Lauren Donovan, Author at MarTech MarTech: Marketing Technology News and Community for MarTech Professionals Mon, 27 Mar 2023 19:34:40 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.1.1 Join us online THIS WEEK for MarTech… for free https://martech.org/the-martech-conference-news/ Mon, 27 Mar 2023 19:15:00 +0000 https://martech.org/?p=346884 Unlock the entire MarTech experience, online March 28-29, for free. No hidden fees, no travel headaches, no time out of the office.

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Driving sales, improving lead quality, and boosting conversions have never been more critical – especially in an age of increased privacy concerns. The right marketing technology is your key to getting it done.

Discover dozens of marketing technologies, tools, and solutions – all for FREE and all without leaving your desk: Grab your free MarTech pass now and join us online, this Tuesday and Wednesday (March 28-29)!

At MarTech, you’ll unlock nearly 50 data-rich sessions from world-class brands including Forrester, Sysco, Electrolux, Salesforce, and more:

Kick-off each day with eye-opening keynotes…

… and get your questions answered in real-time during live Q&A (Overtime!) with select speakers, including the godfather of martech, Scott Brinker, Mission MarTech’s Milton Hwang, and more!

You’ll also explore the critical rise of AI and what it means for marketers during exclusive programming and networking opportunities, including…

Hungry for more? Discuss ChatGPT, GA4, and MOPs challenges with like-minded attendees and industry experts during Coffee Talk meetups – only available live!

And don’t miss these recent additions to the MarTech agenda!

After just a few hours, you’ll be ready to… 

  • Leverage automation and real-time insights to optimize KPIs
  • Reduce marketing spend with a first-party data strategy
  • Apply personalization strategies that accelerate customer loyalty
  • Support additional revenue streams through audience monetization 
  • Execute campaigns to help fill your marketing funnel with new consumers
  • Reach, engage, and convert more email marketing prospects  
  • Execute more effective targeting, increase personalization, and improve ROI 

…and so much more. Can’t attend live? Explore at your own pace with instant on-demand access, included for free. 

Don’t wait… grab your free MarTech pass now and join us online, this Tuesday and Wednesday, March 28-29!

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SMX 2021 will provide the most comprehensive search marketing education available https://martech.org/smx-2021-will-provide-the-most-comprehensive-search-marketing-education-available/ Mon, 21 Dec 2020 15:20:00 +0000 https://martech.org/?p=283513 6 events, actionable tactics, affordable for all marketers

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December 21, 2020 (Edgartown, MA): Search Marketing Expo – SMX – the world’s largest search engine marketing conference series, announced it’s 2021 North American schedule, which features six topic-specific events. All will be offered online and at affordable rates, making cutting-edge search marketing education accessible to professionals at companies of all sizes.

“The pandemic has profoundly changed how search marketing professionals will learn the latest SEO and PPC strategies and tactics. Getting that training won’t require hours of planning, a week out of the office and an investment of thousands of dollars,” said Chris Elwell, CEO of SMX producer Third Door Media, Inc. “The online editions of SMX we produced in 2020 proved the viability of providing an outstanding educational experience that’s interactive and measurable,” Elwell added.

The lineup features six unique, 100%-virtual training opportunities priced between $99 and $249 — each with its own focus and target audience:

  • SMX Report – February 23: A one-day event focused on delivering proven strategies and tactics to measure and analyze search marketing success.
  • SMX Create – April 13: A one-day event that will empower marketers to create and distribute compelling content and ad copy.
  • SMX Advanced – June 15-16: An experts-only, two-day event designed for advanced marketers who want to take paid and organic campaigns to greater heights.
  • SMX Convert – August 17: A one-day event that trains marketers to effectively optimize paid search campaigns and leverage on-SERP elements for stronger conversions.
  • SMX Next – November 9-10: A two-day event featuring next-gen strategies, emerging tactics, and expert insights that will prepare search marketers for the future.
  • SMX Code – December 14: A one-day event where marketers can master emerging tactics in optimizing javascript, ad scripting, advanced analytics commands, and more.

All sessions are available for both live and on-demand viewing so attendees can balance their professional and personal lives with their commitment to continued training. Deep-dive workshops will be available during select events for an additional fee.

“SMX has always been about offering the best search marketing education for staying on top of this always evolving discipline,” said Henry Powderly, VP of content for Third Door Media. “With virtual events making it far easier for marketers to attend, we saw this as a great opportunity to offer more actionable intelligence to the community through targeted shows that go deep on concentrations like search analytics, content strategy, and code-based optimization.

“The pandemic economy has caused businesses to embrace the importance search in connecting with customers,” he said. “The Search Engine Land experts who program SMX see it as our mission to raise the skill set of all marketers who find themselves leaning on this essential channel.”

In addition to the aforementioned 2021 events, region-specific SMX events will be produced by Third Door Media’s European partner, Rising Media of Starnberg, Germany, in Germany, the UK, and France.

About Third Door Media and Search Marketing Expo – SMX

Third Door Media was founded in 2006 with the mission of empowering digital marketing professionals by providing trusted content and community services they need to be successful.

Third Door Media produces the global Search Marketing Expo – SMX® conference series. For over a decade, more than 100,000 search marketers from around the world have trusted SMX to deliver actionable tactics and expert-led training that drive awareness, traffic, leads, and revenue.

In addition, Third Door Media produces the MarTech® Conference series, which equips senior-level marketers with proven strategies, tactics, and technologies to overcome marketing and operations challenges, and is the publisher of Search Engine Land, Marketing Land, and MarTech Today.

“MarTech” and “SMX” are registered trademarks of Third Door Media, Inc.
For more information, please visit SearchMarketingExpo.com.

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The future of search marketing: Where do we go from here? https://martech.org/the-future-of-search-marketing-where-do-we-go-from-here/ Mon, 16 Nov 2020 15:33:13 +0000 https://martech.org/?p=282997 Join us online at SMX, December 8-9, to unlock two forward-thinking keynotes that will prepare you for what's next.

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As we speed towards the end of yet another an absolutely unparalleled year, search marketers like you are reflecting on what’s changed and preparing for what comes next…

  • Constant evolution of SERPs
  • Critical skills for future SEO success
  • Growing importance of structured data
  • New opportunities with marketing and artificial intelligence
  • Endless Google platform and algorithm changes
  • Increasing diversity in the SEO community

The list goes on. Join us online at SMX, December 8-9, to unlock two exclusive search marketing keynotes that will explore these exact topics and give you the opportunity to get your specific questions answered live.

Click on a keynote below to learn more, add it to your calendar, and register to attend!

Fireside Chat: What The Future Holds For SEO And The SEO Community
Tuesday, December 8 – 11:00am ET
Featuring Areej AbuAli, SEO Manager at Zoopla

Where Search Marketing Goes From Here
Wednesday, December 9 – 11:00am ET
Featuring Mike King, Founder & Managing Director at iPullRank

Be sure to stick around for Overtime live Q&A to ask Areej and Mike specific questions!

Ready to register? Book now to secure your $249 All Access pass. You’ll get these two forward-thinking keynotes plus more than 45 expert-led sessions loaded with actionable tactics that cover organic, paid, technical, and solutions.

Hungry for more? Upgrade to an All Access + Workshop bundle for just $479!

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Third Door Media welcomes Kim Davis, Rodric Bradford to MarTech Today editorial team https://martech.org/third-door-media-welcomes-kim-davis-rodric-bradford-to-martech-today-editorial-team/ Mon, 27 Jul 2020 13:19:00 +0000 https://martech.org/?p=242769 These seasoned storytellers will cover how marketing technology is changing what it means to be a marketer.

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REDDING, CT – JULY 27, 2020 – Third Door Media (TDM) has welcomed two new members to the MarTech Today editorial team — Kim Davis and Rodric Bradford. MarTech Today is a publication that focuses on the tech-driven approach to modern marketing that is transforming the profession.

As Editorial Director, Davis will lead content development for the MarTech Today brand. Previously, Davis served as Editor-in-Chief at DMN, where he covered digital and data-driven marketing strategy, technology and operations. Before that he was Senior Editor at Internet Evolution, and associate editor of a New York Times/NYU hyper-local website.

Bradford, Editor at MarTech Today, will focus on creating content that educates the community and keeps them informed on the trends and tools that are shaping marketing. Bradford’s previous work includes Business Press Convention & Technology Reporter at The Las Vegas Review-Journal, Features & Technology Reporter at The Columbia/Jefferson City Business Times, and most recently, as a television correspondent for Yurview Arizona.

“Kim and Rodric’s expertise in marketing and technology, coupled with their experiences as seasoned journalists, make them perfectly suited to advance our content strategy by informing, supporting, elevating, and convening marketing technologists through best-in-class content and experiences,” said Third Door Media Vice President of Content Henry Powderly. “Kim is a recognized thought leader in martech and marketing operations, while Rodric has covered some of the most intricate business issues across several mediums. Marketers should expect to see MarTech Today become more impactful than ever before.”

“I am excited to be joining a proven media leader in the marketing technology space at a time of change and innovation,” said Bradford. “The team-based culture at Third Door Media is a perfect opportunity to contribute content to marketers and marketing operations professionals that will have a positive effect on their bottom line.”

“This is a terrific opportunity to continue telling the story of this fast-evolving, fascinating space, and to inform marketers and marketing operations specialists about the most exciting and innovative developments,” said Davis.

About Third Door Media

Third Door Media was founded in 2006 with the mission to empower digital marketing professionals by providing trusted content and educational services. Third Door Media is the publisher of leading trade publications MarTech Today, Marketing Land and Search Engine Land, alongside its webinar and research report platform, Digital Marketing Depot. Third Door Media also produces coast-to-coast editions of The MarTech® Conference and Search Marketing Expo (SMX®), featuring industry thought leaders, expert speakers and opportunities to connect with over 100 marketing technology solution providers. “ MarTech®” and “SMX®” are registered trademarks of Third Door Media, Inc.

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1, 2, 3… Smile! Say Hi To Marketing Land On Instagram https://martech.org/1-2-3-smile-say-hi-to-marketing-land-on-instagram/ https://martech.org/1-2-3-smile-say-hi-to-marketing-land-on-instagram/#respond Thu, 07 May 2015 20:51:33 +0000 https://martech.org/?p=127941 Add a little Marketing Land into your Instagram mix.

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Greetings, marketing friend-o, so nice to see you! It’s always nice to see you, whether it’s here, or on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn – the usual social media suspects. But did you know that Marketing Land is on Instagram? Yeah, our pics are pretty #onfleek TBH. Maybe? Kinda. I don’t know, you decide!

If you’re on Instagram, check us out – @marketingland. Toss a follow our way, if you feel so inclined. It’s a great way to sprinkle a little marketing into the insta-mix.

But wait! It’s not all marketing. Like to live vicariously through the travels of your Instagram pals? We regularly post photos & video from our various Search Marketing Expo adventures, from Silicon Valley to the Big Apple, glamorous Las Vegas to splendid Seattle.

And, yeah. Sometimes, we post cat pics for fun. As well as the occasional foodie snapshot. #CanILive  

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A Year In Social Sharing: Marketing Land’s Top 25 Most Shared Stories Of 2014 https://martech.org/year-social-sharing-marketing-lands-top-25-shared-stories-2014/ https://martech.org/year-social-sharing-marketing-lands-top-25-shared-stories-2014/#comments Wed, 31 Dec 2014 14:29:36 +0000 https://martech.org/?p=112750 Which stories did our readers find so compelling they just had to share them with their social circles?

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Here we are, dear readers — the last day of 2014 has arrived! As we charge eagerly into the new year, let us pause and reflect on the stories that shaped our industry over the past twelve months, the ones that have set the stage for yet another year of exciting evolution for marketers around the world.

As per tradition here on Marketing Land, we’re examining the year’s most popular stories in search, social, mobile, analytics, display, email, retail, and everything in between. But across all of those absolutely essential channels, which stories resonated with you readers the most? Which did you find so compelling that you just had to share them with your social circles?

Come along, and we’ll have a look….

Marketing Land’s Most Shared Stories Of 2014

  1. Top Tips For Optimizing Your Content: 9 Experts Weigh In by Arnie Kuenn. Published on 5/5/14. 3.6K social shares across all platforms.
  2. If Facebook Organic Reach Is Dead, What Does It Mean For Marketers? by Martin Beck. Published on 11/17/14. 3.3K social shares across all platforms.
  3. 7 Content Marketing Tips For When You Lack Time & Resources by Chuck Sharp. Published on 10/30/14. 3.2K social shares across all platforms.
  4. A Google Analytics Setup Checklist by Brian Massey. Published on 10/16/14. 3K social shares across all platforms.
  5. Facebook, Helped By Autoplay, Passes YouTube For Desktop Video Views For First Time by Amy Gesenhues. Published on 10/14/14. 3K social shares across all platforms.
  6. A Google Analytics Setup Checklist by Brian Massey. Published on 10/16/14. 2.9K social shares across all platforms.
  7. Here’s What 2.7 Billion Social Shares Say About Content Marketing by Kelsey Libert. Published on 9/16/14. 2.8K social shares across all platforms.
  8. Bye, Bye Banner: Emerging Display Formats & What Marketers Need To Know by Peter Minnium. Published on 5/14/14. 2.7K social shares across all platforms.
  9. Why You Need A Marketing Technology Strategy by Erik Bratt. Published on 11/7/14. 2.4K social shares across all platforms.
  10. Why Every Marketer Should Leverage Retargeting by Ratko Vidakovic. Published on 10/13/14. 2.3K social shares across all platforms.
  11. Just Like Facebook, Twitter’s New Impression Stats Suggest Few Followers See What’s Tweeted by Danny Sullivan. Published on 7/11/14. 2.2K social shares across all platforms.
  12. Why Google Plus Will Not Die (But May Change) by Mark Traphagen. Published on 5/2/14. 2K social shares across all platforms.
  13. The State Of Digital Marketing In 2015 by James Green. Published on 12/1/14. 1.9K social shares across all platforms.
  14. The Definitive Guide To The Digital Display Ad Ecosystem by Peter Minnium. Published on 10/29/14. 1.9K social shares across all platforms.
  15. How Google’s Latest “Panda” Algorithm Should Change Your Content Strategy by Jim Yu. Published on 10/21/14. 1.8K social shares across all platforms.
  16. Beyond Social: The Benefits To Google+ For Business by Alison Zeringue. Published on 2/13/14. 1.8K social shares across all platforms.
  17. Infographic: Which Is The Most Effective Digital Marketing Channel by Marketing Land Infographics. Published on 4/17/14. 1.7K social shares across all platforms.
  18. 100+ Questions You Must Ask When Developing A Website by Stoney deGeyter. Published on 6/17/14. 1.6K social shares across all platforms.
  19. How Long Should Your Content Be? What Works On Blogs, Facebook & More by Arnie Kuenn. Published on 6/2/14. 1.5K social shares across all platforms.
  20. A Marketer’s Guide To Gaining Attention On 12 Top Social Networks by Elisabeth Osmeloski. Published on 11/4/14. 1.4K social shares across all platforms.
  21. Forrester Says Marketers Are Wasting Resources on Facebook, Twitter by Martin Beck. Published on 11/19/14. 1.3K social shares across all platforms.
  22. 8 Reasons Why Digital Advertising Works For Brands by Peter Minnium. Published on 11/26/14. 1.3K social shares across all platforms.
  23. The Secret To Better Online Marketing: It’s Not What You Think by David Rodnitzky. Published on 6/3/14. 1.2K social shares across all platforms.
  24. Is Your Social Media Marketing Cart Before Your Horse? by Mark Traphagen. Published on 12/2/14. 1.2K social shares across all platforms.
  25. Twitter Wins Real-Time Marketing Smackdown; Agency Strategist Declares Facebook Organic Reach 100% Dead by Martin Beck. Published on 6/25/14. 1.2K social shares across all platforms.

Happy New Year to all, and to all, Happy New Year!

Methodology: For this roundup, we used Social Crawlytics, a free tool that analyzes each URL of a site to show how it’s been shared across top social sites. It’s a super useful tool to capture social plugin data and illuminate how  content resonates socially.

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Pearls Of Wisdom: Our 30 Favorite Tweets From #SMX Advanced 2014 https://martech.org/overheard-smx-advanced-2014-30-pearls-wisdom-retold-twitter/ https://martech.org/overheard-smx-advanced-2014-30-pearls-wisdom-retold-twitter/#respond Mon, 16 Jun 2014 14:23:23 +0000 https://martech.org/?p=87418 Well, dear search marketing friends — as quickly as it came, the Advanced arm of our Search Marketing Expo (SMX) conference has come to an end. It was a heck of week, filled with tremendous knowledge and insights shared by industry luminaries from all walks of the digital marketing landscape. If you couldn’t make it […]

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Well, dear search marketing friends — as quickly as it came, the Advanced arm of our Search Marketing Expo (SMX) conference has come to an end. It was a heck of week, filled with tremendous knowledge and insights shared by industry luminaries from all walks of the digital marketing landscape.

If you couldn’t make it to our show this past week, we have a little gift for you — a heaping handful of tweets from the street (that is to say, live-tweets from the show) — that’s right, a round-up of some of the most thought-provoking, eye-opening (or otherwise hilarious) content shared last week at Seattle’s Bell Harbor Conference Center. (Psst psst – head all the way down to the bottom for a link round-up of all of our SMX Advanced coverage from the field.) Enjoy!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Full Coverage From The Show: 

That’s a wrap! See you next year, Seattle!

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New Digital Storytellers: Insider Tips For Purpose-Driven Social Sharing From #AWX https://martech.org/new-digital-storytellers-insider-tips-for-purpose-driven-social-sharing-from-awx/ https://martech.org/new-digital-storytellers-insider-tips-for-purpose-driven-social-sharing-from-awx/#comments Thu, 26 Sep 2013 15:05:19 +0000 https://martech.org/?p=60064 Welcome back to Marketing Land’s coverage of Advertising Week 2013! Doug Ray, President, CARAT GLOBAL, kicked off the morning of Day 3 at the Times Square Hard Rock Café, setting the scene for the upcoming discussion of how brand storytelling has evolved over the years, and where we’re at presently. On stage with him were Joshua […]

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Welcome back to Marketing Land’s coverage of Advertising Week 2013! Doug Ray, President, CARAT GLOBAL, kicked off the morning of Day 3 at the Times Square Hard Rock Café, setting the scene for the upcoming discussion of how brand storytelling has evolved over the years, and where we’re at presently.

On stage with him were Joshua Hirsch, CTO, PUBLICIS KAPLAN THALER, Michael Bayle, SVP Global Programmatic, XAD INC., Harry Kargman, CEO, KARGO, and J.B. Raftus, CMO, GSD&M. Read on for a record of their dialog, complete with insider takeaways and tips for effective brand storytelling in a digital age. (This is 90% word-for-word transcript, 10% paraphrased.)

New Digital Storytellers - Advertising Week 2013

Doug: Yesterday, there was quite a bit of discussion about the explosion of data and how we need to bring disparate data sets together –how first and third party data is bringing value to consumers and the engagement they’re doing with brands. That data combined with emerging platforms is changing the way we’re telling stories today. We’re moving from a one-directional story told in a 30 second television commercial to multi-dimensional two-way story telling via social media. What are you doing to take advantage of this new way of storytelling?

Josh: Well, you mentioned emerging technologies and platforms – the other part of that is emerging behavior. What this data and the technology allows everyone to do in terms of storytelling is see how people are taking the story and what consumers are doing with it. What’s working? What’s not? Then it’s about being willing to change the story – go in the direction people are moving in – let consumers be a part of creating that story. I think that’s the opportunity now, and to optimize what you’re doing… but it also requires some sort of reactivity, nimbleness… you have to be able to react to that kind of data.

Harry: Unlike a lot of mobile companies in this space, we focus a lot of the publisher first. What makes it so interesting for us as we try to tell these stories around brand advertising is we’re enabled by the publisher to integrate our technology with the fabric of their sites and apps. This allows us to work with brand advertisers and build brand channels directly in the pages of the site. In the digital world, you can take old content, republish it, and tell a story by aggregating and curating the content.

Doug: There’s this idea of value creation for the consumer – you’re actually giving them content that addresses certain needs or provides utility.

Mike: Having had spent some time as one of those publishers at Yahoo and ESPN, it’s been interesting to see the convergence between mobile and advertising. Location is critically different in the mobile environment compared to the desktop environment. If you’re on a desktop, marketers can assume you’re at home (or at work). You’re stationary. But in mobile, you’re out and about. Having brands able to touch consumers out and about is the new sex appeal. To be able to be within reach of consumers’ attention is exciting for us. Location is what we focus on – we think that’s the new big data.

J.B.: As a brand creative agency, we’re at the top of the storytelling funnel. One thing we’re doing is having a look at it in the broader context. Before the explosion, there was real purpose and then the platform. Start with a purpose of the brand and once you get that nailed and well articulated, everything falls from that. But now it’s not just purpose and platform. It’s also context and need state. That doesn’t just give you two more things to do, it gives you infinite more things to do. You have to tell the brand story in so many more ways than we ever had to before. It’s a blessing and a curse – you’re given this new gift of being able to reach people in new ways and need states, but you have to create the right content for those need states and contexts. We’re transforming to be able to tell stories in deeper ways.

Doug: I want to touch on context… that’s a new thing we need to take into account. But at the same time we have data that allows us to deliver messages through ad exchanges. You can argue we can follow the consumer and understand their intent with programmatic targeting and demographics, so… does context really matter?

Mike: Context matters. Think about targeting people in Central Park. At 8 AM, that person might be a Wall Street jogger. At noon, it might be a nanny.

Harry: One of the key metrics in a KY campaign we ran with Johnson & Johnson was the number of downloads of this KY app. What we found was that J&J brought out the best of the programmatic cores with their algorithm to finely-tune targeting and only drive the most relevant people to that app. They outperformed us in terms of total downloads. But an ever more important metric was how many people returned to the app once they downloaded it and used it regularly. There, we outperformed J&J 10X, because we had a tailored message seated on a page with contextually relevant information—and when people searched for that channel, they wound up actually reading the content because it applied to their interests. And in fact, these people were way more tightly targeted because of that contextual element. That context of where they found and downloaded the app produced users that were much more active in terms of opening the app and returning to use it, and that was a much more valuable user in the long term than someone who downloaded the app and never used it.

Doug: So, if we’re targeting a Wall Street Runner in the morning and a nanny in the afternoon, it’s important to create the right content and context that allow that messaging to work harder. We need to create much more content than we ever had to before. Historically, clients and CMOs look to a certain group of agencies to be able to create their content. Are we in a different era of content creation in terms of responsibility of partners? Who are CMOs looking to now? How have you seen this change the way you think about content creation in terms of external partners?

J.B.: The need for content is fast outpacing the ability of us to create it – to get it together. Context is the ultimate gift for storytelling. If you know how someone is consuming something and the context, you can write a more compelling story. But that ability for us to have the need state and the context of the consumer understood is happening so much faster than our ability to fill the pipelines. It’s a race to catch up.

Josh: It’s another issue that there’s been a lot of helping clients understand the kind of content they should be producing – what assets they have what can already be delivered, and how willing they are…  at one point we were working with Skittles, which had 3 million Facebook fans they weren’t doing much with. We activated what they already had in terms of commercial content and just started posting on Facebook every day, and they grew another 10 million fans in one year. Another client wanted to create a web destination to push out content, but the connection to the brand was a little thin. We had to help them understand the value of it. It required securing a lot of third party content generator.

Digital Storytelling Panel - AdWeek 2013

Doug: One thing I see being a challenge for clients is there are so many different “storytellers” and partners (external, internal, agency) that there’s a need more than ever for a content strategy, and to understand what holds the content together. What’s that ecosystem like? How do consumers navigate that content? It’s two things, it’s (1) purpose… how do you ensure that all the content that’s being created on behalf of the brand flows from a central strategy or brand purpose? … and (2) thinking about that holistic ecosystem, mapping that ecosystem, taking responsibility for how consumers navigate through it.

J.B.: It’s the responsibility of all the parties – I don’t think it’s held in one discipline. It’s a responsibility of everyone participating in telling the brand story. In terms of purpose, it’s not about a brand’s products or services, it’s the difference those products and services make in the lives of consumers. That’s something that’s part of a brand’s DNA – it’s not something that can be created, it’s something that just needs to be brought to the forefront. When you can get that purpose really well articulated and everyone gets behind it, that’s when everything can flow together. If that isn’t well articulated or you don’t believe in it and it changes every year, like an advertising campaign, then suddenly no one knows what to hang  on to because you’re in a constant state of reinvention. I do believe that this new world of multiple storytelling across multiple devices and multiple platforms raises the bar of our ability in the beginning to define the brand’s purpose so that everyone who participates in it knows what the story is leading up to.

Josh: To your point about approaching it like a campaign – that’s right, it’s a different sort of muscle, it’s not a short-lived campaign. You have to be willing to and make sure your client is willing to commit to something long-term here.

Doug: Is there a barrier in terms of what we’re measuring? When you’re thinking about purpose of a brand and the inherent nature of the brand – the value position – it gets into the equality of the brand. That’s a longer term metric vs. immediate sales, short term ROI… shorter term campaigns focus on specific product benefit, competitive vs. competition vs. something that’s underpinned by purpose… Are we measuring the wrong things, and creating challenges for measuring storytelling and things that measure brand over time?

J.B.: Yes. We’re measuring the wrong things. We measure the easy things, the things we know. But there’s a reason for that – CMOs’ tenures are short, and they have the same pressures of shareholders and all sorts of things that are driven by those short-term metrics. I won’t say we don’t measure the bigger things, too, but I don’t believe yet that they’re valued as well as some of the shorter-term things. I think that it will catch up – eventually people will believe that those brands that have higher values relative to their revenues are those who take care of the brand and measure the long-term aspect.

Doug: I’m gonna go back to Harry here… one of the things I personally see is when brands create content that’s informative, educational, valuable… and associate with it – that’s when we see a significant increase in purchase intent associated with that brand. It’s because of the gratitude effect – they don’t see that content as advertising. If we can understand the impact of that… and how you take that content experience and scale it. We can scale television. How do we scale some of the content experiences you’re creating?

Harry: That’s the mission of what we’re trying to achieve as a company. The way to scale it, bluntly, is it’s a question of the technology hooks you have in the actual places. If you think of it as, “Okay, we could take a single brand or take the entire segment of the industry…” you can get that same sort of technology hook into every cyber app, so you instead of taking one brand creative can take one brand creative and run that same story within the appropriate subsection of every single site and app people are excited about. That way it can switch from one channel to the next – and you get this uniform campaign that tells the brand story wherever your users go. That’s incredibly powerful. It’s what we want to achieve but it’s also very hard. The alternative is a non-contextually relevant ad buy that’s primarily data-driven, [i.e.] I’m trying to target this woman, I don’t care where she is online [don’t care about context]… if the world goes in that direction, that person sitting on the contextually relevant page with the utility and context brings much more value than someone sitting on a page that has nothing to do with that category. That’s the challenge with the way that data is driven together with measurement – if it’s all about CTR, the page it’s on doesn’t matter. If there’s more – if you can measure more about the fact that you’re bringing brand utility to the right contextually-relevant place and you can measure that and say, “Yes, it’s a 10X increase in terms of people coming back and being more prone to purchase because they have the value!” then you have something that makes all of the content generators truly valuable. The challenge is how do you measure that? The how do you prove out that the person with the contextually relevant message is much more prone to purchase than the person targeted by demographics?

Doug: That comes back to the concept of what we are measuring… and I want to ask a little bit about those open and closed ecosystems – when we think about technology media companies, they’re developing their own closed ecosystem and would love brands to leverage every tool they have to create brand stories. But we know consumers often migrate seamlessly across these ecosystems. Does the lack of openness in these ecosystems create further challenges?

Mike: Without question. What’s unique for mobile is it’s very fertile. A lot of the sense of enclosure you can get with platforms on a desktop, a lot of those obstacles don’t exist in mobile. A lot of wonderful mechanisms that have been led by sites like Google and its ad technologies are much more frenzied o mobile, and it’s anyone’s bet to see who might win. It’s exciting to see what’s going to happen. I think it will be a combination of open and closed.

Doug: How do open or closed platforms inhibit or enhance the storytelling?

Josh: It can enhance it because based on mobile device we can assume some demographics… “Okay, you’re on an Apple iPhone so I can presume you’re between this and this age, you make around this much money,” etc. At the same time, you can get their device ID and zero-in on them with very specific ads – if they’re in the grocery store in the cracker aisle, you can send them a message saying, “Psst… look four feet to your left [at my cracker brand]… those are the crackers you should buy,” and so on. The closed platforms and the differentiation are going to require the time you have to implement in different places and different ways. The biggest challenge is showing clients how much work has to go into it, how valuable it is… but that it’s also harder to prove.

Doug: More complexity. Interestingly, as we think about technology creating more complexities in the ecosystem, brand storytelling is becoming more complex as well. Between linear television, a story told on a mobile device, or a Facebook fan page… how do we start to think about the big picture? As we think about all of the intentional consumer interactions with that story (is it always on, or is it more of an episodic portion of a story that may revolve around a campaign), do we need someone now that is looking at the holistic big picture of how the consumer will engage in the decision journey? Is that something that’s more important now than ever, and who’ responsibility is that?

Harry: As a brand advertisers, you care about getting in front of that user as much as you possibly can. You want to ratio your spent or at least try to get some ratio of your spend against where people are spending their time. What happens is television over-indexes, print over-indexes… in terms of time spent with print and dollars going into it, it’s far more dollars. Mobile is totally under-indexed. The reason for that is that in essence, because the entire world has grown up around the fact that digital can be measured much more intimately than TV, it’s easy for a CMO to say, “If I spend $1 million on TV, based on Nielsen ratings, I know this is my potential reach.” But you can’t prove the value of those impressions. There’s no guarantee, that’s no proof, but there is correlation. On desktop Internet, there’s the promise of potentially measuring down to, “Hey, this person walked in and bought X because of campaign Z.” The challenge is that’s what people have come to expect in terms of metrics. But holding mobile to such a high standard has basically hamstrung the growth. If you used the same loosey-goosey-esque metrics in terms of conversions, I think it could be much more interesting, and you’d see that shift in knowledge. But that hasn’t taken place. That’s an interesting opportunity for brands to explore over time—if you can’t measure everything down to the purchase, how do you actually take a deep breath and make that investment so you can get to a well-diversified media program.

Doug: Measuring what we can versus measuring what we should. That’s critical. CMOs, CEOs are being held accountable to sales. At the end of the day, we all work with marketers and help them sell more products. Therefore, they’re going to measure their ability to use communications to sell more products. We have to think differently about how we understand the impact, direct and indirect… longer-term measurements and short-term measurements and their impact on sales. I’m sure in some respects, traditional metrics modeling was great when we had it, but it’s doing us a disservice as we move into this age of integrated marketing metrics now. We have to look at a different way of measuring that value.

Mike: The intrusion of digital is allowing us to do that. If you look at 20 years ago, consumer behavior was looking at the TV and thumbing through a magazine. That’s been replaced by a tablet. Thirty-five years ago, people would dial a rotary phone while looking at the TV. Now, it’s a smartphone. Same behaviors, new technology.

Harry: Measurement itself is a lost art. When you’re targeting and measuring, you’re only as good as the creative you put on the page. If you put a crappy campaign up and measure it and wonder where the ROI is, it’s obvious there’s a reason why. [Because your campaign stinks.] If you run an ad and there’s no call to action, what do you expect people to do? The problem is it comes down to what is the message you’re putting there. If you’re targeting people based on location and you’re not also offering incentive, putting a great deal in front of them… what do you expect they’ll do? [Nothing.]

Doug: Yes, but not everything needs a hard CTA. Two-thirds of people who see a TV commercial will search for that brand online, so whether or not there’s a CTA… people will do something.

Josh: You have to think about, “Does this make sense to be in these places?” This comes back to the right message, a valuable message.

Doug: Let’s get to some specifics. We’re talking about great versus not great work. Who’s getting it right today? What brands are getting storytelling really right in this ecosystem, this holistic marketing place?

Josh: Red Bull. They don’t consider themselves an energy drink company. They consider themselves a media company. They generate a ton of content, they don’t just sponsor events, they create events. Their content library is massive.

Harry: I think universally, every brand that’s willing to take risks… and speed to market. Look at Oreo – they took a popular event [the Super Bowl] and turned it into an advertising event [with the blackout, “You can still dunk in the dark”]. The speed and the risk they took to do that made that truly unique. Or McDonalds, in terms of driving social media and allowing consumers to submit content on their own [with hashtag photo events]… that’s risk-taking. That’s amazing. When you look at it across the board, even Red Bull , the fact that they put a guy in space! That guy could have died! That’s the biggest risk ever! Ultimately, it’s about going out on a limb for conservative brands… taking those risks, being fast to market, to hook into your sentiment and ride that wave. Their sales show why they’re there. [Author’s note: High-5 for managing to use “their,” “they’re,” and “there” in one sentence. #grammarnerd.]

Mike: It’s about tapping into innovation with your consumer. It’s not just about content consumption, it’s about content creation, especially when it comes to mobile. Instagram and Vine make users content creators, so they’re storytelling alongside their brand.

J.B.: The couple I’m impress with are Target – their ability to tell stories across touch-points and need states of the consumer, it’s really well curated and intentional. I  don’t think they’ve ever touched a consumer where the consumer is like, “Why are you telling me that now?” Another one is Coke. They’ve found their purpose. Their purpose is centered around happiness. When you find that purpose and it’s simple and it’s believed by everyone who is part of the storytelling process, the creative gets better. We’re saying something to people that’s relevant.

Doug: Going back to Oreo… I see a lot of experimenting in social. Are there certain platforms that enable us to experiment more and learn more about how we can leverage better storytelling? Is social the rich t place to start doing that?

Harry: The challenge with social is it’s very easy to be drowned out. If the story you tell is boring, you’re toast, But if you can tell the story and you have the right creative in social, for what it can cost you, the benefits are extraordinary. The value with social is it forces brands to become nimble and innovate, because they understand that they can’t come up with a formula they can use over and over. I think it’s the first medium that will force marketer and brands to think about channels differently. For them to be successful to complete in social and have that DNA, that can lead back to TV and print and the rest – I think that we’re in a creative renaissance for creative organization. That’s the interesting think about social.

Doug: Okay, last question. Big bets for your company for the future of content?

J.B.: It raises the bar on creativity. If the story sucks, then consumers won’t engage, they won’t click through. It all falls out of that. We’ll make our big bet on purpose and the idea.

Mike: People want to shop in person. The Internet makes shopping more convenient, but people will always want to shop in person.

Harry: We’re making the bet that the convergence of content and advertising does well is going to be groundbreaking in terms of success once you can measure that. One of the big bets were making is… we invest a ton of time and effort in building our next-gen video player for mobile devices… if we can get that taken up buy a lot of media companies – run video spots and run creative on top of them in mobile on-the-go and integrate them to location, brand messaging, rich media on top of traditional 14 second spots… truly it’s a new way to connect with a consumer on those devices. So, the convergence of video and rich media on top of it.

Josh: Mine’s in terms of internal operations, that we can be in the position to react when necessary, and take advantage of those really short windows when someone can be affected.

Doug: So what I heard today: Take risks. Be bold. Understand the purpose of the brand so that can be permeated through every action we take. To have the big picture in mind, and to understand the ecosystem, regardless of platform. Also, leveraging compelling idea-based content. And then measuring that… measuring the things we should measure as opposed to the things we can measure today.

[Applause]

Big thanks to this panel of whip-smart fellas. Terrific insight!

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Making Multi-Screen Campaigns More Engaging: Tips From 3 Pioneers At #AWX https://martech.org/making-multi-screen-campaigns-more-engaging-tips-from-3-pioneers-at-awx/ https://martech.org/making-multi-screen-campaigns-more-engaging-tips-from-3-pioneers-at-awx/#respond Wed, 25 Sep 2013 02:05:26 +0000 https://martech.org/?p=59952 Welcome back to Marketing Land’s coverage of Advertising Week 2013! The afternoon of Day 2 assembled an esteemed panel of pioneers in the multi-screen campaign space. Lead by moderator Suzan Gursoy, Publisher of ADWEEK, the trio of speakers included Ritu Trivedi, SVP, Digital Strategy & Partnerships, MEDIAVEST, Karen Starns, Edwards GM Bing Consumer Marketing, MICROSOFT, and Aimee Duell EVP […]

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Welcome back to Marketing Land’s coverage of Advertising Week 2013! The afternoon of Day 2 assembled an esteemed panel of pioneers in the multi-screen campaign space. Lead by moderator Suzan Gursoy, Publisher of ADWEEK, the trio of speakers included Ritu Trivedi, SVP, Digital Strategy & Partnerships, MEDIAVEST, Karen Starns, Edwards GM Bing Consumer Marketing, MICROSOFT, and Aimee Duell EVP Brand Partnerships, BELIEVE ENTERTAINMENT GROUP.

Yep, they were all women. And yep, they were all smart as you-know-what. Another great thing these speakers brought to the table was they each represented a different perspective: one from the brand angle, one from the agency angle, and one from the creative angle.

Making Multi-Screen Campaigns More Engaging Panel - Advertising Week 2013

Susan kicked off the session by sharing some interesting stats about multi-screen experiences:

  • 71% of U.S. consumers view content on two or more screens daily
  • 1 in 5 Americans watch TV on a mobile device

“For many of us, a mobile device is our device of choice. It’s the first thing we look at when we wake up in the morning – the last thing we look at before we go to sleep,” Susan commented. Truth.

  • 1/3 of Americans own a tablet

Susan pointed out that that number has grown substantially from last year, when it was only 18%.

The Multi-Screen Revolution: Ratio Factor

The more screens we own, the more likely we are to be multi-tasking between screens. If we own a TV and a computer, 52% of us also own another device (are multi-tasking). Throw a smartphone in the equation and that figure jumps to 60%. Add a tablet to that and it hikes to 65%.

If you layer in demographics, the stats get even more interesting. Digital natives under the age of 30 are toggling between devices 27 times per hour. (That’s a really high number!) Non-natives, folks between the ages of 35-55, toggle between devices on an average of 17 times per hour. (Um… that’s still really high!)

Smartphones are the screen of choice for adults 18-34, Susan noted, and tablets are the screen of choice with adults 35-44. “It’s good to know if you’re strategizing for a tablet screen, that your audience is more likely to be in that second age group,” she smartly noted. Additionally, they’re also more likely to live in the suburbs, be considerably affluent, have a higher education, and have more than one child under the age of 18 still living at home. Did you figure all that into your tablet strategy, hmm?

With that, Susan welcomed the first speaker to the state, Ritu.

3D: Define, Design, Deliver

Ritu began by explaining her company’s idea-led process, a.k.a. 3D a.k.a. Define, Design, Deliver.

  • Define: This stage is about planning for and thinking about the consumer journey.
  • Design: This stage is about designing the product and establishing strategic partnerships.
  • Deliver: This stage is about activation, figuring out the tactical approach, thinking about measurement.

All of these stages, incidentally, maintain the consumer at their core. Multi-screen campaigns must be organized in this way (in accordance with this process) in order to be functional, she noted.

She next toured through three case studies, breaking them down by the three Ds.

MTV VMA most Sharability Videos - Advertising Week 2013

Colbert & Wheat Thins - Advertising Week 2013

Coca-Cola & The Polar Bowl - Advertising Week 2013

One of the takeaways from these case studies is the metrics her team reports on to clients are very different then they used to be… now they’re more about engagement, conversation, sharability, advocacy, and the like.

Some final takeaways from Ritu:

  • Focus on the consumer journey. Don’t do this just to check the box.
  • This is a very iterative process with data and insights. Gather the data and learn from it. You can’t expect to know what everyone’s first screen is. Let the data guide you. “But it’s not data for data sake,” Ritu warned,” it’s important to gather all of those touch points, make sure the measurements are in place, and use those measurements to develop a stronger strategy with your partner.”
  • When it comes to creative and multi-screen experiences, remember: You can be on all these screens, but if you’re not talking to consumers in the most relevant fashion, they’re going to tune you out!

Next up was Karen. She shared her own experiences with the Bing It On Challenge (an interactive challenge to show people who use Google as their primary search engine that Bing could be just as good, if not better) – how it evolved and how her team leveraged multi-screen experiences to make the campaign sing.

3 Key Lessons Of Multi-Screen Advertising With Bing It On

  1. Start by building a great content strategy.
  2. Invest the time in mapping out a dynamic customer journey.
  3. Stamp out discipline silos.

Let’s unpack each of those, shall we?

Lesson 1: A well-planned content strategy enables a coordinated customer conversation.

  • The customer content must shape the message.
  • Content can’t be static. Adapt your content based on engagement, wear out, and campaign evolution.

It’s important to truly tailor  content for the device on which it’s meant to be viewed. If this is content for mobile, consider: What is my user’s level of focus? Commitment? How much time do they have to spend with this content? Regarding the Bing It On Challenge, Karen pointed out that they knew people might not have time or have interest in taking the challenge then and there. So their number one call to action (CTA) on mobile was to “Remind Me To Take The Challenge Later.” Conversion rates soared.

Lesson 2: Don’t shortchange mapping out the dynamic customer journey. It’s where the rubber meets the road.

  • Physically map out the multiple entry and exit points. It’s not a pretty process, but it’s invaluable.
  • Rationalize CTAs.
  • Ensure the right content is served up in the right place.
  • Adapt based on customer engagement. Are there drop-offs? Where? Why? Is there content people don’t like? Is there a piece of online media that’s not working for us?

Listen, social content and sharability is huge right now, but that doesn’t mean it’s the right answer to everything. “Social sharing has its place, and its super important,” Karen noted, “but it’s not sprinkled everywhere through this campaign,” nor should it be in yours, unless it has a true purpose or need.

Lesson 3: Breaking out of disciplined silos is fundamental. 

“It’s incredibly important to do this in order to do multi-screens right,” urged Karen.

  • Align your team to an overarching marketing goal. In her team’s case, the perception change (that Bing could be better than Google)  we want to drive should be what is important to everyone.
  • Drive operational rigor across disciplines. “How are we going to get all of this done in a new way? We had to have the right forms to come together to have the right conversations,” she noted.
  • Invest in supporting lasting cultural change!

Last but not least, Aimee took the stage.

She discussed the key challenges of multi-screen campaigns with her team’s project, an animated show called The Le Brons. For this project, her company partnered with Xbox and the U.S. Army – partnerships with built-in audiences that would serve their marketing campaigns nicely. According to Aimee, here’s what it’s all about:

  1. Balancing creative. When you’re dealing with multiple screens, you have to optimize creative for the behavior of the person in front of that screen.
  2. Storytelling across screens. This will vary depending on the amount of time a person can spend.
  3. Harnessing social. If you have a built in audience, why not use it?
  4. Distribution strategies. This is about getting the word out there to the right people.

She went on to explore each point more deeply:

Balancing Creative:

  • You must tread the find line and balance the story with the brand.
  • Cleverly balance advertising with entertainment.
  • Know your audience and their tolerance for branding.
  • The key is adding value!

Storytelling Across Screens:

  • Understand consumer behavior across screens. What’s their attention span? How are you telling them a story within that context?
  • Leverage longer time spent with additional content.

Harnessing Social

  • Tap into an already engaged audience. With this TV show, she was able to leverage LeBron James’s audience, Xbox’s audience, the Army’s audience.
  • Share where the audience is already sharing. (Sharing content on LeBron James’s Facebook page yielded massive engagement.)
  • Leverage partners for their audience!

Distribution Strategies

  • Multiple windows extend campaigns. Aimee’s team started offering the show on Xbox, then moved to YouTube,  leveraging an audience they already had.
  • Exclusivity by screen to drive traffic. If there’s multiple screens users are playing with, why not use one to drive to the next to drive to the next? Offer something there you can’t get on the previous one.
  • Binge watching – Aimee poses this isn’t just a phase. Leverage it by having multiple pieces of content at one point in time where you can allow the consumer to sit for, say, 30 minutes. “Why not?” she challenges.

Many thanks to this panel of marvelously talented ladies for sharing their insights, instincts, and intellect on how brands can best optimize multi-screen experiences for their customer-base! Stay tuned right here on Marketing Land for more full coverage from Advertising Week 2013!

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https://martech.org/making-multi-screen-campaigns-more-engaging-tips-from-3-pioneers-at-awx/feed/ 0 Making Multi-Screen Campaigns More Engaging Panel – Advertising Week 2013 MTV VMA most Sharability Videos – Advertising Week 2013 Colbert & Wheat Thins – Advertising Week 2013 Coca-Cola & The Polar Bowl – Advertising Week 2013
Exploring The Intersection Of E-Commerce And Advertising With Amazon: #AWX 2013 https://martech.org/amazon-intersection-of-ecommerce-and-advertising/ https://martech.org/amazon-intersection-of-ecommerce-and-advertising/#respond Wed, 25 Sep 2013 01:07:38 +0000 https://martech.org/?p=59919 Hello and greetings from Advertising Week 2013! The morning of Day 2 welcomed Lisa Utzschneider, Vice President of Global Display Advertising at Amazon Media Group, to the stage as she explored with her crowd the intersection of e-Commerce and advertising – namely, how Amazon is mapping its own insights and takeaways from e-Commerce endeavors to […]

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Hello and greetings from Advertising Week 2013! The morning of Day 2 welcomed Lisa Utzschneider, Vice President of Global Display Advertising at Amazon Media Group, to the stage as she explored with her crowd the intersection of e-Commerce and advertising – namely, how Amazon is mapping its own insights and takeaways from e-Commerce endeavors to its native advertising platform. Read on for a full recap.

Tess’s Summer Journal, Or, An Example Of How Ecommerce Expectations Are, By Now, Basically Innate

Lisa began with a story about her daughter, Tess, who one day expressed utmost eagerness about purchasing a summer journal. Lisa whipped out her smartphone and began searching for products (on Amazon) via keyword permutations of journal (diary, diary with lock, etc.). It seems this is just what Tess was expecting. Together, they reviewed the items, but the thumbnail product images were too small for Tess to appreciate, so they gravitated over to Lisa’s tablet and continued their e-Commerce journey from there.

Amazon-SERP-Girls-Journal

“What do the people say?” she asked her mother. Lisa noted to the audience that that’s how her daughter referred to customer reviews– so she read aloud the ratings and comments from previous shoppers. Ultimately, they settled on a product, and with several clicks and swipes of a finger, Lisa had ordered the journal.

That night, as she tucked Tess into bed, Tess excitedly asked when it would arrive, how close it was. Though the purchase was only placed an hour ago, Lisa was able to hop back on one of her several devices and check in on the delivery status. She updated her daughter, and then turned to update her audience on just how old Tess was (is). Four. She’s four years old. And her expectations of a customer experience were (are) completely aligned with many adult consumers in the world today.

Lisa next moved into the three things her team at Amazon focuses on when they think about business:

  1. We start with the customer and work backwards. We’re customer centric in everything that we do.
  2. We innovate on behalf of our customers. We like to anticipate their needs before they know that they need them.
  3. We think long-term. We aim to make the right decisions, and the right trade-offs.

“When we think about commerce and its growth,” Lisa noted, “well, it’s growing. This year, eMarketer puts e-Commerce sales globally at $1.2 trillion.” (Pause for jaw-drop. That’s huge!) And in the next four years, she continued, that figure is forecasted to double. Lisa pointed out that at Amazon alone, this year, they have 215 million active customer accounts.

Another significant factor in all of this is that consumers are moving in and out of devices like never before. They’re starting on a mobile phone and completing transactions on a tablet. She cited another statistic, that last year, nearly 80% of shoppers shopped on a tablet or a phone. Lisa thinks that this trend will likely continue.

Find, Discover, Buy

Amazon sees shopping as a three-prong process:

  1. Find
  2. Discover
  3. Buy

She went on to elaborate on each prong. To paraphrase: Find… well, that’s pretty easy. I’m looking for the product I want to buy, and I find it. Buy… that’s easy again, I buy it. But it’s this middle phase, the discover phase, that’s essential. There is huge opportunity, both for marketers and for an e-Commerce platform, in this phase. Here, we can introduce consumers to new products and new brands they didn’t even know existed.

The way Amazon guides customers through this process of discovery is through  personalization, Lisa explained. “We transfer this process of discovery over to our advertising program. We optimize the discovery experience and translate that to the advertising platform.” It’s here where the concept of innovating at the intersection of e-Commerce and advertising is born.

When it comes to e-Commerce and advertising, we must first begin with their respective goals:

  • E-Commerce: Goal is to make the shopping experience simple. “Shopping should be simple, it should be seamless. The goals that customers have [with shopping] probably won’t change ten years from now,” Lisa stated.
  • Advertising: Goal is to inform customers about brands and products. There’s a pretty good chance that this goal won’t change over the next ten years, either.

It’s these two things that intersect at the customer, explained Lisa. She pointed out that the two goals aren’t that dissimilar if you look at them from the perspective of the customer. E-commerce and advertising should inform customers, not distract them. It should help their experience, not just deliver impressions. It should empower customers to be more decisive, not disrupt them.

“When these two factors are truly optimized, they help the customer find, discover, and buy, and that’s where we all win,” Lisa pointed out, “both as an e-Commerce platform, and as marketers.”

“As a technology company, we have 18 years of technology behind us, focused on customers and optimizing they’re experiences and helping them find, discover, and buy. We take all those great learning in the e-Commerce platform and apply them to the advertising program. Great advertising programs happen when we focus on the customers’ needs.”

And with that, Lisa began a tour of some of Amazon’s newest ad units – all of which merge takeaways from the consumer experience with classic ad models.

Amazon e-Commerce Ads

Amazon has spent the last few years taking the shopping features and functionalities their customers love on the retail side and integrating them to their advertising program. Such features include customer ratings and reviews, add-to-cart functionality, couponing, and so on — the goal being to ensure customers, when they interact with Amazon ads, have a seamless, convenient, and enhanced experience.

  • Customer Ratings & Reviews: This ad unit merges a traditional product listing with a snippet review from a real customer, along with the X out of 5 star rating from that comment. According to Local Consumer (2012 survey), 72% of consumers trust customer reviews as much as they trust personal recommendations. Additional findings: Customer ratings and review ads realize consideration rates 20-30% higher than standard creative, i.e. customers who view ads embedded with ratings and reviews tend to go to the detail page from there to learn more about the product.
  • Add-To-Cart: Lisa noted that most customers “love” to go to the product detail page, because it’s where they can learn rich info about a product of interest. It’s also where customers can add a product to their shopping cart. Taking that functionality and embedding it right in an e-Commerce ad yielded staggering statistics. Lisa noted that ads for products sold on Amazon that include a specific price generate up to 50% higher CTR and purchase rates than ads without the price. Booyah!
  • Coupons: “Our customers love coupons, both online and offline.” Embedding $ of % off coupons directly in ads yielded an interesting stat: “46% of those who redeem a digital coupon were new consumers to the product or brand.” So consumers made the choice to buy from a brand from which they’ve never purchased before, perhaps, solely because a coupon was available in the advertisement. Fascinating.

Lisa’s team has also spent time testing e-Commerce combinations, in other words, ads that feature ratings and reviews as well as add-to-cart functionality. “CTR and consideration rates increase by almost 20%” in those cases, she noted.

Video Opportunities On Amazon

Lisa concluded with an overview of the video integration Amazon has begun to roll out across various ad units. Again, she noted there is huge opportunity here, citing a comScore stat that online retail shoppers are 64% more likely to buy after watching a video about a product. From beauty tips to how-to clips on consumer products, these tutorial videos encourage purchases, she states.

  • Showcase Ads: “Customers who viewed ads with video were 20% more likely to purchase the product on Amazon,” Lisa stated. “We’re taking the great feature and functionality Amazon offers and we’re embedding it right in the ad.”
  • Native Video: This is a new video ad unit Amazon just announced today (I believe). “Basically, what it is is it integrates search results in the video experience,” Lisa explained. “If I’m interested in a product, I can search on the product and a video is served up to me, so I can watch the video to learn more about the product…. We think there’s a huge opportunity with this experience because our customers are so interested in video and learning more about our products.” She confirmed that the e-Commerce platform is “starting with game trailers for now and expand into more categories over time.”

Lisa wrapped up her presentation by returning to the anecdote of her daughter… from four years old to forty and well beyond, people of all ages have the expectation of a seamless e-Commerce experience over devices, of how technology should help improve their shopping experience. “I just think there’s so much opportunity for us collectively to partner together for today’s generation and future generations,” she remarked, “so that advertising and e-Commerce always intersect at the customer.”

Stay tuned right here on Marketing Land for more full coverage from Advertising Week 2013!

The post Exploring The Intersection Of E-Commerce And Advertising With Amazon: #AWX 2013 appeared first on MarTech.

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