Affiliate marketing site OfferForge appears to have come up with quite a unique and interesting offering called: “EasyAds”

How it works:
OfferForge select their best performing campaigns blending Impression, Click and CPA campaigns into one flexible rotator.  Each time you refresh the ad, a different range of ads are displayed.

Each time you generate any income or a click the system will automatically optimize itself – ensuring you’re always earning  the maximum for your traffic.
 
As EasyAds learns what type of ads your visitors click on it’ll start serving more targeted ads to push your income even higher.

Why it’s better than contextual ads:  EasyAds is not fooled by content – it optimizes based on your income! This means less irrelevant or low performing ads and more money for you!

Anybody tried this offering?

Any thoughts?

Go beyond Google. Get seen on over 8,000 SA sites like mine – risk free. To learn more Click Here

I think Global Trader got it right with their What’s Stopping You? campaign but for the rest they are all much of a muchness.

With that in mind I have to say I was quite impressed with the new campaign from PPS Insurance called  Dream Up Your Bucketlist.

In a nutshell a visitor will be able to dream up their “bucketlist” of dreams that they would like to fulfil before they die. The visitors need to share their dreams online via Facebook and then all the dreams go into a bucket with somebody winning a prize up to the value of R100000.

Nice campaign, something different.

Only criticism is that the website is a little clunky and navigation isn’t always that obvious but that might just be me.

We blogged on Advurt on one of our other blogs - but would be interested to know what kind of experiences South African marketers have had with these mobile services and whether they have proven to be effective marketing channels?

Mobile marketing has plenty of potential but it looks like there are still some question marks about delivery and selling it as a channel for advertisers?

Thoughts?

Apparently there was a story on IT Web and a notification on the Times site but I have checked both and can’t seem to find any reference to it.

Any thoughts / ideas?

Crime! Violence! Unemployment! Strikes! Power cuts! Corruption! Recession! Just some of the stark issues facing SA today. Issues that have seen hardened individuals and businesses pack up and leave. But
despite this Debora Patta believes that South Africa remains one of the best places to live in the world. Looking at the stark realities of living in South Africa today, Patta weaves a fascinating tale of the characteristics that make South Africans marketable around the world.

11:30 CONSUMER PROTECTION ACT: THE IMPACT ON ADVERTISING – Frances Gordon

If you advertise to consumers, you need to understand the requirements of the Consumer Protection Act (CPA), which became law in 2009. The CPA promotes fairness to consumers, honest communication and no unfair discrimination. It may lead to better, more responsible consumer advertising. If advertisers do not pay attention to its new obligations, they might find that compliance and legal departments change their copy and design!

12:00 FIFA BRANDING RESTRICTIONS – Steven Hall

Steven Hall is a film maker focused on using video technology to deliver high impact and powerful communications. He does this through his film production company, Free the Orange. He focusses on producing advertising films that utilise the emotive power of audio visual communication to deliver advertising messages. Often seen as an advertising terrorist, Hall questions advertising standards such as branding, the use of mainstream media and the use of creative nonsense as an advertising gimmick.

12:30 MASTERING YOUR MOBILE MARKETING CAMPAIGN – Ahmed Kajee

Learn how to master your mobile campaign by focussing on implementation and integration of SMS, MMS and mobile campaigns. We also discuss mobile media, mobile technologies, the latest mobile trends and look at a few case studies.

13:00 LOERIE AWARDS 2010 – Andrew Human

Its time to enter your creative advertising, design and experiential masterpieces for The 32nd Annual Loerie Awards. Andrew Human, CEO of The Loerie Awards, shares some light on how to enter your work, the judging criteria, deadlines and the award ceremonies in Cape Town. He will also showcase some of the 2009 winning entries. There will be time allowed for questions at the end of his talk.

13:30 BRAND INFATUATION – Tumisang Moatshe

The evolution of consumerism has seen the relationship between brands’ and consumers become more personal, especially for a youthful and fickle consumer. By understan-ding the why’s behind youth consumers, and tracking trends over time, brands can better target their consumers. Tumisang will explore the flirting cues that brands can use to forester a more meaningful relationship and presence in the lives of their consumers.

14:00 DON’T BLOW THE BRAND – Jon Jacobson

As marketers and agencies embrace emerging channels to reach their consumers in a low-cost and measurable manner, many risk “blowing the brand” by diving in “head first” without the proper tools in place. Jon Jacobson, CEO of Global Vision, will take you through the challenges faced by today’s modern day marketers and the trends pushing more and more of them towards an integrated marketing approach using multiple channels and central communication platforms.

14:30 GOOGLE ADWORDS’ – TARGETED ADVERTISING FOR SMALL AND LARGE ADVERTISERS – Tony Roocroft

Google derives over 90% of $23 billion annual revenue from serving text and image ads to Google Search, and its partner websites. Google Adwords is the advertising model and its major benefits are the ability to target any market, anywhere, from the smallest niche to the largest generic. Learn how to set up, measure and control a profitable Adwords campaign.

15:00 WHY DO I WANT TO BUY YOUR C#$P ANYWAY? – Gavin Moffat

With attention spans ever decreasing, consumers don’t care that much about your product. If they are on your website then they have a need and the expectation is that you fulfil that need. If you cannot address their need, they’ll go somewhere else. The same applies off-line. You should no longer dictate why consumers need your product – like it or not it’s now about the consumer’s need and how you can meet it.

15:30 BRAND BUILDING IN THE DIGITAL SPACE – Arthur Charles Van Wyk

Learn how you can use free and inexpensive online tools to achieve great branding results. Arthur runs www.jackofalltrades.co.za and offer value as a brand-ologist, social media-ologist, blog-ologist and idea-ologist. He has experience in creative consulting, web strategy, content management and on-line branding. He has worked with clients such as Cancer Association, Ticketweb and MTN’s Yelloworld. Enjoy this energetic workshop, perfect for SMMEs!

16:00 CANNES LION AWARDS – 2009 SHOW REEL SCREENING

The Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival is the world’s biggest celebration of creativity in communications. As the most prestigious international advertising awards, more than 22,500 entries from all over the world are showcased and judged at the Festival. Winners receive the highly coveted Lion trophy, presented at four award ceremonies throughout the week.

Taking the audience on an inspirational journey from the birth of humankind to the present, Justin Cohen shows how the explosive speed of progress is fuelled by our unique ability to tell stories. If you want to grow an organisation or sell a product you need the most powerful form of influence, you need to tell a story. Even when we’re not speaking, our brand, offices, clothes and interpersonal style are telling our stories of success or failure. Not to be missed!

11:30  THE SOCIAL MEDIA / MARKETING DISCONNECT – Walter Pike

Did you know marketing was only invented in the 1960’s to describe how to use the most important communication technology of the time – Television. That model is broken. It just doesn’t work in the same way it did. We need to forget everything we learned and think about marketing and advertising in a whole new way. This is how . .

12:30 THE SOCIAL MEDIA LENS – Godfrey Parkin

Magnify and focus your on-line presence with a structured social media strategy. Build a profitable relationship with your on-line consumers and learn how to develop a digital community and strategy for your business. Godfrey Parkin is a UCT graduate who ran the world-wide management services division of  A.C. Nielsen and founded a series of pioneering web-centric marketing businesses in Zurich, London and Washington DC.

13:00  2010 OUTLOOK – Chris Botha

The world media environment has experienced a very turbulent 24 months, with the unpre-cedented growth  of new media colliding head on with a recession that has seen budgets cut to the bone. In South Africa, 2010 will be a difficult year to judge. Have we seen the end of the recession? Will the Soccer World Cup bring a massive boost to the economy? Or is it all just hype, and are we in for another tough year?

13:30  SPONSORSHIPS & MARKETING – Danie Jansen van Vuuren and John Faia

There are several ways for non-sponsoring brands to legally capitalise on the 2010 FIFA Soccer World Cup event. As a leading sport marketing agency Danie and John will share some of these sponsorship principles with you. Their knowledge will enable you to design a legal campaign around the world’s biggest sporting event to ever hit our shores.

14:00  USING LOCATION BASED INTELLIGENCE FOR HIGHLY EFFECTIVE MARKETING – Ingrid Lotze

By developing an understanding of the common characteristics of persons living in geographical  areas or ‘clusters’, marketers are able to target audiences more precisely and improve the efficiency of their campaigns. Replicating success nationwide can be achieved through looking at geo-demographic profiling and how this segmentation tool not only enables successful direct marketing initiatives, but also assists in identifying potentially successful and profitable trade areas.

14:30  BEHAVIOURAL TARGET MARKETING – James Edwards

Behavioural targeting uses information collected on an individual’s web-browsing behaviour, such as the pages they have visited, ads they have clicked on, user demographics or the searches they have made, to select which advertisements to display to that individual. Practitioners believe this helps them deliver their online advertisements to the users who are most likely to be interested.

15:00  MAKING THE MOST OF THE EXHIBITION MEDIUM – Justin Hawes

The exhibition medium delivers excellent returns on investment, easily measured through leads management programmes. The medium brings you face-to-face with your target market – no other medium can deliver this level of personal interaction. However, the right approach is critical to ensure your success and you must be prepared to invest time and energy to get the most out of a show. There are some simple steps which will ensure that you maximise your return on investment.

15:30  MYTHS IN CONSUMER RELATIONSHIPS – Sarina de Beer & Kate Rooseboom

What do customers want from their relationships with companies? How have these expectations been shaped by the mass consciousness? To what extent do people view their service experiences as authentic? This presentation will focus on understanding what people expect and want from the companies they do business with.

16:00  PRACTICAL EMAIL MARKETING IN SOUTH AFRICA – Josh Adler

Learn how to build an honest database, deliver emails to the inbox and analyse subscriber activity to make smart business decisions. Josh Adler is CEO at pMailer, a leading email marketing and delivery platform. When is it best to send? How often should you send? What are the current trends? Success stories? Get an in-depth overview into email marketing from a company who deliver campaigns for the country’s top brands and digital agencies.

16:30  THINKING LIKE A CHALLENGER – Abey Mokgwatsane

How do brands thrive in a cluttered market in a world with so few resources? How do brands get ahead when the same marketing templates are applied wherever you look? Whatever happened to marketing imagination? Abey Mokgwatsane, CEO of experiential agency – VWV Group, provides a systematic approach to connecting with your consumer, doing more with less, and providing real day light for your brand.

Successful salesmanship stems from the ability to present and deliver against a brand promise. Designed for salespeople at all levels, this presentation clearly explains the issues facing each and every business in its day-to-day selling scenarios, and highlight the route to future success and focus on pro-active sales methods. (The Other) Michael Jackson is a highly rated keynote speaker and will surprise, delight and entertain you during this session.

12:00 – FIRST AID FOR BRANDS – Anthony Swart

As consumer spending continues to tighten, businesses can be forgiven for taking a cautious approach to the forthcoming quarter. But the toughest brands will see out the depressed market with a resilience and flexibility. Unfortunately, more often than not, branding is seen as an outer skin that puts appropriate face to an organisation and often unfairly many companies use their brand as a ‘band-aid’ to try and change perceptions, rather than addressing the deeper issues.

12:30 – THE SECRETS OF SEARCH ENGINE MARKETING – Graeme Lipschitz

For many marketers the world of Search Engine Marketing remains a black box. Find out how to take advantage of this growing marketing platform as ex-Google employee Graeme Lipschitz shows you the Secrets of Search – from knowing consumer intent to choosing the right keywords and messaging, this ‘101’ will leave you enlightened and inspired.

13:00 – BELOW THE LINE – Anoka Makhan

Learn how to maximise your below and through the line campaigns with Anoka Makhan. Anoka is responsible for seeding business for Habari, by landing through the line promotional concepts with clients. She has many years of formal corporate experience and bring with her business, brand and shopper insights. She work with many blue chip clients such as Unilever, Beiersdorf, TBWA, Tigerbrands, Reckitt Benckiser, Eskom – Magna Carta, Coca

13:30 BRAND VALUE THROUGH PR – (THE EMPERORS’ NEW CLOTHES) – Ruth Golembo

Brand value is determined largely by consumer perceptions. PR and Strategic Communications has evolved as one of the most important drivers of corporate and brand perceptions. PR cuts through all channels to deliver value. Ruth Golembo, Strategic Communications’ Managing Director, talks about the rise of PR and below-the-line communications’ and how a new non-traditional competitor set is emerging.

14:00 HOW TO GROW YOUR BUSINESS WITH EMAIL MARKETING – Barbara Ulmi

In a market environment where consumers increasingly rely on word of mouth, it is crucial for businesses to apply a sound marketing communications strategy. Email and mobile marketing are indispensable tools in your marketing mix, especially if you want to strengthen your brand and build a loyal customer base. Email marketing offers smart automations and it is highly measurable. South Africa’s email marketing expert, GraphicMail offers affordable solutions that meet these demands.

15:00 THE MYSTERIES OF MOBILE MARKETING – Russel Stromin

The mobile phone is rapidly becoming a mainstream marketing channel in South Africa and abroad. It is personal, direct, instant and always on, and it can be used to engage consumers, influence decisions and drive sales at the point of purchase. We will demonstrate how brands, agencies and retail outlets can leverage mobile marketing to drive sales, move stock and engage consumers personally to keep them coming back.

There is an interesting article on Moneyweb written by Gill Moodie which says that the Witness is going to be charging around R100 a month for its online content.

The article also goes on to say that the Mail & Guardian and Daily Dispatch are also planning to add in pay-walls in the not too distant future.

Since Rupert Murdoch has put his foot down and started to challenge some of the “free” models out there, it is intriguing to see how some of the local publishers have changed their approach to charging subscribers for quality content.

I find it interesting that this involves a relatively small online site and it will be interesting to see if people simply migrate to the News24 / Sake24 sites or whether they in fact are sufficiently hungry for Witness news. It will also be interesting to see how they do in terms of subscriber pickup considering we’re still trading in the middle of a recession. (irrespective of whether the data says we are in one or out of one).

Earlier this week a couple of us attended the Dion Chang presentation at GIBS where he presented some of the findings of his Flux Trend Review.

Taking into account the whole social media phenomenon and the way traditional publishing (both print and online) was being forced to adapt, his research concluded that PR was likely to be the new advertising.

i.e. consumers don’t react to banners or billboards or passive advertising. They want to be engaged by people within their communities.

As a shareholder in a publishing company which derives its income from advertising this is obviously a big thing to get our heads around. If we serve an advert to 10000 people then we serve something that is tangible. If we start being an outlet for PR campaigns its very difficult to measure that…

We serve press releases via our industrial titles. I couldn’t turn around to those people and command advertorial rates for an online offering.

By the same token how does a PR company value what it is doing if it is effectively buying space in the media? It loses a lot of its tactical appeal.

I dunno – I don’t buy this thing that traditional advertising will ever die (and that includes Pay-Per-Click, print, billboard etc).

My two cents:

1. Advertising as a whole will become cheaper. I get such a kick when I see a Google ad leaderboard with my name right next to something like Standard Bank. My R200 versus their massive budget and yet we’re standing right next to eachother in front of consumers

2. New platforms are going to be rolled out with people able to advertise creative sites for people to advertise their offering. Think of the big Standard Bank banner down the side of Sandton City / Sandton Towers 

3. Agencies and creative teams will be employed on far shorter contract basis to prevent people becoming stale. The demand will be constantly for new and more creative ad material. The client constantly is striving for more visibility / penetration

4. More and more platforms will become available making advertising more accessible to small businesses at far more competitive rates. Think things like blogs, Mxit, podcasts… for a small business the opportunities are already far greater than they were 5 or 6 years ago.

5. If more small businesses are advertising it makes them more competitive against larger counterparts

6. UNDECIDED: Are big publishers going to suffer more than small publishers who can be niche. Would you rather invest with a publication that nails your precise target market or hit up a big generic publisher and then query low response rates?  

Would love to have some views on the subject – feel free to post them below.

 It’s 2010 – the year that South Africans have been breathlessly anticipating since 2004. We’ve had six years to prepare, and now, with a few months to go until the kick-off of the FIFA World Cup, South Africans are white-knuckled with excitement at the prospect.

What a lot of people aren’t thinking about, though, is what’ll happen once the games are over. South Africa has spent all this time and money on infrastructure for the games – and it’s sure to be a phenomenal event – but, once the matches are over and the sporting glitterati have returned to their Spanish villas, what’ll become of our massive stadiums and luxury hotels? It’s all well and good to pour so much effort into a grand event, but it’s also important to keep the momentum going once it’s over. That’s the only way to keep attracting visitors to the country and to continue to boost tourism-generated revenue in South Africa.

In a way, it’s much the same with an SEM campaign. For most websites that haven’t been optimised, significant work is required at the start of the project. The site structure is often overhauled, extensive optimisation is undertaken, and usability is improved. Following these initial changes, the optimised site begins to improve its position on the search engine results pages. It starts to attract more visitors, and it generates higher revenue. It looks great. The SEM campaign is doing exactly what it said it would. Fantastic!

Sure, these results are fantastic. But the problem is that this is where many companies or website owners decide to abandon their online marketing campaigns. A solid foundation has been laid for the site, and it’s attracting more visitors than ever before. So why continue with the campaign, is what many of them ask.

Because, just like a car or a building or a city, an online marketing campaign needs to be maintained, even after it has achieved its initial goal. SEO is an ongoing process that, once implemented, needs to be tweaked and adjusted from time to time to ensure its continued efficiency. There will always be competitors optimising their sites, improving their online visibility and attempting to eclipse your brand. It’s only through committed SEM initiatives that you’ll continue to attract visitors and generate revenue through your site. If you don’t maintain it, it’ll fall to ruin and your visitors will go elsewhere.

Essentially, an online marketing campaign is an investment that needs to be managed over time. After the initial energy and finances are invested in it, it needs to be monitored and maintained to ensure continuous returns. Although it requires less time and money once the right foundations have been laid, it still needs ongoing attention in order to offer rewards over the long-term.

So, whether you’re a mayor or a webmaster, the directive’s the same: Create a solid infrastructure to attract visitors, and keep it maintained to ensure that it stays foremost in their minds – and their search results.