Mediabids works with Marchex on a few per-inquiry advertising campaigns, so if you are a publication who runs PI ads, you may have contributed to their success. 

Marchex Harnesses the Power of the Call

Written on

May 13, 2010 

Author

Gavin Dunaway  |

ADOTAS – So I’m walking along, minding my own business, when suddenly my iPhone starts making a weird sound — kinda like a marimba. It’s not the sound for a text message, Facebook update or a new email, so I’m a little frightened. After I slink it out of my pocket, I’m confused when the screen says, “Incoming call.”

A phone call? Wha? People still make them in the age of clicks and texts?

They certainly do, and Marchex has found that inbound phone calls convert at five times the rate of clicks. No wonder the company has launched a pay-for-call exchange, a performance-based call advertising service.

Marchex believes the pay-for-call market is about to explode due to the huge digital supply on a wealth of platforms and innovations in technology that cost-effectively serve, track, optimize and filter phone calls. In addition, advertisers can now glean far more user information from calls including geographic and demographic data.

The pay-for-call exchange — which spreads across 50 offline, online and mobile publisher partnerships — provides both campaign creation tools and call-filtering technologies. In beta testing, average call conversions ranged from 20% to 30% while consumer engagement on the phone averaged more than eight minutes.

If the last decade of digital marketing revolved around online conversions via clicks, Marchex believes the next 10 will revolve around driving conversions through calls.

“Pay-for-call advertising is the natural next step in the evolution of performance media,” said Marchex Chief Operating Officer Pete Christothoulou. “It is the last mile for advertisers, literally connecting them to their prospective customers through the phone. Each iteration of advertising products and business models — from pay-per-view to pay-per-click to pay-per-conversation — brings advertisers closer to customers and the actual transaction while increasing efficiency and ROI.”

From MIN: 

As part of its new promotion of magazines to consumers and advertisers alike, the ‘Power of Print’ campaign launched a video into the YouTube ecosystem yesterday. The lions (and lionesses) of print—Time Inc. CEO Ann Moore, Condé Nast president and CEO Charles Townsend, Wenner Media chairman Jann Wenner, Hearst Magazines president Cathie Black and Meredith National Media Group president Jack Griffin—all mock the bloggers and pundits who have declared the death of print at the hands of the Internet.

“What actually happens is that people find room in their lives for the new medium alongside the media they already love,” says Moore. This will continue as long as the old media continue to provide “an irreplaceable value,” adds Townsend.

Watch it here . The video is part of the multititle in-print push to defend and promote the enduring value of magazines. The campaign will appear across thousands of ad pages in scores of titles in coming months.

The YouTube video has been viewed just over 3,100 times as of this morning.

By The Associated Press (AP) – Feb 8, 2010

Average single-copy sales at newsstands and other retail sites for leading U.S. consumer magazines during the second half of 2009, among magazines that reported totals to the Audit Bureau of Circulations:

1. Cosmopolitan — 1,753,368 (down 1.4 percent)

2. People — 1,325,330 (down 10 percent)

3. Woman's World — 1,168,958 (down 4.9 percent)

4. First — 1,041,011 (down 6.4 percent)

5. Us Weekly — 812,089 (up 1.9 percent)

6. In Touch Weekly — 746,973 (down 10.5 percent)

7. Family Circle — 715,000 (down 9.4 percent)

8. In Style — 689,705 (down 6.8 percent)

9. O, the Oprah Magazine — 662,304 (up 5.8 percent)

10. Glamour — 587,677 (down 4 percent)

11. Lindy's Football Annuals — 580,509 (down 5.8 percent)

12. Star — 574,927 (down 6.8 percent)

13. National Enquirer — 562,292 (down 9.3 percent)

14. People Stylewatch — 536,934 (up 1.9 percent)

15. Woman's Day — 469,068 (down 7.2 percent)

16. Life & Style Weekly — 461,958 (virtually unchanged)

17. Men's Health — 438,238 (down 13.8 percent)

18. All You — 432,801 (down 1 percent)

19. Vanity Fair — 421,833 (up 5.1 percent)

20. Real Simple — 411,705 (up 6.2 percent)

21. OK! Weekly — 404,423 (down 17.5 percent)

22. Good Housekeeping — 395,289 (down 30.7 percent)

23. Seventeen — 392,262 (up 0.1 percent)

24. Every Day with Rachael Ray — 367,744 (down 3 percent)

25. Weight Watchers — 364,396 (down 2.1 percent)

Source: Audit Bureau of Circulations

Before you get too excited about this report from MediaPost, read the very last paragraph. Full story here Bargain Hunters Start With Newspaper and Magazine Ads

by Jack Loechner, 2 hours ago

According to a recent Adweek Media/ Harris Poll, 23% of adult Americans believe that newspaper and magazine advertisements are where they can find the best bargains. 18% believe online advertisements are most likely to help them find the best bargains. 10% say direct mail and 12% catalogs, 11% television commercials, and just 2% say radio. And, 34% of Americans believe the type of ad makes no difference when they are looking for the best bargain. When looking for the best bargains, different age groups have different ideas of where to look: 18-34 year olds are more likely to say online ads (22%) and television commercials (17%) are the best places to go 35-44 year olds go online (26%) 24% of those 44-54 and 33% of those 55 and older say newspaper and magazine advertisements those are media most likely to help them find the best bargain Advertising Most Likely to Help Find Bargain - Age (Base: All U.S. adults; % of Category Respondents)   Age   Total 18-34 35-44 45-54 55+ Newspaper/Magazine advertisements 23% 15% 16% 24% 33% Online advertisements 18 22 26 17 12 Direct mail and catalogs 12 13 13 14 10 Television commercials 11 17 12 8 7 Radio 2 2 3 < .5 1 None- the type of ad makes no difference 34 31 31 36 36 Source: Harris Polls, January 2010 Among the genders, women are more likely than men to say newspaper and magazine advertisements, and direct mail and catalogs are more likely to help them find a bargain. Men, on the other hand, are more likely to say online advertisements are more likely to help them find a bargain. There is also an interesting educational difference in the media people believe can help them find the best bargains: One-quarter of those with a high school education or less say newspaper and magazine advertisements are more likely to help them find a bargain, compared to 20% of those with at least a college degree. 29% with at least a college degree believe online advertisements are more likely to help them find a bargain compared to 12% of those with a high school education or less Advertising Most Likely to Help Find Bargain - Gender & Education (Base: All U.S. adults; % of Category Respondents)     Gender Education   Total Men Women HS or less Some college College grad Newspaper/Magazine advertisements 23% 22% 24% 25% 23% 20% Online advertisements 18 21 16 12 18 29 Direct mail and catalogs 12 11 14 12 12 12 Television commercials 11 12 10 12 12 8 Radio 2 2 1 3 1 1 None- the type of ad makes no difference 34 32 35 36 33 31 Source: Harris Polls, January 2010 The report concludes that, while newspaper ads are still slightly ahead of others among all adults when it comes to bargain hunting, online is not far behind. And, online ads lead newspaper and magazine ads, as a source of information about bargains, among younger, better educated consumers, who are much more attractive to most advertisers.

Interesting blog (Reflections of a Newsosaur) on how newspapers can capitalize on the expected popularity of the IPad. Full story here

Excerpt: 

How media can profit from new iPad

While it may be difficult for Apple’s new iPad to live up to the hype that accompanied its release today, there can be no doubt that this slick new device has raised the bar for interactive content delivery.

Unfortunately, as discussed previously here, most media companies already are late in developing editorial and advertising strategies to meet this new challenge.

 Significantly, publishers and broadcasters should be single-mindedly focused on finding ways to charge (checklist at left) for all the exciting new content, services and advertising opportunities that will be enabled by the ’Pad and the imitators that follow.

 

Meredith and Hearst are taking two of their online properties to print. As web-based advertising becomes more and more fractured will this be a growing trend?

From Mediaweek. Read full story here

Excerpt from the story-

Is reverse publishing becoming a growing trend for magazines? Normally, magazines launch Web sites from print brands. But Hearst is going in the opposite direction with the launch of Light & Delish, a bookazine based on content from Delish, a food site it launched in 2008 with MSN.

Meredith, meanwhile, is moving forward with a magazine it tested last year based on Mixing Bowl, an online social network it built around food. Meredith published a second issue of Mixing Bowl.com magazine last week and plans to do another this year while exploring other such affinity-based titles.

In Hearst’s case, Light & Delish will hit stores Feb. 2 with a distribution of 300,000. Priced at a $9.99 cover price, the bookazine is meant to be consumer driven, although it will carry three paid ads from Kraft, which was a launch sponsor of Delish.

Light & Delish is one of several bookazines the company plans to create this year as it looks for low-cost ways to serve up new revenue. Hearst published three bookazines in 2009, based on Good Housekeeping and Country Living, and expects to do at least four this year based on its existing magazines and Web-only brands, which include RealBeauty.com, RealAge.com and Kaboodle.com. Hearst also hopes to turn Light & Delish into a series.

At a time when it’s hard to whip up excitement for magazine advertising, it’s fitting that Hearst sees print as a way to feed its online growth rather than the other way around. Just a year after launch, Delish ranked No. 9 among food sites with 3.6 million unique visitors in December 2009, per Nielsen Online, and the company is eager to fuel that growth.

Meanwhile, Hearst saw double-digit ad-page declines last year across its magazines like O, the Oprah Magazine; Harper’s Bazaar; and Cosmopolitan. The bookazine also is seen as a way to promote Hearst’s other brands like Good Housekeeping and Country Living, where many of the publication’s recipes come from.