Marketers able to mount multichannel, highly targeted ad campaigns are well positioned to capture a piece of the lucrative credit card business, according to new research from direct marketing agency Epsilon.
"Consumers want and expect to receive information that is relevant and personal, especially when it comes to financial services marketing," said Michael Penney, EVP of Epsilon's Strategic & Analytic Consulting Group. "In order to engage consumers and create unique experiences, marketers need to focus on asking questions and understanding what consumers want and how to engage with them."
More than half of consumers surveyed were unsure of what credit card company they were going to use when opening up a new account. Only 34% of consumers surveyed definitely knew which company they would go with, while over four in ten consumers chose a company with which they already had accounts.
The most influential sources of information were friends and family, followed by a financial advisor, brand Web sites, and product review Web sites.
"A multichannel approach that speaks directly with the individual consumer can create long-lasting relationships," Penney added.
Meanwhile, the primary reason why consumers selected a credit card company was the rewards program, while interest rates and recommendations from friends and family were also driving forces. The preferred channel for receiving information about credit cards was email, followed by postal mail and company Web sites.
Consumers also expressed interest in receiving rate changes and sales/discount offers from credit card companies, while nearly one-third also chose information tailored to their interests as one of their top two selections.
Loyalty programs were identified as another critical component of a successful retail banking marketing strategy.
The survey included responses from over 180 consumers who recently opened up a new credit card. It was part of a listening exercise designed to explore the concept of Customer Experience Marketing, an approach to deliver relevant interactions that anticipate and respond to the many ways that consumers want to engage, shop and buy today.
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
New Privacy Bill Released, House To Consider Thursday
By Wendy Davis
Rep. Bobby Rush (D-Ill.) unveiled a privacy bill on Monday that would require companies to obtain people's opt-in consent before disclosing their personal information to third parties in some circumstances.
A version of the bill seen by Online Media Daily appears to be similar to a draft measure floated in May by Rep. Rick Boucher (D-Va.), chairman of the Subcommittee on Communications, Technology and the Internet, but with some key differences.
Both bills follow a notice-and-choice framework, and both require users' consent for online behavioral advertising, or tracking users across sites in order to serve targeted ads. Both also allow companies to obtain opt-out consent rather than opt-in, but under slightly different circumstances.
Rush's measure would require Web sites to obtain users' explicit permission before sharing their personal information with third parties, unless those companies participate in a "universal opt-out" program operated by industry groups, like the Network Advertising Initiative, and overseen by the Federal Trade Commission.
Boucher's draft proposal, by contrast, would require ad networks that track people and collect personal information for ad purposes to obtain users' opt-in consent, unless the networks provide prominent notice through an icon and also allow people to view and edit their profiles.
Rush's bill also defines third-party broadly, saying that companies are considered third parties to each other if consumers would not expect reasonably them to be related. For instance, a publisher that owns an unbranded network of blogs could be considered a third party to those blogs.
Rush's measure also tasks the FTC with further defining "third party" within 18 months.
Like Boucher's proposal, Rush's bill would apply to data that is traditionally considered "personally identifiable" -- such as names and addresses -- as well as information sometimes deemed "anonymous," like marketing profiles associated with particular computers.
Rush's bill provides that IP addresses would be covered if used to create marketing profiles, but not when used to send ads dynamically. As with the definition of third party, Rush delegates to the FTC the task of further defining personal information.
Also similar to Boucher's measure, Rush's bill requires companies to obtain users' affirmative consent before collecting or sharing sensitive information -- but provides a more sweeping definition of that term. Rush says that sensitive data includes information about people's medical history or health, race or ethnicity, religious beliefs and affiliation, sexual orientation or sexual behavior, as well as certain financial data. Precise geolocation information would be considered "sensitive" if associated with other data like names or profiles. Rush also says FTC may modify the definition of sensitive information through a rulemaking.
Boucher, by contrast, defined sensitive information as medical records, race or ethnicity, religious beliefs, sexual orientation, financial records and precise geolocation information.
One key area that differs from Boucher's proposal involves consumers' ability to sue. Rush would allow individuals to sue companies that don't follow the measure for up to $1,000 per violation. Boucher's bill would completely bar consumers from bringing private lawsuits.
Rush, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade and Consumer Protection, did not have a co-sponsor for the bill as of Monday afternoon. A hearing on Rush's proposal is slated for Thursday.
Some consumer advocates reacted more favorably to Rush's proposal than to Boucher's. Privacy advocate Jeff Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy, said Rush's proposal "significantly advances the privacy debate in Congress."
Chester added, "By empowering the FTC to engage in additional rule-makings on privacy, it creates a framework to better address consumer privacy concerns -- online and off."
Leslie Harris, president of the digital rights group Center for Democracy & Technology, said Rush's bill "establishes a forward looking and flexible framework for protecting consumer privacy."
Harris is expected to testify at a hearing on Thursday addressing privacy legislation.
Rep. Bobby Rush (D-Ill.) unveiled a privacy bill on Monday that would require companies to obtain people's opt-in consent before disclosing their personal information to third parties in some circumstances.
A version of the bill seen by Online Media Daily appears to be similar to a draft measure floated in May by Rep. Rick Boucher (D-Va.), chairman of the Subcommittee on Communications, Technology and the Internet, but with some key differences.
Both bills follow a notice-and-choice framework, and both require users' consent for online behavioral advertising, or tracking users across sites in order to serve targeted ads. Both also allow companies to obtain opt-out consent rather than opt-in, but under slightly different circumstances.
Rush's measure would require Web sites to obtain users' explicit permission before sharing their personal information with third parties, unless those companies participate in a "universal opt-out" program operated by industry groups, like the Network Advertising Initiative, and overseen by the Federal Trade Commission.
Boucher's draft proposal, by contrast, would require ad networks that track people and collect personal information for ad purposes to obtain users' opt-in consent, unless the networks provide prominent notice through an icon and also allow people to view and edit their profiles.
Rush's bill also defines third-party broadly, saying that companies are considered third parties to each other if consumers would not expect reasonably them to be related. For instance, a publisher that owns an unbranded network of blogs could be considered a third party to those blogs.
Rush's measure also tasks the FTC with further defining "third party" within 18 months.
Like Boucher's proposal, Rush's bill would apply to data that is traditionally considered "personally identifiable" -- such as names and addresses -- as well as information sometimes deemed "anonymous," like marketing profiles associated with particular computers.
Rush's bill provides that IP addresses would be covered if used to create marketing profiles, but not when used to send ads dynamically. As with the definition of third party, Rush delegates to the FTC the task of further defining personal information.
Also similar to Boucher's measure, Rush's bill requires companies to obtain users' affirmative consent before collecting or sharing sensitive information -- but provides a more sweeping definition of that term. Rush says that sensitive data includes information about people's medical history or health, race or ethnicity, religious beliefs and affiliation, sexual orientation or sexual behavior, as well as certain financial data. Precise geolocation information would be considered "sensitive" if associated with other data like names or profiles. Rush also says FTC may modify the definition of sensitive information through a rulemaking.
Boucher, by contrast, defined sensitive information as medical records, race or ethnicity, religious beliefs, sexual orientation, financial records and precise geolocation information.
One key area that differs from Boucher's proposal involves consumers' ability to sue. Rush would allow individuals to sue companies that don't follow the measure for up to $1,000 per violation. Boucher's bill would completely bar consumers from bringing private lawsuits.
Rush, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade and Consumer Protection, did not have a co-sponsor for the bill as of Monday afternoon. A hearing on Rush's proposal is slated for Thursday.
Some consumer advocates reacted more favorably to Rush's proposal than to Boucher's. Privacy advocate Jeff Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy, said Rush's proposal "significantly advances the privacy debate in Congress."
Chester added, "By empowering the FTC to engage in additional rule-makings on privacy, it creates a framework to better address consumer privacy concerns -- online and off."
Leslie Harris, president of the digital rights group Center for Democracy & Technology, said Rush's bill "establishes a forward looking and flexible framework for protecting consumer privacy."
Harris is expected to testify at a hearing on Thursday addressing privacy legislation.
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
Click-Fraud Rates Remain At Record Level
The average "innocuous invalid rate" in Anchor Intelligence's network declined to 29.8% in the second quarter of 2010, representing a 36.1% sequential decrease. That means the invalid traffic rate dropped to less than 1% from 7% in the prior quarter, according to the company's Traffic Quality Q2 2010 report released Monday. But the decrease does not necessarily mean good news for advertisers.
Anchor analyzes multiple types of advertising, but predominantly driven by CPC, search ads. While the decrease presents an interesting trend, it does not represent a decline in malicious activity across the Web, but rather a decline in robot traffic such as Web site crawlers and spiders designed to index Web sites as well as a sharp decrease in internal testing traffic like test clicks from ad networks and search engines. The report suggests that since innocuous invalid traffic is generally pre-filtered by ad providers, it rarely impacts an advertiser's ad budget.
While neither the innocuous-invalid rate or the attempted click-fraud rate bode well for advertisers, the malicious intent of the click-fraud invalids generally are worse "because in those instances you're dealing with groups of bad actors who spend lots of time, money, energy, and resources to steal money from the advertising community," says Ken Miller, Anchor's chief executive officer. "Whereas the innocuous is more of an annoying occurrence that many companies can manage, the malicious activity requires systems that are as good as those built by the bad guys, and most companies aren't equipped to do that."
The attempted click-fraud rate remained nearly unchanged, decreasing from 29.2% in Q1 to 28.9% in Q2, but year-on-year the percentage jumped 26%. The Traffic Quality Report aims to provide online advertisers with insights into the magnitude of traffic quality issues observed by Anchor, while providing clear and accurate definitions for the statistics provided.
Another trend that Anchor identified points to targeting smaller, less established ad networks and search engines that may on average become more vulnerable to attacks. It has become apparent that some customers consistently record increases in volume while also experiencing decreases in attempted click-fraud rates. This trend indicates that advertisers are seeing improved performance on ad networks and search engines that defend networks and sites against click fraud.
Anchor also measures click fraud by country. Of the top 30 countries, Vietnam took No. 1 at 37.3% in Q2 when it comes to attempted click fraud, up from 35.4% sequentially. Anchor attributes this to automated, high-velocity traffic from a distinct number of IP addresses as well as traffic from users displaying historically suspicious behavior.
Vietnam's Internet infrastructure is more vulnerable to attack than those of other countries because most computers run on outdated operating systems and Web browsers. Furthermore, the click-fraud attempts originating out of Vietnam in Q2 were believed to be a result of machines that were compromised during politically motivated cyber attacks against blogs criticizing mining projects in Vietnam.
Australia and the United States remain at No. 1 and No. 2, respectively, when it comes to the highest attempted click-fraud rates. The click-fraud rate in Australia increased from 35.2% in Q1 to 36.4 in Q2, and the attempted click-fraud rate in the U.S. decreased from 35.0% to 34.0%.
Click fraud is not the only malicious online activity advertisers need to keep an eye on. Video as a promotional advertising tool will begin to attract more mischief by those who want to exploit the Web and its content.
Anchor has successfully tested its ClearMark technology on video ads, but they don't make up a large percentage of the ads the company monitors, mainly because client demand has not yet reached the medium, Miller says. It likely will eventually.
Hackers took advantage of a cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerability on Google's YouTube Sunday, hitting sections where users post comments, according to Network World, an IDG News site. The hack focused on clips related to pop star Justin Bieber. It didn't involve malware, but the code did affect YouTube pages so visitors saw tasteless messages or redirected to external sites with adult content.
Anchor analyzes multiple types of advertising, but predominantly driven by CPC, search ads. While the decrease presents an interesting trend, it does not represent a decline in malicious activity across the Web, but rather a decline in robot traffic such as Web site crawlers and spiders designed to index Web sites as well as a sharp decrease in internal testing traffic like test clicks from ad networks and search engines. The report suggests that since innocuous invalid traffic is generally pre-filtered by ad providers, it rarely impacts an advertiser's ad budget.
While neither the innocuous-invalid rate or the attempted click-fraud rate bode well for advertisers, the malicious intent of the click-fraud invalids generally are worse "because in those instances you're dealing with groups of bad actors who spend lots of time, money, energy, and resources to steal money from the advertising community," says Ken Miller, Anchor's chief executive officer. "Whereas the innocuous is more of an annoying occurrence that many companies can manage, the malicious activity requires systems that are as good as those built by the bad guys, and most companies aren't equipped to do that."
The attempted click-fraud rate remained nearly unchanged, decreasing from 29.2% in Q1 to 28.9% in Q2, but year-on-year the percentage jumped 26%. The Traffic Quality Report aims to provide online advertisers with insights into the magnitude of traffic quality issues observed by Anchor, while providing clear and accurate definitions for the statistics provided.
Another trend that Anchor identified points to targeting smaller, less established ad networks and search engines that may on average become more vulnerable to attacks. It has become apparent that some customers consistently record increases in volume while also experiencing decreases in attempted click-fraud rates. This trend indicates that advertisers are seeing improved performance on ad networks and search engines that defend networks and sites against click fraud.
Anchor also measures click fraud by country. Of the top 30 countries, Vietnam took No. 1 at 37.3% in Q2 when it comes to attempted click fraud, up from 35.4% sequentially. Anchor attributes this to automated, high-velocity traffic from a distinct number of IP addresses as well as traffic from users displaying historically suspicious behavior.
Vietnam's Internet infrastructure is more vulnerable to attack than those of other countries because most computers run on outdated operating systems and Web browsers. Furthermore, the click-fraud attempts originating out of Vietnam in Q2 were believed to be a result of machines that were compromised during politically motivated cyber attacks against blogs criticizing mining projects in Vietnam.
Australia and the United States remain at No. 1 and No. 2, respectively, when it comes to the highest attempted click-fraud rates. The click-fraud rate in Australia increased from 35.2% in Q1 to 36.4 in Q2, and the attempted click-fraud rate in the U.S. decreased from 35.0% to 34.0%.
Click fraud is not the only malicious online activity advertisers need to keep an eye on. Video as a promotional advertising tool will begin to attract more mischief by those who want to exploit the Web and its content.
Anchor has successfully tested its ClearMark technology on video ads, but they don't make up a large percentage of the ads the company monitors, mainly because client demand has not yet reached the medium, Miller says. It likely will eventually.
Hackers took advantage of a cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerability on Google's YouTube Sunday, hitting sections where users post comments, according to Network World, an IDG News site. The hack focused on clips related to pop star Justin Bieber. It didn't involve malware, but the code did affect YouTube pages so visitors saw tasteless messages or redirected to external sites with adult content.
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