Next to Now for October 21

NEW SPOTIFY VERTICAL VIDEO ADS Spotify announced a new product — Vertical Video Ads — which allows advertisers to sponsor playlists. Users agree to watch the full video in exchange for thirty minutes of free listening. These kinds of ads are wins for the advertisers, the users, and the platform. At launch, the branded moments […]

Next to Now for July 21

PREMIUM WEBSITE ADS PERFORM BETTER A new study from ComScore underlines that ads on premium websites—such as the New York Times, WSJ, and various imprints of Condé Nast and Hearst media—deliver better results than ads on non-premium websites. From the Wall Street Journal article on this report: “The study, which comScore said analyzed the ad […]

Next to Now: The future is always unfinished

THE RISE OF THE MICROINFLUENCERS Bigger is not always better when it comes to influencer marketing: “For unpaid posts, Instagram influencers with fewer than 1,000 followers have a like rate of about 8 percent, while those with 1,000 to 10,000 followers have a like rate of 4 percent.” That’s good news for book publishers and […]

Next to Now: The News from SXSWi, Influencer Marketing & More

Spring 2016 unfolds with exciting new marketing platforms, a digital shout-out for an old but effective ad platform, new developments in looking at what readers want and more . . .     SXSW INTERACTIVE Adweek points to the hot topics at the recently concluded SXSWi, and they’re not a surprise, but they do underscore […]

Next to Now: Trying to Chart New Oceans of Data & More

PODCASTS CONTINUE TO GROW Digiday has an interesting article about the evolution of podcasts and the need for improved measurement. Measurement is still not there yet—even the link within the article to NPR’s proposed measurement guidelines is broken. But we expect it to happen. Fun fact from this article: NPR is working on a podcast that’s like […]

Next to Now: Winter Solstice Edition

Our last post before the end of 2016 is a meaty one.   WHAT BROUGHT WATERSTONE’S BACK FROM THE BRINK? A great—and optimistic!—article in Slate about how the future of chain bookstores might be shifting, with a focus on the refurbished Waterstone’s. #bookstores   DESKTOP EMAIL OPEN RATES STILL HIGHER, BUT DECLINING According to eMarketer, […]

Next to Now: Improve Your Social Life Edition

This weeks’s Next to Now includes links to articles on standing out on Snapchat, partnering with Instagram, and checking out an experiment that gives people a real, human stake in an outdoor ad campaign.  HOW TO STAND OUT ON SNAPCHAT This article gives a good primer about strategies to get a presence on Snapchat without […]