I recently did an interesting campaign in which we ran very similar messaging for a lead generation campaign on both Cable TV & Google Adwords. This was in the automotive niche. I have data on how each source performed and figured i’d share it with you since it’s pretty interesting.
Cable TV
Total Buy: $50,000
Total Spots Aired: 9,045
Cost Per Spot: $5.58
Total “Clicks” From Cable Spot To Landing Page: 1,235
Total Leads: 220
Cost Per “Click”: $40.48
Cost Per Lead: $227.27
Google Adwords
Total Spend: $8,500
Total Clicks: 765
Total Leads: 155
Cost Per “Click”: $11.11
Cost Per Lead: $54.83
So the results here prove interesting but not totally unexpected. This is a high value niche in which CPC’s on Adwords are pretty darn expensive, yet, Adwords performed much much better than Cable TV did. Although the Cable TV did create volume of leads it did so at a cost per lead almost 5x that of Google Adwords. The sensible move at this point would be to reallocate Cable TV spend to Adwords/Internet spend. My opinion is is that Cable TV, although it still does reach a good audience will never, ever be more effective than Internet Marketing. Adwords in particular converts extremely well since the traffic has intent behind it, but i’d venture to say that for this exact same niche, almost any internet traffic source will produce cheaper leads then Cable TV will, even if the conversion rate is signifigantly lower then Adwords traffic.
Hope you guys found this interesting, if so, please share it around
I’ve had a certain news story on my mind lately and I wanted to write out my unemotional, totally non-biased (at least I think) opinion on it. As almost everyone in the world knows a certain New York newspaper published an interactive map stating the names and addresses of gun owners in the area. This newspaper just so happens to be my local newspaper. Now forget which side of the gun control debate I stand on because it really doesn’t matter. Politics aside, I can’t get over how stupid of a business move this was.
Newspapers are DYING. I mean completely and utterly floundering. They can’t make money if their lives depended on it. They’ve tried to breach the gap and start websites with paywalls and all other kinds of nonsense monetization methods but it hasn’t worked. No one wants to pay for the news and that business model of pay-for-news is dead.
So this local newspaper which still has some readership decides to act on their anti-gun bias and publish an interactive map of gun owners. I’m all for free speach. Publish whatever the hell you want. I just don’t understand this from either a logistical or business angle.
Logistically
What exactly does publishing this content accomplish? OK, i’ll give it to them that they got A LOT of attention from it. Way more attention then this newspaper has gotten in all of their years in business combined. Having this data easily accessible accomplishes nothing. Ok so you know your neighbor owns a gun…what are you going to do…move? Knowing the data doesn’t accomplish anything for the everyday citizen.
Business Wise
This is how i’ve deduced the situation from a business perspective. I’ll use bullet points to simplify what i’m thinking.
Young people don’t read the newspaper
Young people tend to be more liberal and liberals tend to favor gun control. (a generalization of course)
SOME older people still read the newspaper
Older people TEND (again a generalization especially in NY) to lean more conservatively and conservatives TEND to favor owning guns.
So the newspaper decides to create this interactive map and piss off their limited amount of readers to appeal to the people who don’t read newspapers? Even if you say that the older people who read the paper are evenly split with half being in favor of gun control and half being against it, you’re still alienating HALF of your limited readership. Stupid business move if you ask me.
It would not surprise me if this decision puts yet another newspaper out of business.
Yea Yea, I know some of you hate ShoeMoney…but I don’t! In fact i’ve been friendly with him for quite some time. About 2 weeks ago he asked me if i’d read the book he just wrote about himself. I didn’t even know he was writing a book but I told him of course I would. I’ve seen him speak at conferences and it’s never boring so what the heck. He sent it over to me and with off and on reading, I finished it in about a week.
This is not a learn how to make money book. This is the story of Jeremy Schoemaker. The story is told honestly. We learn about the ugly times, and there seemed to be a lot of them. He doesn’t seem to hold things back in an effort to sound cool because there are a lot of stories in the book that are very uncool and might make you think differently about Jeremy. I personally find his story inspirational. He changed his life around for the better and I think that reading it teaches you a few lessons about yourself.
Seeing the transformation that he’s made makes you realize that ShoeMoney is no flash in the pan. This guy is going to be around for a long while, making money in internet marketing.
I went into NYC yesterday with my wife for a nice day out. We wandered around and overall acted like tourists. We went to Bryant Park near Times Square and they set up this pretty awesome Christmas Village. There were all of these little vendors selling cool art. We got to a vendor who was selling these clocks that looked like dogs with a wagging tail. Now, I don’t like this kind of crap but I thought that my parents and grandparents might as a gift for the holidays. I’m terrible with gift buying so any opportunity that I see something people may like I buy it.
So I’m looking at these clocks and debating whether to get them or not. Will my parents and grandparents like them was going through my head. So i’m on the fence but I decide what the hell I’ll get them. They were $39.99 each. So I say to the guy….”any deal for 2?” I can afford (2) $39.99 clocks just fine, but your a sucker if you don’t at least ask nicely for a deal. Even if the guy said I can’t do anything, I would have bought them. The guy says to me, “this year we have a special deal, 2 for $90, we’ve decided to only do deals that benefit us.” So I look at the guy like he’s an asshole (which he is) and say “I was going to buy them, but I don’t like that sales line so now I’m not” and walked away. I was 100% going to buy the clocks too.
It just goes to show, be careful of the sales copy you use. Sometimes when you think your being witty or trying to create urgency or whatever, all your really doing is turning off prospects that are on the fence. Copy Matters
So I was surfing around and saw the video below. It starts off a little slow but if this is all true (which I assume it is), what a great thing to do for an employee. I love seeing companies who take care of their own (and no this isn’t a paid post).
