Brand queries: the AdWords performance illusion

SearchEngineLand

May 27, 2016
If your AdWords optimization efforts are focused toward terms and ads you credit with last-click conversions, you’re not alone. But columnist Tim Mayer contends you’re being shortsighted.

 

Facebook And Google Are Bringing Walled Gardens Back

Adexchanger

October 16, 2014

Facebook’s ad platform, Atlas, recently relaunched with an entirely rewritten ad server platform, a newly redesigned user interface and the ability to target and measure advertising across devices using the Facebook identity, even for channels beyond Facebook.
The news raises several interesting questions for the industry: How will this impact the ad tech industry overall? Will this new…

 

“Real Time”- A Misnomer in Display Advertising

Adexchanger

May 23, 2014

“Real time” – in terms of data or targeting – is an overused phrase in display advertising.
“The rise of programmatic display lulls us into believing that we are advertising in ‘real time,’” Dax Hamman recently asserted. In reality, it is often only the bidding process that is truly “real-time” in nature. Conversely, much of the data being used to determine bids and make decisions on which…

 

Transparency: The Display Advertising Buzzword We Only Think We Want

Adexchanger

June 13, 2014

Advertisers in the display space have yearned for more transparency from vendors in recent years. This yearning has been amplified by the recent, rapid growth of programmatic display advertising.
The increased complexity, which is inherent to programmatic, led to continuous moaning from advertisers about less transparency, which may be the result of ad tech vendors, rather than programmatic…

 

Move Over, Cookie. Here Comes The Ad ID

Adexchanger

August 15, 2014

Some of the largest companies on the Internet are working on ad IDs and complex identity-management solutions, both of which aim to serve as alternatives or replacements for the third-party cookie.
This is because the third-party cookie and associated ecosystem are facing major challenges. First, third-party cookies can be deleted by users, are cleared by security software programs on average…

 

How Retargeting Can Jeopardize Revenue, Brand Trust And User Satisfaction

Adexchanger

July 7, 2014

Retargeting is a great way to engage with consumers who have already demonstrated interest in your product or service and have entered the consideration phase of your purchase funnel.
Many marketers view retargeting as an opportunity to get a user back to their websites where they will move down the funnel, but retargeting is more complex than recapturing a wayward user. Fine-tuning is required….

 

3 Ways To Change Your Thinking About Display Ads & Move Out Of Your Comfort Zone

MarketingLand

June 2, 2014

We have all seen it: marketers deeply loyal to “last click attribution” and the comfort zone it brings along with it. With a last-click mindset, they have focused on maximizing their search marketing volume via Paid Search and SEO until the query supply is maxed out.display-ad-here-featured
These marketers also use remarketing (another comfort zone), with proven intent similar to search queries,…

 

CPG Brands Should Target Customers Like Performance Marketers

Adexchanger

September 10, 2014

A new trend is emerging among CPG brands. They’ve started dipping their toes in the “loyalty program” pool, similar to what performance advertisers in verticals such as retail and travel services have been offering to their customers for years.
Familiar brands, such as Purell, are offering loyalty programs that, at their core, are being positioned as a way to learn about customers and better…

 

Native Advertising: Inspired Or Invasive?

MarketingLand- Ghost written

October 20, 2014

In magazines, it’s called an advertorial. In academia, it’s a sponsored study. In search, it’s paid placement.
But whatever the name, the goal is the same – produce content that looks and feels unbiased but is actually an ad for a particular service or product. This is what we call native advertising, ads that blend in with the non-sponsored content almost seamlessly.

 

The Retargeting Trap: How Targeting Conversions Hurts ROI

MarketingLand Ghost Written

July 28, 2014

Data are wonderful things. Properly applied, data can provide insights into where to trim budget and where to increase it. Data will indicate what’s working versus what’s not, what’s a signal versus what’s an outlier. And, data help to determine the proper media mix for the overall campaign strategy.
Data-driven, performance-based advertisers reviewing their online display metrics often find it…

 

First Party To Whom? Display Targeting Data Demystified

MarketingLand Ghost Written

July 7, 2014

With the ever-increasing drone of industry rumblings about the demise of the third-party cookie, many ad tech players have begun highlighting “first party” prominently as a key buzzword in their positioning.
Frequently, this is used in the context of “first-party data” and, in some cases, “operating in the first party” for online advertisements.

 

5 Strategies for Improved A/B Testing

ClickZ

August 9, 2011

In a metrics-driven culture, product developers and marketers often become too reliant on A/B testing. This clogs the test pipeline with non-needle moving initiatives, unnecessary validations of well-known design/product principles, or ISO-testing features that couldn’t be launched without other bundled features. In essence, companies over-test, test incorrectly, and don’t look for opportunities…more

 

As Big Data Moves in-House, Agencies Evolve

Adexchanger

November 13, 2014

Smart enterprises nurture their best assets. Not surprisingly, data has recently taken the coveted second-place position behind companies’ most valuable asset: employees.
Companies have large amounts of data that they want to translate into intelligence, and they’ve begun treating this data differently. For many, this difference means using strong on-staff analysts, known as quants, to mine the…more

 

Expressed Data: The Future of Targeting

Adexchanger

December 12, 2014

Expressed data is more accurate and powerful than inferred data because it is personal information that the users themselves willingly provide to brands they want to be associated with. The brand can then leverage the data to further its relationship with the consumer.