My Thankful View

Sure, every website you visit these days has some schmuck writing about why they are thankful this year. I guess if the malls can window dress on a seasonal basis than why not your favorite columnist. Well, this site will not be the exception, but of course I'll give a different spin.

What am I most thankful for these days? Simple, I thank the big guy upstairs for making sure I wasn't retained by the firm acquiring my current employer. Sure it is a little scary with a wife at home that needs medical treatment and two little kids, but what was the alternative? Bad benefits, a commute from hell (not the current one that sucks the life out of me), and trapped in an industry that I only joined because the Monster.com ad looked interesting. As a good friend of mine said, "Eric, it is time for a course correction". So, what has this change resulted in and why do I seem so happy?

1. Severance and bonus that would take me to September 2006 if I had NO income coming in.
2. I started my own website and this blog and considering I've been marketing on the internet since 1998, it is about time.
3. A chance to start my own consulting business so I can work on interesting projects with interesting people of my own choosing.
4. The consulting business lets me alleviate one source of anxiety, you know, the one where you can't control your own destiny no matter how hard you try and succeed at your current job.
5. A chance to stay in touch with people that matter most to me and cut off the people that are obviously only interested in me because I could buy a lot of media from them.
6. No more bad commutes.
7. The world out there seems new to me again with a lot of possibilities - with all of the positions out there I feel like a kid in the candy shop.
8. I always wanted to write a children's novel about time travel and now I'll have the time.
9. I booked a trip to Disney World and didn't need to check with my boss first.
10. For the first time since I left AT&T in June 2000, I feel like I belong somewhere; not with the unemployed of the country, but with people who work for themselves. You know, what the country really produces today - services.

Ok, so why did I really write this post today? It wasn't to brag about how good I feel, but it was meant to help anyone in a similar situation. Don't sit around waiting for something to happen or a mentor to pull you into a new position. Grow up and make your own luck and use the time and new found freedom to pursue something you always wanted to do, but a company's golden handcuffs prevented you from going after it. With a little luck, you too could have a cheesy website and a little

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Latency What Is It Good For?

I was asked a few days ago to explain latency or view through/impression sales in a beautiful office overlooking the Potamic River. And, if you don't know either, I'm honored to be the first to explain it to you. Now maybe we can explain a lot of those unknown sales you've been tracking on your sales reports!

Have you ever been looking to buy something at your favorite e-commerce site while at work and just before you hit the next button, your pesky boss pops up from behind, so you close your browser. Sound familiar? Well it should. Industry studies (although an old one) show that 75% of all shopping carts get abandoned. Are we to assume that these items are never bought or are they sometimes bought later? Perhaps when the boss is at lunch?

Let's say (really write) that you are an online marketing manager for a shoe company and you use an ad server to place your ads on your media buy. A potential buyer clicks on your banner, visits your site, and just before they complete the shopping cart, that boss shows up again, and they abandon the cart. However, they show up the next day without clicking on the same banner and complete the sale.

Now what? Well, armed with a cookie courtesy of your ad server, a completed sale, and a click on a banner, your ad server should be able to determine which cookie completed the sale and which banner generated the sale. Therefore, you have a latent sale. Sometimes, those pesky consumers never click on your banner and then mysteriously arrive at your site and make a sale; this is called a view through or impression based sale.

Doesn't sound like a big deal to you? Well it should because I've seen average latent sales in the 55%-60% range and the % varies from site to site and from product to product; especially when the product has a long sales process or sign-up page. Several companies that I'm aware only started tracking latents recently and up until then had a large % of sales generated from unknown channels.

Think you know everything now. Well there's a lot more to it especially when it comes to interpreting the number and running campaigns using latent sales. However, that's for another week.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

The Art of Self Promotion

I attended AdTech in New York on Monday and I ran into a friend that I haven't seen in a few years. The first words out of his mouth are "Eric you must be the most famous man on the internet". After what passes for blushing on my part, which doesn't amount to much of anything, I replied, "actually no, just good at a little self promotion and long term planning".

I worked for 10 years at AT&T and 5 years at Harrisdirect (the company formerly known as PCFN, DLJdirect, and CSFBdirect) and one of the key things I learned was you have to learn how to build, manage, and plan for your self promotion, because at the end of the day, that's all you really have. A rumor I heard at AT&T led me to managing my self promotion, so here it is in its entirety.

When C.Michael Armstrong was named chairman and CEO of AT&T a Vice President walked into the PR department and said "make me an internet genius" and of course they did. This VP had AT&T's press machine in full press and he ended up with plenty of speaking engagements, case studies, and press releases; even a few of these that he couldn't handle ended up on my desk. After a few short months, this VP becomes AT&T's internet czar.

So armed with this knowledge when I leave AT&T, I look for my own self promotion opportunities while at the company formerly known as Harrisdirect. Besides a little self glory, it helps with my own position as VP of Online Advertising because there is nothing better than generating a little free press for your employer while building your own reputation and getting good advertising rates. While negotiating media deals, I notice that several publishers were willing to go beyond what I should be receiving based on my spend if offered to participate in case studies with them. I said "sure, but with one condition, my name is in the case study".

So, when you hit the link on the right for My Google News you can see the list of case studies, magazine articles, and press releases that I've participated in since 2002. All this with a little planning, quid pro quo, and an eye to the future. Oh by the way, never, never, do this without your own PR department and legal involved; play by the rules of your own company.

The self promotion has helped me over the years and it can help you too. So the next time you are at a conference a friend will walk up to you and call you famous. Oh one more thing, that friend is Dan Lynn, co-founder of the full service marketing firm, DigitalGrit.

Good luck with your own self promotion and a little PardonMyFrench

Eric