in.media » publishers http://indotmedia.com Just another WordPress weblog Fri, 04 May 2012 21:00:46 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 News of the Day http://indotmedia.com/news/news-of-the-day-469/ http://indotmedia.com/news/news-of-the-day-469/#comments Fri, 27 Apr 2012 21:54:04 +0000 Amanda Maffey http://indotmedia.com/?p=1660 The Digital Ad Industry Needs To Innovate For Consumers

“Data-Driven Thinking” is a column written by members of the media community and containing fresh ideas on the digital revolution in media.
David Levy is co-founder of SocialVibe, a digital advertising technology company.
Jerry Neumann posed a question on AdExchanger the other day that should strike a chord with anyone who works in media and advertising: What If Online Doesn’t Work For Branding?
Branding plays a critical role in the development of a company and its products, and brand advertising has represented enormous investment from brands to garner consumer attention within quality content like magazines, TV, music, and news.  Yet while digital disruption has flipped traditional media on its ear, the consumer-focused innovation that propels media forward seems to have been left behind when it comes to brand advertising. Jerry is right to call this into question, and he issued an apt challenge: How do we disrupt branding?
Read more: AdExchanger

What Sells the Digital Magazine?
A magazine is a pretty amazing work of art. It consists of a collection of the most incredible curated insights, editorial opinions, and photographs for a specific genre. In the print world, everyone knows that the cover of a magazine needs to be very carefully crafted in order to compel you to purchase it at the newsstand. Anywhere from 10 to 45 percent of a print magazine’s sales can come from single copy sales (aka, at the traditional newsstand). With this heavy reliance on sales by cover, I wondered…is the same true for success on the digital newsstand?
A few weeks ago I noticed that three digital publishing apps changed their icon on the iPad from a static image representing their company to a dynamic image showcasing their “cover news” for the day. If you haven’t seen them yet, check out how The New York Times, The New York Post, and The Daily all showcase their app. In it, each day you see a very clear cover line and image that is meant to be compelling enough for you to stop and download/buy the app.

Interestingly, at my company, we have been seeing a different phenomenon where it isn’t just the cover but the content inside of the issue that is driving a digital reader to discover a magazine they never knew they couldn’t live without.

Recently we posted a collection on the Titanic. In this collection the visitor was exposed to free articles about the Titanic. Quietly in the corner of the article was a reference to the name of the magazine the article came from. In this case, magazines like Town and Country and Popular Science were successfully able to engage new potential subscribers through the content locked under the cover by sharing it to an audience who followed a common theme.

Read more: ClickZ

]]> http://indotmedia.com/news/news-of-the-day-469/feed/ 0 News of the Day http://indotmedia.com/news/news-of-the-day-468/ http://indotmedia.com/news/news-of-the-day-468/#comments Thu, 26 Apr 2012 21:27:52 +0000 Amanda Maffey http://indotmedia.com/?p=1656 AccuWeather, Amobee Team On Mobile Advertising

AccuWeather has struck a partnership with Amobee to use its mobile platform for ad-serving, campaign management and ad targeting for inventory worldwide.
Under the agreement, AccuWeather will use Amobee’s Pulse for Publishers solution to power advertising across its mobile Web sites, as well as its smartphone and tablet apps for iOS, Android and other mobile operating systems.
The company estimates the global audience for its mobile apps at half a billion devices, driven by deals with the 10 largest device manufacturers. Many sell their handsets pre-loaded with the main AccuWeather app.Underscoring the growth of mobile data use, the weather brand says it fulfills 2.2 billion data requests from mobile devices worldwide, triple the amount at the start of 2011.
Jim Candor, executive vice president/chief business officer for AccuWeather, said the pact with Amobee would help the company provide large brands and agencies with the tools to run campaigns across its mobile properties as its global inventory expands, especially in the Asia-Pacific region. Last month, Amobee was acquired by Singapore-based mobile phone and services provider SingTel for $321 million.
Through the deal, SingTel aims to expand into the mobile marketing arena, especially in the area of one-to-one connections between brands and consumers.
Read more: MediaPost

Time to Stop Talking About ‘Scale’ And Start Targeting

As a catalogue marketer in the 1990s, I knew which mailing lists would work best for the dress shirt company I represented. We used multiple criteria to measure data quality. But, we always kept the list sources separate, so we knew what worked well and what didn’t work as well. Each data set would become its own brand to us, because each data set would perform differently.

Of course I would track the results and optimize my campaign and work with the lists that brought the highest ROI. Since we were selling higher-quality men’s dress shirts, lists from other higher quality men’s apparel companies would generally perform better, though not every time.

We would expect a performance difference between Florsheim shoe buyers and Johnston and Murphy shoe buyers, for example. Each list would elicit a different response, as you might expect.

I would buy these lists granularly and optimize against more precise data lists, which obviously required transparency from data providers, and a certain integrity in the data sets themselves. This may seem as obvious in terms of “best practices” to you as it does to me.

So, ask yourself: Why does our online industry today do the exact opposite of this?

We have the technology

We can target and measure audiences in so many ways today; you would think it would make sense in this digital world that we would stay granular – and transparent. But, we’re not. Instead, most of the data ecosystem strives for scale instead of precision, blended data sources instead of transparency and quality. Too many of us are making huge, blind buckets of data that are bloated and inaccurate.

Read more: AdAgeDigital

]]> http://indotmedia.com/news/news-of-the-day-468/feed/ 0 News of the Day http://indotmedia.com/news/news-of-the-day-465/ http://indotmedia.com/news/news-of-the-day-465/#comments Mon, 23 Apr 2012 22:07:45 +0000 Amanda Maffey http://indotmedia.com/?p=1648 Alloy Digital Acquires Leading Digital Women’s Lifestyle Media Network and Publisher B5Media

NEW YORK, April 20, 2012 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Alloy Digital, a leading creator and distributor of media and entertainment for the 12-34 demographic, today announced that it has completed the acquisition of B5Media, one of the fastest-growing female-oriented lifestyle digital publishing and media networks.
B5Media’s websites include award-winning TheGloss.com, Crushable.com, Blisstree.com, Mommyish.com, and TheGrindstone.com, featuring content focused on fashion, beauty, wellness, career, relationships, parenting and entertainment.  The B5Media network, which has distinguished itself through honest, intelligent and relatable content, reaches females 14-34 and boasts a combined audience of more than 4 million monthly unique visitors.
The B5Media sites join Alloy Digital’s top ranking network of owned-and-operated web properties, including Gurl.com, Teen.com, and Smosh.com, which is also one of the top-three most subscribed to channels on YouTube.

Alloy Digital is the largest media and advertising network of young adult targeted websites, attracting more than 70 million consumers each month and reaching over 43% of P12-34 internet users. The network holds its position as a top-10 video network delivering several hundred million streams monthly and has ranked at top of its category for more than three consecutive years running according to industry measurement leader, comScore.
Read more: GlobeNewswire
Does Everyone Hate Banner Ads?
Whether you’re in advertising or not, at some point, everyone has been a banner ad hater. From a loud auto-initiated video at the office to an inundating takeover by Taylor Lautner – one that mysteriously became the background of my iPad and then wished me a “Happy St. Patrick’s Day” – we’ve all been victims of an unwanted, unwarranted, or irrelevant banner ad. Even when I tell people what I do, and mention online banner ads, their faces typically show a mild tolerance for the topic. Or they say flat-out, “I hate pop-ups.”
EMarketer estimates spending on U.S. online advertising will grow by nearly a quarter in 2012. However, banners’ projections are below average for the category. And they’ll continue to grow at a slower pace than other forms of online advertising such as paid search, video, and mobile. While banner click-through rates continue to decline, marketers are working to find more ways to validate that banner messaging resonates with consumers, from engagement to direct response metrics.Guess what? The secret is out: blasting billions of untargeted impressions to the masses and tracking latent activity is not an effective form of advertising – at least to some of us it is.

According to comScore Ad Metrix, AT&T, which has been the leader in advertising impressions for the last several years, served nearly 106 billion impressions in the U.S. during 2011. What’s more, the number of advertisers who served over 3 billion impressions in Q4 2011 increased from 24 to 46, compared to the same quarter the previous year. But let’s put this in context. EMarketer reported 231.9 million online users (18+) in the U.S. last year. So, if every adult watched an AT&T ad an even number of times, then it would have been seen an average of 456 times during the year. Yikes! Apparently we have a ways to go in shifting the paradigm.

Read more: ClickZ

]]> http://indotmedia.com/news/news-of-the-day-465/feed/ 0 News of the Day http://indotmedia.com/news/news-of-the-day-456/ http://indotmedia.com/news/news-of-the-day-456/#comments Mon, 02 Apr 2012 22:39:32 +0000 Amanda Maffey http://indotmedia.com/?p=1626 Cross-Screen Video Campaign Solution Provider Mixpo Partners With FreeWheel to Power In-App Advertising for Online Publishers and Content Providers

SEATTLE, WA–(Marketwire – Mar 30, 2012) – With the aim of helping content owners to further scale monetization of their apps and second screen experiences, “smart” cross-screen video ad campaign enabler Mixpo announced today that it has completed MRAID (Mobile Rich Media Ad Interface Definitions) certification with FreeWheel, the video technology company serving enterprise-class entertainment companies. The certification enables Mixpo to serve personalized, interactive video ads to the vast array of mobile apps supported by FreeWheel.
MRAID is the IAB Mobile Marketing Center of Excellence’s project to define a common API (Application Programming Interface) for mobile rich media ads that will run in mobile apps.
The announcement comes in a timely manner for marketers and app developers. On March 12, e-Marketer announced that 65% of the marketers they surveyed plan to increase their mobile advertising spend in 2012. MRAID is helping to open up a vast new frontier of mobile inventory for advertisers, particularly now that 55 million Americans own tablets and another 101.3 million own smartphones, 40% of which use them while watching television.
“Mixpo enables content owners to run personalized, interactive video ads on any screen while delivering comprehensive, easy to consume cross-screen performance analytics and monitoring,” said Walter Harp, vice president of product management at Mixpo. “FreeWheel is a market leader in providing content owners what they need to manage the economics of their content across a multiplicity of devices. Plugging into their platform enables Mixpo to deliver greater value to our shared customers — the content owners.”
Read more: marketwire
5 reasons why the banner will outlive us all

The smug little banner
Pity the poor banner. Maligned by millions and attacked by the very people whose paychecks they (largely) make possible, the banner is perhaps the most criticized little workhorse in our culture.
But do banners let our harsh words affect their self esteem? No. Banners proudly hold their ground — shrinking for no one. They know that other people’s opinions of them are none of their business. They know that, like the periplaneta americana, they will be here long after their detractors have returned to ashes and dust. Perhaps with little smirks on their faces as their last attackers return to the earth.
Why can the little banner rest easy knowing that it will get the last eight-second (max) laugh? Because no matter how much we poseurs pretend to despise them, they serve a critical purpose in the internet environment — and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future.
Why can these quietly smug little messages be so certain that their future is bright? Let’s take a look at five reasons.
Read more: iMEDIACONNECTION
]]> http://indotmedia.com/news/news-of-the-day-456/feed/ 0 News of the Day http://indotmedia.com/news/news-of-the-day-454/ http://indotmedia.com/news/news-of-the-day-454/#comments Wed, 28 Mar 2012 21:48:04 +0000 Amanda Maffey http://indotmedia.com/?p=1621 Dedicated Media Selects Aggregate Knowledge as its Media Intelligence Platform

SAN MATEO, CA – March 27, 2012 – Dedicated Media, a customer acquisition platform listed among comScore’s Media Metrix Top 50 U.S. web properties, and Aggregate Knowledge, a media intelligence company delivering the predictive analytics on which the world’s largest advertisers make their digital media decisions, today announced a partnership that includes integration of Dedicated’s SMARTstack technology with the patent-pending AK Media Intelligence Platform. As the media intelligence platform of record for Dedicated Media, the AK Platform will enhance targeting, audience analytics, media buying, and third-party data scorecarding.
The Dedicated Media SMARTstack ad delivery system processes millions of bits of data in milliseconds. SMARTstack will use the highly scalable AK Platform to collect, analyze, and optimize campaigns across thousands of attributes in real time to develop rich insights and to extract the maximum performance out of each impression in each campaign.
“Dedicated Media combines customized audience modeling with millions of primary and third-party behavioral data points, continuous real-time optimization, unparalleled reporting, and industry recognized brand safety to provide advertisers with unsurpassed results,” said Chris Berman, COO and co-founder of Dedicated Media. “This requires intelligent and predictive analytics across multiple channels packaged within a neutral platform to manage the data quickly and easily. The AK Platform is the perfect solution for us because of its sophistication. The easy-to-use dashboard gives us a powerful tool to buy media smarter every minute of every day.”
Read more: Aggregate Knowledge
Mobile Ad Serving Still In Test Mode Among Publishers
Publishers are in the very early stages of establishing mobile ad infrastructure, and they continue to try out a range of solutions in an already fragmented market. According to a survey of 95 online and mobile publishers fielded by InsightExpress on behalf of Mocean Mobile, almost half of respondents had at least tried DART for Mobile over the past two years, but 41% had also tested AdMarvel, 34% Mocean and 19% Nexage. And when it comes to the currently used solution for many publishers, DART (17%), AdMarvel (14%) and Mocean (13%) have to contend with 15% of the market that still relies on in-house or custom ad-serving technologies.

“There is a heck of a lot of experimentation going on,” says InsightExpress’s Joy Liuzzo. “When you see this much experimentation, it is indicative that folks are interested in learning.” “And they probably are not finding all of their needs solved in one place,” Liuzzo adds.

The research shows that publishers often are favoring different vendors for apps, mobile Web, video and rich media. In fact, the prominence of custom solutions in the mobile ad-serving mix suggests that many publishers still feel the need to knit things together. And the mobile media also find their own inventory fragmented across models.

About 45% of respondents say they are responsible for selling less than half of their own mobile ad inventory. Only 55% are selling 50% or more of their inventory. And in most cases, it is the ad sales group that is driving the decisions about which ad servers to use, not ad operations.

Read more: MediaPost

]]> http://indotmedia.com/news/news-of-the-day-454/feed/ 0 News of the Day http://indotmedia.com/news/news-of-the-day-453/ http://indotmedia.com/news/news-of-the-day-453/#comments Tue, 27 Mar 2012 22:20:32 +0000 Amanda Maffey http://indotmedia.com/?p=1617 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%.
Read more: TvExchanger
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.
Read more: ClickZ
]]> http://indotmedia.com/news/news-of-the-day-453/feed/ 0 News of the Day http://indotmedia.com/news/news-of-the-day-452/ http://indotmedia.com/news/news-of-the-day-452/#comments Fri, 23 Mar 2012 21:35:47 +0000 Amanda Maffey http://indotmedia.com/?p=1615 Here’s What Advertisers Need To Know About Buying Video Online

I’ve written many times about the topic of inventory quality, the importance of working with credible partners and the fact that not all inventory is created equal.   There continues to be  a widening gap in the perception of pre-roll video quality from buyers, sellers and  content owners.
Video is an interesting animal.  On the web it is completely unlike traditional linear television, yet it appears to be the same.  Many of the players are similar.  There are content producers, syndicators, distributors and destinations where video can be viewed.
However, the differences end there.  With television, advertisements generally are viewed during a commercial break nested within, or adjacent to, programming in a standardized format within the ‘box’ in your living room.
With online video, the viewing experience takes on many shapes, sizes, experiences and placements.  A video advertisement on the web can appear in a banner, before a flash game, as a full page takeover, before or within an actual program (in stream) or as a standalone piece of content (think a movie trailer on YouTube).
These varying viewing experiences make it challenging for the buyer to evaluate the quality of the environment, difficult to standardize rates, and nearly impossible to determine where his ad is running.
Read more: BusinessInsider
Google Integrates Admeld Into DoubleClick AdX, Preps ‘Unified’ Publisher Solution

About four months after Google got the regulatory go-ahead for its estimated $400 million acquisition of supply platform Admeld, the search giant has unveiled the first phase of the two companies’ integration.
Over the next few weeks, Google will be rolling out AdX Connect, which represents the full immersion of Admeld’s clients to the DoubleClick Ad Exchange. Speaking at the client-only Admeld forum this morning, Neal Mohan, Google’s VP of display advertising, also said that the advertiser, buyer, and bid transparency levels in the exchange would be improved, so that they are comparable with those currently provided to Admeld publishers.
In a phone briefing with AdExchanger, Mohan described this as an important step for the two entities and for Google’s growing display business. In particular, this is the first phase of what Mohan said will be a seamless platform around display tools for publishers and advertisers. “We want to move away from a world where there’s the ad exchange and then there’s Admeld,” Mohan said. “Over time, those products are going to come together. You’ll see a seamless product that should be the best yield management tool for publishers.”
Read more: AdExchanger
]]> http://indotmedia.com/news/news-of-the-day-452/feed/ 0 News of the Day http://indotmedia.com/news/news-of-the-day-449/ http://indotmedia.com/news/news-of-the-day-449/#comments Fri, 16 Mar 2012 21:39:42 +0000 Amanda Maffey http://indotmedia.com/?p=1606 Driving Mobile to Scale


Mobile advertising is beginning to live up to its promise. There is so much innovation at the moment that it’s hard to find a more exciting place to be. But as with all beginnings, a million things still need to fall into place before mobile fully evolves.
In order to drive growth, education is vital. We must to continue to educate and evangelize about mobile’s range of advantages to marketers and agencies.
Then we need to deliver the goods. In order to do so, we have to establish a more scalable framework where the creativity and special features of smartphones, tablets, and other connected devices are not being compromised.
New ad formats are a given when it comes to achieving this goal. Embracing the ecosystem’s desire for richer brand marketing that speaks to mobile’s unique requirements and benefits, one of the Interactive Advertising Bureau’s key initiatives of this year is the Mobile Rising Stars contest. Winning ad format concepts were revealed a few short weeks ago in Miami Beach at the IAB Annual Leadership Meeting. These winning ad concepts will go through a development, deployment, and testing process and, with success, be inducted into the IAB standard advertising unit portfolio, the definitive standards for the digital advertising industry.
Read more: CLickZ

Are Ad Servers Specifically For Publishers Or Advertisers Still Necessary?
Publisher ad server. Advertiser ad server.

Does it really matter any more?

As ad servers on both sides of the digital media aisle look to buy and sell, ad serving capabilities would, in theory, appear to be on the verge of merging – especially as demand-side platforms, sell-side platforms and exchanges take over the delivery of real-time biddable ad impressions.

AdExchanger reached out to executives in the data-driven ad ecosystem and asked the following: ”Are ad servers specifically dedicated to the publisher or advertiser still necessary?”

Click below or scroll for more:

•James Avery, CEO, Adzerk

•Sebastiaan Schepers, COO, BannerConnect

•Dean McRobie, CTO, annalect (Omnicom)

•Ben Kneen, Director of Ad Products, WebMD

•Eric Simon, VP Business Operations, [x+1]

•Brian Tomasette, VP Media Products, DoublePositive Marketing Group

•Larry Allen, SVP Business Development, 24/7 Real Media

James Avery, CEO, Adzerk

“No. As a product guy it baffles me that they have continued as separate products for so long. The difference between a publisher side ad server and an advertiser side ad server is small enough that many small and medium size advertisers currently use publisher ad servers (especially the free ones). Adding to the pressure for these products to combine is that the modern ad network tends to be a half publisher and half advertiser – on any given day they might be optimizing the traffic that comes from their publishers or placing ad buys through the exchanges or through other publisher side ad servers. As publisher side ad servers continue to add the features that these networks and small advertisers are looking for the feature gap will close and advertiser side ad servers will start to see more and more competition from the publisher side ad servers.”
Read more: AdExchanger.com

]]> http://indotmedia.com/news/news-of-the-day-449/feed/ 0 News of the Day http://indotmedia.com/news/news-of-the-day-443/ http://indotmedia.com/news/news-of-the-day-443/#comments Wed, 07 Mar 2012 22:46:35 +0000 Amanda Maffey http://indotmedia.com/?p=1588 Private Exchanges from a Premium Publisher Perspective – Cutting Through the Confusion

“The Sell-Sider” is a column written by the sell-side of the digital media community. Today’s column is the first of a two-part series and written by Esco Strong, Director, Exchange Marketplace Management at Microsoft

Even if you’re but a casual follower of the digital display advertising space, one such option and term you’ve no doubt heard in kind over the past twelve months is “Private Exchange.” From panels to blogs to product pitches, I have seen the term bandied about by a variety of players and in different contexts, to the great confusion of our industry. It is sometimes even used to describe fundamentally divergent concepts and products. I would like to end that confusion.

In this blog series, I will attempt to clarify the key concepts, verbiage and use cases of what a “Private Exchange ” is, and is not. Part one will focus on explaining some of the different use cases and ways this terminology is used.In part two, I’ll dive deeper into what “Private Exchanges” can offer and analyze the various use cases and implications of using the different types of exchanges.

I won’t cover all of the possible permutations here, as the term has been used quite extensively within the industry to mean all sorts of different things. I will instead focus on the most common scenarios that touch the core functionalities involved in this area: Use case #1: “Private Exchange” = a siloed marketplace with controls managed individually by publisher

Read more: AdExchanger
Tapad Brings Retargeting to Phones, Tablets, But Marketers Aren’t Talking
One big growth area of display advertising is retargeting, which is popular with online retailers that want to get ads in front of consumers who’ve abandoned a shopping cart or otherwise left their site. Aggressive retargeting means you might see a lot of one ad from, for example, Bonobos, making it feel as if the internet knows where you’ve been (because it does).

Such ads will soon be following you to a smartphone, a tablet, or both — a technological hurdle, as so-called cookie-tracking can’t happen across different devices.

When we last wrote about Tapad, in September, the New York startup was busy helping advertisers retarget consumers within mobile phones, producing a $20 million revenue run-rate in the process. Tapad has since been working in beta on expanding the offering to help advertisers reach the same consumer across multiple screens: personal computers, cellphones and tablets. The company is releasing the technology out of beta today.

Read more: AdAgeDigital

]]> http://indotmedia.com/news/news-of-the-day-443/feed/ 0 News of the Day http://indotmedia.com/news/news-of-the-day-438/ http://indotmedia.com/news/news-of-the-day-438/#comments Tue, 28 Feb 2012 23:05:39 +0000 Amanda Maffey http://indotmedia.com/?p=1575 Attributing Social Media to Sales Revenue

Today’s social media networking sites are conduits to build, expand, and reinforce brands’ relationships with its target audience. Social media in today’s brand management arena is not just about setting up a Facebook Page and post content that is no different from similar editorial material found on the corporate website. It is about brands building an online relationship with its customers that encapsulates trust, reliability, and service-centricity. Indeed, the intent of any social networking strategy must mirror the same focus and attention that offline relationships are built on over the years.
What this means is that it takes time for companies to create a profile on the social media environment to engage with the online community. Invariably, this approach raised questions on how brands should measure the success attributed to social media. This is especially tricky. Some brands perceive social media similar to the many digital channels available to advertisers, whereby there’s an implicit perception that measurement standards adopted for online advertising applies in social media.

In my opinion, the success metric from social media networking is improved sales revenue, and it has to be clearly attributed to the social media strategies implemented by the brand or its appointed agencies. This approach builds on the belief that discussions that that originate from social media networking will lead to revenue opportunities for brands and advertisers.
Read more: ClickZ
AOL Ad Platform Customizes Display
Hoping to attract more brand dollars, AOL has debuted a technology platform for marketers to customize the design, delivery and management of display advertising. Pictela Enterprise gives ad agencies a guided self-service interface to manage their clients’ brand assets and serve them directly into online display ads.

“We are putting the power of publishing in the hands of the ad agencies and their clients,” said Greg Rogers, senior vice president, premium formats at AOL and CEO of Pictela — which AOL acquired in late 2010.“Think of [Pictela Enterprise] as a content management system for ads.”

The platform is certified to serve its ad units across AOL, Advertising.com and most major online publishers.

Building on AOL’s Project Devil initiative, Pictela’s product suite of products and services includes a cloud-based platform for the creation, delivery and analysis of premium ads.

At launch, the system supports six IAB standard ad sizes, including 300×1050, 300×600, 970×90, 728×90, 160×600 and 300×250.

Read more: MediaPost

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