Интересни данни за CTR-а в натуралните резултати на Гугъл.

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   On Friday (12/4), I delivered a presentation to over 100 lawyers during an all-day seminar they were attending for their continuing education requirements. My segment ran about 30 minutes. The rest of this blog is a reprint of my comments. My profile on LinkedIn (Paul Freeman, CPA, CAMS) has the PowerPoint presentation that accompanied it, as well as the My Blog page on my website: www.AML-Assassin.com.

So with no further delay….

      Welcome. Today I am speaking about Money Laundering, its basic fundamentals, common methods, and how it, and the efforts to battle it, can and do, impact you and your clients.

      Let’s start with an understanding of what Money Laundering is.

      The Financial Action Task Force (FATF for short) has a 3-part working definition.

      I should explain that the Financial Action Task Force is the multinational organization which sets the global tone for all Money Laundering issues.

      1) Money laundering consists of the conversion or transfer of property knowing it is derived from a criminal offense, for the purpose of concealing or disguising its illicit origin or of assisting any person who is involved in the commission of the crime to evade the legal consequences of his actions,

      2) The concealment or disguising of the true nature, source, location, disposition, movement, rights with respects to, or ownership of property knowing that it is derived from a criminal offense,

      3) The acquisition, possession, or use of property, knowing at the time of receipt that it was derived from a criminal offense or from participation in a crime.

      As you heard, in each part of the definition, the word “Knowing” is used. While that is a critical element, there is the concept of…

      “Willful Blindness”

      You folks probably know this term even better than I do, but my understanding is basically that if the facts or circumstances       surrounding a transaction would lead a reasonable person to believe, or strongly suspect, that the funds could be illicit, then you KNEW that they were illegal

      This does enable law enforcement to assert – and often prevail – that one had the equivalent of knowledge and prevents someone from simply saying “I didn’t know” and getting away with it.

      To me, Sgt Schultz from Hogan’s Heroes with his “I know nnnnu-ting” is the poster child for Willful Blindness

      The three stages of money laundering:

      Placement – this is the introduction of the illicit funds into the financial system. Since we tend to think of these funds in the form of cash, structuring is often employed here.

      Layering – one or more steps of moving the funds around, from account to account, from institution to institution, in and out of trusts, shell companies, anything to confuse where the money actually originated and who actually owns it – a financial shell game

      Integration – this is the final stage, where the funds appear to be legitimate and are used to purchase something the criminal can use with little fear of reproach (homes, art, cars, jewelry, influence, etc)

      One of the most common methods of money laundering is structuring

      Basically, it is the act of breaking down a potential deposit into smaller ones – or otherwise altering it – to avoid currency reporting requirements.

      In the United States we know the main threshold is $10,000.

      OVER that amount – in currency – either in, out or exchanged and a Currency Transaction Report (CTR for short) needs to be filed.

      In the definition of money laundering, you kept hearing that the funds needed to be of illicit origin. But structuring is different. There is no need for a predicate crime.

      Structuring IS the crime.

      It is often the easiest charge to prosecute and it is often the charge “copped to” in a plea deal.

      For an investigator, the easiest Suspicious Activity decision comes when he gets a report from a teller that a customer presented more than $10,000 in cash, but when told a CTR needed to be filed, he took some or all of the cash back to be below the threshold – thereby thinking he just kept the government from knowing about his business.

      What he failed to realize is that he has just blatantly committed a crime and a Suspicious Activity Report WILL BE filed.

      I’ll come back to that in a few minutes.

      Some people interchange the terms structuring and smurfing, but that is not quite accurate.

      You can structure without the use of smurfs, but smurfs, by their nature, perform the actual structured transactions.

      Which brings us to smurfing

      The launderer may employ a number of smurfs – usually unwitting people – to make smaller deposits into a number of accounts, with each one staying under the reporting threshold.

      They can also perform other tasks, such as making withdrawals or purchasing various financial instruments (also staying under reporting thresholds), but depositing is what most people associate them with.

      The name does come from the mindless, little blue creatures from Saturday morning cartoons.

      While not true, AML lore is that the agent observed a bunch of old, blue-haired ladies scurrying around making all of the deposits and that’s what made him think of the Smurfs.

      Another tool in the launderer’s arsenal is refining

      Often leading up to bulk cash smuggling, it is the exchanging of smaller denomination bills for larger ones – in the US, into $100 bills.

      With the Twenty being the most common bill used on the streets for drug deals, the launderer effectively reduces the volume of currency to transport if he can have those changed into Hundreds.

      For those who wonder how big a problem this can be in the drug trade this a picture, taken in 2007 after a raid outside Mexico City.

      This is $207 million dollars. Over $205 million of that was in US Benjamins.

      (It was not found this way – it was packed in boxes, cabinets, in the walls, etc.)

      As impressive as this picture is, it is only one EIGHTY-eth of the amount of money estimated to have been laundered in Mexico last year alone

      That’s right, you would need EIGHTY (that’s eight – zero) piles like this to equal the $16 BILLION laundered in Mexico last year.

      I should also mention micro-structuring. I believe it was first observed in a terrorist financing case.

      With micro-structuring, the transactions are broken down into such small amounts (sometimes in the hundreds of dollars), so as to ensure that no monitoring platform will pick up these transactions.

      Now let me discuss a few of the forms that are the lifeblood of a Financial Intelligence Unit, starting with The Currency Transaction Report (often simply referred to as the CTR)

      It originated in 1970 with the Bank Secrecy Act that was in response to the exploding drug trade.

      Prior to that, it was not uncommon for drug traffickers or their launderers to pull up behind banks, pop the trunk, and carry in six or eight large duffel bags stuffed with cash.

      Since the BSA went into effect, all CASH transactions – in or out – in excess of $10,000 in a single business day requires that a CTR be filed with FinCEN – the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (though the IRS Computing Center in Detroit physically processes them.)

      This also should apply to cash exchanges as well

      The CTR basically consists of the name, address, ID type and number, the date and amount of the transaction.

      The personal data should be obtained for both the accountholder and the conductor – if they are different.

      In 2007, there were more than 15.2 million CTRs filed by Financial Institutions.

      These get processed into a massive database, which can be data-mined, but nobody just sits and reads them. So now comes The $10,000 Question.

      By a show of hands, how many of you have, at one time or another, advised someone (client or not) to keep transactions below $10,000?

      Yes, before I knew better I sometimes would.

      Well, we all have then advised someone to actually commit a crime. So, you may ask WHY? What’s the big deal? Let’s assume your client sold his car and now has $15,000 in cash to deposit.

      Instead of putting it all in the bank at once and providing the required information, he elects to split it in half, depositing $7,500 on Friday and the rest the next week.

      It is probable that many monitoring platforms may pick up these transactions and the client may now become the subject of a Suspicious Activity Report (SAR, for short)

      This form looks for a bit more personal info: name, address, Social Security Number, other ID, phone numbers, and occupation for each person considered a suspect.

      It also wants the account numbers, date range and amount of suspicious activity. (A copy of the blank form is in your handouts.)

      In addition to that, there is a narrative, often several pages in length. This will explain the whole relationship the financial institution has with the customer.

      It will list all of their accounts, loans, even safe deposit boxes and prepaid gift cards.

      It will name all associated signers and when the accounts were opened or closed.

      It will explain when the transactions took place and why it or they are viewed as suspicious.

      The report does not have to PROVE anything, only that a reasonable person would find the activity suspicious.

      In 2007, there were nearly 650,000 SARs filed by financial institutions.

      From conversations I have had with various law enforcement people around the country, I can tell you that virtually EVERY ONE OF THESE IS READ by a law enforcement professional.

      So which would you prefer to have filed on a client – the CTR (a filled out sample is in your handouts) – or a SAR like this?

Now we come to a form that you need to be aware of and one you may need to fill out in your practice

      IRS Form 8300 – I believe I have provided both a blank form with the instructions, as well as a sample filled out form – they should be in your notebooks.

      This is the form you need to fill out if you receive over $10,000 in cash (or cash equivalents) in your practice for a single transaction, even if the payments take place in up to a twelve-month period.

      The instructions are fairly self- explanatory. I will caution you, I am aware of businessmen who were charged and convicted – and served several YEARS – for purposely failing to file this form.

      Even if you were aware of the form, you may not have noticed the wrinkle of CASH EQUIVALENTS.

      You’ll see Box 32 is devoted to the breakdown of the cash and on page 4 under definitions, the second part of cash states:       A cashier’s check, money order, bank draft or traveler’s check having a face amount of $10,000 or less received in a designated reporting transaction (this is where the 12 month window comes into play) or any transaction in which you know they are attempting to avoid the reporting of the transaction

      A personal check from the individual’s own account is NOT reportable.

      Another method is via Casinos and Gaming.

      In casinos, launderers have been known to purchase large quantities of chips with cash, gamble very little, then “cash out” via a casino check, a wire transfer, or the money being put on account, especially if it is a major chain and those funds can be accessed at an foreign branch of the casino.

      Setting up private table poker games has also been used – in this a drug dealer may have some people that owe him money come play. Regardless of the hands, the others will play to lose. At the end of the night, the drug dealer goes home with all the money, but it has the appearance of coming from gambling, not drug sales.

      Sponsoring professional poker players – dirty money goes in, but ‘legitimate’ money comes out as the launderer collects his share of the poker player’s winnings. If the player is really good, the launderer even makes money while cleaning it.

      The launderer may even buy winning lottery tickets, buying them for a bit under the winning value (since the seller will not be dealing with the taxes). The launderer redeems them and the taxes incurred are simply the price of making the money appear legitimate – as he now has a check in hand from the state lottery commission noted as winnings.

      Then we have what are referred to as MSBs or Money Services Businesses, which are primarily:

      Check cashers

      Issuers, sellers and redeemers of Money Orders and Traveler’s checks

      Money exchangers

      Money remitters

      As I have noted, some of these have very large agent networks, such as Western Union, Moneygram, or Sigue

      You can see from the services alone how the MSB can be a great tool for the launderer: money transmission, exchanging currencies and denominations, check cashing, using money orders, travelers checks – and often with less scrutiny than a regular financial institution.

      One of the major tools a launderer employs in getting funds across international borders is disguising the transaction as foreign trade – and within that, utilizing Trade Price Manipulation

      It is the most efficient and economical means to move VALUE internationally.

      Sometimes, the launderers are bold enough to wire money between front or shell companies in the guise of international trade when no commerce actually took place.

      But when they do use the movement of goods to disguise the true intent of their actions, they manipulate the price of the goods.

      Only the import / export documentation filed with Customs can expose the launderer to any additional criminal charges (and it is only the single specific Customs form that can bring these charges on)

      Any other paperwork is part of the business deal and the only venue to settle those disputes is in the civil system

      But since the parties on each end of the deal are complicit, there will never be a civil suit. One of these angles is Selling Something for Nothing

      Let’s say the North American arm of a cartel need to get $1 million down into South America.

      One of their front or shell companies buys 200 Rolex watches for $5,000 each (total: $1 million).

      They then sell the watches to a South American front company for $5 each (total $1,000).

      The South American firm then sells the watches locally for $5,000 each and – voila, $1 million dollars is now in South America – and in the local currency to boot.

      So effectively, they have moved $1 million from the US to South America AND converted the currency – at a nominal price of $1,000 (extremely cheap in their world).

      On the flip side, they can sell Nothing for Something. Say the cartel wants to get one million dollars up to the States

      The US company buys 4,000 cheap gold pens for twenty-five cents each.

      They then sell them to the South American company for two hundred fifty dollars each (one million total).

      Frankly, nobody cares what happens to the pens.

      But effectively, the cartel has moved one million dollars to the US and disguised it as international trade. With both parties complicit in the scheme, no one will be the wiser.

      Now, another money transfer method that can be used by the money launderer is the Hawala and other       Informal Value Transfer Systems (IVTS can also be interchanged with ARS – Alternative Remittance System).

      First let me say that, in general, there is nothing wrong with these systems.

      They are ethnic in nature and have been around since long before the banking system was even conceived of.

      These systems are reliant upon the trust and goodwill among trading partners.

      I have heard the roots go back at least to the silk and spice routes and the days of Marco Polo.

      Hawalas, in particular, originated in the Middle East and Southwestern Asia.

      In other parts of the world, such systems may be called: Chiti Banking, Hundi, Chop Shop Banking, or Poey Kuan

      As I said, most of the use of these systems is completely legitimate and fills an important need.

      Some of the advantages of these systems have over traditional banks is that they can transfer value much quicker and at less cost than banks, there are basically no records kept (something the launderer loves), and they often stretch out into regions that normal banks dare not go.

      As I said, this is moving value through trading partners. So, let me give you an example of how such a transfer may take place:

      For example, a Somali taxi driver in Minneapolis needs to send $200 to his mother who is back in Somalia (a country in which banks don’t exist). Well, he goes to a local hawaladar – they are well-known in their communities. He gives the hawaladar the $200 and tells him where the money needs to go. The hawaladar, in turn, gives him a code and sends him on his way. At the one end, that’s all that takes. The taxi driver KNOWS it will get there. This system is built on trust.

      Should any hawaladar try to break this trust, he and his whole family would likely be killed.

      Anyway, the hawaladar calls or faxes a trading partner in the region and gives them the code and amount. The taxi driver also calls his mother and tells her the code. Later, she will go to what maybe a remote trading post and give them the code.

      As this post was already in possession of it, they know to provide this woman with about two hundred dollars.

      Now many will say she just gets the cash, but to me, more likely, she will get some supplies and groceries, may take some currency (but who would want much cash in such a lawless region), or she may even leave some value ‘on account’ with the trading post to be used at a later time.

      As far as the trading partners settling up, they will do so in some form at a later time. There may be some American goods shipped to the Somali trading post, or the hawaladar may pay a bill of the post, or a wire transfer may even be made – yes, THEY do sometimes use the formal banking system.

      I hope the example gives you a better understanding of the hawala-type systems. You can obviously see how a money launderer would find tapping into such a system to be beneficial – and yet, our biggest fear with these is their use in terrorist financing. Shortly after 9/11, the largest hawala in Somalia – AL BARAKAT – was effectively shut down by the US and its allies.

      Allegations were that AL QAEDA had corrupted it and was skimming monies moving through it (some hawalas have grown to be large companies with numerous branches or outposts)

      Anyway, moving on another money laundering tool is the use of Jewelry and Precious Metals.

      These are attractive for several obvious reasons:

      They tend to be of very high value, especially in relation to size and weight. You can hold a million dollars worth of diamonds in your hand – you can’t do that with currency. There is normally no ownership paper trail. And it is much easier to move a few stones across a border than to move the equivalent in currency.

      Art and Antiques are also being used in laundering. The valuation is often very subjective. It can be employed similar to trade price manipulation in that you can sell an original as a copy or you can sell pure rubbish as some form of high-end art.

      Ownership records are sometimes quite loose. It can be fairly easy to move across borders and at the integration stage, a criminal can hide very high value items right in plain sight.

      Other High End Goods can be used: Cars, Boats, Airplanes. Many of these are then actually used in the business, transporting drugs and cash.

      Down-Trading. In this method, a drug dealer may exchange his high-end car for multiple low-end vehicles and take the balance in a dealer’s check.      Some have even conspired with the dealer and taken the proceeds in a series of checks under $10,000 (a few of those knuckleheads are now doing time for being so obvious).

      The Black Market Peso Exchange

      Still a cartel favorite. It is nearly impossible for an individual financial institution to detect if BMPE funds are moving through their accounts.

      The key to it is the Corrupt Money Dealer!

      Some of the major corporations that have been caught up in this include: General Electric, Bell Helicopter and Phillip Morris.

      Here is roughly how it works:

      A cartel has a lot of cash in the US, these funds get deposited into a money trader’s account.       You also have legitimate businesses in South America that want to do business with US companies and have orders with them.

      Rather than make the purchase through the banks there, which will entail high currency exchange rates and governmental taxes and tariffs many of these South American companies will go to a money trader, who will offer better exchange rates and not report anything to the government – thereby sidestepping some of those costs.

      Now the money trader, who is a lackey of the cartel, will take the local funds from the South American companies, but rather than exchange them and forward them to the American companies in payment of the South American orders, the trader will turn those funds over to the cartel and take funds from the US account (cartel drug money) and wire those funds to satisfy the purchase orders.

      Effectively, the money trader has gotten the value to the cartel, in the local currency, and no funds actually ever crossed a border.

      Now when discovered by the government, some of the companies I named before have had to forfeit those funds since they were illicit – and in these cases, knowledge does not appear to be much of a deciding factor.

      Cuckoo Smurfing.

      This functions in a manner similar to the Black Market Peso Exchange in that the key is again the corrupter in the middle of it all and the recipients have no idea the cash deposited to their accounts was illicit.

      This method tends to be found within the Alternative Remittance or Informal Value Transfer Systems.

      Real estate provides a unique opportunity in that it can be used equally amongst all three stages.

      In the placement stage, real estate can be bought with cash. In the current blow-out market, one can buy entire homes and not have to worry about currency reporting.

      One can then hire numerous contractors and laborers and sink $50k or more into the property, not only paying for it all in cash,      but probably getting discounted pricing from contractors seeking to avoid their own taxes.

      In the layering stage, the property can be bought and sold numerous times using legal entities, front people, nominees or straw      buyers (often, the inflating of appraisals takes place here, adding an element of fraud to the equation).

      The efforts in the layering stage go a long way in disguising the true ownership and blurring the paper trail

      In the integration stage, the criminal now utilizes the physical property – if it’s a high end house, he may live in it; if it’s a lesser house, he may use it as rental property, generating a legitimate income stream from it; or he can sell it, with the funds received at closing appearing to be completely clean.

      Another sector often used in money laundering is Insurance. Most significant laundering and terrorist financing risks in the insurance industry are found in the life insurance and annuities products.

      These provide the launderer the opportunity to make a large upfront lump sum purchase of the product in exchange for periodic payments from an insurance company.

      A quicker turn occurs when the launderer cancels the policy during the “cooling off” period or by other early redemptions.      What better way to disguise the proceeds of criminal activity that to have them transformed into insurance company payments?

      Another important tool in the launderer’s arsenal is the Securities sector.

      Since most firms do not accept cash. It is predominately used in the layering and integration stages.

      Some jurisdictions still allow the use of bearer shares, so there is no trail of ownership.

      Among the attractive features of the Securities sector are: its international nature, its fast paced transactions, a competitive environment that can lead to a disregarding of due diligence procedures, and the common practice of maintaining securities accounts as nominees.

      In addition, the funds can be parlayed by good investing, or included in “pump-and-dump” schemes.

      Now the last issue I want to touch on is “Money Mules.”

      Currently, these are the hottest fraud and laundering schemes floating about.

      People are recruited using “work-at-home” ads or e-mails (who here doesn’t get 2-300 of these every year???).

      Once, someone signs on, they will receive a check (maybe more), or a deposit will appear in their account.

      They get to keep a 10% ‘commission’ – while forwarding the balance off overseas using a money transmitter like Western Union, Moneygram, or Sigue

      Then reality sets in. The checks were likely counterfeit or stolen – the deposit likely originated from some fraudulent activity.

      And guess who is stuck holding the bag? That’s right. Their bank is now going to charge that item back against THEIR account, so they not only have lost their great 10% commission (“Which I got for such really little effort“), but they are now responsible for the funds they sent overseas.

      So where do they turn? The money they sent is long, long gone and the entity they sent it to probably never existed, so they are STUCK.

      And law enforcement is not going to help, if anything, since they were an active, though ignorant, participant in the movement (laundering) of illicit funds, they can be charged with money laundering. Remember back where we started?

      “Money laundering consists of the conversion or TRANSFER of property …or of ASSISTING any person who is involved in the commission of the crime…”

      And then don’t forget our friend “Willful Blindness” – all they saw was the 10% commission. They turned a blind eye to any risks that a reasonable, or less desperate, person would have understood.

      Thank you for your time. Any questions?

Siomz asked in the comments if I had a full pic of the Seeker EK9, this is the only one I have, I assume it’s the car with the V2 wing on it, but I haven’t seen any pix of it with the V2. There’s also a red EK on their site but the pic is so small I can’t tell if it has a V2 on it or not http://www.seeker.co.jp

After 15 games .. i think it’s the best time .. to write a full review ..

From the name .. Control:
my first reaction was –>PERFECT!.. i felt comfortable and i didn’t get the awful (first time experience) pain..
i know i said before, that Adidas has the best control boots (Adidas Predator and adiPURE) and Nike are bad in creating a light+control boot .. BUT when i first tried this boot .. it was like a mix of (adiPURE) + (adidas Predator) + (Nike Vapor) + (Nike Nike Tiempo Legend) .. SO, in a way .. it’s the perfect boot .. at least for those who don’t care about picking a specific boot or brand .. !!

From the name: Comfort:
i felt the comfort of course .. BUT, by focusing too much on comfort .. the boot lacked (major) control parts .. !! such as the passing-control part .. !! the only negative point in this review .. !!

Colors:
so far, they made two color-ways ..
- white/black ( the one that i bought )
- black/red ( the poplar one: Cesc Fabregas..Florent Malouda )

Basic INFO:
* Family: CTR360
* External Heel Counter: No
* Lacing: Asymmetric Off Centre
* Primary Upper Material: Kanga Lite Synthetic
* Stud Material: TPU
* Stud Shape: Bladed
* Studs Removable: No
* Suitable For: Firm Natural Surfaces
* Weight: 325g

after every boot i buy .. my first thought is: THIS boot is the best boot EVER .. call it The NEW-BOOT fever but this boot is one of the best boots that Nike created .. it’s not awful like the vapor (awful and damaging) or heavy like the lasers ..
I can’t say that this boot is better than the adiPUREzz .. because the adipures are  better in other parts (other than only control/comfort) and i dont think that the CTR will keep up with the adiPURE ..
especially with the NEW adiPUREz coming .. they will be the first (non K leather technology) boot that adidas will make ..
so, adiPUREZ are better than the CTR ..
However, i truly can say .. THAT the CTRz are the most effective boot  .. this boot will always be my 2nd choice ..
it’s a compliment to be 2nd .. after the adiPUREz of course ..
To be honest .. i bought this boot .. just because the new adipure colorways are ugly .. so i was forced to go and look for a new boot .. and what a boot i found.. !!

Final score :

TOP CLASS BOOT .. CONTROL+COMFORT .. !!

..

cheers

На вопрос одного из страдальцев, мол, почему у его сайта показатель PR долгое время остается без изменений, хотя он из кожи вон лезет, чтобы его поднять, сотрудник Google ответил примерно следующее: PR – это всего лишь один из 200 признаков, по которым он индексирует сайты. Поэтому Google и проводит обновление PR всего лишь несколько раз в год, чтобы люди на нем не зацикливались. «PageRank is an easy metric to focus on, but just because it’s easy doesn’t mean it’s useful for you as a site owner. Поняли? Мой перевод: «PR это довольно понятный показатель, чтобы на нем концентрировать внимание. И потому, что он простой и понятный, это совсем не означает, что он полезен для вас, как владельца сайта.» И дальше нам советуют сосредоточиться на гугл Analytics, подумать о Conversion Rates, о ROI (return on investment), о relevancy и т.д. То есть нам дают вполне адекватные советы, ведь мы пришли в Интернет, чтобы зарабатывать деньги.

Что собой представляет показатель Conversion Rates? Конверсия – это количество переходов пользователей с поисковых систем на мой сайт. Conversion Rates применяется только в Google и может подсчитываться лишь при установлении на сайте специальных программ, которые считают не просто количество трафика, а количество полезного трафика. А полезный трафик – это посетители, которые делают что-то полезное на сайте и, конечно, приносят доход. Этот показатель высчитывается по формуле:
Conversion Rate = [(Total Web Sales / Unique Web Traffic) / Average Sales Price] x 100.

Другими словами Общая сумма продаж делится на количество уникальных посетителей, делится на среднюю цену товаров или услуг и результат умножается на 100%.
Интересно, что в августе 2009 года один из ведущих экономистов Google заявил, что высокая позиция сайта не особо влияет показатель Conversion Rates. То есть если Conversion Rates сайта, например, который находится на первой позиции, составляет 1.0, то Conversion Rates сайта, находящегося на 11 позиции, будет составлять всего лишь 0,95. В результате был сделан вывод, что позиция сайта серьезно не отражается на количестве трафика. Некоторые скептики этому не поверили. Однако эта информация может сэкономить деньги тем, кто ставит платные объявления.

ROI или return on investment, то есть возвращение денег, которые были затрачены на создание и раскрутку сайтов. Вряд ли кто-то от этого откажется. Вычисляется этот коэффициент по формуле:

То есть разницу между вложенными деньгами и затраченными деньгами нужно разделить на количество затраченных денег. В результате получаем коэффициент ROI. Этот показатель активно пропагандируется Google для тех, кто пользуется программой AdWord. Хотя это довольно жизненный показатель, который не мешало бы подсчитывать всем. Лично я пока что нахожусь в значительном убытке.

Google также призывает нас обращать внимание на relevancy (релевантность) или критерий смыслового соответствия. Под этим термином Google имеет в виду написание такого текста для сайта, создание такого облака ключевых слов или рекламных объявлений, которые бы были по-человечески понятны пользователям. Общим коэффициентом измерения релевантности является Quality Score, куда входит:

1. CTR – Click-Through Rate – соотношение количества кликов к количеству показов объявлений. Чем выше этот показатель, тем выше релевантность объявления к вводимым пользователями интернета ключевыми словами.
2. Общая популярность используемых в рекламе ключевых слов.
3. Текст сайта должен напрямую связан с текстом рекламы.

Другими словами, Quality Score измеряется релевантностью ключевых слов, качеством рекламного текста, контекстом страницы и поисковых запросов пользователей. При платном объявлении сюда приплюсовывается цена, которую вы назначаете за свое объявление (cost-per-clicks – CPCs).

Ах, Backlinks!

Have I seen this bumper before? Something about it seems kind of familiar but I can’t for the life of me remember who makes it. Not what the typical american expects to see in a photo of a CTR at a track day in Japan.

Part of racing is taking the car right to the edge and then trying to go just a little bit beyond that edge, sometimes the results are glory, sometimes the results are some bent sheet metal. Westhill always pushes 110% . This is the second car I’ve heard of being wrecked with a Melissa sticker on it, I hope they’re not bad luck! Yoshitomo and crew will be coming back stronger than ever!

Which is better? Ads or Links?

Links – hands down. But there is a differing of opinion on a few factors. I’m going to focus on Twitter for this post as it is great at link sharing.

Here’s an article based on the idea that more followers = higher CTRs (Clickthrough Rates).

And here is one that goes against that idea.

Now these ideas in social media marketing are still kinda new and in the world of sports marketing, Twitter followers are generally over 10K. But what seems quite clear is that in social media spaces, providing information via links that your market cares about is a solid way to go.

Keep in mind – we are in the social media space here – when looking at sponsors, we need to position them as partners. Dropping any old corporate link into your Twitter stream may not sit well with your followers so you need to consider who or what your corporate partners offer that will best suit your base. These people can “unfollow” you very quickly, and will do so if they feel that what they are receiving is not of interest to them. They are there to follow your team – your product – so you need to build social media sponsorships in collaboration with your sponsors that will give them – and your followers, something they value.

If webmasters want to monetize their websites, the great way to do it is through Adsense. There are lots of webmasters struggling hard to earn some good money a day through their sites. But then some of the “geniuses” of them are enjoying hundreds of dollars a day from Adsense ads on their websites. What makes these webmasters different from the other kind is that they are different and they think out of the box.

The ones who have been there and done it have quite some useful tips to help those who would want to venture into this field. Some of these tips have boosted quite a lot of earnings in the past and is continuously doing so.

Here are some 5 proven ways on how best to improve your Adsense earnings.

1. Concentrating on one format of Adsense ad. The one format that worked well for the majority is the Large Rectangle (336X280). This same format have the tendency to result in higher CTR, or the click-through rates. Why choose this format out of the many you can use? Basically because the ads will look like normal web links, and people, being used to clicking on them, click these types of links. They may or may not know they are clicking on your Adsense but as long as there are clicks, then it will all be for your advantage.

2. Create a custom palette for your ads. Choose a color that will go well with the background of your site. If your site has a white background, try to use white as the color of your ad border and background. The idea to patterning the colors is to make the Adsense look like it is part of the web pages. Again, This will result to more clicks from people visiting your site.

3. Remove the Adsense from the bottom pages of your site and put them at the top. Do not try to hide your Adsense. Put them in the place where people can see them quickly. You will be amazed how the difference between Adsense locations can make when you see your earnings.

4. Maintain links to relevant websites. If you think some sites are better off than the others, put your ads there and try to maintaining and managing them. If there is already lots of Adsense put into that certain site, put yours on top of all of them. That way visitor will see your ads first upon browsing into that site.

5. Try to automate the insertion of your Adsense code into the webpages using SSI (or server side included). Ask your web administrator if your server supports SSI or not. How do you do it? Just save your Adsense code in a text file, save it as “adsense text”, and upload it to the root directory of the web server. Then using SSI, call the code on other pages. This tip is a time saver especially for those who are using automatic page generators to generate pages on their website.

These are some of the tips that have worked well for some who want to generate hundreds and even thousands on their websites. It is important to know though that ads are displayed because it fits the interest of the people viewing them. So focusing on a specific topic should be your primary purpose because the displays will be especially targeted on a topic that persons will be viewing already.

Note also that there are many other Adsense sharing the same topic as you. It is best to think of making a good ad that will be somewhat different and unique than the ones already done. Every clickthrough that visitors make is a point for you so make every click count by making your Adsense something that people will definitely click on.

Tips given by those who have boosted their earnings are just guidelines they want to share with others. If they have somehow worked wonders to some, maybe it can work wonders for you too. Try them out into your ads and see the result it will bring.

If others have done it, there is nothing wrong trying it out for yourself.

]]> http://jonigilmour.wordpress.com/2009/11/11/using-search-engine-advertising-to-boost-sales/ Wed, 11 Nov 2009 19:33:30 +0000 jonigilmour http://jonigilmour.wordpress.com/2009/11/11/using-search-engine-advertising-to-boost-sales/

Everyone uses a search engine when they’re looking for content on the web. Studies show that Google drives online searches, with over 60% of searches in July 2009.  Google works on bringing users relevant results to match what they’re looking for. But there’s 2 parts to search engine results: sponsored links and organic results. Sponsored links are paid for by the advertiser, but how does it work?

Advertisers create ads that contain information about their site, linked to keywords that they’ve bid on. Recently, Google has increased choice and relevancy to users by giving advertisers the option to include Ad Sitelinks, which gives users more options of where to go, and gives advertisers the ability to create more relevant ads with multiple purposes, driving traffic to different landing pages. Inside AdWords gives a good example of Priceline.com, shown below:

Microsoft recently introduced their new search engine, Bing, which also offers paid search engine advertising, called AdCenter. A case study provided by Microsoft explains how CPC Logic increased conversions and traffic for their products and improved their demographic targeting using Microsoft’s paid advertising.

Using paid advertising on search engines allows you to advertise directly to people who are searching for your product. Your ads appear when someone searches for your keywords. You only pay when someone clicks on your ad, but even when it’s not clicked on, the impressions are still there.

Hal Varian, Google’s Chief Economist, explains how Google’s Ad Auction works in the video below. He describes how google determines relevancy, and how the millions of users help them to determine which ads are quality ads. Google uses CTR (click-through-rate), relevancy, and the quality of the landing page to determine the overall quality of the ad. Users drive the CTR, which is the number of users who clicked on the ad in comparison to the number of impressions.

Will you use Google AdWords, or some other search engine advertising to drive traffic to your site?

Ok, ok, o título tá meio batido eu sei.  Todo mundo sabe disso…. mas … será que sabe mesmo?

Pesquisa da ComScore revelou que apenas 16% dos internautas clicam em uma campanha online.  Ou seja, 84% não clicam em nada mas, adivinhem só, são eles que fazem as principais (ou representam o maior volume de vendas dos produtos), isso quer dizer que a campanha chegou a eles de alguma forma, certo?

Ou seja, aquele novo (velho) método de se analisar as campanhas online o CTR (clik through rate – ou quantidade de cliques nas campanhas) nãó é assim tão eficaz e preciso.  Oras, se apenas 16% do povo clica .. como avaliar a eficáia considerando um público tão pequeno?

A simples exposição da marca ainda é o melhor meio de se comunicar? Mas não foram os anunciantes e especialistas que escracharam esse meio, poucos anos atrás?

Caramba… o que fazer entã0 para ter sucesso nas campanhas? O consumidor, é sempre o consumidor.

O que precisamos fazer é analisar COMO o consumidor chegou ao site,  COMO ele comprou.  Nada de fazer pesquisas chatíssimas, pelo amor de Deus, mas dá pra usar uma das milhares de ferramentas para medir o comportamento do consumidor e principalmente, para superar suas expectativas em relação a sua empresa pois assim você conseguirá o que quer … transformar seu consumidor em mídia.

=tomás

In this post I will examine the viability of Software as Media (SAM) and, specifically, software as an advertising platform.

As you may recall from the post from a few weeks back (Why newspapers need to get sticky) I examined the idea of Stickiness and how media content is actually not very sticky on the web when you compare it to search, social networks, email and software applications (e.g Freshbooks, NetSuite and Salesforce.com).

Software Applications are more sticky than online newspapers and magazines

The question is: Just because software applications (and we’ll include Email and Facebook in this category) are stickier than online newspapers does this mean they are a better advertising platform?

There has been a lot of discussion about this in recent times. Claire Cain Miller’s (The New York Times) and Phil Wainewright’s (ZDNet) posts earlier this year on Ad Revenue on the Web? No Sure Bet  and Web 2.0 and the end of advertising are indicative of the mainstream thinking in traditional media circles about the unsustainability of SAM advertising models.

In more general terms there is the post on Techcrunch by Eric Clemons, Professor of Operations and Information Management at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania: Why Advertising is Failing on the Internet. In it, he argues that the Internet shatters all forms of advertising.  “The problem is not the medium, the problem is the message, and the fact that it is not trusted, not wanted, and not needed,”

Shelby Bonnie’s recent post on Techcrunch, Let’s Kill The CPM, and Jitka Petrickova’s (Three Minds) Should We Kill The Ads Or The Metrics? probably goes to the heart of the problem. Not only in relation to the future sustainability of SAM but for online advertising in general. Pages views are really the wrong metric for measuring (and delivering) the success of online advertising.

As I suggested in Why the NY Times 10% Problem is not a problem but a significant growth opportunity online banner advertising is very expensive. It’s significantly more expensive than advertising on TV during the Superbowl on an Average Revenue, Per User, Per Page, Per Visit (ARPUPPPV).

The real metric we should be applying is face time. Online advertising should be measured in the same terms as TV advertising. Both involve watching a screen after all.

There is also the problem of banner blindness that I first raised in The Real Problem is FLINK!: The idea that most people don’t even see the ads because they are to busy looking for the next hyperlink.

However the issue for SAM is broader than just the argument for and against Banner Blindness, CPM, CTR, Page Views and Face Time. It really goes to the heart of what advertising is all about.

Firstly let me qualify the discussion by suggesting that there are three distinct types of advertising.

The first is marketplace or classified advertising. Today this form of advertising is best represented online by eBay and Craigslist (See Farewell to the Ribbons of Gold).

The second type of advertising can best be understood as “buying prestige by association”. It is about seducing the customer into wanting to be associated with your product.

The third and final type of Advertising is simply about repetition. The idea being that if a prospect sees or hears something often enough they will remember it. Unfortunately the problem with this approach is simply that the prospect’s experience is something akin to being “bludgeoning the customer with a blunt instrument”.

Classical advertising theory was, and still is, first and foremost about building a brand by buying prestige by association.

Once advertising loses the illusion of prestige it just becomes unwanted noise.

In one of my first posts on this site (FLINK and they’re gone!) I stressed that The call to do (action), to implement, to solve is at the heart of the interactive medium.

This means that unless the advertising is directly involved in the action of using the software (e.g A character in an online game or a Mortgage Calculator) then advertising is superfluous to the activity. It is just unwarranted noise.

Advertising in software. Be it games, social media, applications, collaborative tools, email and even online newspapers is just that. Noise.

… and as noise it simply destroys prestige, not only for the advertising media (i.e. the software), but also the advertised product or service that is being promoted on the site.

In the world of emails, there are 2 critical stats – Open rates and click through rates. These are probably the most important factors to your e-marketing campaign.

In a previous post, I told you how to optimize your open rates. In this post, I will tell you how to optimize your click-through rates. Read on!

The first thing is the layout of the email. You’ve got over half of the readers to open your email, now what? You need to have a nicely laid out body, not too many images, not too much text. Just the right balance.

There are many ways to improve your click-through rates (CTR). The first one I’m going to tell you about is a simple one; be friendly. As I have said in countless previous posts, you need to be friendly with your readers. People are a lot more likely to click the links you want them to if you are being more personal than business-orientated.

Try playing with different call to actions; the A B test. Split the email you are going to send to your list into 2, so you have 2 emails exactly the same. Now you alter the call to actions in one email, and leave the other how it was. Then send each email to half of your list, and monitor the results.

Personally, I believe that a basic link, as in blue underlined text, has the best click-through rate. If you use a picture as a link, make sure you explicitly tell your readers that said picture is a link.

At the end of your email, in the signature box, add all the links you want the reader to click, eg. LinkedIn, Facebook, Website or your Twitter. These will not be clicked as much as links in the body of your email, but will still receive a fair few clicks.

The last thing I am going to say to you today is try these methods, personalise them to work for you, and then monitor them. There are many other ways to improve both Open Rates and CTR, and I will be writing more posts outlining these, so keep checking for updates!

www.keepers.info

Recientemente, el hype de Twitter es enorme, no sólo en México pero a nivel global. Y bueno, porqué no, con un crecimiento exponencial del 1500%, es la red social con mayor crecimiento en el mundo y todos estamos experimentando con este servicio.

Encontré un blog de Dan Zarrella que lo que hace es analizar la ciencia del twitter, y entre sus posts, uno muy interesante sobre cómo hacer para que te retwitteen más. Las conclusiones de este blogger fue que tienes que disminuir el número de twitts con links que postees durante el tiempo, osea, entre menos links postees, más CTR obtendrás.

Dan Zarella llegó a esta conclusión después de realizar una serie de comparaciones entre distintas cuentas de Twitter, que reviso en cierto tiempo, bajo una teoría científica de hipotesis-prueba-teoría o ley. El blog de Dan está muy bueno y tiene otros artículos que posteriormente comentaré.

Earlier this year Wired’s Editor in Chief, Chris Anderson, wrote an article and then published the book called Free.  (You may recall that I mentioned last weekend that Chris was presenting the idea at ycombinator’s Start Up School).

Free is all about a business model called Freemium.

The idea that giving away free product is not only good marketing it is a great way to build an online business.

The general idea is to give all or part of your product or service away for free, with or without the support of advertising revenues, and then offer these new customers the chance to step up to a newer, improved model (at a price) later on down the road.

In marketing parlance you are in the business of  creating a network of product champions - and where you have champions then loyal customers will follow.

The idea of using a free sample is not new to advertising and promotional professionals. It has long been recognised that free offers is one of the most effective ways of attracting a market. The only better way is through word or mouth – but Advertisers don’t really like to talk about that one too much for obvious reasons.

Nor, as Fred Wilson has pointed out, is Freemium a new idea in software circles. Many profitable software houses have been built over the past 2 decades using the shareware model.

Om Malik at Gigaom and Andrew Chen have both provided some invaluable advice on how Freemium can be a great way to bootstrap a start-up web business.

You should also take a look at Freshbooks. The Canadian based Freshbooks is one of the great Freemium startups of recent times. Here in his recent post milestones to cross before raising venture capital  Mike McDerment, the CEO and Co-Founder of Freshbooks, provides some advice and insight for budding startups looking to bootstrap their idea into a business.

Freemium, of course, represents something of a paradox for tradition Venture Capital thinking. The pyramid below illustrates how difficult it is to get the market to pay for a new innovation based on the Big Problems Small Solutions scenario we discussed in the much earlier post: Don’t think Strategy: Think like a VC!.

The VC Investment Pyramid

The general rule of thumb in VC circles is it is always easy to get customers to pay for information about the problem (think: Magazines then Conferences) than it is to get customers to pay for the solution (think: Industry Reports, Management Consultants or Specialist Training and then Product).

The Freemium paradox says quite simply you don’t need to pay for any of these steps. It’s all available for free.

As Chris Anderson says…

The trend lines that determine the cost of doing business online all point the same way: to zero.

So life on the web is just a free lunch.

The question is: Is this model sustainable over long term?

Think of a future today where you launch your brand new web 2.0 site or iPhone App for free thinking that in 6 – 12 months time you’ll be able to launch a better subscription version to your newly acquired market of Free Champions.

However, when the time comes to launch the new improved version you discover that 10 maybe even 100 other bootstrap startups have now launched their new Freeware offering and it is has more features and benefits than your paid offering.

What is going to happen to your Free Champions? Do they stick around or do they move on? Do they go in search of the next free lunch or do they start paying you for the free lunch you have already provided? What do you think?

The reality is Freemium is a game of diminishing returns as each new entrant has to offer the industry benchmark just to gain traction with the Influences and Free Champions.

Today software developers are discovering that, if the database is the new media, then applications are the new content.

Applications are fast becoming fashion items, disposable and of limited lifespan. This means developing software apps today is no longer about changing the way people do business but about tapping into how people see and project themselves.

This means, although they don’t know it yet, software companies and their developers are now facing the same crisis that is afflicting newspapers and their journalists.

If this really is the case then it is only the customers’ data that offers us a true measure of the value of the Freemium business model. – And the value of that data all depends on how much it reflects where the customer has been, how much it reflects where the customer is going and how much the customer need access to it tomorrow.

So if your thinking about investing your time, energy and money into a  Freemium business think Data First because, after all is said and done, functionality is just the hook to get the customer in.

Further Reading:

• Why putting ads on the menu won’t pay for lunch
• This is how you make money out of a free lunch!

Shaw: Forget the click. How the click-through metric is holding back digital media spend; http://j.mp/qfhK5