It was spring semester of 2006.  I was writing my mid-term paper for college when my friend came rushing into my room to tell me all about this website she had just signed up for.  But this wasn’t just any ordinary website.  This website required you to have a college email to sign up.  College kids connecting with other college kids?  I was hooked!  I was connecting with people I haven’t been in contact with for years, friends that moved to other states for college… little did I know that this was going to change the way the world used technology… wait, scratch that! This was the beginning of a whole new Online Marketing opportunity and era!

What was once just a way to keep in contact with friends from other colleges, quickly expanded into a way to keep in contact with anyone who had an internet connection. An ad free website that all of a sudden had ad units… wait, I love shopping at that store! How does Facebook know this?  Simple.  They use Retargeting.  And you mean to tell me if I “like” your Facebook page I will get a discount code that I can use on my next purchase? LIKE!  I need to let everyone know about this!  I have to tweet this!  Of course I need to make sure that I pin this to Pinterest- I can’t forget Instagram too! #youreallyneedtobuythis.  In a matter of 10 seconds I have just accomplished what Advertisers, Publishers, Affiliates and Bloggers all over the world want… I am promoting their product and increasing traffic to their sites all within just a few clicks and a few friends to share my posts with! Pretty genius, right?

Social Media use continues to increase.  Everyone and anyone you come in contact with from all over the world has one form or another of a social feed incorporated into their daily lives.  But why?  Whether you’re the college student trying to sell that birthday gift grandma thought would look cute on you or the super creative, artistic stay-at-home mommy that decided to open a store front on Etsy, Social Media is a way to promote an idea that can also potentially earn you money.  Welcome to Online Marketing!

Nowadays, most of our communication is done via technology.  So it only makes sense that Bed, Bath and Beyond sends you a 20% off coupon to your email or you opt-in to receive notifications when your favorite airline is running a special on flights to Las Vegas.  What drives advertisers to send these emails?  How do they reach such a broad audience?  How are third parties getting credit for sending these emails?  Give credit where credit is due- and who better to receive that credit than our very own CAKE clients!

My day is filled with testing offers, tracking campaigns, and at times staring at pixels wondering why those little things have a mind of their own!  Not one day is the same as the day before nor will it be the same as the next.  All of my clients have different business models, different ways of promoting Offers and different ways of steering users (people like you and I) to websites or online products.  But one common theme seems to surface among all CAKE clients- that click that turned into a conversion came from a user who saw an image on a Facebook newsfeed, a link in an email from their Gmail account or even an update from that connection that you know from that group you just joined on LinkedIn… all forms of Social Media Marketing that can be tracked in CAKE!

So how does CAKE fit into all of this?  At CAKE, we help you track and analyze the performance of any of those campaigns with a feature-rich technology to track those campaigns in ways that are best suited for your specific business. We can help you target your online audience in a specific location with our geo-targeting features and tools.  CAKE can send mobile users to mobile optimized Offers and web users to web based Offers (sometimes these two just need a little space and separation from each other!) CAKE can also track and manage your online Offers that you posted on your business Facebook page this morning or the one that you sent out in a mass email to everyone you know (or knows someone that you know that knows that person too!)- We like to call these, Campaigns… a little 1:1 love in the form of traffic that is going on between Affiliates and Offers! I can go on and on about how CAKE fits perfectly into the Social Media and Online Marketing world- but I figure I should leave some fun facts and details for our savvy and fabulous sales team! And who knows… if you decide that you want CAKE to help manage and track your Social Media ideas and turn all of your Online Marketing dreams into Performance Marketing dreams come true… then we can continue this conversation if I become your designated Account Manager at CAKE! Till next time… Happy Social Media Online Marketing!