Year of Testing in Auto Forums Generates Average Click-Through Rates of 33 Percent; Reach Now Extends to Boating, Power Sports and Motorcycle Forums
OMMA East
LONG BEACH, Calif. – Demonstrating that social advertising works if you pick the right social media environment, Cie Studios announced the official launch of PostRelease® (www.PostRelease.com), a new and highly effective solution for advertising in online forums.
PostRelease helps companies reach targeted audiences at the point where opinions are being formed and buying decisions made. The product enables companies to insert posts that contain relevant content into targeted online forum discussions. Using the automated system, marketers identify pertinent forum discussions and insert messages as posts that contain useful content to be absorbed by the community.
The approach is automated but audited – all posts are reviewed to ensure the content is relevant to the discussion topic. It is this quality control that sets PostRelease apart from banner and text ads: in its year-long beta, PostRelease click-through rates averaged 33 percent, with highs reaching nearly 90 percent.
Cie Studios began testing PostRelease in 2008 by addressing a single category – automotive forums. The company has executed more than 50 campaigns for companies such as Pioneer Electronics, Toyota/Scion, Nitto Tire North America, American Tire Distributors and more.
“Forums are where the real product conversations happen – they’re the uncut diamonds of the social web,” said Justin Choi, founder and president of Cie Studios. “Forums are an ideal place for marketers and consumers to meet, because product conversations are not intrusive, they’re integral. We’ve created a solution that enables companies to insert relevant information, helps consumers learn more about products they’re already discussing and gives forum owners a much-needed source of revenue.”
With the official launch of its product, Cie Studios increased the size of the PostRelease network by nearly 60 percent – adding 50 new forums and expanding the categories to include boating, motorcycle and other motor sports.
Key to Forum Advertising: Relevance
Product conversations are often a consumer’s only reason for being in a forum in the first place. But until now, there hasn’t been an easy way for advertisers to be a part of the forum conversation, as PostRelease is. The approach works: PostRelease click-through rates average 33 percent, while banner ads typically average click-through rates of less than 1 percent, according to MarketingSherpa.
One challenge for forums is that some advertisers pose as users simply to insert “disguised” commercial messages. Forum owners spend considerable time keeping such posts out. PostRelease, by contrast, creates a structured environment for inserting content that is useful and relevant, and introduces transparency, clearly identifying its messages.
PostRelease posts can include text, pictures, hyperlinks and links to video. The posts are clearly marked as from PostRelease, and they remain in the lead position (toward the top of the post list page) of selected forum discussion categories for seven days. Once released from the top position, the post remains part of the forum discussion. These posts are archived as forum content, so they continue to generate responses long after a campaign ends.
About PostRelease
PostRelease® (www.PostRelease.com) is the first effective solution for online forum advertising and influencing word-of-mouth forum discussions. It enables companies to insert sponsored posts into targeted online forum discussions. PostRelease empowers marketers to become part of the conversation in forums, at a time when opinions are being formed and purchase decisions are being made. PostRelease was created by Cie Studios, a digital media lab based in Long Beach, Calif.
