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Folks, it’s officially fall! The sun is beginning to set a bit earlier, the leaves are just starting to change, and the air has that familiar crisp scent to it. Along with all the fall festiveness, the latest edition of our Digital Innovations Awesome List is also here! So grab those pumpkin spiced lattes and curl up on the couch for the latest and greatest in the trade publications. As usual, our Digital Innovations team has compiled a list of articles, reports, and other bits of awesomeness you may have missed, but should definitely read. Please enjoy…your latte and the post!
comScore, Rentrak To Merge, Take On Nielsen
For a cool $732 million, comScore announced that it is buying Rentrak, which will combine two massive measurement service companies to create “the cross-platform measurement systems of the future.” Their goal? To take on Nielsen #MeasuringDisruption.
1 in 5 US Adults Sporting a Wearable
Fitbits, Fuel Bands, and Apple Watches are the top wearable devices amongst U.S. adults. Their growth can be attributed to wearables maturing from simply being a fun gadget to something that provides regular value for the user through helpful data and insights. On a related note, keep your eye on Under Armour as it continues to acquire apps, build tech, and give Nike (and Silicon Valley) a run for their money, as this Forbes article discusses.
Are Marketers Finally Getting the Hang of Location-Based Mobile Ads?
Essence discusses a few lessons from a campaign for Google search that won Adweek’s Media Plan of the Year award for mobile activation. Utilizing location-based mobile ads, over 20 custom data points were utilized to create unique and personalized ad messaging. This is a great lesson in starting small, and optimizing for scale and efficiency.
The Cost of Mobile Ads on 50 News Websites
Anyone who has gotten dinged for data overages on their mobile bill has that moment of reflection. What sucked up so much data? Streaming video without your Wi-Fi turned on? Could it be regular browsing on popular new media properties? The New York Times conducted a study with a side-by-side comparison of estimated ad load time, content load time, volume of data used and cost per usage.
The Ad Blocking Controversy, Explained
Much has been discussed about ad blocking and most of it has either been confusing or wrong. This Vox article provides some background into why ad blocking has become a bigger issue recently, who it affects, and how it can be assuaged.
Facebook Targeting Gets More Robust
Facebook is now able to determine how long a user views an ad on its platform. This adds another layer of data advertisers can leverage to optimize campaigns. Where’s the like button for this update?
How Facebook Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Rating Point
Some critics have argued that digital media companies adopting metrics that look and feel like TV (ex. Facebook’s new TRP) is a step backward in our industry. Their thoughts? Television needs to adopt the precision and addressability of digital. But for marketers, there’s real power in unifying metrics – no matter the unit of measurement.
First comes text, then photos, then videos, and now 360-DEGREE videos! Facebook has been upping its game in the visual content realm and it took its next step last week by accepting videos that have been shot in a 360-degree format. What does this mean? It is very likely that ad creative formats will surely follow. Take a look at the first uploads from SNL, VICE and Star Wars. Will this help make virtual reality go mainstream? Kelloggs is doing its part to ensure that it does in New Zealand.
5 Best Practices for Promoted [Twitter] Video
Is your client looking for video creative best practices? This summer, Twitter partnered with Dentsu and Nielsen to uncover what kinds of promoted video content influences Twitter users at various stages of the purchase funnel. Needless to say, they came away with these five helpful best practices.
Snapchat has scored big with its new content deal with the NFL, who is notoriously tight with where and how its content lives. The year-long deal kicks-off with weekly LIVE stories around games, with the first down story generating over 15 million unique views. This is a good call sign for the platform that likens itself to “a cable network for millennials.”
Off Topic, But Awesome
As you know, we are big fans of ‘Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.’ So much so that we have ten ‘Ferris Bueller’ days to use at Centro where employees can take off from work for practically any reason. You know what else we love? Retro, 8-bit video games. Combine these two together and you have something pretty awesome. Check out this 8-bit Ferris Bueller movie remake for the most fantastic three minutes and thirty seconds of your life.
There are plenty of times in the ad industry where talking heads have put single factors on a pedestal to proclaim it as THE key issue to solve. As the argument goes, mastery of said factor will bring accountability, transparency, and/or measurability to digital media, thereby busting open the ad spend floodgates. Right now, the industry is obsessing about ad blocking. Before this, the topics du jour were viewability, ad verification, and so on and so forth. Note that none of the aforementioned problems have been solved. So, instead of obsessing about every “new” issue and treating it as an existential threat before moving on (header-bidding anyone?), how about we master the basics of great advertising?
The crux of the problem is that single metrics don’t deliver great advertising results. Let’s take the example of viewability and pretend that every campaign you run is 100% viewable. Fantasy, I know, but go with me. Does viewability itself actually deliver business outcomes for a brand? Does 100% viewability increase sales? Perhaps, but if your creative is off the mark, I’d argue that viewability could actually harm your brand. An irrelevant ad is an irrelevant ad, viewable or not.
This is the truth about advertising performance – it is not one dimensional. It’s because the target – the consumer – isn’t either. Consumers (aka human beings) are open to advertising experiences that connect with and engage them as humans. This is why everyone goes gaga over Super Bowl commercials and why campaigns like Real Beauty by Dove and Friends Furever by Android go viral. Since people are open to brand messages, our industry has every opportunity to deliver advertising that performs. All that is required is that the ad be memorable, relevant, consistent and timely. So how do we get there?
As a company tasked with driving performance for our customers' campaigns, we approach this challenge by looking to the five pillars of performance in advertising – audience, channel, execution, exposure and response. This multi-dimensional approach addresses the most important aspects of any marketing initiative. Through this lens, viewablity is considered in the context of exposure and alongside other factors and metrics such as frequency, quality and customer lifecycle. Take a look at these pillars to see how you can apply them to boost your performance.
Audience – who are we trying to reach and are they the right audience?
Although marketers may have an idea of their audience based on current customer profiles, an advanced way of thinking is identifying customers that marketers may not have considered targeting in the past. Marketers should integrate different sources of data to create a robust view of prospects. It’s also worth critically evaluating a marketer’s data. For example, just because a brand has a big Excel sheet with IP addresses tagged as “moms” doesn’t necessarily mean those users are actually moms. Similarly, travel marketers may know who the users are that are flying to San Francisco this month because they already purchased a ticket, but marketers may not know who is going to travel next month. It is absolutely possible that first-party data won’t be as valuable as data from other sources.
Channel – where do you want to reach your audience?
Audiences spend time on different devices, media environments and sites. Marketers should observe how their customers and prospects behave as they move through different digital channels. Some will be more effective or more engaging for different target audiences. Marketers should discern the ‘halo’ channels from the engagement channels – knowing which platforms are most likely to get a response and where customers spend time and interact with a brand. This kind of knowledge has empowered brands such as United to make major business decisions such as allowing rebooking of flights via Twitter. This intelligence will show brands how to properly leverage each unique channel for their marketing.
Execution – how are we buying the audience and media, how much will it cost, and what do I show?
Buying techniques vary for procuring digital media. Direct orders, programmatic direct and RTB have been prevalent. There’s also the cost of ad units to factor, where bigger units mean bigger impact, but also mean bigger budget. Using more data for targeting increases CPMs (and can also limit scale if targeting parameters are too specific). And, as I mentioned earlier, ad creative is important so marketers need to tailor the messaging where each interaction with the consumer is impactful. With CRM and DMP technology, marketers can create sequential contact streams based on users’ previous exposure and/or past behavior. Per comScore, ad quality influences sales four times more than the media plan. Marketers need to minimize waste, target accurately (with engaging creative), and mix media channels and buy types. Blending these factors is important, which is why marketers spend a lot of time on campaign execution.
Exposure – what kind of engagement do you want your brand to have?
It’s critical to understand what kind of delivery frequency (repetition builds reputation) is the most effective for different customers. Marketers also have to evaluate whether or not ads are viewable, how long consumers spend with an ad, and how attention is measured in general. Other important factors are types of ad units to use and the quality of exposures (e.g. ad served alongside professional-grade content, during a mid-roll vs. post-roll). Adding to the challenge is the importance of exposure that’s precisely coordinated with the sales/buying cycles. For example, the ad shown to someone just starting their automobile research should be different from an ad for someone way down the purchase funnel (where a weekend discount offer served with high frequency on every site the user goes on might be enough to effect a purchase).
Response – did the campaign achieve the outcome you wanted?
The proper optimization for certain outcomes (and measuring them) will vary per campaign. For example, optimization for direct response (where a click will typically do) will be different from a branding campaign. If the desired outcome is an offline purchase, a marketer has to find out what measures lead to those purchases. Is it a store visit, scheduled appointment, or something else? Furthermore, performance measurement doesn’t necessarily stop at the end of a campaign. Quality leads can result in customers with a high lifetime value because he/she purchases more later on. A marketer has to ensure that business value from the campaign is measured properly, whether it’s in real-time or the future. A marketer can put a lot of rigor in media planning, buying and execution, but if they have the wrong KPI, the campaign will be wasted.
Rarely can a marketer focus solely on one or two dimensions to create great advertising. Great advertising practitioners can evaluate a brand’s desired outcomes through the lens of the pillars of performance to come up with the appropriate solution. By listening to a brand’s needs, a marketer can create a multi-faceted advertising program that ties together the right tools, techniques and methods to maximize performance.
Remember Rosie the Riveter?
She was tough. Independent. In fact, this iconic campaign inspired millions of women to join the workforce and take on male dominated roles and trades during World War II. While our troops were overseas fighting for freedom, back at home, Rosie represented a different kind of liberty. For the very first time, women in the workplace weren’t just tolerated – but encouraged to join.
If you think about it, Rosie was one of the original symbols of #girlpower.
Today, there are a lot of Rosies. Entire groups dedicated to empowering girls and women to not just pursue their dreams, but to be a force to reckon with – no matter their passion or profession. From Girl Scouts to Girls Who Code to National Women’s Business Council, Women in Technology International, and more, today there are thousands upon thousands of these organizations – and in case you haven’t heard, they are loud and proud.
At Centro, we’re thrilled to be a part of this movement, too. Centro Women of the Workplace (WOW) is dedicated to providing our female employees with a variety of tools to help fuel their success at Centro and well beyond. We hold regular meetings, discuss timely topics, host networking events and participate in community outreach. We collaborate. We commune. And yes, sometimes commiserate. We are a built-in support system of like-minded women pursuing professional success and personal happiness. We’re a mix of mentors and mentees. Sometimes both! Many of us are leaders while some are just getting started. We’re proud to be in technology, but know it’s a battle ground. And we’re constantly seeking training and advice from those who’ve gone traveled the road before us.
Speaking of others, over the years we’ve aligned ourselves with a few key women’s groups with the hopes of fortifying our own purpose. We often look to programs like Advertising Women of New York (AWNY), and Women Advancing for guidance and collaboration.
Beyond the support of WOW, over 50% of our management positions (supervisor and above) at Centro are women. Some of these roles include my position as senior vice president of operations, as well as:
On top of that, all female employees have access to important benefits such as:
Oh, and we also have a group that offers additional support and resources to working mothers at Centro.
I’m incredibly proud of the culture Centro has created for women – in and outside of WOW. Empowering, yes. Supportive, absolutely. The sky’s the limit here. And I can assure you, we’re all reaching for the stars.
Since Centro’s inception, we’ve had one goal: to improve the lives of the people behind the campaigns. That’s why we created media management software to help people reach their business goals better, faster and more efficiently than ever before. In an industry of rapid growth, it’s imperative to have the best people tackling the toughest challenges and developing better solutions.
Interested in joining the Centro team? Check out our hottest tech openings of the week and apply today!
Software Engineer, Backend – Toronto, Canada
This role will be responsible for building out new products, while updating and expanding our existing offerings. The core functions include developing on and improving Centro’s highly scalable real-time bidding platform, which processes 30B+ auctions, each within milliseconds, every day. You will actively participate on our team and help drive innovation for new products and services. Our software engineers enjoy rolling up their sleeves and writing code!
Senior Software Engineer, Web Applications - Toronto, Canada
We are looking for an elite senior software engineer, specializing in single-page applications and web development. You will join our team of talented engineers to build out our self-serve real-time bidding platform and help our customers execute complex advertising campaigns. What’s more, is the opportunity to build out full stack web applications using Java, Rails, JavaScript, Angular, React, ExtJS, MySql, PostgreSQL, and Mongo.
VP of Software Engineering – Chicago, IL
We are looking for a software engineering leader to head our Chicago development group and take responsibility for a group of directors, managers and engineers to build our flagship product, Centro Direct. This is a senior leadership role focused on scaling the organization, practices and delivery of best-in-class functionality and usability. The group includes teams that are responsible for both front-end and backend components for our 24x7 SaaS service and partners closely with product management.
Director of Technical Support – Chicago, IL
As the director of technical support for Centro Platform, you will be responsible for providing solutions to our customers through your understanding of the platform, ability to research and find answers to customers’ questions, as well as communicate with the internal engineering and product management teams. This role will primarily focus on Centro Direct and Centro DSP products. Our ideal candidate will start with solving technical support challenges for these above mentioned products and building out the teams that will concentrate on providing technical support for each.
Business Intelligence Engineer, Data Integration – Chicago, IL
The ability to successfully integrate with external systems is key to the success of the business intelligence engineer. In this role, the engineer will be responsible for designing, implementing and maintaining various third-party integrations that feed data into internal data warehouses, while also providing vital information for in-house reporting and analytics systems.
Why Publishers Should Act Like Agencies
Centro’s own Katie Risch, vice president of publisher development, highlights what publishers need to do to pull ahead of the pack and increase revenue. Whereas standalone publishers can only place ads on their owned and operated properties, digital agencies offer a central channel where an ad can be placed on any site or device. By adopting an agency mindset and implementing a reach or audience extension solution, publishers can meet advertisers’ needs across the board. Get the full story>>
What SMBs Need from Technology
A June 2015 poll found that over 31% of SMBs see their leading tech challenge as figuring out how technology solutions could help their businesses. Organizations are looking for technology vendors to articulate how their solutions can help meet specific business goals and deliver a consistent experience across channels. Check out all the findings on eMarketer>>
More on Mobile
While the growth in mobile advertising is not an unusual subject to see in the digital trades, Forbes sheds new light and deeper perspective on this hot topic. The article includes some good points for the late adopting advertiser who may have been overlooking the mobile space. You’ll also find out why mobile is essential to your business. Learn more here>>
TV and Radio Commercials Trigger Digital Research
In this article, eMarketer discusses a new study from Market Track, which found that a high percentage of U.S. internet users are using a second screen while watching TV and commercials. Following exposure to a TV or radio commercial, many users turn to their second screen to research and shop products featured in those advertisements. Find out more on this trend>>
We are excited to spotlight the Atlanta Journal Constitution (AJC) as our October Partner of the Month! The Atlanta Journal Constitution had a very quick ramp up and has consistently been one of our top spenders throughout the year. Mindy Zaj, audience extension specialist, said that the publisher’s digital extension business has really taken off since it started working with Centro DSP earlier this year. To date, AJC is seeing about $2.18 million in retail reach extension revenue.
Mindy also noted how Centro DSP has contributed to the success of the organization’s overall digital strategy. “It has allowed us a great amount of flexibility and many more opportunities to find the best solutions for our clients. We have a very diverse set of clientele, including local, regional and national, all with their own sets of needs and challenges,” she added.
Sales and buyer training as well as a bit of buyer services have really helped AJC take off and continuously flourish month over month. “Being able to work with Centro DSP and the amazing team at Centro gives us a strong partner in maneuvering thru today’s ever changing digital world,” Zaj concluded.
Big thanks to the Atlanta Journal Constitution! We are excited to see where 2016 takes you!
Is the omni-channel customer journey reality or just a dream?
Earlier this month I attended the inaugural Omni.Digital conference in Chicago, hosted by AdExchanger. My main takeaway from the event was fairly simple: as an industry, we have lots of work ahead of us. According to a recent eConsultancy report, only 17% of marketers say they have the ability to fully analyze the customer journey. Despite this sobering fact, I think we, as an industry, are now clearer than ever on the biggest gaps we need to fill to realize the omni-channel vision.
To get to a 360-degree view of the customer journey, we need a unified identity system, where a prospect or customer receives relevant messages from a brand across all channels and formats. This needs to happen at precisely the right time in the customer lifecycle, all with proper end-to-end measurement and attribution. There are, not surprisingly, a few obstacles in the way.
With all the talk of having a universal ID with which to track and target individuals wherever they may be on the Internet (which is increasingly across a multitude of connected devices and formats), marketers today don’t yet have a concrete and comprehensive solution. Given all the time that people spend on Google and Facebook properties, and the projected market share they are poised to capture from advertisers in the coming years, (especially on mobile), the fact that users "go dark" in these proprietary areas of the Internet makes global identity challenging.
Not to mention the various IDs that need to be linked across the open web and mobile apps. Marketers are now challenged with connecting different IDs across mobile, email, TV/video, search, social, and more. Earlier this week, when Kevin Akeroyd, senior vice president and general manager of Oracle Marketing Cloud, was asked if Oracle plans to facilitate that universal ID, he answered:
“When we talk again in a year, it will probably be one of the things I talk about most. These closed gardens – Facebook, Google, Amazon, Apple – they will be big and strong but they’re optimized on spend for themselves, not across each of them or the open web. Marketers don’t want to rely on a platform to measure that’s beholden to selling you media on its own network. We think that’s going to be us.”
In other words, they are working on it. And so are many others. Until we have a single, accurate way to ID who an individual may be, no matter which device or channel they may be on, we won’t be able to create a meaningful omni-channel customer experience.
The ramifications of identity issues spill over into attribution – the art and science of determining the effectiveness of marketing investments. Attribution is undeniably important, but it seems as if there is no urgency on the part of marketers or agencies to get it right. Or perhaps there is urgency, but advanced tools in the space haven’t been easy to access or implement. That probably explains why the majority of companies still rely on last-touch attribution models, which are deeply flawed because they discredit the contributions of top-funnel efforts. The good news is, there are voices of reason out there beating the drum and evangelizing smarter models.
While there are better attribution models available, they have not yet been implemented widely. Steve Latham, CEO of Encore, and one of the panelists at the Omni.Digital event, recently wrote:
“Among those that are leveraging attribution, most are still picking low-hanging fruit with a focus on desktop media spend. Very few have figured out mobile and even fewer are connecting the dots to gain a multi-platform view of users.”
Whether this is an education issue, or a product gap in the market, adoption of advanced attribution methods is not where it should be in order to meet the needs of the omni-channel customer journey.
The word omni-channel literally means “all the channels.” As Melissa Parish, executive director of AdExchanger Research, aptly pointed out during the conference, it’s a never-ending game of catch-up for marketers, as the number of ways to reach an individual continues to expand. The technology around us, and the habits of populations, are evolving faster than marketers can effectively react and adapt to them.
Furthermore, we are only beginning to see the convergence of advertising and marketing technology, which is a requirement to realizing the omni-channel dream. Surely, consolidation of these technologies will continue over the next decade. However, in the meantime, we will have a fragmented vendor landscape with disparate advertising and marketing technology systems and scattered connections between the two.
Last but not least, we have the growing ideological differences between the open web (which includes most of the advertising technology ecosystem) and proprietary “walled gardens” (which include Google, Facebook, Apple, and others), with data as the unfortunate hostage. It still remains to be seen which ideology and business model will end up winning this pivotal war for digital market share. Make no mistake, it will impact every facet of digital advertising and publishing.
The promise of programmatic has always been truly personalized advertising powered by data, and delivered in an efficient manner. It’s now possible, with real-time bidding (RTB) technology to target individuals, wherever they happen to be, and show them a customized message based on their past behaviors and interests. That’s a key difference with programmatic RTB: a reversal of the publisher-centric view of the world, to a more customer or audience-centric view.
While it definitely aligns and brings us somewhat closer to the vision of the omni-channel customer journey, programmatic is still just a portion of the larger digital media world. Laurie Sullivan, senior reporter, at MediaPost, made these comments recently with regards to the maturity of programmatic ad technology:
“Even if we take programmatic out of the picture, the industry has a lot of growing up to do. I realize the industry does the best it can, and technology needs to grow up, but I feel like I have been writing about that same problem for years. [...] I can tell you that the programmatic systems connecting ad serving and bidding in the online advertising industry are equivalent to a one-month old infant. The ad industry has lots to learn. These ad systems are silos similar to media channels that one day will connect to each other.”
Such technology solutions do not come overnight. They take years to develop and gain meaningful adoption, which means there is still a significant amount of effort required to make all media measureable, speak the same language, and integrate intelligently with our larger marketing technology stacks.
The dream of mind-blowing Minority Report advertising systems, where every interaction you have with a brand is personalized to you and your behavior is still just that: a dream. Mind you, progress is being made to realize that vision, and fragments of it can be seen today, but the main challenges we’re facing are a lack of global identity, lagging adoption of advanced attribution, accelerating audience and technology fragmentation, and a growing schism in Internet ideologies.
The AdExchanger team deserves credit for spearheading such events and for driving awareness of this topic into the consciousness of our industry. It’s the only way we will move closer towards our collective vision of delivering seamless marketing experiences between the digital and physical worlds.
You'll find few complainers at this ad-tech firm, whose software aims to boost digital advertising campaigns: 95% of the company's staff say they're proud to tell others they work there, and just as many report feeling like part of a "family" or "team." More than half — 58% — of Centro workers are women, who also hold 51% of the company's management positions. All employees are also encouraged to take a 3-week sabbatical every four years.
Centro has made the top 100 companies in Fortune’s list of Best Places to Work for Women in America. AMAZING!
As Advertising Week gets underway, and luminaries gather in a seemingly endless parade of panels and parties, my experience so far this week has been shaped less by discussions about programmatic, mobile or millennials, but more about the celebration of sisterhood. From events held by Advertising Women of New York (AWNY) to Shelley Zalis’ wildly popular The Girls’ Lounge, the rise of female talent and tenure in our industry is exciting, energizing, and something I’m extremely proud to be a part of.
One memorable moment happened over coffee with the fierce and fearless Cindy Gallop. She remarked that as women, we often don’t realize how bad things are until we are in an environment that actually empowers female employees. Fish don’t know they’re in water, right?
It was a goose bump moment. Simple, but true. And for me, emblematic of my experience at Centro. It’s both an honor and a privilege to join this remarkable group of companies who are taking a firm stand on treating women with the fairness and respect they deserve while creating competitive career opportunities for all of their employees.
About Fortune’s 100 Best Workplaces for Women
The 100 Best Workplaces for Women is a highly respected ranking. The winners come from a group of more than 600 companies with published Great Place to Work® Reviews, which shows they are serious about creating a great workplace and comfortable with transparency.
Behind the Survey
Who was surveyed? 135,689 women
From where? 637 different companies
What was asked? Things like:
Two-thirds of each company’s score is based on these reports. The remaining third takes into account how well-represented women and minorities are within the workforce overall including management and executive positions. They also gave higher scores to companies who achieved the highest level of parity between men and women in their organization – meaning, companies where not only the most women reported the company performed well on an index of fairness-related questions, but also those where just as many women had that experience as men.
So How Does Centro Measure Up?
I love the reactions I get when I share that – for the first time in my career – I’m part of an exec team with three women. Or that Shawn, our CEO, will actively seek female candidates when key leadership roles open up. Along with my role as CMO, over 50% of our management and leadership positions are held by women. Fifty percent! Women are leading in all areas of our business with titles like SVP of Publisher Development, SVP of Operations and VP of Strategic Insights.
But as many of us can attest, these positions can come with a hefty price: quality of life. Achieving a work/life balance is a core challenge for any professional, but it can be especially tricky for those of us with a second (more important) title: Mom. I, along with the rest of the women employed by Centro have access to important benefits like paid maternity leave, work from home options – and my personal favorite: 10 Ferris Bueller days (that’s code for 10 additional flex days to use as needed!).
Gender aside, your job should make you feel empowered, happy, and fulfilled. At Centro, we believe happiness is the new ROI and take great pride in being one of the very best places to work.
Go Centro!