Online works best in conjunction with other media, says this Senior Manager.

David Collins is Senior Manager, DIRECTV. With combined experience that spans over ten years in areas including catalogues, mail lists, direct mail and online direct response marketing, Collins is a smart direct marketer with a reputation for building sales. Brought in to plan, build and grow the customer acquisition arm of DIRECTV.com into a competitive force, the tireless effort proved to be a success when Collins launched this channel of the site in 2002. Since then, he has developed it into the largest online DIRECTV dealer in the country. 

iMedia: How has the media mix changed for you over the last few years? Is online still "an afterthought" or are campaigns, for the most part, conceived of in an integrated fashion from the get go? Or are you somewhere in between?

Collins: We are in between -- a number of elements that work well in print for us do not execute well online, so we choose select elements that we use for both to keep a familiar look/feel while the rest is unique. 

iMedia: What was your most successful online or integrated campaign recently and what made it successful?

Collins: Permission based email has been our recent success story -- clear and clean appearance, and offer were the major contributing factors. Online marketing is not a hit or miss -- it is a refining science.

iMedia: What is the greatest benefit of online advertising? The ability to measure? Precisely target? Gather data? Something else?

Collins: Measurement and targeting are critical. It means everything.

iMedia: What still frustrates you most about online advertising? What can be done to improve the situation?

Collins: Changing the buy mid-stream to optimize can sometimes be difficult -- e.g. slow response on behalf of advertising sites. Having a direct interface into the available inventory on site "X" to manage directly could be very helpful. There are lots of issues around this, but it's an idea that is worth exploring.

iMedia: Are you doing any behavioral targeting? If yes, please describe.

Collins: No

iMedia: Are you being affected by any consumer-generated marketing (CGM) -- blogs, user groups, etc.? Are you using any blogs or other social networking tools to market?

Collins: Yes, we are being affected, and are experimenting.

iMedia: Have you found agencies to be able to handle your changing interactive/integrated needs? What could still be better?

Collins: Largely they are able to handle it. Interestingly enough and not surprising, the "tier 2" agencies that are privately held seem to offer the best performance for the dollar.

iMedia: Have you done much with wireless, iTV or other emerging mediums?

Collins: Nothing yet. Those mediums are still new enough that the standards and technology needs to be improved before I would be willing to engage them as viable channels

iMedia: It's the beginning of a new year. What do you hope to accomplish this year?

Collins: We need to really crack the code on a few marketing vehicles. I know they can pay out, it's just figuring out how (again, it's a science).

iMedia: What are you reading these days, other than iMediaConnection.com, of course?

Collins: Forbes and the Wall Street Journal continue to be my main publications of choice; DM News is a good scan.