Media planning & buying
With so many choices in types of media, publishers, technologies, etc., online media can be a scary place. Video ads and social networking sites are the buzzwords in online media but are they right for you? What exists beyond the usual list of vertical sites, media networks, ad networks and portals? When should you move from a media buy to an integrated partnership?
We’ll take the guesswork out of the process and get you started with the interactive media elements best suited to your goals. You won’t get the perfect media plan the first time out but you’ll get close quickly by testing and learning. At the end of the day, we’ll help you understand the difference between what’s hot and what will work best for you.
Search engine marketing
Improving the traffic from search engines to your site means optimizing your natural search program and maximizing the value of paid search:
Search engine optimization (SEO): Simply put, this effort lists your pages in the search engine results or if they already exist, moves them closer to the top of the rankings. This is accomplished through the optimization of site and page content, structure, and number of inbound links to your site.
Paid Search: Buying keywords allows you far greater control over your ranking, the copy used in the search result and the page on which the user arrives at your site. This is done by researching and defining your portfolio of keywords (keyword list, cost per click) and constantly improving the portfolio and associated ads and landing page creative.
Campaign management
Successful campaigns start with well-planned strategy, built from experience and research. But that’s just where they start. Flawless execution gets you to the right answer quickly, leaving bad ideas no place to hide. Interactive campaigns must prove their merit in weeks, not months or quarters. Top performing publishers get increased allocations and the laggards must prove themselves with additional opportunities or economic adjustments. If they don’t cut the mustard, they’re cut quickly and the next wave of testing begins.
Creative testing & optimization
Creative execution can be scrutinized in a rational, performance-driven framework. Creative is often judged based on whether or not it wins awards. Online, it can be measured by the objective measures you choose to determine success. Is it awareness? Purchase favorability? Online purchase? Creative interaction? Exposure duration? Often, it’s a weighted product of two or more such metrics. Once this has been determined, themes, offers, products, etc. can be tested against one another to separate the winners from losers. Over a relatively short period of time, you will build a knowledge base to confidently inform future efforts.
Creating the proper testing framework means employing a creative group that appreciates the value of testing and modular design. In addition, creative performance is most accurately measured when exposure is controlled: each user test cell receives a single ad (regardless of publisher) and the overall creative set is fixed over the course of the test.
Analytics
It’s been said that measurability is both interactive marketing’s biggest blessing and largest curse. Sure, everything is trackable, but the metrics are unique to the industry and the preferred standards seem to change on a daily basis.
Having a deep organizational background in advanced analytics, we help our clients get past the confusion to the real work of evaluating each initiative. We start by defining success metrics, from increased site traffic and conversion to research and offline transactions. We properly configure each campaign to provide lessons and insights, building a foundation that constantly increases the likelihood of future success.
After hundreds of campaigns over the past 7 years, we’ve learned that enterprise-wide insights come from a strategic approach, diligent effort and skilled analysis, not a black box.
Email marketing
We can help you plan and execute targeted eMail marketing campaigns that strengthen customer relationships, convert prospects, and maintain top-of-mind awareness for your brand. Acsys provides the strategic resources and infrastructure needed to effectively manage lists, distribute messages and measure the impact of each campaign.