1. Premium pricing – top of the market
2. Bargain pricing – bottom of the market
3. Prime + 2 pricing – prebuilt-in margin
4. Total cost of ownership pricing – the cost plus overhead
5. Competitive pricing – based on competitors and customer needs

Determining which of these to use depends on a variety of variables including the company’s business model, industry standards and what competitors are doing—to name a few. However, when we were determining the pricing model for ChoiceStream’s advanced targeting optimization technology, we carefully weighed the pros and cons of each of the above pricing options and came to the following conclusions.

Premium Pricing: Higher than your costs? No – As a startup, ChoiceStream has not yet reached scale, so our current costs do not reflect what the market will bear for pricing. This is important because our product is very sensitive to scale due to the fact that many of our costs are fixed. Additionally, our competitors, who have been in market longer, are offering scale-based prices, which we must match.

Bargain Pricing: Lower than competitors? Not necessarily – As a startup you may want to beat your competitors on price, but must be careful not to establish a race to the bottom in the industry. At ChoiceStream we do not try to beat our competitors on price, but we do strive to be the best value. In reality we need to compete on more than just price, so that is a tactic we’ve avoided. Furthermore, we offer a premium solution supported by a full range of premium services that more than justify our prices.

Prime + 2 Pricing: Higher than your planned costs at scale? Not always – You should establish a price list that will eventually allow you a reasonable margin, but you may want to drop below that to win some key customers. We’ve established our price list to allow an equitable margin, but we cut straight to the bone to win some key customers. First, because these customers either commit to volumes that make their business worthwhile or they have the potential to do so once we prove ourselves.  Second, because well-known and respected brands are worth their weight in marketing gold.  We consider their non-cash value when determining their discount.

Total Cost of Ownership Pricing: Determine pricing in the context of TCO? Absolutely – The purchase price of some products represents nearly 100% of the total cost of ownership (that is the cost to purchase, maintain, insure, and operate a product). On the other hand, the price of some products may be 5% or less of the total cost of ownership. The lower the percentage, the less effect your pricing has on the purchase decision. In these cases, you may find that very low prices don’t help sales and very high prices don’t hinder them.  If this is true, mark it up. When we establish pricing at ChoiceStream for our advertising solution, we consider all ancillary costs that the buyer must incur when we deliver; including such things as building ads, ad serving fees, and ad safety fees.

Competitive Pricing: Research price points? Absolutely – It is always a good idea to ask as many potential customers as you can what they would pay for your product or service.  When asking, try to simulate as closely as possible the conditions under which your customers will see your actual offers. We’ve made it a common practice asking clients and prospects what they normally pay for solutions like ours.  We also check out competitors to determine the range of prices in the market, but we are careful to account for differences in quality, bundles and features.

In reality, different pricing models will work better for different companies. There is no single easy solution, but typically creating your own hybrid of these five types will be the end solution.

We enabled the system to identify web pages referencing each of the teams specifically in the context of basketball. These pages were automatically analyzed  on a deep semantic level across three dimensions: safety, quality and topic. These massive amounts of analyzed traffic also provide us with a unique opportunity to glean insights and intelligence on current internet trends at large.

The graph below shows the request volume we received for each of the teams, as a fraction of the total number of March-Madness requests. The percentages are the relative share of each team in the total requests.

To further analyze this data, we sampled several tens of thousands of random webpages referencing Michigan and Louisville, the two teams of the original thirteen that actually made it to the Final Four. One point of interest was to see how geography differed for users interested in each of the teams. Generally, our analysis is on the page-level only, i.e. we have no data regarding specific users (cookies or other). However, to analyze geography, we looked up pages from domains which clearly indicated a specific geography (e.g. http://sanantonionews.com/) for local news and sports sites. Then, we tried pointing out areas in which one of the teams clearly had more page view volume than the other, which indicated significant inclination towards one of the teams, rather than the other.

The interesting results can be seen in the map below,  Louisville in red and Michigan in blue.

Louisville won the NCAA basketball tournament this year but based on request volume, Michigan was the big winner.  We’ll be following other big upcoming events, creating specific categories, which should yield some insights like we’ve seen in the past. For example, we created "Obama" and "Romney" categories before the elections and that resulted in some rather interesting findings.

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.

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!

We’ve all seen our fair share of websites where the publisher’s primary video player was a YouTube player, and it’s easy to understand why. YouTube is free, can be quickly embedded, and tracks audience views. Either you’re a publisher that doesn’t own any video content and you’re simply embedding videos from someone else’s channels, or you’re the producer who uploaded the video and you want a simple video solution for your own properties. Whatever the case may be, using a YouTube player as your primary player means you are not making monetization your top priority, and unless you’re a brand or a viral video production house, monetization really deserves to be high up on your priority list. For publishers who don’t own videos, fixing the problem is easy – use an alternative service that could provide you with video content, as well as monetization. But let’s talk about the producers that end up weighing their YouTube views higher than making money from those views.

Producers that are serious about video would be wise to consider a video player where they have full control of monetization, whether they have their own ad sales team or use ad networks. Producers should still use YouTube, but it should just be one of many publishing channels in their arsenal, not their entire publishing platform. At the end of the day, getting the most out of advertising is going to be much more valuable than watching your YouTube view count rise.

Monetization is more than just getting views

It can be exciting to watch your view count go up each day (or hour, depending on how much traffic your videos command), but that counter has little to do with your actual ROI. YouTube’s advertising solutions are not for everyone. Channel owners have the option to become a YouTube Partner and have ads shown on their videos for a profit. However, these payments average out to $2 per 1,000 views at scale. Psy made an impressive $4 million on Gangnam Style, but he also had more than 1 billion views. I’m going to go out on a limb and say the Psys and Justin Biebers (yes, he was discovered on YouTube) of the YouTube world are few and far between. Additionally, requirements around having a sales team, selling at a minimum price, and operationally managing ads on YouTube make it difficult to sell into your own content. It is possible to earn money from YouTube, but treat it as one of many revenue streams.

YouTube still matters

With increasing audience fragmentation, it’s becoming more important than ever to reach audiences at as many touch points as possible. You should take advantage of YouTube’s viewership of more than 800 million unique users each month, watching 4 billion hours of video. Every video producer should have a presence on YouTube and be seen as a relevant contributor; it just shouldn’t be your primary video publishing tool. YouTube should be one of many thriving publishing channels you manage. Regularly upload content to YouTube that audiences will want to watch, market your YouTube content across your other channels, and use YouTube to drive users to you or your partner’s properties. Media companies that successfully manage their YouTube channel but keep it separate from the video technology they use for their other publishing channels and relationships will be able to enjoy watching their YouTube view counts increase, while maintaining full control over their video monetization efforts.

Controlling your turf matters, more

YouTube is a consumer-centric video platform focused on its community of viewers, and you’ll see this across most of its features. When you embed a YouTube video on your website, video recommendations appear in the player after the video is finished, and they won’t necessarily be for your content. This enables YouTube to keep the viewer in its world, exploring YouTube’s content. Anyone who is familiar with YouTube knows how easy it is to get sucked into the maze of videos. I’m sure you know someone (if it isn’t you) who watches one YouTube video on a site, and 10 minutes later, ends up knee deep in YouTube.com. Here’s the catch – the site and the content owner that got you started on this path are usually long forgotten by the time you’re watching piano playing cat videos. If you were a producer and the audience was on your site, wouldn’t a player that lets you recommend only your videos and keeps the audience exploring the content within your channels be preferable? Even if you’re just publishing other people’s content, wouldn’t it be equally be valuable to keep audiences exploring the content on your site for longer than having them jump ship to YouTube. Granted, YouTube does a great job with relevance at the content and user levels, but there’s more to it when you start thinking about monetization and engagement with your brand.

1 year? 6 months? 3 months?  How low can you go?

Join us as a top HR Director, Recruiter, VP of Sales and Agency Group Director debate just how short a job stint can be before it affects your career in Digital Media.

The Dos and Don’ts of Entertaining

Take a walk on the wild side with some of the best-known sales professionals on the digital party circuit as they give their “rules of the game.” Sellers of both sexes give their tried and true mantras for thriving and surviving during a long night out entertaining. Do flirt, don’t sleep; Do sip, don’t gulp; talk shop only if “shop” means late night karaoke. This panel could get crazy! We certainly hope so...

Entitlement is a God Given Right!

Sure to be an eye-opening conversation with four Millennials in their first job out of school.  See what a day in the life of the industry’s future is like first-hand as they navigate lunch and learns, pivot tables, CPMs and beer pong.  Is life like a Girls episode?  We will see.

Crowd-sourcing the Next Company.ly

Ever wonder where the witty and uniquely spelled digital company names come from?  So do we! In a Digital Media Conference first we’re going to use the crowd to come up with a name for a new Social Analytics / Entertainment company being started by three ex-Googlers and Facebookers. Bring your puns and feel free to use the following ideas to prime the pump:  Uber-likes -- “Order more likes than your competition.” SoVidMo (MoVidSo?) – “What’s next in Social Mobile Video.”

Buzzword Bingo

Shhhhhh – Keep this one to yourself as we get three of the industry’s biggest gadflies to pontificate on “What’s Next for Digital Media” while everyone in attendance gets a bingo card with the buzzwords du jour, unbeknownst to the panelists. The first person who gets “BINGO” will win an iPhone 6 (preordered, of course). Transparency? Big Data? Ninja? Freemium?  Bring it.

Of course these are a little over the top, but every good satire starts with a kernel of truth (or something to that effect).  If this does nothing but get a programming director to drop something a little out of the ordinary into their next conference then it’s a win in my book.

As Chris Johnson of A4U details in an excellent analysis of the IAB / PwC OPM study, the affiliate marketing industry in the U.K. has been valued (alongside lead generation) as a £9 billion ($1.43 billion) revenue generating industry.

Source: A4U

Key Highlights (courtesy of A4U)

• There are c. 3,000-4,000 advertisers and c. 10,000 publishers actively engaged in Online Performance Marketing in the U.K. (in this instance — Affiliate & Lead Generation).
• Advertisers expected to spend (through commissions, management fees, bonuses and other marketing spend) £814 million on Online Performance Marketing in 2012, generating c. £9 billion of sales for advertisers.
• This spend was achieved through at least c.100 million transactions and an additional c. 70 million leads generated.
• This is equivalent for c. 7-9% of U.K. digital marketing spend, and drives c. 5-6% of retail e-commerce in the U.K.
• The largest end-sectors include Finance, Retail, Telecoms & Media, Travel & Leisure.
• Market growth of c. 14% p.a (2008-11) and c. 7% p.a in 2012 (expected).
• Cashback, voucher, loyalty and price comparison websites are the leading publisher types.
• Sites designed specifically for mobile and tablet account for c. 4-5% of advertiser spend on Online Performance Marketing.

Leading Industry Sectors
Similar to the U.S. market, U.K. advertisers in finance, health and wellness and travel and leisure are some of the top spends of online performance marketing services.

According to The Next Web:

The biggest spenders in OPM are in the financial sector with insurance and credit card advertisers taking the lead with 45% of expenditure. This is followed with 20% by clothing, accessories and electrical and computing advertisers. The top five are rounded out with telecoms and media, travel and leisure and gaming.

Growth Forecast
U.K. suppliers of OPM services are experiencing a strong increase in demand for their services. According to The Next Web, between 2008 and 2012, OPM expenditure in the U.K. grew by 57%. Suppliers of OPM services and technology estimate that their revenue will grow by 25% this year.

What the Report Means for U.S. Marketers
The study of the U.K. online performance marketing industry is instructive for U.S. marketers in several ways.

First, it offers a comprehensive look at how OPM is positively impacting advertisers and publishers across an entire country. Recognizing that UK advertisers spent £814 million in 2012 on performance marketing services, generating c. £9 billion of sales, provides a solid baseline for performance marketers to use in generating additional new and incremental business opportunities with clients.

Second, it firmly establishes the proper role and value of online performance marketing. For an industry as robust as it is, OPM often suffers from a lack of broad understanding by advertisers and publishers of how it can benefit their business. This report makes clear that there are a variety of industries that benefit from performance marketing services (e.g., finance, travel, insurance, etc.). Consumers recognize the value of performance marketing campaigns, as they are estimated to generate c.100 million transactions and an additional c. 70 million leads.

The fact that OPM campaigns account for 7-9% of U.K. digital marketing spend, and drive c. 5-6% of retail e-commerce in the U.K. indicates that OPM is an important factor in brands’ retail and lead-generation efforts.

Finally, the report demonstrates to US advertisers that performance marketing is here to stay. After more than a decade of rapid growth, online performance marketing has matured to a point where it is a recognized marketing channel and increasingly comprises a larger percentage of advertisers’ online marketing budgets.

Meetings: they are the scourge of the digital ad industry. Reps desperately trying to get on client's and agency's calendars, and when they succeed they fail. Boring tedious nonsense. 60 slides of tripe. Clients and agencies, leaning back, expecting and getting the worst.

Bad meetings are sadly the norm, are a waste of time, and demeaning to all involved. Enough!

Let's make 2013 the Year of Great Meeting in Digital Media. Below are some simple tips for making everyone involved happier and more productive:

1. Have an agenda: it makes it so much more interesting to the audience.
2. State the objective of the meeting upfront: it's a sales meeting. Be bold. Tell them upfront that you've been thinking about their business, you have an idea, and if it works you expect them to invest in it. Be honest! Unless you want to sit around and talk endlessly about "the relationship".
3. Have a point of view: People are harried and overwhelmed. If you know something of value, drop the knowledge. Loud 'n proud, baby!
4. Know your client and solve a problem: Take the time to study the client and bring a custom solution. If one size fits all, you're going to be replaced by an algorithm and an exchange anyways.
5. Bring ideas: Oscar Wilde once said  “An idea that is not dangerous is unworthy of being called an idea at all.”  Take some risks. Move fast and break things.
6. End early: People are busy. Get to the point and finish early. People really appreciate the extra time in their day to check out BuzzFeed.com.

Now, drop the mic and leave the stage.

Our industry’s lifeblood is the midsize sedan category, representing approximately one quarter of the total auto and light truck market in sales volume.  Across Jumpstart Automotive Group’s channel of third-party automotive websites, the sedan segment is the largest vehicle category, representing 36 percent of total shopping activity.

In this highly competitive segment where even a fraction of a percent in loss of share can be catastrophic, the marketing stakes are higher than most.

Jumpstart recently analyzed messaging, creative, rollout strategies and the social and mobile efforts of three chief contenders vying to overtake Toyota for the number one sedan sales spot—the Nissan Altima, the Honda Accord and the Ford Fusion—to gauge how marketers duke it out in heated brand battles like this.  Campaign highlights follow.

Nissan Altima

The Download:  Nissan marketers are clever, creative and funny.  Knocking Toyota Camry off its pedestal will take a lot more than a great sense of humor, but they’re on the right track.

In the meantime, they sure make the competition fun to watch!

Nissan’s “Innovation that Excites” campaign used the concept of invention to help the automaker stand out from the competitive pack, hilariously communicating the company’s latest innovations, including an easy-fill tire alert, in its “Breakup” and “Enough” broadcast spots.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Particularly noteworthy was its sneak peek campaign featuring a glimpse of an Altima headlight here, a rear bumper there.  In all, the campaign covered virtually all media bases with a mix of broadcast, digital and print and out-of-home.

Its social/mobile efforts “Innovation Garage” and “Altima Experience” were as inventive as the brand itself, including this feel-good moment “Proposal.”

Click here to view the embedded video.

Although OEMs typically look at third-party automotive websites as a medium for lower-funnel and retail messaging, Altima successfully extended the “Innovation that Excites” campaign and utilized high-impact homepage units across Jumpstart’s automotive websites to reach consumers actively researching and shopping for vehicles.

Honda Accord

The Download:  Way to speak to (and relate to) your customers, Honda!  While we’d love to see you take a page out of Nissan’s book when it comes to innovation in creative and mobile strategies, we appreciate your polished and reliable approach to marketing…much like we appreciate your cars.

Honda’s “It Starts with You” campaign did a great job of conveying the automaker’s uncanny ability to build cars based on what Accord customers want and need…because it actually understands what its customers want and need.

Its broadcast spot “We Know You”and print, outdoor and online ads in that same vein, were nicely done, painting a relatable picture of people in real-world driving situations and how the Accord’s advanced safety and technology features help them overcome driving dilemmas.  If you’ve ever been visited by a bumblebee behind the wheel, you can relate too.

Honda’s integrated media buy was extensive, including a mix of print, home page takeovers on major portals, broadcast spots across high-profile TV shows and sports events (including the World series) and in-theater and outdoor in nearly 30 markets.

Finally, Accord content was integrated into Words with Friends and Scramble with Friends and in the popular news aggregator Pulse.

An interesting side note:  Honda Accord was Jumpstart’s midsize sedan segment leader midway through last year, representing a seven percent average monthly share of sedan shoppers, ahead of Toyota at six percent and Nissan at five percent.

Ford Fusion

The Download:  While we applaud Ford’s fearless imagination and digital marketing prowess, it may have taken itself a little too seriously last year.  From social media sagas to vanishing cars, we struggled to follow along.  Unfortunately, it seems car buyers did too.

Ford’s “Random Acts of Fusion” campaign relied on Ryan Seacrest and celebrity personalities Joel McHale and Kate Micucci for comic relief, playing on the concept of life’s big and small acts involving real-world customers who unlocked a story over time while participating in driving and entertainment experiences.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Chinese contemporary artist Liu Bolin—dubbed “the invisible man”—hand painted innovative print ads to make other cars seemingly disappear when the Ford Fusion was around, merging art and auto to create some really incredible tableaus.

The cornerstone strategies of Ford Fusion’s “transmedia marketing initiative” were digital and experiential and included a heavy blend of social media coupled with radio and video, along with American Idol-style finale events at various Ford dealerships and print ads in national auto and lifestyle magazines.

Similar to “Fiesta Movement” and “Escape Routes,” the campaign created brand ambassadors in real world social media users to talk about the Fusion with their peers.  As of last October, the campaign had generated more than 12 million consumer engagements.

Who Won in 2012?

Once again, Toyota reigned supreme in 2012, with the highest midsize sedan sales volume (up nearly 24 percent from 2011).  Honda Accord made great strides in closing the second place gap with a 29 percent growth in sales over 2011.  Nissan Altima showed up for the party too, with a solid 11 percent growth compared to the prior year.

(WardsAuto, January 2013)

It will be interesting to see how the midsize sedan Battle of the Brands shakes out as 2013 campaigns extend into the coming months and after the much-anticipated launch of 2014 model year marketing initiatives!

Nick Matarazzo is CEO of Jumpstart Automotive Group, an innovative marketing solutions provider for automotive advertisers.

• Fine-tune your copy: Carefully staging the appropriate SEO keyword phrases throughout your advertisements and blog postings will help draw targeted consumers to your website. For example, as your neighborhood’s resident yoga studio, you could create blog postings expounding upon “7 Heart-Healthy Yoga Positions” or “Yoga Options in Trinity, Florida.” You can better serve the interests of your niche market by researching phrases that your target consumers are searching on Google.
• Utilize lifestyle marketing techniques: Seek your consumers in the places they frequent, and advertise to them there. Some imaginative thinking will come in handy here. When I worked as an intern at a music marketing firm, we placed strategic stacks of CD samplers and indie rock band stickers in trendy boutiques, head shops and music venues. People who buy trendy indie music also shop for trendy indie clothes, after all.
• Partner up: Consider working closely with companies that provide services within your realm of expertise but that aren't directly competing with you. These “sister companies” will help your business spread its good name throughout the community, exposing it to clients who may not have discovered it otherwise. Great combinations include makeup artists and event photographers, freelance graphic designers and copywriters, and fitness trainers and nutritionists.
• Dispense freebies: The thought of giving anything away for free may feel like a crushing blow to the small business owner, but doing so will create a reliable path to lead niche customers right to your shop. If your company happens to sell high-end jars of Beluga caviar, contact a select few upscale culinary bloggers and offer to partner up for a reader giveaway. When the blogger writes up a post about your freebies, he just may provide your company with some of the greatest PR it has ever experienced.
• Court the tastemakers: You know these influential people. They’re the ones in key positions to influence a body of your potential clients or customers. If you run a restaurant, reach out to your city’s local food bloggers and attempt to form a professional liaison. Having someone with an arsenal of consumer outreach at their fingertips creates such advantages that many businesses actually sponsor events to bring tastemakers together in one place.
• Sell yourself: Take the face of your company out into the community and meet members of your actual niche market. Targeting potential consumers is never easier than when you’re selling yourself – join local groups, attend meetings or conventions, and set up booths at celebratory events like parades and festivals. Here is where you’ll be able to personally meet with those you seek.

Have other ideas for reaching a niche market? The best part about online marketing is that you have many options for how to target a specific audience.  For more suggestions, check out the blog at Vantage Local, where we focus on tactics for local advertisers using targeted display advertising.

A new survey based on data from 300 small and midsized businesses in the third quarter of 2012 was recently published by BIA/Kelsey, a distinguished local-media research firm. One of the top findings of the survey was that 40 percent of these businesses are planning to increase their budgets for digital marketing sometime in the next year. While 40 percent is not a majority, only 3.7 percent said they planned to decrease their budgets for online advertising. In the survey, 48 percent of business owners said they would maintain the same budgets, and 8.3 percent were not sure if their budgets would go up, go down or remain the same.

One of the major reasons why many small businesses are increasing spending for online advertising is that there is a wide variety of legitimate online channels through which to market every type of company. Most businesses claimed that their budgets for online marketing would be spread across multiple channels. Also helping the trend is the availability of assistance from digital agencies that specialize in online display for small business, such as Vantage Local.

Business owners have slowly begun to understand that their potential customers are not available through a single website. The customer bases of most small businesses are spread through a variety of channels, and missing one of them could make a big difference in how many new customers are acquired in the coming year. In 2007, small businesses engaged in digital marketing through an average of three channels, but according to the new survey, the average channels being used per business was 5.8. This means that the number of online channels used for advertising by the average small business has nearly doubled in the past five years.

The online channel rated as the favorite among the small businesses surveyed is Facebook. Over 52 percent of businesses used Facebook for promotional purposes, which puts it above most other forms of marketing, such as the following:

• Newspaper advertising – 31 percent
• Community sponsorship – 27 percent
• Email marketing – 25 percent

The slowest sector in small-business advertising is mobile marketing. Although mobile marketing is becoming a trend, only one in five small businesses in the survey had any type of mobile marketing strategy in place, and about one-third of respondents had never heard of mobile marketing.

With the rise of many quality blogs, online publications, and digital video and social media, we continue to see this content shift online faster than ever before, and the old school newspaper monetization model doesn’t work online. For instance, even if a newspaper sold all of their banners at the highest possible CPMs, it would never make up for what they have lost from their traditional model, and therefore will never be able to support the glory days of newspapers. Say a newspaper could sell four banner ads on a page for $10 CPM each (and that’s being generous). For every 1,000 page views, they would make $40. Applying Denver Post’s comScore stats for last month where they generated 45,000,000 page views, they would make $1,800,000 per month. I can guarantee you that the incremental $1.8M made from banner ads comes nowhere near what they used to make from their traditional model.

An additional problem for publishers is that the Internet is considered by most to be inherently free, which explains why publishers have struggled to establish payment models online. And the problem isn’t limited to the news publishing industry – many different industries struggle to churn out the content readers/viewers desire while remaining profitable.

The TV industry is a perfect example; when TV content first moved online, broadcasters and content providers made some TV content available for free. Even if you think back to the beginning of Hulu, it was a free service before they added HuluPlus, their premium subscription site. However, as more users have gone online for entertainment and opted to ‘cut the cord,’ we’ve seen content providers go to extreme lengths to protect their cable/satellite subscription models by requiring terrestrial subscriptions for online consumption, switching to online subscription-based models, in addition to relying on pre-roll video advertising. This has created a confusing environment for consumers, but we must also recognize this is an environment full of experimentation and testing. And while confusing, choice is usually a good thing for consumers.

We continue to see a wide variety of business models created for accessing content online, making one point very clear: the future of media is paid. Publishers and content providers simply can’t afford to provide content for free without getting something in return. But as some companies are finding out, what they receive in return doesn’t always have to be money or ad dollars, it can be a user’s time or even actions like posting on a brand’s Facebook wall. The good news is that consumers have shown they’re willing to pay or give their time for content they care about.

The New York Times paywall is a great example of a paid model that is working. When they first launched the paywall in early 2011, many were skeptical that readers would pay to access New York Times content online. Fast-forward almost two years later, and the paper boasts more than 530,000 paying subscribers for its digital editions, with some analysts estimating that the paper will have more digital subscribers than print within a couple of years.

Google recently made a move in an effort to convert engagements into cash by launching a new product, Google Consumer Surveys, which prompts visitors to answer a microsurvey on market research before accessing a site’s content. It’s a win-win for both advertisers and publishers. Advertisers run the surveys and Google pays sites five cents per response. For sites with heavy traffic, that can add up to a lot of cash when combined with their ad revenue.

And it doesn’t end there – a host of Internet-based companies have seen great success by establishing business models that require some sort of payment or engagement. The freemium model, which offers basic products or services for free, but charges premiums for advanced features, has seen an incredible amount of success with companies like Pandora and Dropbox leading the charge.

Options for watching TV content online are improving as well, and several companies have developed options for consumers when viewing the video ads played before entertainment content. Solve Media is allowing consumers to skip ads by typing in a captcha, and SkipIt allows viewers to earn opportunities to skip video ads by liking a brand on Facebook or paying a small fee. This is important to publishers because in a recent SpotXchange survey, more than 90% of consumers said they were more likely to visit a website more often if it allowed them to skip video ads.

The Internet is a dynamic environment where users create their own experience. Media companies are quickly realizing that they can no longer just copy the business models of their traditional broadcast and print mediums. It’s also clear that consumers are open to choice and paying a premium for the services and content they want online. The challenge for publishers and content providers is deciding what exactly that business model will look like.

It got me thinking – what do I tell my team on an ongoing basis, how do I guide my new sellers and what is the one thing I would share with anyone starting out in media sales.  What’s the one nugget?  While answering my own question I thought I’d sample some of my friends and peers on the sales side who have been selling & managing in the space for 7+ years.   I’m glad I did.  Very good sales insight and advice from people who have been doing it since it was banners and text links (over 90 years collective experience in the New York market).

If you could give a new media seller one piece of advice what would it be?

“Be yourself. Don't try and emulate an older executive and how they did it, build relationships that last, building them naturally...Rome was not built in a day."

“When setting up meetings bring ideas and concepts to the table that show you have put time into learning about their prospective client BEFORE the meeting.  Bring something unique that identifies a need and provides a solution or answer to that need.   Make the time spent valuable for those attending and don’t go on meetings just for the sake of hitting a weekly quota/KPI.  If you aren't working for a company that’s capable of producing unique and fresh ideas to share at your meeting then find a new job because wasting people’s time at a meeting will reflect negatively on your own personal brand as a sales person and will jeopardize future meetings when you actually have something worthwhile to share with a client or prospect”

“Have a point of view, stand for something. If you are asking for a minute of a busy clients time, come prepared with knowledge of what they do and how you can help. Never start a relationship by asking what they are up to. Know their business in and out before the first meeting.”

“Relationships Matter.  Treat your relationships like gold.  We all 'grow up' together in this industry and you never know who will be the next head of an account or an agency!  Agencies/Clients alike get bombarded with so many calls/emails every day from publishers so being able to separate yourself from that clutter is like gold.  Bottom line is that 99% of us are all selling essentially the same thing and people buy from people they like and trust...”

“Believe In What You're Selling.  Don't just come in with every product offering your company has to offer, bring only those that truly make sense for your client into that meeting.  If you have conviction that what you are presenting absolutely fits in with the strategy they've shared with you, that will shine through and your credibility will go way up (vs the salesperson that somehow has the 'perfect offering' every time he/she comes in).”

After reading these I find myself remembering a recent sales call where I might have veered a little too far in the “everything in the toolbox” pitch.  It’s this type of feedback, knowledge and peer interaction that reminds me just how important it is to build, maintain and grow relationships on both sides of the media business.

A Special thanks to Jordan Grossman, Brian Tucker, Eric Shoicket, Brian Wallace and Keith Hernandez for their input – some of the best in the business.

While Adweek plays down the significance of Black Friday, retailers have already started counting the days until holiday shopping starts. The National Retail Federation predicts a 4% year-over-year increase in store sales this season plus strong 12% growth in online shopping.

Social is already a discovery tool used by a wide variety of consumer demographics. In a recent holiday marketing report, Marin Software said, “Shoppers who once turned to search engines for information are increasingly relying on social connections for the latest news, product information, special offers, and brand suggestions.” Social is a natural place for people to find gift ideas and learn about brands before they've decided to buy.

Moreover, with social occupying a bigger share of brands’ time and budgets, more and more marketers are looking for ways to use the interest graph to bring their holiday messages to the right people.

Using the Interest Graph to Reach Two Kinds of Holiday Shoppers

Interest graph targeting, which connects people to what they love, has a special role to play in holiday campaigns: not just for Black Friday, but for the entire holiday shopping season. Brands can use interest graph targeting to reach all kinds of categories of shoppers. We'll discuss how marketers can use interest graph targeting to reach two examples of holiday shoppers: trend conscious and value-driven. 

Trend Conscious and Early Adopter Shoppers

Another highly valuable consumer in social is the design-conscious, trend-sensitive shopper. Brand marketers may be familiar with persona names like “Savvy Socials” and “Tech Trendsetters” — those personas overlap the Trend Conscious social persona. Trend Conscious consumers follow brands and organizations that value aesthetics, like Design Within Reach, The Fancy, Ghostly, Svpply, Dribbble, bigcartel, and more. And while Trend Conscious consumers tend to be a more affluent consumer, they look for discounts too, by keeping up with deals on Fab and Gilt Groupe and shopping at Ikea and Uniqlo. Reaching the trend conscious consumer with interest targeting is as simple as aggregating the followers of the brands above (and similar) into an audience: e.g., followers of @Anthropologie and fans of Behance.

Value-Driven Shoppers

Often one and the same with family decision makers or moms, value-driven shoppers are a massive marketing demographic. While they’re price-conscious and seek bargains, the volume of their buying activity and their ability to turn over inventory makes them important to marketers. Discount customers are well-represented in social, and interest graph targeting makes them easy to reach. Simply aggregate the followers of discount retailer brands like Walmart, Target, BigLots, and Costco and add them to low-cost, family friendly brands like Kroger, Home Depot, JCPenney, Walgreens, and Ross Dress for Less.

Want to talk about how to use interest graph targeting to talk about an audience we haven't covered? Let us know in the comments.

But before we start, a disclaimer: I’m not a mathematician and these are truly back-of-the-napkin calculations.

Walking: A lot of us rely on the oldest form of human transportation to get to many of our meetings. Whether from a subway stop, office, or moving from agency to agency (the 3 blocks from MEC to Mediavest anyone?) it’s often the easiest, most efficient and (in the summer) sweat-inducing way to get from point A to point B.  Rather than estimate how often, distance between, etc., I’m going to estimate the amount of time per week and work backwards. The average person walks at 3.1 mph -- average new Yorker, closer to 4.5 – but lights, angry cabbies, groups of tourists waiting for Letterman (Mediavest again), and the humanity surge around Harold Square (UM) bring it down closer to 3 mph.  Including to and from the train, I walk about 3 hours a week on average. At 3 mph that’s an estimated 9 miles per week.

Cabs:  Despite the smells, weak AC in the summer, dampness in the winter and the fact you’re often jumping into the car of someone who thinks Manhattan is an aggressive driving video game, we all use them (except for my friends at Tremor). I quickly added up a month’s worth rides and it came out to approximately 17 miles.  Using that as a benchmark, I’m looking at approximately 204 miles in a cab per year.

Elevators:  I’m not sure about you, but I rarely give stepping into an elevator a second thought. When you step back and think about how often (and essential) elevators come into our day to day, well, check it out:

The Lobbies of the major digital agencies in New York:

• OMD:                  24^th floor
• Mediacom:          24^th
• Mediavest:          14^th
• Zenith                 10^th
• PHD:                   7^th
• UM:                    7^th
• Horizon               6^th
• MEC:                  6^th
• Initiative:             5^th
• Digitas:               4^th

Average story of a New York City office building: 11 feet

I’m pulled to each of these agencies by my team not necessarily on a weekly basis, but often enough that I usually hit 6 to 8 of them a week, some of them twice. Math warning: The average floor of the agencies above is 11.  Factor in going up and down (22 floors) then multiply by 7 meetings (per week, total), and it equals 154 agency floors per week.  Taking into account our own office on the 16^th (4 rides per day with lunch and meetings = 64 floors) the total number of weekly floors covered and total feet are: 474 floors and 5,214 feet respectively.

Yearly breakdown – based on 50 work weeks (2 weeks vacation):

• Walking:   450 miles
• Cabs:        204 Miles
• Elevators:  23,700 floors, 260,700 feet (at 5280 feet per mile, that’s 49.4 miles)

To put this in perspective

• Walking:  This is the equivalent of walking from New York to Boston... and back (216 miles one way).
• Cabs: Taking a Cab from New York to Baltimore with a couple miles to spare (192 miles).
• Elevators:  And taking an elevator ride to the top of Mt Everest 8 times (29,280 feet), or laying it on its side and taking it to Norwalk CT

Talk about hustling for media budgets.

-Marc

In order to understand the use of DMA’s in media planning, it is advisable to understand how they are constructed and to appreciate what sort of size they are. There are 210 DMA's in the U.S., compared with more than 30,000 zip codes. Each zip code contains on average just under 10,000 people, but a DMA's average population is closer to 1.5 million, making a DMA about 150 times bigger than the average zip code. If you are looking to select people living in a distinct local area then a zip code will be more useful and better at targeting these specific consumers. For even more select targeting, you can opt to use a zip+4 code which targets an area even more specifically, right down to a select group of buildings or even to an individual who regularly receives lots of mail.

For those who are familiar with direct mail marketing, consider that the online marketing equivalent of zip+4 codes is called geo-targeting, which is used to deliver online display ads to customers within a specific local area. Using geo-targeting alongside information on demographics means you are more likely to get your campaign to the ideal people, and is of great value to smaller and medium sized companies who don't have the large marketing budgets of their bigger competitors.

Every business has differing and individual requirements and target consumers. Vantage Local specializes in creating custom marketing campaigns for our clients that use geo-targeting to make the most of your advertising budget. Call us today to speak to a member of our team about how to increase your customer base.

"Local" is Trending

When it comes to advertising today, local is trending. We can see this from examples in the industry as well as in changes to Google search and the way people are using social media. With Smartphones in the hands of most consumers today, technology makes it even easier to connect with a local business or service provider right when you need it.

In 2010, Twitter released their Local Trending Topics feature and just recently, Google launched Google+ Local, allowing businesses more opportunity to get noticed by people in their area. This allows businesses and consumers to connect in a way that is beneficial to all parties. Consumers can see reviews, Zagat ratings, search for businesses based on keywords and zip codes and more. Google also now keeps track of the physical location of viewers that are performing searches, and will give higher search rank to sites that show local relevance as well as topical relevance.

Whether it is consumers on a quest to support their local businesses (such as this blog, One Local Family) or hyperlocal news websites like Patch.com, much attention is now on how to be connected to and involved in your local community.  Even national brands are trying to go local through tools that let them target specific ad messaging to certain markets. This is good news for the local business owner. Let’s take a look at some of the reasons why.

Geo-Targeting and Local Business

To understand fully how this trend in local advertising is working, let’s explore more into geo targeting and how it works for the local business. Today, business owners have more opportunities than ever before to reach their audience.

Until recently, purchasing online advertising meant that ads would show nationwide. This gave the advantage to national advertisers who benefited from mass exposure, while being largely a waste of money for local advertisers. As online advertising has become more sophisticated, advertisers can now be much more selective about the audiences that ads are targeted to, through a technique called geo-targeting. Now targeted display ads are made possible for local businesses and to a specific targeted area.

Geo-targeting uses IP addresses to estimate the location of a website visitor. This allows website publishers to serve different ads to viewers in different regions. The business owner can now provide advertising that gives information specific to their location. This might be specials and discounts, or it might help point viewers to where the business is physically located. By not placing ads across the whole network, money is not wasted on clicks or exposure to people who are too far away to be interested in your business.

Users also benefit because it helps cut down on irrelevant clutter online. This can lead to increased click-thru-rates and ROI because the people who are seeing the ads are those who would be interested in them in the first place. It’s targeted advertising as its finest.

Get Connected- Go Local

Local is trending right now because businesses and advertisers are seeing the incredible benefit behind it. You can now connect with your target market in a direct way that was not available before. Consumers are also happy to be able to connect with the businesses and services that they need in a more direct way. They want control over their choices and local apps, websites and advertising are the tools that give them this power.

How can you use the trending power of local advertising to help boost your business today? If you have questions on how we can help, contact Vantage Local today.

Facebook has been all over the news lately. Unfortunately for the company, much of that news has been of the non-positive, stock-sinking variety. But there is a silver lining: Facebook appears to be finally getting its act together when it comes to brand advertising! At least, that’s what we’re led to believe by the frenetic PR push the company has been on in recent weeks.

The reality, as Digiday’s Brian Morrissey expertly dissected in a recent post, is more nuanced and less rosy for the social network. In that blistering post, Morrissey declared what many digital marketers have long grumbled to themselves: “Facebook’s got a brand problem.”

The post details how, despite some laudatory press about its overhauled ad offerings, marketers aren’t buying the hype that Facebook is trying to portray about its value to advertisers. “More often than not, marketers proclaim to love Facebook, only not for the ads,” Morrissey says. But much of what they love about Facebook is its “earned and owned media” and brand equity-building qualities: the fact that it allows brands a free and enormous platform upon which they can distribute their messages to whomever they’d like.

Despite this apparent upside, there are many reasons why skepticism remains high among marketers over the value of advertising on Facebook. Whether it is the feeling that Facebook just doesn’t just doesn’t care about brands, or the daily grind marketers have trying get some semblance of reasonable stats and analytics about the value of the money they spend on Facebook advertising, the general perception seems to be that Facebook is putting on a show for advertisers rather than helping them deliver results.

It's fairly clear that because Facebook is now a public company and facing public-company pressures (stock price, growth, revenue, etc.) it has ceded some of the control it once had over brands. And brands and marketers know that, which partly explains why advertisers are getting more aggressive and bold in asking for detailed, quantifiable analytics about their marketing spend on Facebook.

Part of the issue stems from advertisers and agencies themselves who, frankly, haven’t done a great job of keeping up with and adapting to Facebook’s changes. But that also comes down a fundamental lack of proper communication from Facebook to its advertisers and the agencies they work with.

Ultimately, it’s about respect and communication. One side — brands (and agencies, to an extent) — feels as though it is being stepped on by Facebook at the expense of helping the company look good for its investors. The other side — Facebook — seems to feel as though it has done more than enough to satisfy advertisers and isn’t willing to give up any more control or data than it already has.

It’s unfortunate it has come down to this “Who’s going to win?” situation. The fact remains, however, that better communication by Facebook about its ad changes and value to brands would go a long way toward solving its “brand problem.”

As Digiday’s Morrissey concludes in his post, Facebook isn’t a bad business. But its “brand problem” is real and it must be rectified if the company hopes to finally win over the growing chorus of skeptical advertisers and brands.

The funny thing about globalization is that it actually makes localization much easier. Sounds confusing right? The thing is that globalization, as the word plainly states, made everything global, but at the same time, because of this worldwide melting pot and, of course, communication technologies , targeting people at a local level became possible and super easy.

So what does this mean for the advertising world? The sky is the limit. Just because you are sitting in the UK doesn’t mean you can’t have a super successful advertising campaign with the locals over at Rio, Brazil.  Same goes for publishers. Just because your blog is in English and is run out of New York City doesn’t mean that readers from Berlin aren’t reading the blog and can’t be targeted with local German ads. The art is learning how to tailor local campaigns and how to navigate and manage all these advertisers from different corners of the world.

For any advertiser, taking campaigns to international but yet local markets is important; it’s another crucial piece of the advertising pie. At the end of the day advertising is all about people. It’s about reaching the right people at the right time and most importantly, in the right WAY. Advertisers adapt their campaign landing pages to fit their target audience. For example, if you compare a US based dating campaign against a Russian based dating campaign you will find the photos to be very different, because the looks are different; the fashion is different and so on and so on. The creative, landing pages and cultures need to be transferred in order to appeal to these local audiences.  This will make people feel like they’re in the right place, and thus get their attention, which will is the first step to reaching conversion rates.

One of the greatest localization tools that technology has given to publishers and advertisers are ad platforms. Ad platforms have made local targeting incredibly easy because they are developed on one basic concept: self-serve technology. You can now DIY your ad selling space to campaigns from all around the world, without the awkward language barriers

Both sides of the advertising wheel have immensely benefited from ad platforms. Publishers and advertisers alike are now able to reach local audiences from any point of the world.  With the built in optimization algorithms and with certain ad platforms like AdsGadget you will also get account managers that are looking out for optimization, both sides get the best rates possible.

Instead of throwing their ad campaigns all over the web and hoping for the best, advertisers can work with ad platforms and make sure that their campaigns reach the converting publishers, and in return the publishers benefit from local ads and high rates for their international traffic.

Within a few minutes, publishers can start working with a huge selection of advertisers worldwide from different industries and thus have a lot more ammo to monetize their site with.

All in all, using ad platforms is an advantage that any advertising professional should consider working with. They prioritize one, if not THE most important factor of advertising, the target audience.

"A globe" image via Shutterstock.

Whether that is good or bad for business and the future of social networks is up for debate. But what is perceptible to us is that Facebook advertising is growing up – in a positive and mature direction.

Take, for example, Facebook’s recent announcement that brands can now target their posts to users by gender, “interested in,” relationship status, education and workplace.

This new ad targeting feature, combined with Facebook’s recently released Reach Generator, should cause marketers to think more seriously about the value of brand marketing on Facebook.

First, some clarification: If a user “Likes” your brand, do not assume that your posts reach them on their newsfeed. Facebook revealed back in February that only 16 percent of brand posts are seen by users’ newsfeeds. That’s small potatoes considering Facebook has more than 950 million users worldwide.

Reach Generator Extends Life — and Reach — of Posts

It is for this reason that Facebook introduced Reach Generator — a paid service that guarantees 70-80 percent of brand posts are seen on users’ newsfeeds. Now it appears that Facebook is allowing a “pay-to-play” post generator at the post level, as opposed to a flat monthly fee for all posts. The individual post can be targeted to specific demographic to better aim at relevant users.

The introduction by Facebook of new targeting options for brand posts is a positive step forward for the social network. Social marketing success is recognized when relevant engagement is executed as opposed to mass-market broadcast. This new feature by Facebook allows marketers to highly target their paid posts.

One word of caution: Marketers should not view this as an advertising channel. They should remain focused on “stories” and “conversations” that reinforce the brand promise, value and commitment to their target market. They should remain strongly committed to responses and conversation that benefits their customers — not just ads that make their company look good or smart.

For marketers, Facebook's new posts targeting options present a positive step forward, providing opportunity for deeper connection with the target market.