Advertising & Marketing Blog

A new Yahoo! blog post is showcasing a joint study with RevTrax. This new study (found here) highlights the impact that search clicks have on in-store sales. The answer is a resounding affirmation that if you own physical stores and you want to drive sales and traffic with a high ROI, you need to be using search marketing.

RevTrax(R) recently released a new data study showing which days of the week and times of day are ideal for maximizing response rates from consumers to online coupons that drive in-store sales. Check it out here.

A flattering article on Daily Deal Media, shows some insights into Groupon’s financials. They actually broke even in terms of profitability and posted some impressive gains in terms of revenue growth and customer growth, despite pulling back on marketing spending. Check out the complete article.

In a recent article on Internet Retailer, mobile coupons is all the rage. It’s a big opportunity for physical retailers, restaurants of all sizes, as well as for consumers who love how easy it is versus print coupons.

One of my takeaways is that this is really a trend report showing the future potential out to 2016, and sort of discounts the current environment we are all in where adoption of mobile coupons is still a drop in the overall coupon bucket. There’s no doubt this channel will grow faster and faster, it’s just not obvious to me that it’s significant for marketers today.

In a very interesting article posted in late September on Field Marketing and Brand Experience, Valassis announced a move towards making the manufacturers’ coupon business more digital. The concept of digital-clearing of coupons without requiring paper coupons to travel from point A (retail store) to point B (Often Mexico with U.S. coupons).

There are tons of issues with digital clearing of coupons but also tons of benefits. It’s unlikely it will ever replace physical coupon settlement and clearinghouse functions (at least anytime soon). It’s a big step for an industry that is over 100 years old and slow to move down the path of innovation.

Maybe they’re just being used the wrong way…

In an article on i-media connection, Sean Cummings wrote a “no-frills” article about how QR codes are destroying the credibility of the ad industry. Ad agencies put these codes on print ads to be cool and innovative and drive consumer engagement in a digital world. However, consumers don’t get it, so what’s the point?

Check out this article for a nay-sayers perspective…

In a recent release by New America, one of the largest marketing service companies to the coupon industry, SmartSource is launching a Canadian version of their U.S. coupon site on a .ca domain. I don’t know that this is super newsworthy given SmartSource has been operating in shapes and forms in Canada for years and they are a not the first or largest player in the online coupon arena. Websavers.ca is larger based on recent polls and figures.

As the Canadian market makes moves towards greater acceptance of print-at-home coupons, we’ll have to see which providers win out for major CPG coupon dollars online that will drive redemptions into participating offline retailers.

OMMA global is going on in NYC with tons of interesting content related to digital advertising. It seems like many major agency people as well as brands are in attendance. Given all the recent hype around QR codes, I thought it might be interesting to check out the agenda and attend my panel at 4:45pm tomorrow at the conference. Hope to see you there!

In a recent article on wsj.com technology, it seems like many players large and small are dropping out of the daily deal space. I don’t think anybody is surprised by this. I do think that many companies underestimated the people and capital investment to scale a local advertising business in a short period of time. Just look at how long it took companies like ValPak (Cox Media) and Valassis to get to where they are today.

Check out the full article here.

Next week is the Daily Deal Summit in San Francisco. The agenda looks solid with various important topics that any advocate or skeptic would want to learn about. There will likely be hundreds of companies from the deals space, although not sure there will be anybody else in attendance except for email service providers who are sponsoring. It’s my first deal conference (they’ve only been around for a year or so). Check out the agenda here.