We’ve all done it – interacted with a machine on a street corner in order to gain access to some physical currency.  Everyone knows the process:

• Select your language (I personally select randomly to mix it up a little)
• Enter PIN (glance over your shoulder to make sure your friend isn’t peeking)
• Select transaction type
• Select account
• Indicate amount (grumble about the increments and/or limits)
• Agree to fee (does anyone stop at this point?)
• The machine wishes you a happy birthday
• Your cash is provided below

Yes, I know, most of us don’t expect our ATM machine to wish us a happy birthday, let alone break the standard protocol that we’ve all become accustomed to over the years. But this seems to be the case with Wells Fargo ATMs, as a friend pointed out to me recently. I thought this was pretty cool and so did he – enough to tell me and most likely a dozen other people about it.

So I poked around to see what else Wells Fargo is doing across other interactive platforms and found the start of a well executed Twitter communication strategy. It seems, for whatever reason, that Wells Fargo had the internal foresight to grab their @WellsFargo account as early as April 2007, but have yet to tweet more than 5 times since April 2007. The bio on that account states “We’re holding our name for now, but hope to participate soon”.

On the other hand, Wells Fargo has another Twitter account, @ask_WellsFargo, with 6 Wells Fargo employees taking turns at the helm. The six are using short signatures on their tweets to indicate who is tweeting. (i.e. ^SS)

I’ve helped implement what seems to be simple social/interactive elements like this into companies big and small – so I can only imagine the amount of politics and coordination that went into both examples of Wells Fargo embracing technology and social trends to create a bond with their customers. I’ll definitely be keeping an eye on them, although it would take much more than that to get me to switch banks from USAA. (big fan)

I just read an article by Mike Moran, the author of one of my favorite search engine marketing books, Search Engine Marketing, Inc. I had an opportunity to meet Mike after a speaking engagement a few years ago – his well organized, common sense approach to SEM has really shaped my thinking of the channel.

The article, titled “Economy Down and Google Up“, opened by pointing out Google’s recent revenue gains and moved on to a topic that is actually becoming very apparent in my own experiences lately. I’ve been working with a traditional broadcast media agency and can clearly see the shift in budgets to more performance-based interactive channels. I believe that it is a combination of multitudes of marketers finally “getting” interactive media and, as Mike’s article points out, the slowed economy which causes businesses to look for the most efficient means to reach their audience. I’m not one to complain.

Today I received an email from Google AdSense regarding the “retirement” of the AdSense Referrals Program. The program, which allowed publishers to use referral ads to promote Google products directly or 3rd party offers from AdWords advertisers. The email mentioned that Google AdSense Referral codes will no longer display ads beginning the last week of August, creating a lot of work for individuals participating in Google’s initial attempt at pay-for-performance marketing.

The email mentioned that Google AdSense Referral codes will no longer display ads beginning the last week of August, creating a lot of work for individuals participating in Google’s initial attempt at pay-for-performance marketing.

This does not come as a surprise, as Google was inevitably going to utilize DoubleClick’s affiliate platform (DoubleClick Performics) for it’s pay-for-performance offering. As a result, DoubleClick’s Affiliate Network will now operate as the “Google Affiliate Network”. I would imagine that with better resources and reporting, the Google Affiliate Network will become a force to be reckoned with. I personally found the outgoing AdSense Referral Program a bit quirky and lacking cohesiveness.
The actual email that I received reads:

Hello,

Thank you for participating in the AdSense Referrals program.
We’re writing to let you know that we will be retiring the AdSense
Referrals program during the last week of August. We appreciate
your patience during this transition and here are some alternative
options to consider:

* Google Affiliate Network: As part of the integration of
DoubleClick, the DoubleClick Performics Affiliate Network will now
operate as the Google Affiliate Network for advertisers targeting
users located in the United States. Similar to the AdSense
Referrals program, the Google Affiliate Network enables publishers
to apply for advertiser programs and get paid based on
advertiser-defined actions instead of clicks or impressions. For
further details, please visit:
www.google.com/ads/affiliatenetwork.
* AdSense for content ads: If you have less than three AdSense
for content ad units on a page, you may wish to replace the
referral ad units with standard AFC ad units.

If you currently use referral ads, either to promote Google
products or offerings from AdWords advertisers, AdSense Referrals
code will no longer display ads beginning the last week of August.
We encourage you to take the following steps before the product is
retired:

* Remove the referral code from your site(s): Please take a
moment to remove all referral code from your sites before the last
week of August, so you can continue to effectively monetize your
ad space.
* Run and save all referrals reports on your desktop: Create
and save all reports related to the referrals program on your
desktop, so you continue to have access to your valuable campaign
information

Why is this happening?
We’re constantly looking for ways to improve AdSense by developing
and supporting features which drive the best monetization results
for our publishers. Sometimes, this requires retiring existing
features so we can focus our efforts on the ones that will be most
effective in the long term. For this reason, we will be retiring
the AdSense Referrals program. If you have any additional
questions, please visit our Help Center:
http://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/topic.py?topic=14882

Sincerely.

The Google AdSense Team