Buddy Media Launches BuyBuddy Social Ad Service
Two months ago, Buddy Media acquired London-based Brighter Option to add the company’s paid advertising solution to its suite of social media marketing tools. The move preceded Facebook’s rollout of expanded paid adoptions in February, including the extension of ads directly into users’ desktop and mobile news feeds and the site’s logout page.
On Tuesday, Buddy Media formally announced the rebrand of the Brighter Options social ad software as BuyBuddy, a self-service offering advertisers can use to create, track and optimize campaigns on Facebook.
Built into the company’s existing platform enabling social content publishing, app creation and e-commerce, the aim is to help companies better combine owned, earned and paid media efforts on Facebook and other social sites.
“Our whole play is that having a unified technology suite makes much more sense than piecing together 12 different point solutions,” said Buddy Media CEO Mike Lazerow.
The idea is to use the system to create page content, track which material resonates with users, and then promote that content via paid advertising placements on Facebook to drive further engagement.
Do Your Site Visitors Push Your Buttons?
Many a parent has angrily warned their children “Don’t push my buttons!” and of course what they are implying is that the children know exactly what to do to create a certain response, or reaction, from Mom or Dad. When you think about it, isn’t it funny that an expression that has been around for generations is so applicable to web design and conversion optimization today?
Most landing pages include a button as part of the main call to action. So the question is: do your visitors know exactly what to do? Are your buttons so clear that it leaves no doubt in the visitor’s mind as to what will happen when it’s clicked?
Here are some guidelines you can keep in mind when creating buttons that beg to be pushed.
First, Prioritize
Ideally you should have a single, clear call-to-action button on your page. If you have more than one, you need to create a visual hierarchy so that their importance is clear to your web visitor. One way to do that is to change the color or size of the non-primary buttons to something visually less interesting (make those buttons duller and smaller).
Read more: ClickZ
Videology: Clickthroughs Vs. Completion Rates? Advertisers Need Both
While advertisers often complain about the lack of a single measurement for determining the value of their online ads, particularly when it comes to the fast-growing video category, ultimately, they really just want to know whether their placements drove awareness, favorability, consideration, purchase intent, or actual sales.
Often, the arguments tend to focus on a specific method of measurement — say, clickthrough rates or completion rates — as the most thorough answer. A new Videology study (see the white paper here) looks to sidestep the choosing of sides in favor of showing how those two metrics are best used in concert, suggesting it’s time to end either/or viewpoints.
The main point: if a viewer doesn’t click on a spot before the halfway point, that viewer is less likely to click at all. The study found that clickthrough rates reach their highest point once a video has been seen halfway through. Videology says that viewers are almost 3x more likely to click on a video advertisement at the 25- to 50 percent viewing mark compared to the baseline of completion. Similarly, if a viewer does not click by the 75 percent viewing mark, they are likely to complete the entire ad.
Videology points to previous estimates that suggest clickthroughs tend to be higher for :30 second spots as opposed to :15 second spots. In keeping with that, the study found that :30 second spots outperform the general CTR stats by 14 percent, while :15 second spots underperform by 28%.
Does the 80/20 Rule Still Apply to Web Advertising?
Everyday when speaking with publishers, partners, and vendors, I’m asked, “How can we create more value for marketers?” My typical answer is “It depends. What are their goals and objectives?” Inevitably, there is a long pause and a blank stare. This exchange is not surprising. The answer to creating more value is a complex one. But if publishers focus a little more on optimization, they will find it easier to satisfy marketers, drive renewals, and improve value.
Optimization is a very simple solution that will drive value for marketers. Normally, we only consider optimization for performance-based campaigns where the marketer wants to achieve some downstream metric like a click or an action. However, agencies and clients are constantly evaluating campaigns and optimizing on a wide array of attributes from click to conversion, placement to audience, delivery to frequency. If a publisher takes these into consideration with the campaigns they run and chooses not just to focus on clicks or actions with direct response-oriented campaigns, they could see tremendous results.
When looking at optimization, most publishers think specifically about optimizing remnant or tier-two inventory to drive incremental lift in CPM from ad networks, exchanges, and performance clients. In the past, the easy answer to managing the tier-two inventory was to outsource optimization to a third-party, sell-side solution. These companies would take on the unsold inventory, work with multiple networks, and work to get the publisher the best value for the inventory.
Unfortunately, this model breaks down on many levels. First, inventory must be allocated wholesale to these companies and the setup does not allow for threaded optimization within the guaranteed and direct sold campaigns. Second, this model introduces yet another player in the mix who will be taking a management fee. Finally, using third-party optimization companies is limited generally to standard banners in web and mobile.
Build Engaging Dynamic Ads Using Available Customer Data
Online advertising could use some simplification. Anybody that has spent more than two months working in the online advertising space will tell you that it is a fast-paced, complex, confusing, always changing, and exhausting industry that has few, if any, dedicated rules, set procedures, or processes that everybody agrees with and follows. Even companies offering the same services use different names to refer to the same thing: online advertising, Internet marketing, display advertising, and so on. Luckily, some companies are dedicating themselves to making certain tasks a little simpler. San Francisco-based startup Canned Banners is an example of such a company.
Simpler Tools for Easier Advertising
Since 2009, Canned Banners has been automating display ad design. Its self-serve tools help you build professional quality display ads quickly and cheaply, without requiring design or development knowledge. Its service makes display advertising cheaper and easier for everyone from local businesses to Fortune 500 companies. While this sounds potentially useful, what Canned Banners is planning to roll out next might strike a chord among a larger audience within the online advertising industry.
Read more: ClickZ
Wildfire and Adaptly Introduce First Social Marketing Solution With Integrated Ad Technology That Optimizes Engagement
REDWOOD CITY, Calif. and NEW YORK, Feb. 27, 2012 /PRNewswire/ — Wildfire, the global leader in social media marketing software, today announced with Adaptly the integration of Adaptly’s unique social advertising and optimization technology with the Wildfire Social Marketing Suite. The combination of Wildfire’s market-leading suite of tools for designing, publishing, and managing brand content through social media – used by more than 10,000 customers, including many of the world’s most recognized brands, such as Facebook, Amazon, and Target – with Adaptly’s ad optimization technology gives marketers, for the first time, unified control over the combined effect of paid, earned, and owned social media to maximize consumer engagement with the brand. Engagement encompasses social actions such as likes, comments, and sharing of content.
Unlike first-generation ad serving solutions – which focus on traditional metrics such as cost per clicks, fans, or impressions – Wildfire’s solution integrates Adaptly’s technology that optimizes social ads not only for cost but also for maximum engagement. Adaptly’s proprietary technology aggregates more than 160 social metrics from a brand’s earned and owned channels, analyzes the impact of paid media on earned media in real time, and continuously refines ads (including content and target audience) to reach the best social audiences and drive ongoing engagement – the objective that marketers care about most today – at the lowest cost. This self-optimizing technology is unavailable from any other vendor, and Wildfire is the first to bring it to the broad market through a complete integrated social marketing solution.
Content and Advertising Integrated into a Single Seamless Solution
The ability to integrate advertising with content is becoming a critical requirement for social marketing thanks to the launch of Facebook’s Sponsored Stories ad units, which allow marketers to turn fan-generated content into social ad units. For brands to run Sponsored Stories ads they must successfully engage consumers. The Wildfire Social Marketing Suite provides all the tools needed to engage consumers through social media. Extending the Wildfire Suite with Adaptly’s social advertising technology now enables marketers to optimize their whole social strategy in a single seamless solution.
Read more: PRNewswire
