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"Local media companies — including newspaper, television, and radio publishers — are getting a new way to scale their digital campaigns and more precisely target audience segments this morning, as the team at Frankly has announced the launch of an audience extension solution... The new platform was built with technology from Centro, which provides enterprise-class software for digital advertising organizations."

Read more in StreetFight.

It's our final ad tech analogy in the series: The Dinner Recipe Analogy, which explains how KPIs affect what programmatic tactics should be used.

Pretend you're throwing a dinner party with a friend. Your friend asks you to be in charge of buying all the groceries for the party, but they don't tell you which ingredients to buy at the store, what you'll be eating, or what any of the recipes require.

In that situation, it's almost impossible to know what to purchase at the store. You could pick out a bunch of items you like to eat, or ingredients you think taste good, but you might end up making a meal that's full of dishes and foods that don't work well together or sides that don't complement the main course. You'd likely be left with a table full of unhappy guests who have to eat a meal that isn't very good.

This is similar to building programmatic campaigns without deciding on goals and KPIs beforehand.

It's hard to put together a plan if you don't know the KPI, because evaluating campaign success and performance can only be accurately tracked if you're measuring against a specific KPI.

The various tactics at your disposal work better than others for different KPIs and objectives. For example: If you're trying to achieve brand awareness, you want to measure your campaign's success based on how many people you reach. Meaning the KPI is impressions.

In order to put together the best and highest-performing plan, know the KPI first.

Interested in other Centro resources that will help you dominate the digital media space? Reach out to [email protected].

Social media's unmatched reach has made it increasingly important to include on every media plan, but so many platforms, objectives, targeting, placement, and creative options have made paid social an overwhelming space to navigate.

We brushed you up on the basics of paid social back in April, and for our next 3Ton30 webinar, we're taking it to the next level. We'll explore how to add social to your media plans as part of overall campaign strategy – instead of adding for the sake of checking off a box on your digital checklist.

We'll showcase real-world business cases and discuss what social considerations make sense for each – to ensure you're taking a multi-faceted approach to social media, matching strategy to your business objectives, and, ultimately, crushing your campaign goals.

Join us and Centro's Associate Director of Social & Search, Vanessa Pence, on Wednesday, July 19, as she discusses:

Next up in our ad tech analogies series: The Rue La La Analogy, which explains how private marketplaces and private exchanges are not the same thing. Private marketplaces and private exchanges can frequently be confused – likely because they both have the word “private" in them – but they're two different concepts.

We explored private marketplaces in our Coupon Code Analogy two weeks ago, but in order to get to the heart of the difference between the two, let's use online shopping service Rue La La as an example.

Rue La La allows shoppers and clothing brands to buy and sell clothing and accessories. Once you are signed up and approved to buy or sell within Rue La La, you can buy as much or as little as you want – and whenever you want – for an indefinite amount of time.

That's similar to how private exchanges work, where all bidders and sellers must be approved before they are allowed to buy or sell, but once they are, there's no limit to activity.

But it's unlike how private marketplaces work, because private marketplaces operate much more like a “sale," where there's a defined period of activity and a time sensitive Deal ID required for access.

Next week we'll dive into our final ad tech analogy, The Dinner Recipe Analogy, which explains how KPIs affect what programmatic tactics we use.

Interested in other Centro resources that will help you dominate the digital media space? Reach out to [email protected].

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!

The Meeker Report Is Not the Only Game in Town for Marketers
Now that you've had chance to dig through and collect your thoughts from Mary Meeker's annual Internet Trends report, make sure you spend some time reviewing the LUMA Partners State of Digital Media report, which is more concentrated on the world of digital marketing.

The Winners and Losers of the Rise of TV's 'Skinny Bundle'
Traditional TV subscriptions fell by 2.4% year-over-year, the largest percentage ever (or 99 million households if you're keeping score). So who wins and who loses in the current TV media landscape where new viewing packages are being offered? You might be surprised.

Amazon to Charge $2.8 Million for NFL Ad Packages
With Amazon winning the rights to all 10 Thursday Night Football games for $50 million, it appears they're hoping to charge nearly $100,000 per second to market to the estimated 50 million Amazon Prime users who will be receiving exclusive live streams to the games.

Snapchat is Becoming the Social Network it Never Wanted to Be
While it has pegged itself as a “camera company," recent updates hint at Snapchat's transformation better enabling smaller advertisers and brands to gain visibility of Snapchat's 166 million daily users.

What to Know About Visual Search
Could you point out the differences between Pinterest Lens and Google Lens? With 3 out of every 4 internet users regularly searching visual content before making a purchase, it's important to brush up on why visual search is impacting how and where we buy.

Amazon's Alexa Has Gained 14,000 Skills in the Last Year
15,000 skills and counting, and Daily Jeopardy is still my favorite.

The State of Mobile Advertising
Fast stats on the state of mobile advertising from Digiday reiterate the rise social video and the need for measurement on both device and advertising platforms.

A Sociology of the Smartphone
Smartphones have altered the texture of everyday life, digesting many longstanding spaces and rituals, and transforming others beyond recognition.

Long Before iPhones, This 19th-Century Gadget Made Everyone a Mobile Addict
Fresh from celebrating the 10th anniversary of the iPhone, can you guess what “mobile device" people were so mesmerized by that they were walking into traffic and walls during the 1800s?

July's DIAL is also available as a PDF. Download here!

Next up in our ad tech analogies series: The Online Shopping Cart Analogy, which explains how programmatic direct buying works.

First things first: What's programmatic direct? It's a reserved (guaranteed) buy with fixed rates negotiated directly with the publisher and executed in programmatic environments using Deal IDs.

It becomes a little bit easier to understand if you think about the way you shop online. You go to a retailer's website, browse their inventory, and select what you want – sorting through different variations of items, like color, size, quantity, etc. You drop the items in your shopping cart, submit your payment information, and you're done. You didn't have to work with a sales person or a support person or anyone else to facilitate your purchase. And you know what you're getting is guaranteed to be shipped to you at exactly the specifications you set – otherwise you wouldn't have been able to buy it.

In this way, online shopping works very much like programmatic direct – which is essentially making direct ad inventory purchases from publishers without facilitating them manually, by syncing directly into their ad server.

Next week we'll dive into The Rue La La Analogy, which explains how private marketplaces and private exchanges are not the same thing.

Learn more about the programmatic advertising opportunity with Centro, here.

This year, 219 million Americans will be celebrating our 214 years of independence. And, while they're busy partying, they will spend about $7.1 billion on celebrations, travel, and BBQs -- a firecracker of an opportunity for retailers.

Download our infographic to read some Fourth of July fun facts and check out where Americans will be spending this Independence Day.

Next up in our ad tech analogies series: The Coupon Code Analogy, which explains how Deal IDs facilitate private marketplaces.

Before we dive into this analogy, let's quickly overview what private marketplaces (PMPs) are. Private marketplaces are customized marketplaces where publishers make their inventory available to select buyers. Usually a negotiation takes place between the buyer and seller to create and agree on a deal.

So, what are Deal IDs and how could they possibly relate to store coupons?

Think about how coupon codes are used. Every retailer offers and issues coupons at different times and for different reasons. A coupon code from a retailer can be unique to each individual (like a savings coupon for your birthday) or they can be universal and work for anyone who's got the coupon (like 20% off all store merchandise for anyone who comes into the store). They can be for specific items, or a general discount on all inventory. They can be valid for short, specific windows of time or valid for long, extended periods of use.

It's not unlike how Deal IDs are used to facilitate access to private marketplaces for buyers and sellers. Deal IDs act as a key to the private marketplace. While private marketplace transactions are still subject to an auction, the competition is limited to advertisers with the Deal ID. In simpler terms: You can't get 20% off all store merchandise if you never got the coupon or savings offer.

Next week we'll dive into The Online Shopping Cart Analogy, which explains how programmatic direct buying works.

Interested in other Centro resources that will help you dominate the digital media space? Reach out to [email protected].

 

Next up in our ad tech analogies series: The Black Shoes Analogy, which explains the benefit of buying from a DSP in real-time.

Put yourself in these shoes (pun intended): You're looking to buy a pair of black dress shoes online and need to find the best value.

You could go to every single online retailer one at a time to see what they offer, compare prices, and then weigh your options.

Or, you could go to eBay, search for what you want, see all the options that are available to you and what they cost, and determine what you're willing to bid for each item. If you're the highest bidder? You've got a new pair of shoes. If not, you're still searching for shoes, but you can at least control whether you should bid higher or lower based on supply and demand.

This is similar to how bidding on ad inventory works – except that for ad inventory, the time in which the auction occurs is instantaneous and in real-time.

Next week we'll dive into The Coupon Code Analogy, which explains how Deal IDs facilitate private marketplaces.

Interested in other Centro resources that will help you dominate the digital media space? Reach out to [email protected].