If you log on to Volvo’s website, or BMW, you don’t see them talking about all shady car brands and makings out there. Nor do they talk about any doubtful production methods that exist in their industry. The reason that they do not talk about this is simply because there is no reason to do so. Why should a legitimate company have to excuse themselves for being in the same industry as other shady companies?

The Online marketing industry has a lot of innovative, creative and hard working people that work endless days on their projects and for their client’s. A lot of the people are highly motivated and driven, and come up with own solutions based on their own experiences and their clients needs. This is also why the Online marketing industry is so vibrant, dynamic and in constant change. This is something to be proud of if anything.

Let’s face it, there will always be shady companies in all industries. The only way to wash away that shady mark is to focus on all the good aspects of the Online marketing industry instead of being ashamed to be a part of it. If you’re not using any doubtful methods, then why are you feeling guilty? I would never excuse myself for being a part of this industry, I’m proud of it because I know that me and my team always do our best to assist our clients in their needs.

Soheil Amorpour, CEO @ Cperspective Online Marketing

1. Being a small company makes us more flexible.
In theory, we could change our whole business by next week if we wanted to. We could go from doing banner advertising to only doing web design, or… selling apples. The Online advertising industry changes rapidly, and the larger the company, the harder the change. We are small and dynamic, we can adjust our business to the market instantly, and this gives us an edge on a lot of larger companies.

2. We don’t have time to waste, so we won’t waste yours.
One of the downsides of being small is that we never have enough time. However, as most things in life, theres two sides of the same coin. Not having enough time also means that we do not waste other peoples time. We do not have lengthy processes where we keep our clients on hold before getting back to them. We do things quickly, to get quick response and know what we will be doing within the next few weeks.

3. We build a strong team.
The atmosphere at Cperspective is great, not only because all people here are great, but also because we are so small. Our small size make us grow tighter bonds to each other, and we are like a small family in the office. There are no walls between the CEO (me) and the other guys, we all sit at the same place. A strong and happy team is the best foundation a company can have, and oftentimes it leads to equally happy clients.

In the beginning, I was also scared of admitting that we were a smaller company. After a few years I have now realized that this is a big benefit in many ways, and I am actually very proud of our size. We don’t want to be the biggest company around, we want to be the best at what we do. That comes with having a great team, atmosphere and the right people for the job, not being the biggest.

Soheil Amorpour, CEO @ Cperspective Online Marketing

Facebook seem to be on the case now however as their chat function is disabled, and the privacy settings seem to have been fixed as well. But if anyone has been treating you differently the last few days, or seems to know a bit “too much”, then this could be the reason why.

Below is a video from TechCrunch showing exactly how the loop hole could be exploited:

That’s all for now!

Soheil Amorpour
CEO @ CPerspective Online Marketing

1. The lack of consensus in what rates are appropriate in Banner Advertising.
2. The lack of non-biased scientific studies that provide a blue print for effective banner placement.

I am aware that many studies are carried out on banner advertising, but the area is still very young and there is no clear understanding yet of what constitutes an optimal banner placement or campaign.

Also, there is no unity in regards of what a fair price is for a marketing campaign; being CPM, CPC, CPA or any other price model that is being used today. CPM prices vary from a few cents to 30-50 Euros; surely the quality of traffic cannot differ that much? It’s hard to imagine that one impression is worth up to a thousand times more on one site than the other, if seen by the same person.

The problems that arise from this should be of highest interest to both publishers as well as advertisers. Publishers are oftentimes being paid less than they should, because of lack of knowledge, and advertisers are oftentimes paying too much of their budget for certain campaigns. It could perhaps be argued that the advertisers can even this out by mixing low and high CPM’s, but it’s hard to tell if this is true in the long run. Some advertisers are concerned with their brand and its association, hence, they cannot buy as many “low quality” impressions as other advertisers.

I personally think that the industry is in need of more unity, especially in the field of banner advertising. There’s also a need for a more fair type of pricing model, that actually makes sense for both publishers and advertisers. Once there is scientific backup for why placements look like they do, and why prices are at the level they are, then we can also see the real power of Online advertising, as it should be.

Soheil Amorpour
CEO @ CPerspective Online Marketing

A question that always pops up – and should pop up in everyones head – when planning campaigns, building landing pages or putting together banners and promotions is “Would I do that?”. This is something most marketers probably think, but I’d say very few manage to actually translate this into their work. Would you read all the copy on your website? Would you click that banner? Would you find your own promotion interesting, having in mind that there are so many others out there offering same services as you? If you hesitate to answer that question, then you’re having some real problems.

The standpoint all marketers need to take is “would I do that?”. Once you can answer yes to that question without hesitating, you can feel somewhat confident in your upcoming campaign.

Soheil Amorpour
CEO @ CPerspective Online Marketing

Techcrunch writes that the music stream companies pay $0.4 – 1 cent each time a song is streamed. Myspace is probably the company that pays the lowest cost in the industry at $0.4 cents. If Myspace is paying around that amount, then it is very likely that most other streaming services – especially the startups – pay at least twice that. So let’s use the Swedish hype company Spotify as an example. Spotify are not commenting on the number of users they have, but it is likely to estimate the total number to around 1 000 000 users. If only 50% of these users use the service once a day, to listen to one song, and Spotify is paying $0.8 cent for each song then they’re paying $40 000 USD per day or a staggering $280 000 USD per week. Sure, they have their premium service, but since the free version is so good (or good enough) there is no real reason for users to upgrade to premium. The monthly streaming cost for Spotify – given the 50% usage out of 1 000 000 users – ends up being roughly $1,1 million USD.

The question is then; can this be funded by advertising? My answer to that would be no freaking way! You have to remember that there are a lot of other costs to have in mind on a monthly basis as well; the servers and employees just to name a few. Advertising and premium accounts will never be able to fund this. The larger they grow, the higher the costs; it doesn’t seem as the in stream from advertising can catch up with the costs of the company; in a way it’s a paradox because it is slowly bleeding to death as it grows.

Let me show you why it seems impossible for a company such as Spotify to generate their major in stream from advertising:

Spotify is doing some banner adverts directly in the music player, but the idea is to use audio adverts that the user cannot get away from unless they pay for the premium version. However, these two formats combined cannot fund the company. The reason is simple; the calculation above doesn’t even allow a radio jingle to take place, it is the mere cost for one single song. If Spotify charges reasonable radio prices in Sweden for example, they would get around $6 CPT (which is the same as CPM) for a 30 second jingle. So for each 1000 users they reach, the advertiser pay $6 dollar. In Sweden we have around 9 000 000 inhabitants. If Spotify would reach 1 000 000 Swedes they would get $6 000 USD for one campaign with 30 second jingles. But the cost for this reach would be $80 000 USD each time the users listen to one track (1 000 000 / 0.8). This in turn means that for one hour (60 minutes) where 1 000 000 users listen to music nonstop, where one track is 4 minutes in average, the cost ends up being: 60 / 4 = 15, 15 * $80 000  = $1.2 million USD. During this hour they might get in four advert jingles (2 minutes in total), so let’s say they make the most of it and get 4 * $6 000 = $24 000 USD. This is still nothing compared to what that hour has drained from them.

As you can see it is a dead end. If they increase their rates the advertisers will just go elsewhere with their budgets, especially in these days where each marketing penny is spent with the most possible caution. Unless they get some truly amazing deals with the record labels, there is no way they will be able to turn this around. In fact – just as TechCrunch mentions – the music stream companies probably don’t even want people to use their service, because they know each new user means a faster death. This is probably the explanation for why Spotify’s free service has been an invitation only-service for ages. No wonder those invitations were given out so sparsely.

To sum it up; music streaming startups are popping up quite rapidly, and they always seem to bring hype. The service is indeed interesting and you cannot blame entrepreneurs when they do what they’re best at. Sadly it almost seems that the aim of many of these stream service companies today is to just build the hype and then sell off to some major company and let them figure out how to turn things around. If not, then it is even sadder because most of these companies will probably bleed out in a very near future.

Soheil Amorpour, CEO @ CPerspective Online Marketing Agency