Knowing When NOT to maximize your ROI

I was just reading a fascinating discussion over on Jim Novo's blog about the effectiveness of social media sites versus chatrooms as channels for advertising.

One commentator made a suggestion that Jim could "do a bad job" with his cpc campaign...as in design ads to attract fewer, but more targeted clicks, as a means to better optimize his ROI. Of course, it makes perfect sense. It is like designing incentives that are only of interest to the audience that would buy your product.

Don't give away a palm pilot - everyone wants one of those. give away a demo version of your product, or a discount on purchase, or a whitepaper that compares and contrasts the features of your product versus the competition - something that removes barriers to purchase.

The advertiser is happier. The respondent is happier - because you are speaking to their specific needs. Can anyone tell me which stakeholder loses out in this equation? The publisher.

In my opinion, this is a relationship that must be considered when measuring ROI, that hardly ever makes it into anyone's calculations.

The supply of quality publishers depends on their ability to generate revenues from ads. I have had the experience at times in the past of negotiating so hard with a publisher, that they refused to renew the contract when it had run its course. So, ok...I got the client the best possible deal in the short term, but what were the long term effects? I had "used up" available channels to access my target audience.

A client runs SEM campaigns on Google and also a very successful Affiliate program.

They pay their affiliates 5% of revenues.

SEM on a cost per click basis that works out to roughly 20% of revenues.

Each represents approximately one third of sales.

I suggest to the client that they could afford to pay their affiliates 8%.

The first response is, of course,

Why pay 8% when their affiliates were doing it for 5%?

The most important step in the process is to recognize affiliates as an important stakeholder in the sales process. That one can "create" more lower-cost inventory by taking care of a particular stakeholder group, or encouraging its development.

So then the questions
1. how many more affiliates can be attracted at 8%?
2. how much can SEM campaigns be reduced in response? and what is the expected cost per acquisition at the new, presumably optimized (and therefore more cost effective) volume.
3. what is the associated cost of marketing to this stakeholder group to bring them on board in sufficient volumes?

It is a step...or rather a leap of faith, that requires some careful calculating, careful planning, and total commitment - that stems from the recognition of the multiple stakeholders that make your organization work.

Can you share stories of when it made sense for your business to pay MORE for customer acquisition?