Web Site Marketing Group




Web Site Marketing News Welcome to the Web Site Marketing Report, a newsletter offering resources to help businesses attract more visitors and customers to company web sites. Send comments, suggestions or submissions to info@websitemarketinggroup.com >>Featured This Issue: Direct Marketing News Says Search Engine Marketing is Finding Its Way New Standards Announced for "Web Beacons" Web Site Marketing Reports Simultaneous Media Use Poses Challenges to Media Planners UN Report: Internet Use Booming Worldwide Internet Mergers and Acquisitions Up 26% in October Most Retailers Post Increased Holiday Sales Having a Spammy Holiday? Web Site Marketing Group Wins Awards New Site Content Now Online Web Developers and Interactive Agencies Referral Program DoubleClick Study Points to Rising E-mail CTR >>Direct Marketing News Says Search Engine Marketing is Finding Its Way A recent article by Senior Editor Mickey Alam Khan in Direct Marketing News titled "Search Marketing Finds Its Way" argues that search engine marketing is becoming increasingly important to direct marketers. "Offline media account for 95 percent of the total advertising spend, leaving online with $5 billion to $6 billion, according to industry estimates. Paid search is the fastest growing online ad medium, with a market size of $1.4 billion from 100,000 advertisers, according to Citigroup's Salomon Smith Barney investment bank. By 2008, paid search on pay-per-click search engines is expected to reach $5 billion." Nearly 800 million searches take place daily, compared with 2.7 million pieces of direct mail sent daily, according to Overture. A November 2001 Overture report said search marketing accounted for three percent of all media spends but 70 percent of all leads generated, when compared with direct mail and phone directory listings. To read the Direct Marketing News article, visit http://www.dmnews.com/cgi-bin/artprevbot.cgi?article_id=22245 >>New Standards Announced for "Web Beacons" An invisible 1 x 1 pixel sometimes called a "web beacon" or "web bug" has long be used to track user activities within web sites. Now, the NAI (Network Advertising Initiative), a group of network advertisers that includes Avenue A, DoubleClick, L90, 24/7 RealMedia and ValueClick, Inc. has announced industry guidelines for the use of web beacons. For more information visit http://www.networkadvertising.org/Statement.pdf >>Web Site Marketing Reports This detailed report examines more than 15 tests including Web Position Gold Professional Edition, HTML validation, Cachebility Check, Accessibility Check, Download Time check, Meta Tags Review, Link Popularity analysis and Newsgroup/Message Boards/Clubs review. Analysis of data is provided by Mike Freedman, who is both a Certified eMarketer (CeM) and a Certified Internet Marketing and Business Strategist (CIMBS). You'll have the benefit of more than five years of full-time internet marketing experience and more than 20 years of marketing experience. Each report is published in a 3-ring binder with a CD-Rom containing all digital files. For more details, visit http://www.websitemarketinggroup.com/reports.shtml >>Simultaneous Media Use Poses Challenges to Media Planners Simultaneous use of television and the Internet is causing media buyers to re-think approaches to both mediums. Women are more likely than men to consume multiple media channels simultaneously: 67 percent of women reported regularly watching TV when they go online, while 59 percent of men did, according to a study by BIGresearch. The study, was recently reported by Brian Morrissey in an article at http://www.internetnews.com, which also reported that 76 percent of women said they have the TV on while online, compared with 57 percent of males. >>UN Report: Internet Use Booming Worldwide Use of the Internet is booming all around the world, according to a recent United Nations report. An annual report by the UNCTAD trade and development agency forecast that registered Internet users could total 655 million by the end of 2002, a year-on-year increase of 30 percent. The value of electronic commerce -- goods and services bought and sold over the Internet -- could reach $2.3 billion this year, a 50 percent rise from last year, climbing to around $3.9 billion at the end of 2003. To download a copy of the report or learn more, go http://www.unctad.org/Templates/Webflyer.asp?docid=2923&intItemID=1397&lang=1 >>Internet Mergers and Acquisitions Up 26% in October Internet-related mergers and acquisition activity improved in October as buyers focused on software and infrastructure. Buyers spent $1.5 billion to acquire 98 Internet-related properties in October. M&A spending rose 14% from the $1.3 billion spent in September and the number of deals increased 26 percent over the 78 deals announced last month. The number of deals in October was the highest since June of this year. Compared with October 2001, last month's spending declined 25 percent and deals fell 18 percent; last October, acquirers spent $2 billion to buy 120 companies. Source: WebMergers.com http://www.webmergers.com/editorial/article.php?id=65 >>Most Retailers Post Increased Holiday Sales During the first two weeks of November, 60 percent of retailers posted revenue increases of 25 percent or greater compared to the same period last year, according to a new Shop.org/BizRate.com survey (see chart below). Reinforcing this early encouraging news about the online holiday season, the 2002 Online Holiday Mood Study, conducted by Shop.org and BizRate.com, also found that almost half of online buyers plan to do more shopping online this holiday season than last year. The study also evaluated the success of online retailers' marketing efforts. This year, retailers said, free shipping with conditions has been the most successful tool in driving holiday business (47%). Search engine placement, bestseller lists and early shopper discounts have also been effective marketing methods. Source: The Shop.org/BizRate.com 2002 Holiday Online Mood Study. For more information, visit http://www.shop.org or http://www.bizrate.com >>Having a Spammy Holiday? An article by Beth Cox titled "Spammed for the Holidays" at InternetNews.com reported that "the holidays could actually prompt an increase in unwanted commercial e-mail," and quoted David Strickler, founder of e-mail protection company MailWise, saying the holiday season could result in a surge that could make spam up to 90 percent of all Internet e-mail, as anxious retailers bolster their efforts to boost holiday sales." See the article at http://www.internetnews.com/IAR/article.php/1549241 >>Web Site Marketing Group Wins Awards WebSiteMarketingGroup.com recently won these awards: Gold Award from the American Association of Webmasters, The 2002-2003 Golden Web Award from the International Association of Web Masters and Designers and the Learning Fountain Award. More information on awards earned by WebSiteMarketingGroup.com can now be found at http://www.websitemarketinggroup.com/awards.shtml >>New Web Site Content Now Available These web site sections were recently revised or expanded: Check Your Site Operations at http://www.websitemarketinggroup.com/checksite.shtml Examine Your Marketing at http://www.websitemarketinggroup.com/examine.shtml Articles and Resources at http://www.websitemarketinggroup.com/tips.shtml Web Site Marketing Books at http://www.websitemarketinggroup.com/books.shtml Strategic Planning for Web Sites at http://www.websitemarketinggroup.com/planning.shtml News Releases at http://www.websitemarketinggroup.com/news.shtml >>Web Developers and Interactive Agencies Referral Program The Web Site Marketing Group referral program offers significant financial rewards to companies that refer business to us. The Web Site Marketing Group can also act as the marketing department of your company. By using the Web Site Marketing Groups hardware, software, expertise, skills and personnel you can find savings in outsourcing while enhancing your marketing effectiveness. For more information e-mail info@websitemarketinggroup.com >>DoubleClick Study Points to Rising E-mail CTR DoubleClick (http://www.doubleclick.com) recently published its e-mail trend report for the third quarter, indicating the e-mail marketing industry is holding open and click rates steady in the face of rising volume. According to DoubleClick's figures, based on 2 million e-mail transactions measured through the DARTmail e-mail delivery platform, the click-through rate in the quarter was 6.1 percent, as opposed to 4.9 percent last quarter and 6.1 percent in last year's third quarter. The report found that HTML e-mails had an average click-through rate of 11.3 percent, compared with text-based e-mails, which had an average click-through of 6 percent. Messages selling business products and services continued to have the highest open rate, averaging 47.4 percent. Travel and consumer products came in second, with a 42.5 percent open rate. For the full DoubleClick report, titled Q3 Email Trend Report, visit http://www.doubleclick.com/us/knowledge/documents/trend_reports/dc_q3emailtrends_0211.pdf