Articles about digital media and advertising.

If we’re being honest, all marketing boils down to stats and probability. Who will buy your product? You’re likely to use demographics and behavioral indicators–stats. Need to increase leads? Use data from previous successful campaigns to increase the probability of action. Hiring a new person for the team? You’re looking at stats again.

In my head, it all comes down to character sheets and gear. A tool–say your CRM–is gear. You and your campaign have character sheets. You’re stronger in some areas than others. Potential customers have character sheets in the form of targeting parameters. They, too, have strengths and weaknesses.

So why am I pushing Dungeons & Dragons to a bunch of professionals? For starters, you can gain a better understanding of stats and probability. But if you examine D&D more, there’s the opportunity to better understand how you affect the world around you.

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Communicating Marketing Goals is Tough to Do

Picture yourself in a meeting with a marketing agency. It’s that time in the meeting. The one everyone dreads. The one where everyone dances around the topic like desperate kids at prom.

“Let’s talk about your goals.”

As a long-time marketer, this is usually where my internal monologue goes nuts. Someone will talk about creative before anyone knows what we’re trying to do. Another team member agrees to a plan without knowing what the plan is. At this point, no one has mentioned any goals. They’re talking about what it will feel like to be successful, but they haven’t figured out how to get there.

It’s time we marketers stop trying to fancy things up and start leveling with you. We can’t make you happy if we don’t know what will make you happy.

There. I said it. Read more

Eagle Ford Map Overlay With Distribution Network for Geotargeting

In digital marketing, we run campaigns with geotargeting for specific areas. It’s easy-as-pie to target places like New York City or a five-mile radius around Dodger Stadium. What becomes more difficult, though, is geotargeting vaguer “places.” Food truck service areas, land formations, and neighborhoods are pretty common requests. How can you make sure that you’re as accurate as possible when your location is variable? Research, of course!

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Equifax Logo

Over the past decade, digital marketing pushed brands towards increasingly aggressive tactics. One such tactic was automatic opt-in. I used to just see these opt-ins for newsletters, but, more recently, I’m seeing this used for sales and add-ons. I assume these marketers want to get more active users, a more engaged audience, and more sales. But in my experience the ends don’t justify the means–in fact, this method isn’t even that effective. In 2017, marketers need to ask, “Is an automatic opt-in the best tactic for my clients?”

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It’s 11:30 p.m. After several last-minute targeting changes, your Google Display Network campaign is almost ready. You’ve set the targeting, and you’ve segmented out everything that needs to be segmented (of which there was a lot). Now all that’s left is uploading the ads so that they will start running at midnight as planned. All that’s left is adding the creative into the AdWords interface.

OH GOD NO.

AdWords just rejected your ads.

Your HTML5 ad is missing a primary .HTML file. Primary .HTML files include an Ad Size tag such as <meta name=”ad.size” content=”width=300,height=250″>. Make sure there is an .HTML file with an ad size tag in your HTML5 ad, and try again.

Now what? You’ve got 30 minutes to fix this, and both your designer and your developer left town for Vegas about two hours ago.

Tick-tock, Clarice. Read more

A bad diagram of a house

Targeting Causes Bullseyes or Black Eyes

Digital display media is a popular channel for marketing brands. We often equate the term to website banner ads, but it also includes video ads, social media ads, audio ads via music sites and apps, in-app ads, search engine marketing and more. It seems like there is always something new under the digital media moniker. Most often, though, discussions center around best practices for banner design, messaging or placements. These are important factors in a successful media campaign, but digital media targeting can make or break a campaign. It’s crucial in ways many people do not realize, plus it affects every form of digital media marketing. Read more

Texas "I Voted Sticker"

Since Michael and I took some time off last Thursday to vote, the “I Voted” stickers have been on my mind. What’s their value? Could that money be used better elsewhere? Is it actually a strong enough voting incentive for it to be worth diverting that slice of state budget? Should we view these as a form of native ad?

Monetary Value of “I Voted” Stickers

I did a little bit of research, and I found an article stating that in 2016, the state of Oklahoma spent approximately $0.003 on each sticker. That’s a very reasonable per-unit price, but how much does it become in aggregate? For Oklahoma, at 2,030,277 registered voters, the answer is $6,090.83. That’s like the cost of a home air conditioning unit, so, no, the sticker budget wouldn’t go very far toward anything.

But what about a more populous state? According to the Texas Tribune, there are 15,015,700 registered voters. Assuming the same price Oklahoma pays for stickers, that’s $45,047.10. So, no, that’s still not really enough to do anything at a state level. It’s maybe one lower-level employee salary, so unless we desperately need more papers pushed around, I don’t think it’s going to go very far.

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iMedia Breakthrough Summit 2016: The Future of Content, Publishing & Media Buying

Last week, I went to the iMedia Breakthrough Summit in Santa Barbara, California, where we discussed the Future of Content, Publishing & Media Buying. All jokes about beautiful weather and scenic locations aside, the conference was some serious business and drew marketing folks from all over the world. Here were the key takeaways that will affect your business as we move into 2017 and beyond. Read more