M19 MEDIA

Gucci Mobile App Demo – MicroStrategy World 2014

Franklin Parrish — Mon, 21 Apr 2014 16:35:27 +0000

Check out the technology that Gucci is planning for their customers. Wow.

image vs. icon pt.2

Franklin Parrish — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 16:00:00 +0000

Starting up a new Facebook campaign for an author client of mine. Going to go for round two of the image vs. icon theory that I have developed for Facebook ads.

If you missed my first posting, I hypothesized that icons may do better in attracting attention and boosting CTRs than a traditional image due to image fatigue on Facebook.

So here is the setup:

3 sets of A/B ads, one with an icon, the other with an image. The copy will change slightly between them, but the general tone will be the same. One set will be a national campaign to generate fans for the client’s person page, the other two will be limited to geographic locations, in the Northeast and the Mid-Atlantic region. I’ll be reporting on each of the ad’s performance and the loser after 10 days will be dropped. Stay tuned for the numbers!

UPDATE:

Creative Face-off (A/B testing results):

The ads are performing remarkably well, and of course, the results are inconclusive about what is drawing more attention. A well-shot (thanks) photo of the author for the fan page is going like gangbusters and beat out a graphic of the book.

A graphic of a skull rising in the Carribean beat out a picture of a nuclear explosion for the ad meant to get people to the main brand site to buy books.

Change in strategy:

Originally, the book ads were concentrated in geographic locations known for sailing. We targeted the area around Providence, RI and Annapolis, MD. While the ads performed fairly well, we noticed a high bounce rate on the landing page. We’re pretty sure that the landing page is not the problem, since there is only two CTAs on the page. We traded demographic segmentation for behavioral segmentation.

We re-aligned the ad to the same population as the fan acquisition ad and so far, CTR is improved and visitors are responding better to the CTAs on the landing page. Hopefully those hits will turn into sales, but there, only time will tell. Stay tuned!

hip to be square

Franklin Parrish — Sun, 12 Jun 2011 23:53:12 +0000

Friday I received my Square credit card reader in the mail. It’s fantastic. And for small businesses, it is a must. For a long time I didn’t accept credit cards because merchant accounts were too much of a hassle. Then PayPal came along and I was able to accept credit card payments via the web. And for a company like mine, invoicing online is still a viable way to get payments. But what if you’re main business is selling in the real world?

Such a cool device! I use it on my iPhone.

The Square app and card reader are both free and the pricing is very straightforward: 2.75% per transaction. That’s it. No tiers, no complicated calculations. It’s sleek and VERY cool. A friend of mine in the industry said that this could be “disruptive”, meaning that this new product/service could cause people to drastically change their behavior and current business models may suddenly appear cumbersome and fall into obsolescence.

So if you have an iPhone or an iPad, a checking account and something to sell, this is your credit card payment solution. I can see this device popping up at yard sales, flea markets, Craig’s List sales, even that crazy-looking guy who sells News Journals on Walnut.

Check out the site for more information.