

Selling Umbrellas In A Synagogue - dshipper
http://danshipper.com/selling-umbrellas-in-a-synagogue#

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davidf18
Curiously, traditional (Orthodox) Jews cannot use umbrellas on the Sabbath
Day.
[http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Are_orthodox_Jews_allowed_to_use_a...](http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Are_orthodox_Jews_allowed_to_use_an_umbrella_on_the_sabbath)

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Evbn
If you read the whole paragraph, you see that the answer is yes, umbrellas are
permitted, when basic qualifications at met.

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hazov
I was raised as an Orthodox Jew, but have gone off the derech (I no longer
believes in Judaism and do not practice it anymore) an Orthodox is not
supposed to use (and carry) money on the Shabbat, or even supposed to carry
umbrellas, even inside an eruv[1] for those who believes in its validity (The
Jewish law is not a monolithic concept, it's basically discussed to
interpretations which the majority agrees).

It's common to see religious people going to the synagogue in raincoats in the
Shabbat in neighbourhoods with a large Jewish community.

Anyway, this is not the point of the article.

[1]: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eruv>

EDIT: The guy can sell umbrellas in the religious services in other days which
are not holidays or shabbats, there are three religious services each day, the
maariv, the shacharit and the mincha.

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chaz
The guys selling umbrellas on the street are not creating a brand -- they're
direct response advertising. As you mentioned, they're anonymous and disappear
when you don't need them.

Brand is different. I don't turn on the TV when I'm ready to eat fast food,
drink a beer, or buy a car. But McDonald's, Budweiser, and Ford all advertise
on TV so that I'll remember them when I do.

Promoted searches and tweets work more like display/brand ads than direct
response, where advertisers associate themselves with certain accounts and
keywords. I think we'll see more innovation in this space as they figure it
out, but I do agree that treating Twitter advertising like Google advertising
is going to lead to disappointment.

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potatolicious
I haven't used Twitter's ad platform at all (I honestly don't have much to
advertise).

But is this pricing universal? $50 for 130 clicks, aka $0.39 per click? That
seems like an exorbitant price for a click with unknown and probably low
intent.

A CPC of $0.39, a CPM of $32.70!!!

I'm not an online marketing expert - is this realistic?

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Gustomaximus
Pricing largely depends on audience quality and product margin (and a million
small things...), so there is no 'right amount' only what's right for your
business.

To give you an idea of range, in my marketing life I have sold low margin
products in low quality audiences paying as little as $0.01 CPC. But for some
high margin products in targeted environments I have paid in excess of $100
per click.

It is worth understanding this environment if any peeps are building something
that monitises from advertising.

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nlh
Great post. And a good point. But there are some exceptions to this.

I'm what you'd call a "super casual" twitter user. That is to say, I don't
really use it other than for occasional real-time updates on things (After the
NYC-area earthquake last year, Twitter was the first place I went to see what
was up. And during the debates this year, I had fun following along with
#debate.)

I can't be alone. And in those (rather specific, yes I know) cases, there is
some opportunity for advertising, because just like when I use Google, I was
searching for something, and to the OPs point, more open to buying that
umbrella.

(For example, if a fact-checking group like PoliFact were advertising for me
to follow them during my #debate search and "get real-time fact-checking",
that's something I'd have totally subscribed to. Meanwhile I found them
through sorting through the tweets instead.)

So I suppose it boils down to the same thing as with Google -- I don't really
want to see ads when I'm reading Gmail, but I certainly don't mind them when
I'm searching. Twitter could focus on promoted tweets / accounts during
searches and I don't think they'd have the umbrella-in-a-synagogue problem.

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dshipper
That's a really interesting point. I think Twitter search is one area where
the product is grossly lacking. And you're right, targeting ads in the search
area would definitely capture intent.

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philco
Great post Dan!

Not sure I completely agree, though. If you're talking to people who are
socializing, eating lox, and talking about how nice the weather is...coming in
trying to sell an umbrella is interruptive at best.

If, however, you find a bunch of people huddled under a bus stop because they
dont' have umbrella's, and are all waiting for the rain to stop....then coming
in trying to sell an umbrella is genius.

It's all about targeting correctly. If a bunch of people are on Twitter
complaining about how their new Ford is having alternator problems, and you
run a mechanic shop that specializes in fixing them on the cheap, then you're
providing value. Right?

I think it just has to do with how advertisers approach this, and how good of
a job they do in crafting their copy, and their target demographic. Let's hope
for our sake (and theirs), that they spend a real amount of time focused on
that problem and don't mess it up.

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dshipper
Completely agree with you. The basic point of the article is that advertisers
have to be sensitive to the context shift between selling things on Google and
selling things on Twitter.

It's possible to create a successful marketing campaign on Twitter, but it
probably looks very different than a successful one on Adwords.

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msrpotus
Twitter could work as a way to engage in a conversation. For instance, if I
tweet about going shopping for clothing, I wouldn't mind if Old Navy tweeted a
coupon at me. That's much more complicated but if they could figure something
like that out, the ads would be much more useful.

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dshipper
That's interesting. It's a fine line though. I think I'd get annoyed pretty
quickly if after every tweet I was solicited for something.

I've been thinking about a real-world analogue for these types of social
communities (e.g. synagogues) that actually makes money. The only one I can
come up with is something like a fraternity. You pay dues, and have a local
chapter that's also part of a larger national organization.

I'm not a giant fan, but it's very similar to the App.net model. Obviously you
don't see massive scale, but you do get money without interfering with the
social dynamic. Interestingly, the very fact that it costs money may make it
more appealing to join. Curious to see where that goes.

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shpiel
Both fraternities and synagogues are examples of non-profit organizations.

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domainregistry
"You go to services every Saturday."

Funny that you would use "Goldsteins" as an example. As you probably know
there is a Goldsteins Funeral Home in Philly. And your example is dead on to
how people in the funeral business operate. They belong and attend. But here's
the thing. In order for Goldstein to get the burial business (or service,
whatever) they have to continue to attend social functions lest they are
forgotten. All the time (similar to your example "every saturday". Otherwise,
while they do have a benefit from a memorable name (so someone might be more
likely to call when seeing their other advertising) if they are not in front
of people regularly (and willing to take the time and effort) they aren't
going to get the benefit.

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busted
Other ads that are not intent based:

TV commericals

Billboards

Print ads

Ads on the sidelines of sports games

Viral marketing

etc etc etc

Comparing Twitter or Facebook ads to Google ads may not be a clear win, but
we've been doing that kind of advertising for much longer. The key is for the
advertiser to figure out what kind of ads belong on a service (with the
company's help), and for the company to find the best way to track the
influence those ads have.

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AznHisoka
"The upshot of it is that Twitter allows you to build those relationships in a
scalable way."

Having the same tweet be pushed to 1000+ people is not building relationships
in any meaningful manner though. Sending a personalized tweet to 1000
different people is though, but then that wouldn't be scalable.

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AlexBlom
tl;dr: most feedback on twitter ads assume it is intent driven (i.e. google
adwords), when in most cases it is not.

IMO, it's the root of many social companies struggle to monetize with ads.
We've been spoiled the last while because we knew what people were looking
for, and could promote directly against that. In some ways, social ads are a
step backwards from this.

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dshipper
I agree. In some ways social ads are a step back from that, but only because
you establish contact with your customers much before they have needs that you
can satisfy. So the time to first sale is a lot longer.

But I think, on the flip side, the relationships you develop with them are a
lot stronger and a lot more powerful. The problem is, it's very hard to back
that up empirically because it's a lot more complicated than just measuring
CTR.

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tomrod
Fantastic! I enjoyed your article Dan. That's a very helpful way of
considering the twitter ecosystem.

