We live in a polarized world. Discussions about high impact, premium and native advertising always seem to be at odds with conventional display. This approach is wrong. I am guilty of it. We are all guilty of it.
The truth of the matter is that the banner ad is celebrating 20 years of existence since it does serve a purpose. Used correctly within a plan, Click throughs lead to conversions and sales. They drive traffic into stores.
So why all the hating on banners? Why don't they get the love they deserve? Because they are a useful part of a plan. Not an entire plan.
Engaging with consumers starts with telling a story. Telling a story through text content, or showing an image the depicts a lifestyle, or showing consumers what you represent with video, or drawing an audience in with interactivity. Banners do a terrible job at this.
Telling is not Selling
Once you have the audience's attention, once you have communicated your value proposition, once a brand has projected the lifestyle they represent, you have to close the deal. You have to remind the consumer that you are there. You have to follow them and pester them and remind them that you exist until the transaction is complete. This is the value of banners since the audience doesn't need to hear the story again and if they want to they can probably find it on their own.
This blog post sounds like I am a big proponent of banners. I am not. However this blog post is my admission that banners do have their place and purpose. They have a purpose after the story has been told. They have a purpose after the value has been communicated.
CheckM8 works with publishers, agencies and brands to create rich environments and ad formats that attract the audience's attention and then provide the canvas for visual and interactive story telling. We provide the vehicle for advertisers to connect with their customers so that they can follow up with banners and seal the deal at another time and place.
Otherwise, banners are useless.
Monday, September 29, 2014
Friday, August 29, 2014
Why Highway Billboard Ads Beat Web Banner Ads
Article from Digiday: http://digiday.com/brands/highway-billboards-beat-web-banners/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_term=Digiday%20Daily%20Newsletter&utm_campaign=DD%20Daily_final
The summary is that billboard ads give advertisers a bigger and better canvas for messaging. Technology can target and retarget ads all they like but do not provide the vehicle for storytelling that a larger canvas will.
Additionally, audiences are conditioned to optically skip and ignore ads. This does not happen with roadside billboards or non standard or high impact placements.
The summary is that billboard ads give advertisers a bigger and better canvas for messaging. Technology can target and retarget ads all they like but do not provide the vehicle for storytelling that a larger canvas will.
Additionally, audiences are conditioned to optically skip and ignore ads. This does not happen with roadside billboards or non standard or high impact placements.
33% of your Ads Views are Fraud: The Cost of Bots to Online Advertising
This article (http://digiday.com/agencies/hidden-cost-bots/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_term=Digiday%20Daily%20Newsletter&utm_campaign=DD%20Daily_final) talks about how much bots or NHT are costing the online advertising industry. They speculate that 33% of all traffic is bot generated and that bots are sophisticated enough to spend time on pages, scroll and click through to advertiser web sites.
The effects are that NHT is not only eating up ad spend through wasted impressions but that advertisers are seeing click results through bot traffic and optimizing campaigns towards those fraudulent numbers.
Bots are unable to do complex actions such as completing registration forms, transacting e-commerce or submitting an email. This is why a immersive experience that encourages deeper interaction is the way to go. Creating ads with a rich experience and vehicle for complex audience interactions combats ad fraud from bots and enables advertisers to accurately determine where their money is best spent.
The effects are that NHT is not only eating up ad spend through wasted impressions but that advertisers are seeing click results through bot traffic and optimizing campaigns towards those fraudulent numbers.
Bots are unable to do complex actions such as completing registration forms, transacting e-commerce or submitting an email. This is why a immersive experience that encourages deeper interaction is the way to go. Creating ads with a rich experience and vehicle for complex audience interactions combats ad fraud from bots and enables advertisers to accurately determine where their money is best spent.
Thursday, August 28, 2014
Less Ads, but High Impact/Prominent Placement Means More Revenue
This article in @Digiday: http://digiday.com/publishers/publishers-foregoing-online-ads/ details how many prominent publishers are doing what makes sense for themselves, their advertisers and their audience. They are eliminating non effective display placements in favor of fewer higher impact, prominent placements. The end result is:
It all makes sense since ad blindness (the user being conditioned to ignore the standard banners they see on every site) has killed the effectiveness of standard ads with response rates of .01%.
We at CheckM8 have found that creating custom ad units designed for a publisher's site has increased click through and interaction rates by 10x. This is due to the unique presentation of the ad and the better canvas for the digital messaging, storytelling and assets that most effectively lead to achieving campaign goals.
- Increased advertising revenues
- Better advertiser results
- Audience sees less ads
It all makes sense since ad blindness (the user being conditioned to ignore the standard banners they see on every site) has killed the effectiveness of standard ads with response rates of .01%.
We at CheckM8 have found that creating custom ad units designed for a publisher's site has increased click through and interaction rates by 10x. This is due to the unique presentation of the ad and the better canvas for the digital messaging, storytelling and assets that most effectively lead to achieving campaign goals.
Monday, August 25, 2014
Why Publishers Should Focus on Mobile Web, Not Apps
This article from Digiday details what we have been thinking and what publishers have been telling us for a long time: http://digiday.com/publishers/publishers-concentrate-mobile-web-apps/
Quite simply, brand publishers are best off using apps like Facebook, Google Search, Gmail, Twitter, Google+ and Yahoo! Mail to distribute headlines that then drive traffic through the side doors of the site, their article pages.
Not only does it drive traffic but also efficiency. When sites are designed responsively, a site built once dynamically orientates to the device where it is viewed. Content is updated once and ads can be managed through one platform.
Unless you are a stand alone application such as a Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest or utility application like a fantasy football or game app, you need to concentrate your efforts on building a responsive site that addresses your mobile web audience.
Quite simply, brand publishers are best off using apps like Facebook, Google Search, Gmail, Twitter, Google+ and Yahoo! Mail to distribute headlines that then drive traffic through the side doors of the site, their article pages.
Not only does it drive traffic but also efficiency. When sites are designed responsively, a site built once dynamically orientates to the device where it is viewed. Content is updated once and ads can be managed through one platform.
Unless you are a stand alone application such as a Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest or utility application like a fantasy football or game app, you need to concentrate your efforts on building a responsive site that addresses your mobile web audience.
Tuesday, July 8, 2014
The Ad Ops Nightmare of Native & How CheckM8 Eases the Pain
This article from AdMonsters details the pain that publishers, and more particularly ad ops, face when pitching and delivering native advertising campaigns: http://www.admonsters.com/blog/answering-call-ad-ops-native-world
To summarize, the biggest challenges include:
From our experience, the most successful publishers who sell native display sponsorships simplify the process. Here is how it is done:
1 - Find formats that get approved editorially. Find the balance of what attracts an audience's attention while not disrupting the user's experience. Ad units that fit into the look and feel of the site deliver an amazing branding & transaction vehicle while complimenting the publisher's brand. When done right, this approach improves the viewer's experience since many members of an audience visit a publisher's site as much for the advertisers and learning what is going on in their field as much as they rely on the editorial content of the media.
A big consideration in format selection is flexibility. Make sure that you are getting a format or placement approved that has the ability to deliver a variety of creative assets so that each campaign can be customized to most effectively achieve an advertiser's goals. Make sure the placement is not solely for video or e-commerce or registration. Do your advertiser a service by offering a canvas that delivers the assets most appropriate for their campaign goals.
2 - Pricing. Our most successful publishing clients base their pricing on time based sponsorships. They sell high impact branding placements as an exclusive by number of days. This eliminates frequency capping and time of day delivery. Based on an average number of page views publishers can comfortable set impression minimums but that should not be the focus of the ad sale.
3 - Available Resources to Put it All Together. This is where publishers rely on CheckM8. We specialize in two areas critical in native display ad units - creative development and site integration.
Site Integration - Without a solution that provides ad serving, the publisher is left to integrating native ad units into their site through their CMS. They actually need to change the web site. This puts the entire site stability at risk with the limited gain of delivering an ad campaign. Add to this the inability to track interactions when an ad unit is hard coded into the site. Stack on the complexity of creating an ad unit/units that reach the audience on tablets, phones and desktops and you easily identify why native display is not as common as it is effective.
Creative - For creative to be done right, each campaign needs to be adjusted to fit the advertiser's goals. There is only so much templatization a publisher can do without becoming stale. The limited number of native display campaigns and the complexity of creating unique units for each screen (tablet, phone & desktop) makes this a full time job for a limited scale placement and very inefficient.
The above reasons are exactly why top tier publishers work with CheckM8 on their native display advertising campaigns. We are experts in site integration and creative development while giving our clients the time and attention they deserve for site specific campaigns. Other vendors discourage non standard campaigns since they don't have massive scale.
4 - Advertisers & Creative Control. Finally, working with a third party vendor to execute native display ads has two real advantages:
The first is using them as a liaison between the advertiser and the site to make sure that advertisers and their agencies don't lose creative control while not creating a placement that will violate the publisher's user experience guidelines. Having an expert on both sides of the equation not only makes for better ad creation but a vendor like CheckM8 serves as a buffer when conflicting opinions arise. Our expertise on both sides enables us to effectively communicate the other side's point of view and find simple solutions that satisfies all parties.
Secondly, when advertisers work directly with the vendor it gives them the ability to create high impact placements that can scale to multiple sites without forcing multiple publishers to recreate the entire unit. Build once, tweak often. This allows for creative optimization for native display ad campaigns running on multiple sites along with one source for tracking interactions.
CheckM8 distinguishes itself by being the one source solution for native display advertising for desktop, tablets & phones and it is our purpose to help advertisers and publishers deliver more effective campaigns while simplifying the process.
To summarize, the biggest challenges include:
- Scale and the economics of creating custom ad units for campaigns with limited page views
- Pricing
- Aligning advertiser's goals with publisher's audience experience
- Available resources to pull it all together
- Advertisers & agencies relinquishing control of creative
From our experience, the most successful publishers who sell native display sponsorships simplify the process. Here is how it is done:
1 - Find formats that get approved editorially. Find the balance of what attracts an audience's attention while not disrupting the user's experience. Ad units that fit into the look and feel of the site deliver an amazing branding & transaction vehicle while complimenting the publisher's brand. When done right, this approach improves the viewer's experience since many members of an audience visit a publisher's site as much for the advertisers and learning what is going on in their field as much as they rely on the editorial content of the media.
A big consideration in format selection is flexibility. Make sure that you are getting a format or placement approved that has the ability to deliver a variety of creative assets so that each campaign can be customized to most effectively achieve an advertiser's goals. Make sure the placement is not solely for video or e-commerce or registration. Do your advertiser a service by offering a canvas that delivers the assets most appropriate for their campaign goals.
2 - Pricing. Our most successful publishing clients base their pricing on time based sponsorships. They sell high impact branding placements as an exclusive by number of days. This eliminates frequency capping and time of day delivery. Based on an average number of page views publishers can comfortable set impression minimums but that should not be the focus of the ad sale.
3 - Available Resources to Put it All Together. This is where publishers rely on CheckM8. We specialize in two areas critical in native display ad units - creative development and site integration.
Site Integration - Without a solution that provides ad serving, the publisher is left to integrating native ad units into their site through their CMS. They actually need to change the web site. This puts the entire site stability at risk with the limited gain of delivering an ad campaign. Add to this the inability to track interactions when an ad unit is hard coded into the site. Stack on the complexity of creating an ad unit/units that reach the audience on tablets, phones and desktops and you easily identify why native display is not as common as it is effective.
Creative - For creative to be done right, each campaign needs to be adjusted to fit the advertiser's goals. There is only so much templatization a publisher can do without becoming stale. The limited number of native display campaigns and the complexity of creating unique units for each screen (tablet, phone & desktop) makes this a full time job for a limited scale placement and very inefficient.
The above reasons are exactly why top tier publishers work with CheckM8 on their native display advertising campaigns. We are experts in site integration and creative development while giving our clients the time and attention they deserve for site specific campaigns. Other vendors discourage non standard campaigns since they don't have massive scale.
4 - Advertisers & Creative Control. Finally, working with a third party vendor to execute native display ads has two real advantages:
The first is using them as a liaison between the advertiser and the site to make sure that advertisers and their agencies don't lose creative control while not creating a placement that will violate the publisher's user experience guidelines. Having an expert on both sides of the equation not only makes for better ad creation but a vendor like CheckM8 serves as a buffer when conflicting opinions arise. Our expertise on both sides enables us to effectively communicate the other side's point of view and find simple solutions that satisfies all parties.
Secondly, when advertisers work directly with the vendor it gives them the ability to create high impact placements that can scale to multiple sites without forcing multiple publishers to recreate the entire unit. Build once, tweak often. This allows for creative optimization for native display ad campaigns running on multiple sites along with one source for tracking interactions.
CheckM8 distinguishes itself by being the one source solution for native display advertising for desktop, tablets & phones and it is our purpose to help advertisers and publishers deliver more effective campaigns while simplifying the process.
Monday, June 30, 2014
IAB Native Ad Guidelines "Cheat Sheet"
The Interactive Advertising Bureau gathered insights and commentary from industry professionals to set out guidelines for Native Advertising. The full IAB Playbook can be found here: http://www.iab.net/media/file/IABNativeAdvertisingPlaybookFINAL.pdf
This document attempts to define six forms of native advertising, proposes questions that advertisers should ask themselves to make sure the Native formats meet marketing objectives, and provides disclosure guidelines to ensure that consumers do not confuse paid advertising with traditional content.
The IAB notes that this is an evolving form of advertising and there is no consensus definition of what is Native. The IAB has trouble defining the Core Six Formats and how they fit marketers needs since each of these formats can be altered and defined by the media company or technology provider. Marketers and media companies should speak in the same language when talking about the formats in relation to the questions that every marketer should ask.
"Publishers and advertisers aspire to deliver paid ads that are so cohesive with the page content, assimilated into the design, and consistent with the platform behavior that the viewer simply feels that they belong."
"Native is decidedly and overwhelmingly a form of brand advertising and, as such, will enable marketers to better use digital marketing to meet the full range of their communication needs, from branding to direct marketing."
The Core 6 Formats:
In Feed Units - Generally paid posts within a newsfeed. The posts look like the preceding stories (for content producers) or "friend" posts (Twitter & Facebook).
Paid Search Units - Posts correlating with a search inquiry.
Recommendation Widgets - Content recommendation engines that say something along the lines of, "If you liked this content then you may want to try this content."
Promoted Listings - Common on shopping sites but also used in search applications such as Foursquare, they are basically the same as Paid Search and Recommendation Widgets.
In-Ad (IAB Standard) with Native Element Units - IAB Standard units with content feeds or media company branding inside.
Custom/"Can't Be Contained" - Specialized display ad units that are non standard and fit the media company's site.
The Core 6 Questions for marketers to ask to ensure that a unit will meet the brand's objectives:
Recommended IAB Native Advertising Disclosure Principles (Simply put): Regardless of context, a reasonable consumer should be able to distinguish between what is paid advertising vs. what is publisher content.
Sample disclosure statements can be found in the original document.
This document attempts to define six forms of native advertising, proposes questions that advertisers should ask themselves to make sure the Native formats meet marketing objectives, and provides disclosure guidelines to ensure that consumers do not confuse paid advertising with traditional content.
The IAB notes that this is an evolving form of advertising and there is no consensus definition of what is Native. The IAB has trouble defining the Core Six Formats and how they fit marketers needs since each of these formats can be altered and defined by the media company or technology provider. Marketers and media companies should speak in the same language when talking about the formats in relation to the questions that every marketer should ask.
"Publishers and advertisers aspire to deliver paid ads that are so cohesive with the page content, assimilated into the design, and consistent with the platform behavior that the viewer simply feels that they belong."
"Native is decidedly and overwhelmingly a form of brand advertising and, as such, will enable marketers to better use digital marketing to meet the full range of their communication needs, from branding to direct marketing."
The Core 6 Formats:
In Feed Units - Generally paid posts within a newsfeed. The posts look like the preceding stories (for content producers) or "friend" posts (Twitter & Facebook).
Paid Search Units - Posts correlating with a search inquiry.
Recommendation Widgets - Content recommendation engines that say something along the lines of, "If you liked this content then you may want to try this content."
Promoted Listings - Common on shopping sites but also used in search applications such as Foursquare, they are basically the same as Paid Search and Recommendation Widgets.
In-Ad (IAB Standard) with Native Element Units - IAB Standard units with content feeds or media company branding inside.
Custom/"Can't Be Contained" - Specialized display ad units that are non standard and fit the media company's site.
The Core 6 Questions for marketers to ask to ensure that a unit will meet the brand's objectives:
- Form - How does the ad fit with the overall page design? Is it in the viewer's activity stream or not in-stream?
- Function - Does the ad function like the other elements on the page? Does it deliver the same type of content experience or is it different?
- Integration - How well do the ad unit's behaviors match those of the surrounding content?
- Buying & Targeting - Is the ad placement guaranteed on a specific page, section, or site, or will it be delivered across a network of sites?
- Measurement - What metrics are typically used to judge success? Are marketers using top-of-the-funnel brand engagement metrics like awareness and views or are they using more transnational metrics such as sale, download, register, etc?
- Disclosure - Is the disclosure clear and prominent? Does the audience know that it is an ad?
Recommended IAB Native Advertising Disclosure Principles (Simply put): Regardless of context, a reasonable consumer should be able to distinguish between what is paid advertising vs. what is publisher content.
Sample disclosure statements can be found in the original document.
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