BtoB - January 16, 2012 - (Page 14)

TOOLS & METRICS Send information on marketing tools to tburt@crain.com Automation adds to Life optimization Biotechnology company drives revenue by refining online, paid advertising is important to Life Technologies. “Their goal is to get the best placement and click-through volume; and, in some cases, Life Technologies has to pay some really high prices for keywords,” said Tim Waddell, director-product marketing at Adobe. Using marketing automation, the company has set up an automated bidding strategy that’s updated several times a day, he said. techtools Callidus Software buys LeadFormix Sales effectiveness company Callidus Software has acquired marketing automation and lead management company LeadFormix Inc. for $9 million. According to Callidus, its cloud-based performance offerings help companies close deals and incentivize sales performance. LeadFormix offers tools to identify website visitors and determine intent to buy. ‘THE CLICK IS IMPERATIVE’ “What they’re selling is expensive, the traffic is minimal and every click is imperative,” solutions from Adobe Digital Marketing suite. Waddell said. “Depending on the competition BY CHRISTOPHER HOSFORD It uses Adobe’s SiteCatalyst for Web analyt- and order size, they have to be able to jack up or ROWING BRAND LOYALTY while increasing online traction is no small task, and ics, SearchCenter for keyword analysis and lower keyword prices according to the value of biotechnology company Life Technolo- real-time paid search bidding, and Test&Target any particular order and the conversion rate.” Life Technologies relaunched its website in gies, which offers products and services that for campaign and site testing. “For social, a lot of it is trying to figure out November, consolidating several of the comhelp researchers accelerate life sciences rethose golden nuggets, to figure out where social pany’s brands under its umbrella site (lifetechsearch, is one company facing that challenge. Life Technologies serves customers in fits in our company and building a network to nologies.com). That in turn required additionacademia but also in government and medical market to,” Smith said. “We also optimize to al automated processing of keywords. “Out of necessity, the biotech industry science. As such, the company requires has to be ahead of the curve when it comes tailored messages to reach specific target HOW LIFE TECHNOLOGIES to search optimization,” Smith said. “Bemarkets, driven by specialized scientific IMPROVED ITS STRATEGY USING keywords that communicate offerings. MARKETING AUTOMATION TOOLS cause search terms have various scientific meanings, they can easily get grouped “We sell the ingredients, tools, instruObjective: Optimize a new website, incorporating with completely irrelevant terms. It’s truly ments and software that researchers need disparate brands and developing a paid search, a unique environment.” to conduct their experiments,” said Robin social and display strategy to support it Strategy: Employ Adobe Digital Marketing suite Through its use of marketing automaSmith, senior e-marketing manager at to develop buyer personas and automate the tion, Life Technologies has been able to Carlsbad, Calif.-based Life Technologies. building of keyword lists to customize Web experiences identify online strategies that need more “ lot of our technologies are cutting-edge A Results: Conversion rates improved 50% attention, revision or discontinuation, and are developing very quickly; and, as and to more accurately understand where the tech world moves fast, it has required us to move quickly, too.” avoid bounce rates, and to improve click- spending can drive greater revenue. Smith said throughs and develop compelling messaging.” the use of marketing automation has increased Smith is particularly interested in establishing conversion rates by about 50%. IMPROVING PAID AD MANAGEMENT “Previously, we could just take the apMost recently the company has concentrated marketing traction for Ion Torrent (which Life on improving its management of paid advertising Technologies acquired last year for $350 million) proach of cutting spending and hope to in(particularly in search, social and display) and re- that offers molecular DNA sequencing technolo- crease our return on investment,” Smith said. fining buyer personas to better segment mes- gy. Because of the extremely precise, highly com- “But the reality is that everything could sages to its different audiences. To do that, Life petitive nature of keywords associated with this drop—ROI and return on ad spend—along Technologies deployed marketing automation area, real-time bidding for paid-search keywords with expenditures.” G IDC rolls out mobileoptimized platforms IDC announced the availability of new interactive marketing platforms optimized for the latest mobile devices. The platforms are offered through IDC’s Go-to-Market services, which provide clients with research and other insights on PCs, tablets and other mobile devices. The enhanced platforms will allow IDC to provide richer formats and enhanced functionality to clients, according to IDC. Case Study Pardot debuts reporting and analytics tools Marketing automation company Pardot has introduced new reporting and analysis tools designed to show campaign effectiveness. The new reports track lead volume, lead activity in the funnel and revenue generated from a campaign, as well as such trends as content consumption popularity over time, according to the company. The platform also allows marketers to automatically send reports at specified times to clients and key internal executives, Pardot said. ASK THE EXPERT Engagement essential for mobile marketing with the PC experience, you’ll only see network Jumptap Inc., whose reperhaps one ad on a smartphone landcent MobileSTAT report detailed ing page, and no more than one or two performance metrics of on a tablet page. Here, rich mobile devices and their media allows the advertiser to impact on specific verticals. drive that engagement. It’s a BtoB: In Jumptap’s report, combination of art and users of Google’s Android science, but it’s resulting in devices saw twice as many iPhone click through rates that Jumptap mobile ads as did are sometimes 10 to 30 times users of Apple’s iOS devices behigher than those on computcause of Android’s greater marers. PARAN JOHAR ket share, but Apple users were BtoB: How are the various verCMO, more engaged with the ads. tical niches adapting to mobile Jumptap Inc. What is the marketer marketing? takeaway? Johar: A year or so ago, the Paran Johar: In deciding main users were automotive and between reach and engagement, the entertainment. Every new-car launch and answer is “Yes, both.” You have to baltheatrical release included a dedicated ance both. Another way to look at it is mobile campaign. But since then, the the history of TV advertising, which is number of verticals has begun to broadbased on audience, not device. en. While autos and entertainment still Nobody advertises just on Sony TVs. lead, telecommunications, technology Marketers should not focus on the and finance are increasing their mobile hardware or software, but on the audispending rapidly, as have insurance and ence, which is cross-platform. consumer packaged goods, as they conBut I would say that engagement is sider their KPIs. essential with mobile devices. Unlike BtoB: We heard a lot a year ago about HiveFire introduces social features Content marketing company HiveFire Inc. has upgraded its content curation platform, adding tools that help find, organize and share pertinent thirdparty social content. The company’s Curata Web-based platform now allows marketers to find relevant content cited in Twitter posts for sharing via their online news sites, social channels, RSS feeds and email newsletters. P ARAN JOHAR IS CMO at mobile ad the potential of geolocation marketing but not so much recently. What metrics are you seeing with geolocation? Johar: I believe that geo data is important but it is only one component of what goes into driving relevancy. The geolocation of a teen versus a 45year-old stockbroker means different things to different marketers. Marketers have to zoom out. Geolocation isn’t just about offering a coupon when somebody passes a Starbucks. It is about relevance driven by multiple data points. Geo data is just one of those data points. BtoB: What mobile trends should we look for this year? Johar: It won’t be just a two-horse race between Android and iOS platforms. We’ll see an increase in the number of players in mobile marketing, in particular Amazon and Microsoft. Both will have an impact on the tablet market and perhaps other devices. Both certainly realize that there is an appetite for lower-priced devices, as users shift from PCs to smartphones and tablets. ‘Registered Rep’ adds social measurement Penton Media’s Registered Rep, which serves financial advisers, has introduced two new tools designed to gauge social media’s impact on stock prices. The tools were developed by software company Titan Trading Analytics. The Social Behavior Research Dashboard produces research reports that combine Web analytics, social media sentiment and quantitative research. TickAnalyst streams information mined from a database of price, volume and volatility information and combines it with social media stock data. The subscription tools are currently available for a 30-day free trial. 14 | BtoB | January 16, 2012 | btobonline.com  http://www.lifetechnologies.com http://www.lifetechnologies.com http://www.btobonline.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of BtoB - January 16, 2012

BtoB - January 16, 2012
B-to-b learns from b-to-c e-commerce experience
Large share of marketers boosting spending, especially online
Mobile apps, social integration, content are key trends
ANA ramps up I CANN domain name protest
B-to-b marketers still in Super Bowl lineup
'BtoB' to host Digital Edge Live conference
Social media matures with added players, new metrics
Quick Hits
Reader Comments/Polls
Opinion
Positive outlook for online ad spending
Advertising
Media companies flock to mobile Web
Business Media
Email remains a strong marketing tool
Direct & Database
Tools & Metrics

BtoB - January 16, 2012

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