INVERSO

Spring Newsletter

Tom Thompson — Fri, 22 Mar 2013 20:11:12 +0000

Verso’s spring newsletter is out. Highlights:

» App Advertising: Reach book buyers how and where they’re listening to relevant programming: NPR, Stitcher, Pandora, iHeart Radio

» Social Media: What’s Twitter up to now?

» Outdoor 2.0: Digital outdoor advertising gains the benefits of digital connectivity

» Print: A landmark publication, and its blue chip audience, gets affordable with an exclusive rate for Verso clients

To read the whole thing, follow the link.

Improved Digital Ad Servingfor Verso Clients

Tom Thompson — Wed, 17 Oct 2012 21:34:02 +0000

IN BRIEF

Through its new partnership with AdSwerve, Verso Advertising gains a significantly improved level of direct in-house control over the entire ad serving process on behalf of its clients
Verso now can deliver state-of-the-art verification, standardization, and post-click tracking of campaign data across all the relevant measurement categories (CTR, CPM, CPC, CPA, etc.) on a daily basis
All these improvements are delivered at a minimal increased cost to the client

Verso Advertising is pleased to announce the next stage in the continuing evolution of our digital services. We are now offering all of our clients the benefits of a third party server for digital campaigns through a new agreement with AdSwerve, a provider of DoubleClick for Advertisers ad hosting and reporting.

Ad Serving

CREATIVE OPTIMIZATION While we have always been able to run multiple creatives and optimize for performance on ad networks and blue chip sites such as NYTimes.com and Verso’s proprietary Reader Channel network, working with DoubleClick allows Verso real-time, in-house control over the process wherever your ad is served, even with the smallest, most niche sites.

RICH MEDIA SERVING Because of solid partnerships with many of our media vendors, we have been able to serve highly engaging rich media on ad networks and many blue chip sites for many years. But with our own ad server, we are no longer dependent on a site’s ability to site-serve rich media. Now, we can serve highly complex rich media ads on a much wider array of sites and with a much greater degree of flexibility. (Please be aware that additional serving fees apply to rich media.)

Reporting

VERIFICATION All of our reporting will be verified through the DoubleClick system. While Verso has always only worked with reputable sites that provide accurate reporting, there are slight differences in how different sites measure a verified impression. By working with DoubleClick, we can now guarantee that state-of-the-art data verification will be consistently applied across every site for every campaign.

STANDARDIZATION As data intelligence becomes increasingly central to all our marketing efforts, consistency in reporting becomes more important than ever. With DoubleClick, we will be using a single methodology across all our reporting—-which will make site-to-site performance comparisons easier and more accurate. All reports will include impressions delivered, clicks, and click through rate (CTR). We can easily modify reports to include such categories as cost per thousand impressions (CPM), cost per click (CPC), and cost per action (CPA), as relevant.

SAME-DAY REPORTING CAPABILITIES With in-house control over reporting, we now have the ability to report on all campaigns with only a few hours lag time. While it’s always important to give a campaign enough breathing room to run past anomalous blips in performance, there are times when you need to know exactly where a campaign stands at that moment. Using DoubleClick means we don’t have to rely on individual sites getting back to us for same-day reporting. We now have immediate access to campaign performance data.

POST-CLICK TRACKING Verso can now track much more than impressions delivered and CTR. By adding a small line of code to the target url (the web page each ad clicks through to), we can now measure:

- Conversions per click (whether for a newsletter sign-up or purchase);
- User location by state, city or zip code;
- Number of times a user visits the page after the click;
- Number of times a user is exposed to an ad before clicking;
- Time lag: amount of time from ad exposure to conversion

Verso has provided post-click tracking and retargeting on an individual campaign basis for years. The difference is that it is now significantly easier to track post-click activity wherever the ad runs. Please note that to gather this information, we will need to drop an image pixel on the destination site; so this information can only be gleaned from a page where we have permission to drop that pixel (and not, for example, on the Amazon, BN.com or Indie Bound title page). While this requirement means post-click tracking will not be relevant for some campaigns, it puts a uniquely powerful tool at our disposal as we create and develop campaigns going forward.

Cost

The additional cost of a third party server is minimal and will vary according to the number of impressions in each campaign. For example, a campaign with 500,000 impressions is likely to see a $120 increase in production costs due to ad serving. We expect that the increased efficiency made possible by delivering ads through the ad server will more than make up for the minimal cost.

Implementation

As we transition to our new ad server, our clients will see the same level of dependable service, turn-around speed, and creativity they have always received from us. This is simply the next step in our ongoing efforts to make sure that every book we work with finds its biggest and best audience, wherever that audience may be.

“Changing Face of Retail”

Tom Thompson — Fri, 15 Jun 2012 18:32:49 +0000

Thanks to O’Reilly’s Tools of Change Conference, you can now have free access to the “Changing Face of Retail” presentation at this year’s TOC conference — including video of Jack McKeown presenting the latest Verso Reader Channel stud. Click here to view it.

Verso Reader Survey: In the News

Tom Thompson — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 17:12:34 +0000

PaidContent reports on our latest Reader Survey:

“E-reader usage is growing beyond a group of early adopters, but new stats suggest that consumers are also increasingly resistant to buying an e-reader.”

The article does a good job of putting the Verso Survey results together with the latest numbers from Bowker/BISG.

eMarketer considers the Verso survey together with their own research and suggests there might be limits to the future growth of the e-reader market.

Our Survey provides a snapshot of consumer attitudes from December 2011, and over the past four surveys provides into the ways book-buyer sentiment and behavior have been shifting over the past three years.

Here’s a link to our slides from 2012 Winter Institute.

Here’s a link to our slides from 2012 Digital Book World.

Click here for links to news reports related to the latest Verso Survey of Book-Buying Behavior presented at Winter Institute and Digital Book World. Click here for a report from the survey presented at Tools of Change.

Also, check out Library Journal‘s report from Digital Book World, “A More Optimistic Unconference,” which noted “a markedly different psychology among the Big Six,” and remarked that “the all-important data to buy into a new, bigger picture [of the publishing ecosystem] is compelling.”

Verso Reader Survey: Reasons for Optimism

Tom Thompson — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 17:54:42 +0000

We are thrilled that our agency’s research was part of of two big reasons for optimism in book publishing over the past two weeks: The American Booksellers Association “Winter Institute” and Digital Book World. Both conferences revealed crucial data from book publishing’s recent-past and evolving present, and both generated actionable ideas for our industry moving forward.

Here’s a link to our slides from 2012 Winter Institute.

Here’s a link to our slides from 2012 Digital Book World.

For links to news reports related to the latest Verso Survey of Book-Buying Behavior, click here.

For a final word, check out Library Journal‘s report from Digital Book World, “A More Optimistic Unconference,” which noted “a markedly different psychology among the Big Six,” and remarked that “the all-important data to buy into a new, bigger picture [of the publishing ecosystem] is compelling.”

Verso Survey: “Moving Toward a Hybrid Market”

Tom Thompson — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 17:48:35 +0000

Publishers Weekly reports on our presentation at the ABA’s Winter Institute (Wi7):

“Even as more consumers buy dedicated digital reading devices and tablets, a hybrid market for books is developing in which readers will buy both print and digital books.”

The article also details how the Survey indicates some opportunities for Independent Booksellers in the wake of the Borders shut-down.

Moby Lives mentions our Wi7 survey, and reports that they’ve been seeing hybrid all along.

Shelf Awareness reports a full roundup of our Wi7 presentation.

2012 Verso Survey news as mentioned in previous InVerso posts, includes:

The Borders Effect—from Shelf Awareness and Bookselling This Week;
Reader Interest in an Indie-Branded e-Reader—from Publishers Weekly. There is a follow-up article on indie’s “taking ebooks to the next level” here.
The Emerging Hybrid Market—from Publishers Lunch;

Our presentation at Digital Book World this Wednesday, January 25, will discuss the Survey’s implications for the publishing industry as a whole. Join us!

For those who’d like to follow along on Twitter, the hash tag is #dbw12.

Verso Survey: The Borders Effect

Tom Thompson — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 16:00:02 +0000

Information from the forthcoming release of our December 2011 Reader Survey continues to make news. Yesterday, “Bookselling This Week” published an extensive report on what the Survey results mean for independent booksellers.

Previous news releases, include:

Shelf Awareness with the first take on the Borders Effect,

Publishers Weekly on consumer interest in an indie-branded e-reader,

and Publishers Lunch on the changing dynamics of reader format preferences.

Verso’s Jack McKeown will discuss the Survey’s full implications for independent bookstores at Wi7 on January 19 and what it means for the publishing industry as a whole will be discussed at Digital Book World on January 25.

Verso Survey: Room for an Indie eReader?

Tom Thompson — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 17:34:22 +0000

The buzz continues building for results from our 2012 Reader Survey. Today’s report comes from Publishers Weekly, which picks up on consumer interest in an indie-branded e-reader.

To read the Publishers Lunch take on the survey, click here.

To read the Shelf Awareness take, click here.

For comparison, you can look at the first annual survey (as presented at the ABA’s Day of Education at the 2010 Book Expo America) and the second annual survey (as presented at the 2011 Digital Book World conference).

Verso Survey: Changing Dynamics of Reader Format Preferences

Tom Thompson — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 16:15:42 +0000

Today’s Publishers Lunch breaks the latest story from the most recent Verso Reader Survey. Michael Cader quotes Verso Digital’s Jack McKeown:

“While e-reader ownership rates have increased in a dramatic fashion since our first survey in December, 2009, so too has the level of resistance. The dynamic movement highlighted in this data suggests that over time, consumers have moved out of the ‘not sure’ category in one of two directions: a.) toward actual ownership, or a high probability of near-term ownership of a dedicated e-reader; or b.) into the ranks of resistors for whom the devices do not yet offer a compelling ‘relative advantage’ to overcome their conservatism re: printed books.”

To read about Shelf Awareness’s take on the Survey results, click here.

Verso Survey: The Borders Effect

Tom Thompson — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 15:11:59 +0000

Shelf Awareness reports on our third annual survey of book readers, focusing on the effect of the Borders closing on booksellers. Verso Digital will be presenting the full results of this survey and its implications January 19, 2012 at the American Bookseller Association Winter Institute and January 25, 2012 at Digital Book World.

For reference, here are links to the first survey (version presented at the ABA’s Day of Education at the 2010 Book Expo America) and the second annual survey (version presented at the 2011 Digital Book World conference).