We're doing some work for Playstation for the UK launch of PS3 and we've just done a huge mailout to their opt-in list. It'll be interesting to see what CTR they get since the list is targeted and the launch is so eagerly awaited. I'm also a little worried about the server holding out as one of the links goes to a quicktime movie
Oooh sounds interesting. Hope all goes well for you. Was it an expensive do then? You'll have to report your progress.
It was cheaper than I thought it would be, we outsourced the hosting of the movie to a cluster server to ensure it doesn't get any downtime, that's the only thing I'm worried about as it's essentially out of our hands. I sent the first 50,000 batch less than 10 minutes ago and out of the 620 opened emails already the film has had 207 complete views. I've set the rest to go at 30 minute intervals throughout the next day.
will be interesting to see the results of this... i was gonna start a PS3 website a while ago, and am starting to wish i did now
We've had about 80,000 emails go so far, we had to remove the video from the cluster server and put it on our own as it was starting to run too slowly. The server guys here aren't happy as that was the whole ponit of renting some space on one. So far we've had around 4000 opens with 1200 views of the video, 30% CTR, if I could get that with the rest of my clients emails I'd be a very happy man!
We use Bronto http://bronto.com/ We have a white label solution from them also so if clients wish to manage their own mailshots they're able to.
what do you mean host a video on youtube and burn them lol, I have a few videos up on youtube all with 300k + veiws and they run great... youtube has a great server...
Why should they not be happy with that. Hosting the vid on YouTube will get more eyeballs seeing the video. More than just those who got the email.
Seeding the video on forums and other social media is a seperate part of the promotion. If the video for the email promotion is hosted on a seperate site we'd have no control over ads being displayed and click-thoughs away from the main site.
Yes, true. I can see why sony may be concerned about this. But when you are sending out 2.5 million emails and you are having a CTR 0f 30% (no concrete details yet on email opening/read rates yet) that will translate into a lot of views for a vid posted on a site like YouTube. Having these views will bump it up in the most viewed lists, thus attracting many more views. This is much better than simply placing the vid on there seperately and wait for the views to happen on their own. Tying it into the emails would give it a big kick start. I'm no expert but i dont think Sony should need to be concerned about what other ads are displayed on the YouTube page, or click-throughs. They want people to see the promotional vid and hopefully they will go to a store to make a purchase, or hunt for a site online that sells it, at a later date. Given the nature of YouTube and the reason users are there, to watch vids, the click through rates on banner or text ads is likely very very low. Sony may not be compromising too much here in terms of competing or unrelated ads on the YouTube page. But i have no idea what other content is on the Sony hosted pages the emails link to. Email could link to a Sony page with an image and link to YouTube hosted video that opens in a new window. This way the traffic gets to see the Sony page and regardless of where they may decide to go after viewing the YouTube vid (likely check some more vids), the sony page is still open for them to see again after they are done with that other window. Just dropping my thoughts on how YouTube could possibly be used to its fullest potential.
As Matt mentioned earlier they lose control by posting to youtube plus there are players in the entertainment industry who are looking at Youtube as a loss of revenues for their artists and seeking legal counsel. If Matt were to take Sonys IP and post it on Youtube he could lose the account and make himeself liable. If Sony agreed to placing their content on Youtube they then would not have much of a leg to stand on should the RIAA, UMG, or other organization seek to sue Youtube for artists royaltys All major speculation... but also reason one does not run off and make a mistake.
You've got some good points and I like them, I actually hadn't considered the YouTube angle, though as I said I doubt Sony or the creative would have gone for it. Firstly as I said the lack of control over ads and SEM-Advance says the DRM promblems that could be caused. Also as this is a UK targeted campaign I'm not sure YouTube can be regionally targeted (can it?) so widespread global views of a UK campaign could be treading on other international agencies toes. Nice idea though, I like it. This morning I catually considered dropping something on digg.com but discounted it as it's largely US traffic. Stats to date are, 90% delivery success 13% Opens 10% CTR 5% Video views The stats are lower than yesterday as the majority of the emails were scheduled to go out during the night. The 10% CTR is from the total sent, so that's actually a 75% CTR of those that have been opened. I guess the conclusions that can be drawn are that targeted mailings to a opt-in niche list can be incredibly successfull. Interestingly there have only been 44 unsubscibes. There have been more forwards and new subscriptions than that!
Matt Not sure when you sent the blast initially.... You may be better off sending out your blasts on Monday or Tuesday... Late in the week seems to get a lesser open rate which of course leads to lesser CTR%. If you think about it on Fridays people are either looking to escape work for the weekend or have taken off. Samething with college age group...looking to get out from behind the screen and getting out to socialize party play sports etc. Peace