How are programmatic marketing and digital display advertising defined and what are the opportunities for all types of business?

In the 15 plus years since the birth of programmatic marketing, it has really delivered on its original promise to be the future of advertising on the web. But what is programmatic marketing today? Now a fundamental part of most omnichannel marketing strategies, programmatic marketing is a term used to describe the complex use of data and machine learning to enable hyper-segmentation based on your customers' behavior. The exciting thing about programmatic is that as technology develops, marketers are exposed to more and more opportunities to find and engage their key customers. So, naturally, programmatic marketers will need to stay on their toes to keep up to date with the latest trends and innovations. Furthermore, with iPhone's incoming changes in privacy policy, it pays to think ahead when planning your advertising activities. In…

Google updating political advertising policies, Snapchat announces all political ads are fact-checked, Instagram further roles out like count ban, Twitter testing tweet scheduling in-app, Snapchat introducing longer un-skippable ads, Twitter launches new Conversation Insights

As pressure mounts for Facebook to make changes to its political ad policies, it might finally be listening following Google announces its own changes and Snapchat giving details on how it fact-checks all political ads. This week has also seen Instagram announce that it is rolling out its ban on like counts to more countries as it continues to test the change to the platform. Twitter is also testing a new feature, this time scheduling within its tweet composer via its app and website, which could reduce the need for third-party tools. Snapchat is changing up its ad formats, allowing advertisers to create ads that are up to three minutes long, keeping part of its un-skippable functionality in the mix. Finally,…

A step-by-step approach to using identity-based targeting to drive relevance for your digital ad campaigns

One of the huge advantages that digital advertising has promised marketers is the ability to target audiences more precisely and deliver personalized content and creative. Whilst TV, billboards, print and radio can reach mass audiences at scale, highly targeted digital advertising gives marketers the opportunity to drive relevance and accuracy that no other media can match. Although digital advertising has always had a degree of targeting and personalization, the introduction of identity-based targeting has taken this to a new level. Identity-based targeting has now been adopted by many of the world’s largest advertising companies, opening up new opportunities on a range of channels including Facebook, Google, Amazon and Twitter.

The advantages of identity-based targeting

Good advertising always starts with a clear objective. For brands looking to build mass reach and frequency to drive awareness, broadcast media is a highly…

How to make crucial decisions regarding your retargeting budget.

Decisions, decisions, decisions; it can be difficult making the right choice when considering how to spend your remarketing budget with Facebook or Google. Where most PPC managers go wrong is the actual decision-making process. It is crucial understand what you should consider before making a decision. [si_guide_block id="87521" title="Access Member Quick Win: How to do Facebook retargeting right" description="Learn when and how to use Facebook's different retargeting options with Gareth Roberts."]

1.       Consider your message - carefully crafted second chances

The whole idea of remarketing is to give advertisers a second chance to hook someone who has visited their site, but not bought anything, there may be a number of reasons for this: The website is bland, clunky, dated, not functional - let's not get sidetracked into the importance of functional and appealing landing pages, but it is important to…

You can do a lot more with your email address list than just email them

Depending on the size of the business you work for, you might have an email list of hundreds, thousands or millions. You already know your email list is valuable because email marketing is one of the most effective channels in terms of ROI. But an email list isn't just for emailing. You can use it for all kinds of clever targeting techniques, to advertise to your customers at the exact moment they may be considering a purchase. Here are some of the options for utilising your email list for targeting ad placement:

Facebook Custom Audiences

Marketers can match their email addresses with those of Facebook and display ads in the main feed and right rail. This is by far the most mature offering, and many companies are doing it already. Facebook will also generate 'look-a-like' audiences for you…

A quick-fire guide and glossary to the essentials of Programmatic Marketing

Programmatic is a very hot topic in the world of marketing right now. As Ad Age points out, the advertising industry is on a journey toward widespread automation, and programmatic marketing which gives marketers the opportunity to purchase advertising more efficiently and - given the right data - more effectively, too. As a relative newcomer to the world of Programmatic Marketing, I was overwhelmed by the amount of definitions and TLAs (Three-letter acronyms) involved with programmatic. Trying to get to grips with programmatic can really make your head spin! I therefore thought I might be an ideal person to provide a hopefully simple introduction to programmatic for anyone looking to understand this marketing technique for the first time. [si_guide_block id="67100" title="Download free resource – Programmatic Marketing Brief" description="Learn the key questions to ask when managing Programmatic."/] As a follow-up to Rob’s definition…

How European marketers are using retargeting

Adroll Targeting data has been analysed from 4,000 European Advertisers to find out how retargeting campaigns are working and what the future holds. The report shares key findings including: 1. 88% feel it's equal or better than search. 2. 64% plan to increase their spend this year. 3. The top 3 goals are 1. Brand awareness 2. To increase sales and 3. Retention.

So what's the hottest topic for retargeting?

According to the report on the 'State of the Industry - Europe' from adroll.com, Facebook improves engagement when it's included - increasing impressions by 1.77% and 2x more clicks. [si_guide_block id="43325" title="Download resources – Ad Retargeting Guide" description="Gain practical advice on retargeting, planning segmentation, creative, retargeting methods, partner selection, tracking and evaluation."/]  …

New research shows the increase in social media stacking

It hit us all years ago, but when did we realise? In our busy lives, we 'multi-task' at work, or in our personal lives, and some are now calling this 'social media stacking'. The Millward Brown's Ad Reaction report refers to it as 'putting the kettle on', as it's embedded in most of our daily lives. I am guilty of this behaviour - while watching the TV, I check my emails on my iPhone, answer a Tweet and time permitting will find a good recipe on Pinterest for the evening meal-- an ideal target for advertisers and publishers to connect with me beyond 'passive viewing'. For brands, there are now multiple opportunities to connect, as Millward Brown global multiscreening report shows in their findings. The implication is that brands need to leverage this by evaluating reach…

Are you missing out through not advertising in social media to ensure content success with Paid Social Amplification?

In our industry, good content is invaluable. But good content is also hard work. From planning to Quality Contro, content must be researched, nurtured, analyzed, and improved on an ongoing basis to make it as suitable as possible for your target audience. But if no one is finding your content, then regardless of the quality, it won't have an impact on your business's bottom line. This is where paid amplification comes into play. [Editor's note: The Smart Insights research report on Managing Digital Marketing in 2014 showed that many businesses are looking to increase their paid advertising on social media this year, so we hope these tips on how to do this are helpful] Pushing targeted eyeballs to quality content is something our team has had success…

RTB and DSP make real-time mobile ads more targeted and trackable

[caption id="attachment_13822" align="alignright" width="333" caption="Source: Mobile Squared (Click image for Slideshare)"][/caption] Real-time mobile display ad buying is a technology with the potential to transform mobile communications. RTB can improve targeting, tracking and campaign management to create an easily accessible real-time marketing medium capable of generating impressive ROI. RTB is rapidly evolving from a technology option to create a new strategic foundation for mobile advertising - particularly when used in conjunction with time saving demand-side platforms.

Fragmented, complex mobile ads campaigns could become a thing of the past

Mobile advertising revenue growth figures have proved rather disappointing compared to early analyst forecasts.  The 'less than thrilling' results are largely attributable to the complexity and fragmentation that must be overcome in order to deliver effective multi-device, multi-network, multi-operating system mobile campaigns. The undesirable mobile campaign characteristics that…