Can Audience Insights Boost the ROI of Social Media Ads?

Historically, marketers have adopted a boomerang strategy when forced to deal with a new media channel. Step one: spin up a division to deal with the new channel. Step two: mainstream the division when everyone starts to realize that the new channel is just an extension of the consumer’s life. Remember Young & Rubicam’s Y&R 2.1 or Ogilvy’s Ogilvy Interactive? Didn’t think so. They were early agency responses to this new thing called the Internet. How about the early agency efforts at mobile marketing, Omnicom’s IPSH, Publicis’ Phonevalley, or IPG’s Ansible? Sensing a pattern here?

History appears to be repeating itself with social media and its poster child, Facebook. Facebook media shops are springing up like zits on the face of a Facebook-addled teen. With more than 750 million users around the world, Facebook offers marketers an immense and granular audience. According to recent comScore data, Facebook accounted for 346 billion ad impressions in Q1 2011, putting it at the top of all online display ad publishers with 31.2 percent share of all impressions served in the U.S. But does Facebook even belong in the category of “display ad publishers”? Many observe that Facebook has built a “closed” web – its treasure trove of user demographic and psychographic information in a walled-off garden – where advertisers can sow seeds but grow their business largely in Facebook’s garden.

Read More: ClickZ

Yahoo! Announces Leadership Reorganization

Board Appoints Timothy Morse Interim CEO

Board Initiates Search for Permanent CEO

SUNNYVALE, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)– Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO), the premier digital media company, today announced a leadership reorganization under which the Board of Directors has appointed Timothy Morse interim Chief Executive Officer, effective immediately, replacing Carol Bartz, who has been removed by the Board from her role as Chief Executive Officer.

The Board has also named key senior Yahoo! executives to a newly formed Executive Leadership Council tasked with supporting Morse in managing the Company’s day-to-day operations until a permanent chief executive is appointed, as well as supporting a comprehensive strategic review that the Board has initiated to position the Company for future growth.

Roy Bostock, Chairman of the Yahoo! Board, said, “The Board sees enormous growth opportunities on which Yahoo! can capitalize, and our primary objective is to leverage the Company’s leadership and current business assets and platforms to execute against these opportunities. We have talented teams and tremendous resources behind them and intend to return the Company to a path of robust growth and industry-leading innovation. We are committed to exploring and evaluating possibilities and opportunities that will put Yahoo! on a trajectory for growth and innovation and deliver value to shareholders.”

Read More: Yahoo!

“Relationship” Cookies

The secret to online marketing is at the cookie level.  Every moment is 1:1 between the brand and the consumer.  For each individual impression we can measure the resulting actions (or inactions).

So we, the media buyers and digital marketers out there, buy cheap impressions – the cheaper the better as long as they “perform.”  We’re smarter with our dollars.  We have data and algorithms that tell us where our marketing budgets are working most effectively.  We’re 100% accountable with our media down to the cookie level.

But what about the consumer?  Have you ever stopped to think about the net impact to the consumer of all your online programs combined?

Direct response media is still direct response media.  A banner ad might not be as intrusive as a piece of direct mail, but there’s a certain element of pushiness in campaigns that routinely and overtly scream at customers to buy.  It seems even more distasteful when all those ads appear at page bottom of anonymous content.

Read More: PointRoll

Magnetic Adds Site Retargeting To Search For Display Ads

Magnetic will launch Wednesday a site retargeting tool dubbed Magnetic Force. The offering gives site visitors text or image-based display ads, complementing the company’s search retargeting service.

The effort allows advertisers to leverage the intent found in search data by consumers who have visited an advertiser’s Web site.

About 10 clients amid the Fortune 500 have been testing the site retargeting service, but Josh Shatkin-Margolis, Magnetic founder, expects more will sign on with the fledgling company to combine site and search retargeting.

The two services work together because while one drives customer acquisitions the other drives retention. It takes a consumer from a generic topic, such as “car insurance” from a search on an engine, and pushes her deeper into the funnel through different stages of intent to more specific brands.

Shatkin-Margolis points to a recent study from comScore and ValueClick showing that retargeted ads increase trademark search behavior by 1,046%. And between May and December 2010, the number of U.S. marketers using site retargeting rose from 17% to 22%, according to eMarketer. The research firm also notes that during that time, the proportion of marketers launching search retargeting programs jumped from 13% to 28%.

Read More: MediaPost

The 7 types of effective retargeting

The term “retargeting” has become common language within the digital marketing space, but it’s often misunderstood and, consequently, the potential it brings becomes lost. There are actually seven ways you should be looking at it for your media plans, outlined below.

When marketers refer to retargeting, they are typically referring to site retargeting — the ability to show display ads to an individual who has visited your site and then left again, often without completing a desired action. We hear of retailers using this in particular, trying to get a customer who has added some items to a cart to come back and hit the checkout button instead of giving the dollars to a competitor.

There is actually so much more that retargeting can do, and if you understand the basic principles, you begin to see an almost unlimited potential. In essence, retargeting is the process of identifying an individual who has done something you have defined, in order to determine who to target with an ad. And for it be effective, you define actions that imply an intent — an intent to buy a product, an intent to solve a problem etc.

Read More: iMediaConnection

Magnetic Focus Redefines Search by Removing Limitations of SEM

Platform Connects Marketers and Customers Beyond the Search Engine Network

NEW YORK, NY–(Marketwire – Jul 14, 2011) – Magnetic (http://www.magnetic.is), the leader in search retargeting, today announced the Beta release of its new self-service platform, Magnetic Focus. Magnetic Focus challenges the boundaries of search, enabling agencies and search engine marketers to use display or text ads to reach consumers at any point of their online experience, even beyond the search engine network, where the search was initiated.

“Magnetic Focus is redefining the role of the search engine,” says Magnetic CEO Josh Shatkin-Margolis. “This new platform enables advertisers to move beyond the search engine and retarget customers that have already shown themselves to be interested in product or service. Now we have Magnetic Frame for display ads, Magnetic Field for ad network and exchanges and Magnetic Focus to complete our search retargeting trifecta. It allows advertisers to take the power of search beyond the search engine.”

Read More: Marketwire

Glam Media Introduces Glam 2.0—The Next Generation Digital Media Model

Glam Launches GlamCreate, the Company’s First Owned and Managed Content Platform, to Create, Contribute, Curate, Host and Showcase Digital Content

Glam also Introduces GlamConnect, the First Professional Content Social Networking Platform to Help Build Communities with Journalists, Authors, Bloggers and Content Creators that Share Deep, Passionate Interests

SILICON VALLEY, Calif. and NEW YORK, July 14, 2011 /PRNewswire/ — Glam Media, Inc. (www.GlamMedia.com), the number one vertical media company with the largest online global reach for women, today announced a revolutionary new Owned & Managed content model, Glam 2.0. The model enables digital content creators to build their brands, connect with other influencers and consumers, showcase their content in a big way and create new brand revenue streams.

The Glam 2.0 content model is powered by two recently developed technology platforms, GlamCreate, a content-management and showcasing platform, and GlamConnect, the first social networking platform for professional authors, bloggers and journalists.

These new platforms provide the ultimate toolbox for professional authors to create and broadcast authentic content across multiple social streams all in one place. GlamCreate and GlamConnect are initially available in an invite only beta version in Glam Media’s newest vertical, Bliss.com for Health and Wellness Seekers, and will be available for existing and additional content verticals in the coming months.

Read More: PRNewswire