Category Archives: Next to Now

Next to Now: Valentine’s Day Edition

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SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGERS REJOICE

As a Valentine’s Day present to social media managers who like to keep their personal and their business identities distinct, Instagram announced this week that they are finally going to allow users to toggle between multiple accounts.

#instagram #social

 

INFORMATION OVERLOAD

From Quartz:

“Many people today struggle with information overload. We shift our attention between online and offline activities every 45 seconds, according to Gloria Mark, professor of informatics at the University of California at Irvine.”

In a world of information overload, advertisers need to respect their audiences and reach them in environments where the message can be heard

#attention

 

GOOD NEWS FOR QUALITY CONTENT

The FT hit a readership record: 780,000 paying readers, the highest in their 128 year history. In his latest newsletter, Ben Evans says,

“The FT now has the highest paying readership in its history. Remember how ‘pay walls’ were a staggeringly stupid idea? The Times is also now breaking even.”

This is also a win for advertisers (like books!) that match well with the audiences on these blue chip platforms (The FT, the New York Times, etc.). Reaching a committed reader in a place where s/he is reading relevant, engaging information. The best advertising shows its target what they want when they want it.

#thoughtleaders #targeting

 

WHAT GAME?

From USA Today on last Sunday’s Super Bowl: “According to Venables Bell & Partners, 78% of people were more excited about the commercials than the game last night.”

#superbowl

 

HOW DO YOU MEASURE AD SUCCESS?

That Mountain Dew ad freaked me out, but it was successful (especially when you remember that 40+ year old men are not the target demo):   

“Mountain Dew’s director of brand marketing Sadira Furlow told Adweek the Super Bowl campaign generated 11 million views across social media since its first teaser spot launched on Jan. 22.”

#roi

 

SNAPCHAT USER STUDY

While I watched the Super Bowl with my Twitter stream running, my 15 year old son was watching it with Snapchat running. While dedicated Snapchat users are a growing bunch, a recent study suggests they’re not engaging with the branded content as much as they are with their friends. To the question “How often do you buy something you saw on Snapchat,” 87% of respondents replied “Never.” 54% of respondents said they never watch Snap Discover Stories.  

#snapchat #streaming

 

THE TOP SUPER BOWL ADS

Hub Spot lists the top Super Bowl ads: Heinz, Snickers, Pokeman, Axe . . . Though it was the least flashy, I wonder if the most successful ad of the night wasn’t the one for the new Jason Bourne movie. It reached it’s target audience, delivered the message they wanted to hear (after taking a movie off, Matt Damon’s back as Jason Bourne!), and stuck in the mind. No tricks, just the right ad at the right time. Maybe only Beyonce’s ad for “Formation” directly following her performance was better targeted.

#superbowl #video

 

MOBILE USAGE WAS HIGH DURING THE 2016 SUPERBOWL

The second-screen phenomenon for huge live events is a regular thing. You probably knew that already, but it’s always worth a reminder. 

#mobile

Next to Now: The Super Bowl of Advertising Edition

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It’s Super Bowl weekend! That means most of the advertising industry is strutting, preening, and fretting in advance of the one event in which ads are at least as anticipated as the game. This time of year the industry’s worries are on full display: are we just making ads so people can see what fancy ads we’re making, or are we actually helping to sell products? We know where we stand at Verso.
IF A MARKETER DUNKS IN THE DARK, WILL ANYBODY SEE IT?

Only a few years removed from the Super Bowl power outage and the Oreo tweet that launched a thousand industry thought pieces — “Power out? No problem, you can still dunk in the dark” — the idea of social media “war rooms” is on the wane. It turns out that not only is a “free” social media onslaught expensive, it’s also not as wide reaching as it used to be:

“A couple of years ago, there was a lot more fun and opportunity in real-time marketing,” said Gareth Goodall, partner and chief strategy officer at Anomaly. “Those days are behind us. It’s a paid-media game today and with that, comes a lot more preparation than real-time inspiration.”

#social #freeisexpensive

 

POLITICS AT POLITICO

Politico has never been immune to the political turmoil it covers so well, but with two founders scheduled to leave at the end of the election cycle the question becomes: is this an orderly transition that signifies the site’s healthy growth or a sign of an unstable foundation for the future?

#politics

WHAT WILL A SUPER BOWL MARKETING BUDGET BUY ONLINE?

As a thought exercise, AdWeek asked marketers what a $5 million Super Bowl ad budget would buy online. For your weekly book marketing meeting, here are some alternatives: 1.5MM app installs; 5 custom Twitter emojis; 12.5 days of sponsored Snaps; 10.5 premium Instagram campaigns; 50 Tumblr takeovers; 8-10 YouTube masthead ads; and a gazillion Facebook impressions. But how many of those alternatives could possibly drive a conversation in the way that a first quarter Super Bowl spot can?

#thoughtexperiment #digitalvbroadcast

MORE THAN 50% OF US POPULATION WILL WATCH STREAMING VIDEO

EMarketer projects that 2016 will be the year that more than half of the U.S. population will watch TV shows online at least once a month.

#streaming #video

 

AUTO-PLAY GETS POPULAR (WITH WEBSITES IF NOT USERS)

Caveat emptor: Facebook’s move to auto-play has made it popular for many websites. It certainly gooses the numbers of video views. The question is are they *good* views, and do the readers like it or are publishers just asking people to install ad blockers?

#video

 

ON CONVERSATIONAL COMMERCE

Will 2016 be the year of conversational commerce? Uber’s Chris Messina thinks so. Platforms like Facebook Messenger, Peach, Slack and more are moving in this direction and advertisers should pay attention—especially since there’s more global traffic on messaging apps than there is on social networks:

“Suffice to say, the verbs we use with traditional apps are irrelevant in the conversational paradigm. We “buy”, “download”, “install”, and “trash” apps. The conversational paradigm is more social, and therefore less technologic. We use humane verbs like “add”, “invite”, “contact”, “mute”, “block”, and “message”. The language of conversation is more accessible to a broader audience, which will in turn accelerate the adoption of conversational agents faster than we saw with desktop apps.”

(via @onlydeadfish)

#messaging

 

MARKETERS NOW: DOWN ON FACEBOOK, UP ON SNAPCHAT

Visual marketing is in. That’s good news for Snapchat, Instagram and Pinterest:

“According to research from eMarketer, more senior U.S. ad buyers are planning to advertise on Snapchat for the first time this year over any other social media site.”

#visual #snapchat #instagram #pinterest

 

Next to Now: The Road Ahead Edition

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Does the road ahead look clear or is that just snow blindness from last weekend’s blizzard? This week we read about Facebook’s entry into live streaming, strategic shifts at Quartz, and new ways to target sports and gaming enthusiasts.

 

FACEBOOK JUMPS IN & PERISCOPE BETTER WATCH OUT

Facebook enters the live stream business: “The social network today announced it has expanded Live Video access beyond celebrities, verified users and journalists to any U.S. user with an iPhone.”

#streaming #facebook #social #video

 

INTENT TARGETING BEATS DEMO TARGETING, SAYS GOOGLE

Of course, they’re saying this because it boosts their ad model. But here are the facts Google lays out in their argument for intent targeting:

  • Only 31% of searchers for video games online are men aged 18-34. So if you want video game users and buyers and use only demographic targeting to find them, you’re missing 69% of the target audience
  • 45% of mobile searches for home improvement were made by women. So if you only targeted men for your home improvement book, you’d miss 45% of the market.

#intent #demographics #targeting

 

YOUTUBE A GREAT SOURCE FOR GAMERS

Another Google article (so, take it with a grain of salt), but YouTube is undeniably a great way to reach gamers, and the gamer audience is a good way to find entertainment enthusiasts for fantasy, science fiction, action-oriented YA, and thrillers. Some takeaways:

  • 40% of YouTube Gamers say they bought something because of a video they saw online
  • Of all the places to watch video online, YouTube remains the #1 site for gamer video
  • 88% of YouTube gamers give product recommendationos in Media & Entertainment category (a category that includes books, although it’s presumably far, far outshadowed by games and movies)

#gamers #video #youtube

 

FACEBOOK TARGETING EXPANDS BEYOND APPS

Facebook is taking its mobile network beyond the in-app ads it’s run so far–now including mobile display and native content. This makes sense:

“As popular as apps are, mobile Web browsing isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. According to a comScore report last year, digital media consumption in mobile Web browsers increased 53 percent from 2013 to 2015. Between 35 percent and 40 percent of traffic to news sites comes from mobile devices, with 93 percent of mobile audiences coming from the mobile Web.”

#facebook #mobile #targeting

 

WE INTERRUPT THIS AD-RELATED READING TO PRESENT AN AUTHOR’S POV

Chuck Wendig has some things to share with you if you’re thinking of publishing your book. Two that related to marketing:

“Said it before, will scream it again and again at the asylum walls until my spit-forth soaks the padding — social media will sell tens or hundreds of books, but not thousands. Social media is good for getting the word out! Social media is good for earnestly talking about your book. Social media is not a good long-term sales channel.”

and:

“The more money spent on your book means the more money gets spent on your book. This is both sensible and weird. Sensible because investments must be protected, and sometimes you protect an investment by adding money to it. Weird because, hey, why does Coca-Cola advertise? Do they need it? Is there anybody in the world who doesn’t know that Coke exists? But even Coca-Cola must remind the world of its presence (and if I recall, Coke’s sales are down, too).”

#marketing #social #advertising

 

HOW TO ADVERTISE TO THE SUPER BOWL AUDIENCE WITHOUT A MILLION BUCKS

In their effort to get advertisers thinking of YouTube as a viable, affordable alternative to Super Bowl advertising, Google makes good points about ways to advertise to this audience if you don’t have five million to blow on thirty seconds of air: find content the demo likes, advertise earlier at key moments (the draft, opening day, crucial regular season games, etc), and don’t forget that this game is relevant to other categories than sports, including tail-gate worthy food, music, video games and more.

Here’s a link to key moments in the course of the season. 

#youtube #targeting #sports

 

QUARTZ SHINES, SHIFTS, GROWS

From a Nieman Lab interview with Quartz publisher Jay Lauf:

  • 42% of revenue from mobile
  • Despite the strength in mobile, the introduction of mobile ad blockers haven’t presented a problem (this makes sense given the nature of the site and the style of ads)
  • After famously launching as a site only, Quartz is now introducing an app. They’re doing this primarily because they want in on the app notification game

Quartz remains a great platform for reaching smart, tech-savvy, business-oriented readers. They’re a smart choice for a business or cultural trend book.

#quartz #business

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: AD RESEARCH EDITION

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ARE BUY BUTTONS ON SOCIAL MEDIA A GOOD IDEA?

Marketers are very excited by social media buy buttons, but consumers? Not so much. This survey of user habits on social media is a useful reminder that just because an idea looks good on a marketing plan doesn’t mean it’s something that serves our customers well.

#social #media #adtech

 

DATA REVEALS SURPRISING, UNCOMFORTABLE TRUTH 

According to Spotify, the number one zip code for playing Justin Bieber’s “Sorry” is Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

#data

 

HUBSPOT ON THE BENEFITS OF NATIVE ADVERTISING

This HubSpot article on the benefits of native advertising is well-argued and cites a wealth of links to relevant studies. Of interest:

—Consumers look at native ads 52% more frequently than banner ads:.

—Native ads receive two times more visual focus than banners: 

—Native CTR performance can be 85% higher than banner ads. n.b. This data point is from a Stackadapt study that uses an “average” banner CTR of .06%. Since Verso’s average is more like .1%, the percentage improvement is not as high for our campaigns, but it’s still significant.

—Avg CTR for banner ads is .08%. n.b. This links to a useful tool from Google for identifying benchmark rates, that identifies the average click-through rate as .08% (.05% for Flash, in case anyone’s still using that format!). It’s important to keep saying this: we expect—and see—better average CTRs for Verso campaigns.

#native advertising #data

 

DIGITAL ADS ARE GETTING SMARTER. ARE ADVERTISERS?

A professor at the University of Chicago looks into advertising spend on search, email and mobile. Among his surprising discoveries: most sales do not result from users who click on ads:

“In fact, 78 percent of the increase in sales in the Yahoo experiment was from users who never clicked on the ads. ‘Even though clicks are a standard measure of performance in online-advertising campaigns, we find that focusing only on clickers leads to a serious underestimate of the campaign’s effects.’”

#research #search #email #clickthroughs

 

OLDER USERS RESPOND BETTER TO DIGITAL

Two former Yahoo researchers show that the effect of online advertising on sales increases with age, with the top performing group over 65. So maybe book publishers shouldn’t worry about Snapchat so much right now.

#research #sales

 

CREATIVE PERSISTENCE

A report from professors at the University of Chicago’s Booth Business School and Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management details the importance of persistence when it comes to creative breakthroughs.

#creative

 

NEW LUMA REPORT

Here’s LUMA’s new report on the state-of-the-art of digital marketing. The number one new trend is mass-personalization across channels. This of course requires very smart “identity” data. Slide 31 points to developments on this score. The second largest trend, content marketing, requires traditionally siloed departments such as advertising, PR, web development and email to work in concert. (Via BusinessInsider)

#adtech

 

IS THE VINE EXPERIMENT OVER?

Two years ago it was one of the hottest new marketing platforms, but AdWeek reports that today Vine accounts for just 6% of video marketing using advertiser-produced video (compared to 64% YouTube and 24% Facebook). That said, it’s still a viable platform if you use it right and partner with social media stars:

“Vine still shines when social stars are involved. Instead of brands posting their own content, Burns said that clients are looking to team up with top influencers who have amassed massive followings to create sponsored content.”

#social #video #vine

 

MOST MOBILE AND DESKTOP VIDEO ADS SERVED AGAINST SHORT FORM

Emarketer reports: “Q3 2015 research from FreeWheel found that 69% of digital video ad views served by its platform to smartphones occurred while users watched content shorter than 20 minutes.” Perhaps more surprising was the revelation that desktop video watching is still twice that on mobile and tablets:

“In 2015, US adults will spend an average of 12 minutes per day watching digital video on their smartphones and an average of 14 minutes on their tablets. Time spent on desktop and laptop is higher, with US adults spending an average of 24 minutes per day watching digital video.” 

#video

 

AGAINST BAD ADS

And by “bad,” we mean a bad experience for the user. As this NYT article says, there are far too many digital ads right now that try to work up the engagement numbers through forcing you to click on the content when you were just trying to get the ad out of your face. It’s a little ironic (but only a little), since the NY Times website is not immune to these kind of ads (this cat owner is looking at you, Purina dog chow video). But this might be the kind of culture we create when every marketing job is numbers based—judging a campaign by how many people clicked on the ad, rather than to how many people responded to what you were advertising.

#creative

Next to Now: Holidays Are Here Edition

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As the New York City sidewalks become forests of blue spruce and Canadian tree sellers and the Rockefeller Center tree lights up the night, the world of digital advertising continues to evolve. Here are links to some of the most relevant ad news we’ve seen this week:

ADBLOCKING NOT YET AN ISSUE FOR MOBILE

Nieman Lab reports that, despite the sturm und drang, adblocking for mobile is currently not a factor, though it is affecting desktop:

“The good news from publishers’ perspective is that the mobile ad apocalypse does not seem to have arrived — yet, at least. While most publishers we spoke with were reluctant to share specific numbers on the record, most said that the share of their ads being blocked on mobile since iOS 9 launched in September was minuscule — ‘1 or 2 percent’ was the range we heard most often. The big concern is still on the desktop.”

#adblocking

 

THE GUARDIAN GOES AFTER SPORTS

Digiday reports on how the Guardian’s digital team is going after the global sports audience. With the growing U.S. market interest in the English Premier League, this could make it a good venue for the right book.

#sports

 

TWITTER’S PROMOTED MOMENTS CAN BE YOURS FOR ONE MILLION DOLLARS

Twitter’s “Moments” channel has a lot of promise, especially when advertising around live events such as sports or presidential election days. As with most new high profile platforms, the bar for entry is too high for book publishers: a cool million. But over time those prices will come down. Meanwhile we can see how the high cost Starbucks, REI, and Verizon campaigns perform now, while thinking about what we want to do more efficiently down the road.

#newplatforms #twitter #social

 

FACEBOOK GETS INTO LIVE STREAMING

The social media giant introduced a live streaming platform that will compete with Periscope and Meerkat. Given their user base, this is definitely a platform that’s worth watching.  

#facebook #streaming #social

 

FACEBOOK’S NOT COOL, BUT IT HAS ITS USES

YouTube, Snapchat, and Instagram are at the top of this survey of social media that teens find “cool.” But while Facebook is only the seventh coolest in the list, teens still use it:

“A new study from research firm Forrester found that while only 65% of 12 t0 17-year-olds consider the social network “cool,” (ranking it below most other popular apps), it still generates more “hyper usage” than Snapchat, Instagram, or Twitter. About 61% say it’s the social network they use the most.”

#facebook #social #teens

 

HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW STUDIES MOBILE’S IN-STORE IMPACT

In a study sponsored by Google, HBR looked into the impact of mobile activity on brick and mortar stores. Among the findings: 28% of in-store sales were influenced by mobile activity before or during the purchase, and top uses included searching for a local retailer who carried the item (39%) or taking a picture of an item to ask a friend or family member for an opinion (38%).   

#mobile

 

SNAPCHAT LETS ‘DISCOVER’ USERS SHARE

For the first time, Snapchat is allowing companies to “deep link” to content shared on Snapchat from elsewhere. As Digiday reports:

“Until now, Discover publishers couldn’t link to their Snapchat pages from anywhere outside the app. With the benefit of social media promotion, they are likely to see a boost in traffic. It is similar to how YouTube creators expand their audience by sharing video links to third-party platforms.”  

#snapchat #social

 

THE PAST AND FUTURE OF BANNERS

Are the best years of banner ads in the past or in the future? AdWeek makes a case for programmatic creative.

#programmatic #creative

 

Next to Now: Giving Thanks Edition

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We’re getting this week’s Next to Now out a little early so you can focus the rest of the week on family, friends, food, and giving thanks.

 

A STORY ABOUT HUMAN GENEROSITY (AND AD TARGETING)

This is first of all a moving story about a person in need reaching out and another person responding. But, in the context of this blog of marketing links, it’s also a reminder that serendipity in advertising can sometimes deliver results more powerfully than the acutest targeting.   

#targeting

 

MARKETERS SAY OTHER PEOPLE’S EMAILS WASTE THEIR TIME

An eMarketer survey reveals that U.S. marketers find excessive emails are tied with wasteful meetings for the biggest thing that’s getting in the way of doing their work. No comment on their own fondness for sending emails as a successful marketing tactic.

#email

 

SNAPCHAT’S AD BUSINESS IN TROUBLE

That is, it’s in trouble given its $16 billion valuation:

“Snapchat lost more than $128 million in the first 11 months of 2014, according to a financial statement leaked earlier this year, which also showed Snapchat had revenue of $3.1 million. Its advertising business began in mid-October. Tech media outlet Re/code estimated that Snapchat’s revenue could reach $50 million in 2015.”

Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel has stated that he is not in favor of hyper-targeting his users with ads, but that might have to change if he wants to make good on the promise investors saw in his company.

…which may be a reason there are signs that Snapchat’s loosening up its data restrictions. 

#snapchat #social

 

SERIAL PODCAST ON PANDORA

Streaming successful podcasts such as Serial on Pandora has a major advantage for advertisers over downloading—with streaming we can see click throughs and collect data. With downloaded podcasts, the ads have no ability to click through. If you were hoping to advertise on Serial through Pandora, however, you’ll have to wait until next year: Warner Brothers and Esurance have locked up the slots for Seasons 1 and 2.

#podcast #streaming #pandora

 

BILL SIMMONS

Is it a coincidence that the acronym for the Bill Simmons Podcast Network from ex-ESPN gadfly Bill Simmons is BSPN?

#podcast

 

GAWKER SHIFTS AGAIN

Once the shining star of internet snarkiness, Gawker has been publically wrestling with its own identity a lot recently. Their new turn is to politics. We’ll see if the grande dame of snark can pull it off.

#gawker

 

WHAT’S BETTER FOR VIDEO ADS, FACEBOOK OR YOUTUBE?

A study by Reebok compared the same video buy across Facebook and YouTube–comparing cost, view-throughs, and engagement rates. The results seemed to favor YouTube, but suggested a combination by might be better still:  

“The results showed that combining YouTube and Facebook buys is the most effective method for marketers. Reebok shared the data during Adweek’s Executive Lab, which was sponsored by Pixability, in New York on Thursday.

    YouTube had a higher video view rate (23.6 percent of people who scrolled past the video viewed it versus Facebook’s 5.4 percent) and video completion rate (20.4 percent versus Facebook’s 4.5 percent) as well as a lower cost per view. But Facebook had higher engagement.”

#video #facebook #youtube

 

THE FIRST VR ADS HIT FACEBOOK

Facebook puts that $2B purchase of Oculus Rift to work with a first look at virtual reality ads for brands such as AT&T, Nestle, Mondelez, and Samsung.  

#vr #facebook

 

ARE GIFS THE FUTURE OF ADVERTISING?

No, but they’re a great way to get attention right now—especially if you have a video-based phenomenon to market that has lots of moments you can edit, share, and plug into a gif search engine under “YOLO,” “What’s up,” or “OMFG.” The money quote comes from Riffsy CEO David MacIntosh”:

“Three to five seconds is the new three to five minutes.”

#creative

 

CATS ON MOTOBIKES

You’d think IAMS marketers would have it easy: cute cat and dog .gifs all day long. Turns out they’re not just churning the content out, but thinking carefully of editing spots to work differently on different media. A cute cat video for TV needs to run differently than a cute cat video on Facebook. Same shoot, different edit.  

#video #facebook #cats