Research / Insights on current and emerging industry topics

Three key advertising trends for 2017

December 20, 2016 DCN

The ad ecosystem continues to evolve at a breakneck pace. This velocity can be challenging for publishers who are trying to keep-up with the latest innovations. So, what will 2017 look like? What are the key developments publishers will face?

At MediaRadar, we spoke with our clients and pulled data from our platform to help make sense of it all. With that in mind, here are three critical trends publishers need to consider as we head into the New Year.

1. Native Renewal Rates Are Going Up, and Down
With more than 1,000 sites selling native advertising, the market is maturing. But while native is ubiquitous, this does mean campaign performance is so equally widespread. We see and forecast renewal rates on native to polarize. Some publishers are much better implementing and measuring their impact. Strong performance will lift renewal rates for publishers who are consistently showing their advertisers results.

According to MediaRadar data, average renewal rates for 2016 were 33%, with 20% of advertisers at a less than 20% renewal. However, some publishers, like The Atlantic and QZ, have consistently strong performance that outstrips so many. The top native sellers win renewal rates between 60-80%.

2. Significant Programmatic Expansion in B2B
Last year was the year of programmatic for national consumer publishers. But there was also substantial penetration in programmatic in B2B publishing. Per MediaRadar data, year-over-year, the number of B2B websites selling programmatic more than doubles, from 39% to 82%.

Today, programmatic has created a paradigm shift. Traditional B2B publishers now compete with companies like Demandbase, Madison Logic, LiveIntent and others who sell online ads targeted to B2B audiences. We predict that programmatic will continue to see dramatic growth in B2B with more sophisticated offerings including PMPs, tiered pricing, and fixed time periods to maintain inventory value. B2B publishers will master programmatic in 2017 and be able to sell inventory at a high rate due to super targeted, niche audiences.

3. Ad Blocking, A Diluted Threat
Despite industry fears, ad blocking didn’t take off as expected, nor has it affected ad sales. Yes, many consumers do use ad blocking software. An IAB study found 26% of desktop users as having installed blockers. But we’re not seeing the decline in the number of ads served or total volume of ads purchased.

Ad blocking will continue be more hype (and threat) than it will actually create a ceiling on ad spend. Why? Publishers are making ads more palatable, they are speeding up pages (think Google AMP), and demand from marketers for digital solutions remains robust.

As publishers try to make sense of the year and finalize strategies for the first quarter, these are areas to plan around.

Todd Krizelman is Co-Founder and CEO of MediaRadar (@MediaRadar). Growing up near the epicenter of technological innovation in Palo Alto, California encouraged him to become an entrepreneur and co-found of one of the world’s first social media sites, theGlobe.com. Krizelman also held leadership positions at Bertelsmann’s Gruner + Jahr and Random House. With his expertise in ad sales and innovation, Krizelman joined veteran web architect, Jesse Keller, to found MediaRadar in 2007.

Industry-Research | Video

People are watching more video on mobile, but not on the go

December 19, 2016 Research Team

The Streaming Video Alliance (SVA) examines the role of the smartphone in the transition of television viewing experience in its study The Mobile Video: Exposed. According to their research, consumers are using their smartphones consistently to watch more video content. Whether it’s user-generated content (YouTube), how-tos, or news, consumers seem to enjoy watching on their pocket-sized computers.

The dominant location for watching video on the phone is at home. It is interesting to note that consumers are opting to watch video on their phones rather than watching it on TV. This might suggest a time constraint or it might be a conscious decision to watch content that isn’t available on broadcast channels. Whatever the case, SVA suggests that the mobile phone is becoming a surrogate for broadcast television most likely because of the kind of content it can provide.

However, the SVA has not found the smartphone to displace other, larger screens. That said, they report that it is playing an increasingly important role in how people consume video content. Not only are people watching more video on their phones while at home (displacing attention from the television), they are also using the smartphone to watch video more because of the ease in being able to share the experience with others.

The Mobile Video: Exposed study is part of the Streaming Video Alliance’s series of annual surveys that explore consumer perceptions and behaviors around watching video on mobile phones.

Key findings of this report include:

25% of consumers watch more than 2 hours of video on their smartphone each week.
iOS is the dominant mobile operating system through which consumers watch video, but Android is a close second.
When it comes to watching video on their phones, consumers opt for web streaming versus using an app.
Consumers are most often watching video on their phones at home.
Despite the growth of premium OTT providers, YouTube is the dominant source for video on mobile phones.
When watching video through social networks, Facebook is crushing the competition.
Buffering and data usage top the frustrations for mobile video watching.
Consumers love the convenience of mobile video,
Despite growing in popularity, mobile video still plays second fiddle to most other video sources.
Although broadcast television still holds its sway, the mobile phone is encroaching on the experience.
On mobile, consumers like to watch on their mobile phones? UGC, How-Tos, and News most.
Consumers prefer to watch video over WiFi but will use cellular data to get the content they want when WiFi is not available.
With more data, consumers would watch more video on their phones but they won’t pay for it.

Industry-Research | Perspectives

Navigating the customer journey labyrinth

December 14, 2016 DCN

Few topics are as pervasive in marketing circles these days as those related to the “customer journey.” According to a new ebook from IBM, nearly 80% of consumers feel the average brand doesn’t understand them as individuals, so it is clear that CMOs are right to be focused on initial engagement.

First introduced by organizational design maestro IDEO in the late 1990s while working on a high-speed rail design project for Acela, the concept was quickly embraced and proselytized by consultants and leading companies around the world. The subsequent explosion of digital technologies had a dramatic effect on customer journey planning – increasing its complexity dramatically, and perhaps even exponentially – and fueled the growth of what is now effectively its own industry category.

What is the Customer Journey?
In its simplest form, the (pre-acquisition) customer journey is the sum of the steps that an individual or company takes before becoming a customer. The “customer journey map” is typically a visual representation of that process, and often conveys considerable detail. This example neatly summarizes a customer’s path to purchasing broadband internet service, but the journeys differ dramatically according to the unique dynamics of customer type, product, price, and company (think: purchasing a new pair of jeans at Old Navy versus Bloomingdale’s).

The close cousin to the customer journey is the “customer experience,” which can be generally understood as the post-acquisition activities that place, and are aimed at maximizing client satisfaction and/or cross- and up-selling complementary goods and services.

What You Need to Know
Given the myriad variables involved in the customer journey planning and optimization process, it’s easy to get off-track. The new ebook from IBM does a good job of identifying three common barriers, and tips for how to address them. Our take on its recommendations follows.

Stay Focused On What You Can Control. End-to-end customer journeys can involve just about every functional area of an organization – from product managers to IT resources and finance, as well as third party vendors with tightly defined contracts. Successfully implementing behavioral changes in any area you don’t have full management control over can be time-consuming and costly, if not in actually dollars than in political capital. For example, we recommend that marketers focus the bulk of their efforts on optimizing offers, content, on-page creative assets, forms, etc. (Barrier #1). Likewise, technology teams are best served by reworking applications and infrastructure.

Be Realistic About What Can Be Accomplished. Recommendations such as “use a single identity” and “stop doing channel-by-channel marketing” (Barrier #2) are generally agreed-upon industry best practices, but also exceedingly difficult to implement, especially at large companies with sprawling operations. Keeping these goals in the conversation as long-term aspirations makes sense for most companies, but are realistic goals for only a fraction of sizable organizations in the short term.

Employ a ‘Ready, Fire, Aim” Philosophy. Customer journey initiatives go hand-in-hand with digital strategies, and the digital technology landscape continues to mushroom, with hundreds of affordable new solutions introduced each year. High-performing companies understand that frequent missteps are part and parcel of the process, and have learned to ‘fail fast’ by relying on data-based measurement strategies (Barrier #3). With the easy and often free availability of sophisticated tracking tools such as Google Analytics, companies of every size and stripe can confidently rely on performance statistics to drive behavior. While the adoption and learning curve can be steep – many of the free tools are complex – especially for companies overly reliant on old school tactics, the benefits are considerable.

Tim Bourgeois (@ChiefDigOfficer) is a partner at East Coast Catalyst, a Boston-based digital consulting companyspecializing in strategic roadmaps, digital marketing audits, and online marketing optimization programs.

Mobile Marketing

Industry-Research

Fake news fools most of the people most of the time

December 13, 2016 DCN

American adults are fooled by fake news headlines approximately 75% of the time. Those likely to turn to Facebook for news are more likely to think fake news headlines are correct than those using other platforms according to a survey conducted by Ipsos Public Affairs for BuzzFeed News. Consumers find it difficult to filter out fake news headlines without the necessary background filled-in, particularly in social media channels. Interestingly, consumers are even likely to believe fake news headlines that don’t necessarily fit with their ideological beliefs.

Almost one-third of respondents recalled at least one of a selection of fake news headlines from the election. In comparison, 57% of respondents recalled at least one of the real news headlines tested in the survey. Interestingly, consumers who identified themselves as Republican are more likely to think fake election news stories are very or somewhat accurate. Eight in 10 Republicans rated fake news headlines as accurate (among those they recognized), compared seven in 10 Democrats.

The fake news headline recalled by the largest number of respondents, 22%, is the story from the website the Denver Guardian, “FBI Agent Suspected in Hillary Email Leaks Found Dead in Apparent Murder-Suicide.” The highest awareness for a true news headline was at 34% of respondents for recalling Trump “absolutely” requiring Muslims to register.

One of the highest recalled true news headlines was the CBS News post-election story about Donald Trump stating he will not accept a presidential salary, “Donald Trump on Refusing Presidential Salary: ‘I’m Not Taking It.’” More than half of respondents (57%) recalled seeing this headline. Another news headline with a 90% accuracy rating, among the 157 respondents who recognized it, was the New York Times op-ed “I Ran the CIA. Now I’m Endorsing Hillary Clinton.”

Respondents rated the fake news story “FBI Director Comey Just Put a Trump Sign on His Front Lawn,” with the highest overall accuracy rating. Among the 186 people who recalled seeing it, 81% said it was very or somewhat accurate.

News headlines tested:

FBI Agent Suspected in Hillary Email Leaks Found Dead in Apparent Murder-Suicide (Fake, 22% recall)
Pope Francis Shocks World, Endorses Donald Trump for President, Releases Statement (Fake, 19% recall)
Donald Trump Protester Speaks Out: “I Was Paid $3,500 to Protest Trump’s Rally” (Fake, 19% recall)
Donald Trump Sent His Own Plane to Transport 200 Stranded Marines (Fake, 14% recall)
FBI Director Comey Just Put a Trump Sign on His Front Lawn (Fake, 10% recall)
Donald Trump on Refusing Presidential Salary: “I’m Not Taking It” (True, 57% recall)
Donald Trump Says He’d “Absolutely” Require Muslims to Register (True, 34% recall)
Trump: “I Will Protect Our LGBTQ Citizens” (True, 27% recall)
Barbara Bush: “I Don’t Know How Women Can Vote” for Trump (True, 25% recall)
Melania Trump’s Girl-on-Girl Photos from Racy Shoot Revealed (True, 23% recall)
I Ran the CIA. Now I’m Endorsing Hillary Clinton (True, 11% recall)

Consumers frequently see fake news in their social media feeds according to another survey on fake news conducted by Morning Consult, a media and technology. They found that amost one-third of respondents (31%) reported seeing a fake news story online more than once a day. Fifty-five percent of those surveyed said they started to read a story online only to realize it was fake.
In terms of social platform usage, participants of the Ipsos survey cited Facebook as the most popular with just less than half (47%) visiting Facebook multiple times per day and another 15% report visiting once a day. YouTube was the second most popular social platform. Twenty percent stated they visit YouTube multiple times per day and 11% visit once a day. The fact that fake news headlines are often remembered and said to be accurate by a strong number of consumers points to the fact that consumers have a difficult time discerning between fact and fictional news on social media.

Advertising | Industry-Research

Ad-spending growth will slow in 2017

December 7, 2016 DCN

Magna Global, GroupM and Zenith forecast lower to flat sales growth with more sales dollars working in digital for 2017. Magna Global attributes slower growth to current economic and political insecurity as well as the lack of a major recurring event (i.e. Presidential election or the Olympics). GroupM adds that slower growth rates are due to energy pricing as well as political concerns.

Magna Global also reports that next year’s growth rate would be the lowest in 15 years excluding the recession in 2008-2009. Even with slow growth rate All three agencies presented this week at the USB Media and Communication Conference. While the analyses and forecasts, they provide insight into the factors at hand impacting the global and local advertising marketplace.

Key highlights from each of the agency’s forecasts:

Magna Global predicts overall ad growth for the global marketplace is 3.6%, reaching $510.7 billion, compared to this year’s growth rate of 5.7% pace, reaching $493 billion.

S. growth is expected to align with global slowing to 3.6%. This year U.S. advertising sales grew by close to 7% to $180 billion, it’s strongest growth in 12 years. Discounting political and Olympic spending ($3.5 billion), ad growth for 2016 would have been 5.1%.

Digital ad sales will lead the marketplace with market share of 40% ($202 billion), compared to linear TV ad sales ($186 billion, 36%). Digital will continue to grow to win 50% of the market by 2021 ($299 billion) while linear TV will level off at $195 billion (33%).
Digital ad sales (52% share) will be comprised mostly of mobile, driven by usage of mobile devices.
Digital growth this year was also driven by video formats (+35%) and social formats (+43%), while search banner ad sales declined (-5%).
Google and Facebook, will continue to dominate search and social, controlling more than half (54%) of the total digital advertising market compared to 44% a year ago.

GroupM forecasts overall ad growth for the global market at 4.4% to $547.3 billion in 2017, close to growth rate of 2016 at 4.3% ($424.5 billion).

S. will continue to trail the global pace at 2.6% growth ($193.6 billion) in 2017 from the 3.1% growth ($188.7 billion) forecasted this year.
Digital advertising will capture 72 cents of every new ad dollar and TV 21 cents in 2017, growing from 77 cents and 17 cents, respectively, this year.

Zenith forecasts the growth at 4.4% (reaching $566 billion), flat compared to 2016.

S. ad spending will grow to 4.3% (close to $190.8 billion) from 3.5% ($182.6 billion) in 2016.
Social media’s increased usage will account for 20% of all Internet advertising in 2019, up from 16% in 2016.
Mobile advertising growth slowed down to 48% in 2016 compared to 94% growth in 2015 and will grow an average of 26% each year between 2016 and 2019
While television still dominants the ad market, accounting for 36% of total ad spend in 2016, the Internet is expected to overtake television to become the largest advertising medium in 2017.
Desktop Internet advertising will continue to decrease at an average rate of 4% per year as advertisers follow consumers to mobile.

All three agencies still see television as an important channel for branding. Online video can also be a good branding vehicle but it doesn’t yet have the massive or broad reach of television. The agencies also agree that print’s (newspapers and magazine) share of global spend will continue to decline year to year. Zenith forecasts the rate of decline at 4% to 5% each year between 2016 and 2019.

Industry-Research | Perspectives

Everyone talks about audience engagement. But what does it really mean?

December 6, 2016 Clare Carr, Vice President of Marketing—Parse.ly

In this year’s Reuters Institute Digital News Project report, “Journalism, Media and Technology Predictions 2016,” Author Nic Newman said that this will be the year of audience engagement—with more than half of all respondents in his study acknowledging that improving audience engagement would be the highest of their priorities in 2016.

And true to this prediction, online media has seen a rise in the title of Audience Engagement Editor. Sites want to know how long readers have engaged with their articles. And above all else, the question remains how to harness this engagement and turn it into results: action, loyalty, monetization.

But what do we mean when we talk about audience engagement? And possibly more important: Do we all mean the same thing?

Digital publishers’ current approach to measuring engagement
Parse.ly surveyed thousands of digital media professionals, asking them to share their definitions of “audience engagement.”

From the 130 plus responses, we learned a majority of digital publishers are measuring audience engagement. Nearly 77% of survey respondents considered the ways their organizations measure engagement to be average or better.

Perhaps one reason that digital publishers are so confident in how they are measuring audience engagement is that they have more access than ever to analytics that can help them to better understand their audience. While some publications have a clear sense of how to use this data to help meet their goals, other media outlets are struggling because they don’t have a universal sense of what goals they are trying to reach.

That’s one reason that there’s no common definition for “audience engagement” among publishers—or even within organizations. Over half of the survey respondents said that their organizations don’t have an agreed upon definition.

These two findings seem to be at odds. How can publishers be active and confident in their measurement methods but unsure of what exactly they’re measuring?

Do we need a common definition for audience engagement?
One explanation could be that many publishers have access to analytics tools but aren’t necessarily setting a common goal for which metrics to measure.

The survey results showed that many publishers considered shares and engaged time to be the best representations of engagement. Rather than settling on one “golden” metric for defining audience engagement though, many publishers combined multiple metrics, such as “page views per visitor” or “shares plus comments.”

Furthermore, while only 28% of digital publishers considered “offline impact” a representation of engagement, many respondents (when asked to share anecdotes that represented particularly good examples of audience engagement) talked about audience engagement as a personal relationship or interaction with readers.

Take a look:

“Personal replies that make me smile or think.”
“A two-way relationship with the people in our community.”
“To interact in any way with the content or the author — write a comment, answer a poll, follow the author, share, etc.”
“When our audience responds with a question, especially.”

Getting on the Same Page About Audience Engagement
A recent audience engagement webinar with panelists from Hearken, MediaShift, and Parse.ly touched on the importance of settling on a common definition within an organization, whether that definition involves one metric or many.

Parse.ly CEO Sachin Kamdar explained, “It’s probably important that you talk with everyone at your organization around how you want to define engagement. But tied into that…is you’ve got to be able to measure it, too.”

He continued, “So, picking the right metrics—and again, that might be a multitude of metrics that are important to you—can help you align your goals of engagement with how you can measure and that can lead towards success.”

Clare Vice President of Marketing at Parse.ly, which partners with digital publishers to provide clear audience insights through an intuitive analytics platform. She writes and speaks about all the ways companies can use digital analytics to improve their operations and reach their audience goals. Prior to joining Parse.ly, Clare spent five years on the publishing side as the Director of Marketing and Online Operations at Greentech Media. Previous to that, she did digital marketing and business development at ThePoint.com, the precursor to Groupon, and Venus Zine. Originally from Ohio, she graduated from the University of Virginia with a degree in Environmental Sciences.

Industry-Research | Video

What you need to know about digital video advertising in 7 charts

December 5, 2016 Michelle Manafy, Editorial Director – DCN

Okay, let’s start off with an obvious—but critical—fact: Just about everybody’s watching digital video. According to comScore, almost every demographic watches some form of digital video each month.

That said, it is clear from the comScore chart that there are segments that are consuming more than others. And, According to Defy Media, consumers aged 13-24 watch 12.1 hours of video per week on YouTube, social media and other free online sources, and another 8.8 hours weekly on Netflix and other subscription-video services. (That’s more than two and a half times the 8.2 hours weekly they spend watching television.)

While few of these younger viewers adore advertising, they are much more amenable to a brief sponsorship announcement or product integration is than the traditional preroll.

In its 2016 Digital Ad Spend Study, the International Advertising Bureau (IAB) reported that Digital Video and Original Digital Video budget allocations resulting from the NewFronts event have steadily increased over the last 3 years. Their research finds that ad spending on original digital video programming has increased 114% since 2014 and, on average, marketers and advertisers are spending more than $10 million annually on Digital Video, representing an 85% increase from 2 years ago.

According to Statista, there’s still plenty of room for growth, though. Statista analysts expect the digital ad market to grow at an average rate of 10.9% over the next five years, with social media and video advertising outpacing the overall market’s growth. And while search marketing is forecast to remain the largest share of digital advertising, it is predicted to rise about 57% whereas video is expected to experience an 80% increase.

While marketers find video to be among the most effective content type used in content marketing initiatives, they also rank creating it as among the most difficult, according to a report from Ascend2 and its Research Partners. Customer testimonials, explainer/tutorial videos and demonstration videos are ranked as the most effective types of video content marketing, per Ascend2’s research.

Time of viewing affects ad effectiveness. Online video advertising seems be most effective between the hours of 3 a.m. and 12 p.m., according to a study from cross-platform video advertising firm YuMe. They saw this trend across all age groups including millennials, Generation X, and baby boomers.

Mobile will be the biggest driver of digital-video ad spend over the next few years according to BI Intelligence. They found that US digital-video advertising revenue from PC- and mobile-based video ads will top nearly $5 billion this year, and grow at a five-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 21.9%.

Industry-Research

Social media is a daily touchpoint for most Americans

November 29, 2016 DCN

Social media is part of Americans every day routine with a majority stating that they get their news through social media. In fact, half of the Americans turned to social media to learn about the 2016 presidential election reports Pew Research Center’s Social Media Update 2016, which was based on a national survey of over 1,500 adults.

The present state of the social media landscape includes 79% of Americans using Facebook, more than double the number of its nearest competitor, Instagram (32%). Other top social media platforms includes 31% of Americans use Pinterest, LinkedIn (29%) and Twitter (24%). In terms of reflecting the total U.S. population (including those consumers who do not use the internet), 68% of all U.S. adults are Facebook users, 28% use Instagram, 26% use Pinterest, 25% use LinkedIn and 21% use Twitter.

Facebook clearly remains the most dominant social media platform out there. It is the strongest social platform of the five included in this study among online young adults, Eighty-eight percent of adults 18-29 use Facebook; followed by Instagram at 59%, Pinterest and Twitter at 36%, each, and Linkedin at 34%. Facebook is also gaining traction among older adults, ages 65+. Close to two-thirds of adults ages 65 plus now use Facebook.

Facebook is a daily habit for most of its users with 76% visiting the site daily and of the daily visitors, 55% visiting multiple times a day. Interestingly, 56% of online adults use more than one of the five social media platforms included in this study with the highest duplication of usage on Facebook. This means that 95% of Instagram users, 93% Twitter, 92% Pinterest also use Facebook.

Social media apps are also popular among close to three-quarters of Americans (72%) using smartphones. Twenty-nine percent of smartphone owners use general-purpose messaging apps such as WhatsApp or Kik. Almost one-fifth (24%) use messaging apps that automatically delete sent messages, such as Snapchat or Wickr, and 5% use apps that allow people to anonymously chat or post comments, like YikYak or Whisper.

Users are often motivated to use social media platforms for their communal and social offerings. Social platforms easily remove communication and interaction barriers and allow users to communicate and share news with like-minded people. The social networks do even more to attract and engage users in these areas such as new in-app search functions, embedded content and live streaming video. These features (as well as an ever-expanding menu of new ones, along with an emphasis on the mobile experience are important as key platform differentiators in the marketplace.

Industry-Research | Perspectives

Mobile marketing is huge. But how are marketers supposed to make it work?

November 28, 2016 DCN

In the wake of this year’s U.S. presidential election, it’s admittedly difficult to place a whole lot of confidence in data of any kind (regardless of which side of the political isle you reside). Fortunately for us digital marketers, one or two percentage points don’t often have monumental effects on our campaigns. More often than not, we pursue initiatives knowing that online is still an emerging channel, and—warts and all—is still more effective than its offline counterparts, even considering its weakness when it comes to reporting and performance data. Indeed, no matter the not insignificant margins-of-error we digital marketers know to be real and plan for, we also know that online channels provide us with superior insights and performance causality as compared to their offline brethren.

And it’s with these realities top-of-mind that we delve into this issue of Industry Research, where we examine the 2016 Global Mobile Trends Report, produced by Kantar Millward Brown and the Mobile Marketing Association (MMA). These organizations undertook the research, which encompassed MMA’s Global Smarties and Cannes Mobile Lions finalists, to identify mobile marketing trends, and understand the business impact of a winning mobile campaign.

Marketers of every stripe know that mobile-related activity on the internet exceeded desktop sometime around 2014, and has been on an upward trajectory ever since. Yet, though mobile has been a hot topic for several years, marketers continue to struggle to make it work successfully. And with good reason: The ecosystem is evolving at warp speed, so there are no absolute best practices to follow. The Kantar-MMA study provides tips and tricks for how to make the channel work for you. Here’s what you need to know.

Mobile Delivers on Branding Initiatives

Takeaway: Be open to using mobile platforms in new ways to renew your brand’s relevance among your target

Marketers flocked to the digital channel initially for its amazing tracking and conversion abilities. As the channel has evolved, stratification naturally occurred. Today, digital segments — organic search, paid search, display, email, etc. – have been defined and categorized for different jobs. And mobile, for the foreseeable future at least, is emerging as an effective branding tool.

Marketers Have Shifted Mobile Efforts from Sales to Equity & Engagement

Takeaway: Top performers consider deepening consumer engagement as important a mobile campaign objective as increasing sales

The study illustrates case studies from Samsung and Sony Pictures to show the impact that mobile techniques can deliver on mobile efforts aimed at getting consumers involved. Samsung used a campaign to get iPhone users to experience the Galaxy S6. Sony relied on mobile advertising to engage consumers about an upcoming movie (Goosebumps), which eventually landed in the #1 spot during opening weekend.

Mobile-First Campaigns Out-Perform Mobile Bolt-Ons

Takeaway: Mobile forms a creative cornerstone and can be bolstered by other channels

To say ‘great mobile campaigns put mobile as the cornerstone’ may seem redundant, obvious, or both. But mobile ads only accounted for about ⅓ of the U.S. marketplace last year. While mobile is growing faster than desktop (50%+ annually, versus ~5%), desktop will continue to be the majority digital advertising channel for at least a few more years.

So for all of the focus on mobile by Google and the other digital titans, mobile advertising is still adolescent and a needs to mature aggressively in order to evolve into a digital marketing best practice. In the meantime, sophisticated marketers who develop a genuine understanding f the channel will reap benefits until others catch up.

Industry-Research | Perspectives

Omni-channel marketing is a must this holiday season

November 22, 2016 DCN

Early holiday indicators demonstrate that marketing to the hyper-connected consumer is necessary. The bar is set high to deliver a compelling, contextual and consistent brand experience across all communication channels. Why is omni-channel marketing so critical this holiday season?

Compared to last year, 6 in 10 consumers report that they will shop only online this holiday season, two-thirds of consumers will shop both online and offline and only 34% will shop mostly in-stores reports Yahoo’s Holiday and Search Insights 2016 report. In all, 37% of consumers said they will shop more online this year than a year ago.

Key findings include:

Holiday shopping is an omni-channel experience

79% of consumers plan to purchase holiday gifts both in store and online

Shoppers are relying more and more on mobile as a “go-to” resource during the busy shopping season

On Black Friday, share of searches on mobile devices increased from 26% year-over-year

While Black Friday and Cyber Monday are the busiest shopping days of the year, many will not shop on these designated shopping days

29% of holiday shoppers plan to stay away from shopping during Thanksgiving Week

As brands look to create multichannel promotions, it’s important to maintain their brand authenticity. Brands should stay true to the consumer experience across the multiple marketing channels as a key differentiate in the holiday fury.

Industry-Research | Perspectives

Survey reveals how marketing pros make data-based decisions

November 22, 2016 DCN

Marketing has become a data-driven function and its success hinges on whether marketing managers can reliably measure the effectiveness of their marketing initiatives. The key to achieving this lies in our ability to collate and analyze diverse datasets so we can make informed decisions based on quantifiable information.

Success, among today’s marketing pros, means improving the bottom line and deepening customer relationships, while keeping teams in tune with an evolving marketplace.

A recent study by Ascend2 surveyed some 50,000 marketing professionals in an attempt to address the hot topic of marketing data management, revealing how marketers currently compile and reference their various data sets.

Most important data management goals

The three most important goals of marketing data management are:

improving ROI measurability
improving data quality
increase data use/accessibility

Data addresses many of the challenges facing marketers.

Crafting and adapting a marketing strategy to changing circumstances can be difficult with a lack of data. Predicting and preparing effectively for negative trends becomes much harder with poor insights. Even reporting to senior management or investors without sufficient data can create additional obstacles to gaining support for further campaigns.

This is where data can provide a lot of support. Ascend2’s research has found that 54% of professionals believe that data helps marketers arrive at “more accurate decisions.” Marketing data management can help managers guide their activities through real life decisions and marketing scenarios.

“I speak with marketers all the time who tell me the same thing – if you’re really going to be agile with your messaging and distribution strategies, then you need the ability to see what’s happening, across all channels, at a glance,” said Ben Carpel, CEO of Cyfe, a solution for creating performance monitoring dashboards.

Managing successful strategy
Managing strategy is directly connected to data management. More efficient use of data enables marketing managers to access it and make informed decisions based on it, quickly and easily.

Roughly 60% of the Ascend2 respondents reported that their use of data makes substantial contributions to the success of their overall marketing activities. In contrast, only 40% of companies and professionals rated their work “somewhat unsuccessful” or “very unsuccessful.”

“With data coming from so many different places, it can be difficult for a company to develop a consolidated view and an integrated approach to cross-channel marketing,” wrote Kerry Reilly, Adobe Campaign’s director of product marketing, in a recent op-ed. “It requires too much data maneuvering, the data’s not always in sync, and there’s lots of room for error.”

Outsourcing data management
Producing and managing this data can be a complex task, requiring highly skilled and analytical talent. Many companies don’t have this niche expertise inside of their organizations, leading to heavy reliance on SaaS, outsourcing to service providers or embarking on long-winded hiring processes.

Results from the Ascend2 study indicate that a lot of data management is provided by third-party organizations, while 64% of companies outsource all or part of their marketing data management. Only 36% of businesses manage their own marketing data in-house.

The modern marketing function is in a state of flux, and emerging data solutions put pressure on marketing leaders to constantly adapt to changing requirements. Despite this uncertainty, it is crucial that business units have a clear understanding of where the responsibility for data lies.

This is a fundamental imperative in day-to-day management activities, as 54% of businesses allocate data management and analysis to their marketing departments, whereas the other 42% share it between departments or even only with IT department.

Effective data and resources
Nearly all companies in the same study (97%) agreed that the effective use of marketing data is increasing. Marketing data management is a trending topic, and it’s constantly evolving.

In some cases, marketing data is being used to maximize profitability. Earlier this year, McKinsey demonstrated how tweaking prices by 1%, as informed by smart data modeling of marketing trends, has the power to boost operating profits by 8.7%.

There are many advances in the world of resources and tools within the data management space, allowing marketers to get closer to the data and deeper into its quality. Access to real-time and predictive data is currently a trending demand.

“Real-time data is critically important. Otherwise, business leaders may be making decisions off data that is no longer relevant,” notes Suzanne Mumford, head of marketing for the Google Analytics 360 Suite. “The business landscape changes so quickly, and stale data may inadvertently lead to the wrong decision.”

Data-driven marketing wins
Data-driven strategies are becoming more popular in the world of marketing, yielding campaigns that are more calculated and therefore primed to deliver effective, measurable results.

Relying on data for marketing decisions makes for superior visibility, more strategic planning and a better-equipped team, which is transforming the strategic marketers’ approach.

Joe Liebkind is a Berlin-based writer. He has worked with startups in sales and marketing roles in Berlin and New York. Find him on Twitter.

Advertising | Industry-Research

In-stream and Sidekick are preferred mobile ad formats

November 16, 2016 DCN

Each year the mobile ad industry introduces new creative formats. These formats, both new and old, play an important role in the user’s experience and impact advertising effectiveness. To understand each ad format effect, Kargo, a mobile advertising platform, partnered with MediaScience, a neuroscience research firm, to analyze consumers’ responses to four mobile ad formats through their eye movements, biometric responses and attitudinal changes.

The research found that bigger ad formats are not always better on mobile and In-Stream and Sidekick ad units offer both strong consumer appeal and higher ad effectiveness. Interestingly, while Interstitial ads appear to offer higher brand recognition than Adhesions and Sidekicks, they also over-indexed as disruptive, annoying and intrusive.

Key findings from the study also include:

Adhesion units (adheres to the bottom of the screen and stays with users as they scroll down the page) are viewed as the most common mobile ad unit, and are easily avoided by users. While Adhesions are perceived as less intrusive than Interstitials, they received much less visual attention than all other tested ad formats.
In-Stream units (appears within the stream of editorial content) provide users with the opportunity to focus on mobile ads at their own discretion. In-Stream units perform similarly to Interstitials in visual attention, but outperform them in visual retention. In-Stream units are not thought of as disruptive, annoying, or intrusive.
Interstitial ads (served between content pages) appear to have received the most negative biometric response and negative ad evaluations. They are viewed as disruptive, annoying, intrusive and not well-placed.
Kargo’s Sidekick unit (a silhouette appended to the side of the screen, provides continued visual attention) performed like the other ad formats in visual attention without annoying the user. The Sidekick ad unit, like In-Stream, ranked best among users in terms of overall liking of the ads.

Overall, results of this study suggest that In-Stream and Sidekick units may be the most effective for mobile advertising, among the four ad formats. Both ads hold visual attention and are memorable without the intrusiveness of Interstitials. It’s important to connect both the rational and emotional appeal so the ad attains positive attention and offers users the freedom of managing their environment.

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In-stream and Sidekick are preferred mobile ad formats