Tag Archives: targeting

Next to Now: Does the Marketing Funnel Still Work?

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MARKETING PINBALL

The CMO of Publishers Clearing House writes on Ad Age about the death of the marketing funnel and the birth of marketing pinball. The article’s focus on brands means it’s only moderately useful for book publishers, but it’s still a good read about the current state of the customer journey—instead of traveling along a well-defined linear path from awareness to inquiry to intent to purchase, the current path-to-purchase happens in a field of touchpoints as the consumer bounces from desktop research to stores to blogs to coupons to stores to reviews to comparison shopping.

#data #marketing #pinball

 

OUR CROSS-PLATFORM WORLD

If you want to play marketing pinball, you have to start understanding our cross-platform world. One place to start is this recent comScore report.

#crossplatform

 

A CLOUD OF DON DRAPER MOMENTS

CMO online interviews Wunderman CEO Seth Solomons on creativity and data:

“Today it’s about delivering more experiences at the points in time that matter most to the brand’s consumers. For me, it’s no longer about landing on a single Don Draper moment. Data and an understanding of engagement expectations are what make multiple Don Draper moments possible, on the devices and platforms that matter most.”

Another way to think about this, is to apply the baseball metaphor business writer and blue chip consultant Ram Charan uses in his advice for companies: it’s better to hit a whole series of singles than to keep swinging for a home run.

#data #crossplatform

 

MESSAGING MARKETING IS HERE AND IT TALKS LIKE A BOT

The ability of AI to hold a conversation in messaging apps is beginning to show fruit in the messaging world, with implications for customer service—and, by extension, marketing.

To learn more start with this article in Adweek:

“[A] growing number of startups [employs] automated messaging to help consumers do everything from hailing cabs to paying bills. Some say these services, known as chatbots, could be the biggest digital to-do since mobile apps. The bots are forms of artificial intelligence that create personalized one-to-one interactions.”

Then you can read more on chat bots from Digiday.

#messaging #chatbots

 

THE BENEFITS OF TARGETING TRANSPARENCY

A new study discussed in the Harvard Business Review suggests that not only do ads targeted to user behavior outperform non-targeted ads, but they do even better when the users *know* that they’re being targeted because of user behavior. Score another one for transparency.

#targeting #transparency

 

NEW BILLBOARDS ONLY HAVE EYES FOR YOU

A new campaign for General Motors uses cameras that identify passing cars by their grills and deliver customized billboards explaining to drivers of Nissan Altimas, Toyota Camrys, Hyundai Sonatas exactly how the Chevy Malibu is a superior car to the one they’re driving. Creepy? Maybe. Or maybe it’s an extension of the online targeting that consumers are beginning to expect. Imagine a subway billboard telling a Cassandra Clare reader all the ways your new YA fiction title would make a great next read.

#billboard #digital

 

 

MOBILE ATE THE WORLD

Benedict Evans has updated his “Mobile Eats World” presentation—in case you still need convincing about the ubiquity of mobile devices.

#mobile

 

 

ADBLOCKING HOLDS STEADY AT 10%

A recent comScore report suggests that ad blocking is holding steady at 10% of desktop users, and is not ramping up as had been feared. Younger males are far and away the most likely group to block ads.  

#adblocking

 

 

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

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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 areas all marketers need to be aware of as they develop on the near horizon: Messaging, VR, Snapchat.

#messaging #vr #snapchat

 

MICRO-INFLUENCERS FTW

Gnack, a start-up announced at SXSW is experimenting with ways to make labor-intensive influencer marketing work on a programmatic platform. They’re starting with micro-influencers, those with no more than 10,000 followers—the kinds of influencers, that is, that are more friendly to book budgets.

#influencer #programmatic

 

APPLE’S ENTRY INTO NATIVE ADS

Apple News is developing a native ad product, worth watching for:

“Apple News will be updated as part of the latest version of iOS, expected to be released next week. Eddy Cue, the Apple executive in charge of online services, told The Wall Street Journal that 40 million people had used the Apple News app in January.”

#apple #news #native

 

HERE COMES THE READER DATA! BUT WHICH READERS?

Everyone in publishing wants to get data on how people read—at least to get information as good as what Amazon and Apple have via Kindle and iBooks. For that reason we applaud Jellybooks’ efforts to democratize this data and read the New York Times article on their presentation at DBW with interest. But there are big limitations with the data collected here. Jellybooks only counts readers reading on special e-readers, who have sought out the Jellybooks platform, read whatever few e-books are available there, and then agree to share the specifics of their reading habits for that particular book. This is a very different kind of person from the avid book buyer who buys, reads, and buys more copies, often in print.

#data #readers

 

VIDEO HABITS OF MILLENNIALS

An infographic on Adweek provides great insight into the video watching habits of millennials (as well as which video ads are OK with them, and which are not). Top three video watching sources are YouTube (85%), Netflix (66%), and Facebook (53%).

#video #millennials

 

IN PRAISE OF THE BILLBOARD

From Digiday, a little rant in favor of the ultimate non-digital advertising product:  

“These days, billboards are viewed as, mostly, for local businesses only. Bull. Brands, if you took just a small part of your worthless social media budget and put up one billboard in a high-visibility spot, you’d see some big-ass ROI in awareness and sales.”

#outdoor

TARGETING

Ad targeting that relies on user profiling makes many users uncomfortable, and not just tinfoil-hatted privacy advocates. But it turns out that people also hate seeing ads that aren’t right for them. The younger the user the more s/he is likely to expect ads that are better targeted.

#targeting

 

 

Next to Now: The Coming Digital Storm Edition

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The East Coast is bracing for our first real snow of the season, preparing our Instagram filters and Twitter hashtags. So now’s a perfect time for all you East Coasters (and Midwesterners and West Coasters) to line up some good reading for the weekend. Here’s some of what we’ve noticed the last few days.

 

POLITICS UP

A presidential election year means big traffic for political websites — and good news for political books looking to target their audiences. Digiday outlines the top websites as measured by traffic—Huffington Post, CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, the Hill, and Politico—and notes that The Hill and Mother Jones are growing fast.

#politics #targeting

 

NYT BRINGS “MODERN LOVE” TO PODCAST

The New York Times is teaming with NPR to produce a podcast of their popular Modern Love column: with essays read by actors including Jason Alexander, Judd Apatow, Sarah Paulson and more.  What an amazing resource that will be to advertise fiction. 

#podcast #modernlove

 

AOL AND TABOOLA TAKE ON FACEBOOK

In a world where reach is increasingly defined (or denied) by Facebook, AOL and Taboola are partnering up to increase the reach of AOL properties, including Huffington Post and Engadget.

#content #targeting

 

 

PINTEREST TO ADD VIDEO ADS

Pinterest is adding video ad capabilities—which makes sense for such a visually oriented network. But to do it well, they’ll have to improve video on a site that, so far, has been all about the static image.

#video #pinterest #social

 

GOOGLE’S MICRO-MOMENTS GET PLAY IN THE PAPER OF RECORD

This article on intent-based advertising feels like it was written by someone receiving the many (convincing!) emails from Google marketing services about their concept of “micro-moments.” This article is worth reading, if for no other reason than the agile use of ancient Greek philosophy from Rocket Fuel (Liberal Arts education FTW).

“Randy Wootton, chief executive of the ad technology firm Rocket Fuel, which recently announced a ‘marketing in the moment’ approach, refers to ancient Greek concepts of time: chronos, or sequential time, and kairos, a moment of opportunity independent of linear time.”

That said, caveat emptor:  

“Few marketers currently have all the skills needed for moments-based marketing, such as ethnographic studies of their customers and the ability to match customer data to the right context, according to a report released last July by Forrester Research. Without those skills developing throughout the industry, the latest scheme to reach peripatetic consumers could prove, well, momentary.”

#adtargeting #intent

 

BETTER GROWTH THROUGH PRIVATE ACCOUNTS?

Everlane experiments with a private Instagram account as a way to build community through a sense of exclusivity:

“’It’s like an Instagram incubator,’ said Gaskell. ‘We want to gauge criticisms, and we’re making it private in order to have a curated, high value experience. People will feel like they’re in on something.’”

Could it work for niche publishers?

#instagram #social

 

FACEBOOK GETS SET TO JOIN THE SPORTS CONVERSATION

AdWeek reports on Facebook’s new sport-oriented platform. It’s a smart move by Facebook that is not great news for Twitter or ESPN. If this gets the traction I expect, it will be a great place to advertise sports books. Here’s the link to Facebook’s post about the feature:

“With 650 million sports fans, Facebook is the world’s largest stadium. People already turn to Facebook to celebrate, commiserate, and talk trash with their friends and other fans.”

#facebook #sports

Next to Now: News for January Edition

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POLITICAL HEAT BRINGS VIEWS TO THE HILL

For the coming round of political books, take note of this stat from AdWeek: “The election cycle is already paying off for The Hill. According to comScore’s December 2015 numbers, the politics site garnered nearly 10.6 million visitors, a 175 percent year-over-year increase.”

#politics

 

BRINGING ADS TO MESSAGING

It’s one of the continuing questions: as mobile messaging grows by leaps and bounds (even putting the fear of god into Facebook), how will advertisers reach users on these new platforms in a compelling way that’s authentic to the experience. Kik continues to innovate in this direction.

#messaging #adtech

 

A WORD BUSINESS IN AN IMAGE-FIRST WORLD

AdWeek looks at Merriam-Webster’s experiments with the new visual-first social network Peach. Will this one stick, or go the way of Ello? Either way, this is an interesting read for all of us in the word business.  

#social #visual #peach

 

MOBILE APPS VS. MOBILE BROWSER

According to Dec 2015 research cited by eMarketer, mobile users are as likely to prefer using a mobile app as a mobile browser.  In the “app versus browser” debate, one conclusion remains: That depends. 

#mobile #apps #browsers #targeting

 

CJR DOES A DEEP-DIVE INTO RADIO’S REINVENTION

In an article that focuses on WNYC, Columbia Journalism Review looks into the ways that radio brands are trying to avoid the pitfalls that print journalism has fallen into by vigorously working to reinvent themselves for digital transformation. It’s a hopeful story.   

#radio #podcasts #journalism

 

SNAPCHAT KEEPS UP THE PRESSURE

Snapchat enters 2016 just as they left 2015: talking about new ad products, better targeting, more opportunities.

#snapchat #social #targeting

 

PERISCOPE NOW AUTOPLAYING IN TWITTER APP

This is good news for getting your Periscope campaigns discovered in realtime.

#periscope #twitter #streaming

 

THE CASE FOR PRINT ADVERTISING

The continuing case for print advertising: it’s an oldie but a goodie, especially for book publishers: “The Ten Advantages of Advertising Books in Print Media” from Book Business magazine (via Digital Book World)

#print

 

PINTEREST: THUMBS UP OR DOWN?

A long-read from Business Insider about the prospects of Pinterest: ranging from what they’re doing right (audience engagement) to what they’re doing wrong (sales, basically). Mid-way through is a fact that should make publishers of Etsy-friendly books (lifestyle, crafting, food) pay attention, “It drives nearly as much traffic to the online marketplace Etsy as Facebook does.”

#pinterest #lifestyle

 

WHAT THE SUCCESS OF NATIVE ADVERTISING SAYS ABOUT CONTEXT

Digiday has a story about the success Time Out is seeing with their native ads. Implicit throughout is the importance of context for advertising. In the rush to programmatic targeting, context has been sold short the last few years. With the rise of native options, context is back.

#native #contextual

 

“LEGACY” NEWS IS CATCHING UP TO THE FUTURE

Conde Nast, Heart, The New York Times, The Washington Post and more “legacy” brands are getting their digital growth up to the speed of digital specialists like BuzzFeed. How? Bloomberg Media global head of digital, M. Scott Havens, says,

“If you’re doing what the startups are doing and you have the brand equity and resources to build and hire, I’m not shocked at all how well some of the older guys are doing.”

#legacy #digital

 

2016 DISPLAY AD SPENDING TO EXCEED SEARCH

The first truly successful ad model on the Web was search, but as people increasingly turn toward mobile, display ad spending is beginning to catch up.

#display #search #adspending

New Year New Next to Now

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LONGER TWEETS: THUMBS UP OR DOWN?

The 140 character limit has been a defining feature of Twitter from the beginning—so it’s no surprise that the announcement that the company plans to extend that limit to as many as 10,000 characters has inspired mostly shrugs and scowls from users. AdWeek outlines six ways longer Tweets could work for marketers—most of which seem both obvious and missing the point. But regardless how the new limit plays out, marketers would be well-advised to continue to keep the message as short as possible.

#twitter #marketing #content

 

MAKE THE MOST OF YOUR CRM DATA

One third of current CMOs say they use CRM data in advertising to improve insights about their customers. This article in eMarketer advocates using CRM data in ads—both to improve your ad targeting, and to learn more about your most devoted customers. In an interesting side note, the same article quotes a University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth survey found that nearly half of top executives look to digital advertising to increase sales, while only 13% thought social media platforms would do the same.

#targeting #data

 

PERISCOPE UP FOR 2016

In this AdWeek Q&A, the CEO of Periscope talks about how marketers used the livestreaming division of Twitter in 2015 and what he’s looking for in 2016. There’s a lot of potential with Periscope for book publishers to experiment with author-reader interactions, book launches, and more. The traditional bookstore reading tour is a great way for authors to meet readers, but it’s hard to do well and profitably. Live streaming might be a more efficient way to get people talking.

#periscope #livestreaming #meetthereaders

 

ARE CARS THE NEXT MOBILE DEVICE?

Increasing connectivity within car operating systems is optimizing everything the mobile phone can do for the car experience. Combined with the in-roads being made by self-driving cars , this makes the future look bright for the audiobook market. Commuters  in self-driving cars will  be able to think about their entertainment options much more safely while on the road. But why wait for self-driving cars? These developments are already making it easier to target readers while they’re driving:

“In 2014, Pandora began selling in-car ads to marketers separately from its Web and mobile app promos (as well as combination packages). Pandora asserts that its audio ads are getting better marketing results compared to other digital promos.”

It’s a great new way to reach commuters that goes beyond the mass transit options we’ve had success with for years.

#cars #audiobooks #mobile #streaming

 

UNDERSTANDING THE FACEBOOK ALGORITHM

This Slate article does a deep-dive into the team that builds the newsfeed we see in Facebook—and along the way has a lot to say about machine-learning, AI, human curation, and how hard it is to make accurate predictions.

#data #facebook

 

“GEEK CULTURE AT A MASSIVE SCALE”

Imgur’s audience—millennial men in the U.S.—is typically one that shuns advertising, but surprisingly they’ve embraced ads on the platform. Wondering who exactly you’d be advertising to? Imgur’s VP of Marketing describes the platform’s most common user:

“These aren’t necessarily people who are really excited and into sports, or golf, or boating. These are people who are into video games, science, technology, movies, and internet culture in general. As you know, that’s becoming mainstream. What used to be seen as being on the fringe is now becoming incredibly popular. So whether it’s that video games now make more money than movies, or if you look at all the recent blockbusters and how they’re all populated with movies about science fiction, fantasy, dinosaurs, superheroes — and now we have Dr Who merchandise on sale at Target, which years ago would have been unheard of.”

Sounds like something publishers of fantasy, SciFi and a certain style of thriller should be aware of.

#millennials #men #scifi #imgur

 

Next to Now: Winter Solstice Edition

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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, more and more customers—B2B and B2C—are opening emails on mobile devices. So we need to design for that.

“According to the Q2 2015 data, 48% of all emails sent by Experian clients were opened on desktop devices and 40% of emails were opened on mobile phones and ereaders. Some 12% were opened on tablets.”

#email

 

THE RETURN OF “MAILKIMP”

The second season of Serial means a new round of ads for MailChimp. The ad creative from the first season had Serial listeners eager for the new round of ads (when does *that* happen?), the other two advertisers saw mixed results:

“On Twitter, MailChimp saw an 81 percent spike in mentions from Dec. 9 (the day before the premiere) to Dec. 10. Audible had a 19 percent increase, and mentions for Squarespace actually decreased.”

#podcasts

 

THE WASHINGTON POST MAKES DIGITAL PROGRESS

Ad Age reports that the investment of time and energy is starting to bear fruit for Jeff Bezos’ Washington Post. Two months after garnering more uniques in a month than the New York Times for the first time ever, the Washington Post is beginning to debut new native advertising units. They are undoubtedly beyond the budgets of book publishers at the moment, but worth watching to see what we might be able to use downstream.

#adtech

 

AGAINST IDENTITY

A new study (sponsored by Google, of course, so caveat emptor) suggests that targeting by intent is more effective than targeting by user profile:

“Researchers found that the people actually doing the searching aren’t always who marketers think they are. One example: video games. According to research conducted during the first half of this year, the majority of video-game shoppers are not millennial men. In fact, only 31 percent of mobile users searching for video games were men ages 18 to 24. The target market gets smaller when looking at YouTube demographics, which found that only 29 percent of searches came from men in that age group.”

The article goes on to suggest that this doesn’t mean we should throw demographic information out altogether, but it’s a useful reminder that demographic profiles are not the sum total of anyone.  

#adtech #targeting

 

THE MYTH OF THE EVERYREADER

In a guest post on Jane Friedman’s blog, Rebecca Faith Heyman does us the service of pointing out the benefits of targeting and reminding us that even the biggest “cross-over” titles of recent years (John Green, Suzanne Collins, J. K. Rowling) were written with very specific audiences in mind. Everything started with knowing the audience, and built from there.

(Via Digital Book World Daily)

#targeting

 

WHY BOOMERS MATTER

Advertising spends a lot of energy studying the habits of millennials, and as intent readers of advertising news we link to more articles about millennials than any other generation. But it’s worth underlining that boomers are the biggest market for book buyers and should earn an equivalent share of our marketing attention. An article on HubSpot reveals the larger buying power of the Boomer generation in 25 marketing stats. Including the following:

  • Baby boomers spend the most across all product categories but are targeted by just 5-10% of marketing. (Source)
  • 70% of the disposable income in the U.S. is controlled by baby boomers.(Source)
  • Boomers outspend younger adults online 2:1 on a per-capita basis, and they spend more than other generations by an estimated $400 billion a year.

#boomers #demographics

 

PINTEREST LIMITING AD FOCUS

This article in WSJ reports that Pinterest is pulling back its focus on advertising for all but its top categories: retail and consumer goods.

#pinterest #social

 

INTEGRATION OF OUTDOOR AND REAL-TIME ADVERTISING

Canon’s outdoor campaign in NYC is a great example of using creative that shifts in real-time in the “real-life” environment of outdoor. We love this blend of digital capabilities with physical space.  

#outdoor #digital #creative

 

TOP BRANDS EXPERIMENTING WITH PERISCOPE

The movement of corporate marketing attention to Twitter’s Periscope is coming at the expense of Twitter’s Vine (not to mention Meerkat).

#social #streaming

 

ANOTHER BILLIONAIRE DIGITAL GENIUS INVESTS IN PRINT

Alibaba’s Jack Ma buys the South China Morning Post post: another sign (pace Bezos purchasing the Washington Post) that traditional journalism with a healthy mix of significant print presence and fleet digital platforms is seen as valuable by many of the most forward-thinking minds in business.

#print

Next to Now: Improve Your Social Life Edition

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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 shelling out the $750,000 per day spend. We’ve noticed that many of our clients are on board with recommendation number one: Replace your Twitter Avatars with Snapcodes.

#social #snapchat

 

INSTAGRAM ANNOUNCES PARTNER PROGRAM

Instagram announces a partnership with forty outside companies to help with various phases of Instagram advertising: from planning and execution to content partnerships. This Business Insider article talks about what this means. 

#social #instagram

 

EXTREME OUTDOOR

Reality TV meets outdoor advertising with an Xbox campaign: eight people are standing outside on a London billboard undergoing arctic blasts and continual video streaming while viewers can vote on what kind of conditions they should be subjected to. Last one standing “wins.” The real winner, of course, is Xbox.

#creative #outdoor

 

MILLENNIAL MOMS BUY ON MOBILE

According to this eMarketer article, mobile is the way to reach young moms, not just with information, but increasingly with buy links:

“According to September 2015 research by Roth Capital Partners (ROTH), almost half (46.8%) of mother internet users ages 20 to 35 primarily made digital purchases via their mobile phone or tablet.”

#mobile #moms #millennials

 

WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN BRAND AND DIRECT MARKETING?

This Seth Godin article articulates the difference between brand and direct marketing in a way that might have seemed self-evident 20 years ago, but has become increasingly clouded in a world filled with data where every ad budget has to respond in some way to data. This is a crucial question for book publishers, which used to be 100% clear that they were doing brand advertising — leaving the direct marketing to booksellers. But in the world of digital advertising and direct selling by book publishers (however low a priority it remains) those distinctions are getting cloudy.

#advertising

 

DON’T WORRY ABOUT BEATING AD BLOCKERS, WORRY ABOUT BETTERING YOUR GAME

The IAB makes the case that ad blocking is best addressed not by blocking ad blockers, but by fixing the “pain points” that cause people to want ad blockers: slow loading pages because of tracking software, roll-overs, endless surveys, etc.

#adblocking

 

SNAPCHAT GAINS ON FACEBOOK IN VIDEO

This article in the FT reports that Snapchat is generating 6 billion video views on its app every day. This is triple what they were seeing in May, and approaching FB’s 8 billion video views per day. This article in Business Insider is where you can read about it if you’re not an FT subscriber. 

#video #facebook #snapchat

 

PANDORA AIMS TO IMPROVE MOBILE USER DATA

As desktop use (and therefore use of cookies) declines, Pandora is taking steps to get better at identifying users on mobile devices.

#pandora #targeting

Next to Now: Good News / Bad News Edition

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GOOD NEWS FOR PANDORA LISTENERS . . . AND ADVERTISERS

Pandora’s sponsored listening program leads to higher ad engagement by *decreasing* the frequency of the ads. We think that advertising which helps users get what they want works much better than advertising that interrupts what they want.

#audio

 

GOOD NEWS FOR INSTAGRAM

The opening of its ad platform could well mean that Instagram will make more from mobile in 2017 than Google or Twitter.

#social

 

GOOD NEWS FOR HULU

With all the big streaming news coming from Netflix (on which we can’t yet advertise), you might wonder if Hulu (on which we have run many successful ad campaigns) can keep up. Turns out they’re doing very well, thank you: With brand-new content deals for Showtime (including Homeland, The Affair and Masters of Sex) and getting the Hulu remote app up and running on Apple Watch, they’re continuing to stay ahead of a fast-swimming pack.

#video #streaming

 

 

BAD NEWS FOR BROADCAST TV (lots of it):

Younger demographics are abandoning traditional TV in droves. (via @BenedictEvans)

Also a BI article about the same study. 

The change in TV consumption is in its infancy, but it’s far enough along that we can start to see trends in how it’s developing. Here are some of the ways.

More signs of the switch in TV consumption: For the first time, more people are using Comcast for internet than for TV . . .

Or you could pay up to $200k for a thirty second spot on Caitlyn Jenner’s new show.

#video #probablytechnicallygoodnews

 

 

BAD NEWS FOR “OLD GAWKER”

It hasn’t been a great time to lead, read, or work at Gawker recently. We trust they’ll turn it around.

#media

 

BAD NEWS FOR TWITTER

Bad news for Twitter and its advertisers: A June 2015 study suggests only 3% of Twitter users find ads on Twitter relevant. This is fixable, but will take better work on both the creative and targeting sides.

There was some good news in Twitter’s earning’s call on Tuesday, where it announced higher than expecting revenues, but investors were unimpressed with user growth. 

#social

 

 

THIS THING IS “BAD NEWS” BY DESIGN:

“If a thing is designed to kill you, it is, by definition, bad design”: Mike Monteiro in Dear Design Student.

(via @NextDraft http://nextdraft.com/ )

#design

 

 

BAD NEWS FOR BACK-TO-SCHOOL SALES . . .

“Parents are blowing-off back-to-school shopping.” The article blames this on poor mobile advertising, but we think it is simply more a reflection of larger trends: toward flexibility and buying what you need when you need it, and away from the long-term planning style of household management.

#backtoschool #mobile

 

. . . OR IS THAT GOOD NEWS?

Google uncovers trends and shares advice about reaching back-to-school shoppers based on search trends. Since search interest for “back to school” rose 48% last year, it’s worth giving them a listen.

#search

 

 

GOOD NEWS? BAD NEWS? DEPENDS HOW YOU LOOK AT IT

ClickZ published a useful thought piece about targeting: The more smartphones know about us, the better advertisers (like us) can target ads. Generally, we think this is a positive thing when it’s applied with care and respect for people. But do we want a world where the health tracker on your phone suggests you have indicators of heart disease . . . so you get served an ad for a book on heart disease? Yes and no.

#mobile #targeting

 

 

 

Next to Now: The Week in Reading Links

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Reading in book-related ad tech for the week ending April 17, 2015

April 11, 2015

The rise of messaging: Big 4 messaging app users now equal big 4 social network users.  #mobile

April 13, 2015

How the New York Times is becoming a mobile-first company according to Marc Frons, SVP, CIO NYT. (Via Benedict’s Newsletter No. 107) #mobile

90% of attendees at Coachella (600k people last year), use iPhones. Does this tell you more about iPhones or Coachella?(Via Benedict’s Newsletter No. 107) #mobile

“79 Theses on Technology for Disputation.” (Via Alexis Madrigal’s “Real Future”) #metatech

“The Cost of Paying Attention.” Cluttered environments that leave people feeling anxious is neither good for the people we’re advertising to, nor is it good for the products we’re advertising. It’s worth heeding even if (especially because?) this guy is taking aim at the ads that our bread-and-butter.  (Via “79 Theses…”) #metatech

“Surveillance as the normative form of care.” And, I’d add, as the normative form of education, marketing, policing, etc. etc.  (Via “79 Theses…”) #metatech

Six reasons to advertise in newspapers. For one, print newspapers index much higher for reader engagement and trust. #print

April 14, 2015

The Metropolitan Museum of Art is producing a series of videos in which contemporary artists talk about a piece in the Met’s collection that holds resonance for them. The latest features Nayland Blake talking about a work from Mali: “So much of its meaning as a sculpture is bound up, not in what you can see on the outside, but what it contains within.” #art

What moms want. Mother’s Day discovery tips from Bing researchers. (True, no one uses their search engine, but their research is top notch. Via Click Z’s “De-Averaging Moms” post) #moms #targeting

April 15, 2015

Speaking of surveillance: Is this the location-based advertising we’ve been waiting for? Tracking not just where you’ve been on the Web, but where you’ve been in real-life. #mobile #targeting

Ray Ozzie on what the rise of messaging means for work flow is worth listening to (even if it’s real purpose is to serve up his new app, Talko) #metatech

Native Advertising, by the numbers.  #native

The numbers on native mobile ads are (not surprisingly) good: “Research released in October 2014 by Polar showed higher clickthrough rates (CTRs) for native ads run on mobile compared with desktop in the US and UK. Average CTR for native placements on tablets was 0.28%, and smartphones were right behind at 0.27%. Meanwhile, CTR for desktop native ads was just 0.15%.” #native #mobile

April 16, 2015

“Gaming content remains one of best ways to reach young men.” Data from YouTube show how deeply pervasive gaming culture is, and how to reach the market. #gaming #targeting

Why it feels good to hear, read and watch stories, and why podcasts are particularly good at hooking us in. #podcasts

Playlist targeting comes to Spotify. Target readers of health books during their “Workout” playlist, cookbooks during their “Cooking” playlists, how-to readers during their “Cleaning” playlists, and more. #targeting

Everyone wants in on the video ad sales boom, even print magazines. And in a nifty meta-moment, the article about the ad features a video of the magazine playing the video. #wowfactor

Click Z works the numbers on why email remains the workhorse of digital marketing strategy. #email

Business Insider’s shameless with the click bait, but for advertising people these “Best of 2014” digital campaigns are great inspiration.   #inspiration