Marketing Pilgrim

A recent State of Retailing Online 2007 report from Shop.org provides some very useful information about the effectiveness of email in retail. Here are some highlights:

1) Emailing a house list is delivering orders for less than $7 each. This is a real bargain when compared to banner ads ($71.89), paid search ($26.75), and affiliate programs ($17.47).

2) 88% of the merchants surveyed indicated that email became a higher priority during 2007.

3) The average click through rate on house email is 11% with a 6% conversion rate.

4) The average retailer mails its list 64 times each year.

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Monday, it looked like Microsoft was interested in buying 5% of Facebook for a sum of $300-500 million. The following day, the plot thickened as Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg visited Seattle—and Microsoft—according to CNNMoney.com.

Senior editor David Kirkpatrick hits on the reasons why Facebook is so attractive to investors:

Facebook is the closest thing the world has to a next-generation Internet, one structured not around Web sites but around people. In the Facebook topology, every data source or service is defined by who else is using it.

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Last week, AOL announced that it was restructuring its online advertising holdings to create a new ad division, Platform A. Ten days later, TechCrunch has rumors that Platform A will be destined for an IPO of its own:

One knowledgeable source tells TechCrunch that the decision has been made internally at Time Warner to try to spin off Platform A through an IPO sometime early next year. (AOL declines to comment). A lot needs to happen before that plan is put into action, but the writing is on the wall. . . . An AOL spokesperson confirms to me: “The introduction of Platform A marks a significant change in how we operate—putting AOL’s overall network in front of our advertising sales strategy.”

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According to Internet Retailer, Joann.com saw a 5.5% increase in revenue after implementing the HackerSafe logo into its site. They measured the increase with the use of a 30 day split A/B test.

This reminds me of a few things I have learned about HackerSafe and similar services.

1) Pricing is negotiable. Joann.com paid $15,000/year for this service, but I am not sure why. My guess is that the average site can get HackerSafe or a competitors’ service for $500/year if you negotiate. HackerSafe’s largest competitor offered us the service for free for a year at one point just because they were trying to take business away.

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How’s your iBrick iPhone this morning? I read that a lot of users are being locked out thanks to a new firmware update–and it’s not just those that bought unlocked phones either.

For those of you who didn’t jump on the iPhone bandwagon, you’ll have no problem reading these stories on your phone this morning!

• Google may give users better privacy controls, if that’s what it takes to get the DoubleClick deal approved.
• Blendtec’s viral videos may well be the most successful viral advertising campaign ever. It’s helped them increase sales five-fold.
• How would you like your own online newspaper? DailyMe looks promising as it will allow you to customize your own news portal.

When I first read that Google had bought Zingku, I asked myself, what does Google want with a cartoon penguin? I mean, he’s cute and all, but how does that fit…huh?…that’s Pingu?…Zingku is a mobile social network, you say?…ok, never mind.

Ok, so Google has acquired another mobile social network–they previously bought dodgeball which is in mothballs right now.

What does Zingku do?

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We didn’t mention it (too many bad scraper experiences, perhaps?), but last Wednesday was Talk Like a Pirate day. According to the National Legal and Policy Center, Google’s taking it a bit far:

Earlier this summer, the National Legal and Policy Center (NLPC) researched the extent of copyrighted material being hosted on Google Video and released a “Top 50” list of apparently copyrighted movies. In the latest “spot check” of the site conducted from September 10 to September 18, NLPC discovered 300 additional instances of apparently copyrighted films, including over 60 movies released this year.

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So now it’s Google.com’s birthday, and apparently it’s 9. Oh, they’re so proud of themselves.

But let me tell ya, kid, just wait till you hit those double digits. Just look at Yahoo—they’re twelve now. Aren’t they awkward? Yeah. The lesson? Enjoy your childhood (and dominance) while it lasts!

The Onion sent a quirky little birthday gift, “reporting” briefly yesterday about Google’s latest endeavor: TheGoogle.com. It’s designed “to appeal to older adults not able to navigate the original website’s single text field and two clearly marked buttons.” Alright, it’s so good, I just have to show you the whole news brief:

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Now, we all know that search engines have troubles with non-text-based documents. So when Yahoo opened Yahoo Podcasts almost two years ago, it looked like things were looking up for finding downloadable and streamed audio broadcasting on the Internet. But now it looks as though Yahoo is changing its mind, with the announcement that they’re closing up shop on October 31:

Right after Yahoo Podcasts opened, it looked as though podcasting were a bubble, when “28% of the people surveyed were aware of podcasting, but only 2% actually listened to podcasts.” However, two years later, podcasting is still around and continues to become more popular, even being used on college campuses. Six months ago, podcasting growth was up 18%—37% had heard of podcasting, and 13% had listened one. So why back out now?

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I received an interesting offer from the folks at Goodmind. They offered me $150 to take part in a study that would take about 90 minutes of my time. I don’t have the time, but Goodmind agreed to let me pass on the offer to Marketing Pilgrim readers, so here it is:

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Hello, world!

Err, is this thing on?

Anyone listening reading?

Oh well, I’ll just get to today’s new links, shall I?

• Want to infringe on a trademark? Just make sure you criticize it and you’ll be OK.
• Garret Rogers asks if Google will dump PageRank. What he really means is will Google dump the public display of PageRank.
• Want to know everything that Aaron Wall knows about SEO? He’s just taken a brain-dump on his site.

Here’s what’s going on in the Google Reader Link blog…

TechCrunch is reporting LinkedIn will allow users to add photos as of this Friday. As Mike Butcher suggests, the move by LinkedIn is likely in response to the growing number of people using Facebook for business networking.

Is this too little, too late for LinkedIn?

While I have a LinkedIn account–and like the service–since joining Facebook I’ve found myself using it for business instead of LinkedIn. I’m not sure I’d go back to LinkedIn.

What about you, which do you prefer for business networking?