PardonMyFrench

Daggett and Lonegan - Both Ignored The Web and Lost

2009-11-08T22:33:41-05:00

I'm back from an 8 day vacation in the Happiest Place on Earth - Florida version so I have a lot of posts to catch up on. Don't worry I'm going to avoid binge posting!

Back in June I wrote the reason Lonegan lost was the complete lack of use of modern internet marketing tools to get his message out to Republican Primary voters. Well, the Daggett campaign followed up that "case study" with an even worse internet effort which was confirmed by Ali with these words of political marketing folly "From our research, we have discovered that NJ voters are primarily reachable via TV and other media -- not internet -- and that is why we have focused our efforts where we have"

Look I've only been working as a consultant for 4 years in the political marketing arena and I focus almost exclusively on online advertising in this space. That runs the full range from search marketing, emails, displays ads, media buying, Facebook, and everything in between. I do focus on search and media buying, but that doesn't stop me from working in other areas. I've also been during pure online advertising since the late 90s (search, display, media buying) but where I was a little weak to start was translating into politics. However, I have a great teacher in Becki Donatelli and listen to everyone else I've had the pleasure of meeting and that includes smart people from the Democrats. One book I keep around is Joe Trippi's book The Revolution Will Not Be Televised.

Joe's book chronicles Howard Dean's rise and then fall in the 2004 Democratic primary. What powered Dean's rise may now seem a little quaint - MeetUp, blogs, campaign blogs and videos, heck even a fund raising bat on the homepage, but the message is applicable to every campaign starting way behind with little name recognition.

IF YOU ARE RUNNING AN INSURGENT CAMPAIGN YOUR ONLY AVENUE OF WINNING IS MAKING THE INTERNET THE PRIMARY FOCUS OF YOUR METHOD FOR GETTING YOUR MESSAGE OUT.

Steve Lonegan lost the Republican Primary to Chris Christie because he didn't use the internet and relied on tired and worn out marketing tactics like direct mail. Chris Daggett lost any momentum he gained via the debates because his campaign chose to ignore the internet at the insistence of their media company who of course made more money by NOT pushing their message out via cheaper and more effective channels. Without going into too much detail in tactics, here are my top 5 priorities insurgent campaigns MUST do

Start very early
Kick out traditional media agencies until there is enough money to buy effective GRPs in target markets
Only use the internet for paid advertising because it is the most efficient, shows measurable results, and is the great equalizer when you are facing better funded campaigns
Invest in great creative developers especially ones like my friend Justin Germany who can create web ads and when you are ready, great TV ads.
Grassroots organizing is just not about going door to door and making phone calls, it involves using internet tools like Facebook, Google, wireless, and blogs to identify supporters, communicate with them, find like supporters, and then mobilize them.

That's how you run a modern insurgent campaign - not by listening to old style media consultants who insist the only way to run your campaign is by using old and really useless techniques. Don't end up like Steve Lonegan and Chris Daggett - people who wasted their opportunities by relying on 1970s styled marketing

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Vote Chris Christie in NJ - Your Only Hope To Get Rid of Corzine

2009-10-29T14:12:16-04:00

Yes you should vote for Chris Christie on Tuesday. It is our only hope to rid the state of the economy killing, private job shrinking, and government expanding Governor Jon Corzine. Look I get that Christie hasn't explained how he is going to cut property taxes, restore rebates, and slow down the growth of government. I get that I really do. I also get that if you are a conservative he has pissed you off going back to the primary against Lonegan. However....

The polls are tightening and Corzine can still win this
Chris Daggett is finished. He is not surging in the polls. Perhaps if he started earlier and used online effectively instead of listening to their traditional media agency (see the quote* below from Ali of the Daggett Campaign on why they didn't have any online strategy) he'd have a chance, but he listened to the wrong advisors.
Google Trends right now is pointing to a toss up but Corzine isn't far behind; Daggett is finished
Obama is extending his influence in the race even though he knows that Corzine has done a terrible job with this state in creating jobs and spurring the economy.

4 more years of Corzine is a horrible thought. And for each of you saying to yourselves, well if we have Corzine again at least next time we can run a conservative candidate. That's the wrong kind of thinking that led some of you conservatives to not vote for Senator McCain - and look how that has turned out.

If you are on the fence, vote Christie. If you are a conservative, hold your nose and vote Christie. If you want to make a protest vote for Daggett, now is the wrong election for a protest vote; the only thing that matters right now is to ditch Corzine and Christie is the only vote that can do it.

Sorry true believers. The way I look at this vote is to get rid of Corzine first and the only way to do that is to vote Chris Christie.

(Disclosure: I have had ABSOLUTELY NO INVOLVEMENT with the Christie Campaign. In fact, my 9 year old son still asks me why would I vote for him if he didn't hire me. Answer: CHRISTIE IS THE ONLY CHANCE TO GET RID OF JON CORZINE)

*Here's the bizarre, campaign strategy killing decision by the Daggett campaign to NOT use online to network, advertise, and generate grass roots support as posted by Ali from the Daggett Campaign (BOLD is done by me).

"From our research, we have discovered that NJ voters are primarily reachable via TV and other media -- not internet -- and that is why we have focused our efforts where we have. I can imagine you have strong opinions as to how we should be using our money, but actually the media company who has led every successful independent in this country is spearheading our efforts, so we are deferring to the experts."

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Why Was Chris Christie on Fox News Today - A Week Before Election

2009-10-27T21:40:45-04:00

I watched Chris Christie on Fox News this morning and thought that it was very odd. Sure it is great to get free media, but why make the extra stop a week out on a national news show to take softball questions from Gretchen? The questions she asked him were very easy and almost looks like he knew they were coming in advance. As everyone knows by now the polls show it virtually a dead heat but the biggest difference between Christie and Corzine is that Corzine has some support in the high 30s to about 40% while I have no idea what the support level is for Christie. Plus with Daggett lurking and taking votes away from Christie or from the people who don't really care about either of the major candidates, it is dangerous. (Side note: A parent I was speaking to today was surprised that Christie Whitman would lose to Corzine)

So that gets me back to the post, why was Chris Christie on Fox? Is it an appeal to NJ Republicans at the last minute to give him one final look? If yes, than why the softball questions? We learned nothing new about him other than his TV denial about driving down the wrong way of a one way street. Is it to try to get undecideds? Perhaps. How about Independents? Not sure they are watching Fox News in the morning. Finally, the typical NJ 9-5 worker is not sitting at home after 8AM waiting to watch Christie - they are on the road stuck in traffic somewhere.

To me it just looks like a last second act of desperation by Christie's campaign. The Christie apologists would say - hey it's free media and that's true. Too bad they didn't try to get harder questions so that he could explain what some of his plans are to cut property taxes, increase rebates, and reduce spending all while improving the business environment and schools. I just don't get it.

One thing I do get is that other than Corzine, the online marketing for Christie as well as Daggett continues to lag. I also get that the vast majority of Christie signs I see around were put up by the local Republican groups and that Chester NJ which is the next town over from Christie's hometown of Mendham has precious few signs around. Finally, another thing I get is search and the Google Trends right now points towards the hated and undeserving Governor Corzine winning this race. I hope Google is wrong but hope is all we have in NJ right now.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Senator Menendez's Health Poll - It Doesn't Matter At All

2009-10-26T23:28:50-04:00

I just stumbled across Senator Menendez's health insurance poll on his Senate website and it made me almost laugh out loud. As this screen shot show's Menendez's poll is 80% against health insurance reform, but one has to wonder why the consistent liberal Senator would even care about what the voters of NJ think. I track his votes online on Open Congress and from what I've observed he votes consistently with other Democrats. So either....

Menendez is so far down the liberal base that he actually believes NJ is a solid liberal state that will vote along with whatever President Obama wants without question.
Menendez is up for reelection in 2012 and wants to see how this issue resonates
He actually might listen to NJ?
This is just another useless poll that nobody pays attention to including Senator Menendez

The only logical answer is #1 but #4 is probably a close second. My guess is that Menendez and staff are so really disconnected from the state that they have no idea how NJ would react. One thing I know about this state is that on average we have a mind of our own and while there is a solid Democratic base here, the rest of the 60% or so of the state is very independently minded; that includes Conservatives. You'd think he'd know that too, but then again what do you expect from a Senator that rarely changes his vote from other Democrats.

#4 is a real possibility because the question is so vague that nobody knows what they are really voting for. The bills in the Senate and House are so complicated that they couldn't be simplified down to a single question. Most people that I've spoken to are supportive of many reforms but where people separate is when it comes to deficit spending and how the public options is included or not; that nuance is not included in Menendez's poll

Anyway this poll no matter what it says is an insult to New Jersey voters everywhere...

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

This is Just A Sloppy Banner Ad from Christie Campaign

2009-10-18T23:25:26-04:00

I don't make much money from the banner ads running on my site. The reason I have them there is to see ads that run specifically in the state. Banner ads like this very poor quality display ad from the Christie Campaign.

You might think I'm picking on them for one banner ad but from the very beginning I've been writing that they don't get online advertising and modern political marketing. And with two weeks to go they continue to demonstrate the lack of attention paid to online advertising with this very sloppy creative execution - fuzzy graphics, terrible imagery, and two click to play videos plus, the click through as usual goes to their homepage which shows a lack of understanding on how to drive to the correct message on the site.

Judge for yourself. Is it any wonder with 2 weeks to go this campaign is in a dead heat? Plus, a third party candidate who also doesn't get modern politics (see the comments left by Ali (daughter?) from Daggett campaign) taking votes from the Republican challenger who looked invincible to some (not me) a few short months ago. Maybe if the dreaded and well hated Governor Corzine snatches victory from the jaws of defeat, people will finally put to bed any question of the importance of having a well run online strategy.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Confessions of a 10 Year AT&T Vet - I Like Google Voice

2009-10-18T23:09:19-04:00

Those of you who read this website might not know that I worked at AT&T for 10 years. In fact, after my first year of graduate school I started as an intern at an internal consulting group called Business Operations Analysis - kind of a nerd factory of nerds that was even part of Bell Labs for a short while. After about 4 years in BOA I joined the consumer marketing groups and stayed there for about 6 years progressing up the ranks to Division Manager of a 25 person group called eAT&T or OneRate Online. I dropped a lot of direct mail (probably about 100 million) and made millions of outbound telemarketing calls over those 6 years of marketing.

One of those campaigns was for a product called TrueConnections. TrueConnections is/was a follow-me 500# so that your callers called one number and you could program the number to ring at various numbers you owned. Of course AT&T charged you for it and back in the mid 90s it seemed pretty cool, but as I recall it was too niche of a product targeted at Road Warriors and we didn't sell many plans. Personally I didn't really use mine and didn't have much use for a product like that until last week. That's when I got my Google Voice invite.

Now some of my AT&T brothers and sisters will turn their noses up at this product and when it first came out I didn't care for it either. However, after setting it up last week I'm hooked. Here's my experience with it so far:

Domestic calls are free. I get that - no big deal, but if you don't make international calls, what's better than free?
Yes there's some issues with making calls on its network using your iPhone but I don't care. I have one of those all you can eat plans with AT&T and have some rollover minutes. I want Google Voice for the inbound calling features, not the outbound so the iPhone fight doesn't impact me.
It took me about an hour to pick out my number. You can try coming up with a vanity number but I couldn't come up with one I liked, besides I'm not convinced a vanity number isn't a pain for dialers. In the end I chose a local number that I think is easy to remember - 908.867.8001.
Setting up which numbers ring when you dial my Google Voice # was a piece of cake as is the user interface.
Ok - then came the time consuming part which took me about 2 hours. In order to really get some use out of Google Voice you need to organize your contacts and put them into groups. Each one of these groups can have different ring options and different voice mail greetings. For example:

Vendors that you don't want to hear from go straight to voice mail
Friends and Family ring my three numbers, but the home phone only rings after 6 PM
Connell Donatelli and Campaign Solutions co-workers get a special greeting

So after a few hours of organizing my contacts and then a few minutes setting up my voice mail greetings I experienced the last really cool part (so far) of Google Voice. After someone leaves you a message you get an email or a text message notification that you have a new voice mail. And, if that isn't cool enough Google does an ok job of transcribing the voice mail into text. My experience with it so far is that this feature isn't something to rely on but cool none the less.

A single number for people to call you on for free? Email notifications, transcription of voice mails to text, and individual greetings and call routings by group - those are a lot of cool features.

I like Google Voice and so will my AT&T brothers and sisters.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Chris Daggett's Online Marketing Won't Allow Him to Be Viable

2009-10-12T08:06:32-04:00

(Disclosure: I received several emails after my last post. I am not involved with Christie's campaign. I've never spoken with them. I do want Corzine to lose and I AM NOT advocating that Daggett should drop out).

Chris Daggett's campaign isn't viable unless he can get into the mid-30s as I wrote last week. Yes I get that The Star Ledger just endorsed him for Governor and Google Trends' finally has a pulse.

It doesn't matter. He has no online marketing. The website isn't ready for prime time, it looks he had a cousin build it for him on a WordPress template. There are no Google ads trying to direct people looking for information on him. I've seen no display ads, his Facebook fans are about 10% of his competitors and his YouTube page has little subscribers, little views, and really looks like it is a page dedicated for Halloween. There are no Facebook widgets to grab.

This isn't an insurgent campaign. There is little evidence to suggest that. If this campaign had a chance they would have been employing modern internet marketing techniques, however, I can't find a single piece of evidence that the Daggett campaign even noticed what happened in the 2008 election. Yes Daggett is receiving matching funds and this allows him to be in the debates which he has dominated so far. However, did anyone stop to ask besides paying his staff and buying political signs what he plans to do with the rest of the money?

Clearly it isn't to invest in modern marketing techniques. I've heard there was a live TV commercial floating around, but I haven't seen it live. One has to ask why on earth would they run TV ads in this market? How many GRPs could they actually buy? Could it even make a dent in your viewing habits if it could even cut through the Corzine buy? Does anyone want to bet me there will be a horrible waste of direct mail coming your way to a mailbox near you or annoying robo calls to your home phone?

If this was really an insurgent campaign someone there would have used online to network properly and market his plan. Maybe if Daggett had started ANYTHING online months ago they would have actually been viable. Unfortunately for them they didn't and they will end up being nothing more than the General Election's version of the Steve Lonegan campaign which also failed any semblance of a modern marketing plan.

At this point from my cheap seats in Long Valley, NJ Daggett isn't viable. I get that some people are disappointed with the Christie campaign and hate Jon Corzine. However, NJ needs to get rid of Corzine first and Daggett can't do it. I get the idea of a protest vote. I really do. This isn't the year for a protest vote.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

P.S. Here's an interesting and short article from the Nation Review called Chris Daggett, Jon Corzine's Bodyguard.

P.P.S Please read the comments for a response from the Daggett campaign.

Election 2009: New Jersey Governor - Rasmussen Reports™

2009-10-06T22:07:05-04:00

« If it's in the news it's in our polls. «« Rasmussen produces some of the most accurate and reliable polls in the country today. »-Larry Sabato, University of Virginia « Rasmussen, an organization with fast zeitgeist reflexes.... «-The Politico« If it's in the news it's in our polls. «« The best place to look for polls that are spot on is RasmussenReports.com «-Michael Barone, The Washington Examiner`« If you really want to know what people in America think, you can't find a better place to look than Rasmussen Reports « -Susan Estrich

via www.rasmussenreports.com

This race is ugly but the 33% undecideds are very problematic for christie

How to Ease Your Transition to Google Voice - Google Voice - Lifehacker

2009-10-06T17:06:26-04:00

Google's upped its pace handing out invites to Google Voice, the service that controls all your phones with one number. For those just arriving, we're offering up a beginner's guide to setting up, transitioning to, bug-fixing, and actually enjoying Google Voice.

via lifehacker.com

Just got my invite so still figuring it out

Revisiting Roblox

2009-10-05T22:48:30-04:00

A few months ago I made this post called Is Roblox Safe? Not Sure So I Blocked It and I've received a lot of traffic from this post. Some from parents looking for answers and some from Roblox supporters as you can see from the comments in the post. Usually my answer to these comments is that I have little kids and I don't want them that involved with consumer generated content. Also, don't forget that the trigger for my further investigation was that my firewall-antivirus software Bit Defender flagged the site as not child friendly.

Well last Friday I received an email from the CEO of Roblox David Baszucki. He was kind enough to want to talk with me about my blog post. I guess that means that either a) someone sent him the link or b) he or his marketing team was watching Roblox's google results. We spoke within the hour of his email...

He wanted to talk about which software I was using to protect the laptop (Bit Defender) and they were going to consider adding it to the software they test.
He wanted to reassure me that even though the content is consumer generated they flag obviously offensive ones and remove or if something is marginal, but gets flagged as inappropriate they investigate immediately.
He spoke with me about the ads I was seeing and told me that they carefully monitor what appears on the site
Finally he wanted to know why I thought they were associated with Lego because they are extremely cautious.

Anyway, I thought he was very professional and that they do try hard to monitor the site. As I wrote earlier, then later in replies to the comments, and then when I spoke with David, I have little kids and I don't include Roblox on the list of sites they can visit. I do think Roblox is a lot more professional then when I wrote that post, but for Jacob and Kaela it isn't for them. When they get a little older - perhaps around 13 I will probably change my mind, but right now, no; I don't even let them on YouTube without me.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Bruce Springsteen Still Rocks and Crowd Surfs

2009-10-05T15:32:35-04:00

My family and friends attended Saturday night's Springsteen concert and it was a great time. My wife and daughter had seats in the lower level while my son Jacob and I had an awesome time in the pit. The setlist was great - 28 songs, 3 hours, and cover to cover Born in the USA. It wasn't the best concert I'd ever seen (that's either closing night of the reunion tour in MSG or Atlantic City on the Rising Tour), but I'd give it a solid B. Bruce was awesome as usual as well as Nils, Roy, and the Mighty Max. A couple of quick observations:

Even Bruce must agree with my post that Working on A Dream is one of the worst if not the worst Springsteen album of all-time. Why else does Bruce only have two songs in the setlist at this point? Compare it with the end of the Magic Tour where about 4-6 songs still remained in the tour.
Watch the youthful 60 Bruce Springsteen crowd surf.
The pit procedure was quite reasonable - especially because Jacob and I got a bracelet and were about 15 deep in front of the stage.
Jacob wants to see him again in the pit - how about Buffalo?

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

NJ Race is Really Between Christie and Daggett

2009-10-05T14:36:20-04:00

(This is a post for my good friend and college roommate Jim W)

After watching and reading the reports about last week's NJ Governor Debate it is pretty clear this race is really between the two Chris' - Christie and Daggett. Corzine's fate really rests with Daggett and Christie. I haven't received and didn't want to dig around for more detailed polling information, but it seems pretty clear to me that around 40% of the voters will vote for the hated, job killing, economic disaster Corzine. In stock buying terms, that's Corzine's support level.

Christie on the other hand, I have no idea what his support level is. That's not to be shrill, but I don't have inside polling data to know who are his definite or "1" voters. Also, for that matter, I don't know Corzine's but he consistently polls around 40%.

Daggett is interesting because he has qualified for state funds and I've seen him poll around 10%. However, like Lonegan from the primaries his website is horrible, I've seen little social networking, I've seen little search marketing, pretty much not much invested online. However, in the debates and in the press he is attracting attention and even garnering attention from some of my conservative friends.

The problem for Christie is Daggett. Usually in NJ you'd get the protest vote, but this time the protest looks reasonable to a large number of voters. If Daggett starts polling higher those numbers will come out of Christie. Check out this recent Google Trends chart to see how Daggett is starting to pick up interest. So that means:

Corzine wins with around 40% of the vote (WORST CASE) because Daggett surges into the 20s
Christie beats up Daggett and keeps him around 10% of the vote
Daggett in a miracle finish beats up Christie enough that he gets more than 40% of the vote

To me, this is the wrong year for a protest vote. We can't afford 4 more years of Corzine. Sorry Daggett fans, but unless he starts polling around 30% he isn't viable. He needs more of a surge and while that is possible and he has some time, I don't think Daggett has the marketing or grassroots support to really make up the distance; too bad he didn't start sooner. BTW - if you really are a Chris Daggett fan - more power to you, but to the NJ voters into a protest vote against Christie and Corzine, now is NOT the year.

Want to read more, read this post from FiveThirtyEight.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Christie versus Corzine - Old Style Campaigning versus Modern Politics

2009-10-01T23:30:37-04:00

The polls are getting close right now and unfortunately for New Jersey it looks like my analysis from way early on is not that far off. This is what happens in the post-2008 election world when you don't employ modern marketing tactics and your opponent does and you seem to lack any visible grassroots support even in towns near your home. From a new media perspective here's what's going on:

Corzine though well hated laid down all of the tools needed early on so that when people were ready to turn back to him (I have no idea why anyone from New Jersey other than the most loyal liberals would) Corzine would be waiting with modern marketing tools. Plenty of positive and negative videos, Facebook, emails, YouTube, online advertising, and etc
Christie's campaign seems to be going through the motions on online advertising. I can't remember the last time I received an email communication from them even though I get a few per week from Corzine (those include the truly dreadful Maggie Moran versions). They did start running paid search ads and I do get display ads served to me but they don't seem very targeted other than what I see via Google Content on my website. Sure they make Facebook updates but you have to kind of be online when they cycle by - that's the good and the bad about updates via Twitter and/or Facebook.
From an internet buzz perspective I've received little to no emails from friends, family or even some Facebook notes regarding Christie. In fact, if you didn't know better you'd think the election was happening in 2010.
Finally, from a search trends perspective, whatever lead Christie had is gone and now I couldn't forecast this race and it looks like a coin flip to the end.

So, I think from a new media perspective it looks grim with 4-5 weeks to go. I have a few last minute digital media ideas that can still make a difference but can't go into detail yet. Other than that, I'd imagine the Christie campaign is running an old-style GOTV campaign which means robo and volunteer calls at the last minute, road signs put up by Republican Organizations, and maybe even a little direct mail and door to door.

If you readers care enough about this state, you should volunteer NOW to help Chris Christie. Pure old feet on the street politics is what he needs right now (except a few last minute digital tricks).

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Google's New View Through Conversions Tracking - About Time

2009-10-01T07:41:30-04:00

I logged on to one of my political AdWords accounts last night and I saw a new column called View-through Conv. and I was definitely pleased. Sure it is only for your Content Network campaigns but I'm glad they finally added it because this type of metric has been around for years and as I've written before Google's Content Network is a great platform for display advertising especially for the small business marketer.

View-through or impression based conversion tracking has been available for a while. Historically, around 50% of your conversions could be view-through for banner ads with about 80% of them coming through within the first 5 days. I tested this for search years ago and found that 90% of the latencies come within 1 day so that's probably one of the reasons Google isn't providing this for search. If you want to read more I've reprinted a short post below that I made almost 4 years ago. Enjoy the walk down memory lane - I did....

Latency What Is It Good For?

I was asked a few days ago to explain latency or view through/impression sales in a beautiful office overlooking the Potomac River. And, if you don't know either, I'm honored to be the first to explain it to you. Now maybe we can explain a lot of those unknown sales you've been tracking on your sales reports!Have you ever been looking to buy something at your favorite e-commerce site while at work and just before you hit the next button, your pesky boss pops up from behind, so you close your browser. Sound familiar? Well it should. Industry studies (although an old one) show that 75% of all shopping carts get abandoned. Are we to assume that these items are never bought or are they sometimes bought later? Perhaps when the boss is at lunch?

Let's say (really write) that you are an online marketing manager for a shoe company and you use an ad server to place your ads on your media buy. A potential buyer clicks on your banner, visits your site, and just before they complete the shopping cart, that boss shows up again, and they abandon the cart. However, they show up the next day without clicking on the same banner and complete the sale. Now what? Well, armed with a cookie courtesy of your ad server, a completed sale, and a click on a banner, your ad server should be able to determine which cookie completed the sale and which banner generated the sale. Therefore, you have a latent sale. Sometimes, those pesky consumers never click on your banner and then mysteriously arrive at your site and make a sale; this is called a view through or impression based sale.

Doesn't sound like a big deal to you? Well it should because I've seen average latent sales in the 55%-60% range and the % varies from site to site and from product to product; especially when the product has a long sales process or sign-up page. Several companies that I'm aware only started tracking latents recently and up until then had a large % of sales generated from unknown channels.

Think you know everything now. Well there's a lot more to it especially when it comes to interpreting the number and running campaigns using latent sales. However, that's for another week.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Revisiting Facebook for Online Advertising

2009-09-30T22:32:01-04:00

You long time readers know that I've had a love-hate relationship with using Facebook as an online advertising buy; that is specifically buying banner ad space and not for using it for connecting with customers-supporters which I always believed it was extremely useful. Facebook with its low CPM rates and lack of targeting options coupled with boring ad units put it extremely low on my media recommendation list. That is until recently. I've become very bullish on Facebook advertising and hope they make more targeting options changes.

On the right is a screen shot of a make believe ad buy (actually it was a real one but I

can't who it is really for). So, let's take a tour and describe what I like about Facebook for advertising and what I think they should still change.

1) The geo-targeting works fine if you want to target by city, state, or country. However, there aren't zip code, county, or MSA options plus I could really use a bulk upload. I'd imagine Facebook will be changing this in the future.

2) Other demos like male/female, targeting on a user's birthday, education level and whether you are in a relationship and if you are interested in males or females provides some interesting targeting options especially if you are a dating site (for example) or need to target based on marital status. Interesting targeting but really this is left over from their college only Facebook days.

3) Now the Keywords is where it gets very interesting. You have to be a keyword wizard and you have to understand that these keywords are not the kind you would normally search on but really kind of like groups within Facebook of what people put on their page. The main problem I have with this is that if you enter in more than one term Facebook looks at it as an OR instead of an AND. For example if you wanted Republicans who like Obama you can't (see below for the exception), You'll find 2.9 million Facebook people who have Barack Obama on their page but when you add in Republican you get about 3.17 million which is just adding in Republicans to Obama's total. This is good targeting, but an AND function would be much better,

4) The workplace targeting is very interesting especially if you are going after a certain company. This is unbelievably cool

5) Connection targeting really only works if you are the Facebook admin so you can target your own supporters or if you want to exclude them. This is how the Barack Obama admin can target their large fan base and then use keywords to further segment them out. That's how they could find Barack Obama Republicans.

6) The CPMs or CPCs are dirt cheap still - at this level I like using CPMs so I make sure my ad is shown. The ad units are not their new sexy units which are usually reserved for their large customers (this should change too soon) and the media is not on a user's home page but on their subpages. Again this is kind of a bummer if you don't have multiple thousands of dollars to spend, but still quite the non-premier options are quite good now.

I think Facebook is a good tool right now especially with their targeting options and dirt cheap CPMs. I do hope they make some improvements to their keyword targets by making it an AND and not an OR plus provide the option for lower spenders to get on a home page or get better ad units. At that point with those three changes, Facebook would explode for the small advertiser.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric