Dynamic Marketing
I hand-code web pages and web sites. I use PHP where it makes the hand-coded pages more efficient to maintain and more useful for the numerati. I enjoy writing my own regular expressions for use in my text editor to tackle big, repetitive jobs.
For five years, I managed the dynamic merchandizing (DM) system for networksolutions.com. The system relied on an ad server that was customized by the vendor to suit the needs of Network Solutions. I worked with the ad serving interfaces and was responsible for all aspects of maintenance and expansion of the system. I allocated time and space for ads on networksolutions.com, recommended ad placements, created ads, reported results to management, analyzed results and adjusted ad rotations as appropriate. Most recently, I implemented behavioral targeting of ads by leveraging the existing customization and data generated by teams of analysts looking at weblogs.
For eight years, off and on, I did a lot of work with landing pages for Network Solutions. In addition to hand-coding them to high standards of cross-browser compatibility, I ensured that they provided both functional and visual continuity between the prior click and the subsequent flow of actions. I had excellent connections with engineering, which helped me to ensure that the functional continuity that marketing expected would work on the landing page platform.
Ads and landing pages demand to be optimized on the basis of results. Once you have results, you tweak some things to see if you can improve your results. It is fascinating, making hypotheses about what will do well and why, and then getting statistically significant data that can confirm or deny those hypotheses. It plays into my interest in psychology — what people perceive, how they understand what they see, and what they do next. On the web, we do A/B tests, where A represents your baseline or your first guess, and B is the variation on the theme. I was able to use all sorts of cleverness to make A/B testing possible for the search engine marketing (SEM) channel.
DM Ad Banner
See it in context
Role: Using copy provided by marketing, I designed the ad using Photoshop, a vector logo, and stock photography. Upon approval, I trafficked the ad in the DM system.
Affiliate Program Banners
Feel free to be overwhelmed by the sheer volume of banners. They are low-key because we find that banner blindness is real, but soothing and dull banners blend in with their surroundings and get clicked on purpose. I designed these before Adobe made the jigsaw puzzle piece pattern part of the program presets.
Samples and Specifics
Landing Page for Partnership
- Used Illustrator, Photoshop, HTML, CSS, and FTP to design, code and host this page.
- Role: Responsible for everything but the copy and the offers, including the vector illustration of the luggage tag
A/B Test of Landing Page
Skills and Expertise: PHP, HTML, UNIX
Role: Coded solution for 7 custom text replacements for each of 20 Yahoo keywords in PHP. System will work with no loss of speed for 2000 keywords. Coded "splitter" mechanism to randomly sort traffic to page A or B.
Objective / Purpose: Test whether keyword insertion buzz phrase works for this brand and service.
Results: Page with keyword insertion earned 180% greater revenue than page without.
Landing Page for DM Ad Banner
Skills and Expertise: HTML, PHP, art direction
Role: Originally developed as part of a 50-ad project for multivariate testing, provided art direction for sales graphics. Hand-coded in HTML with CSS and PHP to ensure cross-browser compatibility, consistency with storefront site, tracking and form functionality.
Objective / Purpose: Increase sales of hosting service
Results: One of best-performing house banners