'Net Features : 22210

Google Upgrades DoubleClick for Publishers

Pete Prestipino — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 17:57:00 GMT

Google (and Doubleclick) announced the availability of its next generation ad serving platform today. DoubleClick for Publishers (DFP) aims to make short work of the many complexities associated with managing (buying and selling) advertising online.

DFP is actually two separate offerings - DoubleClick for Publishers (for the largest online publishers) and DFP Small Business (a free version designed for growing online publishers). Google will be upgrading current DART Publishers to DoubleClick for Publishers over the next year and moving Google Ad Manager customers to DFP Small Business in the coming weeks.

Website Magazine has not yet had an opportunity to try out either of the new solutions, but here's a brief rundown of the features/improvements as reported on the DoubleClick weblog:

- A new interface was designed to help publishers eliminate errors, reduce training time and execute campaigns more quickly. The new DFP offers tasks that can be accomplished on a single screen and features visualization tools to simplify tasks like geo-targeting and rich media campaign setup.

- Additional reporting data is now available that will help publishers identify where revenue is coming from, tracking ad delivery down to the city level, and review hourly or daily trends. In short, 4,000 times more data is available for publishers.

- The new advertising service now receives "hints" directly from the forecasting engine to adjust delivery in anticipation of changes in site traffic. DFP's optimization technology gives publishers the opportunity to utilize advanced Google machine learning algorithms to deliver even greater campaign performance lift for advertisers.

- A new, open, public API enables publishers to build and integrate their own apps with DFP, or integrate apps created for DFP by a growing third-party developer community. Apps under development today include sales, order management and workflow tools.

Email Delivery Imperatives - ReturnPath Guide

Pete Prestipino — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 17:29:00 GMT

Email deliverability company Return Path released a guide outlining some best practices for email senders. According to the Email Delivery Imperatives, email senders should be prepared to implement email authentication (specifically DKIM), apply for email whitelists and focus on developer user engagement metrics by ISP.

“Almost 95% of email messages at one point in 2009 were classified as spam, according to a recent study,” said George Bilbrey, President, Return Path. “As ISPs battle the onslaught of spam, the risks increase that legitimate senders’ will find their emails mislabeled as spam or junk and not reach consumers’ inboxes. After talking with ISPs about trends for 2010, we identified three key strategies senders should focus on to help ISPs properly identify their mail and ensure delivery to the inbox.”

Let’s review Return Path’s recommendations:

Implement email authentication – DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM) is a security standard that allows ISPs to verify the IP address that sent an email. Google, AOL, and Yahoo! currently use DKIM as one email verification measure but Yahoo! also requires DKIM for access to their feedback loop.

Apply for email whitelists – Whitelists allow ISPs to identify legitimate emails and give increased functionality to trusted senders. For example, Return Path’s Certification Program automatically enables links and images for emails sent to Hotmail.

Prepare for an increased focus on engagement metrics – ISPs are increasingly developing engagement metrics to find legitimate emails. For example, Yahoo! is tracking the time an email stays in users inboxes before it is deleted. ISPs will develop a variety of engagement metrics in 2010 to identify legitimate email, including tracking messages that users find in their junk or spam folders and mark as “not spam.”

AJAX Search & Conversion Optimizer at SLI Systems

Pete Prestipino — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 17:25:00 GMT

Site search provider SLI Systems announced two rather impressive enhancements to its solution. The company launched "Learning Search with AJAX" to improve and quicken site search and navigation experiences for users, and introduced "Conversion Optimizer" for multivariate testing of site search and navigation.

Learning Search with AJAX (which increases page load times resulting in higher conversion) requests only the necessary data from SLI’s search servers when a visitor performs a search or selects an option on the search page (for example, narrowing results based on price or color, re-ordering search results, switching between grid and list views, clicking on a related search, or viewing an additional page of results). Because Learning Search with AJAX doesn’t require a reload of the entire webpage, search results appear more quickly – an important must-have for e-commerce websites whose customers expect a site to be fast and efficient.

SLI Systemns also announced the launch of Conversion Optimzier today, a tool for conducting A/B and multivariate testing of search and navigation features. The solution will allow website owners to run tests on variations in site search design and features to determine which options encourage desirable customer behaviors, thereby improving conversions. For instance, site owners can test various positions for the search box, or format and refinement options for search results pages, and view the results of the tests in an easy-to-read console.

“Testing the various options for site search design takes a lot of time, and often doesn’t yield actionable results, leaving you without a clear indication of best practices for your site,” said Shaun Ryan, CEO of SLI Systems. “Our new Conversion Optimizer solves these problems, since we take care of the complex testing configurations for our customers – and they can see test results quickly.”