3 new features make Facebook ads a tempting prospect for bricks and mortar retailers
Importance: [rating=3] (For bricks and mortar retailers)
Recommended Source: Facebook blog
9 out of 10 retail sales still take place in-store, despite everything you hear about shopping moving online. Mobile is a great facilitator of in-store purchasing, with people using their phones to research purchases and locate stores.
Now Facebook are launching new features to help retail businesses take advantage of the growth of mobile, to both target ads more effectively and help track the effectiveness of their campaigns. Here's a breakdown of the new features just announced:
Native Shop locator
Facebook already has an ad format that lets stores with multiple locations serve ads that dynamically display the location of the nearest store to that person. But now to remove friction on the buyer journey Facebook is launching a shop locator, that lets people find the route to the nearest…
Comparison of time spent with media against advertising investment shows a gap in the mobile market.
For many years IAB ad spend statistics showed that there was a gulf between the time consumers spend online, against Internet advertising investment to reach and persuade these consumers.
These latest stats comparing ad spend vs time spent in media for traditional and digital media shows that in 'digitally mature' markets such as the US, this is no longer the case.
We can see that the percent of Internet ad spend (23%) is now greater than time spent (22%). Yet if we drill down to look at the ever-increasing time spent using mobile devices to consume media a very different picture emerges with just 12% of Internet ad spend on mobile compared to 25% of Internet media consumption on…
You can do a lot more with your email address list than just email them
Depending on the size of the business you work for, you might have an email list of hundreds, thousands or millions. You already know your email list is valuable because email marketing is one of the most effective channels in terms of ROI. But an email list isn't just for emailing. You can use it for all kinds of clever targeting techniques, to advertise to your customers at the exact moment they may be considering a purchase. Here are some of the options for utilising your email list for targeting ad placement:
Facebook Custom Audiences
Marketers can match their email addresses with those of Facebook and display ads in the main feed and right rail. This is by far the most mature offering, and many companies are doing it already. Facebook will also generate 'look-a-like' audiences for you…
What marketers can learn from Wendy's Vs Burger King, Dunkin Vs Starbucks and General Motors Vs Ford
Coke Vs. Pepsi, Wendy’s Vs. Burger King, Mac Vs. PC… What do these things have in common? They are examples of some intense rivalries between powerful brands. As long as advertising has existed, companies have engaged in fierce competition with one another, and they haven’t shied away from calling one another out. There are examples of this in print advertising, and television and radio commercials. Today, the fight has been taken to social media where brands are duking it out on platforms such as Twitter and Facebook. Keep reading to take a look at some of the most intensive advertising wars over the past decade or so, and get some insights into what marketing professionals can learn these intense rivalries.
Starbucks, McDonald's…
We talked to Lee Evans about how he sees ad-blocking affecting digital marketers
It's hardly surprising that digital marketers are no fans of ad-blockers. For many online publishers who make their revenue that way, it can feel like people are basically making off with their content without contributing to their revenue. As you'll know Ad blocking is on the rise as these latest stats on the popularity of ad blockers show. It's an imporant issues since in some countries, in younger age groups over one third of audiences used ad blockers.
For digital marketers who work it other areas like ecommerce or marketing a SaaS product, the problem is more around missing out on large segments of their potential audience when they run ad campaigns online.
But marketers need not despair, there are ways to circumvent ad-blockers,…
A quick-fire guide and glossary to the essentials of Programmatic Marketing
Programmatic is a very hot topic in the world of marketing right now. As Ad Age points out, the advertising industry is on a journey toward widespread automation, and programmatic marketing which gives marketers the opportunity to purchase advertising more efficiently and - given the right data - more effectively, too.
As a relative newcomer to the world of Programmatic Marketing, I was overwhelmed by the amount of definitions and TLAs (Three-letter acronyms) involved with programmatic. Trying to get to grips with programmatic can really make your head spin! I therefore thought I might be an ideal person to provide a hopefully simple introduction to programmatic for anyone looking to understand this marketing technique for the first time.
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As a follow-up to Rob’s definition…
5 steps to harness technology and creativity using programmatic advertising to maximize its potential
To reach the modern consumer, companies must embrace ideas such as:
Programmatic advertising
Advertising for multiple screens
Personalization
Consumers today have become increasingly adept at ignoring advertising they feel is no longer a utility, but an irritation. While the always-on phenomenon has become a popular buzz-phrase, in reality the cognitive load placed on consumers as a result of the on demand economy has been significant. Not only are consumers filtering out irrelevant advertising, but poor ad placements are also harming brands and their reputations. According to this Online Personal Experience study conducted by Janrain, nearly 3/4 of U.S. consumers report feeling annoyed when they see adverts and content that does not match their needs or interests. Econsultancy has also reported that over half of UK internet users have a desire for more relevant ads.
[si_guide_block id="67100" title="Download free resource…
It's easy to ignore banner ads. Here is how to make yours stand out and increase clickthrough rates
Online ads have become an inseparable part of our internet life. An average person is exposed to more than 1700 online ads every month and 77 percent are left unseen, resulting in low ad CTRs even if a click isn't essential to making an online ad effective. Some ads are too stuffed with information and visuals, others don’t seem to be relevant to you and some just lead to thoughts like “what is this ad even about?”
To maximize the effectiveness of your ads and avoid falling into one of those categories, there are a few things that you need to keep in mind when creating your ads.
Evoke curiosity
Humans are very curious species. It’s natural for us…
Leverage the power of your data
Too many marketers are spending vast amounts of ad spend to essentially learn about how their campaigns should work. Why not rethink your approach and use your existing data to transform your paid activity and enhance your return on investment.
The problem with paid content distribution
A campaign manager for a major sportswear retailer is looking at the brand’s customer base, eCRM insight and its demographic profile data. Amongst this data, they identify that a large proportion of their customers has a keen interest in football shirts. It’s the peak season for new shirts being released from all of the major football clubs, so this is a prime moment to be launching paid social and retargeting campaigns for the latest football strips. The retailer starts the campaign, and throws a significant investment behind it – in terms of both content and ad spend.
However, there is a problem.…
AdTech is a trendy industry but not all trends are worth following
“Hey look over here...we have what you need” illustrates the two main challenges advertisers face and have always faced. First, how to capture the audience’s attention. Second, once we have their attention, how do we sell them something.
The reason these two edicts are so challenging is because the advertising highway, leading from initial attention to closing a sale, has several exits. The advertiser is willing to concede that not everyone will digest the message, and even fewer will then continue to make a purchase based on that message.
As long as a certain percentage of people follow this (leaky) funnel and complete a sale, everyone is happy. Well, maybe not everyone. Despite heavy efforts by all of the leading AdTech companies like Google, Facebook, Yahoo and more, it is still not possible to deliver ads only to interested individuals who…
