Notes and Thoughts on Grocery 2.0

I use a wide set of tools but here is a list of a few of my regular favorites to increase your productivity:

1. Quantcast – Very useful to get the demographics of a site. Also does a good job in finding similar sites or audiences.
2. Compete – A great tool to compare web sites and a very clean UI so shows well in power point presentations.
3. Google Insights – 65% of US internet users use Google to search so this tool helps you understand the detail behind a search term.
4. Google Analytics – There are lots of great web Analytic packages hard to compete with Google’s combination of features for the price: Free.
5. Google Sites – Need a quick place to organize the files for a meeting agenda or build a list for your team. Google sites is free and easy to customize.
6. Basecamp – It a great paid tool to collaborate on projects with if you have an external team. Very easy to set up and you can do it all with out anyone from IT needed.
7. Box.net -  Can’t get a large file to a co-worker or client? Use Box.net. First 1GB is free.
8. Remember The Milk – Is a killer To Do List that syncs to your mobile phone, google calendar, and you can email items to a list.

A recent survey from ChoiceStream shows that personalized ads do the best online.  Frequent online shoppers are 32% more apt and willing to click on an online ad if it is personalized, frequent meaning purchases done within the past 6 months.    And get this, the more the online users spends the greater their interest in personalized ads.  Overall, 78% of online consumers are interested in receiving personalized content.

Think online advertising doesn’t alter online users behavior?  Think again!  70% of consumers state that their purchase decisions are sometimes influenced by seeing an advertisement for a product or service.

When building your online advertising campaign be sure to personalize your advertisements to your target.  A great way to do this is to use online tools such as “Quantcast” to really get to know your targets.  It can show you what other sites they frequently visit, how old they are, and even how much they make.  Also, keep your creative updated.  The last thing you want to do is bore your online viewers with the same ad.  Make it exciting, change it up, and keep it personalized.

Cheers!

Courtney

*info source: Center for Media Research, ChoiceStream Survey 2008