Sally Lowery is Online Marketing Manager at Bronto Software. Since she started using ion's LiveBall post-click platform in August 2007, Sally has created more than 159 landing experiences and averages an 18.92% conversion rate. Sally takes full advantage of LiveBall's features and we consider her a post-click marketing innovator—she's always open to trying new things and experimenting to see what works best.
We thought you might like to get to know Sally and what's she's been up to with LiveBall. Last week we sat down (okay, we spoke via telephone) to discuss her experience as a post-click marketer for Bronto.
Where were you sending your paid traffic before you started using LiveBall?
Before I started at Bronto, they were sending traffic to our home page or to landing pages that had a lot of content, and a short form with no offer.
How were those landing pages created?
The team created them with HTML.
Were they doing any testing?
No. Predominately the campaigns were very similar to one another and weren't based on specific campaigns or adgroups either.
Why did you decide to use LiveBall?
I started using LiveBall at my previous company. Just as we were getting into implementing our post-click strategies I moved to Bronto. I decided LiveBall was a great fit for the B2B space and Bronto supported it. We pursued post-click marketing using LiveBall and have had great success.
What do you normally use LiveBall for now?
We use LiveBall for the majority of our online marketing, including banner advertising, email marketing, paid search, direct mail and intrasite advertising.
How much time do you spend on your post-click marketing each week?
It depends. On a monthly on going basis, I have 5-6 campaigns that are banner or email marketing campaigns. That continues to increase as we grow. In paid search, there are 116 campaigns across Google and Yahoo. I am always testing and experimenting with them. I would say I spend anywhere from 5-10 hours per week.
What kind of value does Bronto get from LiveBall?
The biggest value we get is our high conversion rate. We've seen a dramatic increase in our conversions in email marketing. We average about a 65% conversion rate in DMNews & MarketingProfs, which is phenomenal. We also saw an uplift in our conversions in Google from 2% when we started to 15% now. Conversion rate is key for us because it reduces our cost per acquisition.
LiveBall also lets us leverage a lot of valuable data. The quizzes and performance evaluations that we have done give us insight into our prospects—who they are and what they are looking for. Now when we have a conversation with them we know which editions of our software will best suit them.
Has anything you learned changed how you advertise?
We are always customizing our advertising. If we advertise to a more sophisticated audience, we tailor our LiveBall paths a little differently than we would for a less sophisticated audience.
We also segment by whether they are a small or enterprise business and can customize the experience for them. A small business may be coping with the struggles of email marketing and wearing multiple hats so we make sure the messaging of our paths speaks directly to them. For enterprise level companies, we can talk about the features and functionality that a more sophisticated email marketer would need.
What is your favorite feature of LiveBall?
One of the features that is awesome but we haven't used yet is Flash. It is an incredibly dynamic feature that we want to start using soon.
Overall, I have been very pleased with the entire system. If you can see dramatic increased results, it means the product that you're using is doing a good job. The interface isn't complex, and ion is always upgrading new features. They aren't just waiting for us to request them--they are actively pushing new things out to us so we can experiment with our marketing.
When do you have planned for the future?
We are going to incorporate Flash into our conversion paths. We would also like to develop and create new, more sophisticated paths using LiveBall's advanced rules. If people have already responded to every DMNews drop, we are going to update our paths and create new ones so they stay engaged and the content stays fresh.
I really enjoyed my interview with Sally—she knows her post-click marketing and her LiveBall! When you have a chance, get to know more about Bronto Software.
-Megan Leap
