All aboard the Paid Advertising train? Think twice before you do.

The news has been filled recently with the emergence of Programmatic and Native Advertising into mainstream media as well as the dispute over its place in Marketing. Throughout this Digital Marketing Course it has become very clear to me that Marketing is an art, but it has been used for the dark side, which has earned it somewhat of a bad reputation (unfair). I’d like highlight that the few organizations that have used Marketing as a vessel for manipulation have got the wrong idea, and are not profiting from their tactics. I am proud to be a Digital Marketer and see Marketing as a field that connects consumers with products and service to satisfy their needs (and wants, too). This connection is where Marketers use different communication methods, forms, and vessel to get the ‘right message’ to the ‘right target’, and Digital Marketing is playing a HUGE role in this connection. Previous blog posts have covered everything from improving Landing Pages to Search Engine Optimization to foster this link, but Programmatic and Native advertising have been steadily gaining a spot in the linkage.

Now, you might be wondering…‘So, what is Programmatic or Native Advertising?”

Programmatic Advertising: The use of an algorithm to optimize the buying and selling of digital advertising that allows organizations to increase the efficiency of ad purchasing in real time. Programmatic is different from Real-Time-Bidding (RTB) because is offers guaranteed impressions from reputable publishers in advance, but is similar in the sense that all RTB is programmatic, but not all programmatic is RTB. It is growing, and is predicted to account for 20% of Digital Advertising Budgets this year.  Read further on these terms on Digiday and Forbes.

Native Advertising: Organizations working with digital publishers to promote content to a target market with the aim of gaining awareness, building loyalty, and encouraging engagement. You will typically find these advertisements embedded within the content, and it isn’t always obvious evident that it is advertising (hence the ‘native’). The Guardian offers some excellent insight on this topic.

You might now be asking ‘Where would I see this type of Advertising?’ Or ‘Why will this benefit me or my clients?’

Examples of Native Advertising can be promoted ads on Facebook or Twitter, and soon to be Pinterest as ‘Artful, promoted Pins’ says Wall Street Journal (see below). You might also hear Native Advertising in Podcasts or on a streaming service such as Pandora. Most famously, and probably most successfully, Buzz Feed is king of Native Advertising. In 2014, they hired a VP of Native Advertising, Tessa Gould, and that is a telling sign of the future of the Paid Advertising landscape.

  

Examples of Programmatic Advertising are harder to find and less obvious, but seem to profitable for those firms willing to be early adopters of this tactic. Notably, Oreo was the first to buy advertising space at the Super Bowl via Programmatic means. AOL has also recently gained publicity for their implementation of Programmatic Buying which is leading to regaining market share. Their advertising sales have increase 20%. Programmatic Advertising is less publicized, but steadily gaining attention.

‘How can you implement Native or Programmatic Advertising?’

This is probably the most important question you could be asking as you continue to strive to provide the best marketing strategy to your client, or yourself. I predict Native Advertising will continue to be a popular tactic for consumer engagement, and new mediums will become flooded with native ads, as we’ve seen with Instagram, Twitter, and Podcasts. Realize that when your advertisement is targeted towards a specific consume segment that is likely to be using that medium the ad is less likely to be recited as an inconvenience, but as a practical solution. If you decide to pursue Native Advertising ensure your Segmentation and Targeting is flawless. Native Advertising has also created a revenue stream for brands on Social Media platforms that were previously difficult to profit from, which is another added bonus. Remember to ensure that your earned media is as equitable and prevalent as your paid advertising to ensure your brand equity is growing. Plus, consumers are often incredibly suspicious of Native Advertising, which might be a barrier for your organizations, therefore selecting publishers that will reach your TM is critical to effectiveness of the campaign.

I am not entirely sure how quickly programmatic advertising will rise, but it is showing promise for those organizations that are adopting it. It seems it is promising for online mediums (websites, rich media, and video), and is less accurate (currently) for mainstream television because of the diversity of the audience. It offers increased efficiencies in terms of using human capital for ad buying and selling, yet doesn’t offer the uniquely human intuition that can’t be encapsulated into an algorithm. It will allow you to buy and sell at higher volumes and higher speeds without using as many resources (human, financial, technological). I do foresee ‘Premium Programmatic Advertising’ to be more valuable than low-quality advertising, and so do brand giants such as Cadillac and CBS. OpenX is a company that is at the forefront of this trend. They “…create highly efficient, high quality programmatic advertising markets that deliver optimal value to buyers and sellers and evolve rapidly to support the growth of the digital economy across screens and formats”. Working with a company like this can ensure you are maximizing Programmatic Ad buying and therefore generate the highest ROI on your efforts.

Regardless of where you allocate your advertising budget this is not a one-and-done effort. Native and Programmatic Advertising are just part of your marketing campaign, and will still require TLC to cultivate and convert leads to customers. Remember to be authentic, and engaged with your audience. And last, but not least, you must have good content for all your Paid Advertising and promote it on high-quality publishers…Quality matters. 

5 Step Guide to Launching your Google Adwords Campaign

After reading my last blog post about the value of Paid Search and PPC advertising  I hope you are as eager as I am to launch your own campaign, and this post will offer you the tools to do it yourself. I will be discussing the use of Google Adwords as the medium, but remember their are other great Paid search advertising platforms such as Facebook, Bing, and Yahoo. Their are a few differences between them, but Google offers a great array of advertising options in terms of their reach. Follow these 5 steps and you are on your way:

1. Set objectives & identify (reasonable) expectations for your Paid Search Campaign. I’ve heard time and again that clients often have unreasonable expectations when it comes to PPC, and when results aren’t instantaneous or tangible their can be dissonance. Understanding how integrated your Inbound Marketing Strategy is to your overall PPC success is essential. Even if you have great PPC, but crappy SEO and Content, you might not see the desired results. Whether you are running a campaign for yourself, a few clients or working in agency you don’t want to over-promise and then underperform. Here are a few tips from Search Engine Journal about managing expectations of clients.
2. Set Up your Google Adwords account (it’s FREE), and decided WHERE you want to be seen (Google Display Network and/or Google Search Network).You can set up separate campaigns for each of your clients or projects, and then divide each ad group in those campaigns based on specific ads or offerings. See the diagram below for how you should set up your account for optimum usage.
    
3. Assign a Paid Search budget, and decide on a bidding strategy that aligns with your overall budget, and enable you to meet conversion goals. You will need to discuss with a client what their needs, wants, and expectations are as part of step 1 and often this translates into to a budget ballpark. I encourage showing clients the numbers and past success stories to get them to buy into the Adwords ‘way’ and maybe earn yourself a higher budget. Here is another Hubspot resource on avoiding  money wasting which can be a positive selling point for clients, (and for yourself).
   1. 3 types of Bidding Strategies:
      1. CPM: (Cost-Per-Thousand-Impressions) implement this strategy when trying to increase brand awareness and build brand equity, and are less conversion focused.
      2. CPC: (Cost-Per-Click) Client wanting to increase conversions via clicks? This bidding strategy might be for them because it is likely to drive the most traffic to their site or landing pages.
      3. CPA: (Cost-Per-Action) With this strategy you can measure direct actions that lead to conversions.
4. Select a Content Strategy, ad type, format, extensions, and additional features that will enable you to reach your buyer personas.
   1. What is your Keyword Strategy? Broad, Phrase, or Exact Match? One of my favorite piece of advice from Google’s Study Guide is to optimize common misspellings and plural forms (called Keyword Variations) of your brand name or product to increase ‘clicks’. Visit this page for a refresher on keyword strategy options.
   2. What types of ads are you going to display? Text, Image, Video, or Mobile App ads? Different Ad formats offer different conversion advantages, and therefore should be selected based on what your specific goals are for the campaign. This might range from from increasing brand awareness to driving qualified leads. Have you considered extensions? Think about site-link, app, call and review extensions (see infographic for an example, but their are many more types.) Also, click here for 5 great examples of effective ad extensions. Remember, Ad Quality is one of the determinants of the Ad Ranking, and therefore should be high quality. If they aren’t up to par you should inform the client, and offer potential remedies.
   3. Where do you want your ad to be seen, and by whom? You can set your campaigns to only reach specific geographic areas, demographic profiles, language preferences, and select devices to push your ads to ensure the intended audience gets exposure through targeting efforts.
   4. Will you engage in remarking? Remarking is a type of sub-campaign option that allows you to target visitors who have previously searched for your offerings but didn’t complete the macro conversion. Remarking aims to recapture the consumers attention, and convert them through exposing them to ads on the Display Network sites.
5. Launch & monitor Performance in Real-Time to make necessary changes for maximum effectiveness.
   1. Where are your ‘clicks’ coming from? (Referral Source) Where are the ‘clicks’ going once they arrive on your site? (Destination URL). Awareness of these two connections will help you determine which Landing Pages to improve and understand visitor behavior while on site.
   2. What device are the ‘clicks’ using? (Allows for Ad optimization for specific device platforms)
   3. Look for Time of Day/Hour for ‘click’ patterns. This may help you to optimize your bidding budget for times when you are most likely to have the greatest reach leading to increased conversions. Check out this PPCHero Article about understanding these effects.Adwords is fairly intuitive to reaching the right audience, at the right time, but you will need to specify that Adwords can do this.
   4. Monitor your Search Terms Report for frequently used keywords that you should optimize or to discontinue using certain keywords if they are proving ineffective in converting traffic. This report might also offer insight into which negative keywords to add to your campaign to funnel out unqualified leads.

There you go…Follow these 5 steps to kickstart your Adwords Campaign!

a1Remember whether your managing your own content advertising, working in an agency, or working per diem for clients you can apply all the steps above. Optimizing any marketing tool takes time to learn, but once you lap the learning curve you are on your way to increasing conversions, and having a well-rounded Inbound Marketing Strategy that satisfies clients.