Automating Online Marketing

Online marketing ties together creative and technical aspects of the web, including: design, development, advertising and sales. The digital marketing industry covers a wide scope of activity because it refers to the web, seo, sem, edm, social media and mobile and then all links back into customer and content management systems.

Given the complexity and increasing requirements of online marketing, software has developed to simplify these processes and automate repetitive tasks. Marketers specify criteria and outcomes for campain goals and processes which are then interpreted, stored and executed by marketing automation software to increase efficiency.



The Online Marketing Suite (OMS) by Sitecore is a solution for marketers to integrate web content capabilities, web analytics and automate marketing functionality. Sitecore’s Online Marketing Suite helps marketers easily track and better understand the impact of all online campaigns, create user profiles, personalise content and take action immediately. OMS provides the lead nurturing and conversion tools that align marketing and sales. In summary, OMS helps organizations improve the business results they receive from their Web properties.

OMS offers marketing automation out-of- the box. In the past these features could be implemented separately. Now with Sitecore OMS, marketing functionality including lead scoring, email campaign management and Web analytics are all part of one integrated solution. Sitecore is helping customers get faster, more effective results from their Web site and marketing campaigns with less complexity and less dependency on IT.

Present trends of Interactive Advertising

On 29 October 2008, I attended a event discussing present trends of Interactive Advertising

The event held by AIMIA included a presentation by Mark Armstrong who is the head of Local and Classified Advertising at Google, he spoke about the basic mechanics and value of paid search advertising and the need to combine SEO & SEM.

Mark started with a concepts such as "Moment of relevance" To illustrate his point that people search what is relevant to them. He then invited the audience to particapte in the Awareness Test from You Tube




Mark spoke about the shifts in the market and trends to look out for over the next year. Such as hits spike after an offline event

He then showed a new Volkswagan UK advert

Volkswagan UK advert




He said people would search the term "Best Small Family Car" This was the opportunity for auto comapies to get their product in front of the consumer such as to get into what he called "Consideration Set" That is the top of the list on Google.

He commented that

• 62% dont go past the first page


• 37% make their decision in less than 35 seconds

The second speaker was Andrea Cartwright, GM of Strategy for Sensis Digital (Sensis' digital display business, which includes Media Smart)

She used her observations and case studies to discuss the opportunities and challenges in today's digital display advertising market.

Points were

• Integration is critical, while personalisation, accountability and great content will sort the winners from the losers.


• The market was changing - consumers are more savvy


• Standard banners were evolving and as a result technology was increasing in its sophistication


• Mobile was on the increase


• Video adverts were also increasing


• In Game advertising was being used for hard to reach demographics

Andrea gave a Case Study on Manta Accommodation

Click Through Rate - 1-2%
Using advertorial on Citysearch in the voice of the traveller to drive click through to the website

She also gave a insight into the Brisbane Film Festival which medium to low budget of $20,000 so they used an offline campaign look-a-like compteition, got media coverage for free

Andrea Top 5 for Interactive advertising

1) Undertstand your objective
2) Know your audience
3) Integrate the message
4) Measurement and ROI
5) Be open to suggestion

The third speaker was Alan Long, Asia Pacific Research Director from Hitwise, he explored the topic of behavioural patterns online:

He confirmed an offline event reported in ATL media caused a spike of search traffic and mentioned Organic Search (SEO) accounts for 93% of Click through

Alan said to check out his blog more details