American Express OPEN ‘Doubles Down’ on Membership Rewards(R) Points Enabling …

NEW YORK, Aug 22, 2011 (BUSINESS WIRE) –
American
Express OPEN, the small business division of the financial services
company, today announced a new Business Gold Rewards Card which includes
double points for all spending on online marketing. With small
businesses rapidly moving marketing dollars online, American Express is
offering richer and more innovative ways to help them get more out of
their investments. Examples include Membership Rewards redemption on
Facebook ads, and YourBuzz, a new online reputation management tool.

American Express’ Rewards programs, including the industry-leading
Membership Rewards, are a featured benefit used by millions of American
Express Cardmembers. With the Business Gold Card, business owners will
now receive:

–
3X* points on airfare

–
2X* points on advertising, gas and shipping

–
1X* points on everything else

“What small businesses need more than anything else is demand for their
products and services,” said Doug Tabish, vice president of Charge Cards
at American Express OPEN. “They are pushing us to help them think more
holistically about how to generate demand. We’re responding by offering
maximized benefits with Business Gold Rewards, allowing entrepreneurs to
reinvest the points they earn to better their existing businesses.”

Importance of Online Marketing, a Business Owner Perspective

For one New York City-based small business FertilityAuthority.com,
an online source for male and female fertility information, online
marketing has become a core function and vehicle for increasing its
growing customer base.

“As an online company, we have spent a significant amount of time and
effort in advertising across social channels, including Facebook and
Google. This allows us to attract new users and connect with existing
ones,” says Paul Bucalo, director of customer acquisitions for
FertilityAuthority. “We spend thousands of dollars a month to actively
market our company. The new rewards platform will enable us to convert
this spend into valuable rewards points that we can use to reinvest in
other business functions at no cost.”

According to the American
Express OPEN Small Business Search Marketing Survey, a survey of
small business owners utilizing some type of online marketing for their
business, three-quarters of entrepreneurs planned to add some form of
online marketing in 2011. Roughly three-in-ten will add a company
website (36%) or social media strategy (29%). About one-in-five plan to
add search engine optimization strategies (23%), mass email campaigns
(22%) or search advertising campaigns (16%).

Kick Starting Small Business Marketing Online

While small businesses like FertilityAuthority are increasingly tapping
digital marketing tools and services to reach customers and prospects,
kick starting campaigns can be complicated and many businesses owners
don’t fully comprehend the potential.

American
Express OPEN’s Marketing Suite offers a one-stop-shop of online
products for everything small business owners need to know to develop
and manage their online marketing efforts.

Currently, the Marketing Suite includes:

–
YourBuzz, a free tool to help small businesses manage their
online presence, learn what is being said about them and their
competitors, and connect with customers in the places where they are
most vocal–social media. YourBuzz aggregates conversations across
highly influential review sites such as Yelp and CitySearch, and
social networks such as Facebook, Foursquare and Twitter, to ensure
listings are accurate, build customer relationships, and mitigate the
damage that can be done from poor reviews.

–
AdManager, a tool for helping small businesses create, target
and measure the results of their online advertising campaigns.
AdManager combines creative templates and testing capabilities with
media-buying software to deliver a complete, easy-to-use, customizable
platform.

–
SearchManager, an online solution for managing paid search
campaigns across all major search ad networks, including Google
Adwords, Yahoo! Search Marketing, Microsoft AdCenter and Facebook Ads,
via a centralized dashboard.

These tools are part of the OPEN Business Apps, a group of software
products that help small businesses market their products and services,
increase margins and improve cash flow.

*$100,000 cap on each bonus spend category (airfare, advertising, gas
and shipping represent individual categories); caps based on calendar
year

About American Express OPEN(R)

American Express OPEN is the leading payment card issuer for small
businesses in the United States and supports business owners with
products and services to help them run and grow their businesses. This
includes business charge and credit cards that deliver purchasing power,
flexibility, rewards, savings on business services from an expanded
lineup of partners, and software-as-a-service applications designed to
help with cash flow, marketing and business expenses. Learn more at
www.OPEN.com
and connect with us at openforum.com,
twitter.com/openforum
and facebook.com/open.

American Express is a global services company, providing customers with
access to products, insights and experiences that enrich lives and build
business success. Learn more at
www.americanexpress.com
and connect with us on
www.facebook.com/americanexpress ,

www.twitter.com/americanexpress
and
www.youtube.com/americanexpress .

SOURCE: American Express OPEN

        
        National: 
        American Express OPEN 
        Rosa Alfonso 
        Vice President, Corporate Affairs 
        and Communications 
        212-640-1712 
        rosa.m.alfonso@aexp.com 
        or 
        for American Express OPEN 
        Sal Della Monica, 212-539-3272 
        sald@mbooth.com
        

Copyright Business Wire 2011

Share and Enjoy

Room for Improvement in Social Network Ad Engagement

Many marketers are eager to advertise on Facebook in addition to building up an official presence on the social networking site, and all signs point to similar marketing activity eventually coming to Google+ as well. And according to research from EyeTrackShop, when ads come to Google+ they will likely have many of the same benefits—and drawbacks—as those on Facebook.

The eye tracking solutions firm showed online panelists from Sweden a sample Facebook newsfeed, with ads placed along the right-hand side of the page, and monitored the participants’ eye movements as they viewed the page. They showed another group a mock-up of a Google+ newsfeed, which has a layout almost identical to Facebook’s. Google+ does not currently show advertisements, but EyeTrackShop placed the same ads on the right-hand side of that page, and monitored respondents’ eye movements.

Study participants viewed each page similarly, focusing first on the center of the page, then moving to the left and finally to the right, viewing the ads. This suggests that Google may be copying a winning model for its new social network—Facebook will receive over $4 billion in worldwide ad revenues this year, eMarketer estimates.

But when EyeTrackShop compared the participants’ behavior on Facebook with a benchmark average based on studies of social network ad engagement the firm had conducted throughout the year, it found users were less engaged on Facebook. Just over half of participants saw an ad on Facebook, vs. 74% on average. It also took Facebook viewers longer to notice the ads while viewing the page (5 seconds vs. 4 on average) and they spent 33% less time viewing the ads once they did see them.

Other data has shown less-than-stellar performance metrics for Facebook ads as well, including a 2010 Webtrends study that found Facebook ads had a 0.051% clickthrough rate (down from 0.063% in 2009) and March 2011 research from Chitika that indicated Facebook’s clickthrough rate was lower than Twitter’s.

Twitter, which continues to roll out new ad products as more marketers adopt Promoted Tweets, Promoted Trends and Promoted Accounts, reports average engagement with promoted tweets at 3% to 5%, rising to 7% to 10% when promoted tweets are combined with promoted trends. Many prominent campaigns have boasted much better performance, according to information from the microblogging site and Advertising Age.

Engagement includes clicks on an ad as well as retweets, @ replies, direct messages and marking the ad as a favorite tweet.

Share and Enjoy