The healthcare industry is rapidly shifting – and not just in spending – but also in the method in which doctors, clinics and hospitals interact with patients. Consumers are turning to digital for various health related inquiries, with more than 60% of consumers 45+ spending up to five hours a week researching online. From finding information about medical conditions or drugs to communicating with doctors and the rest of the healthcare community, digital has become a way of life for today’s consumers. And healthcare marketers are taking notice.
Many are boosting their marketing strategies in order to capitalize on this growing, more digitally-driven customer base. They are relying on digital not only for cost-effective marketing, but to also reach those looking for health information online. In fact, according to eMarketer, the healthcare and pharma industries are expected to see 12.6% digital ad spend growth per year from 2014 to 2019 – the fifth highest of all industries. Marketers are recognizing the opportunity here – and they’re doing everything they can to take advantage of it.
To ensure you’re making the most of your healthcare initiatives, reference this e-Book as a quick check-up on industry insights and trends. Also find out how to strengthen your business with digital solutions sure to keep your media plans in healthy condition – and your revenue too.
Republished from the SiteScout blog.
With programmatic, it’s as much about the people and the culture within an organization as it is the technology. That was the sentiment expressed in a recent article by MediaPost’s London Editor, Sean Hargrave, after he listened to accounts of the programmatic experiences of eBay and Moneysupermarket.
eBay recently ran its first programmatic trials, while Moneysupermarket switched to its own in-house programmatic trading desk. eBay revealed in its account of its experience that programmatic should be seen as part of a larger marketing effort, not as an isolated strategy.
The main message that came out of Moneysupermarket’s account was that in-house education and training around programmatic are crucial. For the price comparison business , it’s about moving its marketing team away from the last click model. The bottom line is that education and working across silos, as well as internal integration, are just as important as data when it comes to establishing a programmatic practice.
More from MediaPost
As Marketers Rush to Programmatic, Consumer Privacy Rules Still Apply
Despite programmatic advertising’s obvious efficiency, it can still raise suspicions, particularly around issues of transparency, for those who aren’t fully savvy to the science.
Digital Advertising Alliance principles hold that organizations engaged in online behavioral advertising must inform people what’s being done with their data, and how to opt-out if they want to. The problem is not everyone adheres to those principles. According to the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC), more effective transparency policing is needed, and the FTC will act on any perceivable threat to consumer privacy.
There is confusion over what programmatic buying entails and how it works, due to a lack of understanding regarding the technology. That’s what’s leading to these kinds of concerns around privacy and transparency. Better mechanisms to track and control, and greater transparency are needed lest marketers continue to be challenged on their programmatic spending, and consumer privacy questioned.
More from AdAge
How Digital & Data Go Hand-In-Glove
Data powers effective real-time marketing. With tons of data being produced everyday, effective data usage is increasingly important for brands as a competitive differentiator.
Having the right collaboration between data and technology is critical if brands are to be perceived as enablers as opposed to intruders. Brands need to make sure they properly vet any potential technology partners. They also shouldn’t silo their data. Data needs to be integrated if it’s to be effective, and data management platforms can help in that endeavour.
Finally, using data to come up with actionable insights shouldn’t be neglected. This can help brands optimize channel usage and audience segments, while delivering more targeted and relevant communications, and increase their ROI. At the end of the day, it all comes down to facilitating a superior customer experience. Harnessing data strategically is a big step in the right direction.
More from Businessworld
Holy smokes, Batman! This year is speeding by faster than the Batmobile and it doesn’t seem to be slowing down. We know that you’re busy working hard (us too!), but if you have a little time you should join us for some awesome digital media events! If you’d like additional details on where we will be or would like to set up a meeting, email us at [email protected]. We’d love to chat!
What: International Pizza Hut Franchise Holders Association Conference - 4/26 – 4/28
Who’s going? Dean Zeko, Mallory Chaney, Katie McCracken
Where: Nashville, TN
What’s going on? Centro will be an exhibit sponsor at the International Pizza Hut Franchise Holders Association Conference. The IPHFHA Conference assembles franchise owners to discuss resolutions for operational challenges, new marketing initiatives and much more. Centro will be there to help attendees combat their marketing struggles, specifically in digital.
What: California Newspaper Publisher Association Press Summit - 5/6
Who’s Going? Michael Mahler
Where: Coronada Island, CA
What’s going on? The CNPA Press Summit unites local publishers to discuss how they can better leverage their strengths within their local communities, through print and digital in particular. Director of Publisher Solutions, Michael Mahler, is speaking at this year’s summit on “digital initiatives” for publishers.
What: thinkLA Pokeraoke - 5/7
Who’s going? The LA Sales team
Where: Los Angeles, CA
What’s going on? thinkLA is bringing Sin City to LA through its Pokeraoke night! Over 600 media, marketing, and advertising professionals are gathering for a Texas Hold ‘em tournament, casino games, and karaoke contest. There will be plenty of prizes to go around and remember: what happens at Pokeraoke, stays at Pokeraoke.
We hope to see you around over the next two weeks!
Hey, remember college? Remember those elated few days after finishing your final exams? Your brain was tired, but you were ready to celebrate! This week, Centro is bringing the feeling back to the participants of the Centro Certified event that wrapped up Wednesday.
Education is an integral part of the Centro culture. In fact, we believe proper education provides the foundation for any successful endeavor. In order to help programmatic buying teams around the country become more comfortable planning and buying with the technology, we launched the Centro Certified: DSP Expert program.
Almost 100 Centro DSP clients became expert buyers while learning about the evolving programmatic landscape, digital media strategy and best practices for buying mobile, video, display and social media through Centro DSP. Questions ranged from mastering retargeting to campaign management recommendations to pixel best practices. The crowd was engaged with the content and with each other - connecting with other buyers from all across the nation.
So, what were the top 5 Centro Certified themes?
- Objectives & KPIs: Understanding what you’re trying to achieve up front sets you up for success - whether you’re a seller, a buyer, or a planner.
- Get creative with the way you reach an audience! Even if you are trying to reach a niche audience, think about how you yourself consume information from a day to day basis. Most likely, you’re on multiple platforms watching videos, reading articles, making purchases – those are all opportunities for someone to advertise to you!
- Optimization Best Practices: There’s only one rule to optimizations – there are no rules. Be playful, decisive, learn from your data and do it all over again!
- Flexibility: Test, test and test. It’s important that you have flexibility from your advertisers and don’t assume you know what will work. It doesn’t make sense to run on a tactic that isn’t performing!
- Confidence: DSP’s, SSP’s, eCPC, eCPA, eCPM. Sounds scary, right? Not for our Centro Certified experts! They asked the questions, and they got the answers.
For buyers who wanted further help, we offered Centro open office hours the following day to meet 1-on-1 and answer all the remaining questions. Now – it’s off to exams! Each participant must pass an exam to become officially #CentroCertified.
To show off what expertly executed programmatic campaigns can do, guests at the event who used their iPhones and mobile apps were greeted by the Centro Certified hyperlocal mobile campaign executed through Centro DSP (gotta practice what ya preach, right?). Our ads were targeted within a ½ mile around the event venue, delivering over 17,000 impressions to those attending. Afterward, guests were targeted with a special thank you ad for attending.
Missed the event? Have some questions? Already want in on next year’s event? Reach out to your Centro representative to learn more!
Check out #CentroCertified on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook for some great shots from the day!
When you need a ride, wouldn’t you prefer a service that provides a timely, clean, and safe experience? Of course you would. But what if consumers weren’t aware of how safe a car service is or have the wrong perception of it? This was the pickle for our latest client, a national car service provider.
After some unfavorable press, the client desired to protect its position within the market. In order to accomplish this, our client paid for a third-party safety investigation, and released the positive results on top national news sites in order to change consumer perception. Trouble arose when the client could not get access to its desired premium inventory on these news sites. The car service provider desired to drive CTR to 0.1 and gain 6,000 clicks through its safety campaign, and needed the inventory to perform on.
Similar to this client’s service, Centro arrived right on time. With Centro DSP up and running, the client was able to gain access to the premium inventory it desired. Furthermore, Centro’s CSM and audience buying team helped educate the client on how to properly buy, serve, and optimize spend on the Centro DSP platform to the point where the client became autonomous.
The client was able to buy premium inventory on its desired sites, and serve its ads to site segments relating to topics such as news, government, policy, economics, technology, and finance all in real-time. It was able to further optimize its campaign by reallocating spend to higher performing sites, all within the Centro DSP platform.
The results were impressive. Not only did the campaign achieve the goal of a 0.1 CTR, but it also drove over 8,000 clicks. The client was thrilled at the results that Centro DSP delivered and the awareness that was achieved regarding the value the company places on safety. The client is also looking for new ways to leverage Centro in the future. Now that is a sweet ride!
At Centro, we offer a modern approach to digital media. With over 13 years and 100,000 campaigns to our name, we leverage advanced technology, proven tactics, and industry expertise to build campaigns around the channels and platforms that drive the greatest results for our client’s specific business needs. People and technology are at the heart of Centro, and are the essential parts in every #CentroInAction story.
Centro hosts the Inaugural Centro Certified: DSP Expert program.
At Centro, our sales team is used to answering a lot of questions. Lately, we’ve been getting inquiries around programmatic technology. Fortunately, we have a strong team of buying geniuses in-house to answer, but it made us think: How many of our partner teams would benefit from a crash course in programmatic?
We’re not the types to sit on an idea, and our in-house programmatic buyers quickly paired up with our Customer Success team to put together Centro’s first ever DSP Expert certification program. Today, we are proudly hosting almost 100 buyers from around the country, taking them through the entire buying process – from planning to execution to optimization. Each individual session will present tips, tricks and best practices for end-to-end programmatic prowess. Attendees will be doing group work, diving into real-life problem/solution scenarios, and will be tested at the end of the session to prove their newfound proficiency. Those that pass will receive a series of programmatic tools to help them keep their skills sharp. And like all exams worth studying for, there’s a happy hour at the end.
We’re so excited to have these buyers as guest students this week, and we’d love to have you join us next year! Reach out to your Centro sales representative to hear more about what we covered this year, or to get your name on the list for our next Centro Certified program.
As we approach the 45th anniversary of Earth Day, one thing remains for certain – consumers want sustainability. Today, they are looking for businesses that show they care about the environment, even if it means paying a little more for their goods or services as a result. In fact, Nielsen found that 55% of global consumers would be willing to pay more for products and services provided by companies committed to making a positive social and environmental impact. That percentage will likely only increase, as more and more consumers become educated about social and environmental issues.
With those statistics in mind, advertisers need to capitalize on this growing opportunity. As a matter of fact, Nielsen’s research also indicates that brands that promote their sustainability efforts through marketing campaigns seem to experience a lift in sales. Top-notch brand Coca-Cola, for example, is one company capitalizing on going green. The company carefully targeted sustainability content to a select group of consumers through paid social, in an effort to bring awareness about its commitment to the environment to the people who are most likely to review and pass along the content.
Take some time to review what consumers are saying about brands and sustainability in the infographic below. Is your business eco-friendly? If not, you’ll see – now might be the time to go green.
401k-Match, Profit-Sharing and Career Development Help Centro Secures No. 2 Spot on Crain’s;
Advertising Age, Fortune, and Crain’s New York Have Also Declared Centro as A Top Workplace
CHICAGO, IL – April 22, 2015 – Centro (centro.net), a provider of enterprise-class software for digital advertising, today announced it has been rated as the No. 2 Best Place to Work, according to Crain’s Chicago Business (www.chicagobusiness.com/section/best-places-to-work-2015). Previously, Centro had been named No. 1 for an unprecedented four consecutive years. It secured its placement based on employee feedback, which cites benefits, profit-sharing and career development as factors that illustrate how Centro delivers happiness in the workplace amid fast growth.
In addition to Crain’s Chicago, Centro received accolades for company culture from national and regional organizations the past twelve months. This includes No. 1 on Advertising Age Best Places to Work; No. 8 on Fortune Best Medium-Sized Workplaces; No. 6 in Crain’s New York Best Places to Work; and a 4.6 rating (out of 5) on Glassdoor.com – one of the highest rated in media and tech. It has achieved this while maintaining an aggressive business pace. To keep up with demand for its technology that automates digital advertising, Centro is adding 100 team members this year in software engineering, design, sales and more (http://www2.centro.net/careers).
“It’s a remarkable achievement to receive praise for our work culture while growing constantly. It’s indicative of the focus we have on the well-being of employees,” said Shawn Riegsecker, CEO of Centro. “Centro has made workplace culture a competitive advantage because attracting talent and cultivating strong teams is the key to building a long-lasting successful business in technology and media.”
Crain’s Chicago Business’ yearly survey is conducted by Buck Consultants, a human resources consulting firm, to determine the Best Places to Work. It examined 188 companies on career development, benefits, hiring practices, relationships with management and co-workers, and other workplace factors.
Centro was established in 2001 with the guiding principle that the company’s success would be achieved by focusing on the growth, well-being and happiness of employees first and foremost. Centro’s top-notch benefits include great healthcare (Centro-funded health savings accounts, free yearly wellness screening, fitness stipends, etc.), professional coaching, free fruit, charitable donation matching, volunteer opportunities (https://youtu.be/aN5bBM12PRc) and more.
About Centro
Centro (centro.net) is creating a platform to make digital advertising easier. Its enterprise-class software centralizes, organizes and automates all digital media campaigns across all channels, accessing both guaranteed and biddable inventory, to achieve any objective. Our holistic approach gives marketers a single system of record to fulfill their research, planning, buying, optimization, reporting and reconciliation needs. Since 2001, Centro has successfully planned and executed more than 190,000 national and local campaigns across all digital display platforms and ad format types. Headquartered in Chicago with 35 offices in North America, Centro has received numerous accolades for its commitment to employees and workplace culture.
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Contact:
Anthony Loredo
[email protected]
646-462-4888
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“With programmatic buying technology giving access to almost every mobile user, more and more advertisers are able to use hyperlocal data as a primary way to target customers.”
Centro’s Ratko Vidakovic explains how hyperlocal data is being used for programmatic mobile advertising. Read the entire piece in MediaPost.
Read more on MediaPost
