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This is the third in an 11-part series of blog posts that focus on Centro’s corporate guiding principles, and how those values show up in the workplace and in the lives of our people.
The great Socrates once said, “Let him that would move the world, first move himself.” In these past few years, we have seen how quickly and drastically life as we know it can change, for better or for worse. The ways in which we react to change can have powerful effects on individual growth, development, and resiliency.
Whether it is positive or negative, change is the only constant in our lives, which brings us to Centro’s next guiding principle: "Embrace Change." A world that is constantly evolving necessitates adaptation. We must learn to either welcome change, or risk falling behind.
Although it is necessary, coping with change can be complicated and difficult, a fact that the COVID-19 pandemic has emphasized. According to the CDC, 40% of adults in the U.S. reported struggling with mental health issues or substance abuse in late June of last year.
A disproportionate amount of those surveyed were “younger adults, racial/ethnic minorities, essential workers, and unpaid adult caregivers.” With the threat of another pandemic shutdown looming, exploring healthy coping mechanisms is essential to overcoming change rather than surrendering to it.
Allow Yourself Grace
In a pre-pandemic world, low productivity and high stress levels may have been easier to deal with. With continued isolation and the shift to remote work, the boundaries between work life and home life have blurred. The pressures of maintaining productivity levels and simultaneously juggling domestic responsibilities can be exasperating. Employees have taken to regularly extending workdays, and are finding it harder to disconnect from devices at the end of a shift. A survey from Staples reported that between 2019 and 2020, the average employee workday increased by 6.1%.
Allowing yourself grace can be a positive method for coping with changes brought about by the pandemic. Take breaks when you need to, and self-care days when you feel overwhelmed. Adjusting to this new way of life requires a considerable amount of energy and, understandably, you will feel burnt out. Find ways to reduce this feeling by disconnecting from your devices and focusing on activities that make you happy. Not only will this be beneficial to your mental health but may also diminish work-related anxiety. Also, take advantage of wellness events and activities offered by your employer (for example, Centro’s Wellnesspalooza).
Stick to a Schedule
Although it can be difficult while working from home, keeping to a routine will prove advantageous in the long run. If possible, continue your morning rituals as if you were still leaving for the office. Establish your work hours as well as a dedicated workspace to prevent work and home life from mingling too often and leading to distraction. A sense of normalcy may assist with adapting to post-pandemic changes as well.
Here are some additional tips for working from home.
Stay Connected
Sheltering at home has diminished our social lives by preventing us from seeing family, friends, and coworkers. Luckily, the virtual world has provided us with a way to socialize while avoiding the risks associated with the pandemic. By hosting movie streaming parties, playing online games, or even having simple video calls, we can retain our social connections. Participating in workplace community groups can be a great way to build friendships with colleagues as well.
Staying connected to our own minds and bodies is just as important. At Centro, employee mental health and wellbeing are priorities, and employees have access to free workout classes, mental health webinars, and even guided meditation subscriptions.
So, What Now?
As we know, change is constant and inevitable. There is no definitive way to embrace change, so we must construct our own methods for adaptation. Only then will we be able to progress towards a new—and hopefully even better—normal.
With a mission of delivering memorable game-day experiences and serving a Louisiana-inspired menu that offers food and drinks made from scratch daily, the quick-service restaurant (QSR) franchises have become a local favorite.
The QSRs success has grown with over 100 franchised locations in the works across 15 states. With a unique concept, an innovative food menu, and a winning culture, the brand is on track for strategic franchise expansion nationwide.
Like many leading brands, the client was already reevaluating their partner strategy with their agency of record, and the pandemic only moved the process forward. AdExchanger reports that 70% of digital marketers are reevaluating their partner plans. While only 18% of the respondents are reevaluating partners specifically due to the pandemic, more than half (52%) were already evaluating their strategy and now say the outbreak has accelerated those plans.
The client desired an ad tech partner that delivered the perfect combination of full-service management, digital expertise, data-driven strategy, and analytics obsessed that could effectively reach consumers in various metropolitan areas within an ever-changing digital media landscape.
The client evaluated a variety of solutions, ultimately selecting Basis Technologies’ Managed Services due to its unique business model, performance-focused approach, and raving fan service.
The client utilized Basis Technologies’ team for strategy development, activation, insights, and optimization recommendations to drive their first-ever digital media efforts across 37 metropolitan areas. The channel strategy implemented a Facebook and Instagram campaign to boost online orders and app installs. The Basis Technologies team leveraged their Facebook partnership for analytics reports, advertiser spends optimization recommendations, measurement best practices, creative tips, and more to help maximize ad budgets and achieve the results needed to succeed.
Basis Technologies provided the expertise and buying power that resulted in 46,194 clicks (0.57% click-through-rate) generating almost $800,000 in revenue with an effective $1.45 cost-per-click. In summary, Basis Technologies provided:
Smarter media performance with award-winning subject matter experts who plan, buy, & execute across all digital channels & devices within Basis Technologies' owned and operated tech, Basis.
Received robust reporting, insights, and optimization recommendations during weekly in-depth performance reviews.
Achieved the level of support that the brand needed to extend its bandwidth and see real performance from digital media campaigns.
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As a recently graduated Black woman who is just beginning her career, DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) and workplace culture are extremely important to me. When searching for opportunities after graduation I knew I wanted to find a company that shared my values.
One of the reasons I chose Centro was because of their willingness to learn and incorporate DEI, as well as their passion for helping employees to become better versions of themselves. Centro’s CEO Shawn Reigsecker even wrote earlier this year about his own journey of self-improvement and DEI.
Companies are always striving to better ensure success for themselves and their team members, and incorporating DEI and improving workplace culture are great ways to achieve this. In fact, around 70% of diverse companies are better positioned to capture new markets.
Listening to your employees is an important way to continue that journey to success as a company. If a team feels silenced, tired of trying to speak up, or not heard, that’s a direct reflection on the company’s investment in their people.
To see if other young professionals shared my opinions, I asked fellow Centro interns Bhavika Mullick (Human Resources), Cindy Huang (Paid Search), Tyler Forster (Ad Operations), Damon Whitman (Digital Media), LaTosha Pointer (Growth Marketing) and Nafisa Sarowar (Software Engineer Apps) to discuss.
Wangui Gathungu: In an ideal workplace, how would your employer address and incorporate DEI?
Bhavika Mullick: By having hiring and retention strategies in place, such as community groups. What’s the point of hiring those diverse groups when there is nothing to keep them there and allow them to grow and excel?
LaTosha Pointer: By acknowledging the different holidays within different cultures and not being afraid to encourage or show that we have differences–not just saying “we’re all the same.”
Tyler Forster: By hiring people from diverse backgrounds that can provide different perspectives. Often companies who have more diverse employees tend to do better because they have different backgrounds that can lend more creativity. Also, having a committee that talks about DEI.
Damon Whitman: I think it starts with hiring—you should hire people of all different backgrounds. People who have different backgrounds can offer different perspectives.
Nafisa Sarowar: By listening to their employees and taking their concerns seriously. Just overall support, and that can come in many ways.
Cindy Huang: Acknowledging the diversity within the workplace as well as different social issues. For example, if something in the real world happens, set up a meeting to educate people about what they can do to help.
WG: How important is Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in the workplace to you?
BM: DEI is probably the most important thing for me, because what is a business without diversity? There are statistics that say if you have diversity then your productivity increases. It introduces us to different cultures and perspectives.
LP: I’m used to being in predominantly white workplaces and being the only minority, so I don’t expect too much when going into new spaces.
TF: Very important. Where I grew up was diverse, so now I seek out diverse environments when I look for jobs.
DW: As a Black queer person, DEI is very important to me. It’s important to me that I’m included because sometimes I’m looked over because I’m so different.
NS: I think it’s important. If a workplace acknowledges that DEI is important, it can encourage more thoughts and perspectives. If they don’t have that and something goes wrong, they won’t know what to do and maybe just make excuses. If you’re not acknowledging everyone fairly, you won’t be able to properly identify the problem and find the best solution for it.
CH: It’s important for me. You kind of stand out in a way being the only minority.
WG: What else are you looking for in an employer?
BM: Having frameworks in place for employee mental and physical health. Now that we’re all remote, it’s harder to separate work life from home life.
LP: Somewhere I can grow and learn. A place I feel comfortable at, where I can gain knowledge.
TF: A company that is attentive to their employees, meaning that they care whether their employees are happy, healthy, and enjoying themselves in a safe environment.
DW: One of the main things I look for is professionalism. I also look for companies that have people that look like me—being a double minority I want to see myself reflected in the company. I want to work for company that genuinely cares about me and not only the work I can do.
NS: A good work/life balance is important. I try to get all my work done during work hours so that I don’t have to take it home.
CH: I want a good team to work with, with a good team ethic.
WG: What do you like about Centro’s workplace culture?
BM: The community groups—I love that you can create your own group about anything you want, and use it to find people who feel the same way. I also like that Centro keeps us interested with different events.
LP: Everybody is nice, and they cater to people’s strengths.
TF: Everyone is genuine about wanting to help you and support you. No one on my team has a problem with taking some time out of their day to help me out.
DW: The first thing that comes to mind is everyone's supportive nature. Centro really takes their core values to heart.
NS: I love how everyone is so nice and down to earth, and how everyone talks to one another regardless of what position they are in.
CH: I like how everyone is nice, genuine, and willing to help and everyone strives for self-growth.
WG: How did you hear about Centro?
BM: COOP, which is a program for first-generation college graduates or college graduates who received financial aid. It provides you with networking help and help with job prep such as resumes and interview tips.
LP: I heard about Centro through Handshake, but I got my internship through an HR recruiter.
TF: I found out about Centro while researching jobs on LinkedIn.
DW: When I moved to Chicago I Googled “digital media roles in my area” and Centro popped up. I did more research and I saw that they have a good reputation.
NS: A recruiter reached out to me on LinkedIn. The interview process was casual, and everyone was so nice.
CH: Through an apprenticeship program called COOP. Hearing one of the Centro representatives speak so passionately and genuinely about Centro made me interested.
Learn more about life at Centro.
After what has been a year of significant upheaval for businesses both large and small, brand-side marketers are finding that there is a pressing need to reanalyze how they work with their agency partners and rework their technology stacks. What can be taken away from the pandemic? What can be done to help companies become more flexible and nimbler? How is marketing being redefined in the present age?
Asking and answering these questions was at the heart of last week’s third annual Adweek NexTech. The three-day virtual event covered a lot of ground on a wide gamut of topics including programmatic and cross-channel measurement, cookieless targeting, the power of content, building impactful CTV campaigns, and crafting a privacy-forward data strategy.
Centro’s president, Tyler Kelly, led a discussion with Arturo Pena, Vice President of Global Marketing at Cognizant, in which they explored Cognizant’s approach to in-housing, how Basis by Centro and the team have supported Cognizant through onboarding and education, and how uniquely positioned B2B marketers are to reach their preferred audiences. Here’s a recording of their conversation, with the full transcript below.
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Tyler Kelly: Arturo, it's great to have you here. Thanks for joining us. [I'll begin by asking] how did you get into the B2B space? What creates passion for it? What’s your background?
Arturo Pena: I have a very diverse background, Tyler. I have a finance degree and I have been in B2B technology forever. I have a few years of sales experience selling software and services in the I.T. space. That actually led me to marketing. I've been doing marketing because when I was in sales I saw the need of having a strategic approach to help the sales organization. And that's pretty much my passion – the connection between marketing and sales. And in B2B, it’s even more relevant.
TK: I agree. Really understanding your customer on the B2B side is difficult. What have you learned through the years about the big difference between B2B and B2C?
AP: You gave me the lead into the answer. The biggest difference that I see is your audience: your targets. Let’s say males between 40 and 60 years old. In B2C, even if you put your media money after them, and you have unintended reach and engagement from younger generations, you’re still generating a long-term positive impact from those unintended actions.
Whereas, in B2B, all of that is waste. For B2B especially, hyper-segmentation is super critical. We must look at both things – the persona (who we go after as a human) and combine that with the account-base. What are the accounts you want to pursue? After all, the people you’re interacting with are not representing themselves; they’re representing a company and their responsibilities within the company. The big complexity, then, is merging the psychology and demographic portion of things to be relevant and to appeal to your audiences from both aspects.
Another beacon point is that the landscape of advertising you must navigate as a B2B marketing leader is actually a B2C landscape, meaning technology, partners, and everything you can do on the media side is B2C-made. And as a B2B company, we must navigate the complexities of that B2C landscape and find what is inherently valuable for a B2B marketing effort. You have to cherry-pick what could work for B2B and what couldn’t.
TK: Absolutely. B2B has greatly changed over the last few years. What have you done to make sure that you’re educated; that you understand the technologies? You have ABM. You have automation technology and other platforms. How did you educate yourself to stay relevant and push yourself?
AP: Well, first of all, I have a great team. I have a media team globally with a presence in APAC, in Europe, and in the United States, but I also have marketing and advertising technology. So, I will open my answer by saying that it has to do with the leadership decision between the CMO and my peers and myself on putting an emphasis on marketing technology and advertising technology. We have a dedicated organization that works with the media team on understanding the landscape.
On top of having the team, making it official. Goal setting, expectation setting. We make it a part of our job – not only mine but everyone on the media and marketing technology side - to look for new technologies that will help us achieve certain things. We have very clear goals where we say: “OK, with every single decision we make on technology, or a campaign, media mix, marketing mix, anything we do, what is our ability to reach out to our intended audiences.” Persona and accounts. How can we generate responses from them? And then how do we move them into deeper engagement because I’m not comfortable with just brand awareness. I need to get something out of the awareness. How do we activate the audience after that and convert the audience? And how do we interlock with sales?
Everyone on my team knows about this approach. We know we have the goal of innovation, but how can we look at innovation? Otherwise, it becomes a question of “where do I start?”. It’s a needle in a haystack. But when you have this type of direction from the company, my team can go and look for innovative ways to help us achieve better results in the goals I just described. And that comes from having the right partners, reading, and being self-sufficient. The teams are comfortable going about it by themselves and we have a quick process in which we can assess whether something is relevant to us. If it is, let’s go pilot that and see if there’s value - or fail quickly - and if it works let’s bring it on. Our marketing and advertising technology team looks at our existing portfolio regularly and assesses what pieces of technology and partners we have that are not delivering value.
You don’t want to break the bank either, so once you start moving into the path of innovation, especially for digital, what are the things you’re going to let go. It’s a trade-off: you must have that discipline in saying you have to let go to have the new stuff.
TK: That leads to my next question. You’ve relied on agency partners in the past. You’ve now made the decision to go in-house. What drove that decision and how has it been going?
AP: Yes, I think I can point to three things. Number one is that we just thought broad-based marketing produces a lot of waste. We wanted to focus our investments and outsmart our competition without breaking the bank.
Second. Digital media first. Or digital-first. In the past, we used to be 75% traditional marketing automation and the rest was digital media. Now we have flipped that around in less than 18 months: 75% of what we do is digital media. We wanted it to be digital-first. Not because it’s a buzzword but because we wanted to be where our audience is without interrupting their lives. Without interrupting their stream of information. Instead, we want to be a part of their stream of information when they’re trying to become more knowledgeable.
And finally, purposeful marketing. We want to ensure every single decision we make and every single dollar we spend is moving audiences through the funnel. We understand some of the audience will stay in the awareness stage because they might not be our ideal audience or they’re simply not ready to engage with Cognizant. But that was a big component for us - from reach to response to deeper engagement to activation and sales interlock – making sure everything we were putting in the market was aligned to these goals.
TK: And what were your decision criteria for selecting the best technology? You actually found Basis –which was amazing to see - but how did you go about it?
AP: Yes!! For those who don’t believe in direct contact, I contacted Tyler directly on LinkedIn.
First and foremost, we were looking for a partner that had a commitment to help us do this in-house at some point in time. We knew it was not going to be a case of decision made today, tomorrow we’re operating in-house.
Number two, we wanted an AdTech play versus services. For us, the vision and roadmap of the technology were very critical. We conducted a clear assessment in which we looked at technologies that had a foundation in growing a flexible platform.
And that leads me on to the third point – a flexible platform. Our ability to add and drop tactics, partners, inventory as quickly as possible. Because, again, we’re on this journey of testing and keeping the best in terms of the goals that we’re pursuing.
The last portion was media management. As we increase the volume of things we want to test, this could become anarchy. We needed a single place where we could manage everything that goes in and out, beyond excel sheets.
TK: That’s great, and we here at Centro just did a study with Forrester that shows how Basis can increase ROI by 48% which is a huge number. Are you guys seeing benefits today? Are you seeing more control and more transparency? Or even more dollars going into media as a result of your decision?
AP: Yes, yes, and yes. This is a journey that we started 12 months ago, but at the time we didn’t know the cost of putting advertising in the market and the returns of that advertising. Today, we have that transparency and we’re able to see what campaigns, channels, tactics, and partners are delivering the highest results. And again, not just impressions and click-through rates. Of course, that helps the media planners and media strategists, but how do we connect that to activating our audience? As we now connect these dots, from plan to execution to measurement, we’re able to at least have transparency. Now we’re moving into a place where we’re going to start measuring ROI because we’ll connect our pipeline contribution to what we do on the media side. Leadership sees that and we’re able to place our investments in a more strategic way.
TK: It’s fantastic to hear you guys have been so successful down this path but I should bring up the dark side. I’m sure this process hasn’t all been rosy. What have you learned through bringing things in-house, whether hiring, staffing, training, change management, etc. Where have the difficulties been?
AP: We hired a lot of talented media strategists and planners from the agency world, and I think one of the big challenges that we’ve found through this process is, again, that B2C and B2B are not the same.
A lot of agencies will have a lot of talented people with most of their experience on the B2C side and some other B2B experience that is really just at the top of the funnel: brand awareness, which is ultimately very similar to what you can do in B2C. When it comes to the middle and bottom of the funnel – driving audiences to a pipeline conversation – that's where it’s been a challenge to train and make our strategists and planners aware and knowledgeable about connecting the dots. It’s just so easy to go back to the more impressions I get the better. The more clicks – no matter who clicked – the better. So that has been a challenge: shifting the minds of our team working on media strategy and planning.
The second biggest challenge we’ve encountered is that it’s not that easy to go and find partners we can put in our DSP platform – in Basis – that are going to work best for us. A lot of the back and forth with these partners and publishers is very B2C-oriented again. And when we go and ask about things that we care about, for example, “here are the global 2,000 accounts that I want to reach out to in the UK – help me understand how you can help me”, it takes just longer. When we wanted to onboard a partner in a week, it’s taking twice or three times as long.
These learnings are pushing us to document and start creating best practices internally to accelerate the pace in which we can bring in partners that can help us reach, engage, and convert the audiences we care about.
TK: And how do you approach education? That is the key. It’s going to be hard to find all these people and talent is scarce right now. Do you have an education program? Is that something that is ongoing?
AP: Centro helps us with the training in anything and everything related to the world of DSP, direct buys, media planning, and the technology itself. It has been very helpful because with much of the experience we’ve found – and a lot of the talent we’ve found – there was on-the-job training only. But now with the help of Basis, we’ve done a bunch of training and we’re going to be able to go to the next level up and spend more time on the strategy portion, empowering us to do more competitive analysis.
Again, if I go back to B2C, all the competitive tools that are out there are very B2C-oriented, so finding what we can leverage today and make usable for B2B – that’s the direction we're going to move the training in. On the planning, execution, and optimization side, we’ve got good maturity - our planners and strategists have done a good job with you guys through the training.
Now we want to move up. And so what does media strategy mean for B2B? It has a lot to do with market research and competitive analysis. Looking at intelligence tools and intelligence partners and talking to them and saying “100% of your platform may help a B2C company, but for us, we need to cherry-pick and say well this is not relevant for me, but this portion is – how can we complement with other things, whether that is more qualitative work or additional partners.”
TK: Lastly, if you could give the audience three nuggets of knowledge that you’ve embraced across this process over the last six to eight months. What would be your top three?
AP: We haven’t hadn’t a chance to touch on this, but data. For B2B, it is critical to move into first-party data because you have two worlds. You have the world of the persona you’re going after and the world of the company that they represent. So, one big nugget is having technologies and intelligence so you can create segments you can push out into the different advertisement placements that you’re putting in the market. Having the data and owning the data is super important – we’re creating a data lake that allows us to gather demographic and behavioral information so that we own it and then be more assertive and precise in the way we place our advertising. I want to get more out of every single dollar we put in the market. That’s a big takeaway for us.
The second. Account-based everything. A lot of account-based marketing is known as one-to-one. For B2B, there are a lot of technologies and tactics that you can use to do one-to-few, one-to-many, if you keep your audience constrained to the accounts where you want to create awareness, engagement, and conversion. Account-based everything is a lens that can be applied to processes and technology.
And the last portion is continuous innovation. As I described at the beginning, having a team that knows where we’re going and allowing them to bring ideas to the table and create healthy competition, healthy innovation in-house is super relevant. At some point, my goal is to be way better than any other agency could be if they were working for us. Why? Because with our business, we’re getting good at digital media so knowledge is key in all of us.
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To learn more about how Basis can empower you with improved transparency, better targeting, and so much more, get in touch with us today!
In a new study we commissioned, we asked Forrester Consulting to independently quantify the Total Economic Impact (TEI) of in-housing with Basis to help enterprises decide if our technology is right for them.
Based on customer interviews, independent analyses, and financial modeling, Forrester estimates that a composite company using Basis could generate benefits that amount to a net present value of $5.4 million USD over 3 years, representing an estimated 48% ROI. The study is packed with insights on the value that enterprises are realizing with Basis. These benefits include:
One Digital Marketing Director in the Electronics field had this to say to Forrester about Basis:
“Our total advertising budget has increased because our executives have more faith in Centro. Access to Basis provides a lot more transparency to be able to judge whether our spending is cost-effective. We took a gamble by increasing our spend with them because we knew we’d be able to see those results. I’d probably say our investment has been twice as effective.”
To learn how the quantified and qualified Basis benefits can apply to you, read the report.
Disclaimer: The Total Economic Impact™ (TEI) of In-Housing with Basis is a July 2021 commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of Centro.
Businesses today have a significant amount of relevant data they can utilize to improve their internal processes, sales, and marketing initiatives. However, this data often comes from a variety of different sources—online, offline, CRM tools, marketing tools, third-party sources, and more. In order to get a complete understanding of the customer journey, it’s imperative to integrate these disparate data types for uniform analysis.
Data integration is the process of consolidating and harmonizing business data from different locations into a single source of truth. Successful data integration is infinitely more complicated than simply copying spreadsheets into a single file. All sources of data must be validated, and the data must be organized and checked to ensure accuracy before merging. Whoever’s managing the data must also scrutinize it to ensure consistency and eliminate redundancy.
Businesses can take on this data integration task manually or rely on data management solutions to automate the process. Manual data integration often involves creating hand-coded scripts to automate some aspects as well. Most teams that opt for manual data integration tactics do so to save money, yet taking this route comes with some serious pitfalls that can make it a much more expensive option in the long run.
Whether you’re doing everything by hand or creating your own SQL scripts, here are six of the main challenges manual data integration efforts pose for businesses.
The most obvious issue. Human error is a reality of any data management initiative that is executed manually. Particularly when you have more than one person working with data sheets or building SQL scripts, the chances of miscommunication and mistakes are high. This in turn can lead to inaccurate or incomplete data after integration is complete.
What’s more, it’s possible for team members to never actually realize that the integrated data has inaccuracies in the first place. So, you end up running erroneous analyses and making important marketing and sales decisions based on incorrect data.
In the same vein, stitching data together manually using SQL scripts creates visualization challenges since there’s no way to illustrate potential data integration flaws. This creates a higher risk for inconsistencies and redundancies.
By employing a data management tool, however, you can gain access to a visual design environment that empowers you to easily check and corroborate whether there are any inconsistencies in data collected from disparate sources. This is incredibly important in cases of integrating online and offline consumer behavioral data. If you’re not receiving consistent customer information from different channels, it becomes impossible to truly understand the context of their engagement and deliver a personalized experience across marketing campaigns.
The main reason some businesses still avoid investing in data integration tools is cost. If you have an in-house team with the ability and skills to manually integrate your data, then you can save some money in the short term by not using additional software.
The reality is, though, that the long-term maintenance and support costs of doing things manually will undoubtedly outweigh the initial software investment. When multiple people are involved in manual data integration, there’s no guarantee their approaches will be consistent which can increase the complexity and cost of long-term maintenance.
Even in a case where only one person is involved in data integration, what happens when that person leaves the company? Now it becomes much more difficult for remaining team members to understand the integration or how to fix problems with it. This ends up sapping more time, money, and resources in maintenance that could otherwise have been avoided.
Stitching data together manually is an inherently slow process as it requires individual data extraction, validation, and integration. This makes it very challenging to continuously provide the key insights your business needs to remain competitive in the market. This is true even when creating your own coding scripts to automate the process.
How frequently do your business needs change or do new data sources/types emerge that are relevant for your analyses? Each time this happens, coding scripts need to be updated to adapt to these new changes. This takes much more time than relying on data integration technology to adapt to these changes for you.
Relying on individual team members or code designers to aggregate data means that few team members understand what business data is being used, where it comes from, and how to manage it. There’s no clear customer data strategy in place that all members of the company fully understand.
This makes it difficult for decision-makers to have confidence in data insights, meaning they are more reluctant to utilize them to inform key business strategies. This problem accentuates when manual data management leads to inconsistent reports based on incomplete or even redundant data that isn’t trusted by anyone in the business. Failing to have confidence in data insights means your business cannot make key optimizations to improve marketing, sales, and the customer experience.
While manual data integration may work well enough for your business at this point, what about in the future? In the long run, you’ll likely want to scale your efforts by adding in new marketing channels and strategies that require more complex data integrations. Relying on in-house teams to manually create reports or build code to keep up with this is very time-consuming and borderline impossible.
Your current data processing framework also might have compatibility issues with future tools and initiatives you invest in. For example, say you want to start incorporating big data insights or use another type of cloud platform in the future. In order to take full advantage of these new data points, you’ll likely need to completely redevelop your framework to fit these tools. As opposed to investing in maintenance, you’ll need to start over from scratch.
If you depend on a data integration solution at any stage of your business development, you’ll be able to easily connect it with whatever new tools or technologies you need in the future. There will be no need to rework legacy code processes to get up to speed with the latest tools and channels you utilize.
Effective, scalable data integration is one of the foundations of business success today. Once you choose a strategy to implement, it becomes challenging and time-consuming to change your approach. Investing in a data management solution can help you avoid the pitfalls of trying to stitch your data together manually.
In order to select the right tool and maximize its value for your business, you first need a clear understanding of what you want to achieve with data integration. Outline your marketing, sales, and other business goals to highlight what kind of data you need and what sources you’ll collect it from. If your goals are to understand the full customer journey, reduce attrition, drive more sales, or deliver an omnichannel brand experience, you will need to collect data from a variety of channels to get the insights you need to succeed.
With your goals and data sources in mind, the next step is to research different data management solutions, compare their features, and select one that can help you achieve your goals.
Here are some key features to consider:
Using an advanced data management solution is well worth the investment to avoid the perils of stitching data together manually. The value of such technology, however, extends way beyond that. Fully utilize the features your marketing intelligence software offers to maximize the benefits for your business.
The keys to success include effectively onboarding employees to utilize your data management tool, making key strategic decisions based on data insights, and automating optimization. Once you can automate aspects of your optimization efforts, the potential to drive more conversions and meet other key marketing goals becomes much greater.
With Basis Technologies, you can leverage over 150 API integrations across programmatic, search, social, direct, and connected TV using the most comprehensive platform in advertising: Basis. Interested in learning more? Get in touch with us today!
Marketers are looking for more control and transparency into how and where they advertise to their target markets. As a result, many brands have begun to shift digital media responsibilities from traditional agencies to in-house teams.
In-housing is a major decision. That’s why Basis Technologies commissioned Forrester Consulting to do a study on the impact Basis has on customers who in-house with us. Among other things, it found that:
Want to learn more about all the ways Basis can help your business? Download your copy of the study today.
Native advertising is a type of paid advertisement that is designed to match the look, feel, and functionality of the site it appears on. Native advertising is an effective way for advertisers to market their products without disrupting the user’s experience, because the ads match the content the user is already consuming.
Advertisers have used native advertising for over a hundred years. Some of the earliest examples include print advertisements blending in to appear like editorial content alongside newspaper articles in the 1920s and ‘30s, and brands placing their products to be seen in TV shows and movies.
The IAB defines six main types of native advertising, but the most common examples are:
Native ads typically have less copy and use images to attract the user’s attention. Native ads will typically drive the user to the brand’s website, a product listing, or a sponsored article.
All native advertisements will also feature a label such as “promoted” or “sponsored” so that users can identify that it is an advertisement. Because the ads also match the look of their surrounding content, they often go unnoticed by many ad blockers.
Sponsored content is a form of native advertising. Sponsored content also matches the look and feel of the content the user is already consuming. The main distinction here is that sponsored content often shows up as long-form ads that appear as editorial or video content.
Sponsored content will also offer the user an advantage for reading or watching, like learning new information. In this space, advertisers are seen as an expert or leader in the content they’re sponsoring. For example, a banking brand may want to share tips on keeping a budget.
With any type of native advertising, it is important that marketers first identify how their brand will fit into the ecosystem of native. Is native advertising right for your brand? If done well, native advertisements can make users more likely to engage with your content because the ads are placed where they are already are consuming. Users are also less likely to have an unpleasant ad experience because they are already consuming similar content.
The key to effective native advertising comes down to the creative. Native advertisements should match the look and feel of the content the user is already consuming, and shouldn't feel like ads.
Use high-quality images and strong headlines to draw a user in, and make sure to link to relevant content. It is important to not make the user feel tricked or duped, so make sure the native ad includes a “promoted” or “sponsored” tag. When it comes to sponsored content, make sure to work with highly skilled writers and editors to produce trusted and quality content.
Learn how Basis can help incorporate native advertising into your campaigns.
With more than half the world’s population now using social media, and people spending an average of 2 hours and 24 minutes a day across the major platforms, it’s not surprising that businesses are looking for ways to get the most out of social media marketing.
Sadly, the days when a company could join for free and rely on organic content to connect with customers are gone. Social ads are now a requirement. In order to maximize your paid investment, it’s important to understand both the benefits and challenges of advertising on these platforms.
The good news is that there’s a relatively low barrier to entry for advertising on social media. On Facebook, for example, ads are bought self-serve through an ad auction, and there are a wealth of free online courses available to teach you the basics (such as Facebook’s Blueprint videos.) Competitive buying rates also mean you can dip your toe into social media advertising without breaking the bank. Because it’s so affordable, you can often see a very fast return on investment.
One of the biggest benefits to social media advertising is that your ads can be used to reach a very wide audience, or to target very specific segments of potential customers. These platforms have powerful data built in that lets advertisers tap into demographic, psychographic and behavioral targeting in order to bring your message to the exact person you want.
Those capabilities go as far as allowing you to use a pixel to segment out different types of people based on actions they are taking on your website, to upload customer or prospect lists and reach those individuals, or to find people who are very similar to your current customers through prospect modeling.
It’s also incredibly easy to experiment with different types of ad formats and messages for each audience you are trying to reach. Simply put: Unlike on other media channels, you don’t have to put one message out there and hope for the best. Social media is a great place to test and learn about what types of promotions motivate action. Ultimately, by building content that your audience finds both relevant and engaging, you can generate more powerful connections that lead to increases in sales and long-term brand loyalty.
Measuring the success of your social media ads is also relatively simple, whether your goal is to generate awareness, engagements, website traffic, leads, sales, or some other media metric. Robust reporting lets you quickly learn what’s working and make real-time adjustments to campaigns in order to optimize performance.
There are certainly disadvantages to social media advertising as well. Because leveraging these platforms is so accessible, there’s a lot of competition among other brands and content vying for people’s attention. An effective social media ad campaign requires an investment in your creative to ensure it is optimized for these platforms and the behaviors people display when interacting in their newsfeeds. A three-minute video or overly text heavy photo ad is definitely going to fall flat, whereas a vertical story video or interactive swipe-able experience is much more likely to stand out.
As powerful as the targeting capabilities are in the ad auction, if you’re new to social media advertising it can be difficult to navigate all the nuances of the platforms and the overwhelming amount of campaign settings available. Without a smart targeting strategy in place, it’s possible you’ll spend money buying ads that don’t do anything to move the needle for your business.
For example, advertisers who are new to Facebook advertising might not know that optimizing an ad to “clicks” tells the ad auction to focus solely on finding “clicky” users, and not those who actually care about your products or services. If your ad campaign doesn’t perform as expected, it is often challenging to troubleshoot issues in these platforms unless you have a good support system of representatives to work with directly.
One last factor to consider is that social media can be used to aid in the spread of negative feedback and misinformation. As a result, advertisers need to have a strong response plan in place to review user comments on paid ads.
It’s also important to keep a pulse on general trending topics across social networks to ensure your content adds to important conversations without inadvertently damaging your brand reputation. This could result in needing additional resources to manage your social media presence.
If your business is new to social media advertising, it’s important to recognize that managing a paid campaign requires a deep knowledge of best practices for each platform, constant monitoring of performance, and the experience to know which levers to pull to maximize results.
Learn more about how Centro creates effective paid social strategies for our clients here.