[Editor's note: This is the second "link" in a 10-part series. The first, Do You Have Broken Links, appeared on Mar. 23. Check back Friday, April 6, for link three: Direct Mail to Online.]
For this customer acquisition chain analysis, we looked at seven randomly chosen direct response ads in recent editions of TV Guide, Woman's Day and Popular Mechanics. Most of these advertisers spent big bucks for these ads. Because anywhere from 25 percent to 75 percent of responses to advertising take place online, checking the integrity of the consumer experience going from a print ad to a website made a lot of sense to us. Here's what we found:
Ad No. 1: A full-page ad for Bose's Acoustic Wave music system II. Link: www.Bose.com/AWMS2. The page on the site had a lot more detail about the product, and the offer in the print ad was identical to the one online. Very relevant consumer experience. Easy conversion path. Exactly what we're talking about!
Ad No. 2: A full-page ad for ESCORT Live! The ad says, "Contact us for special introductory offers." Link: www.EscortInc.com plus www.Facebook.com/DriveSmarter (we haven't seen many of these). It was a good experience on the website, but the Facebook page landed us on the "wall" which was jumbled (too much going on), had a negative comment and generally wasn't a selling page. Some of their other Facebook pages are better. We'd nix Facebook from this ad, as the website experience was much better and focused.
Ad No. 3: A one-third page ad for Crutchfield, aiming to get consumers to request their catalog via link: www.crutchfield.com/mechanic. The link brought us to a form to sign up for the catalog and email newsletter (nice), but consumers who do not type "/mechanic" wind up on their home page and have to scroll down to find the catalog sign-up link, near the bottom of the page.
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