Startup Revolution

Marty Note
Adwords is crowded, fast and dangerous these days.

When I was an Ecommerce Director we made the decision to give our $1M in PPC spend to the robots. Robots, business rules and predicitve analytics was the only way we could make what little money we made from PPC.

Attribution is a BITCH.

I remember our CFO saying, "Cut spend on everything above this line, " pointing to every branded term we were buying. Cut the top of the funnel off and you lose the bottom of the funnel. Trying to explain that to a web doubter was impossible so I ignored the demand.

Instead we tested or ROAS (Return on Ad Spend). $6 to $1 ROAS looked great...at first. As time went on we realized tighten the valve that tight cut our email list growth and the LTV (Lifetime Value) it produced in dangerous ways.

Next we tested at $1 to $1 and bleed red ink. At the time I worked for Direct Marketers (DMers) who don't believe in losing money...ever. The complex attribution math meant we were probably making solid return IF attribution was fully valued and agreed upon.

It was not. Attribution was controversial and the more immediate, the more Stimulus to Response it was the more my bosses liked it. The idea that three generations ago we built a PPC campaign that grew our list 15% and thus made us $3 To $1 was a bridge too far.

That is why I wanted to bring Marin into the mix. Marin is the best self tuning / business rule based PPC DIY Algorithm we could find. No Sale since adding Marin's "costs" seemed to lower ROAS. Once again full attribution would show Marin was going to pay for itself in no time, but didn't make that sale either.

Today's PPC market is an order of magnitude more complex. If you are still buying PPC by hand good luck with that. Too much UNDER (costs) and not nearly enough OVER (benefit) for our risk / reward palette. Better to hire an agency OR, for about the same money, DIY with a predictive management tool like Marin.

We looked at several and liked Marin the best. Its UI was understandable, installation was easy and commitment was low. We just added Marin to our list of Cool Tools in our Ask For Help Haiku Deck:

Want to know what's working on social media? These 9 free analytics tools can help!

Tools discussed:

1. Followerwonk (New to us, but plan to use).
2. Buffer (Use and like).
3. SumAll (New but plan to test).
4. Quintly (New)
5. Cyfe (New)
6.  Keyhole (New)
7. Klout (Use and like)
8. ViralWoot (New)
9. Addictomatic (New)

Warren Buffet's tips for startups as Bill Gates says, "Stick 'em up
Finishing our Haiku Deck Analysis (Scooped here http://sco.lt/80QYs5 and on Curagami here http://www.curagami.com/featured/buffet-tools-conversations-top-haiku-decks/ ) we were surprised how much our #1 views deck: Startup Tips From Warren Buffett is in front of #2 (Content Marketing Tools).

Fuffett is 35% ahead in views, but Warren is NOT the most shared. That honor goes to our fastest scaling deck ever - The Invisible Giant: Why The New SEO Is So Hard To See (http://shar.es/11X9fa ).

If you are a startup the Oracle of Omaha has tips for you and our tip is to use Haiku Deck. .

Our Startrup Factory funded startup Curagami, a content marketing tool for merchants and content marketers who "get it", lauched into "Friends Beta" yesterday & we need your help.

We need help teasing out the good stuff and toss the trash. As any startup learns problems multiple. Easy to solve the problem for all the right reasons. Together we can create tools needed by merchants and publishers to KNOW what content matters to who and why.

LESS STRESSFUL is our goal after spending years gambling with millions we want to provide a MAP merchants and content marketers can use to enjoy the journey. Hope you will join our journey and visit our landing page at:
http://www.curagami.com/friends-beta/

Content Marketing Tools For Startups
I didn't write this post with #Startups in mind, but I could have. Startups wrestle with content marketing. I suggest these content marketing tools for any startup:

* Paper.li

* Scoop.it
* Google Analytics
* Google Adwords
* Google Plus
* Twitter
* A Blog (WordPress) 

It is possible to change the world with those seven tools.  

The linked post explains how I use Paper.li for everything from spidering the social web to reputation management. If you are a startup and don't know what either of those ideas are, trust me you will and I promise to post more about content marketing for startups soon. 

We have put together a list of tools that can help you create amazing visual content like infographics, memes, gifs, etc. Must read for every online marketer.

Marty Note

Great list mostly new to me. Missing one of my favorite visual marketing tools Haiku Deck: http://haikudeck.com/ . Haiku Deck is much more than a simple UI on the Creative Commons. If you are SMART you will use Haiku and some of these other #cooltools to create the kind of arresting visual marketing we all need and aspire to daily.

The Startup Factory fundeded startup Curagami launches its new content marketing roi tools into "friends beta". What's your Curagami Score? #helpastartup

& THANKS from Team Curagami

http://www.curagami.com/friends-beta/

Startups are fun, creative & may be our best hope. This second of a two part Curatti series covers startup trends from digital homes to wearable tech.

Note
No sooner than I finished writing this second post in a 2 part series for http://www.curatti.com Editors of Chaos than one of the featured "Smart Home" startups sold to Google for $3.2B. Amazing.

If that doesn't make you want to fire up a startup and start tinkering nothing will :). M

This 2nd post in a two part series covers more than 25 cool startups from Smart Homes to wearable Tech:
http://curatti.com/startup-trends-2014-ii/

Be sure to share your favorites if we missed them.

A SpinSnip is moving content from one dimention to another to maximize ROI. SpinSnip Tools is a suite of curation and content marketing tools that help move content within the owned, paid, earned and curated ecosystem increasing return and lowering content creation costs with each SpinSnip. 

We are proud to present an awesome online service that will help you to drive awareness and build relationships on Twitter.What is Commun.it?

Marty Note
Hearing good things about Commun.it. Anyone used it yet? Thoughts? Looks like a must test to me since anything that helps me understand, segment and put into some kind of persona order on @ScentTrail is a very cool idea indeed.