Shauna Nicholson » Design Posts

5 Ways Pandora’s Advertising Model is Better than Yours

Shauna Nicholson — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 15:06:37 +0000

pandora advertising

Despite our love of social media and engagement-driven marketing, display advertising isn’t going anywhere fast.

Analysts and Google CEO Eric Schmidt are in agreement that (display advertising) is the next major cash cow for them, estimating that display will account for more than $1 billion in 2010.

And that’s okay. But it means we need to do it better.

I’ve often heard (and even thought) that if you build an exceptional web property/mobile app with a ton of users, advertising will be a sufficient revenue model. The fact is, (most) advertisers aren’t stupid. Traditional banners have lost a lot of their effectiveness. Here’s how Pandora is making it work.

1. Pandora offers experiential advertising. Instead of only offering pay-per-click models, Pandora draws users into the brand experience. Users can interact with the ads: scroll over special deals, play a funny video, launch a station… And it’s all in a way that doesn’t irritate the user.

2. It spans platforms. From unobtrusive ads at the bottom of mobile, to music-infused blurbs between songs, on up to stations customized to your brand, Pandora meets consumers where they want to connect.

Pandora is offered via web browsers or downloadable desktop apps. Pandora also offers free mobile apps across platforms to offer their services and, of course, advertisements.

3. Each advertisement has custom dimensions. Face it: Users are virtually unresponsive to your banner ad.

Generally speaking, Nielsen’s eye tracking research typically showed that there are no fixations within advertisements. And users don’t fixate with design elements that resemble ads. In the early years of display advertising on Web pages, people ignored ads because they were usually totally irrelevant. Not only that, most banner ads were as creative as you’d get from a box of crayons and a drawing pad. (Even worse when the animated gif arrived and everything had to flash off and on just because you could). Source

Sure Pandora ads show up in (generally) the same places, but the shape, size, feel, and experience of each ad created is crafted to allow the brand to interact with the user in a completely custom way. Bottom line: They don’t look like “ads.”

4. They empower advertisers to use a medium users are already familiar with. Instead of using never-heard-of songs to avoid copyright, Pandora has brands associating products with the songs users are already singing along to.

There is nothing new for the user to learn or retain. Rather, the user is now able to connect a brand to something they’re already opting into engaging with.

5. They’re targeting based on on-the-fly user inputs. This means the user experience is customized as the user customizes and experiences the website!

Case in point: Clicking the “thumbs up” on a party-themed hip hop song changed my ad from the Ford’s “Sales Event” to Barcardi’s “Color your summer.” Those of you who can’t see the correlation between party-themed hip hop and Barcardi are in serious need of a vacation or a college student.

Learn more about advertising on Pandora. No, I’m not a compensated blogger.
How are YOU using these trends to purchase or sell advertising?

How Building a Website is Like Building a Home

Shauna Nicholson — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 17:39:32 +0000

Business websites are meant to convert the traffic continually driven by our marketing investments. This means, after qualifying and convincing people to visit your website, we actually want them to do something once they arrive (make a purchase, complete a form, gather information, etc). Read more on conversion rates.

Getting to this point isn’t always easy. Achieving a good conversion rate starts at the very beginning:

Building a website	Building a House
Understand your prospects: Profiling target market allows you to cater your business accordingly. We use this profile to dictate pretty much everything from the beginning. Not only do we seek out general information (age, gender, location), but habits as well (likes to purchase from a certain type of venue, uses a certain type of jargon when discussing industry business, etc).	Knowing who you plan on selling this home to will dictate a lot of things: Bigger family? More bedrooms and bathrooms. Elderly couple? Laundry facilities on a main floor. Tech savvy first time buyers? Let the interior designer know!
Plan the website structure (aka “information architecture”): Determining how to organize website content shouldn’t happen on accident. It takes careful consideration to determine where content makes sense and where users will look to find it.	An architect draws out the basic layout of the home. The kitchen is placed. Living rooms plan for fireplaces. Bathrooms are planned and organized.
Develop great content: Content should be written for the reader, not the organization writing it. This may mean nixing jargon or using images to help communicate complicated messages. It’s why I called step one “planning the website structure” instead of “information architecture planning.” Starting this early is usually a good idea, since it takes a lot of time writing, reviewing, and adjusting.	This one is a bit of a stretch, but maybe this will help: Literature is produced to describe the benefit of each room. You’re not buying a kitchen; you’re buying a place to create meal-centered memories. You’re not buying a living room; you’re buying a place to relax after a hard day at work or entertain friends on weekends.
Plan where things will go (aka “user interface planning”): Once we have a general idea of where the content will go on the website, we need to plan how it will be displayed on each page, or at least each page type. This plan is critical to plan exactly where the call-to-actions for each page will appear. The result is a template for designers to build upon.	Before an interior designer starts buying furniture, he or she plans what to buy and (at least generally) where it’ll go.
The website gets pretty (“graphic design”): Designers play a major role in bringing the website to life. Not only do they create a design to support the user interface, they ensure each call-to-action is easy to access, use, and implement.	Walls are painted, home accents are placed, favorite elements are highlighted with lighting choices and more!
Marketing starts: Website traffic-building campaigns are executed and the prospects visit the website. Website analytics let you know how many users visited the website, where traffic is coming from, and what they did once the got there.	The real estate agent invites prospective buyers in for a look. Prospective buys take the tour on their own! Home security systems (website analytics) let you know every time a prospect enters a new room, opens a door, or pushes a button.

All of these things come together to improve website conversion rates, but end up improving other website analytics as well! Done correctly, bounce rates decrease, reoccurring (or baseline) website traffic increases, average time on site increases or levels out, pages per visit may increase.

What am I missing? What other methods have you used to improve conversion rates?

A Website’s User Interface Directly Impacts its Conversions

Shauna Nicholson — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 17:28:59 +0000

User interfaces (what a user sees on a website) are designed for a few different reasons: they want to teach, they want to sell, they want information. Either way, it’s designed to perform a function. But what if it wasn’t? What if the interface was only pretty? Would you pay for pretty? Pretty with no ROI? I would, if were tasked with spending cash for the sake of art (read: balling out of control).

I’ve been thinking about the “call to action” lately. The call to action is too often an afterthought. Too often, I’m looking at a website wondering what action it’s target market is supposed to take. Before we get in too far, let’s review a few examples of a call to action–which, by the way, should be designed based on the website owner’s return on investment needs.

Newsletter sign up
Contact form submission
Online sales
Quote request
Consume information
Request information

There are a variety of actions a user can take but without a definitive, obvious, effective call-to-action a user’s action might just be to leave the website all together. When a user fulfills the intended call to action (completes a form, initiates contact, whatever), website analytics regard this as a “conversion.”

One way to determine how your call-to-action is performing is to first look at two things within your website analytics:

Bounce rate (should be a low percent, at least under 30%) and
Conversion rate (should be a high percent, depends on nature of your action).

If your website isn’t performing the way it should be, it’s time to take a look at its user interface. Let’s face it if your analytics aren’t where they need to be, you’re tying to bungee cord to your users’ feet making sure they’ll never convert.