Magnetise Group Blog

Out with the old, in with the New!

2012-01-05T12:15:00.002Z

The last year has been an amazing one for us at Magnetise - with award wins, company growth and lots of exciting new technologies and features being developed. Seeing as we're a social bunch at heart, we made sure to take a little time out to celebrate the festive season with our colleagues too though!

In true Magnetise style, Secret Santa came to town with a rather entertaining set of gifts. Each year we set a theme for gifts, and a really challenging price point to acquire them for, then sit back and watch the fun as people see what they've got. This year, as you can perhaps glean from the photo below, was all about wearable items….

Just looking at this photo shows just how fast we're growing - despite the fact a few team members couldn't be there (or perhaps were pre-warned about the outfits they'd be called on to wear?!?) Magnetise is fast becoming a rather big family.

We're starting 2012 with lots more growth and success to share with you - but in the meantime, we'd like to say a very Happy New Year to all our clients, partners and friends, and we're looking forward to working with you more this year.

The Conversion Quandary

2011-12-15T11:20:00.001Z

During our online travels, we came across a really interesting post on Bryan Eisenberg’s brilliant online marketing blog. He raises the question of ‘Who Owns Conversion?’ and discusses how it has been a topic of debate he’s covered for over a decade. Having been in this business since 2007, we’ve also been watching with interest as this vital element of digital marketing has shifted and shaped itself in line with the advance of technology.

As Brian says, in the offline world, ‘Sales’ owns conversion, but online it seems to be a less concrete facet. We’ve never had the pleasure of working with someone with the official title of Conversion Rate Optimisation (CRO), but we regularly work with myriad personnel and suppliers for the campaigns we do, from affiliate marketing to media agencies to fulfilment houses, direct marketers, Marketing Directors, CEOs, Online Marketing Managers, Channel Managers and more! It can be confusing to navigate and understand the myriad ways in which conversion is catered for, but from experience we know that conversion is a central aspect of digital marketing efforts, even if it is not clearly demarcated within a particular role or supplier relationship.

This, in part, is due to the rise of data and the flexibility of today’s technology. They are now, or should be, part of everyone’s work, making them a shared rather than owned resource. From staged email marketing campaigns to prospects, to real-time transfer of data to call centres, to managing, optimising and attributing leads across many different channels both on and off line, we traverse the online marketing universe and ensure that we can generate, harness and capture interest in our clients’ products and services regardless of the route this conversion takes.

Because we work with so many different types of company and personnel, making our technology both very sophisticated and incredibly easy to use is paramount. Our clients can dip into our Ad Centre management console, add messages, creative assets and campaign requirements, and get a campaign up and running in minutes regardless of their technical or marketing know-how. We take up the strain of ensuring everything fits together, complies with all industry guidelines and requirements, and utilises the very best form functionality, validation and data management enabling clients to optimise campaigns quickly, easily and effectively.

It is because of this approach that our technology and services can be adopted by so many different types of user and we are actively developing across the suite to ensure Magnetise clients, regardless of their job title, role, division or business, can continue to optimise the conversion of interest into sales.

Everyone in digital marketing therefore ‘owns conversion’, us included.

All Roads Lead to Lead Generation

2011-12-07T15:20:00.001Z

With the evolution of Google+ already forging ahead, we’re actively digging into its features and functionality to assess it for our clients. Google itself has already mentioned its applicability and value for lead generation, and that, in time, it may allow brands to conduct commerce on the service too.

Lead generation is a natural element of the social marketing mix. We are already incorporating a number of social channels into our reach and remit, and Google+ will become relevant possible sooner than previously thought. The company has generated a fantastic level of demand by tightly controlling user sign ups in the early stages, but quickly then rolled out the ability for brands to also sign up and make use of the service via the recently launched Pages, safe in the knowledge that there was already a consumer audience in place. Whether this was always the plan, or a response to the uproar about brands not being allowed through the gates, we will never know.

Currently, both promotions and advertising are absent from the service, but it is highly likely, given Google’s excellent focus on monetisation through advertising and its range of complementary services, that Google+ will become ‘all things to all brands’ as it were.

Just as Magnetise works to cover and cater for all valid lead generation channels and techniques, brands should also ensure that they are present and active in key channels their customers or indeed prospects are to be found in. And from the little we have gleaned so far, the story and rollout of Google+ has only just begun.

Magnetise takes a break with ITV Daybreak!

2011-11-18T10:17:00.001Z

We’ve had the opportunity to work with ITV for the last 3 years now and have a brilliant relationship with the team there. So when they invited us to visit the Daybreak London studios recently, we jumped at the chance to hang out for a while. Such was the popularity of the trip, Magnetise conducted its very own ‘prize draw’ and the lucky winners were duly waved off to The London Studios on South Bank.

The visit was a very inspirational (not to mention fun!) experience, with a full tour of the news and production rooms as well as the chance to get up close and personal with some of the stars of the show that day, including Carol Vorderman, Martin Lewis and Christine Bleakley. Coming from the relatively small and nimble new media world, the team were enthralled by the size of the operation, the complexity of the production and the dedication and effort that goes into making each individual programme.

After watching some of the action on set, we couldn’t resist the chance to act like popstars and have a go at ‘performing’ on the on-set stage. Luckily this was not, and never should be, televised – but we certainly enjoyed it nonetheless! After that it was up to the hospitality suite for a champagne breakfast with stunning views over London as our backdrop.

Once back in our (considerably smaller) offices, the team shared their insights with the rest of the office and immediately set about using that ‘insider knowledge’ to support the work we do with the company. ITV uses services including our white label competition platform to generate additional revenue and provide engaging content for its visitors, as well as our widgets and basket ads that make excellent use of previously wasted real estate to carry relevant adverts and offers for the ITV online audience. As a creative bunch, we had lots of new ideas too and look forward to telling you more about them in the future.

In the meantime, we’d just like to say a big THANKS to all the team at ITV – it’s a pleasure to be working with you!

Social Media – have you jumped on the bandwagon?!

2011-10-13T10:11:00.015+01:00

Social media has been hitting the headlines increasingly in recent months, with Tweeting being a widespread hobby of the rich and famous to vent their frustration / anger / excitement / love / whatever else happens to pop into their heads. However, we have also recently seen the arrival of Google+ and amendments to the ever-changing face of Facebook leaves marketing professionals all over the world debating on the implications that social media has on online marketing and branding.

One noticeable change to Facebook in the past few weeks is that they have added the ‘Ticker’ bar to the right hand side of the page, just above the chat box. According to Mark Zuckerberg, this is a new way of providing ‘frictionless sharing’. But what does this mean? Well, put simply it means that whatever you are doing is automatically posted to the Ticker bar, and your friends can all see what you’re up to including now what websites you visit, what music you listen to and what you are saying to friends that they may not even know! Aside from the fact that this has its flaws, which are being discussed in detail on many online forums, including invasion of privacy (see here for an interesting write-up by the Washington Post), apathy towards what other people are up to and it just being annoying and intrusive it’s also clear to see the value this free publicity can offer marketers and advertisers as long as Facebook, in time, finds a way to up the relevance to its users, and therefore optimise conversion for brands.

We could dwell on many aspects of these recent debates, but we’d rather focus instead on how social media enables us to qualify and gather more appropriate leads and how we can tie this into the work we do at Magnetise.

We always make sure we understand and integrate the best channels for our clients and have therefore been looking into the integration of our services with Facebook, Twitter and Google Plus. Right now, Google Plus is still unproven regarding the platform it can provide marketing and advertising campaigns. It is an exciting time as the network is growing rapidly though and we’ll be keeping a watch on things as they evolve. In the meantime, we’ve assessed and started to integrate ‘like’, ‘tweet’ and ‘plus 1’ buttons to TopFox, our white label competitions platform, to enable increased viral propagation of our clients’ campaigns through consumers’ social network profiles. This will be extended so that people can sign up to, and sign in to, TopFox directly from their social network account, making it quicker and easier for them to enter competitions, and for our clients to collect invaluable prospect data.

We’re taking this careful approach to social media for a very good reason. We’ve found that many in our market rush into new channels in a ‘land grab’ manoeuvre, and while they may collect a good volume of leads, these are not converting into sales. And isn’t that why we’re here?!? We believe that quality is just as, if not more, important than quantity, and with all the noise out there about social media, it’s easy to lose sight of this central premise, something that was referenced eloquently in a recent article on Tech Crunch. Another interesting viewpoint is the danger of over-monetisation talked about by Sir Martin Sorrell in The Guardian article linked above. There is no doubt that social media’s potential pool is immense, yet without context and relevance you won’t hook many fishes!

With all this in mind, we have so far researched and identified the core aspects that drive our client's businesses forwards - including signing in with Facebook to reduce the steps a consumer needs to take, and 'liking' comps to drive viral propagation - and will roll in others as they become a true value-adds for our client base. We are already using these features with a Lead Intelligence campaign for ‘The Week’ magazine and on our competitions on Gumtree. Click the links to see these live, or see below.

What we at Magnetise would like to know is whether you have been collecting leads via social media, and if so, have they been as valuable as those gathered through other channels? Do let us know in the comments section...

Magnetise’s In-Video Test Campaign with Nokia's Ovi Music Store

2011-09-06T09:24:00.000+01:00

The audience for online video advertising is maturing fast, with 63.1% of online video viewers in the UK being exposed to advertising in June 2011 according to ComScore, and now offers increasingly interactive experiences for consumers, allowing them to engage with brands and take ‘control’ over the information and advertiser activities they want to view and learn about. Figures for April 2011 show 32.6m people in the UK watched a total of 5.4bn online videos, meaning there is a huge potential audience if 2 out of 3 of them are being exposed to video advertising! When you consider that online video consumption grew by 37% in the UK last year the prospects and opportunities become even more exciting.

The Magnetise team has been working with a few carefully selected brands to showcase its new video advertising product, In-Video, which enables mass market adoption of online video advertising via the fast, effective creation of complex, dynamic and interactive overlays.

In partnership with Nokia and Go Direct Marketing, we ran a test campaign using our In-Video solution and thought you might be interested in finding out more about what it can do for brands looking to capture this growing audience.

The test campaign focused on driving exposure, engagement, registration and downloads for Nokia’s Ovi Music Store using a Michael Bublé concert in Sydney as a promotional incentive. We worked with media partner Muzu, the music social network, to host the campaign, exposing it to a tightly targeted audience demographic offering them an exciting range of engagement opportunities perfectly fitting with the Ovi Music Store brand and business.

The advert encouraged consumers to take various routes including entering a competition to win 2 tickets to the Michael Bublé concert and 7 nights stay in Sydney, downloading free music, watching a video, discovering more about Ovi music and exploring the website. See below.

To record findings as accurately as possible only proactive clicks on the video were counted as a true interaction; it is easy for a user to simply move their mouse over the advert accidentally and Magnetise will never count this behaviour as a ‘result’. Despite this, the unique interaction rate was a very healthy 1.1%.

Looking deeper into the engagement possibilities provided by In-Video, it is clear that the interactivity encourages users to become much more involved in the brand and the advert itself. 39% of users who clicked through to event level engagement activities, such as downloading free music or registering for a competition entry, went on to complete the action. We think it is noteworthy that within such a busy, fast-paced channel with so many brands competing, almost 2 out of 5 users were following through.

The Ovi Music Store test for Nokia has ultimately provided strong validation and useful intelligence before the roll-out of Magnetise’s In-Video capabilities, and the engagement levels recorded were a testament to the simplicity and richness of the creative presentation combined with the complexity of the technology. In-Video is proving itself to be an excellent platform for encouraging consumers to truly become actively involved with a brand and to use intrigue to push the potential customer’s desire to learn more.

To read more about the Nokia In-Video campaign please click here.

If you are interested in finding out how Magnetise in-video solutions can help to generate better results for you advertising, click through to our website or contact the sales team via products@magnetisemedia.com.

Magnetise Wins New Media Age Award!

2011-06-24T15:57:00.000+01:00

The New Media Age Effectiveness Awards are designed to reward and celebrate great work in digital. It gives us great pleasure to let you know that Magnetise is the winner of the Best Media Campaign category in 2011 for our work with Dennis Publishing.

Dennis has been a client of ours for a while now, and licenses the Lead Intelligence platform to run wide-ranging subscription acquisition activity for a number of their brands. You can read more about the subscription acquisition campaign that was deemed “a brilliant optimisation of media” by the judges here.

We'd like to take this opportunity to thank all the team at Dennis for working with us to deliver such a superb example of contemporary, high quality lead generation and if you'd like to find out what we could do for you, please do get in touch with our team.

Tech Talk: Widgets

2011-06-15T15:31:00.001+01:00

Magnetise's new text-based widget is the latest addition to Ad Centre and draws on our proprietary algorithms to generate incremental revenue for publishers and results for advertisers from unused space that otherwise goes to waste. These fully customisable widgets run a rotation of static text to microsite ads from our Ad Centre network. By pricing and tracking in real time the delivery of validated leads and completed engagements, the widget is able to update a constantly learning weighted adrank so that each widget delivers the maximum eCPM for a publisher.

These text widgets enable publishers to generate revenue from non-standard real estate by allowing a more shared risk model which taps into CPL and CPE budgets, whilst minimising that risk by ensuring that each widget delivers only those creatives which perform on their site. Ensuring that we can monetise more or less every pixel on the page via a CPL or equivalent model vastly improves the potential result for publishers, at the same time as enabling agencies and advertisers to derive full value from their campaigns.

Using Magnetise Ad Centre's bespoke widget builder, publishers can customise the style and format of their widgets across more than fifty variables, enabling publishers to exactly match their desired widget’s look and feel. The build is automated within Ad Centre to comply with industry standards and fit into different sites and content areas without operational or time cost for the advertiser or the publisher. Publishers can also include their own promotions in the rotation of Ad Centre advertisers and are able to block any advertisements they don't want from appearing on their site. This control and flexibility is central to why it is proving to be such a simple, effective addition for many of our clients.

Google Ad Words have proved to be a superb way to squeeze every last drop of value from a page, but the limited styles and customisation capabilities can detract from their success and make some publishers feel they are 'not right' for their site. Yet not every pixel on a page warrants the full creative weight of meatier ad formats. Our widgets are designed to plug that gap.

To see an example in the wild, take a look at the 'Popular Offers' section on the ITV Daybreak homepage.

Magnetise Grows Team to Support Business Growth

2011-06-01T10:36:00.001+01:00

The Magnetise Group has employed a number of new staff in its Magnetise Media division including the creation of the new role of Commercial Director with the appointment of Kevin Rice. Magnetise Media works with publishers, advertisers and agencies to construct and deliver advertising, marketing and lead generation campaigns to engage consumers, delivering prospects and data that ultimately grow its clients' customer bases and sales.

Due to growing demand from existing and new customers, a total of 5 new employees have been recruited to support the business. Kevin Rice, Commercial Director, has an impressive background in the online lead generation (OLG), display advertising and performance marketing sectors, having previously held Managing Director positions at both EDR and Clash Media. Bringing 15 years experience in the internet sector to Magnetise, along with unparalleled expertise in helping companies grow at the same time as ensuring they derive full value from their product and service offerings, Kevin's role will focus on building out advertiser and media relationships for the business and managing the burgeoning team.

“No other supplier in the marketplace has the technology foundation and focus on quality that Magnetise possesses;” commented Kevin. “These internal factors, combined with the increasing external interest in fully accountable, data-led marketing services from advertisers and the clear commercial opportunity ahead for lead generation in general, made joining Magnetise a very easy decision.”

Other new members of the team include Lucy, who joins the publisher team as Publisher & Acquisitions Manager from Zone Media in Belgrade, brings with her a wealth of experience in managing affiliate partners for performance marketing. Tom is Magnetise's new Sales Executive working with both agencies and direct advertisers, previously from Creative Environmental Networks, arriving at Magnetise with stacks of enthusiasm and drive for delivering winning campaigns for clients.

“2011 is turning out to be a big growth year for Magnetise;” commented Peter Gowrie-Smith, Founder and Managing Director of Magnetise. “ We're looking to make our In-Banner and In-Video solutions the leaders in their field, just as we did for Lead Intelligence and TopFox last year and bringing the skills and experience of Kevin and the rest of the team on board gives us all the manpower and drive we need.”

Lead Intelligence Shortlisted for Marketing Industry Awards

2011-05-17T10:42:00.003+01:00

Really pleased to let you know that our lead management and analytics platform, Lead Intelligence, has been getting a bit of notice this year. It was recently a finalist in the Innovative Technology category at the UTalkMarketing Marketing Innovation Awards, which is testament to the platform and the team behind it, but also the brilliant campaigns run by our clients.

We then found out last month that the superb work we’ve been doing with Dennis Publishing (PDF case study) on subscription acquisition has been deemed worthy of finalist status in the Data Driven Marketing category at the Marketing Week Engage Awards.

And for the hat trick, we've just been told the campaign is also a finalist in this year's New Media Age Effectiveness Awards in the Best Media Campaign category! We're up against some amazing competition as you would expect from initiatives of this calibre and feel honoured to even to be considered.

The winners will be announced at an evening ceremony on the 24th May and 23rd June respectively. We'll be attending both events and will let you know the results as soon as we do. Finally, we'd like to take this chance to thank everyone at Dennis Publishing for giving us such a successful example of what Lead Intelligence can accomplish.

Counting and Clarifying Online Lead Generation Activity

2011-05-16T16:56:00.002+01:00

The throughput of Lead Intelligence, Magnetise's lead management and analytics platform, provides interesting insight into industry reports such as the IAB & PwC Ad Spend Study. As many of you will know, lead generation is a relatively recent addition to the digital marketing body's research, which is in itself testament to its growing importance. However, the vast and variable activities undertaken in digital marketing can at times make it hard to identify and correctly measure each individual technique.

As a case in point, Lead Intelligence licence holders collectively processed over £800,000 worth of leads in December 2010. These leads were generated through activity in premium display, co-registration, affiliate marketing, classifieds, paid for search, social, display within co-registration and email. On first glance, this broad range of work shows just how deeply integrated and truly relevant lead generation already is.

Comparing this to the IAB's corresponding data, the number-crunching challenge becomes apparent though. Lead generation was added to IAB & PwC Ad Spend study for the first time in H1 2010. This report valued it at £21.6 million according to revenue data submitted (or estimated) for all UK media owners, equating to 1% of spend, while the recently published full year report values the sector at £41.5 million. Extrapolating Lead Intelligence's monthly activity across the year, this would suggest that it is undertaking approximately 25% of UK lead generation work. As just one of a range of lead generation solutions developed by Magnetise, we know that this is not a true reflection.

It is common knowledge that, while a superb endeavour, the IAB Ad Spend Study is fraught with a number of inherent challenges. When assessing campaigns, which box do we tick? How do we, as an industry and as individual suppliers, correctly quantify and communicate how we work and what techniques we utilise to deliver results? Before lead generation was separated out within the study, it was thought that CPL campaigns were added into the mix of other disciplines such as display or email, and now we are proactively trying to measure it, we can surmise that this is indeed the case. Whether the true size of the lead generation market is 10x, or even 50x greater than the numbers suggest, there is work to be done to properly quantify its present activity and future growth potential.

Part of the challenge for all of us is using the wealth of data and reporting we have available to us to really explore and understand which techniques work best. So while the channel a campaign is fed through might be on the face of it the most relevant factor to categorise activity under, we need to ask ourselves how the pricing methodology, the interaction style and the required result affect its classification. We work with everything from video to display to editorial content, but to us, all come under the lead generation banner due to the prospect data required and generated for our clients.

So while this is a superb effort, we feel it can and should be made more concrete. We're actively involved with the IAB's Lead Generation Council for exactly this reason and are helping the industry broaden both the definition and understanding of lead generation as we passionately believe its infiltration and existing status is far greater than current numbers suggest. We'd be really interested to know your thoughts too so please do let us know your perspective on how lead generation is utilised across the marketing mix.

Ringside Seats at the Royal Wedding

2011-04-29T08:11:00.006+01:00

Well it's been a fun-filled, action-packed and loooong morning here at Magnetise HQ! The Royal Wedding is about to kick off and we are all in the office in the thick of it - here's some photos of our view. Jealous? Given it required a 4am start to get here probably not! :)

Inspirational Day with Digital Window

2011-04-18T10:53:00.001+01:00

With the sun shining and the team growing, Magnetise decided to send a few troops down to a recent event organised by Digital Window called 'Inspire 2011'. Held at the Hilton Tower Bridge, we joined over 250 other digital types to hear about some of the technologies that are fuelling both affiliate marketing and general digital growth and innovation.

On arrival we managed to catch up with clients old and new, plus make some interesting new connections we'll tell you more about in the future. Then it was into the auditorium to hear Justin Pearse, New Media Age's brilliant Editor, introduce the day. As he quite rightly said, with so much hype around it's difficult to clearly see the direct benefit of new technologies, so the aim of the day was to give us the information and insight we needed to be able to fully understand and filter everything down to the solid opportunities people could take advantage of today.

Covering everything from cookie over-writing to post-click value to CPAs in Facebook, social commerce to coupons, re-targeting and mobile, speakers from comScore, TBG Digital, digitalanimal and more provided some thought provoking content. Our biggest take out from the day was just how relevant lead generation is to every part of the digital marketing universe. Whether it's identifying and capturing an exacting target audience for a particular brand, enabling transparency and therefore optimisation across a range of suppliers, or keeping a tight control on costs while incentivising consumers to fuel a new customer drive, lead generation is the perfect partner for any digital marketing initiative.

The presentations were awash with fantastic statistics, innovative new ideas and truly inspirational examples of modern digital marketing. The team at Affiliate Window have done an excellent job of capturing and presenting both useful snippets and the actual presentations, so we suggest you click across to take a look at their blog for more information.

Magnetise at mediaPro Expo

2010-11-08T09:00:00.003Z

On the 2nd-3rd November, despite the travails of negotiating London in a tube strike, Olympia Kensington played to host to armies of advertisers, agencies and publishers for mediaPro Expo 2010. The purpose of this exhibition and conference was to explore the future of integrated communications, exploring how marketers, brand managers, agencies and the media can deliver effective communications and campaigns across digital, social and print media. It was a fantastic event full of great talks by digital pioneers so Magnetise was excited to have been invited to give two presentations with our clients and partners.

Peter Gowrie-Smith, Magnetise's MD, took to the stage with Richard Lane from the global media network Mindshare to talk about our work with online fashion retailer BrandAlley. The talk demonstrated how lead generation and digital engagement techniques are helping marketers improve ROI and create integrated, interactive campaigns that take full advantage of the range of channels, touch points and sheer weight of data now available to them. Using our TopFox white label competition platform and In-Banner interactive display advertising solution, Magnetise and Mindshare work with BrandAlley to deliver intelligent, performance-based campaigns that provide brand engagement, measurable results, actionable analysis and improved conversion rates.

Our Publishing Director Robert Kelly also gave an excellent presentation with Anthony White from Dennis Publishing on how lead generation solutions are presenting opportunities for publishers to engage deeper with their audiences, generating extra touch points for the brands and registrations for the business at the same time as supplementing the bottom line with a brand new revenue stream. Dennis Publishing’s Maxim magazine has been using TopFox’s white label competition platform since 2008 and through this relationship has established a revenue stream from the previously untapped lead generation marketplace, created a rich selection of competitions and increased engagement opportunities with both new and existing readers.

Both talks were well-attended regardless of the travel challenges and we'd like to thank those that came along for their interest and enquiries. We’d also like to extend a special thank you to Richard Lane of Mindshare and Anthony White of Dennis Publishing for giving their time to join us for the presentations.

If you'd like to find out more or receive a copy of either presentation, please do just get in touch.

Displaying the Future & the Future of Display

2010-10-05T09:00:00.000+01:00

The web and its offline media cousins have been awash recently with reports and trends that outline where online display is, and more importantly, where it might be heading. At Magnetise, we like to live and work a year or two ahead of the pack, so these stories are already generating some interesting conversations and concepts.

New Media Age recently broke the story about ComScore's latest report, which detailed that display advertising was experiencing a resurgence as UK ad networks have grown both their reach and their unique users over the last year (from July 2009). Optimism has been admittedly light in recent years as everyone has struggled to survive the recession unscathed, and so stories such as this are both heartening and enlightening.

Digging into the detail, it appears that the rise in big brand integrated campaigns, along with all the new opportunities brought about by integrating data, technology, innovation and channels into a single, holistic marketing journey, are having strident impact.

In other news, a recent APA poll covered by the excellent UtalkMarketing disclosed that 49% of marketers believe that the industry is heading into a 'post advertising era' where branded content will rise through the ranks to become increasingly prevalent.

While the statistical results themselves were balanced in the sense that roughly 25% of respondents were sat on either side of the yes/no fence, one only need to glance at brand activity in social and rich media channels to understand the contemporary relevance of content to marketing.

To us, content is increasingly a vital part of our work. We capture consumers and help to convert them to customers by providing then with engaging experiences, information and offers, which would feel incredibly flat without the wealth of branded content we can access.

AOL are clearly bulk-buying energy drinks at the moment, considering the seemingly unending announcements coming from this internet stalwart. One that hits the point home about the opportunities of blending advertising, marketing, product and content together is Project Devil, which has just been presented at Advertising Week in New York. Apparently, Project Devil is AOL's gambit to re-invent the web for advertisers, but we think it's actually about re-inventing the web page itself.

In essence, it provides a way to integrate and simplify advertising with content, rather than making it look, feel and react like something that has been tacked on around the edges or slung over the top as an after-thought. While this looks on first glance to be a simple, effective fix to a growing problem, it's not completely new thinking, and moreover would probably cause problems with the online advertising standards that we have all worked so hard to create and comply with.

The fact that there is a never-ending stream of ideas is testament to the as-yet unrealised potential of the medium, and the passion of the people working within it. Any development that gives users, advertisers and publishers a simpler, more engaging and integrated digital experience deserves consideration in this increasingly jumbled online world and we really hope that you, like us, take a moment every once in a while to contemplate what's coming up around the corner, and what part you can play in driving the industry forwards.

Video Event at IAB - Magnetise with Brightcove

2010-09-27T08:48:00.001+01:00

As part of their Summer of Video event series, the IAB is hosting an interesting event this week on 30th September, in partnership with Brightcove.

Magnetise has been invited to showcase its technology by undertaking a practical exercise in online video advertising to inspire and educate about the limitless possibilities for engagement via this medium. Along with Brainient and EyeWonder, Magnetise will be working with attendees to construct next generation video advertising campaigns for a made-up brand, using a series of creative assets, ideas from the group and key technology solutions, in our case deploying our innovative In-Video solution.

In-Video essentially enables the creation of complex interactive overlays, vastly simplifying and speeding up the process. Blurring the lines between branding and direct response, In-Video delivers the high-end impact of a flash advert with the functionality and interactivity of widgets, along with a whole host of optimisation and analysis features that provide unparalleled control and flexibility. For more on the underlying platform and technology, take a look at this Tech Talk article on our blog

With so much happening in video at the moment, this is an important event for any publisher, agency or brand interested in, or already running, online video advertising. We'll be bringing you a full report after the event, but in the meantime, visit the IAB site for more information and to register, or contact us to find out how In-Video can breathe new life into your digital engagement activity.

Hard to see clearly on online video monetisation

2010-09-08T09:53:00.002+01:00

Guest post from Rob Kelly, Publishing Director, Magnetise Group

I found myself at the IAB Summer of Video Buyers & Sellers Debate recently, which made me ponder about the interim opportunities for monetising video content....

The floor was taken by the head of sales from Sky's online division and an influential digital planner/buyer. The initial question was along the lines of… 'Do re-purposed TV ads make the best online digital ads?' I voted with the derision that I felt this question deserved, this was too simple a solution, we work in new media you know. My problem with this is that one of new media's prime assets is the generation of interactivity, yet TV ads have hardly ever been interactive.

I started to think then about exactly what it is we mean by 'online video'. Video monetisation is a phrase that is bandied about, latching onto all sorts of disparate content, from user generated idiocy on YouTube, to more professional blogs, through to the near broadcast quality of some newspaper video content and finally to the broadcast material now being hosted online.

It appears that there is such a wide differential between the various types of content produced specifically for digital consumption, even before you add in the content that is coming to online from other sources. It is extremely difficult to lump them all together and apply the same monetisation solution.

This was brought home to me this weekend when I started sampling some shows on Seesaw, the initiative that arose from the ashes of Kangaroo. Project Kangaroo had its ups and downs, but was a worthy attempt to get TV content online. Ultimately it wasn't so much a Kangaroo as a camel, having been formed by committee, but at least we now have something. Seesaw offers a range of free and paid for content, with much of the free content being ad supported. It seems to me that there is a rule of thumb which means that we are willing to take more filler for more content, and will happily consume minutes worth of ads for longer premium content.

The experience of watching old TV shows (in my case back seasons of the I.T. Crowd, and a voyage into the past through Michael Palin’s Around the World in 80 Days,) is fundamentally different to watching a 2 minute report on Telegraph TV or Bloomberg and needs a completely different monetisation strategy. I am happy to sit through what is essentially a TV ad to watch TV content, but if I have to suffer Iggy Pop driving golf balls before I get the latest on updates on Sterling versus the Dollar, I won’t be happy and would probably go elsewhere for the information.

So back to the question of re-purposing TV ads for digital. One the one hand we have superb, linear creative already budgeted and paid for. On the other we have the wealth of true engagement opportunities brought to us by digital. While we're figuring out the future (which is bright, by the way!) why can't we simply combine the two? The next time I settle down with a cuppa to catch up on Michael Palin's adventures online, why not serve me a traditional TV ad for Heinz Tomato Ketchup, overlaid with an interactive creative that gives me a money off coupon, some recipes, links to social media communities and perhaps even some of that lovely digital content from the Heinz website, all without needing to leave the video page?

I for one would buy into it, like it (yes, I'd even 'like' it on Facebook too) and notch those sales up that little bit higher because of it. Innovation is everywhere, but to me the best examples come from using what you already have in a new, exciting way. We've taken a step towards that by using TV ads online, now let's take the next one together...

Rob Kelly, Magnetise.

Magnetise Update - Lead Intelligence processes record 3 million leads in June

2010-09-01T13:06:00.006+01:00

The Magnetise Group has processed 3 million leads in June 2010 for clients of its Lead Intelligence management & analytics platform, signalling that prospect generation is alive and kicking. The milestone is due to new agency licensing deals, social web integration and a clear market demand for truly accountable digital marketing solutions.

"In a difficult climate, consumers naturally become more interested in deals and offers;" commented Tim Milverton, Co-Founder and Technical Director of the Magnetise Group. "The companies providing these incentives need to know each resultant lead's relative value according to their particular business objectives if they are to maintain profitability."

Lead Intelligence is designed for large publishers, advertisers and agencies, providing them with the ability to set up, manage and analyse multi-channel lead generation campaigns. Since its release in 2009, the platform has been continually evolved to ensure it leads the market in accessibility, accountability and rich feature-set.

Magnetise was an early adopter of the 'social web' for lead generation as it exponentially broadens the reach and potential of digital marketing activity. Comprehensive social media measurement may still be in its infancy, yet the Lead Intelligence platform already quantifies and qualifies results and ROI within these new channels.

Delivered as a service via the web, the SaaS model enables enterprise level software to be delivered directly to the desk of the marketer with little need for input from IT departments. Providing intuitive, direct access to everything from KPI identification and analysis, through to actionable management alerts pushed out on specific campaign metrics, the Lead Intelligence platform is designed to provide maximum visibility and control to marketers.

Ten Thousand Hours (TTH Media), the online media agency whose clients include O2 and LOVEFiLM, is using Lead Intelligence to run its lead generation programmes. "Lead Intelligence has enabled us to ramp up our offering and moves us considerably closer to the end goal of delivering an acquisition focussed lead generation service for our clients;" commented Justin Thomas, founder of TTH Media. "We evaluated all the major systems on the market and found Lead Intelligence to be the most robust, feature rich and measurable platform available. Our clients have already seen the benefits and are committing more budget to lead generation due to the success we have achieved for them with the Lead Intelligence platform."

Companies including Dennis Publishing and eConversions Ltd., operators of the VoucherCodes.co.uk service, are also increasing activity on the Lead Intelligence platform. "Demand is incredibly high for integrated, multi-channel marketing insight;" added Tim Milverton. "As the market recovers and once again invests in business generation, it does so with a new-found focus on accountability and measurability across every available channel."

Funnel Lead Marketing (Funnel), the specialist lead marketing arm of The REaD Group Plc, has also licensed the platform. Peter Bell, Managing Director of Funnel commented; "The scope and scalability of Lead Intelligence is immense. We've been working with the Magnetise team to tailor the technology so it exactly fits our needs and were pleasantly surprised at how easy this process can actually be. We put technology at the heart of our service provision and Lead Intelligence has the ability to consolidate, analyse and therefore improve every conceivable lead generation programme in both the physical and virtual worlds."

"These strong figures are testament to both the technology and the team;" finished Peter Gowrie-Smith, Managing Director of the Magnetise Group. "In a tough economic climate, we have maintained a healthy growth curve and are continuing to scale up and extend both our range of products and our customer base."

Tech Talk: Ad Centre

2010-06-29T10:33:00.002+01:00

The Magnetise Ad Centre is the new, consolidated management platform for In-Video and In-Banner we're rolling out this summer. A lot of the features will already be familiar to existing users, but we've also incorporated what we consider the best and most useful tools from the Magnetise 'toy box' we use within the company.

The main reason for this evolution is delivering a more unified, multi-channel capability for our clients, in line with both their growing requirements in particular, and where the digital engagement market is heading in general. Ad Centre therefore enables the creation, management and analysis of multi-channel campaigns from within a single console. We were heartened to read about the launch of Google's Display Network this month, which appears to consolidate Google's various display offerings in exactly the same manner.

Our Ad Builder area helps clients construct channel-independent advertising using brand, message and creative collateral, which is then converted and fed through the desired channels by the platform. This brings a wealth of time and cost savings due to the level of automation we've built in. With all the usual Magnetise bells and whistles including intricate forms builders, customisable skins and layout algorithms that ensure everything is presented perfectly regardless of the final format or channel, Ad Builder heralds a big step forwards in removing the barriers to ad creation.

We work on the premise that an impression should never be wasted, and our platform caters for that with some very clever technology. This is because we believe that, in this multi-channel world we all now live in, campaigns should be created independently of the channel they are pushed through, as long as the technology can then identify and fit the right creatives, in the right format, for the destination. As an example, if a flash ad is placed on a site that doesn't use flash, Magnetise will instead serve an image that drives consumers through to an associated microsite where they can engage with the campaign.

Multi-version management is another way that campaigns can be automatically enhanced by Ad Centre. Whenever there are numerous versions of a creative, Ad Centre assesses their relative performance and informs clients which the best performing version is and why, as well as automating its optimisation if required, freeing up time and resource for campaign managers to focus on more important matters. This is of course in addition to the proprietary pricing, targeting and validation technology in play already, which we'll delve into in another blog post.

The reporting area of Ad Centre is the element we are most proud of. Regardless of the channel, we've made sure our clients can now compare and contrast activity on a much more granular level. Our Lead Intelligence platform contains some of the most comprehensive reporting capabilities on the market, enabling those who run multi-source campaigns to understand exactly how the ROI and activity breaks down and can be optimised. This is also vitally important in a multi-channel universe, so we decided to roll that capability into Ad Centre. We've also incorporated industry-leading indicators to understand the quality of sources (eg video or display) against each other, looking at everything from various positioning criteria on the page (such as distance from top left or layout in relation to page folds), to support for flash, to banner ad auto refresh rates which can be problematic in an interactive ad environment.

Engagement tracking is another new feature we're bringing out as part of our In-Video efforts and its also being retro-fitted to In-Banner. More aligned to the analytic capabilities of the best brand advertising technologies, this feature enables the assessment of drop off rates, full navigation paths, downloads, the provision of local or user generated data etc etc etc – in essence every engagement point in every channel of every campaign.

The challenge for us has been to deliver all of this functionality, data and analytics in a manner that makes it operationally efficient, commercially beneficial and highly actionable for our clients. Therefore, as well as making the system totally customisable and incredibly feature-rich, we've worked hard to identify the core requirements for publishers, advertisers and agencies, pre-building them into Ad Centre so the technology takes the strain, understands what you need from it at each point in the process, and delivers best practice results for every campaign you run.

Magnetise Update - Robert Kelly Appointed to Grow Publisher Division

2010-06-24T10:02:00.001+01:00

The Magnetise Group (Magnetise) has appointed Robert Kelly as Publishing Director. Previously Head of Publisher Sales at TradeDoubler, the leading European performance marketing company, Robert brings to the role a wealth of contacts and expertise in acquiring and developing relationships with the online publishing sector.

"The Magnetise Group really impressed me;" commented Robert Kelly. "It heralds a new wave of innovation, standing out due to its technology driven approach, strong focus on quality and its wealth of unrealised potential. I’m looking forward to taking its proposition and capabilities to the many publishers seeking a better class of innovation, traction and results from their engagement activities."

Starting out in online community development for the IT industry at the Research Group, Robert quickly saw the potential of the internet as a channel for the delivery of business content and opportunities. He then moved to Net Communities Ltd where he managed both advertiser and publisher client bases for the first IT specific online advertising network, followed by a stint at Deal Media Group, developing publisher relationships for the UK’s first affiliate marketing network.

In 2006, Robert joined TradeDoubler, where he was responsible for the creation of the highly successful publishing sales team. Key projects included pioneering the inclusion of viral marketing techniques in affiliate sales and the recruitment of over 150 new publishers to the business. Before joining Magnetise, Robert founded On-e to provide expert website monetisation services to companies including Playphone, Gambling.com and Sedo.

"Robert has a strong track record of identifying and driving innovation;" commented Peter Gowrie-Smith, Founder & Managing Director of the Magnetise Group. "Combined with his undoubted ability to forge deep, commercially successful relationships with the publishing community, he was an obvious choice to head up our expanding publisher division."

Robert will be the main point of contact for publishers wishing to take advantage of Magnetise’s range of advertising and engagement solutions, spun out of its proprietary marketing technology platform. With TopFox already holding the No. 1 position in the white label competition space with top tier publishing clients and over a million active members, Robert will be looking to achieve similar results from Magnetise’s other products. These include In-Banner, a technology solution that creates engagement opportunities from display inventory, and In-Video, the soon to launch solution for the online video advertising market that generates healthy revenue via rich interactive overlays.

IAB Online Lead Generation Resources

2010-06-15T10:27:00.005+01:00

For those interested in learning more about how best practice in online lead generation (OLG) can deliver solid intelligence, results and engagement, we highly recommend taking a look at the IAB's growing repository of case studies in this area. As members of the OLG Taskforce, we’re actively working with the IAB to identify and explain best practice techniques that will take the whole industry forwards. We’ve added two case studies onto the site so far, and will aim to make sure we keep on showing great examples of our work to as wide an audience as possible.

Visit the PDF case study to find out how we work with fish4 to provide a competition resource that monetises its traffic further, at the same time as increasing engagement, keeping their visitors on site and retaining that all-important brand loyalty. The TopFox white label competition service helps publishers create a seamlessly integrated service with the same look and feel as the rest of their site and ensures data integrity, quality and security at the highest possible level.

If lead generation analysis and optimisation is something you want to know more about, read the (PDF) case study of our work with VoucherCodes. Our Lead Intelligence solution was deployed to investigate and improve newsletter take up, and quickly proved itself a resounding success. Offering a complex range of features, belied by its intuitive management console, Lead Intelligence undertook a broad programme which included an assessment of each supplier’s relative ROI, validation of leads and data against specific business rules and made both immediate and ongoing recommendations on how to improve every aspect of the campaign.

These are just two examples of the wealth of intelligence now housed on the IAB site which covers every aspect of internet advertising and marketing – including important growth areas such as online video, social media, and in-game advertising.

We’re proud to be an active member of this vibrant community and look forward to working with them in other areas as our business continues to evolve.

The evolution of digital engagement

2010-05-05T13:30:00.012+01:00

Recent acquisitions and launches by major players in the digital space are heralding a new era of fresh innovation and opportunity for marketers and advertisers. Google’s purchase of Teracent in late 2009 showed the world that it was serious about display advertising while more recently Apple has started to release some information about its iAd plans. On the agency side of the fence, the WPP Group have stated that 1/3 of their revenue will be from digital in 3 years and in the meantime is busy looking for digital marketing acquisitions to swell its offerings and digital capabilities.

Looking under the bonnet of these stories is where it starts to get interesting....

Google's purchase of Teracent has brought ad personalisation a step closer by automating the real-time creation and execution of intelligent ads, customised to user and site. True one to one advertising is still beyond our reach, but this is exciting because it automates the previously time consuming and costly creation of multiple variations.

WPP's belief in digital is of course good to see and their purchasing power will add new tools and services to their network of companies fast. One of its recent digital innovations is the provision of ‘live dashboards’ for a number of their clients, merging proprietary, public and client data into a marketing insight delivery tool. The ability to source, personalise, package and deliver information in real time won’t be a new inspiration to those involved in digital engagement.

Apple’s iAd platform is going to simplify advertising (on the iPhone and iPad at least) at the same time as making it more sophisticated and useful. Its application integration approach improves user experience by keeping them within the app rather than routing them to a web browser – and the interactivity is apparently set to go as far as in-app, in-ad purchases. Developing the ad platform so that integrating the ads into apps only takes developers an afternoon is another sensible move. Anything that makes good advertising practice easier to develop and deliver can only support further innovation and best practice. We find Apple’s desire to "combine the emotion of TV with the interactivity of the web both logical and laudable too.

These are all superb examples of where digital engagement is heading – and elements we believed would be in demand when we started developing our online video ad platform 18 months ago. Due to launch in June this year, In-Video will offer multi-level interactivity within an advertising overlay and tap into the exploding opportunity of online video. It will be fast, intuitive and designed for everyone to benefit from, not just the brands with big bucks and long project schedules. It will deliver a great experience for all parties, and maximise revenue generation capabilities, results and engagement. Not only that, it will deliver the high-end impact of a flash advert, combined with a suite of interactive, data-driven widgets that provide rich functionality and continuous quality feedback for analysis and optimisation. Until we can tell you more, why not visit this post to read about our partnership with Brightcove.

We know that today’s interactive capabilities can lead to many different actions, data and services being delivered and, especially against the rich media backdrop of video, we believe that advertisers, media owners and the users themselves have a right to expect similar capabilities from their advertising.

Before now, there was a stark choice to be made: functionality/direct response or creativity/branding. This is the year that changes... and we’re rather looking forward to it!

Magnetise Update - Brightcove partnership for upcoming In-Video platform

2010-04-28T10:00:00.004+01:00

The Magnetise Group has partnered with Brightcove to support and enhance the upcoming launch of In-Video, Magnetise’s unique online video advertising and engagement platform, whilst enabling joint Magnetise and Brightcove customers to take immediate advantage of the fully integrated, turn-key solution.

2009 saw a 140% year on year increase in UK ad spend for online video, against an overall 4.2% online increase while in the US online video advertising spend jumped by 38% according IAB & Pricewaterhouse Coopers LLP research. With advertisers’ appetites thoroughly whetted for online video opportunities, innovation is increasing hand in hand with demand. As the medium matures, it has become apparent that early, linear advertising is viewed negatively against the rich media backdrop of video, while the transference of television advertising practices online via pre, mid and post roll spots is also increasingly on the wane.

“In-Video will of course cater for all existing online video advertising needs but we are focusing squarely on the evolutionary capabilities brought about by combining our expertise in deep, multi-level engagement with the growing interest in interactive overlays;” commented Peter Gowrie-Smith, Managing Director, the Magnetise Group. “Technology today enables greater interactivity that can lead to multiple actions, services and data being delivered and so In-Video will encompass and enhance this opportunity for advertisers and users through the massively popular medium of online video.”

In-Video works to maximise revenue generation potential, brand integrity and control for publishers at the same time as deepening user engagement, keeping them on-site for longer via multi-action, interactive widget overlays. Advertisers meanwhile can take advantage of the transparent cost per action payment model while improving their campaigns’ data collection, provision and engagement capabilities, as well as the response rates. The platform has been designed to create a rich, interactive experience that perfectly balances the needs and expectations of viewer, publisher and advertiser.

“Magnetise’s In-Video solution is a welcome addition to the Brightcove global partner ecosystem, the Brightcove Alliance;” commented Mark Baker, EMEA Channel Development Director, Brightcove. “Video monetisation is a major focus for our customers, and In-Video is a prime example of the excellent solutions that have integrated with the Brightcove platform to support and enhance the success of our customers.”

“We’re excited to be partnering with a company that fully understands the benefits of monetising an audience rather than just the video content;” added Peter Gowrie-Smith. “Brightcove’s customer base comprises best of breed publishers and media companies, so enabling them to simply ‘switch on’ In-Video via their management console is an important part of our go-to-market strategy.”

In-Video has been in R&D for 18 months and is due to launch in June 2010. Utilising Magnetise’s proprietary marketing technology platform, the solution will offer a comprehensive range of features that deliver the high-end impact of a flash advert, combined with a suite of interactive, data-driven widgets that provide rich functionality and continuous quality feedback for analysis and optimisation. In-Video has a price agnostic model that will tap into all existing ad sales structures and broaden the opportunities available for both publishers and media owners. Charged on a commission basis, clients will not be required to commit any financial outlay before seeing results.

For further information, please visit: http://www.brightcove.com/en/partners/magnetise-group-ltd

Publishers, Paywalls & Profit

2010-04-13T11:57:00.020+01:00

With debate continuing about publications including the FT, The Times and the International Herald Tribune introducing content paywalls, the publishing industry is rightly considering the future of both traditional and evolutionary business models. For background, take a look at the solid overview by the BBC and Suzanne Bearne’s sensible take on the issue for New Media Age.

Driving eyeballs to adverts via free content certainly worked while banner advertising was relatively new and by that nature, engaging. The system is now fundamentally flawed as we know – put simply the novelty of clicking on a banner presented on a web page is long since gone and banner fatigue can mean people simply block them from their minds and vision.

There can be no doubt that the publishing world is shifting on its axis but the emergence of paywalls creates a chasm between content and reader that all can’t or won’t traverse across. We believe there are many ways in which publishers and media owners of every size and style can find new ways to generate profit – ones that can also strengthen rather than weaken the overall user experience.

The Magnetise Group’s TopFox white label competition platform is a good example. Already used by Northern & Shell, Maxim and Loot, this solution provides income for publishers from leads generated due to readers entries to sponsored competitions.

Evolving the product further due to demand, the team identified and developed a way to also support print publications by adding an SMS ‘text to win’ element to the platform. This has trialled successfully with Loot and is now incorporated into the core TopFox product.

Other examples we’ve seen recently that support both publisher and reader, provide additional revenue generation capabilities – and are downright innovative - include:

The Random Guardian application – this provides deeper reach into content, which in turn creates new advertising real estate from existing content.
The FT’s upcoming Foursquare partnership, well covered by Econsultancy, where ‘mayors’ of certain locations will be rewarded with free, time-limited premium subscriptions (which, while strictly paywall-based, shows how partnerships can be created to drive engagement, revenue and readers).
Skimlinks' new SkimKit desktop app, which allows publishers to search for and convert direct links in editorial copy into revenue-generating affiliate links.
Finally, we couldn’t resist adding this link for those with a little time and curiosity – a superb ‘paywall game’ created by Niemen Labs which provides both a humorous and informative approach to the topic.

As always, we’re interested in knowing what you think too. Will the publishing industry evolve and innovate to maintain profitability? Will the paywall system work in the long term? Have you see further examples of ways publishers can generate profit from their content and readers? Do let us know in the comments below....

Magnetise Update - Loot Gains Online and In Print Competitions with TopFox

2010-03-24T09:30:00.021Z

TopFox, the UK’s leading white label competition platform, has been integrated into both Loot.com and its range of print publications. Due to the positive impact of Loot Competitions online, TopFox has developed a ‘text to win’ feature for the brand that has trialled successfully with Loot and is now being incorporated into its core business.

Loot, part of Associated Newspapers, initially signed up to TopFox to increase repeat visits to its site by providing them with quality prizes and offers. Nick Fleetwood, Business Analyst for Loot, commented; “Readers know they can use Loot to bag a bargain and TopFox gives them a reason to come back a lot more often.”

The solution helps publishers set up, host and manage competitions with a seamless look and feel, keeping visitors within their site at the same time as generating an additional revenue stream. Publishers can completely customise their content and offers, create banners and email newsletters, add their own exclusive competitions and have complete control over the promotions run on their site.

Due to the success of the online service, Loot has now rolled the TopFox solution out to its print publications. Nick Fleetwood added; “TopFox proved itself on our website so we have extended the concept to print. ‘Text to win’ competitions give our readers an instant way to enter without requiring them to visit the website. Our readers already use SMS to submit adverts and contact sellers so they have been quick to try out this new competitions service.”

TopFox, one of the Magnetise Group's range of online lead generation solutions, provides high quality, qualified leads to advertisers, marketers and the publishers themselves. Entries to sponsored competitions are charged to the sponsor on a cost per lead (CPL) basis, ensuring the right price is paid for each response and creating a fair and fruitful return. The ‘text to win’ solution meanwhile generates income for print publications using premium rate SMS entries.

Peter Gowrie-Smith, Managing Director of the Magnetise Group, commented; “Enabling SMS interaction is a logical progression for us. Combining the most popular channels of print, online and mobile into a single competition platform gives publishers such as Loot additional services to offer their readers as well as ensuring competition revenue is maximised across the business.”

TopFox’s ‘text to win’ service is a new development that will become available to all clients following its trial with Loot. It provides print publishers with a simple method of monetising further aspects of their business at the same time as giving readers a more engaging experience. For publishers that operate both online and offline, it provides more synergy across the different mediums while consolidating the management of competitions and data into a single platform.

Magnetise Update - Maxim's Web Revenue Maximised by TopFox

2010-03-17T09:30:00.015Z

TopFox, the UK’s leading white label competition platform, has created a healthy new revenue stream for Maxim, the men’s online lifestyle magazine. Maxim was an early adopter of the TopFox platform and over the last 18 months the teams have worked together to optimise the results achievable.

Previously an area of the site which didn’t generate a return for the publication, Maxim Competitions is now a popular destination offering opportunities from the TopFox network, as well as exclusive Maxim prizes such as Ferrari driving experiences. Competitions are chosen by the Dennis Publishing brand to make sure they match the interests and aspirations of their readers. Subtly signposted above the main navigation on every page and promoted alongside relevant content, the TopFox solution has helped Maxim readers engage more deeply with the brand, at the same time as capitalising on their value by generating a new revenue stream.

Designed to be comprehensive and simple to use, TopFox helps publishers set up, host and manage competitions with a seamless look and feel, keeping visitors within their site. One of the Magnetise Group's range of online lead generation solutions, TopFox provides high quality, qualified leads to advertisers, marketers and the publishers themselves. Its real-time algorithms maximise user engagement by ensuring offers match their interests, while the platform’s transparent cost per lead (CPL) pricing model helps advertisers enhance results and edit their pricing according to lead type, which creates a fair and fruitful return.

“Topfox has helped us turn what was previously a fairly static area of our website into a revenue generation tool;” Anthony White, Commercial Director of Dennis DMS, commented. “Both our web advertising and editorial teams find it easy to use and an effective way of managing and analysing both the competitions and the wealth of data they generate.”

The TopFox team worked closely with the publisher to fine-tune the web offering, testing out different positions and mechanisms to increase interaction with Maxim readers. TopFox lets publishers completely customise the content and offers, create engaging touch-points online and through email as well as having complete control over the promotions run on their site.

“Maxim is a superb brand for TopFox to work with early on;” commented Peter Gowrie-Smith, Managing Director of the Magnetise Group. “They have equally strong editorial and commercial aspects to their business which TopFox has been able to integrate even deeper on the Maxim site.”

Retargeting in Lead Generation

2010-02-24T11:54:00.003Z

Retargeting is a term used to describe showing users ads that relate to their recent activity.

For example, when a customer comes to a website, a pixel places an advertising network's cookie on their browser. How much information this cookie contains is subject to privacy agreements. It could contain items from their shopping basket.

The user then visits other websites. Some of these other websites will have ads served by the same advertising network that dropped the cookie. The cookie will then be sent to the advertising network, allowing the network to serve related ads.

In order to be a useful return on effort, this type of retargeting needs to be executed amongst a large network of sites.

Retargeting asserts that people want more of the same. i.e. if they were just browsing for product X, they will will also want to know about related product Y. However, after some period of time if they have already completed the purchase, they probably wont want to know anything about product Y because they have already bought product X. In my case I still get ads targeting a recent bordeaux trip that I have already been on. (booking.com in fact). Do I really want to know about a better room rate now that I've already booked mine?

Retargeting may therefore have a shelf life in certain cases. Where as I may still be interested in travel ads, I may not necessarily be interested in bordeaux ads. The ad has outlived the expired buying intent.

Retargeting can also be at odds with frequency capping. i.e. limiting the number of times you serve the same ad to the same user.

How can retargeting be used in lead generation?

TopFox Competition White-Label & Lead Generation Platform adds Premium SMS to its offering.

2009-12-18T12:11:00.004Z

For those of you not familiar with the TopFox network. TopFox competitions is a white-label competitions platform allowing top UK web properties to power their competition areas in a manner that seamlessly blends in with their main site. Check out http://competitions.maxim.co.uk/ as an example.

Partners of TopFox can add their own blend of free and sponsored competitions.

TopFox also provides its own competitions as part of the network. These competitions are sponsored and funded via lead generation advertising campaigns.

What we've found with our last couple of white-label integrations is an increased appetite for premium sms driven competitions, particularly with our newspaper-styled partners.

Essentially a premium sms competition is a prize draw that cost a pound or so to enter. Entries are charged to the user's mobile phone.

Its a quick and easy win for some partners, with many running offline versions of the competitions in tandem with online.

We're quietly optimistic about this new competition style and hope it will help our partners generate more revenue.

Here's an example online application of the Text to Win competitions http://topfox.co.uk/text_to_win.jsp

Lead Management & Analytics Software - http://leadintelligence.co.uk

2009-11-03T18:41:00.004Z

We've been using Lead Intelligence successfully with a number of clients over the last year but haven't really had the time to publicise it very much. Today marks the day we finally change this with the release of a supporting website at http://leadintelligence.co.uk/

It truly is a giant step forward in terms of Lead Management and Analytics. The team is constantly adding new functionality on what already is a mature, robust platform. The team here have implemented many Lead Management platforms previously and this truly presents the current state of the art.

Lead Collection within Google Wave

2009-11-02T19:02:00.009Z

Google Wave is in preview phase at the moment described as "What Might Email Look Like If It Were Invented Today?". With waves/conversations containing from as little as one to thousands of people, pasting comments in one wave can mean that it gets exposed to alot of people quickly.
Email today can't cope with lead collection within the email. This enables it. Is this the new email newsletter? Could this act as a kind of corporate sponsorship for twitter like read-only waves?

At Magnetise we've been playing around with Google Wave recently and overall we're impressed with the rich user experience. Why not check out our In-Banner Google Gadget for Google Wave:

http://www.magnetisemedia.com/inbanner/demo_google.pdf

As with such things, its easy to spam people, we need to see how Google Wave matures and utilise it appropriately.

Lead Collection within Video Display Ads

2009-11-02T18:56:00.003Z

We at Magnetise are delighted to demonstrate video within our ground breaking In-Banner ad technology.

For an overview of In-Banner visit:
http://magnetisemedia.com/inbanner/

To check out some of our illustrative In-Banner video examples visit:
http://www.leadintelligence.co.uk/inbanner/video-in-banner.html

Magnetise joins IAB's Online Lead Generation Taskforce

2009-11-02T18:47:00.004Z

We're sitting on this task force helping to define best practise in the online lead generation space:

http://www.iabuk.net/en/1/onlineleadgenerationtaskforce.html

Here are our current efforts on the white papers:

http://www.iabuk.net/en/1/onlineleadgeneration.html

IAB May 2009 - Introduction to lead generation white paper

2009-05-25T10:30:00.000+01:00

New report out from the IAB intended as an introduction to lead generation for advertisers. This is a comprehensive introduction from a respected trade association.

http://www.iabuk.net/en/1/introductiontoleadgeneration.html

Online Lead Generation show case at E-Consultancy

2009-05-21T10:30:00.000+01:00

We had a good day presenting at this online lead generation supplier show case in May 2009.

http://econsultancy.com/events/lead-generation-supplier-showcase-may-2009

Here's our presentation slides:
http://econsultancy.com/reports/lead-generation-supplier-showcase-presentations/downloads/1914-magnetise-pdf

£1m investment secured by Magnetise Group

2008-03-26T10:00:00.000Z

Magnetise Group, a new online lead generation specialist, has raised £1 million in its first round of funding.

A number of private investors have backed the start-up, which is being launched to significantly enhance the value and quality of leads generated within the online marketplace.

Magnetise Group is using the investment to build a portfolio of bespoke products that are designed to help advertisers refine the information gathered from web users and therefore identify the best possible prospects.

Peter Gowrie-Smith, managing director of Magnetise Group, said: “We’re taking a fresh approach to online lead generation, which is committed to helping advertisers to gather highly customised data that can be used to target their prospects more effectively.

“Online lead generation is currently focused on delivering high volumes of leads. However, it’s not just a numbers game and that’s why we’re building bespoke technology platforms that will enable advertisers to maximise their conversion rate.”

Magnetise Group is also using the funding to develop an exciting new approach to online advertising that will be launched in late 2008.

For further information or to arrange an interview, please contact Karin Ferro at Kappa PR:

Email: karin@kappapr.co.uk or call: 020 7078 8298