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Industry Links for 05012012 0

Posted on: 05-3-2012
Posted in: Oldest Living Digital Marketer

How to thrive as a second city agency 0

For decades, three markets have consistently dominated the ad sector — New York, LA, and Chicago — yet a growing percentage of industry dollars are coming from other cities that aren’t historically associated with the advertising and media businesses. These are the second cities.
How to thrive as a second city agency
I use the term “second cities” with respect and affection (and in the same spirit as the name of the leading comedy troupe in the country). By second cities I mean markets like Atlanta, Dallas, Charleston, Minneapolis, and Seattle where some strong agencies are based. (San Francisco straddles the line — it is far smaller than the “big three,” yet it is home to a number of major agencies and offices.) This piece is about such agencies — shops trying and, in some cases, succeeding as major national players. Some say second city agencies face different challenges and opportunities. Let’s take a look at what it means to be second city, and whether it matters.

Getting into pitches


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Winning new business has always been a primary concern for agencies, wherever headquartered. For this article, I spoke with 23 people and most acknowledged that being a second city can affect their ability to get into pitches.
A leading pitch consultant, who asked not to be identified, believes the reluctance of some brands to consider second city agencies stems from perceptions about scale and expertise, in addition to vanity.
“It can be hard to convince some clients to consider [a] second city agency because of fear they lack the resources [and] expertise to serve major accounts. They may also question whether an agency keeps up with digital innovation. Sometimes it comes down to emotional factors, like wanting to feel ‘big time’, or reluctance to travel to ‘Omaha’ for meetings.”
Quite a few of the folks I spoke with acknowledged that they get their share of questions regarding resources. Most believe that this sort of concern is an issue of perception versus reality.
Tamara Bousquet, Executive Media Director for San Diego-based MEA Digital, said:
“I’d bet my job that our work, our people, are better than most that come out of leading cities and shops.  Our clients, who have been working with us for 4 plus years, 8 plus years, are getting better work than they’ve received at other agencies. These long-standing partnerships are proof of our staff and agency’s excellence.”
Smart second city agencies recognize opportunities to take advantage of their location by differentiating themselves from the dozens of medium-sized New York shops. Consider Richards Group — it’s spent years selling Dallas as a reason why they are so adept at persuading Middle America.  

Recruiting and retention


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When you run an agency, you need a host of skills sets. Many people with desirable skills choose to live in leading ad markets. That being said, a number of great people are unable or unwilling to live in Chicago, Santa Monica, or Chelsea.
Such people are not evenly distributed in every city and town. It’s certainly no accident that many agencies locate in tech hubs and college towns with strong technology and marketing programs. Steve Parker, Jr., co-founder and managing partner of Levelwing, pointed to Charleston as a perfect example: 
“Our largest office is in Charleston, SC. Although many see Charleston as a destination for vacation, it is home to some large and highly sophisticated technology businesses such as Blackbaud, Benefitfocus and Boeing.  Additionally, many software companies are based here. Colleges such as The Citadel, Charleston Southern University and College of Charleston are part of our community.  Close-by Clemson University and the University of South Carolina have strong mathematics, engineering and technology programs.  In December 2009 Forbes rated Charleston as the 8th Smartest City in the World.”
This leads us to the subject of salaries and retention. There’s an urban legend about an AMP who started in Manhattan making $13,000 a year, lived with 11 others in a studio, and ate nothing but ad-network-branded Tic-Tacs for a year. In reality, ad people in the top markets make significant coin. But when you buy your Tide at Gristede’s, the “fat” paycheck doesn’t go far. Most second cities are far less expensive. The chart below calculates the cost of living equivalent to $75,000 a year in Manhattan.
Those I spoke with emphasized that rather than offering people a precisely equivalent salary, they pay people to have a better life. Credit altrusim and the reality that an Atlantan wouldn’t be willing to live in an apartment where they can stand in the center and touch all four walls.
No one I interviewed said that being in a second city automatically made for greater employee commitment, but several said that the issues facing major markets don’t reflect their daily experience. According to Bousquet:
“I’m not dealing with the ‘entitled’; those who think because they’ve worked in this business for 6 months they deserve a raise and a promotion.  Our folks appreciate the opportunity to do great work on great brands with great people; we don’t deal with the ego of younger employees that many large agencies in large cities say they deal with daily.  In fact, our average employee tenure is 3+ years and that’s something we’re proud of.”

Second cities and specialization


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Detroit and Las Vegas are two markets highly focused on business verticals. While agencies there work across many sectors, they are most known for auto and hospitality respectively.

Shawn Rorick, President of LVIMA, suggested that hospitality defines a big part — but not all — of Vegas.

“It’s a safe bet that an agency in Las Vegas is going to really understand the travel business. There are many world class experts in that sector here. Las Vegas marketers in particular can be more adept in getting insights through data collected by the casino/resorts.  Recession made our community of professionals even sharper because it requires the utmost sophistication to maximize ROI.”
Lissie Heinkele, a long time Detroit agency leader, considers regional expertise as particularly relevant.
“In auto, the three tiered marketing environment — national, dealer associations, dealers — is absolutely central to the business of moving metal. But there’s more than that. Auto marketing is some of the most sophisticated in digital. You can more readily find uberexperts here. There’s also a passion — many of us are true “gearheads.” When you’re amping up for a major launch, having that passion for cars brings out the best in programs.”
Being known for a segment has its challenges. “Sometimes people think we are all travel, all the time,” Rorick said. “That can be a hindrance when you are working toward broadening your category base.”“It can be challenging for agencies to overcome the ‘category town’ perception. But many Detroit agencies have clients far afield from the auto world. They serve these clients very well,” Heinkele said.

oing business with partners


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Many agencies in smaller markets report that fewer vendors visit them. These agencies experience fewer phone calls, “drop bys,” and requests for meetings. Thus, it is arguably harder for second city shops to keep abreast of important developments because the companies creating them don’t come knocking as often. While the internet certainly eases the strain, second city folks have to be more proactive about pursuing knowledge.
From the sell side, there appears to be great business in serving second city agencies. “It costs you a little more to get a rep to Dallas. But it’s worth the expense. When you make the effort you find a high level of ‘engagement’ from the agency teams in those markets.” said John Durham, CEO of Catalyst S+F and a long-time digital solutions sales leader.
Durham also notes that there is also a perception that second city professionals are better mannered.
“I appreciate manners. Agencies in smaller markets generally show a high level of professionalism. Mutual respect. It runs the gamut, but when you call on an agency in a second tier market, chances are the people will show up and engage.”

 
Adam Bergman, Senior Account Executive for Yume, emphasized that there is real money to be made in such markets:

“Some of these agencies are a heckuvalot bigger than they seem. Being in New York doesn’t necessarily mean a shop is big; being in a ‘second tier’ market doesn’t prove that an agency is small. Additionally, many of these agencies are careful to stay at the bleeding edge of the industry — to ‘prove’ that you don’t need to be in Midtown to be redefining and shaping the industry.”
More sellers are seeking local people to serve these second cities. Lynn Ingham, a leading digital marketing recruiter, argued that it’s harder — but not impossible — to find great people in these markets.
“Many top-notch digital sellers are in the big three markets. There are a few in the other cities, but you need to dig deeper to find them. Over time we’re seeing more great sellers native to these markets, and leading sellers trained in the big three markets deciding to move to other cities for a plethora of reasons.”
Lori Xeller, Director of Digital Sales at Republic Media in Phoenix, believes the talent is definitely out there.
“It’s true that the total pool of digital sellers might be smaller than a major market like LA or San Francisco, but they ARE out there. We’ve built a strong team by constantly keeping our eyes open for great talent and creating real career paths to keep our A players satisfied and growing.  I’ve found that our digital sellers are focused on being long-term digital consultants for their clients so they have deep relationships.  They are loyal to their clients and with their internal teams.” 

Managing the exit


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Many second city shops are independents, and some hope one day to sell to a holding company. Proximity helps when you are trying to make your business known to would be acquirers. Mark Naples, managing partner of strategy and communications firm Wit Strategy, underscored the importance of developing a prominent agency profile. 
“There are so many solid agencies out there.  Getting noticed by would-be acquirers requires a clear strategy that will generate a distinct identity, rather than more broad awareness.  For example, at the height of its powers a few years ago, CP+B had Alex Bogusky as the tip of its spear, smirking to us knowingly from the covers of national magazines.  But, what is CP+B’s identity today?  For non-New York based agencies, it’s harder to pull off getting the right kind of notice because proximity within a roughly 50 block radius drives a large measure of perceived importance to the trades and the holding companies. If the cool kids aren’t seeing you on their playground, it’s harder for them to accept that you might be cool too.”

What clients say about second city agencies


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When asked to draw some general distinctions, most of the clients I spoke with were careful not to make assertions beyond the experience they had with a particular shop. Most said that location had no real impact on the quality of work and relationship and that it’s about the agency, not the city.
One acknowledged that the out of town “thing” did affect the perceptions during the pitch, but that daily experience with the team quickly mitigated their concerns:
“You always have vibes, gut feelings, and concerns when you are picking an agency. During our last RFP, we questioned whether a non-New York agency would ‘get’ fashion. We ultimately chose them because they seemed like they’d be great to work with. They really are.”
Perhaps that’s a fitting conclusion. After all, we are in the perception business. Although it may not be a “real issue,” it is a genuine concern for some. Despite this, many second city shops are succeeding because ultimately what matters most is the quality of the team, not the address.ty shops are independents, and some hope one day to sell to a holding company. Proximity helps when you are trying to make your business known to would be acquirers. Mark Naples, managing partner of strategy and communications firm Wit Strategy, underscored the importance of developing a prominent agency profile.
Thanks to for publishing this first.

Posted on: 04-7-2012
Posted in: Oldest Living Digital Marketer

Digital marketing’s 4 biggest disappointments 0

Oh boy, does the digital buzz machine ache for a metaphorical magic pill — some blockhead simple “cure” for many of the marketing challenges facing brands. When new things come along, the buzz about their potential effects on the marketing body sometimes gets blown out of proportion.
Our industry appears to have its own form of digital bipolar disorder. (“DBD” for the TV campaign every new disease needs — cue the contemporary sound track and vignettes of deliriously happy people raising their arms to the sky.) People in our industry looooove new things. And then, about six months later, we often despise those same things. In many cases, it’s not the platforms and technologies that are at fault — it is the collective DBD and the unrealistic expectations it creates and then dashes.
What’s caused this epidemic of DBD? It seems driven by a desire in some to “take care of” digital — deploy something simple and understandable to make this wonderfully, horribly dynamic environment more manageable. We want to bring structure to something that feels formless.
Just because the latest digital “thing” is transforming communications doesn’t mean it is a panacea for brand challenges. This article looks at four digital “things” that instantly captivated many, only to lose their luster just as quickly when it became evident that they were not magic pills. It also points to a short list of considerations to make the next time everyone is calling something “white hot.” I’ve deliberately picked four fundamentally sound concepts and platforms to demonstrate how it is misplaced marketer expectations that are the problem here — not the technologies themselves.

Daily deals

Everybody’s favorite whipping boyThe hype for daily deals was out of control. I remember reading a pundit’s blog in December 2010 that predicted that a majority(!) of marketing dollars would eventually be spent offering these 50 percent (or more) discounts on products and services.
What caused the super hype? I think two issues were at play here:
Digital loves “disruption.” We love things that bring down the venerable walls of Jericho. We love the idea of a new company shattering time-honored approaches. The notion fuels the collective sense that we are witnessing marketing solution history. But here’s the rub: A promotional tactic can’t live up to that sort of expectation.
Radical misunderstanding of marketer needs. Many in the tech culture don’t really get marketing. The goal of marketing is to charge full price for something — not almost give it away at 75 percent off. By contrast, a common model in tech is to give away services, thereby creating different revenue streams driven by scale. There’s nothing wrong with either way of thinking, but the second often doesn’t jibe well with marketer KPIs. Some marketing investment is focused on trial and demand generation — things that daily deals are good at encouraging. But more money is spent with the goal of driving margin through differentiation.
If I may ascend the soapbox for a second, let me state emphatically that most marketers are notlooking for 29 new ways to distribute coupons. We’d rather have a digital platform that enables us never to need coupons.
Daily deals are an absolutely valid tactic for a host of other purposes. But when the math of a program requires a 50 percent or greater discount — and then takes a big cut of the revenue that is collected — one cannot expect marketers to pour most of their resources in. Daily deals can be a really smart tactic — or a really dumb one.

Branded widgets

Portable corporate goodness 
In 2007, widgets were all the rage. Thousands of companies wanted either a desktop widget, a Facebook widget, or a MySpace widget.
The conventional wisdom was that these deep and portable brand experiences would incite such excitement in consumers that they’d want to carry our precious messages “wherever they live online.” Platform-specific widgets quickly gave way to platform agnostic units that appeared to further shed the shackles that had trapped our brands for lo these many years. Hooray! Plus, the good ones had incredible interactivity — in an era in which all banners could give us were 1-2-3 animations.
Six months later, if you mentioned a widget, you saw a cascade of faces doing what Joey Tribbiani called “smell the fart” acting.
What went wrong?
Once again, there was nothing wrong with the thing, per se. Widgets were and are useful little things when designed well. But there were a couple problems there:
Our expectations were whackadoodle. A client once asked me if $275,000 was enough to get 20 million installs of its widget.
Generally brands don’t make good content. Making so-so games or videos isn’t enough. Your beer’s virtual bottle cap spinner “game” (with foamy animation Easter eggs!) doesn’t make the consumer cut.
We forgot the marketing. Most brands spent the majority of their budget on the widget, and almost nothing on publicizing it. Kevin Costner in a cornfield.
Facebook changed how it handled widgets. It consigned them to the back burner.
Of course, actually useful widgets live on in tens of billions of installs, and lots of companies are making a good living by selling the data they collect. But a DBD-fueled brand panacea they were not.

Branded mobile apps

Opportunity calling? Apps can be astounding. Brand apps often aren’t. There are some great exceptions — not the least of which is P&G’s eminently useful “Sit or Squat.”
Or Volvo’s driving game. Or Kraft’s “Big Fork Little Fork.”
But apps are only going to be successful to the extent that they meet an actual need. A FedEx app that lets me see if my packages have been delivered? Nifty! A shopping app built around a store finder for universally distributed bathroom tissue? Not so much.
Another issue with the early branded apps was the development cost. Apps took significant time and resources to build. Further, in order to get massive scale, apps needed to be ported to several major platforms — iOS, Android, etc. That cost real money. And every successive generation of those same apps needed to be ported across platforms again. At least in those days, interoperability was a pipedream.
A number of startups are working to simplify the process with toolsets that let you develop once and deploy across all of the major platforms. Further, they enable the assembly of assets in minutes instead of weeks. These advancements won’t make your content better, but they will enable you to spend some marketing money on publicizing a good app.
What’s great about the app space is that there’s sort of a second generation of brand apps in development now — ones focused on meeting real needs. Because apps will likely be a major component in the delivery of digital content for years to come, it’s great to see that the brand community is trying again with better content and more realistic expectations. In this case, it appears that we fought our desire to discard the toddler with the tub water.

First-generation retargeting

An old classicRetargeting has been around for awhile, and it usually delivers highly cost-effective results, especially for direct marketers. For those not familiar, a really basic definition of retargeting is as follows: A third party in your employ cookies your site visitors who don’t convert and follows them around the web with targeted banners designed to drive revisit and response. The cost per metrics are usually amazing. Cool stuff.
But for most brands, the traffic to the website is relatively small when compared to the total potential audience for a product or service. Which means that the total amount of money and results one can expect from this sort of retargeting is rather limited. If only a relatively small percentage of the target visit your site, only that limited population can be retargeted.
The industry was abuzz with the miracle of retargeting for a time. Then it got a bad rap — not worth the bother because of the scale problem.
Over the past couple of years, “retargeting” has evolved into a broader bucket — the foundation for targeted marketing efforts that reach beyond your site visitors. There are several methodologies by which companies are helping to expand the scale of “retargeting-style” performance metrics:
Prospect targeting: This approach, pioneered by , uses your site visitors as the foundation to identify “behave-alikes” that share their media behaviors. The highly developed set of algorithms used by m6d start with your retargeting pool to identify and map large numbers of “behave-alikes.” It then enables you to target this big pool through exchange-based media. These aren’t “look-alikes” — they are “do-alikes.” The idea is that such “do-alikes” will exhibit similar brand propensities and drive great metrics at scale.
Search retargeting: Companies like  and  collect data on a consumer’s search queries related to a product or category. Since search is a great gauge of purchase intent, brands are getting great results across a much broader audience than site visitors
Look-alike targeting: This model leverages the information we can discern about your site visitors and finds others that reflect those same characteristics. Many media companies offer these services, and they are also available for DIY exchange-based buying through DSPs and trading desks.
Social sharing targeting: A different approach, identified most closely with , uses huge numbers of social sharing data points to develop profiles of likely intenders, and then expands the prospect pool by identifying other people with similar behaviors. It’s based upon the concept that social intent and the implicit graph offers the greatest potential audience for a brand’s marketing message.
Of course, there’s nothing at all wrong with classic retargeting. It’s just that most brands need to find ways to deliver greater scale. But the answer to the scale shortfall isn’t to poo-poo the concept; it is to build upon it. Brands can achieve scale with a combination of classic retargeting and other efforts that similarly attract high-likelihood-of-intent consumers. The tide is turning, and now retargeting is generally viewed sensibly positively.

The treatment for DBD

So how do we inoculate ourselves against DBD? Through sensible and rational thinking. I think there are five things to remember the next time we hear about the latest and greatest thing.
Start with a strategy
So many of the mistakes brands make into diving into new platforms could be avoided if we first ensured that they were consistent with your brand’s digital strategy.
Ask yourself whether its creators seem to “get” marketing
Not to put too fine a point on it, but many tech companies and startups simply don’t. Since our goal is to create value, we need to ensure that the tasks the tool seems to address do just that.
Approach new platforms and ideas with sensibility, not the herd mentality
We are in digital because we love new stuff. But let’s keep the breathlessness to a minimum.
Ensure that the expectations of a new thing reflect its potential versatility
Marketing and brand needs are highly complex. While it would be great if a few simple solutions could solve our problems, we need to test the hype before we buy in hook, line, and sinker.
Do the math — and test
The selection of a marketing tactic is a business decision best made with a cool head and open eyes. It needs to meet the same criteria as something long established.
Let’s keep the excitement level sensible and avoid DBD. Side effects of this approach are significant and include better decision making and higher ROI.

Posted on: 02-11-2012
Posted in: Oldest Living Digital Marketer

Start-Up Watch COD: ChallengePost and the phenomenon of crowd sourced innovation 0

When I started in advertising, I worked on a brand that challenged P&G in one of its core categories. We developed a great product and started rolling it out region by region. The product was a triumph of an incredible team of six household product scientists.
Unfortunately, Procter developed a better product in about four months, and rolled it out nationally before we hit 40% ACV. For you see, not to diminish the fact that Procter always attracts great individual scientists, they ALSO had about 300 of those great scientists working in the category. In one day they logged 50X the “man hours” our team did. When focused on developing a product better than ours, they were able to unleash the power of numbers.
Fast forward 20-mumble years. Procter is one of the leaders in crowd sourced innovation, having developed a multimillion dollar platform that enables anyone – yes, anyone – to submit product ideas designed to addressed challenges the company pre-identifies.
Of course, many of the best ideas come from vendors. But the principle of unleashingeveryone against a challenge is merely the logical endgame for a principle I witnessed and got clobbered by more than a couple of decades ago.
Fortunately for the rest of us, a NYC-based start-up called  has created a crowd sourced innovation platform that lets virtually any organization or company benefit from strength in numbers.
The platform enables an organization to post a challenge, set a prize for the best entry(ies), and manage the process of collecting and evaluating ideas quickly and easily.
As part of the challenge the organization can provide a variety of different kinds of inputs for use by the would be innovators. For example, several of the major programs delivered thus far were focused on the development of apps that leveraged sponsor-provided data sets.
For example, the City of New York made available a broad range of data sets and asked people to develop apps to solve city problems. Similarly, the US Department of Agriculture posted data sets related to the nutritional value of foods as part of a challenge to help encourage kids to make healthier food choices.
Contestants ask questions and submit ideas along with relevant presentation materials using ChallengePost’s robust platforms. Participating organizations can choose which ideas to post as part of audience voting, as well as curate entries for a professional judging organization.
ChallengePost offers three levels of service at different price points:
  1. Basic service offers a sub domain and a variety of communication tools to publicize your challenge and keep people abreast of progress. This option also gives you access to the platform’s robust challenge management tools.
  2. Premium service enables you to use any domain and enables the sponsoring organization to customize forms and other features so as to tailor the offering to the precise parameters of a challenge. You also get access to greater publicity tools, as well as community features that encourage greater participation and collaboration.
  3. Platform level service enables an organization to run multiple challenges, provides more complete customization, and even enables company employees to post specific challenges if desired.
In addition to the quality of solutions that have been developed in challenges thus far, the company points to a tremendous return on investment using this approach. By empowering virtually anyone to respond to challenges, and by making all submissions the property of the sponsoring organization, the platform often yields ROI well in excess of 20X.
I adore this concept. I don’t know how else to say it. The idea of crowd sourced innovation is of course very sound. And the application of industry standard submission and management tools gives virtually any organization to solve important challenges through the power of the crowd. Great stuff.

Posted on: 09-25-2011
Posted in: Oldest Living Digital Marketer

What To Say When A Brand Says “No” To Social (Mediapost 9.21.11) 0

We all know that social media is getting bigger and bigger with every passing day, and more brands are engaging in social media every hour, but what about those brands that are still hesitant to get in the game?  What do you say to them?

If a brand is still afraid to get involved in social, it’s because of one of the following “excuses” (and yes, I mean “excuses” because none of these are relevant reasons to stay out of it):

-  “I can’t control my message in social”

-  “There’s no clear way to engage my consumers – its too confusing”

-  “The return on engagement for our resources isn’t there yet”

-  “It’s still too early for us, we want to see what our competitors do”

I love hearing statements like these, and in the last 3 months I’ve heard a number of people say them.  I love hearing these kinds of statements because then I have something to prepare to respond to, and I thought maybe it would be helpful for me to share my responses with you!

First off, if a brand says, “I can’t control my message in social”, you can respond with “Well, how much control do you think you have by NOT being in social”?  The fact of the matter is that consumers are talking about you whether you’re there or not, and by avoiding the conversation you’re simply allowing them to speak in an unbridled fashion about you, and hope for the best.   Additionally, the world has changed and almost without exception, consumers expect their favorite brands to be available in social for their interaction.  This is the way the world is now, and creating loyalty in the eyes of your target consumer means being in social media and engaging them when and where they’re available.  It’s a competitive marketplace out there and if you aren’t speaking with them, you can certain your competition is.

For those brands that utter, “There’s no clear way to engage my consumers – it’s too confusing” I would respond, “Yeah, that was true 6 months ago”.  In the last 6 months, things have settled down quite a bit and it’s much clearer what you can do in social.  You can advertise in social, you can create sponsorships in social (i.e. sponsored tweets and posts) or you can use it as a messaging distribution vehicle through owned assets.  There are lots of companies offering ancillary services like research, reporting and promotion, but for the most part they fit into these 3 categories.   There are also a number of companies that are packaging together these options and making them plug and play for brands, which was inevitable.  As social matures, so does the marketplace and with maturity, comes simplicity.

What about when they say, “The return on engagement for our resources isn’t there yet”?  My response is also quite simple; the ROI is far more wide reaching than what you’re likely looking at.  An effective social media strategy has implications on SEO (it improves them), customer service (it improves them) and overall brand analytics (guess what – it improves them).  Brands who are connected are viewed more favorably by their consumers than brands that are not, and your analysis of the ROI should never be purely against your advertising budget.  It should be against customer retention, efficiency of customer interaction and other elements of the business!

Which leaves us with the last statement, “It’s still too early for us, we want to see what our competitors do”.   I love that kind of statement because it is so clearly incorrect.  When in business is taking no action at all the right action?  You need to be analyzing, testing and evaluating tactics.  You don’t sit idly by and wait for things to just happen.  The world is in flux right now, and success requires you to think ahead, have a plan of action, and implement it.  If the average tenure of a CMO is between 18-32 months, and the average tenure of an agency relationship is 4-5 years, then how does inaction provide you with opportunity?

Of course, there are lots of other statements made by brands, and these are just a few of them.  Join the Spin Board and share with us some of your favorite responses from clients and maybe we can find a way to help answer those!

Posted on: 09-25-2011
Posted in: treffiletti.com

Start-Up Watch COD: Magnetic delivers search retargeting to millions and millions 0

am a huge believer in the potential of search retargeting to drive strong ROI for brands. The model, for those who may be unfamiliar, is that a search retargeting firm serves banner ads to people based upon their recent search history.

Now why, you might ask, would you bother targeting with banners instead of just buying the search results? Well, it’s actually not an “instead,” it’s an “in addition to.” Everyone knows SEM delivers blockbuster results. The problem is that there are not enough instances of searches to satisfy the demand from brands. You can only buy the number of searches consumers organically make. And then only one company gets to be first on the results. And even if you are first, there is by no means a guarantee that people will buy as a direct result of seeing or even clicking on your link.

Search retargeting adds critical touch points to the bottom of the funnel ecosystem, giving brands an opportunity to follow up with consumers are clearly in consideration and buying mode. The banners appear in both contextually linked content and on quality sites where the searchers visit after their telltale searches.

was the first company in the space, and collects more than five billion data points monthly through its partnerships with most of the leading search providers. Ergo more data. These partners provide Magnetic with 100% of their search queries, so the company can develop more precise user profiles of consumers.

But there are other distinctions as well. The data they get are mostly from search and e-commerce environments – that’s an important element of their value proposition. According to Magnetic, many search retargeting options are based upon data that come largely from sharing widgets. That’s OK, but the thing is that these widgets tend to appear more in news, blogs, and general edit than in environments where shoppers are actively looking for buying options. Think of it this way –would you rather show banners to someone who searched in a commercial environment, or on CNN?

There are a variety of ways that brands can benefit from Magnetic’s data. First, they can buy inventory direct from the company. Second, Magnetic works with other sellers, providing data to pubs and networks as a means of identifying more likely prospects. Finally, users of exchanges can also leverage the company’s information.

Founded in 2008, the company has amassed a broad range of blue chip customers. It’s an impressive list particularly because many of their customers are highly sophisticated DR marketers.

Through the use of the exchanges, Magnetic can make available inventory on virtually any type of site. For brands with very high levels of concern over brand safety, they can white list a set of sites that fulfill the advertiser’s specs. For example, many of their advertisers insist on inventory ONLY on the Comscore 250.

On the data provider side, sites need not provide data solely to Magnetic – they can continue to sell their data to companies like Yahoo, Google, and Bing. They can simply add Magnetic to their set of paying contracts and make more money. Always a good thing.

As I say, I am a big believer in this space. As a means of driving scale for transactional advertising, search retargeting can and should be a powerful extension of an SEM program. Definitely worth a look!

Thanks to ad:tech for publishing this first.

Posted on: 05-28-2011
Posted in: Oldest Living Digital Marketer

Start-Up Watch COD: Longboard Media reaches shoppers when – wait for it – they’re shopping online 0

As the demands for ROI and accountability from digital marketing continue to grow more acute, more than a few companies are innovating to find ways to connect with active shoppers. After all, this model is the key to why search sucks up such a high proportion of online dollars. And now we have in-store mobile apps, and search retargeting, and and and.

The people at have become successful by recognizing that some of the most ingenious ideas are dead simple. In their case, they’ve built a business with one profound concept:

To reach and persuade shoppers, why not connect with them when they’re shopping?

Dammit I hate it when I see a start-up idea that was right there in front of me, but so obvious that I couldn’t see it. Another set of people (though truth be told, a group of people I like very much) have the opportunity to get rich, while I get the opportunity to write 504 words about their genius.

But no matter. My sour(ish) grapes aside, the concept behind Longboard should be under the slang dictionary under “sure thing.” They’re an ad network that focuses exclusively on a shopping vertical – that is, they aggregate inventory exclusively on shopping and comparison sites. Actually, given that they sell just 16 sites, with perfect transparency, they really fit under the rep firm moniker as well. Here’s a list of some of the properties they represent:

Buzzillions
Overstock
Smarter
Shop.com
Shopwiki
Productwiki
Geodelic
Shopsavvy
Become
Wize
This Next
Systemax

When you look at that list, it’s pretty easy to conclude that the people they are packaging up for advertisers are definitely in the buying mode.

Reaching more than 55 million people monthly, Longboard offers the opportunity for both focus and scale. Demographically, they represent a fairly broad cross section of demos, and a nearly even split of men and women. That surprised me a little given that women buy around 85% of total stuff, but I suspect it reflect men’s greater interest in online information seeking.

Targeting options are numerous, from demo and geo to retargeting, product and category level segmentation, and complementary product matching. In total, they offer solutions for 54 product categories. In addition to IABs, they offer page sponsorships, badge/buttons, text links, video, and custom programs based upon specific advertiser specs. All rich media formats supported.

While the concept is magically kerplunk, their technology platform is quite intricate and sophisticated, making it possible for them to deliver rather imaginative and customized programs suited to very specific business objectives.

It’s tough to know what else to say about these folks. It’s all there in the dead simple concept, and a set of business practices that offer what brands seek when they’re looking to cost effectively reach shoppers. Since so many purchases are either being made online or are being informed by online searches for information and advice, the concept is an absolute natural. Especially when brands in their 54 categories want to sell stuff ASAP.

Thanks to ad:tech for publishing this first.

Posted on: 05-14-2011
Posted in: Oldest Living Digital Marketer

COD: Needium helps SMBs strike while the iron is hot 0

Don’t you just hate it when marketing gets mock professionalized with terms like “acute need state?”

No chance of that pomposity from the people who bring us Needium, a social media lead gen solution for SMBs that is really intriguing. The Needium people call a spade a spade, meaning that they say that the ideal time for small business to contact people is when those people really really want something.

Have you ever posted looking for a dentist recommendation? Or a restaurant suggestion for that business trip to Paramus, NJ? The data record for those searches and queries is right out there in the public domain, and through these messages people have expressed an interest in getting ideas and suggestions from the larger community.

Using Needium, the small business sets up an account, defines the needs that are relevant to its businesses, and periodically reviews a dashboard of the status updates and tweets from people in their areas that are seeking their type of services.

They can then follow up on any needs that make sense for their business. In addition, the service also scoops up specific mentions of individual businesses so they can manage their own reputation.

To respond to a need or a comment about their business they simply click the respond button. They can also join public discussions and offer their expertise and solutions directly to a broader audience.

Cost of the service is $100 a month, and the focus on identifying stated needs and life stage changes makes the information extremely actionable for small businesses.

The Montreal-based start-up is active in a number of Canadian and US cities, and is expanding that list. Service is available in English and en Francais. Something for small businesses to explore — helping SMBs to drive ROI from social media discussions in a simple and easy to manage way.

Posted on: 02-4-2011
Posted in: Oldest Living Digital Marketer