'search for...' how do you make sure you always stay top?..

Sleeveface!

2008-01-24T21:20:00.000Z

The internet makes you stupid.

2008-01-24T20:25:00.001Z

Well actually, it doesn't. It just records all the stupid things you do. Interesting article from the BBC about the perils of online paper trails, especially if you're just about to enter the big wide world of employment.

The inability to delete your emo-tastic MySpace profile aside (ever heard of privacy settings?), it's definitely something people should think more about - especially if you've spent your formative years as an online AOL 12 Y3AR OLD SCRIPT KIDEI LOLZ!.

On a few occasions before meetings or job interviews people have asked me about my blog (hello if you're doing pre-meeting research). Because of this I'm very aware of what I write which might incriminate me later, but to a certain extent I just have to live with it - I'm sure any determined Googler could find something untoward if they looked hard enough.

However so long as you're sensible with your privacy settings, use an alias if you want to spill salacious gossip about your colleagues on a public message board and be careful who tags photos of you dressed like a fairy on facebook, you should be fine.

Just popping by...

2008-01-23T22:45:00.000Z

Little chance for blogging at the moment due to a dizzyingly busy couple of weeks at work, however just enough time to say, this is almost stupidly pretty, however it is also stupidly expensive, and this place makes rather nice wine.

First new gadget of the year!

2008-01-06T20:43:00.000Z

Panasonic Lumix DMC LX2, with snazzy 16:9 aspect ratio and 10.2 lovely Megapixels. Initial results can been seen here. First impressions are very good - nice auto mode, lots of settings to play with and a shutter speed of up to 60 seconds. Much playing to be done.

WhizzGoing around Leeds

2007-12-17T20:08:00.000Z

Recently my trusty Audi Quattro failed it's MOT rather spectacularly, resulting in it now being sat, rusting in a friend's driveway.

Because I live in the middle of a city and walk to work a car isn't strictly necessary. However it's always useful to be able to get out and about when I need to. Step in WhizzGo, 'pay as you go' car rental company. They have cars parked across Leeds (and a few other UK cities) which you can book online and access by pressing a swipe card on the screen which unlocks the car.

Cars are charged by the hour (About £4.70 including petrol) with up to 60 hours a day free. There's a range of cars available - all Citroens - and you get a free, warm, fuzzy feeling knowing you're helping to take a car off the road (or at least leave one abandoned on a mate's driveway), plus it could work out lots cheaper than owning a car even if you use it regularly.

I've used the cars a few times and apart from one instance the cars are clean and parked where you expect them. No MOTs, no repair bills, no insurance costs. This is how car ownership should be.