Most major advertisers have become pretty good at SEO. So, once you have wrung out all the benefits from search optimization, what’s next? How about targeting your message to the right group of consumers at the right time in the right place? That is the principal behind segment-driven marketing.

Compete recently fielded a survey to marketers to see how they are utilizing target segments in their marketing efforts. Overall, the results show that the majority of companies using segment-driven strategies are focusing their segmentation efforts in online and search engine marketing activities.

But there still remains a significant opportunity to improve ROI on web-based advertising by understanding how to use segment-driven marketing more effectively. Some highlights from the survey include:

• 92% of respondents say they are using segments to manage their online advertising and/or search marketing
• 84% of respondents indicate that segment-driven marketing will be more important in their organization in three years (only 39% say it is very important now)
• 76% of respondents say that their segment-driven strategy will be ahead of their competitors in three years

…But returns from segment-driven marketing have been elusive

• 77% of respondents are having trouble demonstrating real business results (i.e. improvements in market share or share of wallet) from segment-driven marketing
• 27% of respondents aren’t seeing improved marketing results from their segment-driven marketing efforts
• Among our respondents, the most consistent obstacle to successful segment-driven marketing has been identifying the right segments

What is Compete’s take on improving segment-driven marketing? Glad you asked. As companies look to get more bang for their online ad buck, we recommend advertisers avoid pursuing the “average” online consumer by initiating more data-oriented, segment-driven marketing strategies.

If you want to learn more about segment-driven marketing, check out a recent webinar led by our CMO, Stephen DiMarco, where he gives real-life examples of successful segment-driven marketing opportunities. And as always, we’re happy to help

It’s been a rough couple of months for airlines. On the heels of Aloha, ATA, Frontier, and Skybus all going bankrupt, American Airlines cancelled over 3,000 flights over safety concerns, stranding tens of thousands of passengers and disrupting air transportation across the U.S.

In the week following the flight groundings, Compete fielded a survey to 429 consumers to poll them about their awareness and opinions of the problems at AA. 95% of the randomly selected Internet users, or a sample of 408, were aware of the groundings. What else did they have to say?

Impact on Attitude Towards American

Nearly two-thirds of consumers felt the groundings took a toll on American’s reputation, the most negative outcome of the week of operational problems. Perceptions of AA flight reliability fared almost as badly, with pessimistic sentiment being voiced by half of consumers. Most critical, however, is the significant number of respondents (45%) who indicated a decreased likelihood to fly AA in the immediate wake of the groundings.

American’s Response

Did American’s PR machine kick into gear as quickly and effectively as consumers expected it to? Consumer feedback showed a lukewarm to cool response, with many respondents either unaware or dissatisfied with AA’s handling of the situation. The biggest offending category – informing customers promptly about delays – had a third of consumers feeling AA’s actions were insufficient, and an additional third weren’t aware of any actions that had been taken.

Expectations for the Future

Despite the negative feedback from consumers, most see the events as a general air travel issue rather than a problem specific to American Airlines. While 49% expect AA to experience issues like this in the future, most (81%) think this is just as likely for any other carrier, not just AA.

Comparisons to JetBlue

How do opinions of American today compare to situations that other carriers have gone through in the past? JetBlue, which had a highly-publicized and embarrassing series of operational failures following a February 2007 snowstorm, provides an interesting comparison. Compete fielded a similar survey a year ago directly following the JetBlue troubles, and found consumers were significantly more impressed by that carrier’s response to the situation. In many cases over a third of consumers found JetBlue’s responses to the events to be exceptional, a rating that a scarce few gave to AA.

Takeaways

While most consumers aren’t thrilled with American Airlines following such a massive operational problem, they are able to bucket this as being more of a general risk in air travel rather than a unique AA issue. Travelers anticipate other airlines to be just as likely to go through similar problems in the future as AA, and ultimately don’t fault AA for the groundings.

Where consumers are disappointed with American and expected to see more is in the company’s response to the events. Whereas JetBlue’s swift and well-publicized responses to their operational failures drew rave reviews from travelers, AA drew little such fanfare. In an age of always-on media, social networking, and YouTube, negative public perception can spread quickly and do meaningful damage to a brand. Even as travelers are increasingly resigned to the inconveniences and unpredictability of flying, a swift and sincere response can go a long way in restoring faith in a brand.

Compete has been tracking consumer interest and attitudes towards the iPhone since its original announcement in January. Now, four months post-launch & with hundreds in attendance, Compete discussed its latest research on the iPhone at CTIA IT & Entertainment last week. Joined by a panel of experts including David Ulmer from Motorola, Cyriac Roeding from CBS, Lee Ott from Yahoo! and Sam Altman from Loopt, Compete revealed insights into shoppers’ interest, behavior and attitudes towards the device and other handsets in the market. Data highlights include:

• iPhone online interest at launch eclipsed the Samsung Blackjack’s launch (AT&T’s most popular of the past year) by tenfold and more than doubled that of the Xbox 360
• Only 15% of iPhone shoppers viewed the next most popular AT&T handset, as compared to AT&T handsets’ average of 33%
• 31% of October survey respondents said they would pay extra on their cellular bill for productivity services vs. 25% for entertainment services

The panel discussion tackled topics ranging from controlling the user experience to carrier business models to privacy concerns.

Adam Guy kicked off discussion by asking the panelists, “Would you consider the iPhone a milestone, tipping point or powder keg for the wireless industry?” While there was some debate, the consensus was that the iPhone isn’t a technological marvel. Instead it should be seen as a major milestone on the way to a better mobile user experience that will create opportunities for everyone. The iPhone shook things up, and the industry is responding as a whole by renewing its focus on user experience.

Further Compete analysis shows that development by all players in this area will be well-received by consumers. We asked actively shopping consumers about the companies from which they would prefer to purchase a multimedia cellular device.

The responses were more varied than expected. Consumers showed the most interest in Apple (36%), but they were also willing to purchase from traditional handset OEMs and even consumer electronics companies. Build a device that provides a good user experience and consumers will buy it.

Watch the Compete blog for additional iPhone & smartphone insights in the coming weeks or contact us to receive more in-depth current analysis on the iPhone. Thanks to everyone who helped make Compete’s SmartPass session a big hit and CTIA IT & Entertainment a great week. We’ll see you next year!

Do you know what universal default means? It is the practice of a credit card company raising your interest rates based on your failure to pay one of your other creditors. Example: you are late on making your car loan payment, and the following month the interest rate on your credit card goes up… substantially.

A recent Consumer Affairs article does a good job of outlining the specific credit card industry practices that are enraging consumers and (once again) attracting the attention of politicians, including universal default, trailing interest, and penalty fees.

Compete recently surveyed consumers (March 2007, n=300) about their use of credit cards and their understanding of some of these less-than-desirable tactics that drive industry profit.

Continue reading “Extra Credit: What’s universal default?” »

February was a great month for advertising and marketing experts. They got to sit and watch the Super Bowl, like the rest of us, then publicly rail against their colleagues and potential clients for creating such horrible commercials. Some of the most damaging criticism was reserved for CareerBuilder.com, which ran a series of ads featuring a world where “Lord of the Flies” meets “The Office”. The reaction of the experts was so lackluster that, according to a recent CNN.com article , the agency responsible for creating the ads lost the account:

The company’s new ad campaign for this year’s Super Bowl, which substituted its lovable monkeys with an office as the jungle motif, flopped. The ads were rated poorly in several post-Super Bowl commercial reviews.

CareerBuilder subsequently decided to put its ad account up for review, a decision that enraged Chicago ad agency Cramer-Krasselt, the firm that not only created the new ads but was also responsible for the highly popular CareerBuilder chimp ads. Cramer-Krasselt wound up resigning the CareerBuilder account rather than go through a review.

But did the CareerBuilder ads really flop? As the final seconds of Super Bowl XLI ticked away, Compete invited thousands of our members to participate in an online survey to gauge the effectiveness of the real reason the game was played — the ads. Within 24 hours we had collected responses from over 1000 viewers. We tested their level of recall for several of the ads. Here’s what we found regarding CareerBuilder:

Continue reading “CareerBuilder’s Super Bowl Ads: Flop or Not?” »

What signals the arrival of spring to you? For some, it is when flowers bloom, golf courses open, or the Red Sox season begins. For others, spring officially kicks off with the annual chore of calculating and paying one’s taxes. We here at Compete wondered: are consumers increasingly going online to pay their taxes? To answer this question, we fielded a survey (n=660) of our two million member panel. When asked what method they used to fill out and submit their tax form in 2005, 21% of people indicated they utilized the web.

When asked what method they plan to use for their 2006 return, 22% cited the web.

Clearly a 1% growth rate is not exactly a signal of a vast shift to the internet for tax preparation. However, a clickstream analysis of key online tax providers illustrates that shopping activity is increasing year over year. What tax related sites are gaining the most consumer interest you might ask?

IRS.gov generated significantly more site traffic than any private online tax provider, yet its traffic is growing at a slower rate. Unique visitors in January to Turbotax.com and HRblock.com* increased significantly year over year (18% and 11% respectively) while unique visitors to TaxAct.com declined substantially.

What does this all mean? It appears that people are increasingly going to the sites of established tax preparation brands as part of the filing process, but a significant percentage of the population still prefer the council of a professional. Adoption of online tax preparation resources will undoubtedly expand over time as sites continue to enhance functionality and usability.

*Includes TaxCut.com