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Meet Justin Talerico – CEO of ion

Lyndit — Tue, 04 May 2010 21:07:52 +0000

Font and center here is a CEO of ion interactive and leader of experience design team Justin and his insights into the world of conversion rate optimization and what ion is doing to make the lives of marketers a lot easier and more fun.

Justin has a impressive resume and his experience working with some gladiator companies like Yahoo!, Samsung and Office Depot just to name a few tells me that Justin has successfully been able to live his passion. Justin writes, speaks at conferences and universities and breathes marketing.

I am impressed with Justin’s passion, his down to earth approachable nature and the fact he and I believe usability is core. Justin was kind enough to answer my long winded questions which I am delighted to share with you. Connect with Justin and learn more about ion interactive, and Liveball!

Connect with Justin!

@JustinTalerico | @ioninteractive | www.ioninteractive.com | Email

Background

I started my first company in 1992 a couple of years out of the advertising program at the University of Florida. In 1994 we developed our first large-scale website for Samsung and I was quickly transformed into a user advocate. By 1996 we were exclusively focused on web marketing and technology with user-centered sites under our belt for Fujitsu, Office Depot and others. I became fixated on the idea that what’s best for the user is best for business and brand as well. In 1998 we merged with Scott Brinker’s software company and began blending marketing and technology in new ways. We developed a content management system that we deployed to enterprise clients through 2004. At that time we saw a common need among our clients to improve their online marketing ROI. In 2005 we dropped everything else to focus on what we termed post-click marketing — the pages and experiences that come next after a participant clicks on a campaign link. We launched our LiveBall platform in 2007 with the intention of empowering marketers to take control of their campaign results. My odd background of marketing, design and technology helps me focus on making LiveBall a powerful, but marketer-friendly optimization tool.

ion interactive Focus & Passion

It’s all about the user. I mean that on two levels: The ultimate participant online must truly be the center of where and how resources are allocated. But making that happen gets us to my core passion which is empowering marketing people to run campaigns as agile as the markets they’re chasing. There are two users — end users and the marketers who put good stuff in front of them. I believe in pushing technical clutter out of the way of message and brand.

Importance of Conversion Rate Optimization

When I was in college, print advertising was moving from the domain of a few technical experts into the domain of many more empowered creatives. Technology made this move possible. Today, the web is moving from the domain of a few technical experts in IT to the domain of many more empowered marketers and creatives. For me, this is the heart of CRO. Optimizing conversion rates is all about getting the best-fit user experience in front of each participant. In order for that to happen, the focus must be on what is being created instead of how it’s created or deployed. Many try to execute CRO beneath a burden of ineffective layers of clutter. It’s nearly impossible to be successful in that mode. Once marketers are in direct touch with their participants, they can cater to their needs and make them happy. That’s CRO for me. I’ve seen it deliver the ROI again and again. Of course you still need to execute… test, test, test… and assume nothing.

Staying Relevant

I live it everyday. I personally run our paid search from click to revenue expressly to stay in direct touch with the state of the market. I also supervise our full-service clients’ creative work. I don’t actually get to do much of that anymore, but it all runs through me, so I stay in close touch with a pretty advanced group of online marketers. We limit full-service to about ten clients at a time, but the roster includes great brands like Anthem, emusic and others. They all demand absolute excellence in terms of CRO performance and branding. It’s exhilarating to see their successes. They inform everything we do on the platform.

ion Clients

We actually have both clients and customers. We have hundreds of customers from startups to Fortune 100s. Our customers license the LiveBall platform and run it themselves (with our support). Then we have about ten clients that use us as a full-service solution. That essentially means that we run LiveBall on their behalf. We handle their post-click marketing from strategy through conversion. We have account teams and creative teams that run that business and we keep it limited to about ten at any one time.

Working with CRO Hesitation

Everything we do is tested, so they’re not here unless they’re on board with that. We do a lot of A/B/n testing to sort diamonds from coal and we refine those results with in-page multivariate tests to polish the diamonds. We provide a lot of pre-sales and client education and we have the ROI credibility to back up our position on this stuff. We can launch tests in minutes, but depending on traffic and the scope of differences between alternatives, it make take quite some time to come to a conclusion. We educate clients about the sometimes painful waiting and about the dangers of jumping to a conclusion based on a trend instead of a statistically significant result. I think our customers are surprised at how easy and fast testing is with LiveBall. It’s naturally a less resource-intensive proposition and so they are more willing to experiment.

Liveball Makes CRO Easier

To run LiveBall you need one thing from IT — a subdomain. Once you get them to invest that 30-minute nugget of time, you’re IT-free. You create your landing experiences — landing pages, conversion paths, microsites or whatever you want to call them — with LiveBall’s WYSIWYG content management interface. To test one against another (A/B) you check boxes to indicate which ones you want to test for each source of traffic. You can test as many as you like, so A/B is a misnomer. Then you can test content within pages as well (MVT). I just recorded a sneak peek to prove just how effortless it is to vary text, images and forms within LiveBall. You have to try it. We spent nine months of R&D on this MVT feature to make sure it was truly effortless. You can launch multivariate tests in literally less than five minutes. And you can run A/B + MVT, MVT on multiple pages, MVT within Flash for dynamic text and images… the list goes on and on, but it’s all IT- and code-free. Really.

Importance of Usability in Conversion

It’s everything. When a user turns into a participant by taking that first click in your landing experience, they cross a huge psychological chasm. If your UX then breaks the promise it made to earn that click, you’re cooked and your brand is damaged. If your UX keeps its promises, you’ll get a high percentage to the finish line. People convert when they’re happy, comfortable and when you’ve earned their trust. These emotions come from your messaging and usability.

Working at ion interactive

I think we provide a great environment. It’s super fast-paced. There’s never a dull moment, that’s for sure. We’ve been (at least) doubling our revenue each year and that makes for an exciting day-to-day. In addition to our own pace, we operate in an ever-changing nascent market. So we’re moving fast in a fast-moving market. Neat combination. Our team is passionate and committed. When you put a bunch of like-minded people like that together, there’s a palpable symbiosis. We have a soundtrack, we have foosball, team lunches and a billboard-size ‘THINK BIG’ in bright orange across one wall. Maybe that helps paint a picture.

Two Common Mistakes

Serial testing and jumping to conclusions. Both are testing problems, but they truly are ubiquitous. It’s hard for marketers to understand that serial test results cannot be compared. Controls must be run in parallel to take environmental differences out of the equation. Likewise, jumping to conclusions is tough to stay away from, but you have to. A trend is not a result until it’s reached whatever statistical confidence level you deem adequate for your situation. I’ve seen hundreds of tests trend one way and end up another. Making decisions based on a trend is super-expensive guessing. You paid to test, but then guessed anyway. Bad all around. I’m gonna add a third common mistake… doing nothing in the name of doing everything perfect. Marketers must get started and begin to see results. Everything doesn’t need to be done at once, and everything will never be perfect. So start testing already.

Improve CRO Knowledge

Well I’m biased toward #CROchat. Aside from that, there are some great conferences and blogs out there. Most importantly, they need to get started. It’s not rocket science. It’s about finding out who your participants are and giving them what they want. It’s amazing how fast you get the hang of CRO once you get started. @MeganLeap posted a great list of CRO resources on our blog at inoninteractive.com/post-click-marketing-blog.

Justin Talerico Offline

I’m a dad with two kids (boy 11, girl 7) and a great wife (@AnnaTalerico). I play a lot of tennis. I’m a foodie who collects and drinks a lot of wine. I love boating & watersports.

I serve on the board of advisors of my kids’ school (@PCS_panthers). And I coach baseball. I’m passionate about modern design and fanatical about details & quality.

A big thank you to Justin for his time and I hope that like me you are impressed and inspired about CRO, marketing and learning more about ion.

Connect with Justin!

@JustinTalerico | @ioninteractive | www.ioninteractive.com. | Email

Meet Joanna Lord

Lyndit — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 04:26:17 +0000

Meet one of my favorite social media, SEO, Search Marketing — you name it all around super star marketing ladies. Drum roll please for Joanna Lord!

Meeting and following Joanna through Twitter has been incredibly inspiring. You will find her attitude to be positive, upbeat and—my favorite—genuine.

For the past two years Joanna has been an internet marketing consultant while launching her own site at YourJobStop.com, a job board for job seekers trying to gain an advantage through using social media. Recently she has taken a job as the Director of Customer Acquisition and Engagement at SEOmoz.org, a Seattle-based SEO software company.

I asked Joanna to share her thoughts on a variety of topics and she was kind enough write the responses you’ll find below.

A big thank you to Joanna for this excellent interview.

Connect with Joanna

@JoannaLord | Blog: www.joannalord.com | /in/joannalord

The Pros & Cons of Twitter:

Ha. I could go on for hours about this to be honest, but when you really nail it down I think the pro of Twitter is the con of Twitter. It is a new form of communication that enables you to connect at all hours of the day with as many people as you choose to connect with. The motivations behind that are what make Twitter either a great resource or a complete drain on your time. For me Twitter is an amazing marketing tool. I have always said it is above all a visibility engine. You can use it to push links, to drive traffic, to draw attention to a cause, or to get user generated feedback. On the negative side I do believe Twitter has saturated the value of the opportunities listed above. Anytime a new tool is discovered there will be a subset of people that abuse its value. Twitter has enabled certain people, companies, and brands to spam us, insincerely engage, and inflate their value with little to sustain certain claims. Just like any tool before it I believe Twitter holds an unprecedented value for those that use it correctly, and can be a dangerous advantage for those that abuse it. But for my uses I see Twitter as nothing but a great way to research things, learn new things, share what I’ve learned, and connect with others in an informal yet personal way.

Social Media Helping Professionally:

Like many of my marketing counterparts I have to admit that there are FEW ways it hasn’t helped me professionally. Marketers have the unique opportunity to use social media in two very important ways– to assist us in building other brands while also building our own brand. Social media has helped me broaden my professional network and strengthen my personal safety net of friends. I also use social networks as search engines throughout the day. These networks are key resources when it comes to competitive research, audience segmentation, not to mention they are a focal point in all of my press relation initiatives for brands or clients. I look at social media as an old rolodex on steroids, and if used correctly it can take anyone’s career and help them rebrand, revamp, and succeed in ways previously untouched.

Advice to Those Interested in Entering into Online Marketing

I actually get asked this one a lot and over the years my answer has stayed the same for the most part—learn as much as you can from wherever you can. Absorb it all. Read blogs, books, watch videos, attend conferences—do whatever your budget allows for. The more you expose yourself to, the more you understand the trends, the underlying strategies, and the foundational components to online marketing. As much and as quickly as it changes, some pieces really stay the same and by constantly exposing yourself to new information you can begin to gain a marketer’s perspective that will allow you to adapt as online marketing continues to evolve.

Dealing with Negative Engagement

I am going to be honest here and say that I don’t have as much experience in handling negative comments on a blog as I do in handling just negative brand attention in general. I think everyone needs to know their answer to this question “Where do I stand on transparency?” For me personally I believe in engaging when the outcome could add a value that has yet to be explored. There are times on Twitter where I may get negative backlash on a personal statement, or on a client’s account and I don’t engage unless the discussion is a worthy one. Some people would say well if I am deciding what is worthy isn’t that bias? Maybe. However I really focus as much of my online efforts as I can on one thing—return. I see every discussion, exchange, conversation online as some sort of spend—time, information, energy, money, etc. What kind of return comes out of a negative exchange of personal opinions that send readers in circles? Not much. Now if they have a valuable point and exploring it in a public arena can shed light on a topic…that is a return. A great return. I handle them when they need handling in a professional manner, and I don’t engage where I feel it would offer no value for me, them, or the online community.

Staying relevant in PPC, SEO and Social Media

Ha. It’s hard right?! Our industry more than any other is constantly moving, changing, shifting, combining, and on and on…for me reading blogs and attending conferences has been a huge advantage by staying up-to-date on this industry. I also take great interest in the entrepreneurial community. If you actually look at the people I follow on Twitter or the people I exchange with daily you will be surprised to see that it’s not as many big names as you would think. I am always amazed by what newbies are doing, what they are trying, and what is working. They have a fresh perspective to the space that has loads to offer. So for me I really think it’s a matter of staying involved with your space now while keeping an eye on the new sites, networks, ideas, and technologies that are gaining momentum.

Top 2 Twitter Inspirations

Oh wow just two huh? Okay so…Ian Lurie (@portentint) has got to be one of them. He is a marketing consultant and the primary over at Conversation Marketing. Ian’s tweet stream is an exact replica of the man himself—it is full of amazing industry insights, great data from specific applications of complex marketing initiatives, and laced in there is a humor you will come to depend on. He has a unique ability to make me laugh in 6 words or less. He also offers up his moments of personal frustration which remind me that we are all in this together just doing what we can, trying our hardest. I definitely suggest following him. Second one would be Mack Collier (@mackcollier). He is a social media consultant for both small and large companies. His blog has been a favorite of mine for some time. Mack’s stream is a great example of what it means to really dedicate yourself to the potential of Twitter. He not only sends out great information keeping a personal voice, but heads up Sunday night #blogchat on Twitter which is a group conversation via Twitter on rotating topics related to online marketing, content, and social media. He is dedicated to bringing the community together in hopes of combining great brainpower. Mack has been an inspiration to me and many others for years.

Overcoming Objections to Social Media Marketing?

There are so many different objections to social media marketing. Whereas before people questioned if it had value, now they question can the value be quantified. I have a sneaky suspicion that the next argument will be in the form of backlash—has the industry swayed too far toward social and cannibalized the other channels at a detriment? Whatever the latest objection is I usually just take it with a grain of salt. For clients I do the usual competitive analysis and show them where they are missing out on conversations, action potential, and return. To the actual people who pose a question, like at a conference or over a glass of wine (yes that happens), I usually just blanket statement them with “well it has a lot of value; you can either explore it or ignore it.” I am a believer that social media holds value for anyone simply because it’s another way to hold a conversation, and from all my experience in interpersonal communication and marketing I can honestly say—communicating will always be more valuable than being silent. Silence is a key ingredient in chaos—chaos personally, chaos for a brand, etc. Social media is just another tool to help brands and users break the silence.

You Are a Superhero Marketing, PPC and Social Media Wonder Woman! Who is Joanna offline?

Okay I almost didn’t answer this because I in NO WAY am a superhero of marketing. But I will admit that I am a busy lady online. Offline…I think it really depends when you catch me. Some days I am kind of a nut—way too sarcastic, way too caffeinated, and way too curious. Other days—I sleep in, wander quietly, and just take it all in. I’m still trying to find the balance in it all…just like everyone else I suspect.

What keeps you inspired?

Finally an easy one! My family. My mom and dad raised us to know we can do anything if we work hard enough, my two brothers remind me to stay grounded and enjoy simple things, and my sister…well she is perhaps the best friend anyone could ever ask for. Anytime life gets crazy online all I have to do is call her and none of it matters. Everything online just stays online, and I am transported to some place with no inboxes, deadlines, or ROIs. Family for sure…best inspiration out there.