Kosher Ham's Jewdar Tell-All

Originally published in MediaPost's Social Media Insider

 

It&39;s
one of the most critical, controversial issues of our time. It&39;s been the subject
of more
columns
than MySpace. Even the Talmud, the great repository of Jewish debate and
wisdom, is at a loss to comment on it. Yes, in what&39;s undoubtedly the greatest
miracle since the time the Maccabees kept their temple menorah burning with a
small jar of oil, the gift of Jewdar continues to shed light on how marketers
are targeting their ads.

I&39;ve wanted to return to this for months, ever since Jeremy Bloom
reached out to me in August about his business KosherHam.com,
a humorous T-shirt site that claims, "Wearing anything else just isn&39;t
kosher." He even noted that my
new BFF Perez Hilton has been spotted in his gear.

I was intrigued when Bloom said that he&39;s been honing his Jewdar – in
this context, the act of targeting Jews through advertising, specifically on
Facebook – and that he&39;d be willing to share all his secrets with me. He wrote,
"I am constantly behaviorally targeting&0160;different demos, but the most
receptive audiences with some of the&0160;highest click-through rates and
lowest CPMs seem to be Jews." He tests religiously, trying different
subject lines, ad copy, targeting, and models and T-shirts in the photos.

He&39;s able to reach Jews largely through the keywords field in
Facebook&39;s self-service ads that target users based on their interests.
Facebook won&39;t target users by religion specifically, but if they list
"Jewish" or Jews" as interests, they&39;re fair game. Bloom further
targets users in major cities with large Jewish populations. This will
inherently mean some non-Jews see the ads — but hey, they&39;re welcome to buy
shirts too.

So what keywords does Bloom use to find Jews? The eclectic roster
includes: Jew, Jewish, Hebrew, Israel, Hillel, Sigma Alpha Mu, Zeta Beta Tau,
Annie Hall, Brooklyn, bagels, deli, Chinese food, Matisyahu, Phish, jam bands,
being Jewish, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Adam Sandler, Seth Rogen, Seinfeld, Hebrew
Hammer, Heeb Magazine, and Fiddler on the Roof. If you don&39;t know what some of
these mean or what they have to do with Judaism, you&39;re probably out of the
target demographic.

After perusing the list, I wondered how some of these would do
head to head. Bloom indulged me and ran some trials in four different brackets:
City, Comedian, Cuisine, and Music. Bids were set at 34 cents CPM. The top
performing ads were those with the highest click-through rate (CTR) and lowest cost-per-click
(CPC). And the winners are…

Bracket 1

City: New York vs. Los Angeles

Subject Lines: NY Jews Love Kosherham, LA Jews Love Kosherham

Winner: LA gets the Oscar, with 18% CTR and 16 cents CPC, coasting
past NY&39;s 12% CTR and 23 cents CPC.

Bracket 2

Comedian: Seinfeld vs. Woody Allen

Subject Lines: Seinfeld Fans Love Us, Woody Allen Fans Love Us

Winner: Woody Allen kvetches up the clicks, with 33% CTR and 8
cents CPC, while Seinfeld&39;s 13% CTR and 21 cents CPC showed signs of shrinkage.

Bracket 3

Cuisine: Bagels vs. Deli

Subject Lines: Shirts for Bagel Fanatics, Shirts for Deli Fanatics

Winner: Bagels win by a shmear, with 13% CTR and 19 cents CPC,
overstuffing Deli&39;s tournament-worst 6% CTR and 44 cents CPC.

Bracket 4

Music: Phish vs. Matisyahu

Subject Lines: Shirts for Phish Fans, Shirts for Matisyahu Fans

Winner: Phish hoists
up its tournament-best 55% and 5 cent CPC, out-jamming Matisyahu&39;s 27% CTR and
10 cent CPC.

I asked Bloom if he could explain why Phish has so much mazel in hooking
Phacebook — er, Facebook — users. He cited a number of reasons: the right age
demographic, the loyal Phish fan base of liberal Jews, and the shared interests
in certain botanical exploits reflected
in Kosher Ham&39;s apparel.

More importantly, I asked about conversion rates. It&39;s great to
get a lot of clicks, but do Jews on Facebook convert? (It&39;s just getting too
easy, sorry.) He says he was able to track a couple sales from the Phish ads
directly, and he also notices spikes when running ads from people who go
directly to KosherHam.com or search for it. With search, Google has performed
especially well, as has AIM Search — Boom thinks people find shirts they like
and share them via instant message.

So it turns out Jewdar is a little easier to understand than the
Zohar, Maimonedes&39; "Guide to the Perplexed," and my fourth-grade
Hebrew teacher&39;s accent. And it&39;s not foolproof, as there are probably a few
Woody Allen fans in New York who didn&39;t go to a Jewish sleepaway camp. But if a
guy can start a site called KosherHam and sell T-shirts about getting the
munchies for unleavened bread to Jewish Phish fans on Facebook, I&39;ve got to
think he&39;s on to something.