At work we've deployed a technology called click to call. The company we are using is LivePerson, and they have a really nice all around solution, it has the click to call features, full blown chat, co-browsing and the ability to pick customers that exhibit certain behaviors to approach for a call or chat. You know how you'll be on a site and a on screen message will pop-in asking if you want to chat with an agent? It's that sorta stuff.
How successful is the technology? Right now it's performing ok, it could be a LOT better, but it could be much worse. I think it needs more time in our deployment to really get it settled and work out some of the "issues". I believe our biggest issue is with our customers. Not that your stupid or anything, but it's a new technology, and also how do you convey in a small button "If you click this button your phone number will be called immediately and our call center will be called at the same time to connect the two of you." That would be a rather LARGE button. So we're going to be working on some a/b testing to see if we can convey the message better. One thing we have done is placed a tool tip box over the button, but the issue is it take a second to appear so by that time the mouse has moved or the customer has moved on.
Also another issue, the phone needs to be near you! If you're at work, put in your work number to be called (just in case anyone's reading this)
It's a great technology to help getting customers on the phone and our business is centered around that happening.
I haven't written a lot about my new job, since I've been busy with the ski season etc. But I thought it would be an appropriate time to write once and a while about it.
I wanted to talk about PPC(Pay Per Click) and Click Fraud. I work with Yahoo and Google to pay for ads and I have a substantial amount that I spend on it. So fraud is a big concern. Now my amount compared to some is small, but when you do the math some of the numbers can be astronomical.
Let’s look at some figures. Click Forensics says that click fraud for Q4 was 14.2%, and Shuman from Google believes it is high Shumans Blog. Let’s say Shuman is right and the number is high, lets half it. So 7.1% Click Fraud... If you advertise and spend only $100k that's still $7100 in fraud. My opinion is that too much, and I'm sure everyone would agree. I do believe search engines are doing a better job finding and correcting bad clicks, but I would say they are more in the realm of 1 - 2% vs. 7.1%, so that still $5-6k someone's losing. Now if Click Forensics is right then the numbers balloon up.
"But Google credits you"... They sure do but they don't tell you what clicks were credited etc. I don't blame them, but still I don't know if they simply look at my $.10 clicks and write them off and keep the fraudulent $5.00 clicks... I just don't know, and THAT is the problem. I do not trust them since they police themselves.
Looking at raw data from Click Forensics on my companies logs, I'm seeing a HUGE potential for click fraud. For Google alone on a single account I've seen several thousands of $ in possible exposure, so even getting a portion of that will add up to big returns.
What can people do to reduce their exposure to fraud?
1. Don't advertise on content networks, they'll kill you ever time (yes I know I have adsense on my blog :P )
a. if you choose too, watch your terms that get high clicks and think of removing them
b. look at your logs and look for possible places of high clicks that do not have a lot of page views.
2. Watch your high bids and strip them from your campaign.
3. If you don't want to remove the high bid terms, reduce the amount you want to spend.
4. Look into click forensics; they have a free product that people can use, if you spend a lot give them a call.
That's it for now. Feel free to comment on it, I'd love to hear from others.
With changes at evo-dev, I found myself in the market to find a new job. I got a call from Overstock Travel during my search and interviewed for a position there. I was offered a job as their Internet Marketing Manager. With this job I'm responsible for working on their PPC for Yahoo and Google, SEO for their 80 sites, and many other things. I really enjoy going into work everyday. My manager is a great guy. I'm surrounded by many compotent people, with great attitudes that are very capable.
So my friend showed me this site: View Bids. It actually shows you what people are bidding on for words and per clicks. Like mortgage is something like $4+, Mesothelioma is at $11 + . Now I ask you WHAT IS: Mesothelioma ?
I think is a type of cancer, I guess maybe I should click on a link and find out?
Good tool for people back pocket though. Cause you never know when someone might click on a Mesothelioma link.
Just got a hold of the site FunToCheat it's a site to post and find cheats to games, in general games for console etc. It's not on the box now, but I'll soon have 100% control over it. Just thought I'd mention it.
We released evoArticles version 2.1 the otherday, and it rocks. Munzir out did himself. This should really be version 3 in my opinion with all the new features and enhancements. The media support is a HUGE seller, many people are enjoying it. I'm hopefully going to get the demo up and working again, so I'll cross my fingers on that
When I first saw the preview, I thought, "Cool Kong!". I loved watching the remake back in the 70's (I think or 80's). Well Peter Jackson did a great job. What I really loved about the movie was that Kong was a wild Animal. The really didn't humanize him anymore than Gorilla's really are. He movements, sounds, fantastic! Special effects rocked. And I HATE BUGS! So I hated parts of the movie The Trex scene was great. Now about the actors. Jack Black was great, he played a self centered producer/director who only saw life through the lens, regardless of the cost. I think Naomi Watts, did a good job conveying feeling for the Gorilla, not love, but compassion. She realized he was a victim, and only lived off of instinct.
4.5 outta 5. Go see it, it's a must on a big screen!
This was one of my favorite stories when I was a kid so seeing it come to the big screen was very exciting. I wasn't sure how things would turn out, how would Aslan be on the screen?
Well I have to say it was fantastic! I do believe it was given an incorrect rating, it should have been PG-13 not simply PG. There was a lot of violence and a bit of older content (i.e. sacrifice of Aslan). The picture was definately a beautiful piece of work, breath taking visually and stunning special effects. As a friend said, "It reminds me of LOTR with kids". I'm really interested to see if they do all stories from the Chronicles, but so far, I'm looking forward to the next in this fantastic story!
First 5 outta 5 I've given. Could be becuase it had everything I look for in a movie, a story I love, great visual effects, and a yearning for more.
Today I was talking to a good friend that works for a gaming development company. I'll keep his info blank just in case :P
Daniel Said: that's normal price, then you can set up a blog
Daniel Said: like http://www.danielcoburn.com
Friend Said: purdy
Friend Said: I;m not the blog type.... you're doing well with it though
Daniel Said: me? I hate blogging, I just do it from time to time
Daniel Said: heck gaming peoples blogs rock
Daniel Said: people swarm
Friend Said: yeah, I like me privacy
Daniel Said: just post lies
Friend Said: ah... shoulda known
Daniel Said: November 21st. I animated stuff today
Daniel Said: November 22nd. Re-anmiated stuff, I feel like a mad scientist
Friend Said: makes for a predictable read, don't you think?
Daniel Said: November 23rd. Dang thing sucks, started over
Daniel Said: November 24th. I think I saw Jesus today, or it was someone that hasn't showered or shaved for 3 weeks from the DDO team.
Daniel Said: Novermber 25th. Drinking no longer makes lines blurry.
Daniel Said: See you could mix it up
Friend Said: thought you said lie.
Daniel Said: Good point
Daniel Said: November 21st. Forgot my Coffee today (obvious lie)
Friend Said: lol
Friend Said: you know me too well.
So you like blogs? Why cause you're wierd...! Admit it, you really do care about what others have to say, otherwise you probably wouldn't be here. As if I'm some guru. I am, however, a person with unlimited useless knowledge! But if you want to find some really cool blogs, head over to Blog Flux Suggest. It is not a search engine, it is a masterful idea of algorithms and wisdom. I did testing, and I found some interesting things. So head over and give it a whirl. So take a look let me know what you think.
So my buddy asks me to drop some javascript into my template for "link tracking". I say sure why not, I have that cool Mapstats why not track links? Well I guess I was a testing bed since the service wasn't announced yet. But today they actually have output! YEAH. Take a look Link Log. So I don't get heavy traffic, but it's still a pretty sweet feature for free. I know you can look at some of this stuff via your server stats, but this is nice because it's all at the same place, visual stats and link.
So go sign up... what are you waiting for? Again this is a service for blogs.
So I hooked up MapStats to my blog the other day, and I must say it is a very cool service. It lets you see where people are visiting your site etc. If you have a blog sign up and get the service. If you are running a site they will be offering evostats soon. I like it cause I don't have to worry about the stats etc. It tells me what I really care about, visitors, where they are coming from, and their geography. Now if I did ads it would be invaluable, but I don't so I guess I'll just enjoy the stats. Hats off to the crew that created it at Enthropia parent company of the software developers that created this blog software Evo-Dev. Oh and I also work for them
So last night we release evoTopsites Pro. Most people don't know everything that had to happen to get it out the door, but it takes a lot of time and effort. We are a small shop with several developers (myself included), product management (2 people), and support. We are not Microsoft, but we do take pride in the quality of work we put out.
What did it take? We have evoTopsites, but wanted to make it better, wanted to make it worth buying. So what did we do. We looked at the down falls of many topsites and we made a better product, but that was evoTopsites, how can we make it better? Simple, add more. Munzir came up with a great caching system that basically stores information and writes it every X minutes. And it works, it works great! (Proof!) Also people do use them to make money so each category can now sport it's own ads (yeah) same with SOTD you can do it per category as well. One HUGE thing for any site is Search Engine Optimization (SEO), so we improved the way the the urls are displayed to make it better for spiders to crawl the site. All in all, it's a great product! Demo.
I have been really blessed over the past 11 months to have a great contract job. The work has been very interesting and the people have been great. I'd like to give them all a shout to let them know how much I'll miss them and invite them to stop by here from time to time to check in, drop me a line.
A little about the group, they are a coldfusion development house, which allows them to do a lot of quick, high quality coding. They use Oracle for their dbase (BOOOooo) (just kidding Michael). I have never worked with such an intelligent group. They have PM's that actually know what is going on, and listen to the developer and the developers they are top notch. I have learned more from this group than I have any where else. The group consists of a great diversity of people. Gilligan, Ginger, Mary Anne, The professor, Skipper and the Howels were all there.
At all of my previous jobs, I worked with plenty of great developers, but for the second time I actually had to co-developers that were women. I bring it up for one reason. They were incredible! Both Cari and Alicia amazed me with what they were able to do. It might sound sexist, but I was surprised and impressed. They truly took the opinion I had gathered from my only other experience and turned that around. So thanks
There are so many people there that I would like to mention and how wonderful they are, but then if I miss someone I'll get hate mail, threats of mis-guided weapons etc. etc.
But seriously, Pat, Troy, Greg, Duane, Wayne, Teri, Cari, Alicia, Bryan, Dan A., Jeremy, Michael, Jim, Vijay, Clinton, Kent, Mark, Lynette and Scott you are all the best and thanks for the time I was able to spend with you.
And finally, Ed. I guess since it's my last day, this wouldn't be considered sucking up Thanks for everything, I have worked in many jobs, and I have yet to have a manager with your class, compassion and intelligence. You are what most managers should aspire to be. Thanks for everything!
(just in case anyone's reading this)
