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Online advertising has been popular since the inception of the internet. But advertising has also changed a lot, and it keeps changing as new and more innovative adtech appears. One of the best new technologies is outstream video, which allows advertisers and website owners to give clients and readers excellent content without the standard video players like YouTube. It’s somewhat ironic that it took until 2018 for the industry to get here, but with the rise of video advertising content, relevance, and consumer interest, there’s now an easy way to syndicate this high-engagement content to reach greater audiences beyond just Youtube. Outstream video will give brands more opportunities to engage their customers, and grow the importance of video content at an even more rapid rate. That way people can see what they should be seeing, and what they want to see, without a lot of the extras that cause site visitors to click away and choose another site. Here's what to consider when it comes to learning about and using outstream video.
When you use outstream video to reach people on your website or to reach people on other websites through the use of ads, you can research your own keyword and choose one that's going to resonate with your target market. Then you know you have a good chance of saying (or showing) something that matters to the people you're trying to reach out to. When they see what you have to offer they may be interested in it, but if they can't see it through all of the other issues that come with video players they may choose to ignore it.
Through the use of the outstream video options, though, video ads come up and play as a person moves through the content. These ads can be scrolled past, and they'll stop playing as soon as they're off the screen. Most of them also autoplay without sound, so the audience you're targeting won't be blasted with noise or music as they scroll through content. Having that happen can really turn people off to the kinds of information you're trying to give them through the ads, and that might mean they won't come back to the site or buy the product the ad is offering to them. It's not always easy to avoid those kinds of problems, but outstream ads reduce the risk. By leveraging outstream and targeting the right people, your chances of advertising success will be on the rise.
One of the benefits of outstream video is choice. You can pick where your ad goes, how it is placed, and what it offers to the people looking at the site. Some people use these ads to place their information on other sites, but many people are using them to give readers more information about the content they're already reading. In other words, they're placing embedded video on their own site to sell products or services. For those who want to use ads from others, though, some companies are paying a lot of money to have their outstream video ads placed.
It depends on the site where the ad is being placed, of course, and the type of video that the advertiser or company wants, but there are companies that are paying $45 CPMs. That's a big deal for those who are looking for good advertising revenue, and also for those who want to really monetize a site in a way that people who come to that site can appreciate. It's not always easy to get good advertising for a site, and it's also not always easy to get a site where advertisers want to put their information. No matter whether you're a site owner, another company, or an advertising agency, understanding the value of outstream video is important for your future.
In early 2017, most people had never heard of outstream video. By the middle of 2018, a lot of companies are using it. Agencies that help companies place ads are saying that outstream video is the next big thing, and 77% of those agencies believe this type of advertising could actually be crucial to the success of their clients. As someone who wants to see your company and your internet presence succeed, it's time to look at outstream video. New concepts are very important, and when they quickly take hold like this one has, you want to make sure you're a part of that.
If you avoid outstream video because it's new or because you're not familiar with it yet, you could really be missing out on everything it has to offer. But there's more to the equation than that. Your customers will also miss out on what it has to offer, and by extension what you have to offer. That's unfortunate for everyone involved, and makes it harder to build a strong business that customers can find, trust, and rely on. The more you know about new concepts and the more you employ them in your marketing strategy, the better off you'll be when it comes to staying at the forefront of your industry and keeping your advertising fresh and new.
With so many ad agencies predicting that companies are going to move rapidly to this type of advertising, understanding outstream video and getting involved with it now can put you ahead of the curve. Getting behind your competitors isn't a good thing, and it can be hard to catch up. You at least need to keep up with them and get ahead of them if possible. By starting to work with outstream video now, instead of waiting for more companies to begin to use it, you have the unique opportunity to really get ahead of others in your industry.
Not only can that make it better for your company to build a strong internet presence, but it can also help reach more and more people who may potentially be interested in buying from you at a later date. Even if they aren't customers right now, they may be customers in the future. Helping them see everything you can offer them, and giving them ads that work for them both in information and placement, can be extremely valuable as a marketing strategy and to be sure that you're doing all you can to keep at the forefront of your industry. Doing what's needed to keep customers interested often means trying new things, and getting your foot in the door before others do.
One of the best things about outstream video is that it's less intrusive than other types of advertising. For example, nearly everyone hates pop-ups. That's why there are so many pop-up blockers available today, and why so many companies' websites ask that you turn off your adblocker when you visit. Some will let you see content anyway, and some will refuse to show you their site if you don't let them advertise to you. Either way, you have options for how intrusive you want to allow ads to be. As a site owner, you also have that option. But your customers need to have some control of them or they might not come back.
Because the outstream video offered on a number of sites is less intrusive, more companies are starting to use it to reduce the number of visitors who leave the site because of ads. When a video ad auto plays without sound, and when scrolling past it makes it stop playing and disappear, there are fewer complaints from site visitors. That's good news for the visitors, the site owner, and the companies advertising on that site. When everyone benefits, the ads are more effective in the long run than some other choices.
With the advertising space on quality websites at a premium today, brands’ advertising spend is skyrocketing. But it's important that those advertising dollars are used wisely. If they aren't used the right way, they aren't going to be effective. At that point, the advertising dollars are simply being wasted and could be put to better use. But with brands paying high prices for outstream video space on high-level sites, advertising agencies, companies that want to advertise, and companies that have websites where advertising is allowed all need to work together to the benefit of everyone. Of course, that benefit includes the customers and clients who will visit the sites, see the ads, and potentially buy from the companies that are advertising.
Overall, outstream video is one of the best ways to advertise on the internet, and it's only going to become more important as time goes on. But that doesn't mean it's perfect yet, or that every company is focused on it. Because of that, now is a good time to get involved with it while it's still new. It's a bit unique at the moment, instead of being something that everyone has seen. That uniqueness can go a long way toward making your company stand out, and anyone who's advertising like this will start to see that it's adding to their revenue in a big way.
With the lack of intrusion into the website browsing experience and its ability to offer ads that customers really relate to, outstream video can be an excellent way for any company to move toward a higher level of advertising at a fair price. Reaching more customers in a way they can relate to is important, and companies that spend their advertising dollars carefully can reach more potential customers, as well.
As Centrons, we have a multitude of reasons to be proud of ourselves and our company – from our constant community-improving endeavors, to the awards we win for being one of the best places to work in the U.S. Our culture plays an enormous factor in everything that we do, and there is definitely a difference when our employees are no longer surrounded by fellow Centrons. Don’t take my word for it; just ask some of our Boomerangs! Nell McGann, one of our customer success managers, earned a great opportunity which led to her leaving Centro - only to realize at heart she remained a Centron. And that led her way back to the Centro family. Nell opened up to us about her thoughts and decision making processes:
Q: What did you find attractive about your new opportunity that made you want to leave Centro and pursue this opening?
Nell: “I was looking to pursue my passion for health and came across this startup in the health and software space. Its mission is to bring more data to physicians to help with treatment options for cancer patients, which was very interesting to me.”
Q: What were your expectations when starting your new opportunity? Were your expectations met?
N: “I expected to be working in a software system and training hospitals and educational institutions on how to best use the platform. I also was going to be managing partnerships with hospitals and educational institutions. Unfortunately, my expectations were not met. I spent my days working in Google sheets and managing cancer patient’s tissue from receipt of lab all the way through processing. The role was very in the weeds and I had little contact with the hospitals and educational institutions that I was told I would be managing.”
Q: What did you miss about Centro after you left?
N: “The culture and people. There is nothing that compares to Centro and the way employees are treated here. I did not expect to have the same culture at my new job, but I didn’t realize how much the culture of a company could affect every aspect of my life. I missed the opportunities I was presented and the trust and respect I received from my team and everyone at Centro. I did not realize how much support I had here until I left. At Centro I have so many people rooting for me and wanting me to do well. Centro trusts me with big accounts and creating new processes. No matter what mistakes were made along the way, I always have people to go to if I need help or advice. This is invaluable and not something you can get everywhere.”
Q: What were the driving factors for your return to Centro?
N: “I quickly realized the culture at my other company was negatively affecting me. I was constantly stressed and unhappy. I went to bed every night dreading going to work and woke up feeling the same way. I was not valued and I knew long term this would never work. I wanted to be part of a company that is forward thinking, challenging, and truly cares about their employees. Centro is all of these things. I wanted to work for a software company and not living in Google sheets every day; I wanted to be surrounded by smart, humble, and supportive people. Most importantly, I wanted a voice at the table and my voice to be heard no matter who I am talking to within the organization.”
Q: What did you learn from this experience?
N: “I realized I was really good at my job here and that I was being challenged even after 6 years of working here. I learned I have team members, directors, VP’s who value my work and enjoy working with me. I learned that Centro is home for me and the vision and mission of Centro is not something we put on our website, but something that is put into practice every single day by even the highest level employees. I learned that I still have a passion for health, but I don’t need my career to be in that industry in order to be happy and successful. I learned how to check my ego at the door, and make decisions that are right for me. Coming back to Centro is the right thing for me.”
Centro’s culture is something that is imprinted within each of us and is something to be incredibly proud of. Welcome back, Nell!
The AdWords experience has changed a lot over the years, but one feature remains important for PPC advertising success: Quality Score. AdWords Quality Score is an aggregate metric Google uses to determine the relevance of your ads to the search queries they’re optimized for. To improve their own user experience, Google wants to ensure the results you’re paying to deliver also match with the searcher’s intent. They use Quality Score to ensure only the most relevant ads appear alongside search results, regardless of how much you’re bidding for a specific keyword.
Quality Score ensures that irrelevant ads aren’t even able to enter an auction to appear for a user’s search query. It also helps determine ad rank for those ads that do enter an auction, along with CPC bid.
Ad Rank = CPC bid x Quality Score
While some marketers think of Quality Score as an advertising challenge to overcome, it’s actually a positive thing. Striving to make your ads more relevant will ultimately make them more effective at driving your marketing goals. A high Quality Score also gives advertisers with limited budgets the opportunity to outrank high bidders for competitive keywords.
Here’s everything you need to know to optimize your AdWords Quality Score.
The first thing you should do to improve your Quality Score is check it. Who knows? You could already be performing quite well.
In the new Adwords experience, just go to the Keywords tab from the side menu. Here you’ll see a list of all your keywords. Hover over a keyword’s status in the “Status” column. Then you’ll see your Quality Score for that keyword:
You’ll see there’s a Quality Score for each individual keyword you’re targeting with your ads. Scores range between 1 and 10 — the higher the score, the better. When your keyword has a low Quality Score, you’ll need to pay more to achieve the ad rank you want. When you have a high Quality Score, you’ll need to pay less.
Google uses 3 main factors to determine the Quality Score of your ads: click-through rate, ad relevance, and landing page experience.
Click-through rate
This is the percentage of people that click on your ads. For example, if Google displays your ad for a specific keyword 1000 times and searchers click on it 5 times, that’s a 0.5% click-through rate. So getting a lot of impressions in search results isn’t necessarily good if people don’t click on your ads.
Click-through rate is probably the most important factor in determining your Quality Score as it is also an indicator of ad relevance.
Ad relevance
The next factor affecting your Quality Score is ad relevance. That’s how well your ad content matches up to the intent of users when they search for a certain keyword. Ad relevance can be below average, average, or above average for an individual keyword.
Landing page experience
Landing page experience is what happens after users click through on an ad. If your landing page isn’t at all relevant to what they were looking for, they’re likely to immediately bounce, thus hurting your landing page experience score.
This can happen if your landing page is irrelevant to the keyword or has user experience issues that cause people to navigate away.
Now that you know what factors make up your Quality Score for a certain keyword, you’re ready to take steps to improve them. The strategies you can use are largely interconnected and can help improve more than one Quality Score factor at a time.
Here are 7 steps you can use to boost your Quality Score:
Step 1: Evaluate Your Ad Relevance
If Google doesn’t think your ad is relevant to the keyword you’re targeting and lowers your Quality Score as a result, then you need to look into and diagnose the problem yourself. Luckily Google has something just for that called the Ad Preview and Diagnosis Tool.
All you have to do is enter your target keyword and it will show you how your ad looks in search results. This is better than actually going to Google to find your ad because that would mean more impressions that can negatively impact your Quality Score even more.
Now you should take a long hard look at your ad and try to diagnose why people aren’t clicking on it. Maybe your ad copy isn’t very compelling. Are you missing a unique selling proposition or a proper CTA?
The other potential reason is that your ad isn’t really relevant to the keyword in question. For example, say you’re doing PPC for an online tax software, and you’re targeting a keyword like “tax advice.” Displaying an ad for your software wouldn’t really deliver what they’re looking for (a tax professional).
In this case, the solution would be to either stop targeting that keyword or create an ad that does deliver what people want. Directing people to a tax advice lead magnet or your in-house tax professionals would do the trick.
Step 2: Analyze Competitors’ Strategies
A great way to get an idea of what works and what doesn’t is by analyzing your competitors’ ads. Head to Google and see who’s ranking in the top 3 spots above the fold for a specific keyword.
Of course, part of what achieves this ad placement is high bidding. But the other part is Quality Score. You can bet ads appearing above the fold have top Quality Scores for that keyword.
Start by looking at what kind of ads are appearing in the top spots for a certain keyword. Are they offering the same kind of content/products/services that you are, or something different?
For example, if the top ads appearing for “tax advice” aren’t recommending software, it suggests you have a relevance issue. They could also be targeting a keyword in a more specific way than you are.
The next thing you can look at is ad copy. Maybe the top ads have a punchy CTA or other elements that help them get more clicks and a higher Quality Score. See what effective elements you can incorporate into your own ads.
You can also take a look at the organic results right below and compare your ad copy to that content to get some idea of query relevancy.
Step 3: Tightly Target High Volume Keywords
Aside from improving your current ads, you can also create a new tightly focused ad group with the main goal of improving your ad relevance. You’ll want to target high-volume keywords here.
Go through your existing Adwords keywords and find one with a poor ad relevance score. Pause the keyword within the ad group, then create a whole new ad group for the keyword.
The new ad group you’re creating is just about targeting one keyword with a poor Quality Score. So create your new ad copy with that one keyword in mind. So make sure your ad headline and copy use that exact keyword (e.g. When targeting “tax advice,” your headline can be “Get tax advice today”).
When creating the ad group, include your target keyword and only the most closely related keywords (e.g. free tax help online, free tax advice). Don’t go too broad here because you’re going for relevance.
Once you’ve created this ultra-targeted ad group, go back and check your Quality Score for the keyword. If your ad relevance goes up, then you’ve successfully created an ad that better matches the keyword.
A big mistake that a lot of PPC marketers make is trying to catch all with their ad groups. Using one ad to target too many possibly related keywords at the same time can lead to a bad Quality Score. Conduct experiments like this to see if that’s what’s driving your Quality Score down.
Step 4: Check Your Landing Page User Experience
The next thing you can do is go through your ads and improve your landing page user experience. This is worthwhile if you find you have a below-average landing page experience in your Quality Score for a certain keyword.
Go to the ads tab, hover over one of the ads with your cursor, then click through to the landing page associated with the ad. You very may well find your destination URLs don’t work, which is the root of all your Quality Score problems.
Often symbols are the culprit. Here’s a list of common symbols that can break your destination URLs:
If your destination URLs work just fine, then some other user experience issues could be the culprit. Are all your landing page elements working properly? How about your site speed?
It could be that your landing page is simply too slow to load. You can get an idea of your overall site speed using PageSpeed Insights.
If your site is too slow, then make efforts to speed it up using Google’s suggestions.
Step 5: Optimize Your Landing Page Relevance
If your landing page doesn’t have any user experience issues, then it could be a problem of relevance. Now you need to ask yourself:
Does the landing page match peoples’ search intent?
Does the landing page match the ad associated with it?
It could be that your ad copy is misleading and sends users to a landing page they weren’t expecting. Or your landing page doesn’t do a good job of appearing like what they’re looking for.
You know what your landing pages are about (you did create them), but try to approach them from the eyes of an outsider. Something as simple as not including your target keyword in the page title, or forcing visitors to scroll past a large header to reach the page content is enough to make people bounce.
You should also ensure your landing page is sufficiently specific to what people are searching for. For example, if someone searched for “free tax advice for seniors,” and you send them to a general tax Q&A page, that’s not very targeted. Your landing page should be specifically about seniors (and hopefully have a picture of older people on it so they know they found the right place!).
Step 6: Change and Test Your Ads
Whatever new strategies you use to improve your Quality Score, make sure you test the changes. Instead of making blanket changes to all your ads for a specific keyword, create ad variations so you can test and see what works.
Make sure you have at least 3 or more ads in each ad group. Then AdWords will automatically rotate them so you can see which ones lead to better click-through rates and conversions.
In the new Adwords experience, go to settings, click on your campaign, then scroll down to “Additional Settings.” Here you can set up your ad rotation preferences to rotate indefinitely or automatically optimize to show the best performing ads over time:
Once you have some hard data, go through and delete the ad with the lowest click-through rate. Over time, you can keep creating new ad variations to test against your highest-performing ad. Keep rotating and removing your bad ads to improve your click-through rate and Quality Score long term.
Step 7: Use Other Strategies to Improve CTR
Adwords is coming out with new features and tools all the time that are designed to help PPC advertisers improve their ads, targeting, and click-through rate. Take advantage of these features and you’re bound to have a better Quality Score in the process.
Here are some examples of other tools and strategies you can use to improve CTR:
Ad Extensions
Ad extensions have been around for a long time, and marketers who aren’t taking advantage of them yet should start. Ad extensions offer additional information related to your ad, such as a call button, location information, links to specific parts of your website, etc.
Not only do ad extensions give you more real estate in search results, they’re also an opportunity to create even more relevant copy for searchers. This can help improve CTR and in turn, your Quality Score.
Dynamic Keyword Insertion
This is a newer AdWords feature that makes it possible to customize your ad copy based on the specific query someone searched for. For example, look at the Home Depot ad copy that comes up when I search “blenders for sale”:
Versus what comes up when I search “smoothie blender”:
They don’t need to create different campaigns to display targeted ads for each of these keywords. It’s possible to use Dynamic Keyword Insertion to change the ad headline and/or body text to include the exact keyword someone was searching for.
Dynamic Keyword Insertion automatically makes your ads more relevant and can improve click-through rate as well.
Other AI-powered suggestions
Over the past 2 years, Google has been launching all sorts of AI-powered Adwords features that use your own campaign insights and machine learning to help you optimize your ads.
With Dynamic Search Ads, AdWords will help you come up with search targeting and ad headlines based on your website copy. Automated suggestions can help you improve your ad headlines, descriptions, extensions, and landing page elements. You can even automate the process so that Google will make these changes for you whenever new suggestions come up.
A metric like Quality Score is good for Google, searchers, and advertisers alike. It helps ensure PPC ads really match up with what searchers are looking for, and encourages advertisers to create more a relevant (and effective) marketing message.
Luckily, your Quality Score gives you all the information you need to make necessary changes to improve your ads. Just pay attention to the three main quality score factors, and how they change when you experiment with different ad copy, targeting strategies, and landing page elements. Over time, you’ll have a better understanding of what’s important to improve Quality Score in your PPC niche.
How do you ensure your programmatic ads are running in a quality environment?
It’s Wednesday and while you enjoy that dark-roast coffee, you read the morning news from your tablet. An hour later, you are listening to your favorite songs from your phone as you ride the commuter train to work. When you arrive at the office, you fire up your laptop, and continue working on a research project you started earlier in the week. You look back at your phone to check the time, and do a quick scan of your social media accounts. Back to work! 11:40 am has arrived and you’ve been switching devices back and forth since you woke up. At the end of the day, once home, you buy tickets for a show on the weekend – you can’t recall how you know about the show, just that you want to go.
While you’ve been focused on information of interest all day, you’ve also been seeing ads and engaging with products along the way. And doing so from your phone, tablet, laptop, and sometimes from more than one device at the same time. As advertisers, it’s imperative to understand how to properly maximize the amount of exposure consumers have with our brands.
Cross-device targeting and tracking gives advertisers the ability to reach individuals on multiple touch points, providing a seamless experience across all devices. Centro has teamed up with Tapad to facilitate this in Basis. With the assistance of machine learning algorithms, Tapad’s technology uses probabilistic and deterministic data such as proximity, IP addresses, and app logins to help classify different devices as belonging to the same person. It collects over 250 billion data points per month to create these models so it can be as precise as possible!
By powering on this feature you can experience four key benefits:
In a world where users are constantly switching between devices, it’s imperative to be able to show them the right message in the right screen at the right time. Experience the benefits of cross-device targeting now in Basis!
One of the greatest areas of optimization opportunity when it comes to AdWords campaigns involves tweaking the Geo-Targeting Settings based upon performance. For example, many campaigns are set to target only “United States” with a 0% bid modifier. It's a common practice for account managers to bid at the state level with seemingly random bid modifiers based upon perception of performance or perception of need, instead of actual performance. In today’s hypercompetitive ad marketplace, such a strategy shortchanges your business performance. We can show you how to do better.
First, assuming you’re in the new AdWords UI, go to the following location:
You’re going to see a Geographic Report of your data based upon the dates you’ve selected. Looking at the data contained in your report, you might see something along the lines of:
Within this little report snippet, we can see how deep Google can segment the data geographically. We can get data at the Country Level (e.g. US); Region / State (e.g. Hawaii), Metro Area (e.g. San Francisco DMA), City (Napa), Neighborhood (e.g. Old Toronto), US Congressional Districts, or Zip Code (e.g. 94558).
Next, create a quick pivot table counting the number of conversions at the “Most Specific Location” Level. What is the deepest level of specificity that you’re seeing sufficient conversion volume? If you’re seeing individual neighborhoods or zip codes getting batches of conversions (as opposed to lots of 1’s and 2’s), you can successfully bid to the most specific levels of AdWords geography. If the Neighborhood / Zip Code data is sporadic, then, you might eliminate the “Most Specific Location” column from your data and bid to the City or DMA Level. Unless you have low conversion volume, you should be able to increase the efficiency of your campaign by geo-bidding to the City or DMA Level (as opposed to the state or country).
Here’s another thing useful tidbit of information: AdWords isn’t able to track 100% of its users to the most specific location levels. For example, if you click on an ad while on your cell phone while on the Interstate in a rural area (hopefully not while driving), Google might just be able to track you just to the State that you’re in (or perhaps not even that). Therefore, even if you decide to implement a very specific course of geo-bidding, you’ll need to include Countries and States as part of your structure as a catchall for all your traffic that will get missed with the most specific geo-targeting.
When you decide on how deep to segment your data, pull a report that contains the geo-segments, cost, conversions, and CPA (including Total CPA). We need to figure out what bid modifier to use for geo segment.
In our example, our account CPA happens to be $30.33 and as you might expect, the top Geo’s for the account tend to have better than average CPA’s. We calculate the bid modifier for each of these Geo’s by taking ($30.33 – Geo CPA) / Geo CPA * 100 which gives us some pretty large numbers in the bid modifier column.
However, experience tells us that having bid adjustments greater than 100 or less than -70 isn’t a good idea. Super high bid modifiers lead to unpredictable results and super low bid modifiers tend to quash traffic. So, for the geographic locations that fall outside that range, we make some manual modifications…
Now, we need to get the data ready to upload to AdWords. You are going to upload your data into the locations tab for every campaign you wish to adjust. AdWords has a check locations functionality, but it’s far from perfect if, for example, you just decide to upload your geo as “Napa”. So, you’re going to want to do the following with your data spreadsheet:
Arrange all the remaining data columns from left to right in the order of most specific to least specific (e.g. Most Specific Location / City / Region / Country).
Merge the fields into one with commas separating each data point. We usually do this by pasting the data in Notepad, making the adjustment, and then pasting the altered data back into Excel.
Then, upload the data into AdWords (and validate the data with tools or other platforms).
Manually check your locations for errors. I’ve found that Google fails to distinguish Washington / Washington DC, Kansas / Kansas City, Oklahoma / Oklahoma City, Indiana / Indianapolis, and New York / New York City, among others. You may need to do some manual tweaks.
Then, upload your data.
We’ve seen as much as a 15-20% increase conversion yield from a thorough bidding modifier scrub / update. We also see the overall spend trend slightly higher, so make sure you adjust your budgets accordingly. Account dynamics change over time, and we recommend period reviews and adjustments of bid modifiers in all AdWords Accounts.
It’s easy to miss all the opportunities available for optimization in AdWords, especially given all of the work on your plate as an SEM professional. But you simply can’t afford to miss them because by finding the time to fine-tune your targeting and bid adjustments, you can make huge improvements in your overall program performance.
How would you determine the best demand side platform?
Demand side platforms (DSPs), digital campaign management software that provide advertisers features for buying ad placements on digital channels in real time, are plentiful in the market. Determining the best one depends on who you ask, what problem they want to solve with a DSP, and how they evaluate success. Asking an analyst – who is basing their answer off of specific criteria, reports, and data – might yield a different opinion than an actual user, such as a media buyer.
And so the better question to ask may have to be specified even further: How do you determine the best demand side platform that exceeds user needs and the needs of a digital buying team? To measure that accurately and objectively, you’d need feedback from actual users based on a criteria important to the person operating the software, like how easy it is to use the software, do they get ample support from the vendor, and what features are the best.
A trusted research tool for software, G2 Crowd is a review site for business technology. G2 Crowd continually collects, aggregates, and analyzes user reviews, where its analysis is captured in the G2 Crowd Grid Reports. The Grid is developed from a combination of robust algorithms that pull in data points from product reviews shared by validated users and data aggregated from online sources and social networks. Users ranking and reviewing DSPs are basing their criteria off a number of factors, including DSP functionality/features, ease-of-use, quality of support, and ease-of-working with the vendor. The report plays a critical role in the evaluation process of thousands of software buyers globally, who use the Grid to help them quickly select the best DSP products for their businesses and to find peers with similar experiences.
The latest Grid Report for Demand Side Platform Software was released this month, and the report ranked the top DSPs based on satisfaction and market presence.
Centro’ Basis is the Leader in Demand Side Platform Software
Based on the chart above, you’ll see the leaders category is populated with software solutions and tech companies that exceed client happiness in both market presence and satisfaction. Basis received the highest G2 Score (92) among the competition. Furthermore, 98% of Basis users rated it 4+ stars, 90% would likely recommend it, and its ‘Quality of Support’ received a 95% rating.
Also worth noting is the Net Promoter Scores (NPS), where Basis received a ‘69’ out of a range from -100 to +100. As a comparison, the average score of all the DSPs in the report is ’27.’ The concept of NPS highlights the link between profitable growth and customer loyalty. For most industries, the best indicator of customer loyalty could be measured by asking people how likely they would be to recommend a particular company to another person. A company’s NPS is the percentage of promoters minus the percentage of detractors. A high NPS indicates that a company delights its customers and will, therefore, endure.
Why does this matter? When you invest in a software solution, it’s important to know the product will be there for the long haul – with regular updates, consistent and quick support, and the stability to deliver on its promise of growing your business and driving revenue.
Impacting the Future
Without our customers using and loving Basis, we wouldn’t be able to celebrate this win. Customer success is the driving force behind our product and our continued innovation:
Read user Lisa W.’s review on G2 Crowd.
G2 Crowd’s report gives Centro an objective and honest look at where we can improve Basis, how the competition stacks up, and what users want from the digital marketplace. It benefits potential buyers by allowing them to crowdsource information and hear from industry peers on what works for them, what doesn’t, and why.
If you are in the market for a media planning, buying and analytics solution, we encourage you to read the results. Download the report and contact us at [email protected] to get a demo of Basis, the No. 1 demand side platform!
If an ad appears on a website but users don’t have the opportunity to see it, was the ad really shown?
Every year billions of dollars are spent in display ads. Advertisers are consistently developing more creative units to attract and engage customers, while publishers continue to improve their sites so ad placements can be seen by visitors. However, not all ads have the chance to be looked at by humans, resulting in an unfortunate waste of ad dollars.
One of the mechanisms that has surfaced to address this problem is the introduction and standardization of viewability. The Media Rating Council (MRC) deems viewable an ad for which at least 50% of the pixels are in view for at least one continues second, to ensure that they can be seen by the human eye. Media-tech and mar-tech companies have developed two strategies to achieve this goal in the form of pre- and post-viewability solutions, both available in Basis.
Pre-bid viewability uses historical observations and measurements about an ad placement before making a bid on it. If the technology determines it meets the criteria chosen by the client, it will bid on the placement, otherwise it won’t. These are available as segments provided by some of our partners including: comScore, Double Verify and Peer 39.
Post-bid viewability is the true measurement of an impression, informing you if an ad was viewable or not. To introduce this in Basis, Centro has partnered with Pixalate – the first and only data platform with a comprehensive suite of products specifically built to bring transparency to programmatic advertising. They are a MRC accredited vendor for display ad viewability, and Sophisticated Invalid Traffic (SIVT) detection and filtration for desktop and mobile web traffic. Unlike other vendors, they provide a higher degree of transparency, supplying Basis users with information on viewability down to the placement level. Tracking viewability results can be done by enabling the feature in the campaign editor.
So which one should you use? The good news is you can implement both technologies at the same time to evaluate if you are achieving the goals you desire!
Applying a pre-bid segment with a viewability rate greater than 70% means that your ads will only bid on placements that have been categorized to have a high viewability rating, however you may want to know what these inventory sources are and what their exact rating is. Enabling post-bid viewability measurement will let you know exactly how many impressions purchased were measured, and viewable. Having this insight allows you to optimize inventory accordingly, or make changes to your campaign’s settings. Is a particular ad size or creative type having a better response than others? Is a placement in a site relevant to your product not performing the way you expect it to? Is web traffic on certain days higher, thus creating too many distractions for customers to see your ads? You can use all these data points to make the improvements in the way your campaign is set up to attain your end goal!
If you want to see our post-bid viewability in action, contact us today.
At Centro, we know that keeping up with the trade pubs and latest trends can be tough and time consuming. To make that easier, we’ve compiled all the articles, reports, and other bits of awesomeness you may have missed, but should definitely read. Enjoy our latest list below!
Kantar Millward Brown found that 71% of U.S. internet users believe ads are more intrusive than they were 3 years ago, and nearly 80% feel they are seeing more ads in more places now. U.S. adults spend an average of 12 hours and 5 minutes a day with media (and 6.8 hours sleeping). If we make sure all the ads they’re seeing during the day are awesome, will they dream about them?
While the vast majority of internet users (88%) believe the internet has been a mostly good thing for them, this number has declined slightly over the last four years. The proliferation of fake news and realization of spending too much time with their devices can be attributed to the decline. Also, noteworthy in the report – 1 in 5 Americans don’t have traditional internet service in their home and are smartphone only.
Four out of the five digital display ad dollars spent in the U.S. today happens programmatically. Mobile, Native, Video, and Social all continue to contribute to the rise and shift to programmatic buying, along with the increased ability to streamline the buying process and more smartly target audiences.
During Q1, Ads.txt adoption increased 269%, according to a new report that features data and insights collected by Pixalate. This report also shows which exchanges and top sites show up most often on ads.txt files.
P&G kept ads off YouTube for more than a year due to concerns about brand safety. But over the past year, P&G has been working with YouTube and feel the right measures are now in place for their brands to advertise. Part of the measures include exclusively running on video content that has been reviewed and approved by their teams, something not scalable for most advertisers.
Guidelines for Identifier for Advertising on OTT Platforms was released by IAB Tech Lab with recommendations on how to maintain a high-quality advertising experience with OTT, which is the second most popular method of video consumption after linear TV.
Just prior to a recent underwhelming earnings report, Snapchat has increased their push of Augmented Reality (AR) ads. Snap is considered an AR innovator based upon their launch the sponsored lenses back in 2016. Business Insider breaks down some of the ad variations available to advertisers today.
May's DIAL is also available as a PDF.