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Innovation | Marketing

The Weather Company’s JOURNEYfx location-based ads see the bigger picture

Geo-targeted advertising is not new, but The Weather Company has always taken its own unique path due to its ability to collect a raft of highly-specific, location-related information. Add into that a parent company, IBM, with a focus on cognitive computing and it comes as no surprise that Weather’s latest entrant into the digital ad market, JOURNEYfx, goes well beyond location to offer a smarter kind of targeting.

Think of it like this: Previously, location-based advertising was targeted based on where you’ve been—say at a coffee shop last week. Since you’d been at a coffee shop, it seems appropriate to send you ads for premium coffee spots when you are in the vicinity. However, Domenic Venuto, General Manager, Consumer Division at The Weather Company points out that “you might have just gone in once—for a sandwich.” Not only would this targeting prove ineffective for the advertiser, the ads would likely annoy the consumer, with whom The Weather Company has a particularly intimate and trust-dependent relationship.

Based upon its ability to capture, combine and analyze the vast amount of data from The Weather Company’s 87 million monthly mobile users, JOURNEYfx changes the usual targeting scenario because it is able to “understand rituals, consumers’ patterns of behavior, and the best time to market in order to influence that behavior.” Thus, those premium coffee ads are served to someone who hits the coffee shop every morning between the gym and the office. Factor in the weather and JOURNEYfx will know whether to make it an ad for an iced coffee or a pumpkin spiced latte.

In an even more compelling example, Venuto describes an automotive shopper (who research tells us has almost always decided which car they’ll by before they turn up at a showroom). Between the first party data collected (you’ve been to two car lots in the past two week) and weather-specific information (it’s going to be sunny this weekend), and the data analysis of IBM’s Watson, JOURNEYfx can predict with an 80% degree of certainty that this shopper is going to buy a car this weekend. So now’s the time to serve up ads that will influence that purchase decision.

Venuto says that “one of the many benefits of acquisition by IBM is they get our data and platform and we get the scale and capabilities of IBM.” In particular, he cites IBM’s commitment to research and its focus on cognitive computing.

The union is impacting many aspects of Weather’s business beyond advertising, which is likely to become more apparent as voice- and intelligent-assistants such as Amazon Echo become increasingly popular. Venuto says that the company is using Watson at the data level and the weather forecasting level. It is also impacting the consumer experience because Watson “allows consumers to engage with our products using natural language—which affects our consumer product strategy.”

First and foremost, Venuto says The Weather Company remains focused on providing a product that “adds value to our consumers’ lives.” It also takes a measured approach to personalization that, according to Venuto, has seen that the highest engagement for advertising across every category comes when its contextually relevant. And that, he points out, is not something every provider of location based advertising can say. “If a consumer is using your product and says ‘hey wait a minute, why do they want to know where I am?’ because it isn’t an organic fit with the app, you are going to have some problems.”

Venuto describes The Weather Company’s relationship with its consumers as being a deeply engrained part of their daily ritual: Millions of consumers grab their phones to check the weather before they even get out of bed and check in again several times a day—more if severe weather will affect them or their loved ones. A unique and highly personal category of information that allows JOURNEYfx to identify patterns in consumer behavior throughout a given day, week and year and then serve up ads that anticipate their needs.

Marketing | Perspectives

Facebook did the digital publishing industry a favor

For more than a decade, desktop pre-roll video has been the one safe ad format for publishers facing a market full of ad products with declining CPMs. TV-based digital properties have prospered while those lacking video content have struggled to participate in this lucrative market. With the shift to mobile, however, the game is changing for everyone – but in a positive way for once.

While Facebook is seldom viewed as a solution to publishers’ revenue woes, it has done the digital publishing industry a big favor with its video ad products. Rather than adopt the pre-roll ad model, Facebook adopted an inline video product optimized for mobile and convinced advertisers it is as valuable as pre-roll.

For years, in-banner video on desktop was considered inferior to pre-roll largely because the video ads were disassociated from video content. Using its market leadership, Facebook was able to decouple video ads from video content while overcoming the perception that inline video ads were worth less than pre-roll. If a user watches a video ad, does it matter what they watch or read next? The enormous success of Facebook video has proven it doesn’t.

For digital publishers, with or without video content, this shift in ad buyer perception has created a massive opportunity to participate in video ad market. A number of ad tech companies and publishers themselves have responded with new video ad formats that run independent of video content and are optimized for mobile – outstream.

Outstream video advertising is defined by the IAB as anything that takes place outside of in-stream video content, which includes native video, in-feed video, in-article/read video, in-banner video, and interstitial video. Outstream solves for pre-roll’s shortcomings on mobile by providing a better user experience-a thumb-friendly, mobile-first ad format-while opening up premium video inventory.

Rather than running in fixed ad positions on story pages, some outstream ads appear dynamically within the page body, causing the content to split above and below the ad.  While the page separation may be a little annoying for some users, frequency controls can regulate the how many ads appear on a page or are served to the same user. When no ad is served, there is no ad position on the page, providing a superior user experience and eliminating low quality, low priced remnant ads.

BuyingOutstreamThe outstream market is established enough to provide publishers with the confidence to adopt the format, but still new enough to command a premium. Last month, Mixpo surveyed 68 advertisers and agencies and found that 27% of advertisers and agencies currently buy outstream ads, with another 18% planning on buying next year, with premium inventory being cited as the top benefit the format provides. While adoption isn’t yet widespread, 71% of advertisers and agencies see the adoption of outstream video ads increasing in the next year. Digital ad spend is projected to surpass TV this year, but with the continued hunger for video and a new crop of video ad formats popping up, we can expect to see the shift from TV ad spend to digital faster than expected, into formats outside of pre-roll.

Mobile users on tight data budgets have driven the rise of ad blockers to avoid the literal cost of watching a pre-roll video ad. Recent stats from eMarketer show that 30% of ad blocker use is specifically to block pre-roll video ads. Outstream helps publishers improve the video ad experience by enabling users to simply scroll past the ad, with the video stopping when the ad passes from view. Importantly, the outstream ad is not forced in front of the content, but stats can be collected to show advertisers how many users watched the entire ad.

While pre-roll’s position is safe, outstream will provide the inventory to absorb the unmet demand for video advertising. The two will soon rival for the most valued video ad format on the web.

Charlie (@ctillinghast) is a strategic and resonant leader with over 30 years of industry and management experience at start-ups, large corporations, and joint ventures.  Prior to becoming Mixpo’s President and CEO, Charlie served on the Mixpo Board of Directors for two years. Charlie held management positions at MSNBC Interactive News (msnbc.com), the last eight as President and CEO of the former joint venture between Microsoft and NBC News.

Industry-Research | Marketing

Brands and agencies struggle with the pros and cons of walled garden advertising strategies

In what seems to be a timely intersection with the furor over rebates, fraud, and lack of transparency in the online advertising community, a recent survey from Deloitte, Industry Index, and Flashtalking “Confined by the Garden Walls” highlights the increasingly volatile but interdependent relationship between the biggest advertisers and walled platforms – namely, Google and Facebook. Its findings “illustrate the disconnect between what clients want from their advertising platforms and what they can expect to get.”

WalledFig1Despite the fact that rebate issue continues to get regular coverage by major media outlets like The Wall Street Journal and Ad Age, few advertisers are rushing to openly join the conversation. In the same vein, conclusions from the study highlight the ongoing struggle to understand the dramatic contradictions at play. To wit: While “only 22% of brands noted discomfort with Google’s data policies,” at the same time, “95% think data transparency at a user level is important or very important.”

While it’s easy to highlight the obvious conflicts at work here, making sense of the situation is more nuanced. Our take:

  • Consolidated Market Conditions Dramatically Favor Digital Giants. In Q1 of this year, Google and Facebook combined to realize 85% of online advertising market share. So it’s not surprising that the two companies don’t have to negotiate terms and conditions much. This situation won’t persist forever – with Bing investing significantly in its platform, and Verizon’s acquisitions of AOL and Yahoo! expected to impact the marketplace – but it’ll continue to be a bumpy couple of years for large digital advertisers, absent of significant regulatory changes, which seem unlikely.
  • The “Lure of Ease” Has Very Strong Appeal. Few brands have been able to construct digital marketing operations over the past decade that can provide the requisite scale. This will happen in due course, as “marketers at top brands have long realized that to own your customers you have to own your data”. And they’re investing furiously in marketing infrastructure to get there. In the meantime, they need to continue to nurture uneasy alliances with the digital behemoths in order to feed their own massive marketing engines.
  • Even With Challenges, Digital Preferable to Alternatives. Sure, brands are forecast to spend a smidge more on digital advertising this year than TV, for the first time, to capture $72 billion (36.8% share) in the U.S. marketplace – which is forecast to total $195 billion in 2016. But that means they will spend more than $120 billion on TV, radio, print, and out-of-home – all of which are generally considered to be inferior when it comes to ROI precision or user data access.
  • Alternatives Do Exist, But Require Work. Without question, Google and Facebook offer incomparable digital advertising scale and targeting – one-stop shopping at previously unimaginable heights. And their brands are of course blue chips, and no one appreciates top brands like marketers do. But taking a scrappy approach to digital marketing can pay dividends. Going off-brand allows advertisers to strike better deals, and not just lower prices, but also much greater transparency and data control. This is approach requires legwork and explanation up-and-across the organization about avoiding the recognizable brands, and might not even perform as well in the final analysis, but in some (possibly many) situations, a beat-up pickup truck can do the job almost as well as a shiny new Cadillac – and for a fraction of the cost.

    BourgeoisTim Bourgeois (@ChiefDigOfficer) is a partner at East Coast Catalyst, a Boston-based digital consulting company specializing in working with clients on strategic roadmaps, digital marketing audits, and online marketing optimization programs.

 

Marketing | Perspectives

Seeing the data for the trees: Overarching themes from Advertising Week

Pictured: (from left to right) Simon Whitcombe, Group Director, Global Marketing Solutions, Facebook | Jen McIsaac, VP, Retail Partnerships, Oracle Data Cloud | Paul Jankauskas, General Manager and Chief Revenue Officer, Verifone Media | Christopher Heine, Technology Editor, Adweek

I won’t lie: My positive experience at Advertising Week wasn’t that different from previous years. But, when you consider the magnitude and impact of an event such as this, that’s really no small feat.

Whether it’s brushing shoulders with some of the greatest minds in the industry, or gaining a pulse for significant topics—be they bubbling under the surface and overflowing within every category in the marketplace—there’s value to be lifted from the experience. Advertising Week is ultimately the place where crucial conversations take place in real-time about the real challenges we’re presented with at this particular moment in digital.

Nothing could be more advantageous.

The live performances weren’t anything to scoff at either, with musical acts from the likes of De La Soul, Common, The Roots, and Sting. Entertainment and networking aside, my focus was getting to the bottom of the massive data explosion in the industry and better understanding its grip on media companies, agencies, publishers, and marketers alike.

Getting on the Right Side of the Data Track
At Outbrain, a growing number of our internal marketing initiatives are being driven by data-supported research. And as a recommendation network that is powered by its own sophisticated algorithms, it has always been important for us to communicate the value of that data on both the brand side and media company side.

While more data is a huge opportunity, it is not without its complexities and challenges. This past week, our own struggles with data were echoed by leaders in the industry and solidified into some key themes:

1. Solving for Too Much Data Involves a Simplified Approach

With this new level of granularity, data is changing the conventions of how many brands have been built up until today. More importantly, it has raised a glaring issue, which was shared across panelists who have represented and worked alongside many legacy brands, including Jon Suarez-Davis, Chief Marketing and Strategy Officer at Krux Digital:

“We’ve put together dumb pipes. And It’s not about putting in smarter dumb pipes, it’s about changing the system entirely.”

First, there needs to be a much deeper understanding of how the data has changed. Second, while data is now far more actionable than ever before, we can’t lose sight of how it drives business. This means applying clear objectives.

That’s because data can mean a lot of different things. From a user ID, to post campaign analysis, or, in our case, the consumption patterns of how audiences are interacting with our content across publisher sites.

The trick, according to Julie Fleischer, Managing Director of OMD, is simplicity and focus:

“The key is keeping an eye on what I’m trying to understand, what the best measurement approach available is, and what that mean in terms of whether it’s a complete or partial view. We need to stop looking at data as an answer, but more as an input to what we do. If we challenge where the flaws in measurement are, we can get to a better understanding of how to fill those gaps.”

When it comes to the data explosion, the challenge—and goal—is to find the metrics which are most indicative of wins and learn to measure what matters.

2. We Need to Put Data in the Hands of the Right People

A multitude of data types means a multitude of applications and outputs for data. And with that, a variety of potential business objectives that impact a variety of different stakeholders—whether it is informing product decisions, leading creative decisions, or driving better customer journey’s within the context of the content funnel.

Yet, currently, organizations struggle with interpreting and communicating all the data they now have at their disposal. Many are noticing a major talent gap when it comes to making their data actionable, due to poor cross-department translation and communication.

Charlie Chappell, Head of Media and Advertising at The Hershey Company, declared, “We need to get much more comfortable with much more data. We have to make that transition.”

Global Director of Business, Jeffrey Rossi shared similar sentiments about how data is used at Spotify, stating, “It’s not about just using data. It’s about living data. For us, the data goes into driving a product, we can market ourselves with data, and have conversations with data. It can’t be some jenky add on.”

So, while the digital advertising ecosystem is currently built to solve individual problems, we all need a much deeper understanding of the big picture to change the entire infrastructure of what we do. That means teaching up current talent and scouting the right new hires.

The only way to do it is to learn it.

3. Targeting for the Entire Dartboard and not Just the Bullseye

It’s easy to get swept up in the promise of reaching the right consumer on the right platform at the right time with the right message through data-enabled microtargeting but these insights don’t always live up to the hype. A real problem has been an over-reliance on these targeting capabilities as we try to lead with precision first. At the end of the day, though, context still matters.

In fact, that’s a large part of why Outbrain has been working with brands to better sequence the experience consumers have with their content. Overall, as an industry, we need to be thinking more holistically. Rather than just considering how we’re going to reach consumers, we need to invest in understanding all of the different touch points within the customer journey and create value for consumers at every point.


In the words of Tamara Alesi, Managing Partner and Integrated Planning Strategy at Mediacom, “You don’t always have to use the data on the front end, but to get smarter on the back end. That’s where you see your ROI.”

Looking Forward
As marketers and brands we sometimes get lost in our own worlds and forget about how our data impacts the customer experience. In order for us to not completely silo ourselves or our data; events like Advertising Week help center our work.

This week and fresh into Q4, we can all take these learnings and focus on innovation as well as better empowering the audiences we cater to online. In the quarter ahead, we will need to discipline ourselves when it comes to our data—focusing on how we want to use it and how it impacts our customers. Otherwise, all our data and tech is ultimately useless.

Eric_Hadley_Outbrain_GlobalMarketingHeadEric Hadley (@erichad) serves as Head of Global Marketing at Outbrain (@outbrain). He joined Outbrain in 2015, and is responsible for the company’s global go-to market strategy and for driving strategic value and large scale opportunities with its premium brand and agency partners. Hadley has over 20 years of experience in marketing leadership positions in consumer, media and technology companies. Previously, he served as Head of Partner Marketing at Pinterest leading the social network’s agency outreach organization. Prior to his work for Pinterest, he held roles at Yahoo, The Weather Channel, and Microsoft. While at Microsoft, he was involved in the launch of its search engine, Bing.

Industry-Research | Marketing

Social media revenue trends register mix results

Top social media platforms registered strong revenue gains in Q2 2016, however, CPM increases varied according to the Salesforce Advertising Index Report for Q2 2016. Further, growth in mobile usage contributed to an overall increase in mobile’s share of revenue among social media platforms.

Facebook, often referred to as the king of social media, reported $6.4 billion in total revenue with a 59% year-over-year increase and $6.2 billion in ad revenue with a 63% increase year-over-year in Q2 2016. Mobile ad revenue for Facebook accounted for 84% of total ad revenue. Further, Facebook’s global CPM at $6.33 for Q2 2016 increased 65% from a year ago. CPM growth ranked highest in France and Canada at 130% followed by the U.S at 70% year-over-year.

InstagramCPMInstagram’s mobile footprint is strong as well. Instagram users identify mobile as their most important device for getting online. In Q2 2016, Instagram’s global CPM registered at $6.30, an increase of 42% quarter-over-quarter.

Twitter reported total revenue of $602 million, a 20% increase year-over-year. Their advertising revenue totaled $535 million, an increase of 18% year-over-year. Twitter’s mobile advertising revenue accounted for 89% of total advertising revenue. Interestingly, while total advertising revenues increased, their global CPM at $4.29 declined by18% compared to a year ago.

LinkedIn’s Global CPM for Q2 2016 was $20.43, a 13% increase year over year.  LinkedIn is known as a strong B2B platform with 60% of its total revenue generated from sponsored content.

Social media delivers a large and dedicated audience for advertisers, especially on mobile devices. Just as social networks drive mobile advertising’s growth, mobile drives advertising on social networks. Social media also continues to evolve with the addition of LIVE and VR playground to further build more immersive content and new opportunities to engage consumers.

Wings and Halo
Industry-Research | Marketing | Press | Press Release

Video Ads On Premium Publishers’ Sites Yield 68% Higher Brand Lift

New findings build on comScore’s “The Halo Effect” independent research

New York, NY—(September 27, 2016)—Digital Content Next (DCN) today released new findings it commissioned from comScore’s July 2016 research, “The Halo Effect”. The follow-up analysis of the original data found that video ads served on premium sites yielded 68% higher brand lift than video on non-premium sites and drove even higher brand lift when looking at sales funnel brand metrics. Overall, DCN sites outperformed non-DCN sites by 176%.

Additional findings from the follow-up study:

  • Gender: Ads on premium publisher sites had an overall stronger impact on men however women were particularly responsive to ads for mid-funnel metrics including brand consideration, brand loyalty, category usage intent, category favorability, brand favorability and recommendation intent.
  • Household Income: Households with an income of $75K or less showed more brand lift at the mid-funnel phase and households with an income of more than $75K, generated an average lift at one impression over two times the magnitude of a non-premium publisher.
  • Millennials: video ads on premium publisher sites are almost twice as effective with millennials.

“We wanted to dig further into the results of comScore’s ‘The Halo Effect’ research to understand brand lift for different demos and for video advertising in particular,” said DCN CEO Jason Kint. “We now have further proof that advertising on premium publisher sites drives higher brand lift for both display and video advertising.”

Key findings from comScore’s initial “The Halo Effect” research confirmed that the contextual environment in which the ad exposure occurs is an important driver of more than 50% higher effectiveness, and also showed:

  • Display ads on DCN publisher sites had an average of 67% higher brand lift than non-DCN publishers, confirming that premium sites deliver premium performance.
  • Premium publishers are 3x more effective in driving mid-funnel brand lift metrics, such as favorability, consideration and intent to recommend.
  • Premium publisher effectiveness is driven in part by higher viewability rates, which include lower levels of invalid traffic.
Marketing | Perspectives

Publishers need automation, too

Digital advertising has been a boon for brands. Automation technologies allow them to hone in on their exact audiences, and—quite literally—cherry pick the impressions for their campaigns. Want to target East coast moms with high household incomes who’ve visited your site within the past two weeks but only pay for impressions that we in view? No problem! Solutions are available and ready to help. And thanks to their big budgets, VC-funded technologists have rushed in, developing new tools to help brands and agencies optimize every component of their campaigns. Publishers, on the other hand, have been the technologist’s afterthought.

For years, publishers have been at the mercy of advertiser demands, who’ve forced the digital publishing industry to adapt to big changes that dramatically affect their bottom lines. Unfortunately, they’ve done so without the technology or automation to help make it happen (although header-bidding just may be the big exception to this). As a result, they’ve seen serious risks to their yield.

This is an urgent issue. The industry can’t continue to benefit one side of the market—the advertiser—without equally benefiting the other—the publisher. Markets function best when all players benefit equally. It’s fair to say that the digital advertising market isn’t functioning as well as it could be, and that as an industry, we must focus on providing publishers with better automation tools, or face an ecosystem with fewer premium publishers.

Case in point: viewability. There are myriad ways automation will help publishers with viewability, both reactively and proactively. For instance, the publisher ad server and the agency ad server will always report different viewability counts; that’s just a fact of life. For the publisher, reconciling those discrepancies is a time-consuming and manual effort. And that manual labor makes it difficult for publishers to defend their counts, forcing them to accept counts (and revenue) that are lower than they should be.

While advertisers are easily able to target impressions based on viewability, the same isn’t true for publishers. So how do we level the playing field? If publishers had access to accurate and automated measurement and reporting, they’d have a much better sense of which ad units are likely to be in view. Moreover, they could automatically direct to those units for campaigns where viewability is a targeting criteria. Such a capability will allow publishers to meet their viewability guarantees with far less impression waste.

As it stands, challenges like discrepancies represent untold sums of lost revenue, vast amounts of time spent sifting through data to reconcile and invoice campaigns, along with make-goods that take valuable inventory away from future campaigns.

But discrepancies are not the problem per se, they are a symptom of a bigger problem – the imbalance of power between the buy side and the sell side. The former has all of the tools, automation and budgets; the latter is asked to compromise far too often. If more of the publisher workflow was automated, we could begin to level the playing field. And that would do more than just drive higher yields for publishers—it would ensure that advertisers continue to have ample premium and brand-safe environments in which to engage their audiences.

Dave Marquard 2(3)Dave Marquard is currently Vice President of Product Management, Publisher Solutions and RTB Products at Integral Ad Science. For the past 15 years he has held leadership roles in product management, engineering, and marketing at internet technology and enterprise software firms such as Google, IBM, and Lombardi Software.

Marketing | Perspectives

The four fundamental elements of getting digital – and the marketing mix – right

Marketers have steadily improved the integration of digital strategy into overall brand strategy, but still face lingering doubts on achieving the appropriate media mix. Research is crucial.

Here’s a bold proclamation: “There are no lines between traditional and digital marketing,” according to the study Getting Digital Right 2016. In our third annual survey, Millward Brown Digital scans the horizon to assess the state of digital marketing. Based on responses garnered from more than 300 senior executives from brand, agencies, and media companies, we identified four principal findings for marketers navigating the evolving, multi-channel and cross-channel landscape.

1. Assemble the Team
Because customers now expect seamless experiences regardless of where and when they interact with brands, strategists have increasingly integrated ideas and implementation across traditional and digital channels. According to 74% of respondents, they have developed integrated strategies, representing a steady uptick from the 59% in 2014 and 67% in 2015. Note, however, that within the digital realm of Desktop/Laptop, Mobile and Social, there is room to improve integration; 33% of participants report these channels are not well integrated. A well-coordinated team will not only align digital and traditional strategies, but also maintain consistency within the digital sphere, so cross-channel efforts complement each other.

2. Master the Journey
Despite the importance of integration of traditional and digital strategies, 55% of marketers indicate they are not confident their organization understands how and where to reach and influence consumers in the buying process. Further, half of the respondents indicated they were not sure their organization has calibrated the media mix appropriately to align with the consumer’s journey. This 50% represents a worrisome increase from the 34% of 2014 and the 43% of 2015 that expressed uncertainty. In other words, creating the ideal mix of multiple channels – digital (total of 64%) and traditional (36%) – requires an even greater understanding of the consumer’s online and offline behaviors than before and pinpointing those touchpoints is essential for success.

3. Elevate Insights
Given this lack of confidence in calibrating the media mix, it is not surprising that marketers place an ever-greater emphasis on research and data. Indeed, brands, agencies and media companies all report they expect research budgets to increase in the next three years. Brand professionals are now more confident in how their organization uses Big Data than they were in 2015 – 41% compared to a shocking 14%! Still they remain less confident in their use of Big Data relative to their agency and media colleagues (59% and 60%, respectively). This suggests brand marketers may rely more heavily upon their counterparts at agencies and media companies for analysis. Because these agency and media marketers feel quite comfortable in their use of Big Data, they are more likely to generate actionable insights and devise ways to incorporate them into campaigns for their clients.

4. Unleash Impact
IncreasewithROITracking ROI of digital activities is a top priority for all respondents. It is the perennial issue: how to connect the dots between any promotional channel (or cross-channel) and the ultimate sale. The tools to track and effectively measure digital marketing continue to improve, yet measurable results from some segments, such as content marketing, events/conferences and webinars, remain murky. More research is needed, and, because brand marketers are less likely to substantially invest in such analysis, they will seek guidance from their agency and media partners who are allocating more dollars to this area. In fact, if they had the ability to better track ROI, nearly three-quarters of marketers would increase their spending in digital (74%) and cross-channel (71%) activities. The need to build tools that measure online and offline activities and how they lead to sales essentially unites all the themes discussed here: integrated traditional and digital teams, calculating the marketing mix and using research to understand and influence the customer journey.

So, now that three-quarters of marketers have evolved from siloed traditional and digital marketing teams to integrated brand strategists, there are plentiful opportunities to adjust media budgets in alignment with the consumer path to purchase. Synchronizing tactics within the digital realm creates a consistent consumer experience. Plus, an increased focus on research will permit measurement of campaigns, active incorporation of findings and adjustments to the marketing mix. The improved ROI for digital marketing will propel those integrated marketers to the head of the category. They will be getting digital right, and there truly will be no lines between traditional and digital marketing.

Feel free to download a copy of Getting Digital Right 2016 if you are interested in learning more.

Aaron Peterson is Corporate Marketing Manager for Millward Brown Digital (@Millward_Brown). As such, Aaron is a frequent contributor in industry media, hosts webinars, authors thought leadership, and manages the company’s flagship event, The Digital CMO Summit. Prior to his role in marketing, Aaron brings over 8 years of experience in client management and marketing research for Fortune 500 brands.

Industry-Research | Marketing

The deal with disclosure and the ethics of native advertising

When it comes to native advertising, publishers are walking a fine line between reader trust and new revenue streams. For much of the short history of native advertising, publishers and media watchers have been debating about its transparency—or lack thereof—but in late 2015 the FTC weighed in and laid out a number of guidelines for publishers and advertisers to abide by.

According to the FTC, in general, disclosures should be:

  • in clear and unambiguous language;
  • as close as possible to the native ads to which they relate;
  • in a font and color that’s easy to read;
  • in a shade that stands out against the background;
  • for video ads, on the screen long enough to be noticed, read, and understood; and
  • for audio disclosures, read at a cadence that’s easy for consumers to follow and in words consumers will understand

As recently as April, however, AdWeek reported that 70% of Native Advertising did not comply with the FTC’s recommendations. Now Polar has taken a (slightly different) look at “The State of Disclosure.” The report found that 7.5% of native ads still aren’t using any terms to label their sponsored content. Yet, even with the hold outs, the report concludes, “2015’s FTC Guidelines for Native Advertising have influenced the levels and types of disclosure premium publishers are using on native placements.”

Polar found the most commonly used disclosure term is “Sponsored”—and all of its variants—appearing in over 55% of native ads. “Promoted” comes in next. Terms like “Partner” and “Presented By” are less popular than just not disclosing at all.

“Promoted” however is the best performing term, with a 0.19% CTR, compared to “Sponsored” with a 0.16% CTR. Still, there is more to the story. For desktop audiences, the term “Sponsored” marginally outperformed “Promoted” by approximately 26%. On mobile devices “promoted” dramatically outperformed “sponsored” by 105%.

So why aren’t companies hopping on board with “Promoted” if it delivers more clicks? Carla Johnson, an executive level strategist at Type A Communications, says, “I think this is for a couple of reasons. One is that the term ‘sponsored’ is a more commonly used term than ‘promoted’ and companies want to use terms with which people are familiar. It could also be that many companies don’t know the performance difference between the two. The interesting thing about the statistic is what the performance of both would be if they were used in equal volume.”

“This remains a thorny issue for publishers and advertisers alike—see Jon Oliver’s coverage of the topic on his HBO show for a good laugh—and publishers seem to just prefer the ring of ‘sponsored’ to ‘promoted’, even though the differences are indistinguishable,” according to Tim Bourgeois, Executive Editor of ChiefDigitalOfficer.net, and digital strategist at East Coast Catalyst. “Also, while most marketers and agencies are increasingly embracing data-driven tactics, they are also constantly making trade-offs between performance and aesthetics, and this is an example of where aesthetics is winning out, at least for the short term.”

When it comes to disclosure, it isn’t all about terms. Polar found that over 85% of native ad units contained only one disclosure term, but most incorporated two to three design elements—such as shading, a distinct border, or “info icons.” This is where things get murky. Relying on your audience to understand that a slightly grayed out box, or a different color border means that a post is actually a native ad—and not just a design choice—is less than transparent. For those immersed in the world of digital media and marketing these may seem like clear indicators of native content, but to the average reader, they don’t mean much. If these elements are accompanied by a clear “Sponsored” disclosure they can only serve to further call attention to the nature of that content, but without it, they are virtually meaningless.

Even with clear disclosures, audiences seem to still struggle to identify the difference between native ads and editorial content. MediaPost reported that in a Grady College experiment, “Overall, only 17 out of 242 subjects—under 8%—were able to identify native advertising as a paid marketing message in this experiment.” Experimenters “displayed 12 different versions of the ad, with varying types of disclosure labels (“advertising,” “sponsored by,” “brand voice,” and “presented by”), as well as different positions for the disclosure label including at the top, middle, and bottom of the page.”

With results like that, one has to wonder if the only thing left to do is point a giant neon arrow at sponsored posts. But readers’ inability to separate editorial from advertising content also says something else about native advertising—maybe even something good. If the goal of native advertising—and, more widely, content marketing as a whole—is to provide content that is on par with editorial content, then “Mission Accomplished!”

With Folio reporting that “Over two-thirds of magazine publishers leverage their own editorial teams to produce native advertisements, according to a study from FIPP and the Native Advertising Institute” it seems only natural that the quality of the content would make it virtually indistinguishable from the editorial. Whether or not you think that’s ethical depends on your outlook.

If you’re a marketer looking to deliver great native advertising, you’re probably thrilled that your audience can’t tell the difference between your copy and editorial. If you’re a reader, you might not be thrilled that you’re being fed advertising in the guise of editorial.

Here’s what it comes down to: If you’re a publisher you need to clearly mark your native advertising with disclosure terms, not just “design elements,” and continue to strive to make the content as compelling and useful as your editorial. From there it’s incumbent upon audiences to be more discerning—to pay more attention to what they are reading or watching—because unless there is a major sea change in the business of digital content (and audiences’ willingness to pay for it) native advertising is here to stay.

By day, I am the editor of EContent, where I cover the world of digital media and marketing. By night I am a reader and writer of books (including Inside Content Marketing), NPR addict, and avid gardener. Find out more at TheresaCramer.com or @TheresaCramer on Twitter.

Marketing | Perspectives | Revenue

Why Google’s crackdown on mobile pop-ups might be a good thing

It’s a relief for consumers and a worry for publishers: Google is cracking down on interstitial ads on mobile websites, thereby forcing publishers to rethink and revamp their mobile advertising strategies. And while the rationale might be good for Google and the ecosystem, it is worrying that the tech giant has so much power to act unilaterally.

These pop-ups, which publishers typically use to get a visitor to “like” a page on Facebook or sign up for a newsletter or serve an ad, for example, have become nearly ubiquitous across websites. Online publishers rely on them to help generate more subscribers or ad conversions. On mobile devices, where screens are smaller, these interstitials sometimes take up the entire screen, making users hunt around for a way to close them.

Dissuading Publishers
Let’s face it: These ads can be very annoying. And effective January 10, 2017, Google plans to dissuade publishers from using them by ranking those websites lower in its search results. As Mashable’s Emma Hinchliffe put it, “Google is pushing websites to choose between a high search ranking and obtrusive but lucrative ads.”

To be clear, not all interstitial ads will be penalized. Google has outlined the specifics of what it will deem appropriate versus obtrusive. Interstitials asking for age verification or permission to utilize cookies on a device are fine if used responsibly, as are banner ads that only take up a “reasonable amount of screen space,” according to a blog post by Google. But other commonly used ads that make content inaccessible, such as a pop-up that covers the main content of a website, or an interstitial that blocks the page unless a user closes the ad, are a no-no.

It’s an example of just how much authority Google has when it comes to advertising, as lower search rankings lead to less traffic on a website. But of course, more traffic—and the revenue that comes with it—is precisely what publishers and online operators want. So with this new scheme set to go into effect, using interstitials is tantamount to a lose-lose situation, as “Google’s continued nudges could make a difference in the long run,” according to The Verge’s Jacob Kastrenakes. The company had previously issued a penalty in November 2015 for the interstitial ads that asked users to install a mobile app, and is now somewhat rolling that penalty into this new decree.

Advantage of ad scrollers
What’s a publisher to do? Well, re-conceptualizing a mobile advertising strategy is obviously in order, to find out what mobile formats actually work. But it may not be as hard as some publishers think. A recent study by the IAB, the mobile advertising services provider PadSquad and the company Celtra, which works in display advertising, for example, found that “ad scrollers” may be the way to go. It’s an emerging mobile ad concept that allows the user to scroll the advertisement smoothly on or off the screen, and decreases “the tendency to block or overlook ads in the process,” The Drum’s Laurie Fullerton reported. The study delivered some stunning results on what happened when the scroller was used:

  • Brand category awareness increased by almost 26%
  • Ad awareness increased by almost 10%
  • Those who saw the ad were 17% more likely to consider it “distinctive”
  • Thirty-five percent of those who viewed the scroller ad expressed “positive feelings” about how the ad revealed itself
  • Sixty-three percent of those who saw the ad reported a higher purchasing intent after viewing

The study also showed that these ads were a hit with certain target audiences, namely Millennials. Forty-four percent of Millennials who viewed the ad reported positive feelings about the way the ad revealed itself, compared to 31% of those age 35 and over. Moreover, “while women saw the larger brand increases, men were much more impressed with the scroller’s look and feel,” according to the IAB.

Given that mobile advertising spending in the U.S. will increase by 41% this year and constitute 72.2% of all digital ad spending in 2019 (to become a $65.87 billion industry), publishers can’t afford to use ads without thinking of the big picture. But with smart and strategic understanding, publishers should be able to roll with Google’s changes. In fact, it might just push publishers onto better methods.

Marketing | Perspectives

To mock or not to mock? Avoiding fraudulent advertising campaign verification

To mock or not to mock? That is the question frequently asked by media publishers trying to meet advertiser demands related to digital campaign success. The industry’s intense focus on viewability and transparency issues associated with ad fraud hijacks the limelight from another vital area of interest for advertisers: Are campaigns actually running as contracted?

What the advertiser wants, the advertiser gets
To justify the millions (and millions!) of dollars spent promoting products, advertisers rightfully demand proof that their campaigns execute as promised. From expected ad rendering on the page to accurate targeting by geography and behavior profiles, advertisers want to know that the right ad has been served in the right way in the right location on the right page to the right demographic. In fact, when considering the average spend of a large-scale national campaign flight, many advertisers will assert they deserve to know their campaign is performing as promised.

Authenticated ad inventory yields benefits
The advertising ecosystem is a dynamic environment processing millions of ads covering billions in spend at any one time. Considering that 5% of display and mobile ads are served incorrectly at launch and countless more break during flight, publishers need to actively monitor and protect their ad-generated revenue channels.[i]

Authenticated ad inventory helps publishers secure ad revenue by avoiding pre-planned delivery overages to compensate for anticipated discrepancies. In addition, it also reduces the frequency of misfiring campaigns, thus minimizing instances of “make good” campaigns.

Ad verification is more than good looks
Reputable publishers recognize the value of their high-quality inventory and demonstrate it by providing proof of ad delivery according to established terms. This is a complicated prospect in an age of large-scale campaigns incorporating ads of varying formats (i.e., HTML5, pre/mid/post-roll video, native, etc.) through multiple platforms (i.e., display, tablet, smartphone, gaming consoles, etc.) across increasingly granular targeting segments.

A Photoshopped mock-up or full-page capture of the ad on a screen is a start, but it isn’t enough. Presenting a “mock-up” of how an ad should look could be considered fraudulent as it’s not a true representation of how an ad performs across all formats, devices and geographies. In fact, several industries (Tier 2 automotive, pharmaceutical, etc.) and countries (especially those in Latin America) regulate advertising-based billing processes and require third-party verified screenshots upon invoice presentation.

Beyond the visual of “how” an ad looks on a device, publishers must prove that each ad is delivered as contracted with the advertiser. Continuous monitoring of campaigns at launch and throughout flight will quickly detect errors associated with targeting, creative and device-specific issues that impede optimal campaign execution.

Authentication of possibly hundreds of ad combinations—by size, format, device and geography—is used by publishers to substantiate inventory value and by advertisers to audit and measure campaign ROI.

Consider this
To verify accurate ad placement, execution and targeting, a publisher must consider these five factors:

  1. Legitimacy: Screenshots of ads in a live environment truthfully demonstrate that an ad is delivered to the right target. A “mock-up” or “test page” may display how an ad appears on a site, but in reality it provides a false sense of security for how the ad is actually executing. It also infers that the ad will render the same across all devices, OS, formats and geographies.
  1. Accuracy: Mock-ups can’t prove ad placement as many ad units only occur behind paywalls or require an IP address in order to serve the correct messaging to the individual user.
  1. Automation: Imagine scaling the manual process of verifying ads across the overwhelming number of devices, browsers, user profiles, formats, sizes and geo-locations. Without automation, the task is almost impossible. Leverage technology to streamline the process.
  1. Costs: Carefully consider the total cost of ownership when deciding between an in-house or outsourced process. While in-house resources are easier to control, it is difficult to secure funding and keep the staff engaged. On the flip side, outsourcing requires integration, training, probable coordination with targeting vendors, and continuous oversight which could ultimately be more costly than anticipated—not to mention the complications of managing a remote team, in a case of choosing a non-local entity if a non-native entity is selected.
  1. Quality Assurance: Reliance on mock-up designs to certify campaign execution will no catch errors that occur at launch or throughout the campaign flight.

Ad verification is a complex, yet critical endeavor for publishers looking to highlight inventory value. Don’t mock it.

ChrisChris Olson founded The Media Trust (@themediatrust) with Dave Crane in 2005. He currently serves as CEO, where he drives the company’s vision, direction and growth plans. Prior to establishing The Media Trust Company, he spent four years as the chief operating officer and board member at Spheric Media. From 1998 until 2000, he was the vice president, global equities at Commerzbank; and from 1993 until 1998, he was the vice president of electronic trading at Salomon Brothers, Inc.

[i] The Media Trust analysis of millions of ad campaigns verified over the course of 10 years
Industry-Research | Marketing

Time for marketers to up their emoji game

Giving your audience what they want, when and how they want it has become the first tenet of effective marketing. But your audience also increasingly craves experiences (even preferring it over discounts, coupons and cash)—a development that turns the pressure up on companies to spark emotive, creative and personal communications that strike a chord.

It’s here that emojis—the fun smileys and pictographs that have become the fabric of how we engage and exchange across social networks and messaging—are bridging the gap, driving new levels of engagement delivered with a distinctly personal touch.

Emojis have evolved into a new, visual language, powering campaigns and communications by a wide range of media companies and brands including Disney, NASCAR, VH1and Warner Bros., to name a few. In fact emojis are so popular that Sony Pictures Animation is targeting an August 2017 release of a movie that brings the entire emoji library to life.

Emojis clearly cover the bases to quality as a new communication medium, which is why it’s critical to understand when and how to use them in campaigns and messaging. Miss a cue and customers could begin to experience what Ad Age calls emoji messaging fatigue.

In this vein, Appboy, a company that offers a customer relationship suite for mobile-first marketers, has released new research that delves into the emoji-as-a-medium phenomenon. In addition to quantifying the use and response to emojis in marketing messages, the research also draws on a survey of 500+ consumers in the U.K. and the U.S. to understand people’s perception of emojis in personal communications.

EmojiStudy1

Predictably, respondents ages 14-24—a population well accustomed to using mobile, messaging and the emojis that have been around since the 1990s—use emojis “more often and frequently than users over the age of 45. But younger audiences aren’t just open to using this medium for messaging among themselves; they also have a more positive perception of brands that use emojis to connect with them directly.

It also comes as no surprise that younger audiences, weaned on SMS, are “more open” to emoji messages that arrive via text messaging than emojis that are delivered by email.

Overall, males are more likely that females to have a negative perception of emoji—no matter how they are delivered. This makes sense if we consider that females are also the biggest users of social media and the biggest fans of communication in all its forms and formats.

This is why Appboy suggests companies might be missing out on the opportunity to communicate with female consumers in a way that is more aligned with their preference for emojis. Despite the fact that females use emojis more than males, nearly 40% recall never receiving an emoji message from a brand. Appboy reads this to mean that “there could be an opportunity for brands to up their emoji game as a third of [all] consumers have never received an emoji message from a brand.”

The data around usage and conversion confirms emoji messaging could be more than a missed opportunity. It may also be the most effective way to personalize communications and campaigns.

A review of over 250 apps and 6 billion push notification and messages that were sent via the Appboy platform from June 2015 to June 2016 shows:

  • Conversion rates are up 135% year-over-year and have hit “an all time high”
  • Open rates on emoji messages delivered as push notifications reached 4% on Android in June 2016—068% higher than June 2015. Meantime, open rates on Apple’s IOS have been fluctuating between 1-2%—reaching levels in June 2016 that represent up to 209% uplift over June 2015.
  • Emoji use in email subject lines may lag behind use in push notification, but emails are seeing higher open rates, increasing 15% year-over-year. But while emojis may be eye-catching their presence in the subject head doesn’t appear to influence actual click through rates.

Connect the dots, and there are plenty of good reasons for companies to get more active—and smarter—about how they use emojis in their messaging and marketing. But the meteoric rise of emoji use and its positive perception among a significant percentage of consumers is no reason to ignore best practice. Emojis may liven up the “conversation” but companies still need to ensure they deliver messages people will appreciate, not dismiss as spam.

Peggy Anne Salz is the Content Marketing Strategist and Chief Analyst of Mobile Groove, a top 50 influential technology site providing custom research to the global mobile industry and consulting to tech startups. She is a frequent contributor to Forbes on the topic of mobile marketing, engagement and apps. Her work also regularly appears in a range of publications from Venture Beat to Harvard Business Review. Peggy is a top 30 Mobile Marketing influencer and a nine-time author based in Europe. Follow her @peggyanne.

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