Disqus - Latest Comments for ianbrodie

Re: Live Video Streaming Solutions for Social Media

Ian Brodie — Thu, 08 Oct 2020 20:08:33 -0000

Hey Chris - Ecamm Live have just released an "interview" feature in beta which allows you to interview people with no need for skype. The reason we're using it is we record our interviews in advance rather than livestreaming them.

I think it's fair to say Ecamm has more features than Streamyard - but it's much more complex to use as you point out.

Re: Preparing for the GDPR: Collecting Consent

Ian Brodie — Wed, 09 May 2018 18:37:07 -0000

Confirmed optin gives you no more consent than the original form completion unless in the double optin message you include details of what they're opting in to (e.g. it says they're going to get regular emails), who is processing the data, any 3rd parties the data is passed to, the fact they can unsubscribe at any time and ideally a link to your privacy policy (that latter one isn't mandatory but has always been advised when I've spoken to the ICO here in the UK). That said, if you were clear on your optin form what they were getting, and the emails you've sent have all had clear unsubscribe messages and your privacy policy was linked from all the pages on your site then you're probably OK (that's what the ICO told me about my situation). There's also a case being made by some GDPR legal experts that the fact that someone freely gave consent pre-GDPR, hasn't unsubscribed 9and especially if they're been opening and clicking) means you can use legitimate interest to keep emailing as the receiver would reasonably expect you to do so. Check with you own local authorities though.

Re: Preparing for the GDPR: Collecting Consent

Ian Brodie — Wed, 09 May 2018 18:31:08 -0000

The tracking is done by cookie - so in theory, positive consent needs to be gained before you can drop those cookies. Right now Active Campaign doesn't have the ability to allow someone to individually opt out of the cookies it uses.

The "good news" is that cookies are a major area where basically no one is going to be compliant because no one has the ability to easily switch on and off the cookies used by their systems based on user preferences. There are some cookie consent tools that provide the interface to allow users to select what types of cookies they want to allow - but in order for that then to allow/stop cookies in practice you would need to get all the plugins and tools you use recorded to interface with the cookie consent tool. Not going to happen.

Cookies are such a mess under GDPR that no one is going to get into trouble for not complying.

Re: Be A Person, Not A Personal “Brand”

Ian Brodie — Mon, 18 Dec 2017 15:34:47 -0000

Different type of "branding" Yusuf - it's a joke: https://en.wikipedia.org/wi...

Re: July Review 2017 – Looking Beyond The Surface

Ian Brodie — Tue, 01 Aug 2017 20:49:31 -0000

You know, your first point reminds me of something a friend of mine who used to do big ERP selections processes with corporates told me.

He said that most selection processes were a waste of time because they focused entirely on functionality and price. Yet usually within 6 months the leader in terms of functionality had been leapfrogged. And then they went on to leapfrog the new leader, etc. Basically, eventually any functionality differences are addressed. What's more important is not picking a system from a company that's not going to be around in a few years and finding yourself with something that meets your needs, but isn't supported and having to find another one.

Re: June Review 2017

Ian Brodie — Fri, 28 Jul 2017 09:15:48 -0000

Hey Chris - are posts that don't cheerlead for Ontraport allowed? ;)

If so, another interesting new platform to look at is Rightmessage.io

It's similar in some ways to Convertflow that I already mentioned to you - but goes about personalisation in a different way. Convertflow is a replacement for option tools like sumo or Thrive leads - you use it to create personalised CTAs based on visitor behaviour and tags in your system.

Rightmessage.io uses tech more like Visual Website Optimizer or Optimizely. It sits on top of your existing tools and uses visitor behaviour and email system tags to personalise any content on your site - headlines, content and options. It's an interesting alternative.

PS sorry to hear Center died but not surprised. Thought it was a great idea but it was never able to "reach" deep enough into email systems to replace their automations. When the flow of new features dried up I moved on.

Really liking this news roundup format by the way.

Ian

Re: Announcing ActiveCampaign Attribution

Ian Brodie — Thu, 01 Jun 2017 12:26:48 -0000

Can you clarify that a bit Jordan? So, for example, when contacts are added via api from a tool like thrive leads, you do get site tracking, but it only works after a contact clicks a link in an email to go to your site.

What does that mean for attribution since attribution in theory relates only to the first visit. Does it mean there's no attribution if the contact comes via API. Or does it mean the attribution is "fixed" when the tracking starts - ie they first click a link in an email to go to your site?

Re: Announcing ActiveCampaign Attribution

Ian Brodie — Wed, 31 May 2017 18:36:09 -0000

Very nice - been hacking this together myself with custom fields :)

Quick question - will this work with third party tools? Let's say someone comes to my website with AC tracking installed and opts in via a webform using a 3rd party tool that adds to AC via API - will AC pick up on the UTM parameters?

Re: A better way to analyse Opened and Clicked lists of MailChimp Campaigns!

Ian Brodie — Tue, 13 Sep 2016 12:23:15 -0000

What would work really well here would be to combine the grouping or tagging you might have in your CRM (whichever one you use) with the analysis. So instead of having to wade through all the people you've emailed (some of which will be high value prospects or clients, but many of which won't) you can focus your time on the high value ones.

I don't know the technical side of how to do this myself, but what you could do is select a subset of contacts base don them being tagged (or grouped or otherwise marked) as high value or "A category" in your CRM and just look at the data for them.

Hopefully Manoj can tell us how :)

Re: Perform Automated Actions on Link Clicks

Ian Brodie — Mon, 25 Apr 2016 21:42:52 -0000

Yes. Especially as I've discovered that because the new email builder uses a fixed width for all emails, it's not actually mobile responsive (well, technically it is - but the text is so small it can't be read on a mobile).

Re: We just added 6 new email templates

Ian Brodie — Mon, 25 Apr 2016 21:41:53 -0000

Without wanting to be too pedantic - these aren't really mobile responsive templates.

Sure, you send them to mobiles and the images resize etc.

But since the templates use a fixed width, the mobile device shrinks the text size accordingly making them unreadable for anyone who doesn't have a magnifying glass attached to their eyes.

Should be a big priority to get this fixed, especially now that the new action triggering feature is only available on the new email builder and those of us who've been holding on to the old builder (because it *can* do properly responsive emails) are considering switching.

Re: Perform Automated Actions on Link Clicks

Ian Brodie — Mon, 25 Apr 2016 18:22:20 -0000

Can we add that as a feature request then. I think you'll find a huge number of your "power users" (and biggest supporters/promoters) use the legacy editor.

Re: Perform Automated Actions on Link Clicks

Ian Brodie — Mon, 25 Apr 2016 10:47:13 -0000

Any chance you could also add this to the "legacy" email editor - a whole load of us use the old editor as, well, it's a lot better than the new one. Apart from this!

Re: Consulting Business Model vs. Online Marketing Hype

Ian Brodie — Wed, 16 Mar 2016 05:28:51 -0000

This is so, so true. Well done for posting Michael.

Re: Issue #16 – Behind the Scenes of My Website Conversion Rates

Ian Brodie — Sat, 27 Feb 2016 22:09:13 -0000

Having said that, there's a guy running FB ads right now claiming his landing page will get 80% optin rates in any niche. Foolishly I opted in - it's just one of the standard leadpages pages he recommends - and not even the top performing one according to leadpages.

Re: Issue #16 – Behind the Scenes of My Website Conversion Rates

Ian Brodie — Sat, 27 Feb 2016 22:07:48 -0000

Lol - that's why I asked - I thought maybe you'd developed superhuman powers!

Re: Issue #16 – Behind the Scenes of My Website Conversion Rates

Ian Brodie — Thu, 18 Feb 2016 19:46:01 -0000

Hey Chris - thanks for sharing. Can you just clarify the definition of your optin rates. When you say your hero banner on your home page has a 70% optin rate, do you mean that 70% of all visitors to your home page opt in using it (which is huge - especially considering loads of visitors will be people who've already opted in) or do you mean if they click the button, the optin rate from there is 70%?

Re: Issue #15 – State of Marketing Automation – February 2016

Ian Brodie — Thu, 11 Feb 2016 18:47:00 -0000

I was going to say the same thing Edward - with AC you can see where individual contacts are. Seeing overall numbers is good though - nice feature.

Re: Issue #12 – The Future of Marketing Automation

Ian Brodie — Thu, 14 Jan 2016 19:29:53 -0000

Not sure why, but I really like the idea of the logic being outside the email system. Makes sense to me.

I think the key initial barrier might be the availability of data from the email system. Right now, for example. I don't think that data on whether an email link has been clicked can be found out by API - but that's often the most important trigger you'd want to use to decide on what to do.

Longer term, I expect the market to sustain both these unbundled systems, plus integrated "jack of all trades, master of none" systems like Infusionsoft and Ontaport. Different types of customer will have different preferences. Though as unbundling and linking becomes easier and easier with standards arising for how it's done, I think the unbundled approach make become the dominant one.

Re: How much is a blog comment worth? (We ran the numbers!)

Ian Brodie — Thu, 14 Jan 2016 17:49:13 -0000

I'm not sure you could extrapolate a $1 course to a big one. Chances are that engagement is much more important for an expensive course as the level of commitment needed to buy is much greater.

One thing you could perhaps do for your next course is a split test where you split your email list, use different links in the A and B arms which go to the same posts but with a URL variable that then either shows comments or doesn't (and cookies them so that the behaviour persists if they come back later directly).

Otherwise you really are stuck with the correlation vs causation argument. Reasonable stories behind both the "comments causes purchases" and "those predisposed to purchase are likely to comment more".

Having said that, one thing you can perhaps do is use the volume of comments on launch blog pots as a predictor of sales. You could look for a correlation across multiple launches. Used as a predictor it doesn't matter whether comments cause purchases or not, they're a decent predictor (if the correlation holds up across multiple launches).

Re: My Most Important Post This Year + A Preview of Our 100% New Product & Early Adopter Program

Ian Brodie — Mon, 28 Dec 2015 14:29:11 -0000

I had this argument with the CEO of one of the big marketing suites a while back. He's absolutely convinced that "one platform to rule them all" is what his customers want. What he's missing is that what his customers say they want and what they really want is different. They say they want one system that does everything because that's the only way they think they can get what they really want: great results without lots of technical complexity and fiddling around.

But the history of pretty much all technologies is that over time standard evolve to interconnect them and having best of breed solutions glued together becomes relatively simple. We may not be quite there yet but I'm so glad you're moving in that direction rather than in "jack of all trades, master of none".

Re: Check out what SumoMe is doing to get more traffic

Ian Brodie — Tue, 03 Nov 2015 05:54:29 -0000

I think Joe's hit the most important feature there - the thing has to work across lots of devices, pop up blockers etc. I've dhared things before where the promised content hasn't been unlocked and it turns expectation into anger pretty darned quickly!

Re: Check out what SumoMe is doing to get more traffic

Ian Brodie — Tue, 03 Nov 2015 05:51:50 -0000

Hi Joe - sorry I've been slow in replying. I did indeed test it when I had my old lead magnet ("5 SImple Marketing Tweaks..."). I used WP Sharely to incentivise a share by offering a bonus video ("Tweak 6"). I don't use it right now as my lead magnet goes straight in to a Tripwire offer.

I mentioned it to my friend Chris Goegan and he used it to help promote a conference and apparently it worked brilliantly.

Re: Check out Plinko. It got us 510 more leads than we used to get.

Ian Brodie — Sun, 11 Oct 2015 14:31:59 -0000

Yep - Thrive Leads introduced this feature a few weeks ago. And the nice thing is it works across all optin types. So once someone opts in they see the next stage in the funnel on popups (or you can choose not to do one), sidebar optins, end of post optins, slide-ups, etc.

The problem with point solutions is that yes, for that particular optin widget you don't show it after someone opts in, but most of us have multiple different ways of opting in that we'd like to switch as well.

By the way, Visitor Logic Pro is a plugin which does an advanced version of this. It interrogates the status of the visitor (which has been cookied) in your email system. If you have Infusionsoft, Ontraport, Active Campaign or another system with tagging it can show/hide different content based on the status of tags and fields.

Re: Check out what SumoMe is doing to get more traffic

Ian Brodie — Tue, 22 Sep 2015 07:12:40 -0000

Yeah. WP Sharely from the Thrive themes guys does the same. The nice thing is the share is to the original freebie.

I wouldn't go to the effort of re-inventing a tool that there are already some good, cheap solutions for.