Digital Marketing Guy...thinking out load

Short points and breif analysis about digital markeing

[ianzweig-blog]

Viewable Online Ad Impressions Are Not Worth More

We all know not all digital ad inventory is created equal.  The big craze these days is for agencies and advertisers to specifically ask for ad placements above-the-fold, and thus "viewable" to every eyeball that reaches a webpage. 

While position might be important from an advertiser perspective, I think we put too little value on the creative design.  I've seen ads way below-the-fold perform better than ones above-the-fold just because the ad was better.  The banner ad messaging, images, words and colors all play a bigger factor in driving value for a paying advertiser, yet "viewable ad impressions" are getting all the attention these days.

Ads should be located on a page where they will bring the most recognition to the advertiser.  The decision should not be based purely on "viewability" to satisfy the current trend.

Once again online advertising is put on a pedestal because it can be measured.  Let's take a moment to compare "viewable" ad impressions by medium just for the sake of argument.

Consider if every ads in every medium is consumed.

Radio - people are focused on driving and have the habit of switching channels to avoid commercials. 

Print - newspapers have a 1-day shelf-life and there is no guarantee an ad is seen, or even glanced at.  Magazines have a longer shelf-life, but again people can skip over any ad.

TV - switching channels during those interruptive commercials is an involuntary action and let's not forget about those pesky DVRs.

Billboard - people have their eyes on the road for crying out load.

Advertising in an imperfect science.  If an online ad doesn't happen to be viewable at the exact moment a webpage loads, is it never seen then? To find the answer we have to understand how people read online.  Readers scroll down a page, which leaves the cherished ATF units out of sight.  Once a reader is done with the article advertisers are only left with the miserable, useless, retched BTF placements to get their message across. How sad. 

There is value in BTF impressions and clever marketers will take advantage of this.  I would consider delayed loads for BTF units, fixed position ads and hover units if advertisers would be willing to pay a premium for these types of placements. 

Nonetheless, we should be focused on context of content and ad creatives instead of "viewable ad impressions".  As an industry we are heading toward more paralysis by analysis.  Let's stick to the essence of marketing; did the ad campaign raise sales, lift brand favorability and, increase purchase intent? 

PS - I have yet to see media buyers pay a higher rate for these "viewable" ad impressions as many have predicted.  What I see happening is that they won't pay for below-the-fold impressions at all.

[ianzweig-blog]

Most Effective Facebook Ads

In the midst of running an advertising program on Facebook I have to say the 'Ad From a Page Post' option is the best performing Facebook advertising targeting so far.

Facebook has rolled out many new types of advertising: Sponsored stories, #tag interest-based targeting, Connection targeting, just to name a few.

One thing is for sure, it's getting more expensive to advertise on Facebook and with their impending IPO they are going to find ways to soak more budget from marketers.

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Publishers can increase CPMs

Problem: Some publishers are addicted to low cpms.  I understand that media companies have revenue goal to reach each month and that some agencies think CPMs are an important metric to base a good buy off of. 

Solutions: just say 'no' to CPMs 

Start getting compensated on other revenue streams.  Sell sponsorships around specific content or sections or interests.  Create non-commodity products.  Don't take those abysmal CPMs. 

Yes, it's true other publisher will take low CPMs because they can't say "no".  With the overabundance of supply, publishers should focus on differentiation.  We all know any site can slap a banner ad on their pages, however publisher have internal resources that can develop better advertising campaigns.  Change the behavior of your sale division and work on custom campaigns that are priced with a flat fee rather than based on a CPM model.  Be creative.  Even agencies understand this and will work with you to help position this to clients.

Hopefully one day we can all use new metrics to judge online advertising.  How can we measure brand favorability, brand awareness lift, increased purchase intent? All marketing exists in a connected ecosystem, inter-related through a symbiotic relationship.  One marketing channel affect the other.

I have a feeling this will be one of a series of posts...

[ianzweig-blog]

Pinterest: Getting Invited To Join

What is Pinterest?

It's a social image gallery website (aka digital pin-up board) that centers around people's shared interests, such as wedding floral designs, kitchens, puppy clothing, etc.

To try it out go to www.pinterest.com and sign-up for an account.  You should be invited to join within a few days.

[ianzweig-blog]

How Media Companies Can Make Banner Ads Better

Imagine going to a web page and seeing the same advertiser in all the ad units?  What a revelation! I recently visited a web page and as I was leaving the page I saw at last glance an interesting ad I wanted to click on.  I then hit the 'back' button to go back to the page and the ad I was looking for wasn't there anymore.  As I perused around the site the ad never showed-up again.

I remember learning in college that a brand needs 3-7 impressions to make an impact on a consumer.  It would have been better for the advertiser if I'd seen the ad I was looking for during my time on the website.  This experience put a dormant thought back into by mind; what if as a person consumed content on a page they saw one advertiser with one cohesive message?

I believe it's more effective to serve the same ads on the same page to give our advertising clients a chance at making an impact on the consumer.  Wouldn't you, as a consumer, be more likely to take notice? 

There is a better way to serve ads.  Sure the industry has some broken ways.  Maybe we should start selling/buying by page instead of impression.

Just a humble thought

[ianzweig-blog]

Is A Google Plus Business Page Worth It?

Not that many people are using Google+ to share content.  Our sites (bostonmagazine.com, phillymag.com, foobooz.com) have seen little interaction with the Google Plus +1 API.

Facebook and Twitter still dominate the social sharing tools.  LinkedIn is 3rd.

And I thought since Google+ has an impact on SEO that more content producers and people using Google search would be using it.  Only time will tell.  Even as more people sign-up for Google+ we need to keep an eye on how they are using it.

We are going to start posting content to our Google+ business pages soon and hopefully this will kick-start people sharing our content on the social network.  If we can easily distribute our content on the Google Plus platform without overburdening our resources it could be worth the effort for the time being.

[ianzweig-blog]

5 Strategies To Market Your Business Online

Here are five brief ideas for navigating the digital marketing landscape. For beginners. 

1. Facebook

Develope a comunity on the world's most popular social network takes a two-phazed approach.  (1) Aquire authentic likes then (2) communicate with your 'likes', keep them engaged with your brand.

2. Twitter

This is a shout-it-from-the-rooftops platform.  Anybody can hear you.  Add value to the conversation by expressing your opinion on matters and don't forget to retweet often.

3. SEO

Target specific keyword phrazes you can rank for competitively.  There are lots of tricks one can do to improve their search engine ranking, but find a way to produce fresh content.

4. Tracking

Put in place analytics or tracking software to see how people are using your site.  This is how you can make decisions, not assumptions.

5. Email Aquisition

It might be an old method, but is still one of the most effective ways to communicate with your brand loyalists.

These are first five initiatives that came to my mind when asked the question: "How can I market my business online?" 

[ianzweig-blog]

Corporate Identities Need To Morph Into Brand Personalities

How marketers are building stronger relationships with consumers online.

Remember when user-generated content (UGC) was a scary thing for marketers? Companies trembled at the thought of someone besides themselves talking about them publicly, let alone paying to advertise in those places. It wasn’t too long ago that most brands didn't want to be associated, aligned, or adjacent to content that was created by the common person. Professionally produced content of editors, marketing staff and public relation pros created the safe areas called “controlled environments.” I know all of you reading this have had the ‘are user-generated content sites safe?’ conversation in the past. Thankfully strategies change.  Now that UGC is a good thing brands want to be involved in it and some have already figured how to get the most out of it.

The evolution lies within the truth that consumers believe and trust other consumers and within the social web of today the consumers are in control of who they want to hear from. Brands have already embraced this fact and that's why they have taken a different approach to engaging with consumers online. The faceless corporate identities that no one could relate to are vanishing.  Friendly faces are arising in there place because brands now want to be 'liked', 'followed' 'checked-into' and the best way for this to happen is to let personalities be the public images of companies. It's much easier to makes friends with someone if they know you and like you.  That was the ‘a-ha moment’ that made marketers finally flip the switch.

I guess we have to give much of the credit to Facebook for this seismic shift. People were talking and interacting on this social network and brand marketers needed to find a way to enter the conversation and remain relevant. Marketers had to study-up on a little Darwinism theory.  As I see it, corporate identities will continue to collapse and will cease to function all together in the near future.

We are seeing the crumbling of brand identities because this is not the best way to create that powerful human connection. I look forward to seeing which brands can create the best personalities.  If brands don’t let their personalities do the talking they will fall out of favor in the social realm.  It’s not about looks, or athleticism, or popularity.  People will like you because of your personality.  Remember when one of your friends tried to set you up with one of their acquaintances and you asked what s/he looked like?  Your friend’s response was “They have a great personality!”  This answer takes on a whole different meaning these days.  Even you ugly brands (I’m talking to you banks) might have a cool persona if you decided to welcome the idea.

Take a look around; spend some time viewing Facebook pages and Twitter profiles, surf the websites of the newest internet companies and you’ll see what I mean.  Brands, it’s time to let your personalities shine.

PS - If you find any good examples of brand personalities, please share them. Zipcar is one example