From the big idea to campaign integration, to media  strategy, it’s all about developing the best creative concepts and making the best media choices to reach the right audiences with the right messages and calls to action. So, does amazing creative succeed without the right media strategy? Can great media save bad creative? Or working together, can they make any product or service successful?

David Murdico: Which came first, the chicken or the egg?

Jason DeLuca: I always thought that the chicken came first, but after much contemplation I came to the same conclusion as Aristotle once did, that both the chicken and the egg have always existed together at the same time in harmony; much like the relationship between creative and media.

DM: What's your background and what brought you to Allscope Media?

JD: I’ve spent the last 15+ years working closely with some of the worlds most iconic brands, helping them manage every aspect of their online media research, strategy, planning, buying, content integration, targeting, tracking, reporting, analysis, optimization and reconciliation needs.

What brought me to Allscope was the opportunity to marry my digital media expertise with a successful group of traditional media professionals to create a truly integrated media services offering.  Since traditional media accounts for such a big majority of all marketing dollars spent, it’s critical that we, the digital media mavericks, find creative ways of integrating with traditional media touch points.

Additionally, I was attracted to Allscope because they are a nimble independent shop made up of only senior level experts. I was impressed with their strong experience in utilizing data and analytics to drive effective media strategies.  I also saw the tremendous value they provide to their clients that is way beyond the norm, something they refer to as Positive Value Exchange. Last, I saw work that was being done efficiently without all the slow moving over worked inexperienced junior filled teams that I so often see with most agencies these days.

DM: Who are some of your more notable clients, and what's your most memorable campaign?

JD: Over the years Allscope has worked with dozens of clients from a wide range of industries including: National Geographic Channel, Timberland, BlueCross & BlueShield, The Travel Channel, SmashBurger, Atari, Clarks, The Tennis Channel, Toshiba and Harper Collins.

A few memorable campaigns that stand out for me that were exceptionally fun and thrilling include winning the Atari business and working closely on a brand that was such a big part of my childhood.  Additionally, having the chance to work on The Travel Channel’s ‘Man v Food’ show was a great thrill as it was a program that I was already a loyal fan of prior to working on, so it made it that much more rewarding to help drive TV ratings.  I felt part of the family from the start so it felt very personal.

DM: Do most of your media buys start with the media buying strategy or the creative concepts?

JD: We start with both congruently, dividing responsibilities into each area then coming together to share and refine the best combinations. It’s very counterproductive to work in silos or to have one discipline dictating the other.  Therefore, we always strive to intertwine both disciplines until they become as one. Like the chicken and the egg, buying strategy and creative concepts work best when they are conceived of together at the same time.

DM: Can the right creative and media buying approach save any campaign, no matter how bad the product is? In other words, is the right combo putting lipstick on a pig?

JD: Good question. It’s not always black and white.  On one hand the right combo can put lipstick, a cowboy hat and disco roller skates on a pig with ease, but all that swine entertainment can quickly hit a mud patch if a product fails on its core promises.  Then again, there are many examples of great creative and strategy shining a light on not so good products that end up being successful, at least in the short term.  Those products typically require a high level of media reach and frequency commitment to stay relevant.  Most consumers assume that if they see an ad for something “everywhere” how bad could it be?  In fact, most think that the products/services advertised, “must be doing well if they can afford all those ads!” In the end there must be a balance between the right marketing flash and the product promise to maintain sustainability in the marketplace.

DM: If you were "king of all brands" and could change the way things are done in your industry, how would you do things differently?

JD: If I were the “King of All Brands” I would…

A) Create more accountability in media.  I’d start by redefining all digital media impressions as only those that can actually be seen.  Millions of dollars worth of media are spent and wasted each day on ads that cannot even be seen.  Remember when John Wanamaker, the father of modern advertising, said, “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don't know which half.“?  Well guess what, we now know which half.  It’s the half consumer can’t even see.  Brands must rise up and demand accountability or they will continue to be taken advantage of by Publishers.

B) Stop squeezing the life out of agencies and start by paying them more money and investing in longer relationships.  This would enable agencies to afford to hire the best people, invest in the best technologies and provide a level of loyalty that was once commonplace.  These types of investments would keep my agency team happy and allow my brand to shine.

C) Stop placing media into black hole silos and begin to bring everyone to the same table to think on how to effectively integrate all media options together as one organism. Although this is talked about ad nauseam by agencies, it is rarely done effectively and often the TV media tail wages the dog.

D) Bypass traditional content partners and create a custom content creation juggernaut that entertains and inspires, much like what Red Bull has done.

E) Listen very carefully and attentively to my brand ambassadors and social media network for insights, then act diligently to make changes to address their concerns and needs.  We would create an open dialogue, give public recognition where due and express gratitude to our customers.

DM: As a media professional, what do you think is the best-executed product launch in recent memory? What made it so successful?

JD: In recent memory, I would say Apple & Red Bull continue to impress me most in how simple yet powerful their ads excite the senses and imagination.

I also admire the selection of media they invest in to surround their target audience with ads while supporting their related passions. I look forward to seeing their ads and branded content evolve even further in the future.

As we know, once the initial rounds of advertising takes place, the content then goes out into the ether. Up until recently, these adverts were lost in the great expanse of the internet. Yet as long as the number of views and impressions were in line with what was expected, not too many people have been worried about these finer details.

However, inevitably the money men are going to want some clarity on where advertising spend is going. Results are all well and good, but in an era of Sarbanes Oxley, transparency has never been more important for big corporates. Yet what they will find may well alarm them more than not knowing at all.

In just over the year that we have been running commercially in the UK, we have found around three to four per cent of adverts we monitor are appearing on client-defined inappropriate sites, like peer-to-peer sites offering illegal content. When you extrapolate that figure with the number of adverts that are served monthly, then you are looking at hundreds of millions of adverts appearing on sites that offer zero value.

Worse still, we have documented millions of adverts appearing on sites which support criminality. Up until recently advertisers could legitimately say this was a consequence of the system and there was little they could do to prevent this from occurring. That is now no longer the case with ABC certifying a number of products which offer content verification, helping to stop adverts appearing on inappropriate sites.

With these solutions in place, the vast void of online advertising has had a light shone upon it, highlighting how often these adverts appear in the dark recesses of the internet, and pinpointing where campaigns are failing to deliver value for money. With a greater ability to track and analyse advertising campaigns, practices and methods will need to change to reflect a more scientific and accurate approach. By doing so, it will lead to a safer industry, more confident brands willing to part with online advertising funds, and prevent brands tacitly supporting criminality.

What other media channel can compare with this?

Consumers are rapidly adopting mobile devices and behaviors and spending an average of 2 hours per day on smartphone devices. We are rarely separated from them, and we check our phones every 6.5 minutes (or 150 times daily). 

MOBILE advertising grew by 88% in 2012

While MOBILE ad/media spending is only 1% of total media (vs. 10% share of consumer media time), MOBILE advertising grew by 88% in 2012 (from $2.4B to $4.5B). MOBILE ad spending growth to-date has been limited by marketers/agencies challenges in creating MOBILE ads designed specifically to take advantage of MOBILE devices. Chia Chen, SVP Mobile Practice Leader at Digitas indicated their client's mobile ad spending grew by 400% (4X more rapidly) because their ads for Amex, Taco Bell, M&Ms and other clients treated smart phones as "small TVs" and incorporated richer media, and more native creative palettes.

Global Tablet Advertising Study - Results Presented

Beth Doyle, Innovation Director at Vivaki, revealed the results of a 14-month global industry study of 20 million global tablet users (sponsored by 12 advertisers including P&G and Coke and 12 media companies) titled The Pool: The Tablet Lane - TABLETS RISING. This study tested 35-40 tablet advertising formats and yielded 3 STD Tablet ad formats being proven as meeting consumers' needs: (1) let me drive; (2) more for me; (3) "tablet-ize" the user experience; (4) no guessing games - keep it intuitive and simple. Clearly, with MOBILE (smartphone and tablet) ad standards emerging, marketers are well on their way to utilizing this new medium in unique ways not available through other previous media channels.

MOBILE's Big Differentiators

MOBILE is a one-to-one media channel and LOCATION is MOBILE's big differentiator. These devices give consumers the ability to find anything they need in real-time and for marketers (with opt-in permission) to find their best customers and prospects when they are in active shopping/buying mode. 40% of consumers already utilize MOBILE devices as their primary (exclusive) online research channel and 60% of mobile shopping converts to purchase (with 75% of sales take place in-store).

Todd Morris, EVP of Mobile & Marketing at Catalina indicated mobile-assisted grocery shoppers buy 8%+ more and over 1M+ consumers are already spending over $1B+ in mobile grocery shopping where items are scanned, store discounts/coupons are applied, and orders are delivered or picked up without waiting in checkout lines.

Trish Mueller, CMO at Home Depot indicated mCommerce grew 129% in 2012 and sales from MOBILE are projected to exceed $650M by 2016. Home Depot has developed a MOBILE web and apps which make it one of the top 10 retail sites creating "an endless aisle" where consumers can access 400,000 SKUs as well as product information and peer reviews at the point of purchase. One of the most innovative apps is "Find A Pro" where consumers can take a video of a problem, send it to Home Depot, and they will connect consumers with "Pros" who can bid the job.

Winston Wang, Global Director - Strategic Innovation at AB Bev, demonstrated "beer and MOBILE go hand-in-hand" indicating beer is the original social network and MOBILE is helping Sales & Marketing along the entire purchase funnel as well as in the loyalty/advocacy areas after purchase. Winston shared MOBILE apps for Stella Artois (9 step pouring ritual, LeBar finder), Beck's and Bud Light.

Announcement: A New MMA Initiative To Address The Mobile Talent Gap

MMA-NA has launched a NEW Mobile Talent Task Force (Jeff Gundersen - Co-Chair) and the first open Committee meeting was held at the MMA-NY 2013 Forum. All parties (marketers, agencies, media companies, technology providers, educators, training & development companies, and other interested parties) are invited to reach out to Jeff Gundersen for a copy of the "Strategic Framework" and related mobile talent research studies pertaining to this new Committee.

A key component of understanding buying decisions is gaining a reality check on how buyers perceive you and whether you match to their criteria.  How well organizations are perceived will serve as one of the primary influences shaping buying behaviors and purchase decisions.

Buyer research can reveal many aspects of what comprises buyer perception.  Buyer experience is now becoming one of the most important factors contributing to and influencing perceptions.  The new digital age is introducing new types of criterion buyers place a value on, which can directly affect their perceptions:

Buyer Experience: previous as well as current experiences can have an enormous impact on how buyers perceive you. Do you think waiting an extra day to return a call was no big deal?  Think again.

Engagement: evidence is building on engagement being a factor in shaping buyer perceptions when making purchase decisions.  What the "engagement experience" tells buyers can make a big difference.  This differs from buyer experience in this way: when you ask customers and prospects to engage - meaning interact - it better not be painful.

Knowledge: the sharing of knowledge and insight is fast emerging as a one area shaping how buyers perceive companies.  Content marketers need to watch for information fatigue setting in with their buyers.  Suffocating buyers with content is not the answer.  On the other hand, if buyers feel like they have to perform a tooth extraction tor pry information from your organizations, then they will move on.

Community: buyers today are getting tuned into joining various communities specific to their industry.  Are your efforts tuned into the communities buyers are at?  Are you contributing to this community - or "selling" and annoying the community?

These are just four factors affecting how buyers can perceive you and your organization.  Based on hundreds of buyer interviews I have done to date - I can say the above directly impact the why and how of purchase decisions.

Now What?

Getting to understand how buyers perceive you can be challenging.  Two ways you can get a handle on buyer perception is:

• Have buyer research performed specifically for perception
• Have mystery shopping performed to get insight on how buyers experience their interactions with your organization

Understanding how buyers perceive you can often be a surprise.  When I have provided insight into buyer perception, I often get the "I had no idea" response.  Given the hyper-competitive digital world of today, this might be one area you should have an idea about.

(Become part of the dialogue.  Connect with me on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google Plus as well as subscribe to theBuyer Persona Blog on the tonyzambito.com website.)

Related articles

• The Art of Buying

• 4 New Values Affecting How Buyers Perceive You (tonyzambito.com)
• 5 Buyer Behaviors Reshaping B2B Marketing (tonyzambito.com)
• Is Your Lead Generation Off-Target? (blogs.imediaconnection.com)

A problem facing organizations today is generating more leads.  Making this issue even more challenging is changes in buying behavior.  Depending on which study to reference, buyers are performing different activities for up to 70% of their buying evaluation before sales intervention.

A recent report by the Aberdeen Group on sales performance shows there is a fair degree of dissatisfaction among sales leaders.  56% saying they were not seeing sufficient growth in top line revenue.  Nearly 30% expressed dissatisfaction with lead conversion to sales.  A recent CSO Insights report indicated that only 20% of organizations understood their buyer’s buying process.  These two perspectives combined point to one of the key issues – targeting the wrong buyer.

Looking back on over 12 years of qualitative buyer research and buyer persona development work, I found in 6 out of every 10 organization– a different buyer was identified than the organization had been targeting!  If you are off-target with the buyer – you will be off-target on your demand generation and lead generation.

Getting On Target

Marketing and sales leaders today are looking to increase their percentage of being on target when it comes to lead generation.  There are four steps you can take to resolve targeting issues:

Do Lead Research:  It all starts here.  You can no longer assume the buyers you've been targeting are the correct ones.  A level of lead research is needed to outfit your lead generation and nurturing team with knowledge about ideal prospects.  For example - it may not always be the CIO but the IT Director.

Develop Lead Personas:  Lead and buyer personas are useful in understanding consideration and purchasing behaviors.  Organizations, through personas, can determine how a prospect behaves when moving from a lead persona to a buyer persona.   One of the main benefits of this approach is the ability to tailor lead and buyer personas to fit the needs of dedicated lead nurturing teams as well as sales team.

Buyer-Centered Design: Designing your lead generation strategies, systems, and processes should revolve around buyers.  The key is in modeling their behaviors when in lead nurturing and when they enter the buying cycle.  Better results will happen when you meet buyer expectations and goals – which can be distinctly different when in lead nurturing versus buying cycle.  Conversion rates at the point of when a lead persona converts to a buyer persona (becomes a sales-ready lead) will rise.

Conversation Enablement Training:  What is needed is making conversation enablement a staple of training for lead generation and nurturing teams.  The long ramp-up time it takes for lead generation teams to understand prospects is out of synch with the pace of change in buying behavior.  As the CSO Insights report pointed out, barely 20% of organizations understand their buyer’s behaviors and buying processes!  In my qualitative research, I often hear of the frustration prospective buyers have in the lack of productive conversations.

Targeting the right prospect is becoming the lifeblood of organizations today.  For many companies, tackling this issue means discovering who represents their ideal target buyer.  In addition, gaining greater clarity on how buyers differ in behavior when they are being nurtured versus actively engaged in a buying cycle.  Combining these can be a winning ticket and get your lead generation results on target.

(Become part of the dialogue.  Connect with me on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google Plus as well as subscribe to theBuyer Persona Blog on the tonyzambito.com website.)

Related articles

• 5 Buying Behaviors of the Persona Buying Cycle
• 5 Buying Behaviors of the Persona Buying Cycle

• One Way to Know the Ideal Buying Scenarios for Lead Nurturing (tonyzambito.com)

If you were to go back in time and interview any leading advertising guru, it is likely he or she would never believe that advertising through a phone could work, let alone increase business for clients.  Yet here we sit in 2013 with mobile advertising dollars surpassing $9.6 billion per year.

In addition, one of the world’s largest companies Facebook, has recently declared mobile ads are a more viable channel than television ads.

Are the days of million dollar Super Bowl commercials, and celebrity pitches out the door?  Far from it.  But the truth is that mobile ads and specifically mobile branded apps, are becoming a go-to advertising and marketing tactic for some of the largest companies in the world, as well as small businesses.  From increased interactions, in-depth demographic data and deeper understanding of customer habits, there are many reasons why mobile ads and apps are a powerful new tool for marketing departments:

Mobile Devices Are Where the Customers Are

One of the most effective reasons to embrace mobile advertising is the ability to reach a rapidly expanding audience through a direct channel.  Advertisers interested in mobile ads, can tailor their ads specifically for the device type, operating system and even the specific update version.

Whereas, television ads were never truly optimized for HD television rather than standard definition, mobile ads have a customizable element.  Data regarding device type and OS of choice can give additional insight to who a brand is targeting.  With that information in hand, marketing departments can direct advertisements with increased precision and accuracy.

Last year, Priceline.com was in the news for personalizing offerings for Mac users.  Data about visitors to Priceline.com detailed how Mac users pulled in higher average salaries than Windows users.  In response to that data, Priceline offered more costly and expensive deals to Mac users.  The same can occur throughout mobile advertising, given that there are certainly demographic differences according to mobile device type.

Branded Apps Spur Customer Interactions

Starbucks has been a high profile adopter of mobile apps and mobile ads.  They have recently adapted one of their most popular offerings, free download cards for iTunes apps, into a mobile app as well.  Offers can only be obtained with a downloaded Starbucks mobile app while in-store.  The idea is to increase in-store visits and increase interaction with the Starbucks app, both of which contribute to business growth.

Branded apps are an effective means to spur physical visits to locations while simultaneously providing a touch point for customers to interact with a brand on the go.  An app created for consumers by an enterprise is a long term living advertisement which not only reaches customers, but gathers data about how customers interact with your brand and competitors.

Data produced by a mobile app is incredibly valuable for marketing to understand demographics and customer habits.  A single ad placed on recurring schedule for a TV show can only reach a viewer so many times for so long, and advertisers do not have exact statistics on how long each viewer sees it.  On the other hand, an app’s back-end can gather interaction data that can help you better understand the relationship your brand has with customers.

From Banner Ads to Branded Mobile Games

In addition to offer based apps from brands, there are increasing amounts of branded games that reward users with deals.  For example, Skittles has a branded app game that rewards a user for reaching certain levels or achieving high scores.  Ideally the user will receive discounts or free items and remain directly connected to the brand, and the brand will be connected to the customer.

Data regarding the way a user interacts with the app can show in depth details about how users shop, communicate on social media and respond to your outreach through the app.  When comparing this new model for advertising through mobile and the old method of banner ads and pop-ups, the main factor is that mobile ads produce valuable demographic data while older methods offer nothing like that.

Banner ads and pop-ups were essentially nuisances for users trying to access a website, and provided very little information regarding how the users interact with the ad. Specifically with mobile apps, the content is directly integrated with the advertising pitch.

Extended Reach and Long Term Interactions

Essentially, mobile apps and mobile ads provide direct access and interaction with customers in a way that traditional advertisements feasibly could not.  Advertisements, traditionally, stop functioning after the brief period of exposure witnessed by prospects and customers.  Mobile apps and mobile ads embedded in apps, allow for continuous interaction with a brand as well as the stockpiling of pertinent marketing data.

Not only are mobile ads and in-app marketing tactics being embraced as traditional advertising alternatives, the new tactic produces reciprocal value thanks to the data that is collected.  Marketers can now conduct real-time marketing analysis by monitoring the usage data of branded apps and interactions with mobile ads embedded in apps.  As mobile continues to dominant the computing and media consumption landscape, the channel will soon mature as a necessary bottom line outreach strategy for marketing departments across the globe.

Marketers have started to tackle their social media needs, similar to how they have historically approached every other marketing tactic - by isolating and siloing their strategic parameters, success metrics, and analytics. We’ve seen this time and time again. This is how marketers dealt with banner advertising in the ‘90s, SEM and email in the early ‘00s, and mobile and in-game advertising in the late ‘00s. Over a decade later and the same mistakes are being made. Next it will be real-time-bidding and then most likely video; especially as digital convergence really takes form and everything (i.e. TV, radio, print, etc.) is technically “digital”. Agencies and media providers are always ready to reposition themselves based on the flavor of the month. Social is the new black. Or is it the new pink? Most trends are just that – “trendy”.

Don’t get me wrong, social marketing is extremely important. In fact, it is too important to think you can just silo it out and hire a specialized social media agency to manage it on your company’s behalf. The most successful marketers are not experts in analog media, digital media, social media, search marketing, or real-time-bidding; they are efficient in communication and understanding how to serve people’s needs. Once you understand what your audience/customers’ needs are and their communication requirements, you can determine the most effective channels and tactics to satisfy those needs - just like establishing any human relationship.

I realize most marketing disciplines these days require specialists to deploy and manage specific tactics. However, we must not confuse strategy with execution. You must have an integrated communication strategy that puts your customers and target prospects at the core. Through the communication planning process you should determine how much social marketing support is required and how it should be managed. Additionally, we should stop referring to social as a tactic and think of it more as the fabric that weaves throughout your entire marketing program. There’s no such thing as a social media campaign. You don’t make friends with someone and then decide to abruptly end that friendship because he/she had plans on the same night you wanted to go out.

A strong relationship is cultivated over time and this means you need to be willing to allocate the necessary resources to building those high value relationships and plan on managing them indefinitely. The only way to assure this can be done is by centralizing your customer relationship management internally. Yes, social is a component of CRM. Only now, it is a multi-dimensional dialogue and your refer-a-friend programs have exponential potential. Those that are positioning themselves as “social media experts” are less concerned about the long term value of the relationships between you and your customers, and really trying to capitalize on the ignorance that exists in the marketplace to, once again, provide false value – kind of like that “friend” who is always there to console you during a really bad time. They appear to be genuine, but we all know there is an ulterior motive which is driven by taking advantage of your vulnerability.

Be less concerned about the new, bright, shiny objects and focus on better understanding your audience and customers. The more you learn about what people want, the better you can serve their needs. Marketing channels and tactics are just the delivery mechanisms to serving those needs. With all that being said, I do recommend partnering with those that are proficient at managing the execution of each tactic. Many tactics are extremely labor-intensive and require a deep understanding of the market and the various technology platforms used to effectively manage these programs. However, when it comes to building your strategy, focus on the communication needs of your audience, then determine the channels and tactics that will help facilitate how you address those needs.

Remember this, there is no such thing as a category called “social media”. All media is social. It always has been and always will be. Only now, you can actually see what people are saying behind your back. You just need to determine what value you can contribute to the conversation – more importantly, make sure it is a reciprocal dialogue. Leave your “push, push” mentality back in the 20th century. And if you plan on playing in the social sandbox, make sure you are welcoming, respectful, appreciative, and provide value. Treat those the way you would like to be treated.

Sometimes I think marketers forget what it means to be human. In the words of Robert Fulghum, “all you really need to know, you learned in kindergarten”. Play fair. Share everything. Don’t take things that aren’t yours. Don’t hit people. Say you’re sorry when you hurt somebody. Clean up your own mess. Now, stop your wining and go make some friends!

Twitter’s new capability is a well needed platform move and is similar to Google’s ability to target in “real-time” whoever searches for “buy shoes.” One could argue that searches have clearly better intent than tweets. For example, “Justin Bieber’s new song is awesome!” (and getting served an ad for his album). Keyword targeting doesn’t provide any timing advantage on any other platform, without understanding the sentiment and context of the entire tweet.

Twitter is right, timing means nothing if you are unable to react to things that happen right now. The big opportunity for advertisers is how to engage users in moments that matter to them. Advertising is about being in the right place and in the right time, yet finding the right users who have explicitly expressed interest isn’t scalable, it requires an intelligent approach to finding new users who also may be interested but haven’t expressed it via tweets. Exactly like Google search advertising or of Facebook interest targeting.

For example, an airline wants to sell tickets for a flight to London, they already know that they should buy “Flights to London” on Google search and now you can also buy the same term on Twitter. But the real challenge is how to find even more people who care about London. But, let’s just say, that all of a sudden there is news regarding Princess Kate’s pregnancy, people who talk about that might have great affinity to England and might be interested in a ticket to London in the future. Advertising to them is a key benefit. However, the news may be in the headlines for a few hours only. Timing is about being agile enough to monetize this moment, making sure you are buying the keywords around Princess Kate, and no one said they are even talking about London.

My previous example is simple if you’re in the performance space, and have specific goods to sell. The challenge is even greater if you’re a packaged goods company or running a branding campaign. What would Coca Cola buy on Google search or Twitter’s keywords? “Coke”? How is this beneficial to them? What would GE, Unilever, P&G will buy? They are all about being there for their audience in the right place and in the right time to create a connection between the brand and what their audience cares for.

Twitter’s keywords targeting is a great feature on Twitter’s platform, but it doesn’t solve the big problem of making your timing works.

But a browser company that owns 30 percent of the browser market has a greater responsibility to the industry they operate in than to just the user. Mozilla is ignoring a huge portion of these parties. I really believe that the company feels that they are working on behalf of their users, but I also don’t think Mozilla realizes all of the touch points that they are operating within. The user is the main party they interface with, but the Firefox browser interfaces with the web, and there are a number of parties involved beyond just the User. Let’s take a look at those parties.

Meet the surfer: The surfer, or “the user,” as many like to call this constituent, is the innocent person who traverses the web, day in and day out, reading this and purchasing that, watching that video and looking at this friend’s latest pictures or update. The surfer is the consumer of content and experiences offered by the internet, and the best part is that the majority of content online is free. Sure, there are some pieces so good that they’re worth paying for, but the majority of online content and activity is free of charge.

Meet the publisher: The publisher produces content and information for surfers and users to consume. In some cases they do this for free, or what would appear to be free, and in other cases there may be a payment collected in the form of a subscription. In all cases, there is value created by those who publish, produce, and distribute content online.

Meet the advertiser: Thank goodness for the advertisers, for without them, there would be no one to pay for all this great stuff online. Advertisers are typically companies that are looking to connect surfers with their brands, inspire them to buy their products or services, or consume their information.  Many advertisers also produce sites or catalogs of all sorts of things that surfers want. Think of Amazon or J. Crew, where a surfer can browse thousands of items and see what others have bought or looked at.

All three of these parties enable the online experience to develop, mature, grow, and produce wonderful experiences.  You cannot remove one of them and continue to grow and evolve in the same way. It’s just not possible.

Hurting Multiple Parties to “Protect” One
Unfortunately, that’s what Mozilla is attempting. By blocking third party cookies in the Firefox browser, the company is essentially eliminating the appeal of online advertising. Without cookies, it’s impossible to track ad placements and measure the reach of ads to a relevant audience – advertisers would be better off investing in print or direct mail, as those channels would offer better audience control. If the advertiser goes away, this strips a publisher of the ability to make money and recover costs of maintaining its site, thereby affecting the publisher’s ability to deliver free content.
The damage to two parties is supposedly all in the name of protecting the surfer, but the situation is comparable to a three-legged stool were two legs are being removed. In the larger context of how the internet operates, it just doesn’t make sense.

Mozilla recently published a post where an executive evaluated his daily ritual of surfing, both with the blocking and without. Of course, this demonstrated a drastic reduction in the number of cookies from third parties that were set on his computer. In the eyes of the surfer, this may seem preferable, as no company can track their movement online[A1] .

But this point is made without proper context, ignoring the fact that surfers rely on cookies to maintain their internet experience. A surfer visits his favorite publisher – maybe themorningnews.com -- to check out the day’s weather and what is happening locally. Without cookies, the surfer sees the same ad with every impression, on every page, in every size possible. Unfortunately for that surfer, it’s an annoying, irrelevant ad. And they see it over and over, all day, on their favorite site. Why? Because this publisher is not big enough to maintain an in-house sales force, and relies on third parties to generate ad revenue. Mozilla has removed this publisher’s ability to use these third parties to maximize revenue.

The Affects on advertising
Let’s turn back to the advertiser for a minute. Frequency capping is a mechanism that ensures users aren’t bombarded with the same ad on every page. High-frequency ads annoy users, and advertisers don’t like sending repeat ads either, as it’s a waste of impressions. Killing frequency capping makes an advertiser’s buys less effective (or, even more concerning, annoying to their customers), which makes them angry, and that ineffectiveness (and anger) eliminates the publisher’s means of monetizing content. Content which, keep in mind, is free to the surfer because advertisers pay for it.

Blocking third party cookies not only eliminates the ability to buy reach or frequency, but it kills attribution for conversions or sales as well, making it impossible for advertisers to measure whether or not ads are effective and how much they should pay the publishers and partners who drove the sales.

Advertisers have invested in services and technology to buy measurable, efficient and effective advertising. These strategies are not limited to targeting users based on behaviors or preferences, but also include the simple act of putting an ad in front of a user at the right time, or in the right context. If publishers can’t help, and technology has no real use, then advertisers have no incentive to buy online media.

This change will effect large publishers very little, as they will maintain their understanding of their visitors and remain in a good position to target that base. Small and medium sized publishers that rely heavily on third parties will not fare so well, and neither will their partners. Networks, exchanges, and other technology companies that provide value to the publisher will be most affected at first, but the effects will ripple throughout the internet economy. Advertisers will soon lose efficiency with their advertising, publishers will lose significant revenue, and surfers will be left with the bill at the end of the evening.

Considering that chain of events, it’s difficult to understand how Mozilla feels this decision even helps the user. Industry self-regulation efforts has made it easy for consumers to educate themselves on how their data is used and opt out of first- or third-party cookies. Mozilla was formerly in favor of this self-regulation effort, but now seems to have reversed its stance. Rather than empower users to make their own decisions around cookies, Mozilla is saying that browsers should dictate cookie policy on users’ behalf.

Cookies and third parties are not the enemy. They are not something to be scared of and block. Companies have made tremendous progress in using them more responsibly, and they are vital to the continued expansion and prosperity of the internet. Cookies are the current standard distinguishing one user from another, for everything from website personalization to making sure that advertising is more effective for all parties. Including the user. The user is important, and we should ensure they are educated and can easily make choices on this topic, but by no means are they the only player in this game. Without publishers and advertisers, there would be no online environment for the surfer to consume.

It wasn’t about story-boarding or scripting, it was about asking questions, getting answers, and weaving content together to produce an interesting and useful story. The benefits of combining the approaches of traditional journalism and brand storytelling seemed obvious. It’s something we’ve called “brand journalism” since day one, and it’s picking up speed as the new-media world continues to evolve, along with consumers’ habits.

Businesses are using social media, web video, and digital publishing to speak directly to consumers. It’s a way for brands, big and small, to use the approach of professional journalists to create, curate and share expert content in the form of blogs, articles and video. Brand journalism is obviously not as impartial as journalism, but it’s a way for a brand to engage an audience with relevant and interesting material. The content must be factual, and keep “relevance to the viewer” top of mind.

Marketing strategist David Meerman Scott, author of The New Rules of Marketing & PR, says “brand journalism is winning over direct marketing and PR attention-getting techniques.

“I'm convinced that those with the traditional skills of marketing, public relations, and copywriting are not the right people to create brand journalism content. Instead you need the skills of a journalist.”

Brand journalism is about facts and balance. It’s about telling an engaging story, and the goal is to educate rather than blatantly market. This way, readers or viewers are informed, and they become engaged with your business and it’s mission.

Home Depot is one major brand that has been creating expert content and useful do-it-yourself advice for a while, and it’s reaping the benefits. The content, whether it’s in the form of blog posts or web video, generally doesn’t try to sell anything directly. Instead, it keeps the focus on education.

Cisco is another example. On its blog, most of the articles and videos don’t mention the company at all. Its plan is to create a conversation and to position itself as a leader in the industry it represents. The company’s digital lead, Karen Snell, has said: “The goal was to generate engaging content to spark a conversation ... If we can make people understand what Cisco is doing, then we’ve been successful.”

Boeing is often mentioned as a successful adopter of brand journalism. “When brand journalists think of what’s interesting to their audiences and create engaging content, they generate stories that can really take off,” writes communications director Todd Blecher. “This story is about testing the brakes on our new 747. It involves speeding an airplane down a runway, hitting the brakes just before takeoff. It ends with the brakes on fire, which is eye catching, to say the least.

“We’ve had millions of views, and our key messages about safety and durability reached more people through our website, YouTube channel, and Facebook than we would’ve ever reached with a traditional news release.”

There are huge benefits to providing content that educates and informs, and it’s easy to measure the return on investment. How many hits did it get? Was it shared? Did it spark conversation? As the public and businesses become increasingly “social,” brand journalism can make communicating with consumers more interesting, while setting a company apart from outdated "push" marketing approaches.

Businesses that do it properly can create a huge competitive advantage, while increasing their credibility and relevancy in the marketplace.

Lisa Ostrikoff is a TV Journalist & Anchor turned creator of BizBOXTV -- a Canadian Online Video Production/Advertising + Social Media Marketing Agency. You can find her on Twitter and Facebook.

Cost management is a largely protectionist dynamic.  And so whilst technology driven efficiencies at scale can and will reduce cost for everyone, the much larger prize is the ‘opportunity gap’.  While approximately 30% of our total media consumption is online (in its various forms), it still represents only 20% of total ad spend.  This 10% gap – the opportunity gap – equates to circa $70b per annum, meaning display’s pro rata share is worth somewhere between $20-$25 billion a year and growing.  Factor in the growth trajectory of online media via mobile and the real number is even higher.

So how much efficiency improvement is required to close this $25 billion gap and realize display media’s true growth potential?  This is difficult to quantify, but we know it needs to be significant.  Essentially, we need to engineer structural efficiency, that is, materially redress inefficiencies both within and between stakeholders.  This boils down to our ability to deliver on three things.

1. Automation. Remove the need for manual data entry, manual data validation, manual document creation.

2. Integration.  Integrate systems and processes, and most critically – integrate stakeholders.

3. Reinvention. Optimise our business practices and frameworks by reinventing them.  Simply automating otherwise flawed processes and methods is in itself insufficient to deliver structural efficiencies.

Guaranteed Premium versus RTB…really?

Much of what is being said and written around the emergence of ‘programmatic premium’ (more on this anomalous terminology some other blog) is reminiscent of the debate being had back in 2000 about the relative merits of search versus display.  What the marketing community quickly came to understand was that rather than ‘search or display’, the unique merits of each can be leveraged in tandem, and often for superior return because of it.

And so it is with the guaranteed/premium versus RTB debate.  Hundreds if not thousands of advertisers representing diverse budgets and objectives already invest in both guaranteed/premium and RTB.  As ‘programmatic premium’ emerges from nascence, and RTB matures, the share of display budget each segment is able to attract will be driven less by a philosophical consideration, and more by a very practical one, including ‘how easy is the toolset to adopt’?

The characterization of a tool that is easy to adopt includes:

• minimising the need for organizational change

• providing interoperability with existing mission critical toolsets

• is purpose designed and built

Conversely, the toolset that requires it’s users to take one of two or more philosophically opposed viewpoints is doomed.  For an entire organisation to commit to and successfully adopt a new and potentially transformative toolset, the leadership team must be able to engineer broad, meaningful consensus.  This type of consensus is simply not possible in the presence of a philosophical divide.

However the toolset that solves problems as they exist, and simultaneously re-invents to solve others is both transformative and easy to adopt.

At Adslot, the product design team work under a mantra of making our toolset ‘beautifully useful’.  This is a simple yet powerful way to remind ourselves and our customers of the experience we strive to deliver.

And so rightly or wrongly, the speed with which ‘programmatic premium’ emerges, the quantum of structural efficiency achieved, and as a result the scale and scope of display’s growth potential will be determined almost entirely by practical considerations.  Specifically, the extent to which the toolset on offer solves today’s problems and innovates for the future.

This article was originally posted on Adslot.com on April 3, 2013.

In steps 1-3 of this series I discussed Creating a Plan, Content and Execution, and Analysis. Now, let’s focus on optimization. By definition, optimization is the process of making a design or system perfect. What is perfect? Well, perfection in terms of digital strategy is maximum effectiveness based on your key performance indicators, or KPIs. I suppose “maximum” and “perfection” are hard to quantify and may never be truly reachable, but the point is that you are continually striving to improve ROI. To throw out the jargon: you want to create better ads and content to achieve the most conversions for the smallest budget.

It’s important to remember that optimization is not a one time event. This process is ongoing and evolves with the successes and direction of your company. Successful optimization requires patience, constant attention and experimentation. It’s also necessary to stay in touch with trends and changes in your industry.

In a recent Legolas Media blog, they state that, “click performance isn’t always the best way to measure digital campaign success.” It’s easy to look at a growing number of clicks or impressions and feel victorious, but these may not only be the wrong metric, they could be hurting your brand. Remember, you are optimizing your campaigns to achieve your digital goals by tracking KPIs. If you feel like you’ve lost sight of them, maybe you should take a step back.

Optimizing Your Campaigns

Although I could break down each type of content, or different ad network, I will try to speak in a broader sense. Here are some questions to ask yourself when optimizing your campaigns and content:

Are your ads organized properly?

Most online ad platforms allow you to separate your ads into different ad groups based on topic, product, or service offering. If multiple topics, whether keywords or ads, are combined within a single ad group, your performance can suffer. Separate your ad groups by purpose or topic, and make sure to remove keywords or ads that are not performing well, which can hurt the overall ad group performance. You want to rank higher for a lower bid, so break experimental ads or new ideas out into new ad groups. It’s great to experiment, but don’t damage an ad group that has been performing well.

Are you engineering your content for better performance?

There are two parts to developing engaging content. The content must be informative, helpful and/or entertaining to your customers. You also need to make sure your content is engineered to reach the right audience. This begins with analyzing your title and keyword use and making sure it matches popular, low competition search queries. Tweaking a word or phrase can make a big difference when search optimizing your blog or video content.

Are you learning from past successes?

Once you find that a bit of content or an ad is successful, figure out why and use it as a template approach for the future. It’s simple, I know, but make sure you do it. Match high performing text/taglines with the strongest images and keywords. Eliminate tactics that don’t bring success in terms of your KPIs.

Are you looking at analytics and defining conversions?

To decide what campaigns and ads are performing the best, its not as simple as comparing dollars out to dollars in. There are many steps in between for a prospect before they are ready to buy. Knowing this, you’ll need to define conversions. Conversions are metrics you use to measure the value of a visitor and are often organized into a series of actions, or a conversion funnel. The difference between a visitor that looks at three pages and one that looks at four (and fulfills a conversion) could be the indicator that they are seriously interested and aren’t just browsing. If you work backwards from your conversions to the source, you’ll be able to see what ads and keywords are generating leads and which ones are attracting window shoppers that never become customers.

Are your landing pages working for you?

Improve messaging and targeting of your ads, and when visitors arrive on your landing pages, make sure the content and personality fits your ad. If your landing page doesn’t provide the correct information, or leaves customers with questions, your bounce rate is most likely high as well. Make sure your ad keywords match your landing page keywords, and keep the pages as streamlined as possible. Clutter loses conversions. Here is a helpful list of reasons why customers don’t convert on your website.

Are you improving PPC ad ROI?

We’re striving to get the most out of the smallest budget, no matter our specific goals. Maximizing investment is a universal goal for any business. To pay less for your PPC and display ads, you need to:

1) improve your relevance by making your ad and landing page more cohesive

2) remove keywords or ads with poor performance

3) keep up with trends and be willing to make changes often

Are you still focusing on KPIs?

Make sure you are still moving towards your original digital goals and basing your decisions on your KPIs. If you start tweaking and experimenting without a method to your madness, or without a control in your experiments, you probably need to get re-acquainted with your digital plan.

So now you are ready- courageous, confident and excited to launch your own digital strategy. Just remember to stay focused on your digital goals. Good luck!

Despite the ubiquity of these devices, marketers continue to struggle to effectively monetize the mobile channel. It’s time to step back, look at what makes mobile different and come up with some fresh thinking.

Mobile devices aren’t little desktops. They’re not even little laptops. Too much of the advertising taking place on these devices is rooted in what worked on the traditional Web. Banners on mobile browsers are for the birds. Tiny fonts and big fingers are a terrible combination. How many times have you inadvertently clicked an ad while simply trying to scroll or stretch or pinch a page? It’s great for click through rates, even if unintentionally.

Creativity takes the cake. When we see something novel we notice; it’s human nature. Marketers get this and they’re increasingly trying new ways to grab our attention in the mobile world. In-app advertising is a first step but a lot of it simply relies on what are essentially still banners. But some brands are doing interesting things with apps themselves – either as stand-alone programs or as part of a broader campaign.

One device, many use cases. The fact that we can talk about banner ads in the mobile browser, in-app ads and app-based campaigns speaks to the variety of use cases that exist on mobile. Within seconds a user can take a photo, customize it using Instagram, share it on Facebook and move on to browse the Web. In virtually every use case there is an opportunity for brands to engage.

A universal view of me and of you. One of the challenges with the various use cases described above is recognizing that the same user is performing them all. It may seem elementary but marketers have no way to bridge between the mobile Web and apps when it comes to recognizing their audience. The result is wasted impressions, the inability to do frequency capping and a less than optimal user experience.

Performance is paramount. Marketing on mobile devices is still marketing, and a big part of marketing is managing hundreds of billions of impressions on hundreds of millions of devices in tiny slivers of a second. While speed is critical, longevity is important too as it means customers can be confidently reached for an extended period of time.

Privacy, privacy, privacy. Marketers have played fast and loose with customer data, skirting best practices and turning a deaf ear to consumers’ requests for greater privacy protection. Mobile offers a fresh start – based on the concept of privacy-by-design – for the industry to give consumers the protection they want while still providing marketers with the data they need to create relevant and respectful relationships.

Mobile is exciting. It’s promising, fun, personal, immediate, intimate and it’s everywhere. Now is the time for marketers to create engaging connections with their customers that are just as exciting and promising and personal and fun as the devices they run on. It’s time for marketers to look at their audiences, the ecosystem and the available technology to deliver relevant content for engaging consumer experiences.

If you have a website or use a search engine on a regular basis, it’s likely that you've heard of SEO or PPC. These two common acronyms are mentioned and preached every day. However, does everyone really know what they mean, or how they work? If you don’t, you’re not alone.

Let’s answer any lingering questions, settle myths, and clear the air of this SEO madness! I've compiled the most common myths, most important facts, and the most exciting secrets in this post! I know what you’re thinking, “Whew! it’s about time!”

So let’s start from the top…

Define:
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) – An algorithm designed to impact visibility of web content (pages) through organic search results. Commonly used as a free alternative to PPC (pay per click) advertising.

Facts:

• Organic search results is a natural method for locating a webpage. This process will match search terms with relevant content on competing webpages. The stepbrother of organic search results is “non-organic”, or paying per click. “Paying per click” are ads that allow a company to blindly bid on highly competitive key search terms.

• New content is the maintenance that will keep your page ranked. The most effective way is blogging and tagging with search terms. Google, and other leading search engines will reward your website for publishing relevant information. Since you know your business, show off and show off often!

• Content is king. Keep relevant and new content flowing like a river! Adding content is important for your ongoing ranking; the most effective way is with a blog attached to your website. All blog content should follow the relevancy rules; essentially giving extra space to display content that your website does not have room for.

• Play to win. Similar to Monopoly night with your Grandmother, the SEO game is never ending. Compete, and compete often to maintain and most importantly to increase your ranking.

• Duplicate and be dumped. Search engines (especially Google) are smart enough to detect fluff and manipulation; so think of these algorithms as more of an art than a science.

• By the numbers. If you’re more of a numbers person; you can make SEO a science project by using the KEI (keyword effectiveness index) equation. This will give specific words a rating based on the number of times a word is searched over the number of webpages displaying the word or phrase. Using this approach will show you what words and phrases can give you the best chance of winning the keyword game.

The internet can be the most rewarding source of marketing if used properly. Website optimization best practices are ever evolving and will only become more competitive as time passes. Adopting this process now can completely change the way your business operates in a positive way for years to come.

Digital analytics have come a long way in the past couple years. More reliable tracking mechanisms, advanced software, and broader understanding of how to measure the impact of channels has made us all smarter.  However, we’ve also become guilty of occasionally jumping to conclusions too quickly now that we can see performance by channel on a minute to minute basis.  We may inject spend into test cells that appear to be performing well only to find what appeared to be a great pocket of performance was actually a statistical blip.  Or, we may pull money out of seemingly under-performing channels and discover overall program results plummet because cause and effect correlations were not taken into consideration.  There are many victims of overzealous budget re-allocation but Display Prospecting tends to be one of the most popular.

Recommendation

Don’t get me wrong, I love seeing the high ROIs from dynamic remarketing and the low CPAs from advanced search strategies boost overall results.  But, I try not to forget where the qualified volume came from to support a successful remarketing program or where the awareness came from to deliver branded search results.

We recently ran a series of controlled tests within the retail space to quantify the impact channels have on one another.  One of the most interesting results emerged when we looked at how display prospecting affects remarketing and paid search.

The Experiment

We funneled 3x more spend into Display Prospecting for three weeks in a targeted DMA while keeping remarketing and search budgets constant.  We then compared KPIs in the DMA against total campaign benchmarks pre and post-test.

The Results

After three weeks, an injection of spend in Display Prospecting led to:

-          70-90% increase in remarketing and search conversion rates (see figure below  for pre-test and post-test index comparisons against a campaign baseline of 100)

-          25-30% decrease in CPAs

The Bottom Line

These kinds of experiments are easy to conduct (and should be conducted) in your own marketing campaigns.  The results can then be incorporated into cross-channel planning models to fully harvest the effects each channel has on one another.

Changes can be unsettling, whether they're potential or actual, positive or negative. You may be gearing up for a promotion/new position, staring at a wide-open field of new prospective clients, or launching new products and services. Or you may be hunkering down in the face of outsourcing, downsizing, mergers/consolidations, takeovers, and local or global competition. 

Consider the Changes Taking Place at Yahoo!

Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer has certainly unleashed enormous, untold passions about how, when and where people should work at Yahoo.

The recent, now infamous, change requiring Yahoo employees to work in the office instead of telecommuting from home has been likened to the shot heard round the world.

No less than a great war has ensued and Marissa Mayer has been villainized and vilified by some and verified and validated by others.

It is no secret that Yahoo has been struggling to keep pace with the likes of Apple, Facebook, and Google, all of whom have strong in-office cultures and not coincidentally, strong revenues to match.

In Our Opinion...It’s not about trusting people to work at home, it’s about Mayer’s challenge in the turnaround of Yahoo regardless of where people are working. Mayer has to build a new corporate culture of trust in the infinite possibilities of what the Yahoo organization can create together.

However, as we are hearing, this change process is creating considerable stress for Yahoo employees.

How We Respond to Change

Do you respond or react to change and do you know the difference? As soon as something nudges you out of your regular routine, or challenges your understanding of how the world works and where you fit into it, it will likely trigger a deluge of feelings including; fear, anxiety, overwhelm, excitement, distraction or denial.

How Does the Way You Respond to Change Impact Your Brand?

These feelings can manifest in your behavior.  You may, unconsciously, act out with behavior that is not a brand match for you, or your communication style alters, both at work and at home. You might feel compelled to push yourself and others to overwork, or take the opposite approach - which most do - and procrastinate, avoid the work that's on your plate and get sidetracked with misconceptions, assumptions and gossip to changes that may or may not happen.

On a personal level, your self-care may suffer and you may reach for unhealthy substances, get less sleep, skip meals or overindulge. You might cut yourself off from friends and family, and spend more time alone or with other people who have unhealthy habits or attract people who are in the same place as you.

The Impact

Dealing with change requires flexibility, resilience and an ability to think on your feet. Unfortunately, when you're caught up in your reaction to change, these mental abilities are affected as well. When you're preoccupied, worried and focused on the future instead of the present, it's much harder to concentrate and apply your brainpower to what's in front of you.

Great leaders are admired for their serenity and confidence even in the face of uncertainty and upheaval. For many of us, though, when change is afoot, serenity is far from our reach. Instead, emotions are much closer to the surface and can flare up at the most inopportune times. Whether you lash out, cry, or pound on your desk behind closed doors, it's incredibly uncomfortable to feel so out of control.

Consider, also, the impact on the people around you. Emotional outbursts, whether at work or at home, can irrevocably damage your effectiveness, your reputation and your relationships.

Successful Strategies for Dealing With Change

Here are five strategies to help you remain flexible and resilient in the face of change:

1. Take care of YOUr body. Eat well, sleep well and refrain from harmful habits like indulging in caffeine adrenaline behavior, excessive drinking, or other risky behavior. Work out whatever that is for you!

2. Take care of YOUr mind. Stay in the present moment. Challenge your negative thinking and keep things in perspective; when the doom and gloom sets in, ask, "How important is this, really?"

3. Take control of YOUr emotions. Find reasons to smile and laugh, even when you don't feel like it—especially when you don't feel like it! Funny movies, blogs or videos can help. Vent your negative feelings by exercising, banging on a drum or pounding on a pillow.

4. Treat others well. Strengthen your good relationships so you can draw on their support and work at your challenging relationships so they don't add to your stress.  In fact, this may be a good time to remove them from your life altogether.

5. Take charge. Be proactive and prepare the best you can for the changes that might come, but then accept the reality of the moment. Think back to other challenges that you've come through and remind yourself that everything will work out okay this time, too.

In practice, however, a better metaphor would be a triple-combo shot in a game of pool. You hit one ball, which hits another, which hits another, which tips the final one into the pocket.  Much more complicated geometry than the _dunk-swish_ of making a basket. What I mean is that pay per click, display advertising and a firm plan involving social media and quality content will attract considerable traffic to a site if it has been built correctly. But then it is the purpose of the website to turn that traffic into leads, and then it's the business's job to take care of turning those leads into sales.

Defining What “Works” Means

If they're done correctly, all online marketing tactics can "work". However, what "works" means is often ill-defined or unclear due to unrealistic goals. On the other hand, if marketers set more realistic goals they will see that customers seek them out.  But for many types of products and services, it can take longer to get them on board than just that first click. Effective Internet marketing is a joint endeavor between the marketing tactic and the business. Usually, all of the responsibility is heaped onto the marketing, but a campaign that fails to generate sales may still have been a good campaign.

Measuring the Hand-off

Here's an example: say that someone has a pay per click operation bringing in lots of traffic for a highly relevant keyword set. The text in the ad does a good job of portraying the value proposition and someone clicks on it. The campaign has served its purpose. After that, the person clicking on the ad ends up at the target website but leaves because it didn't fulfill their expectations, or because the layout was too confusing for them to find what they were looking for. Similarly, the site may perform as intended and the person emails, calls or fills out a form, but the business doesn't reply or otherwise handled things badly. Was it the marketing tactic that didn't work, or was it the business or site that failed?

Closing Requires a Joint Effort

Sometimes, a business owner pays for many clicks within a month and then gets the impression that the campaign didn't do its job when they can’t see an obvious increase in business.  But all along it may be that the fault was on the site design or the way the leads were handled. It's really a joint effort. This is especially true with display advertising. Because the conversion isn't immediate, its effectiveness is not always captured well with reporting metrics such as click-thru-rates. Instead, the potential customer later visits the site directly and the advertising gets no credit.

Final Thoughts

It's often hard to know if a marketing method will succeed, a problem that is even faced by large and successful companies. Fortunately, tools are available that can show how much of a site's traffic was exposed to display advertising, even if the ads weren't clicked. A great example is the engagement tracking provided by local display ad specialists Vantage Local.  Other ideas to try are to incorporate less complex methods of testing marketing methods like using different phone numbers or promotional offers and giving out discount codes.  Whatever you use, measurements need to be matched to the activity that show whether that step in the chain is working or not.

What personal characteristics do we look for when hiring for Private Equity?

How can you assess if you have the “chops” to work for private equity? Is your personal brand a match for private equity? What can you expect and what is expected once you are hired, in terms of the operational differences, compared to working for a large, publicly owned company?

If you are considering a career opportunity in a private equity financed business, then check out the top 5 qualities and characteristics to better understand if you really are ready, willing and able. 

1. PE firms want to work with entrepreneurs.

Private equity firms have been started by investment bankers, successful corporate executives and entrepreneurs with a proven track record of building wealth by risking capital and building businesses entrepreneurially. In selecting a CEO, COO, or other C-level executive, private equity firms want to see proven entrepreneurship in the executive’s prior career steps. Has the candidate successfully started and built a business from scratch? Has he or she turned around a troubled business? Does the candidate have the proven track record and hands-on leadership profile to build confidence among others in the organization (including strategic alliance partners)? You need not apply if you do not have “entrepreneurial DNA" and passion, plus prior success implementing a business plan involving significant change (i.e., not managing a “steady state" business).

2. PE investors want “hunters" not “farmers."

While they tend not to manage from quarter to quarter, like so many public companies, private equity investors are looking for—and expecting—mega-growth of a business over a five- to seven-year window. The expectation is that the returns on capital are multiples of the original investment once the business is sold (usually to a strategic buyer) at the end of the investment period. Hunters have the fearlessness to compete in the marketplace on a daily basis, and their hunting skills are usually directly tied to an ability to increase the top-line revenues. In addition to growth via acquisition, most private equity investors evaluate revenue increases in the base line (“same store") business. This almost always leads them to hire a new Head of New Business—and it always needs to be a “hunter." We recently completed four executive search assignments nationwide for this type of position, most within the first year after a private equity firm has made an investment.

3. PE firms hire "doers" with a strong bias for action.

In LBOs and buyouts of privately held businesses, there are typically major issues that need to be addressed immediately: the prior owner/parent company/CEO may have failed; growth in the business may be stagnant; and investments or changes in the business were deferred because it was deemed a “non-core" asset. This is one reason that private equity investors like to hire “doers" with a bias for action – because typically so much needs to be done – and very quickly. Consider the GM turnaround and the three months the Board gave the initial CEO before making a change. As Jack Welch has said numerous times, a non-decision is sometimes the worst decision a CEO can make. If you are a procrastinator, stay away from private equity.

4. PE investors are reasonable until they become unreasonable.

Private equity investors typically resist hands-on involvement in the day-to-day operations of a business. They will typically put two to three of their own people on the Board of Directors and will remain minimally involved as long as the business moves forward according to (and in alignment with) the corporate business plan. They may come to Board meetings to listen to the CEO (and others in senior management), and they’ll work on complementary activities related to expanding and growing the business, such as additional acquisitions, or capital investment to increase manufacturing capacity. However, when/if the CEO and senior leadership begin missing the milestones, and the business turns south (even slightly), they are back with a vengeance ready to make changes in the senior leadership team (i.e., trade out the CEO, hire a strong COO with a sales/business development background, etc.) Working with a private equity-backed firm is potentially good for executives who (1) under-promise and over-deliver, and (2) are good at developing and implementing realistic business plans—and keeping the company on track and ahead of the key milestones outlined in these plans.

5. PE firms want an accelerated pace of change; be prepared to “ride the rapids."

While many C-level executives express frustrations at the slow pace of change in large corporations, many are unprepared emotionally to work in the rapid waters of private equity. You can expect almost 180 degrees the opposite environment once you switch over to a private equity-owned business. When you meet with the partners of these firms, invariably the first question they will ask you is, “If given this job, what would you do first?" and “What would be your plan for growing/fixing this business?"

Know what works best for your personal brand before jumping in!

It is extremely important to be prepared, and to do your homework, especially if you are considering one of these types of opportunities. For some true entrepreneurs, those unafraid of operating without a safety net, it can be exhilarating and highly rewarding (equity stakes and payouts are usually much higher than stock options earned inside a public company). However, for those executives lacking the necessary risk-profile and DNA, this is a career step to be avoided altogether.

If you have worked for a private equity firm, or have considered pursuing one of these opportunities, please write to us and share your experiences and perspectives.

I feel one of the aspects of our industry is a lack of full understanding of how our counterparts on the other side of the sale do what they do – and that’s not a good thing.  I’m talking about the real nuts and bolts of the day to day, and how we as sellers not only fit into those days, but what we can do to make their lives better.

You can learn a lot from your mentors on the sell-side, as my previous post explored, but the best sellers understand the needs of their partners, and that helps them develop a plan to suit those needs. Building these relationships and heading this advice is one of the smartest things a media seller can do. As you start to talk more to sellers, you’ll learn things that will make you wish you knew them back when you started.  I remember, early on in my media-selling career, a director giving an invaluable piece of advice.  He told me “keeping it simple” is one of the things he appreciated most in a seller’s style.  He saw too many sellers with top-heavy decks and complicated pitches.  I took it to heart and always try to keep it in mind when putting presentations and proposals together.

With that in mind, I approached a few friends and asked each one, “If you could give a new media seller one piece of advice, what would it be?” All of the answers that follow came from buyers, and are shared here anonymously.

“Always be ready to dump the deck. Our partners have great PowerPoint presentations, but sometimes their desire to go through each slide eliminates the opportunity to delve into other areas. Generally when we want to explore additional areas, it's because we have challenges in mind and are interested in the REPs POV and thoughts.”

“If you want to contact me about work, do so on my work email and not via Facebook.  It's my personal social networking tool that is not meant to be used for work.  I will not answer you regarding work related issues unless I am contacted through the appropriate outlets. “

“Telling me that making a plan is going to get you promoted or a corner office is not going to motivate me to work with you.  Awkward somewhat serious comments like those will in fact make me want to work with you less.”

“Your sales pitch shouldn't be that all of my competitors are working with you.  That doesn't mean anything to me.”

A lot of this feedback seems to boil down to sellers sometimes letting the pressure they feel trickle into their personal relationships and then trying to leverage those relationships instead of the strength of the proposal.  The key, of course, is for us sales professionals to remember that the folks on the other side of the desk have their own pressures and responsibilities. Rather than push a sale, it seems that sellers need to communicate and work in close collaboration with their buyer partners to ensure a mutually beneficial relationship.

Special thanks to my friends from Initiative, Mediavest, OMD and Zenith; all true media professionals.

Marc Mallett has worked in the New York Interactive Media space for 10 plus years, holding sales and sales management positions at Yahoo, ScanScout, VEVO & Silver Chalice

When we hear the word endurance, we usually relate it to the performance, stamina and the resilience of an athlete. As leaders and emerging leaders, we suggest you “hear” the word and take the same definition, but add the elements of bravery, prevail, and persistence.

Particularly in these challenging economic times, we need to create athlete-like minds AND bodies to sustain performance in the pace of the current marketplace, to be great role models, and to create outstanding results in every area of our lives!

Endurance is Crucial not Optional

Where does your brand need to ramp up it’s endurance? Is it the challenges of your company, role or business sector? Is it the balancing of work and home responsibilities? Or perhaps it is the uncertainty of your brand not getting the traction it needs. What do you need to do to strengthen and flex your endurance muscles? What can you eliminate or change immediately to increase endurance both personally and professionally?

What relevance does building physical endurance have to your performance in business? In our experience as senior-level talent acquisition and personal branding specialists, endurance is crucial and not optional. We all know and have seen too many examples of over-stressed and out-of-shape CEOs, some of whom have died on the job due to stress-related illnesses or heart attacks.

Clearly, such a lifestyle is personally dangerous. But it can also be professionally dangerous. In today’s 24/7/365 environment, you do not want to risk making a costly business or personal brand decision simply because you were tired, careless, and sloppy due to a lack of endurance.

Also, if you are a C-level or even an emerging leader and you do not take care of yourself, how can you expect to be a role model for others in the organization? To the contrary, you send an undesirable message to the organization.

Take control of building the endurance you need to maximize your performance. Incorporate our EC Top 5 List of “Endurance Best Practices” into your daily schedule to improve your endurance:

1. Take an Endurance assessment. Check your endurance levels and create an action plan where you need energy the most. Want more endurance?  Stop doing what drags you down. Plan for eliminating the “tolerations” in the following areas; business, personal, finance, health and well-being, and relationships. This could include questions, such as; What is keeping me up at night? When do I schedule time away from my work?  What do I need to improve to get into better physical condition? What relationships do I need to remove that drain me of my energy?  Remaining active outside the office will help you build the stamina and endurance you will need on the job.
2. Develop and maintain an optimistic attitude. It is proven medically, people with a “glass half full” mentality are happier and less stressed than their alternative counterparts.  It takes a lot less energy to be positive. Work on your unique outlook and eliminate worrying about all the people, places and things that are not aligned with being positive or outside of your personal control.
3. Delegate, Delegate, Delegate! Identify the tasks at work and at home that you really do not want to do or you are not good at (the “drudge” tasks) and delegate these immediately. You will be amazed how much lighter this will make you feel and give your endurance a boost! Notice how our energy levels seems to be low when we do not want to do something or be somewhere we don’t want to be.
4. Take Control of Your Calendar. Don’t constantly overbook yourself. For example, after a late night of meetings, travel or client entertaining, do not schedule yourself for a 7 a.m. breakfast meeting. Give yourself time to recover. Don’t let business issues spill over into your personal life and vice versa. Work on compartmentalizing the different areas of your life and use success and happiness in one area to raise your energy and spirits in the other areas.
5. Plan ahead. Be Pro-Active! Manage your health and mental well-being! Most senior executives have at least four to five weeks of vacation annually; you will be surprised how many do not take this time off, or if they do, they actually work all day on vacation. Set boundaries, leave the laptop at home, empower others to step up, and disengage on a quarterly basis.

And above all…check in with yourself on a regular basis and make course corrections as necessary, you can shift and change as you need to. Continue to build your brand to endure maximum performance!