It’s been an explosive year for the ad industry, particularly in the online sector. From ad targeting’s important role in the presidential election, to Facebook’s recent IPO, online advertising is continuing to grow and evolve in our ever-expanding digital world. As 2012 winds down and we head into the New Year, I have included a few predictions below as to what we might expect to see in the industry over the next year. 1. Facebook Will Allow You To Serve Ads Using Your Own Ad Server Although Facebook began to allow other ad servers on its platform in certain circumstances in 20 [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Display Advertising | Display Advertising Column

If you haven’t married your AdWords account with your Analytics account, now is a good time to take that step forward. Otherwise, you are missing out on data that you can only get with true integration. Google is constantly upgrading Analytics and adding new features for AdWords. Some of most recent upgrades include a new feature that now allows AdWords advertisers to add columns to their campaigns for Bounce Rates, Pages Per Visit and Average Duration. Remarketing lists can also now be created in Analytics and then added into your AdWords campaigns. Along with the more recent changes, [...]

Related Topics: Analytics | Channel: Display Advertising | Display Advertising | Display Advertising Column

Back in May, I wrote a blog post documenting the top 10 alternatives to “Last Touch” attribution. Last touch is the common practice of awarding credit for an online conversion to the last advertising vendor to put an impression in front of a user before that user returns to a website and converts. This methodology for awarding credit to a display vendor is very common, often manipulated and highly illogical. I wish I could say that the absence of common sense begins and ends with “last touch,” but, alas, it gets worse. Very often, direct brand and agency contacts buying display m [...]

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While 2012 isn’t entirely behind us just yet, many exciting things have happened in the digital space over the last twelve months that will have an impact on advertising in the New Year. Ad targeting has played a tremendous role in online advertising, and we have the abundance of available data to thank for this. Let’s take a closer look at some examples of what might have added to this momentum: Facebook Went Public In an effort to expand its reach and drum up additional revenue, the social networking giant went public in May. And what is Facebook comprised of? That’s right, da [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Display Advertising | Display Advertising | Display Advertising Column

For the last couple of weeks, I’ve had my AdWords Display Network lab coat on. I needed volume and more conversions for my Google AdWords account, so I decided to set up and run a variety of keyword-driven campaign experiments. What I learned can save you a lot of time, money and frustration. What Are Keyword-Driven Campaigns?  Keywords are the most common method for targeting in the Google Display Network. In a keyword-driven display campaign, the main factor in determining which landing pages appear for your ads is your choice of keywords inside each AdGroup. Keywords can be combi [...]

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Premium inventory is a term used by publishers and networks to generate higher demand and higher fees for advertising on portions of their Web properties. Often, premium inventory is defined as the pages that see the most traffic. Sometimes it is the degree to which the advertiser can customize the advertising space for their needs, or the specific content designed attract a specific demographic. There are other benefits, but this inventory is usually designated as premium using simple attributes such as these. Paying more for banner placement on a page that receives a higher amount of t [...]

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The media business is nearly as old as mankind. We started writing on tablets and scrolls millennia ago; the telecommunication business was then invented in the 18th century; and the computer business grew out of the 2nd World War, later popularized in the 1970s. Media Linked As One But as separate as these three media once were, they are now linked as one. The media industry consumes more computing power than any other industry in the world, and it continues to explode exponentially. Media dominates every conversation that is powered by more than just the human voice, and the industry is fo [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Display Advertising | Display Advertising Column

The foundation for every Google Display Network (GDN) strategy is placements. It doesn’t matter what campaign settings you use or how you set your campaigns up (keywords, topics, interest targeting, remarketing, managed placements), you will still optimize and base your success on the relevancy and performance of the placements where Google showed your ads. I have a terrible confession to make. I have never worked with any agency, company or individual that wasn’t using too many placement exclusions. There, I said it. But after today, there will be no more excuses and Google Disp [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Display Advertising | Display Advertising | Display Advertising Column | Google: Marketing

Over the last two years, we've seen companies develop display solutions that show ads based on the keywords prospects search as they navigate the Web. The introduction of search retargeting represented a major leap forward for direct response and brand marketers who were thirsty for new audience acquisition and engagement solutions that performed better. What they got was transparency and insight into the data used to reach consumers -- they could use consumers' actual online searches instead of the 3rd party data shoved into a fixed, black box audience segment that had become the norm. [...]

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Last month, Google’s famously streamlined white homepage was plastered with something different: an animated banner ad. Since Google has been credited as an ad-free (or, at least, display-ad-free) search engine, the animated banner ad for the Nexus 7 Android tablet came as a bit of a shock to both Google users and the wider industry. While this wasn’t the first time Google used its homepage to showcase products, was it a smart move by Google? In today’s shareholder-value-centric paradigm, companies are principally run by profitability. Whenever a company says that it will never d [...]

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Flash back to the 90s to a time when interactive Flash ads were fairly fresh. Do you remember those "shoot the duck" leaderboard banner ads that, for a time, converted no matter what the message?  Not only did those Flash banners integrate movement but they gave you the ability to interact when you put your mouse over the ad. As advertisers pushed Flash ads to the edge of annoyance, most ad networks began outlawing all ads that shivered, blinked, had flashing backgrounds or tricked you into clicking the ad. These truly tricky banners made us believe that the ad was interactive but it reall [...]

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As with buying stocks, timing is everything when it comes to leveraging data to reach your target audience. Today, brands have the opportunity to capitalize on the abundance of inventory and data available to plan their marketing initiatives. When combined with media, these ingredients create the perfect recipe to apply targeted advertising to seasonal events. From the Super Bowl to holiday shopping and political events, there are a multitude of seasonal opportunities for marketers to strategize against. Below, I have highlighted the most effective times during the year for marketers to [...]

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Just go ahead and admit it. We've all had a fascination with spies since we were kids. That’s why we flock to spy movies like Mission Impossible and secretly pretend we could live a life as adventurous as Jason Bourne and James Bond. So maybe that’s why we look for marketing software that gives us the feeling that we are spying on our competitors. Well, that and the competitive advantage we can gain. SEO And PPC Spy Programs For SEO and PPC, there are software programs with cool spy names like SpyFu and SEO Spy Glass along with many more tools that may not have cool spy names but [...]

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Big data seems to be the buzzword around our industry these days, and is there any wonder based on the recent explosion of data in terms of growth, availability and use? IBM does a pretty good job of explaining big data and I’m not one to mess with a good thing. According to the company's definition, the three core components of big data are volume, variety and velocity. Volume refers to the growing mass of terabytes and petabytes being generated and converted into analysis and real time decisions. Variety refers to the structured and unstructured data pouring in via thousands of so [...]

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To date, branding has often been associated with billboards, magazine spreads and million-dollar TV spots. In online advertising, this translates to large media buys with premium publishers, including spots such as site sponsorships and homepage takeovers. However, where do data and ad targeting fit into the branding equation? Is there a place for branding campaigns within the world of ad targeting and real-time media buying? The answer is yes. Large brands such as Proctor & Gamble (P&G) and Unilever have already commented publicly about moving brand dollars to digital -- crediti [...]

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A lot of companies say they offer dynamic creative. It’s a loosely defined phrase, so it can be hard to know exactly what to expect from a company that offers it. Before choosing a dynamic ad provider, my advice is to consider two sets of criteria so you know you’re getting a truly dynamic solution: 1.) degree of interactivity; and 2.) depth of customization. Interactivity Interactivity is measured by how much ability consumers have to play with content in the ad. There are three levels of commonly seen interactivity: Highly Interactive Rich Media– Incorporates features like soc [...]

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Over the last 24 months the display ad space has continued to see rapid acceleration of budgets moving through programmatic media buying platforms such as Demand Side Platforms (DSP).  The forces behind this growth are well documented: Impression level price transparency Ability to “cherry pick” desired impressions with granular focus Hands-on control of campaign data & optimization levers Deep campaign insights due to transparency of price & delivery data Increasing volumes of real-time bidded inventory for display, mobile & video Initially there were many ar [...]

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Digital advertising is on the rise, which is good news for us -- the people that live and breathe in the online world. However, as audiences migrate to digital media, better creative and more strategic ad placement is necessary. In today’s digital world, there is one point that must not be overlooked: not all digital ads are created equal. Think about the traditional advertising world of billboards, TV ads, print magazine and newspaper ads. Each medium offers a different experience for consumers and can be associated with how consumers are spending their time. Volkswagen knows which [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Display Advertising | Display Advertising Column

The biggest change/evolution on the display front in the last couple of months was the announcement from Baljeet Singh, group product manager on video monetization at Google in the US, that AdWords for Video is now “available to all.” “Get out of my (beta) dreams and into my car(t)...”  -- all With a nod to Billy Ocean, this line just might be what “all” will be singing when they realize how easy the new interface is, even for those who have never tried video advertising before. Getting Started With AdWords For Video Baljeet has a nice way with words... “With a glob [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Video | Display Advertising Column | Google: YouTube

Engagement will go down in history as the most ambiguous advertising buzzword of all time. Influencers all over industry are talking about it, but the lack of a definition for engagement in online advertising is creating confusion. Is it the amount of time consumers spend with their mouse on an ad? Is it how long they watch a video? Is it a “like” on Facebook? Is it an ad’s recall-ability? In the interest of full disclosure I'll admit that my company, mediaFORGE, is guilty of contributing to the convolution of engagement. But we’re repenting. So what is engagement? It’s m [...]

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