ClickTracks Opens Sales Doors: Reserved Technology Entices Advertisers with Customized Reports

Reserved Technology (http://www.reservedtechnology.com), a ClickTracks Agency partner, uses ClickTracks to better understand web analytics on their own web properties and their client sites. Founder Jamey Wright and his team used ClickTracks to identify additional sources of revenue for one of their core web properties, HomeSchoolReviews.com.

HomeSchoolReviews.com provides user reviews for homeschool curricula. Because all of the content of this site is created by homeschooling parents, a unique perspective is obtained. This perspective is invaluable to other homeschoolers when it comes time to make curriculum choices or solve problems in their homeschools.

Turning Number One Google Placement into Advertising Revenue
When Reserved Technology acquired HomeSchoolReviews.com in the summer of 2005, its Google search result placement was high (a search for home school curriculum reviews returns HomeSchoolReviews.com in the number one spot). There were tons of qualified visitors and leads coming to the web site. What Jamey and his team wanted to do was to turn that top ranking into a profit center for the site.

"Using ClickTracks, we took a look at the analytics for the site for the third quarter of 2005. By looking at the Site Overview and Search reports, along with the Path View, we gathered data on the top 25 companies that were reviewed during that time period. What we wanted to do was to identify the companies that were driving the most traffic to our site via people looking for reviews of a particular product before purchasing," noted Jamey.

With that data in hand, Jamey was able to compile a list of the 25 companies and products that had received the highest number of reviews during that time period. With a list of popular publishers in hand, the Reserved Technology team got started on phase one of their advertising sales campaign.

Custom Sales Pitch Nets Big Returns
From their initial web analytics information, Jamey and his team created a customized PDF that would accompany the existing rate sheet. "Instead of just sending our regular, one-size-fits-all rate sheet, we actually created a custom sales pitch," Jamey said. "For the top 25 curricula publishers identified, we included a custom PDF for each potential advertiser. In the PDF, we included information about people who read their reviews--like what keywords they used to find them, how long people spent on site reading their review and which of their products seemed to be receiving the most attention. We also showed these potential advertisers how the visitors reading their reviews behaved differently from the 'typical' visitor to the site."

By developing information that was specific to the organization, Reserved Technology in essence, opened up a lot of doors. "With this valuable 'freebie' in hand, we had no problem getting to the right sales contacts in our target organizations. We found that many were surprised that HomeSchoolReviews.com was getting users from different keywords than they were accustomed to, and also that they spent so long at our site. We found that by offering our potential advertisers something of value right up front, we were able to make it to the decision maker more quickly. If we didn't have this information as a hook to get our foot in the door, it would've been much harder to do the cold calls!" said Jamey.

Reserved Technology's customized approach is paying off. "We've been able to show potential advertisers how we're just as targeted as Google but a lot less expensive. During the summer, Google PPC keywords dealing with homeschool curriculum hover around $2.50 each. Those same keywords on our site run about $0.40, or even less if the advertiser purchases a site sponsorship," noted Jamey. "Of the top 25 companies targeted, we've secured advertising contracts from five and have solid commitments for 5 more."