The Internet is an easier sell these days, but spam and ad size issues need be resolved.

Michael Teitelbaum is president of Eisner Interactive, a division of Eisner Communications, a full-service Mid-Atlantic marketing/communications firm. Teitelbaum has been helping organizations develop and implement Internet marketing strategies since 1995. He started the Internet marketing division for Eisner Communication in 2001, to meet the increasing need for integrating clients' Internet marketing with overall marketing efforts.

iMediaConnection: What's your biggest frustration these days?

Teitelbaum: The people in my department wear lots of hats. We don’t currently have the luxury of a specialist in search marketing, affiliate marketing, email marketing, etc. We all have a broad range of expertise in each area. That makes our lives more varied and therefore more interesting. However, it is a near-term goal to have specialists leading each area to allow for the upcoming growth we anticipate.

iMediaConnection: What's easier this year than last?

Teitelbaum: It is easier to convince clients about the need to incorporate the Web into their overall marketing strategy.

iMediaConnection: What’s one of the most successful branding campaigns your company has executed recently, and what made it successful?

Teitelbaum: One of the goals at US Airways is to grow sales channel share for USAirways.com. While a lot of our efforts have been direct-response oriented (fare sales etc.), we recently launched an initiative to make people aware of the benefits of booking directly at US Airways.com. The campaign was successful because it was a clear, concise message that was integrated with offline efforts.

iMediaConnection: What’s one of the most successful direct response campaigns your company has executed recently, and what made it successful?

Teitelbaum: Holabird Sports is a nationally-known athletic shoe and racquet equipment mail order company that developed an ecommerce Web presence about five years ago. Prior to us getting involved about two and a half years ago, 20 percent of the company's business was Internet vs. 80 percent mail order. Through the use of search marketing, shopping comparison sites and CPA programs, we have increased Internet to 50 percent of their business while improving their overall business. What made it successful is sticking to a consistent message of 20 percent to 50 percent everyday savings, and carefully monitoring results and optimizing accordingly.

iMediaConnection: You mentioned using search for Holabird Sports. Are you working with search and Local search link to local search piece? for many of your clients? Why? And how's it going?

Teitelbaum: We do quite a bit of work with sponsored search and paid inclusion. It has been very successful for every company with which we've worked. The key is to identify those terms that indicate that someone is pre-disposed to purchase your product/service, developing titles and descriptions that further filter out just those qualified prospects, and then monitoring conversion rates and effective CPA to optimize bids and search terms. We have done a little experimenting in local search, but this is not yet fully built out by Google and Overture.

iMediaConnection: What are you telling your clients about rich media?

Teitelbaum: Rich media has the benefit of generating more impact, as well as enriching the ability to deliver a more meaningful message. It certainly delivers better CTR, but that doesn’t necessarily translate to a better conversion rate.

iMediaConnection: Are you having issues with Terms and Conditions?

Teitelbaum: One of the primary issues we have with terms and conditions is sequential liability. Ninety percent of the publishers acknowledge it … but a few are stubborn about it. Another issue is with ad-serving discrepancies. Again, 90 percent of publishers will bill against third-party numbers like AtlasDMT, but some insist on making us pay for up to 10 percent discrepancy. We factor that into the negotiation on price.

iMediaConnection: Are you working with your clients' non-interactive agencies? How are you perceived -- as a partner or still as an oddity?

Teitelbaum: We are a division of a full-service agency. Even with that, we spent the first year and a half year doing as much selling inside the building as outside the building. Over the last year in particular, we’ve made significant progress in truly integrating with the traditional side of the house.

iMediaConnection: What remains the industry’s biggest stumbling block?

Teitelbaum: Spam needs to be dealt with, so that legitimate permission-based email marketing can be more effective. The industry also needs to identify the most impactful ad units that don’t annoy consumers. We then need to rally behind those ad units to make them standards. Large on-page ad units seem to make the most sense.

iMediaConnection: What are you reading these days?

Teitelbaum: Besides RFPs? AdAge, Adweek, MediaPost Media, DMNews, Wall Street Journal, Business 2.0.