Business white paper Excel in online marketing Autonomy Optimost
Table of contents 3 The power of online marketing 3 The online advertising revolution 4 The only constant is change 4 Big data, big problems 5 The last mile 5 The solution 7 Why Autonomy Optimost is the answer 7 Success stories 8 Getting started 8 About HP Autonomy 2
Today s marketers benefit from an unprecedented amount of data about their prospects and customers, and seemingly unlimited ways to reach out to them. The evolution and sophistication of online channels such as search, social, and mobile present new opportunities to target and engage audiences in ways marketers only dreamed of 10 years ago. The power of online marketing With the dramatic increase in data, businesses are facing huge new challenges. To thrive, marketers must use their finite online advertising dollars to target prospects with the highest likelihood of conversion and optimize their websites to maximize conversion of those high-quality prospects into valuable customers. The exponential growth of data increases the opportunity but also the complexities and challenges. The online advertising revolution Companies worldwide have embraced online advertising as the preferred method of attracting customers and promoting their brands. Online advertising allows marketers to precisely target their audiences and then monitor and measure the effectiveness of their advertising at an exceptionally detailed level. Marketers then have the chance to respond more quickly and efficiently than through traditional means. Their ability to leverage this channel to its fullest potential depends on the quality of their technological tools. Consider a visitor who navigates to a publisher s web page, such as a Google search engine results page or a Facebook home page, and sees ads that are targeted to that specific visitor. Underpinning this simple example is a sophisticated process that determines if and where each ad appears. Each time a web page is requested, the publisher undergoes a dynamic auction to determine which ads to display. This is based on the targeting options specified by the advertiser, the price the advertiser is willing to pay, the historical performance of an advertiser s ads, and a variety of other criteria. The increased competition due to a growing number of advertisers along with complex bid and placement processes across multiple publishers makes achieving optimum results exceedingly difficult. I ve long stated that sites that convert less than 10 percent should be concerned. Too many online marketers are spending too much money and time throwing too much unqualified traffic at their sites. Bryan Eisenberg, ClickZ 3
US ad spending 2011-2016 in billions $46.5 $52.8 $57.5 $62.0 $32.0 $39.5 $36.0 $34.8 $33.8 $33.1 $32.6 $32.3 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 Online ad spending Total print ad spending Source: emarketer, Jan 2012 www.emarketer.com The only constant is change Managing the various bid and targeting criteria is a labor-intensive and time-consuming process, considering that for each web page requested, the ad may be competing against tens or even hundreds of other advertisers. Each one of these advertisers is continually changing their targeting options, ad pricing, ad copy, and many other parameters. Responding manually to the rapid changes in this dynamic environment, with any level of effectiveness, is virtually impossible. Each publisher provides a separate management platform to manage ads, bids, and targeting options for utilizing their online advertising. As a result, advertisers must manage hundreds of ads across thousands of targeting options using multiple interfaces against formidable competition an ideal application for technological automation. Big data, big problems Advertisers now have unprecedented analytical data on the performance of their advertising efforts. For each ad, advertisers can now measure: How many times an ad was displayed (impressions) How many times an ad was clicked (clicks) How many web pages the visitor viewed (page depth) How long the visitor stayed on the site (time on site) Whether the web visitor bought a product, downloaded a white paper, or requested a call (conversions) The total amount of any product/service the web visitor bought (conversion value) Whether the web visitor revisited the site at a later date (returning visitors) While marketers have always dreamed of having access to robust analytics regarding their advertising efforts, they have suddenly found that they are inundated with an overabundance of data that is impossible to manually consume and make actionable. Which ads are most/least successful at driving traffic? Which ads are the most/least successful in driving conversions? Which targeting options need to be changed or eliminated? Which publishers are the most effective? 4
What kind of traffic is cost-effectively acquired, but not converting? Why is it not converting? What are the trade-off costs and benefits of each bid when making budget allocation decisions? In short, what can be done to synthesize this massive amount of web analytic data to improve online advertising effectiveness? It is also critically important that online advertising is optimized to meet marketing objectives: cost, traffic, conversion, cost per acquisition, revenue, profit, time on site, or some combination of all of these. The last mile While complex, successfully attracting the most cost-effective traffic to the site addresses only half of the problem. If the campaign objective is to generate more paying customers, the site must be compelling enough to accomplish that goal. If the goal is to sell shoes, delivering an online experience that propels the visitor to a shoe-buying decision must be a part of the equation. If the purchase is the ultimate measure of success, website optimization for optimal conversion rates cannot be overlooked. We saw a significant opportunity to continually enhance the way we interacted with our online customers. We were collecting lots of great data about visitor traffic and we wanted to tailor that content to online customer behavior. Phil Gates, head of online marketing and development, Virgin Mobile Across the industry, website conversion rates have historically remained between one and three percent 1, proving that most web experiences fall well short of expectations. There are many elements that contribute to the success or failure of a website experience, including the relevancy of messaging, layout, forms, pricing, navigation, imagery, offers, and placement. Each of these variables contributes to the fact that about 98 percent of web traffic does not end with the desired action and why so many campaigns routinely disappoint. 6% Global Conversion Rate 0% Dec Jan Feb Mar Apr May Conversion Rates: 2-3% 100% Abandonment Rate 0% Dec Jan Feb Mar Apr May Abandonment Rates: 75% 1 www.fireclick.com 5
The solution Online advertising is a highly competitive environment in which success and failure is measured in leads, conversions, and revenue. Advertisers are dynamically competing with thousands of other advertisers for consumer attention to cut through the noise and ultimately deliver results, all within tight marketing budgets. Furthermore, they are inundated with massive amounts of web analytics data that cannot realistically be analyzed, processed, and made actionable within acceptable timeframes. Lastly, advertisers are routinely leaving money on the table by unsuccessfully optimizing traffic conversion after working so hard to drive that traffic to their site. Information technology is a perfect fit for addressing these online campaign challenges. It is important to identify the best ads, keywords, publishers, and time or day but that alone is not nearly sufficient. Technology can be used to analyze large volumes of data in an automated fashion to algorithmically identify the combination of ads, keywords, publishers, and a variety of other criteria that perform best in combination with each other; how best to allocate a finite advertising budget amongst all the combinations; how to improve quality scores to reduce advertising costs; how to experiment with new and low volume keywords to profile them for future optimization; and most importantly to optimize all this information and update bids across hundreds of thousands of keywords, ads, match types, publishers and more dynamically and routinely. Technology is equally critical in website optimization, where you have to evaluate a variety of content combinations to not only identify the optimal piece of content for each region of a web page, but identify the best combination of pieces of content to drive visitor action and ultimately deliver vastly superior results. Website optimization technology can analyze results across hundreds of thousands of page views, scientifically identifying the key determinants of conversion uplift. Choosing not to use technology in online advertising and website optimization, at best, results in significant inefficiencies and, at worst, ensures your best leads go to your competitors. Online advertising technology should possess the following attributes: Algorithm-based unlike rules-based systems, utilizes automated portfolio-based, algorithmic optimization to drive the most valuable traffic at the lowest cost Automation and real time analyzes massive volumes of web analytic data to drive advertising and conversion optimizations in real time without user intervention Complete control avoids black-box solutions by allowing the flexibility to specify limits and constraints to ensure business objectives are successfully achieved Integrated cross-publisher analytics offers complete and detailed web analytics to ensure tracking and analysis of campaign cost and performance data by any dimension, as well as comprehensive reporting End-to-end works seamlessly from traffic acquisition through onsite targeting and testing of on-site user experience Similarly, website optimization (or multivariate testing) technology should possess the ability to handle different testing scenarios: Page concept (A/B) testing used to test radically different page concepts and gain initial insights and direction for multivariate testing Simple multivariate testing allows for easy testing of offers, price points, images, and content on the website simultaneously Full-page multivariate testing provides the most powerful and flexible online optimization method, enabling testing of millions of content variations and relationships among elements to identify optimal combinations for any page 6
Why Autonomy Optimost is the answer Autonomy Optimost provides the most comprehensive end-to-end marketing optimization offering available, allowing marketers to use a single platform to meet all of an organization s online marketing needs. Autonomy Optimost enables marketers to gain valuable insight from all campaign data, regardless of channel, and leverage that data to more effectively attract and convert the right customers. HP Autonomy s meaning-based technology provides the industry s most advanced testing, pattern-matching, targeting, and optimization capabilities under a single platform. Autonomy Optimost s Campaign functionality provides the most advanced cloud-based online advertising and bid management system, enabling marketers to outperform the competition and generate the most leads and awareness from their online advertising budget. Online marketers can manage online marketing campaigns across multiple publishers and ensure attracting the best, most cost-effective traffic, using a single, easy-to-use interface. Our technology assures online advertising success by optimally attracting qualified traffic and leads to websites. Unlike other solutions, it uses true algorithmic optimization to deliver superior results. Optimost Campaign is incredibly easy to use and was designed by and for marketers to ensure rapid return on investment. It is the industry s leading solution for enabling marketers to optimally attract online visitors, ensuring superior results across Google, Bing, Yahoo!, and Facebook. Autonomy Optimost s Author and Report functionality enables marketers to maximize conversion rates based on the real-time behavior of web visitors. Using advanced online testing techniques coupled with patented technology, marketers can determine the optimal combination of site elements including content, offers, and layout for maximizing conversion rates and online results. Author and Report provides a simple solution for optimizing a site by testing virtually limitless permutations of copy, offers, layouts, and any other elements, resulting in dramatic increases in conversion rates and online sales. Whether new to online testing or in need of a sophisticated solution capable of handling a large set of complex business requirements, marketers see much better results by relying on the Author and Report testing modules. The results are easy to quantify because the system benchmarks site results and then optimizes site elements to ensure that the right content gets delivered to the right visitors at the right time. Collectively, Autonomy Optimost s capabilities deliver the world s first end-to-end technology solution for optimizing the online customer funnel, from traffic acquisition all the way through to customer conversion. Success stories Autonomy Optimost was the pioneer and remains the leading solution in online optimization, delivering unmatched results in the industry. By using HP Autonomy solutions: Delta experienced a $30 million increase in revenue. The Financial Times increased their click through rate by 350%. John Lewis increased their online sales by $15 million. LexisNexis grew their subscriptions by 73%. These are just a few examples of companies HP Autonomy has helped achieve significant bottom-line results. 7
Having Autonomy Optimost has revolutionized marketing decision making by introducing certainty to our assumptions. Large financial publication Getting started Today s, enterprises are expected to have a presence online. But simply deploying a website is not enough. Technology exists to optimize both traffic acquisition and visitor conversion while ensuring advertising spend yields the greatest possible results. Autonomy Optimost rapidly optimizes both the acquisition of new visitors/prospects and the conversion of those prospects into customers. Leveraging HP Autonomy s cloud-based solutions, advertisers can be up and running in a matter of minutes and begin experiencing results including more leads/visitors and sales/ conversions immediately. About HP Autonomy HP Autonomy is a global leader in software that processes human information, or unstructured data, including social media, email, video, audio, text, and web pages. Autonomy s powerful management and analytic tools for structured information together with its ability to extract meaning in real time from all forms of information, regardless of format, is a powerful tool for companies seeking to get the most out of their data. HP Autonomy s product portfolio helps power companies through enterprise search analytics, business process management and OEM operations. HP Autonomy also offers information governance solutions in areas such as ediscovery, content management and compliance, as well as marketing solutions that help companies grow revenue, such as web content management, online marketing optimization and rich media management. Please visit autonomy.com to find out more. Sign up for updates hp.com/go/getupdated Share with colleagues Rate this document Copyright 2013 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. The information contained herein is subject to change without notice. The only warranties for HP products and services are set forth in the express warranty statements accompanying such products and services. Nothing herein should be construed as constituting an additional warranty. HP shall not be liable for technical or editorial errors or omissions contained herein. 201303011_CI_WP_HP_AUT_Excel_in_Online_Marketing