Tags containing: "content marketing"

How NPR’s audience-first approach drives advertising success

November 30, 2023 Theresa Cramer – Independent Journalist

Savvy publishers know that balancing user experience with the need to drive revenue is key to thriving in today’s media marketplace. For NPR—where donations from an engaged and loyal audience are as important to their diverse revenue streams as sponsorship dollars—building trust is paramount to continued success. That’s why the National Public Media (NPM) team (the corporate sponsorship subsidiary of NPR) strives to uphold the values that NPR exhibits and years of data says its audience has come to expect, even as it develops content and advertising campaigns for sponsors.

Erica Osher, Vice President of Sponsorship Products and NPM Creative, says years of affinity research tells her that 72% of NPR’s audience has more positive feelings about NPR sponsors. Why? Because of a phenomenon called trust transference. NPR’s audience trusts the organization and its personalities, and that trust transfers to brands that support the news organization.

Furthermore, NPR’s research shows that its programming and journalism are “personally important” to its audience and that, all things being equal, they will buy products that are advertised on NPR over competing products. “We understand that maintaining the trust in journalism translates to our sponsors,” says Osher. With that in mind, the NPM team works “to obtain user feedback, especially when implementing new programs.” Keeping the user in mind at every turn allows NPM to create ad products that are beneficial for everyone involved.

Facts over flash

In order to maintain that all-important user trust, NPM enforces strict standards for sponsors who want to reach NPR’s digital audience with their advertising. In many ways, the guidelines sponsors must adhere to are not all that different from the standards journalists must uphold. Sponsors can only make substantiated claims in their ads, and even “broad claims” are rejected by the NPM team. No misleading creative or messaging is allowed, and sponsors cannot use disparaging language. Certain categories of sponsors are held to an even higher standard.

Another best practice suggestion for brands looking to reach NPR’s audience is to avoid inauthentic messaging. Osher says she often urges brands to speak for themselves, and feature speakers who can communicate genuinely, rather than just hitting a list of talking points. Avoiding jargon and technical language also helps keep the messaging relatable.

Holding sponsors to a higher standard is just the start of building better ads. Osher’s team thinks about how many ads per page—or podcast—the audience will tolerate. They use lazy loading to ensure content does not shift on a page because of an ad, and always test how any new major placements will impact a page. In essence, they strive to meet and sometimes improve on Better Ad Coalition Standards.

“We have these guidelines that we stick to and need to be balanced with the need for revenue,” says Osher. “When we do it well, the audience is receptive… but they hold us accountable.”

Best practices in action

So, what does it look like when sponsors take NPM’s standards to heart and deliver the kind of content NPR audiences want to see? In the case of Mattress Firm, NPM Creative (with the help of Spark Foundry) crafted a campaign around the science of sleep as part of its Brand Soundscapes product offering, which includes Center Stage. Interviews with sleep experts lead to tangible advice for readers on how to calm their minds and get better sleep.

Osher says that, as with most campaigns, her team tested different images and headlines to find what resonated best. “Featuring people is always effective,” she says. The Mattress Firm campaign, which strives to educate readers and listeners about how to get good sleep and why it matters, uses doctors to lend legitimacy to the topic. Listening to one of the segments, it’s easy to forget you are listening to sponsor content rather than a story segment about health and wellness. Year-over-year, Osher says, NPM has increased the play rate on its Center Stage Soundscapes product by about 33% and the average completion rate by roughly 19%.

Mass Mutual worked with NPM Creative to create custom Spotlight Mid-rolls to run across NPR podcasts. A case study describes the campaign: “The creative featured director Brian Trzcinski, Certified Exit Planning Advisor (CEPA). He shared how MassMutual financial professionals can help business owners balance the needs of today and tomorrow, including planning for a comfortable retirement.” Mass Mutual also used NPM’s research and measurement services to measure “campaign insights, optimize for success and ultimately make an impact.” According to the case study, the custom audio yielded a conversion rate (CR) 18% higher than standard 30-second mid-roll placements.

The success of NPM’s campaigns is due, in large part, to its commitment to producing sponsor content that feels true to NPR’s brand. With that in mind, the team has also moved away from traditional banner placements in its newsletters and switched to incorporating a native sponsorship unit. Taking a more text-based, story-driven approach has increased the click-through rate by 1,850% for the same campaign, says Osher.

The “facts over flash” approach that NPM takes when developing and implementing campaigns for sponsors has reaped rewards for sponsors as well as its own bottom line. A laser-like focus on what its audience expects and a willingness to hold sponsors to a high set of standards has created a virtuous cycle of great content that informs readers and listeners, creates a halo effect for brands, and keeps NPR in business.

Perspectives

Prove the value of thought leadership with the FT’s new framework

March 4, 2020 Theresa Cramer – Independent Journalist

Marketers know that thought leadership is an important part of a strategy to build awareness and trust, and to help their companies get a seat at the table. But until now, they have had a hard time proving it. The reality is that marketers are under pressure from all sides to prove their contributions to the bottom line.

While metrics are available to track many marketing activities, thought leadership efforts have been nearly impossible to measure. With this in mind, the Thought Leadership Network (TLN)—a joint venture of Longitude and The Financial Times—has released its first-ever framework for measuring the effectiveness of thought leadership in its report “Proving our Value: Measuring the effectiveness of thought leadership.”

After years of talking to clients about their challenges, Rob Mitchell, CEO of Longitude and Chairman of Thought Leadership Network, says he saw a gap in the market for a network devoted to promoting thought leadership as a career and to promote best practices. Thus, TLN was born, to bring “together thought leadership practitioners to share knowledge, experiences, and ideas.”

Mitchell thinks of TLN’s mission as “Thought leadership about thought leadership.”

Tia McPhee, Global Brand Director of The Financial Times and a Thought Leadership Network advisory board member says that she hopes the group’s annual slate of events allows thought leaders to learn from and support one another. But as the group started coming together, it was clear there was one challenge members were struggling with more than any other: measuring the effectiveness of thought leadership.

What is thought leadership?

The term “thought leadership” is familiar. However, defining it is difficult. Some might say, “You know it when you see it.” But in the age of content marketing—when every company is pumping out content—it can be even harder to separate real thought leadership from more run of the mill content marketing efforts.

“Content marketing can be part of a strategy to develop yourself as a thought leader,” says McPhee. She adds that content marketing is really the “delivery mechanism.”

“Good thought leadership starts with the strength of the ideas,” says Mitchell. To be a true thought leader, you need an original idea. Content marketing is just the avenue through which you deliver that idea.

What’s the goal?

More importantly, content marketing often focuses on short-term engagement metrics—think downloads and clicks. However, TLN’s research shows that the key to measuring the effectiveness of thought leadership is all about taking a long-term view.

When thinking about thought leadership efforts, it’s important to understand what this branch of marketing is really designed to do. According to the report, campaigns can do three things:

Reimagine—Pivot the business to a new reality.
Renovate—Build on past successes and move into new areas that will attract attention from both new and existing customers.
Reinforce—Strengthen customer loyalty and retention for existing, mature products and services.

But the question remains: How do you know if you’re achieving those goals?

A measurement framework

In order to help TLN members better prove the value of their work, the group has compiled a report that details the metrics that matter most, six principles of effective measurement, and provides a checklist to make sure efforts align with business goals. Mitchell says the report is the result of “trying to distill” his years of experience, combined with primary research—speaking to clients and advisory board members—and even bringing in outside experts to get a new perspective.

“Alignment” is the foundation of the three-tier effectiveness model presented in the report. “It is all about ensuring that there is buy-in from every relevant function in the business, as well as agreement about the overall goals,” says the report.

Next, you have to take a look at engagement, though Mitchell warns against putting too much weight on short-term metrics. He wants to “shift the focus a little bit.” Mitchell says, “Right now we measure what’s easy to measure.”

He sees a need for a “shift toward alignment, influence, and impact.” Mitchell suggests spending 40% of your time tracking alignment, 40% on impact, and 20% on engagement. Ask yourself, are you changing behavior? That’s how you really know you’re having an effect on customers.

“These longer-term metrics are harder to measure,” says Mitchell. And therein lies the challenge. In order to determine if your thought leadership is moving the needle on influence and impact you need to track whether your perception of expertise is increasing, customer lifetime value (CLV), meetings generated, and profitability. You’ll also want to understand how your content is contributing to the marketing pipeline and generating qualified leads.

Reading that list may have you scratching your head. Really, how do you know how your expertise is perceived? Can you really know how many meetings your thought leadership campaigns have generated?

Admittedly, the “influence and impact” metrics are the hardest to track. They will require that you invest in customer surveys and other in-depth outreach efforts that go beyond simple engagement efforts. However, Mitchell and McPhee promise that putting in the effort to track these numbers will go a long way to understanding your effectiveness.

Ultimately, says McPhee, TLN and the report give you “the tools to make your case.”

“Tribal subscription marketing”

But for publishers like The Financial Times, thought leadership is a slightly different animal than it is for other brands. After all, McPhee asks, what are you doing as a publisher if you aren’t regularly putting out interesting new ideas? Good journalism isn’t necessarily the same as thought leadership. But publishers are embracing the practice as a way to build loyalty and enhance CLV.

For instance, The FT launched its New Agenda which McPhee describes as “a rallying cry to business leaders to think about responsible capitalism.” In practice, it’s a collection of the publishers’ best pieces around the idea of protecting “the future of free enterprise and wealth creation by pursuing profit with purpose.”

She says she’s seen the model replicated across other publishers—think Washington Post’s “Democracy Dies in Darkness.” It has led to what some in the industry are calling “tribal subscription marketing,” which creates a sense of belonging among readers.

“Thought leadership can get people behind you,” says McPhee. That’s as important for publishers as it is for any other brand—especially in the age of digital disintermediation and a near constant fight for every subscriber.

“Providing expertise in thought leadership—both in terms of the content itself and the measurement of its impact—is an obvious addition to what the FT can offer clients,” adds McPhee. Ultimately, thought leadership may be just what you need to find new ways to add value for your subscribers and potential sponsors.

Advertising | Perspectives

How to accurately evaluate your content marketing

November 18, 2019 Justin Walls, Digital Media Buyer – Pressboard

Today, branded content is the most effective way to capture the attention of and build trust with new audiences. And, as all marketers know, time (a.k.a attention) is money. For years, the best way to reach people who may be interested in your products or service was through pop-up ads, pre-roll or TV commercials.

However, with an estimated 25% of internet users employing ad-blockers and DVR devices allowing people to easily avoid intrusive ads, it’s become a marketer’s job to establish what and how to capture their attention. What we do know is, although audiences are steering clear of advertisements, they still want to enjoy the things those ads aim to interrupt: the stories.

Source: Pressboard’s 2019 Branded Content Benchmarks Report

Since releasing our first Branded Content Benchmarks Report in 2016, we’ve received many messages from marketers and media companies who found it helpful for understanding what metrics they should be using to evaluate their branded content campaigns.

Using data pulled from nearly 4,000 pieces of sponsored content created by brands and publishers through Pressboard’s platform, we’ve compiled an updated Branded Content Benchmarks Report, which details how well branded content performed in 2019. The report aims to help marketers go beyond mere impressions and clicks and to better understand the metrics they should be considering when measuring branded content.

Determine which traffic source to use

We’ve used several advertising platforms to promote our clients’ content as well as our own and have accumulated a wealth of data on traffic source performance. We’ve found that LinkedIn is incomparable for reaching working professionals, with average active attention time of 54.7 seconds. This highly engaged audience comes at a high price, however, which may be out of reach for the average marketer.

Twitter is great for reaching news seekers with timely and relevant articles, with average active attention time of 52.3 seconds. However, that’s not necessarily for the lowest possible cost. And although we’ve used several native platforms, poor traffic quality and low average attention time has consistently driven us back to paid social time and time again.

What we’ve realized is that the most cost-effective way to promote content to an engaged audience on social is through Facebook newsfeed ads, where we see an average attention time of 52.1 seconds. Facebook is a great starting point for promoting content because the ad platform is approachable, offers in-depth ad targeting options and doesn’t require a sizeable budget like some of the others to make a big impact.

Look beyond the surface data

In addition to average attention and the number of read, we find that Brand Lift Studies are emerging as an important way to measure the effectiveness of content marketing campaigns. As media executives, you want to ensure that you are capturing the right audience at the most optimal time to result in a purchase intended action.

As Brand Lift Studies have become a key marketing resource, social platforms have adapted and evolved their services to accommodate the format to advertisers needs. Facebook offers Brand Lift Studies to users and Google has two measurement models: Brand Lift Studies and Brand Lift Studies 2.0. SnapChat also jumped on the trend to offer Brand Lift Studies for premium buyers.

Brand Lift Studies are used to measure consumer-brand interaction based on a marketing campaign. They typically include a consumer survey of one question where one group of people are exposed to an ad and the second group is not. Once seeing (or not seeing the ad), the user can choose to participate and answer honestly or avoid the survey altogether. The purpose is to help advertisers identify positive changes in the consumer’s journey, from awareness, perception, consideration and the likelihood of purchase.

Ask the right questions

When conducting Brand Lift Studies, advertisers can directly determine the answers to questions such as:

Are audiences able to recall the ad?
- Do people like what they see in our ad?
- Did the ad influence people to consider your brand of product?
- Are consumers more likely to purchase the product or brand after seeing the ad?

All of which are surveyed at different parts of the consumer’s journey in order to avoid brand fatigue and poor user experience.

Think long-term brand lift benefits

A user can be tracked through several social touchpoint metrics including post engagements, shares, link clicks, and impressions. But the goal is to be memorable to your audience. Therefore, it is important to understand how an advertiser can be memorable in a market full of content.

According to Bussiness.com, distribution metrics such as CTR, impressions, and clicks have lost value as true internet currency. When building brand awareness, advertisers can earn intuitive feedback on their audiences through their behaviors. This includes active reading time, scrolling percentage, ad recall, consideration, and likelihood of purchase.

However, the lack of granular insight produced by clicks, views, impressions, and CTR makes it quite difficult to understand an audience is really interested in. That’s where Brand Lift Studies fill this gap because they allow you to fully understand your consumer’s intent and preference.

A reason why more companies are choosing to use Brand Lift Studies as a reliable resource when marketing is because it provides direct feedback from consumers within days of audience interaction. This gives advertisers the ability to actively optimize their campaigns. They can opt to adjust creatives or targeting in order to maximize their ROI.

Through our research, we’ve established that the “how and when” you reach your target audience can be pivotal for your campaign to succeed to its full potential. Publishers should be sure that when they work with social of work with marketers on content-based campaigns, they understand audience behavioral patterns through metrics like active reading time, scrolling behavior.

Publishers should also know that Brand Lift Studies offer the most accurate measure of a campaign’s overall performance. Not only will these studies provide you with real time results, they’ll inform advertisers exactly how well your content delivers your message, and clearly demonstrate that the context you provide is an ideal fit.

Perspectives

Editorial and sponsored: Has branded content blurred the divide?

September 24, 2019 Leah Bjornson, Manager, Content Studio– Pressboard

With such a large appetite for content in the digital landscape, sponsored content has become a key source of revenue for the publishing industry. But with branded content leveraging the tone and style of a publication, should the editorial team exercise oversight, ensuring the sponsored pieces meet their high standards? Or should they focus on continuing to build trust with their readers in a space where paid and earned content look increasingly similar?

As sponsored content has transitioned into a common advertising practice, publishers can see the financial benefits of producing branded content for their audience. The more divisive question is how — if at all — should an editorial team be involved in its creation?

To better understand how the two sides of the digital publishing industry — sponsored and editorial — work together, Pressboard conducted a survey of 32 industry professionals. The results show that the industry is divided on whether the two teams should collaborate on sponsored content creation. More than half of the respondents reported that their editors are not involved. On the other hand, 46% reported some degree of editorial involvement in creating sponsored content.

Among the respondents who indicated that their editorial teams were involved in creating sponsored content, the level of involvement varied. Some divulged that they were very involved, while others only somewhat. The relationship is evidently a complicated one, especially as audiences grow more accepting of branded content.

“The more I see branded content online and in print the more accepting I find readers have been,” stated Joel Vosburg, Advertising Account Manager for Gripped Publishing. “The primary concern for their audience isn’t whether or not the content has paid sponsorship, it’s the transparency of the advertiser’s involvement.”

Does branded content influence editorial?

The question of whether editorial content should be free from influence is an important one. However, those in the industry understand that it is not always cut and dry. While 33% of respondents shared that the brands that they partner with have some effect on editorial content, 13% said their editorial is very affected. Publishers in the product review space were vocal about how the editorial content they can create depends on the brands they work with. Vosburg explained that it’s “tough to provide editorial coverage when the brands do not work with [you]”.

However, the separation between editorial and sponsored content teams is much more substantial when it comes to news coverage. In fact, some publishers have strict policies in place that forbid brands from influencing editorial content.

Striking a balance between sponsored and editorial

As we delve further into the data, it becomes more apparent what approach publishers are currently taking with sponsored content, as well as how the industry may evolve going forward.

A strong majority of respondents feel that editorial pieces should be at the forefront of a publication’s site, with only a small number indicating that they feel their site should be evenly split between editorial and branded content. However, respondents were somewhat less rigid when the question involved a lifestyle site as opposed to a news site.

“You need to be keenly aware of what your readership wants and does not want,” stated Nikki Csek, CEO at Csek Creative (which supports NowMedia). When asked exactly how much sponsored content is ideal for your site, Csek noted, “As much as your readership is interested in engaging with. Sponsored content can be as interesting and sometimes more interesting than day-to-day editorial content.”

The tone, look, and feel of your website should be cohesive including the sponsored content it hosts. This question garnered the strongest agreement amongst respondents, with 84% agreeing (strongly or somewhat) that sponsored content should look and read similarly to a site’s editorial content.

Mindy Claggett of COX Inc. said this concept had a key role in defining her position. Though she is the Associate Editor of Branded Content, her role reports directly to the editorial team.

“[They] decided that my role should report through editorial primarily because I would be creating content, so they felt I needed to be on the content team. Additionally, they wanted to ensure that even paid content was consistent with the brand standards for our publications and sites, and that the content would fit the brand voice.”

Half of all respondents affirmed that audiences do care whether content has been sponsored by a brand. Readers — especially millennials — generally don’t like ads. However, 58% of millennials will watch ads if their favorite digital personalities are involved. Therefore, presenting high quality information and entertaining content is still imperative.

Maintaining trust

When a brand is connected to a publication it benefits from the same level of trust and credibility, which is important to readers. The relevance and pairing of the brand and the publication must be believable for your audience to want to engage with the content produced. Partnering with brands your audience cares about has proven successful for several of the publishers who responded.

It is important to note that when it comes to branded content, audiences are sympathetic to the economics of the publishing industry. According to Vosburg, “Readers understand the troubles some publishers find themselves in these days and know that financial support through content is a way to help this.”

It’s clear that publishers and brands will continue to collaborate in creating content. But for now, the question of whether editorial teams should be involved remains unanswered. On one hand, the emphasis placed on maintaining the impartiality of editorial content suggests that there should be a strict divide between editorial and sponsored teams. On the other hand, the need for sponsored content to look and feel similar to editorial suggests that there needs to be some degree of editorial involvement. And it’s likely this relationship will remain complicated in the near future as sponsored content becomes an increasing source of revenue for publishers. It appears that only one thing is certain: Sponsored content is here to stay.

Perspectives

We stopped producing content. The results were not good.

July 23, 2019 Kelsey Arendt, Senior Market Analyst—Parse.ly

In media, content is king. But in other industries, what exactly is its value? If your organization is accustomed to the immediate return of most marketing and advertising metrics, then investing in the long-tail metrics of a content program can seem like a competing priority.

Robert Rose, chief content officer of the Content Marketing Institute, explained the real ROI of content based on where it falls financially:

“As a business manager, you have two fundamental ways to make the company more valuable – financial and strategic. Campaign-based marketing and advertising is almost always focused on creating financial value. … Strategic value, on the other hand, doesn’t include but greatly influences financial metrics.”

In other words, content is not going to be directly attributed to revenue. Content is a strategic value, and Rose argues that it should be measured as any asset would be. An asset, like your product, service, or brand position is “the multiplier that gives a differentiated (or easier) way to achieve financial value.”

At Parse.ly, we believe that the best digital companies are the ones with the best content, so we take our own content strategy very seriously. But even a world-class content analytics platform isn’t immune to the variable pressures of business. In April 2019, we wanted to tackle some big initiatives. So for one month, we pressed pause.

We stopped producing content.

Data-driven decisions

How could we come to a decision like that? For starters, we knew the pause was temporary. We figured maybe we could skate by on our archive. However, this conflicted with the fact that providing the latest insights is what our content strategy was built on from the very beginning.

Clare Carr, our VP of Marketing, has spent the last six years turning data into stories at Parse.ly. “We’re so meta,” Carr joked. “We use our own data, we look at our data, we write about data.” Our network provides us with a window into the impact of Facebook, Google, and other platforms. “Without this data,” Carr added, “we’d be unaware how fundamentally these have changed the industry.”

Carr recalled one of the original questions we had, about the extent to which digital content was shaping people’s political opinions online—a notion that seems almost quaint now. At that time, Parse.ly was reliant on traditional PR. This was leading up to the 2008 presidential election, between then-senators Barack Obama and John McCain. At the time, Google drove single-digit percentages of referral traffic, and Facebook even less than that. This kind of data was our foot in the door.

When we talked about these major digital players, people paid attention. We created a quarterly analysis, a PDF called the Authority Report, which PR emailed to journalists. Over time, those journalists realized that they could depend on us.

The only pain point was that we couldn’t keep up. If a journalist reached out, the last update was at least a quarter old. We’re quick to respond, but we simply weren’t staffed to match the volume of requests we received. So our data science team made a game-changing decision: “Let’s just make this public.”

Evaluating and evolving the strategy

The volume of requests hasn’t gone down, but the questions are deeper. And we’re smarter about how we scale our content now. We did a mid-year retrospective recently. Here are a few stats we are particularly proud of:

We produce 46% less content than in the previous 6 months, but we’ve increased monthly views and visitors by about 25%.
We issue a bi-weekly newsletter, from which we can expect two to three placements minimum in high-profile outlets that we respect.
We hired an analyst (that’s me!) with a penchant for media and the information economy.

Fast forward to April 2019. We had a good foundation and a lot of evergreen content. We also had a lot of other work to do.

“I want to level set,” said Carr. “I want to know if all these things I’m saying from a marketing and positioning perspective are true. We’ve got other priorities,” said Carr.

And with that, we took April off from content production.

The null state

“I undersold how daring it was,” Carr deadpanned. “I sold other projects we’d get to do instead. Some of it wasn’t very exciting, like cleaning up our CRM database.” However, she finished that project, and a dozen others that would help us scale into the next several years. Then, she looked at our numbers.

The overall site traffic to our main site didn’t change much. Our blog traffic was expectedly lower, but the blog is only a small percentage of our total site traffic.

However, there was one big problem: Leads were down almost exactly in line with our blog’s traffic.

Now, we don’t normally see leads convert directly on the blog. But we saw that the email capture forms on our blog had declined a bit. All things considered, that wasn’t the stat that worried us. What was truly alarming was the fact that all of our other lead forms—such as demo requests, pricing forms, and product information forms—all dropped precipitously. As a B2B company, this was huge.

Significantly, when we restarted publishing in May, leads climbed back up.

Producing good content is a key business objective

At the end of the day, this test provided a good opportunity to show our own team that, when we say content works for our clients, we mean it. We proved it on our own domain.

But without the right data, it is a difficult thing to demonstrate. “There are big internal communications programs at many companies, across many industries, just to communicate value. But once you see the data behind your content, and how easy it is to get that data, the more people want to be a part of it,” Carr said.

Trying to prove that content should drive conversions directly is a fool’s errand. It’s difficult to show that content will correlate with leads. Like the rest of your marketing campaign, multi-touch attribution considers all your efforts, and how they work together. Otherwise, you find yourself permanently tangled in an argument about correlation vs. causation.

If you’re struggling with that now, consider this: ice cream sales are highest between June and September. Shark attacks are also highest between June and September. These correlate, but ice cream sales certainly don’t cause shark attacks. There’s a lurking variable in this equation, and that is: June through September is summertime. Summertime boosts ice cream sales and gets us to get in the water. In this analogy, your content is summertime.

Content amplifies your efforts to initiate a conversation and build a relationship with potential and existing customers. If data helps content creators do their jobs better, then content helps businesses do the same. Therefore, producing good content shouldn’t simply be an add-on to your business objectives; producing good content is a business objective.

Perspectives

Shakespeare, meet Einstein—Making the leap from data insights to artificial intelligence for content marketing

March 27, 2019 Jon Shalowitz, CEO—LiftIgniter

There isn’t a company leader out there today who doesn’t realize that their ability to harness and interpret data will make or break their business. When it comes to data analytics, the bar is constantly being raised. What was a theoretical concept just one year ago is now mainstream practice in major tech companies. Leveraging data to become more AI-driven is (or should be) on every CEO’s mind.

In fact, research suggests that by 2020, 30% of digital commerce revenue growth will be attributable to Artificial Intelligence (AI) and analytics.

As a content marketer, imagine if you were able to microsegment your readers in the moment and understand which content to best show them to drive subscriptions (or continued subscription). If that sounds appealing to you, read on.

First Party Data

Just look at the renewed importance of first-party data (data you own). In the past, third-party data, or data collected from aggregators, was considered the best way to market to customers. However, privacy concerns (it includes things like purchase and browsing history) have made it less viable.

First-party data, on the other hand, includes website traffic statistics, owned email marketing data, e-commerce data, and the content you publish and promote on your site. The best part is that it’s completely within your control. Also, it builds on itself over the years, which gives you deeper insights than you could have obtained through third-party data alone.

Today, content companies that leverage first-party data are better-positioned to make content recommendations and provide better customer experiences. But to give your customers, users, and readers what they want, you need to be able to process and react to data in less than one second.

And assembling, analyzing, and interpreting the data is no small feat.

From Data to Intelligence

According to 2018 data from Nielsen, Americans spend more than 11 hours consuming various forms of media. And adults between the ages of 18-34 spend as much as 43% of their time reading and viewing media on various digital platforms—a number that’s almost certainly higher today.

All of which is to say: There’s more first-party data up for grabs than ever before.

However, today’s users also expect that content to be relevant. That’s why the most effective content providers not only need to provide content that readers care about, but also content that’s highly tailored to their experiences in that moment.

And in the era of digital transformation, where AI-driven businesses are poised to take in close to $3 trillion, you need a data strategy that performs efficiently.

AI, combined with traditional analytics, can help your company comb through huge amounts of data in real time. And every day you put it off, the data set grows even larger and harder to manage.

Here’s how to harness the power of the data you already have and deliver the content your users want:

Data scientists are often too bogged down with grunt work to focus on what matters.

Today’s tech clutter (the average business today uses roughly 129 apps) creates data silos that make effective communication nearly impossible.

According to a Deloitte survey, 52% of respondents said they couldn’t make information-backed decisions because the data they needed is trapped in siloed departments. When data is isolated, it’s hard to wrangle and figure out how to analyze it. So data scientists find themselves spending 80% of their time on mundane work like figuring out which data to use, managing data movement on and off the Cloud, and understanding what attributes make the most sense to use in your models.

And after all that grunt work, there just isn’t time to do the high-value analysis.

So when you ask your data science team to tackle a portion of data, you may not understand there are many different moving parts that have to come together besides the analytics. And just because your data scientists have PhDs in mathematics or statistics doesn’t mean they have the expertise in data engineering and management to get it all done.

All CEOs need to make sure there’s a programmatic and structured way to enable data science to be ingrained in the data culture—not an afterthought. This means prioritizing building and updating the infrastructure so that there’s time for the most important analysis.

A strong data science platform makes room for truly valuable analysis.

A lot of the businesses we work with at my customer engagement company, LiftIgnigter, say it’s the operationalizing or the engineering part of data analysis that’s the most time-consuming.

It is easy to become overwhelmed by the challenge of turning data into an integral component of business operations—companies often don’t know where or how to begin.

To access the value of your business’s data, your data science team needs to develop not only a clear data strategy, but also find a programmatic way to make this second nature. Typically, this requires either building a platform or leveraging a third-party platform. A third-party platform helps data science teams aggregate the data, ultimately making data analysis a much more democratic process.

But it’s equally critical that the platform is built and fine-tuned for your company’s specific needs. A generic platform may give you lots of different options to run model testing, but at the end of the day, you need to focus your effort on modeling that is the most likely to yield meaningful insights.

However, with the right platform, which typically combines data science and machine learning, a team of five people can be effective as a team of 50. Imagine how much more efficient your team would be if they could focus their time on higher-level analysis.

AI augments the work your data science team can do, in real time.

With AI becoming increasingly ubiquitous, people are worried it will take their jobs. But AI isn’t replacing the data scientist. It’s actually making them that much more effective.

Here’s why: Training user targeting models is one thing. But then your team has to figure out a way to operationalize the continuous updating of the data.

For example, a large publisher company with 40 data scientists can still take several days to do all of the analytics that their editorial or product teams are demanding in real-time. They can hire 1,000 people—but that’s not cost-effective. The data science team is often called on to find compelling nuggets in your data in real-time. They’re constantly bombarded by your revenue team and marketing teams to come up with the perfect segment that will help drive greater revenue.

Large media companies like Facebook have a keen advantage because they have armies of data scientists to dig through their mounting data and figure out what’s relevant. And this is where AI comes in.

In order to compete, your business needs to make that process as standardized, real-time, and with zero wasted effort.

Third-party platforms enable businesses to create, tune, and refresh high performing models efficiently. Whether it’s generating demographic data for audience creation, or live streaming user behavioral signals to train a targeting system, a third-party platform can do a lot of the heavy lifting for you.

If you can create a unified strategy across your organization, optimize the data you have, and work only with trustworthy third-party partners—you’ll be prepared to navigate this new landscape.

Perspectives

5 ways non-traditional publishers connect with audiences

December 19, 2018 Clare Carr, Vice President of Marketing—Parse.ly

The digital media industry is not exactly heading into 2019 with unbridled optimism. However, with great challenge comes a sense of clarity and focus. And we have to hope that it’s finally registered that building a media company on Facebook traffic alone won’t sustain another year. An actual connection with the audience will make or break media companies going forward. As Brian Morrissey from Digiday put it: “Among the biggest lies publishers have told in the past few years, “We don’t buy traffic” ranks rather high.” Without a doubt, consumer engagement needs to top publisher strategies for 2019.

Where to look for inspiration? A whole crop of brand publishers—admittedly free from the constraints of CPMs and programmatic ad-tech headaches (often with ex-journalists at the helm)—find ways to focus on building impressive audiences who contribute to revenue, without subscriptions. Imagine such a world! Maybe the traditional publishing world can learn something from these marketers (and one pretty radical publisher) when it comes to connecting with an audience.

Here are five big ideas to focus on in 2019:

1. Harvard: Get specific about your intended audiences—plural.

Resist the impulse to paint with a broad brush.

“When it comes to targeting, we start by asking that question upfront—Who’s the primary audience and the secondary audience?” said Mike Petroff, Director of Content Strategy at Harvard University. “The audience affects what we’re writing and how we’re evaluating and measuring. If the content is not hitting the right audience, it’s not successful.”

Petroff also distinguishes between audiences for specific channels. “With The Daily Gazette newsletter, we know the audience, we can understand the type of news a student needs vs. alumni or staff,” Petroff said. By understanding the nuances of the newsletter audience and their behavior, Petroff’s team can better serve all their readers. “We’re able to say, ‘Wow, this story really resonated with this audience but not at all with other audiences.’ We can give that info to certain editors about intent and what they can learn for future stories.”

2. Billy Penn: Ask your audience questions and listen to their feedback.

Okay, Spirited Media is clearly a publisher through and through. However, they’ve taken such a radical approach to local news, that their advice gets included in this list. Data and market research are important for understanding audience behavior, but so is getting feedback directly from real people.

Danya Henninger, Editor at Philadelphia local news site Billy Penn, wondered if she should change the structure of their daily newsletter. “Our sister websites, in Denver (Denverite) and in Pittsburgh (The Incline)—they both start their newsletters with a personal note and then get to the news,” Henninger said.

Should Billy Penn follow suit? She brought the question to her readers: “At one point I asked, in our morning newsletter. I said, ‘Hey, how about if we do this note up here.’ And got several replies, ‘Please don’t do that.’” Henninger learned that her readers valued the format of the newsletter as it was, a brief recap of their news for the day.

3. Delta ***Sky*: Create and empower quality content.**

It pains me that this advice still needs to be shared but even in 2018. But let’s face it, quality isn’t something we can take for granted when it comes to content.

We asked Sarah Elbert, editor-in-chief at Delta Sky magazine, what constitutes quality. She replied, “Stories that don’t underestimate their readers.” And it’s working for her team: Sky’s readership among 22- to 44-year-olds has grown 32% in the past year and they’ve found that people are spending more time with the magazine.

Specifically, “it’s about finding the most alluring places to visit and bringing new elements of these destinations to life—whether it’s an adventure angle in Iceland or an urban tour of Seoul. And finding people who are just doing really cool, innovative things.” More generally, quality content includes the “kinds of stories that make the reader want to find out more. It’s about stoking their curiosity and engagement with the world.”

Creating stories that don’t underestimate readers also means trusting your writers. As Elbert said, “We allow our writers to have their own voice and we don’t dumb-down the content.”

4. BarkBox: Create an environment that people want to be a part of.

“Our philosophy as a company has always been that we’re not the party promoters—we are the DJs at the party,” said Stacie Grissom, Head of Content at BarkBox. “We’re responsible for creating the atmosphere that makes customers want to participate in the peripheral conversations rooted around our product.”

“We try to create content that sticks to your bones a bit more than just social memes and social videos,” Grissom said. “Our goal for BarkBox is to create a really entertaining experience.”

To that end, not only does Grissom have writers and social media people on her team, she also has comedians. The Bark approach is a marriage of data-driven decision-making and sheer creativity. “We tend to pursue a lot of things by thinking, ‘Wouldn’t it be cool if?’”

5. eMarketer: Don’t make your content frustrating on mobile.

Mobile is driving growth in time spent with digital media, according to data from eMarketer. An audience-first content strategy should also connect users with content that meets their mindset across devices, including when they’re on their phones. Often, that mindset is killing time in small increments.

Nicole Perrin, Senior Analyst at eMarketer, noted that content creators need to be “respectful of the user’s attention when [they] only have five minutes to look at [their] phone.” Ensure that experiences aren’t interruptive on mobile devices.

“As a user, I often get very frustrated consuming content, whether it’s on desktop, laptop, or phone, by how interruptive the experience can be with advertising,” Perrin said. She also urged creators to be smart about recognizing subscribers across devices. Removing friction from the user experience whenever possible can help you deliver value to prospective users and current users alike.

Big ideas for 2019

To make it out of 2019, and beyond, business as usual will not be business as usual. Big bets will have to be placed, and bold moves will have to be made. Making sure you’re constantly exploring strategies and tactics that make an audience want to connect with you is the best way to go on the offense, instead of spending your time playing defense against a constantly shifting market.

Here’s to learning from unexpected sources and trying new things in the new year.

Perspectives

Let your content be the consumer’s guide on the path to discovery

February 21, 2017 Sophie Melnik Amitay, Head of Marketing, APAC & EEMEA—Outbrain

Once upon a time, the world was a much simpler place for marketers. Not that many years ago, a 30-second television commercial would more-or-less tell consumers exactly what they were going to buy the next morning. The brand would describe a problem and present the immediate solution that consumers would then rush to purchase. Looking back, it was almost like magic. But the age of a short, predictable consumer journey has come to an end.

The Internet has changed everything. Today, the consumer knows almost as much about the product and the brand as the company. They come to purchase prepared with an arsenal of facts and figures to ensure they are making the right decision.

Conquering the Zero Moment of Truth (ZMOT)

Google’s Zero Moment of Truth (ZMOT) Research found that consumers interact with an average of 10.4 items of content throughout their journey to buy. So the question becomes: How many of these pieces of content that will influence the consumer’s decision belong to you?

Brands that aren’t actively doing something to be a part of the online consumer journey and conversation are leaving an opening for their competitors. They also make themselves more vulnerable to the impact of bad reviews, or unflattering articles, that tarnish their brand’s story. The risk of not being a part of this path to purchase is significant. An ad campaign loses much of its effectiveness and becomes exceedingly more expensive if the first time a consumer sees it they have already made up their mind about the brand.

Meet the Consumer at The Right Time and Place

There are three opportunities to grab the consumer’s attention and engage them as part of their online journey.

Search – “I need something, I google it. Whoever answers my needs first wins.”
Social – “I’m on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Snapchat. I share, scroll, like. Whoever reaches my friends is also a friend of mine and gets my attention.”
Discovery – “I consume content that is interesting to me on leading premium publishers. Whatever interests me wins my attention.”

Adjusting to the Age of Discovery

The Age of Discovery is upon is. It is an age when everyone gets to choose what they want, when they want it. This is especially true with the younger generation: They aren’t willing to be bombarded with information. They want their content, but aren’t willing to get it in exchange for being interrupted. eMarketer research estimates that more than 25% of internet users this year will have used ad blockers. This figure represents more than 85 million people in the USA, and more than 400 million people worldwide. The age of aggressive advertisements is over. The future is in exploration-based marketing, also known as discovery.

Letting People Discover for Themselves

Understanding that potential customers will consume a number of content pieces before making their purchase decision, provides an opportunity to control as much of these content encounters as possible. Otherwise, a competing brand might do so, effectively control most of your (would-be) consumer’s journey.

What this means is that brands need to collect, organize and, in some cases, create a large assortment of content. This might take the form of customer reviews, a flattering video, funny short clips, an article in a leading content website, a reference in a well-regarded blog or news piece, or a blog post. And in order for more audiences to discover this content, brands need to consider multiple distribution channels — many of them paid.

The consumer’s conversation happens on many levels and a variety of content helps the consumer feel that they have adopted a balanced and objective opinion. The more control you can have over the content they consume, the closer you will come to influencing the consumer’s journey.

Choose Your Path Wisely

Once you’ve decided to prioritize discovery to attract new customers, it is just as important to determine where this discovery will take place. Social networks get a lot of traffic and are an easy platform to reach the masses, but when your content is up against a picture of a colleague’s adorable daughter or a friend’s awesome trip to Barcelona, you may find that you are at a disadvantage.

When people discover your content through a leading and trustworthy website, having already enjoyed or sought out another story, you immediately have the advantage of their attention. Our data suggests that the choices audiences make about what content to engage with is significantly impacted by what channel they are on.

Always Be On

Unlike advertisements, promoting content in this manner works in a way that it is “Always On” and effective throughout the whole year. Content discovery mode ensures that users meet your content at the moment when it is most appropriate for them. When consumers are exploring a leading content website, they are in a mind set to consume more comparable content. And this doesn’t just mean text-based articles, but a wide range of content such as videos, quizzes, and reviews.

Going on the Journey with Your Customers

In order to see the true impact of an investment in discovery, you must make a strategic decision for content to be a substantial part of the consumer journey. The consumer’s journey is constantly expanding—and within it, many decisions are made. All this happens long before the customer sees an advertisement. More opportunities to connect with your customer means more opportunities to for them to discover your brand. It’s time to control of the story and conversations that you truly want them to keep top of mind.

Sophie is the head of marketing APAC & EEMEA at Outbrain. She is a Global Brand Strategist, Co-Founder, and Entrepreneur with over 15 years of experience with a measurable track record of creating successful online and offline strategic branding concepts, product lines and events, each time finding the brand story that inspires action and create a strategy to meet ambitious new growth goals. She shares a passion for innovation, a curious mind, and expertise in defining business initiatives and plans, adapting to a changing business and technological landscape.

Perspectives

A sound content strategy = a sound profit strategy

August 2, 2016 DCN

The financial service industry is rapidly evolving to meet the needs of the 21st century consumer, and financial marketers are starting to learn the lingo of content marketing to better target their customers. According to the Content Marketing Institute, 78% of financial marketers use content marketing, but of this, only a dismal 25% consider their organizations to be effective at it.

A closer look at the challenges faced by the financial industry might reveal why this so. The industry is highly regulated and bound by compliance, budgets are dropping against an increasingly volatile economy, and organizations struggle with getting buy-in from senior management, which restricts the kind of marketing brands can do.

On the bright side, the financial services sector has one big thing going for it: They talk about money. And let’s be honest, who doesn’t care about growing their wealth? Financial brands know this, and many are blasting through their challenges to create innovative, high-quality content to reach new audiences and establish a baseline of authority.

Here are three key insights that will help any financial services company transform its content strategy:

1. Tell stories with a human voice
In an industry where customer loyalty is a major priority, putting a face to your organization is incredibly important. Be approachable, and develop a lively brand personality so that customers will feel more connected to your brand.

Do your target audience members have to be financial services experts to understand the content you’re publishing? If so, then it’s time to rethink your strategy.

Content marketing is like having a conversation with your customers, and no one likes hearing things they don’t understand. So strip away the jargon, present complex information in digestible forms, and walk your consumers through your messages in an engaging and interactive way.

outbrain1 — Source: UTI Mutual Fund, Be Swatantra

2. Get creative with video
Video is becoming increasingly indispensable to grab the attention of customers, especially among Millennials. It’s entertaining, it’s fun, and it’s easy to consume. And it’s not just in the U.S. Brands leading in finance marketing from around the world, such as Visa and UTI Mutual Fund are leveraging the huge potential video has to engage their customers and forge relationships with new audiences.

In India, UTI Mutual Fund didn’t just adopt the usual routes of using social media, display networks and traditional publishing houses to attract millennial investors and drive sign-ups for its Systematic Investment Plan (SIP). In fact, it incorporated video content marketing into its outreach strategy by launching BeSwatantra.com, a content hub that features videos, podcasts, infographics and articles on investor education, which appeals to the brand’s young target audience.

Source: Visa Asia Pacific, The News Room

Similarly, Visa in Asia Pacific launched VisaAPnews.asia, a Tumblr newsroom of videos on economics, business growth, innovation and viewpoints, and successfully reached and influenced decision makers in banks, merchants and governments across the region.

3. Go to where your audience is
Successful marketers know that crafting high-quality content isn’t enough. What’s equally important is finding where your audience hangs out and targeting them there. There’s a much higher chance for your content to be seen and shared once you know where your audience is.

We’ve found that a great way to amplify audiences for financial brands is through driving traffic from finance publishers, such as the ones we work with — CNN Money, Fortune, Market Watch and Financial Express (IN). For instance, UTI Mutual Fund and Visa reached audiences who were browsing content on premium publisher sites through Outbrain Amplify.

The result? UTI Mutual Fund drove over 3,500 leads and nearly 78,000 visits to its video content, and Visa saw a 270% increase in click-through rates and engaged with over 75,000 users daily.

In a field that revolves around digits and data, numbers aren’t always everything, and financial marketers shouldn’t underestimate the power of words. As the needs of customers rapidly evolve, the finance industry has come to realize that well-crafted and well-placed content can go a long way in helping brands retain a loyal consumer base and roll in the revenue.

Isabella Barbato heads Outbrain’s marketing in Asia Pacific, based out of their Singapore office. Originally from Italy, she has spent the last 6 years in Asia, and has joined Outbrain in May 2014. Isabella is passionate about technology and the digital space. In her free time, she enjoys music, traveling and yoga.

Industry-Research | Perspectives

Content marketers still struggling, opportunities for publishers abound

June 24, 2016 Theresa Cramer – Independent Journalist

The 2016 State of Content Marketing Survey Summary Report from Ascend2 is out, and it confirms what many of us already know: content marketers are still struggling in a variety of ways.

They are mostly concerned with lead generation (58%) and improving customer engagement (55%). Lack of an effective content strategy (48%) and lack of content creation resources (48%) are the biggest barriers to their success—and most of them are still reporting limited success. Half of them say they are “somewhat successful” and 29% claim to be “somewhat unsuccessful.” Only 16% consider themselves be “very successful.”

If you’ve been following the content marketing world, you’ve probably heard some version of all of this before. It’s easy to wonder why content marketing success still eludes so many. But there is some good news. Most companies (89%) say the effectiveness of their content marketing program is increasing. Another 35% say it is “increasing significantly.”

Low down on the list of barriers to success hides “lack of compelling content ideas” with just 25% of respondents listing it as a concern. The mere fact that it ranks so low on marketers list of concerns is worrisome—and perhaps part of the reason they continue to struggle.

Research reports are apparently most effective when it comes to meeting content marketing goals, and it’s easy to see why. Research reports are often downloaded in exchange for information, which inherently produces the leads marketers are looking for. Unfortunately, research reports are the second hardest (62%) type of content to create, right behind videos/podcasts (64%). Research is labor intensive, and time consuming. And it can also be kind of boring.

Content marketing experts are always prevailing on their audience to tell a story. Connect with your potential clients on an emotional level and you’ve got them! But it’s hard to do that with a survey.

The researchers found that blog posts and videos/podcasts are the second and third most effective types of content. Now, those are storytelling devices! Take, for instance, Frank and the Tower, a short film by REI that tells the story of Franks Sanders, a rock climbing guide who has ascended Devil’s Tower thousands of times over his long career. Sanders is a character in his own right. But for someone like me, who not only recently took up indoor rock climbing, but who also stood at the base of Devil’s Tower as a kid with binoculars in hand, the film really struck a chord. Who knows? Maybe one of the people I saw climbing the tower through my binoculars was Sanders. I think about this video all the time, especially when I’m thinking about which store I’m going to in order to buy more chalk for climbing.

Creating this kind of content is not easy. The production value is top notch, and REI has the kind of subject matter at its disposal that the average brand just doesn’t. That’s why brands need publishers. Videos and podcasts are, in fact, labor intensive. Not only do you need an idea, but you need the storytelling and technical expertise to pull it off. Publishers and their staff have all of those things in spades.

In my book, Inside Content Marketing, I spend the final section trying to convince publishers and content marketers that they need each other and this report only reinforces my belief in the promise of this partnership.

According to The 2016 State of Content Marketing Survey Summary Report, 11% of respondents are outsourcing their content needs entirely. Another 61% are using a combination of outside and in-house resources. Publishers need to make sure they aren’t handing over the content creation business to freelancers and agencies. And if content marketers want to finally break through the wall and join the ranks of the “very successful,” they need to make sure they have the right content—created by the right people—and the means to deliver it to as wide an audience as possible.

With a little team work, publishers can use their content creating expertise to help close the revenue gap they are experiencing in the digital age, and marketers can finally find the success they are looking for.

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, NPR addict, and avid gardener. Find out more at TheresaCramer.com or @Cramerstrasser on Twitter.

Perspectives

Publishers: Prepare to meet the evolving needs of content advertisers

April 6, 2016 DCN

Creating content for brands has been a windfall for publishers. On the receiving end of advertisers’ investment in content marketing, publishers are even encroaching on ground formerly dominated by agencies. But this could change, so it’s critical publishers start to think differently about content creation, and the bigger impact these content assets can make in meeting the evolving needs of advertisers.

Content creation: too many cooks
The current ecosystem and marketer needs are breeding a growing supply of content creators fighting for a piece of the pie. First, there are holding companies and media agencies acquiring creator businesses, to fold content into their client offerings. You then have publishers like the Times’s T-Brand Studio, Conde Nast’s 23 Stories, Time Inc.’s The Foundry and the Wall Street Journal’s WSJ. Custom Studios. Next are third party creators, including studioD and Visual.ly, the latter being one of several in a field seeing hundreds of millions in venture investment. Finally, brands like Red Bull or GoPro (with the help of UGC) create their content in-house. There are a lot of content cooks in this kitchen.

Given the coming market saturation, publishers that are creating content for advertising and marketing partners must prove unique value and impact to stay relevant to their partners. This means integrating their knowledge, experience with and data about a target audience into content that resonates; as publishers should know their readers best.

Publishers: think beyond your sites
Whether a client comes to you with content in hand or relies on the publisher for content creation, they are seeking an audience. Certainly, a targeted audience is desirable. However, many will also seek scale.

Publishers need to think about the reach and distribution an advertiser will want for their content, and address usage and related rights in their creation arrangements. Having a potential scale discussion up front enables publishers to define these terms and add corresponding fees onto a project: yielding higher top line revenue, and higher profit margin.

Creating publisher-voiced content is a big part of the value publishers can bring to the table, but to deliver increased scale, publishers may need to think beyond their sites. Advertisers will want take the publisher-related content and seek to distribute it more broadly than the publisher’s property alone.

Shutting down a distribution rights conversation will push marketers to seek out other content creators that do not limit their usage, leaving publishers to operate without an important differentiator and run the risk of missing out on renewal business. The market will start to filter out the content creators only able to field boutique opportunities, and whose value has a (low) ceiling.

Extended distribution can open opportunities
Allowing the content that publishers create for brands to live outside their own sites should be a more common expectation that publishers are prepared to accommodate. Publishers should also plan for reach extension solutions that push their content onto other platforms. Bumping up against the limits of their owned and operated scale should not always lead to arbitraged traffic, but instead beg the question: Where can this brand content meet the desired consumers?

Allowing marketers to extend reach and amplify content across other publications at scale keeps revenue in the source publisher’s pocket while making clients happy. Publishers with targeted reach extension offerings will cultivate the publisher-brand relationship by providing transparency on where brand content is published.

Scaling distribution to the desired audience in other contextually relevant environments can also help publishers more easily meet advertiser KPIs. Learnings on how content resonates in multiple environments may then be packaged up into insights for the advertiser to inform content creation and messaging tactics – fortifying the content creation offering with knowledge sharing and making the publisher an indispensable partner.

For publishers, content creation is only an opportunity of which they will want to take full advantage. The content they create is a valuable component of advertisers’ native programs, ultimately supporting the relationship brands hope to build and maintain with their consumers. As an overcrowded market shrinks, however, staying-power depends not just on content quality, and reaching desirable audiences, but reaching those audiences at scale.

Sarah Mandato is the Director of Content Labs at Nativo, where she oversees all brand content populating the native advertising technology platform. Sarah was previously the SVP of Community at VaynerMedia. A graduate of Johns Hopkins University and Notre Dame Law School, she was a member of the New York State Bar, before decamping for the world of high growth new media and tech startups. Her writing on the native advertising space has also been featured in Ad Age, iMedia and studioD’s Content Marketing Spotlight.

Facts over flash

Best practices in action

What is thought leadership?

What’s the goal?

A measurement framework

“Tribal subscription marketing”

Determine which traffic source to use

Look beyond the surface data

Ask the right questions

Think long-term brand lift benefits

Does branded content influence editorial?

Striking a balance between sponsored and editorial

Maintaining trust

Data-driven decisions

Evaluating and evolving the strategy

The null state

Producing good content is a key business objective

First Party Data

From Data to Intelligence

Data scientists are often too bogged down with grunt work to focus on what matters.

A strong data science platform makes room for truly valuable analysis.

AI augments the work your data science team can do, in real time.

Here are five big ideas to focus on in 2019:

1. Harvard: Get specific about your intended audiences—plural.

2. Billy Penn: Ask your audience questions and listen to their feedback.

3. Delta Sky: Create and empower quality content.

4. BarkBox: Create an environment that people want to be a part of.

5. eMarketer: Don’t make your content frustrating on mobile.

Big ideas for 2019

Conquering the Zero Moment of Truth (ZMOT)

Meet the Consumer at The Right Time and Place

Adjusting to the Age of Discovery

Letting People Discover for Themselves

Choose Your Path Wisely

Always Be On

Going on the Journey with Your Customers

3. Delta ***Sky*: Create and empower quality content.**