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After weathering a significant drop in marketing spend, the loss of thousands of agency jobs, and radical shifts in production and remote work, agency and technology professionals are seeing a comeback.
But don’t expect agencies and clients to get back to business as usual. Agencies will swarm their talent with more technology and automation to make smarter marketing decisions and facilitate stronger partnerships.
Join guest speaker, Forrester Principal Analyst and former agency executive Jay Pattisall, for a conversation about how agencies and marketers will evolve their relationships and performance in 2021 and beyond.
4A's (American Association of Advertising Agencies) and 614 Group, a digital advertising consultancy, recently assembled forward-thinking industry leaders via a Think Tank to tackle the most pressing challenges in advertising and marketing—automation solutions and identity management. The guidance from the group was published as white papers (download here). This is the second phase of a large-scale initiative by The 4A's to understand and shape the future of programmatic and automation.
Participants in the Think Tank included Sony Entertainment, RPA, Horizon, Cramer-Krasselt, Fitzco, Starcom, and Geometry, Matterkind, UM Worldwide, Canvas Worldwide, AKQA, Hearts and Science, 451 Degrees. The work of the group is underwritten by Centro, Media.net, Facebook and IBM Watson.
The first phase of this project started in 2019, resulting in an in-depth examination of programmatic advertising and agency automation. Centro also showcased the work in our Future of Automation webinar.
The recent white papers help brands and agencies with media teams navigate two important issues that they are facing now and will likely face throughout in the next 12 months. Noted below, are important points and main takeaways from these companion papers:
‘Moving to Simplicity and High Value: A Call to Action for Workflow Automation and People Augmentation’ gives guidance on what aspects of an organization could be automated. From the report: “The Think Tank determined that one of its priorities is the development of guidance on how best to achieve workflow automation. Lack of automation hinders speed and efficiency on the part of marketers, agencies and publishers. Automating workflow will permit simplicity, speed and efficiency in how digital media and audiences are planned, activated, measured, analyzed, optimized, post-analyzed and billed.”
This paper notes that,
‘The State of Identity Management: How Did We Get Here and What Comes Next?’ provides an update of industry efforts to manage user identities for targeted advertising amid the loss of third-party cookies. The report states, “Identity management lies at the heart of digital advertising. Accurate and reliable identification enables relevant, one-to-one communication based on a host of recipient attributes and actions. Conversely, an inability to correctly identify ad recipients in many cases leads to a poor user experience and wasted ad dollars. …by initiating an honest discussion about the pros and cons of identity management, we will be able to create a more positive and beneficial environment for advertisers, publishers, and consumers alike.”
This paper notes that,
Centro has already taken action to address these challenges. Our Basis platform automates all the major aspects of an agency’s business or media team’s functions—we’ve also been exploring alternatives to cookie-less targeting with customers. As we near the end of a tumultuous year and prepare to enter a new one with plenty of uncertainty, our customers can be rest assured knowing that Centro is actively collaborating with the industry to keep a pulse on the needs in this space.
At Centro, we know that keeping up with the trade pubs and latest trends can be tough and time-consuming. To make that easier, we’ve compiled all the articles, reports, and other bits of awesomeness you may have missed, but should definitely read. Enjoy our latest list below!
eMarketer Revises its Digital Ad Spend Forecast Upward [:03]
According to revised stats from eMarketer, US digital display spending will grow by almost 10% this year, while overall digital spending is set to grow 7.5%. CTV, ecommerce, and even audio are contributing to this growth.
Study Shows Consumers Notice OOH Ads More Amid Shift Toward Hyperlocal Travel [:03]
45% of American adults say they’re noticing out-of-home (OOH) advertising more than before the pandemic began, according to the results of a survey the Out of Home Advertising Association of America (OAAA) and The Harris Poll fielded from September 21-23.
Quibi Calls it Quits: Key Takeaways From a Lesson in How Not to Build a Streaming Brand [:06]
While the app became a punching bag well before announcing plans to shutter, the news is still likely to disappoint marketers hungry for an ad-supported premium mobile video platform. A decisive failure to capitalize on the high consumer demand for mobile video speaks both to the difficulties of jumpstarting a new media venture in the crowded digital age, and also what many critics perceived as hubris from the people running the show, with the service failing to deliver on critical fronts like content and distribution strategy.
TikTok Enters The Ecommerce Game With Shopify Team-Up [:03]
TikTok announced a global partnership with Shopify earlier this month. This will allow TikTok to reach new audiences and drive sales on the app. This integration will mean that it will be easier for merchants to create in-feed shoppable ads, which can be viewed in the app.
How AI Can Deliver Targeted Ads While Ensuring Brand Safety [:05]
As the world reels from the effects of the coronavirus crisis and other world events, more brands are turning to digital platforms and as such, seeking greater accountability for their media spend.
AI systems enable marketers to look beyond using just the usual social media platforms. They not only offer precision targeting of ads, but can also perform real-time volume data processing to self-adjust and optimize campaigns. This ability to process huge amounts of data including real time reading and assessment of sites for content and context, can also provide a more enhanced safety net to the entire targeting and ad-buying process.
Earlier this year, Walmart rolled out Walmart+ and was using a tailored ad approach with the data they collected on how people shop at Walmart. They are now adding experiential marketing to the mix and bringing in ‘special moments’ that have been canceled in 2020. The benefit of experiential campaigns is that they let consumers interact with a brand and then share it on social, giving the brand additional reach without additional spend.
As Oculus Unleashes Ad Blitz, Is It Time For Marketers to Believe in Virtual Reality? [:07]
The moderately-priced Oculus Quest 2 is getting strong reviews and ad support, signaling that virtual reality may finally be taking its long-awaited next step. Is it time for marketers to start seeing the world through rose-colored goggles?
If you ask the average person, they would say they don’t care for advertising. But they probably would say that they like free content, they like learning about new products and services, and they appreciate the economy growing. Advertising has value, especially when it is done right.
Optimizing campaigns is considerably more than just setting the right bid on your keywords. It’s about making sure that you have the right ads, the right campaign and ad group structure, and landing pages that convert well and match up nicely to your ads and keywords. Core to all of this is the process of verifying and corroborating you have all the right keywords in the first place. That’s where a lot of time is spent when it comes to optimizing campaigns and extracting the most out of your marketing dollars. Here, we explore three ways you can find the terms that are not working for you and explain how you can utilize smart reporting to make the task infinitely easier.
Let’s first talk about high CPA keywords. These are terms that are driving traffic and conversions, but at too high a cost according to your goals. Identifying these terms, and then acting on them, is the purpose of this dynamic dashboard component. The chart itself is a simple one, whereby you generate a keyword report and filter for any active keyword that is above a certain CPA, ROAS, or similar goal. This assumes that you already have a CPA/ROAS target in mind, of course.
It’s best to start at the top, and either lower bids or pause the terms that are doing the most damage. You can download the data and then immediately upload it into Adwords Editor for a quick fix. The filters in this chart are for active keywords, above a CPA target. Note that cost and conversions are included as they help to provide more context around the keywords. For example, partial conversion (such as the 0.33 above) may make the CPA look inflated, or perhaps the keywords you’re reviewing are just low volume. Campaign name and Ad Group name are also visible to make it easier to upload into Adwords Editor, but also to offer extra perspective.
Additional Considerations
These are the terms that are getting traffic but not converting at all. They are usually a low hanging fruit for optimization, but automating the reports helps to make this task more regular, and catch terms more quickly. This chart filters active keywords for zero conversions, sorting the cost highest to lowest. Generally, these are great terms to plainly pause out as they can immediately save quite a bit of money.
Additional Considerations
It’s a general, albeit old, rule that you let a keyword garner a certain threshold of spend or clicks before deciding if a term is working or not (I’ve generally seen this number at as little as 100 clicks). However, there are a lot of search terms that are rarely searched on, and may take a long time to collect enough data or statistical significance. These can still cost you money, but slowly bleed your campaign of funds over time, negatively impacting your performance.
This chart looks at keywords that have no conversions, but also low spend. In this case, we’re filtering for active keywords with zero conversions, but also less than about $30 of total spend. There can sometimes be thousands of terms that fit in this category, and this report makes finding these terms effortless. Plus, the simple act of downloading the data and then uploading it into Adwords Editor makes fixing this incredibly easy.
Additional Considerations
In addition to looking at just keywords, it’s also recommended to review search terms. It’s easy to recreate or duplicate your charts to look at search terms instead of keywords. Doing this could provide some more terms that are irrelevant or poor performers to add as negatives. It’s also possible to set up your filters to focus on particular campaign sets. For example, looking at Non-Brand versus Brand, or International versus Domestic campaigns.
By tweaking the filters on search terms, you could further create charts that find search terms that could be added to campaigns. And all of this is automatic, without the need to download those pesky CSV files.
The possibilities really are endless here, but carefully set up reports are going to be more essential as marketing continues to become more complex.
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If you’re looking to replicate any of the analytical tools you see here, our universal reporting technology can take your data and recreate these views in a matter of minutes. As with any report, though, be wary of blindly following the data. With each of these charts, and intended uses, there are also some cautions, or additional considerations to keep in mind.
It’s been a historically rough year for the travel and tourism industry. Travel has experienced a greater decline in digital ad spending than any other industry due to COVID-19, and U.S. digital travel sales are expected to decrease by 44.7% in 2020.
Despite these challenges, there’s still an opportunity for brands and agencies to advertise in a less competitive environment and take part in the $100+ billion of digital travel sales expected in 2021.
Effective targeting, messaging, and measurement will always be key pieces to successful tourism marketing campaigns, but efficiency is more important than ever while digital media budgets are limited.
There’s an overwhelming amount of third party data available to tourism advertisers, especially when it comes to travel display advertising. From in-market segments for flights, hotels, and car rentals, to weather triggers and historical location data, the options are endless.
However, the most powerful targeting available still comes from first party data. Take advantage of CRM lists and place site pixels to create segmented retargeting audiences and lookalike models. As the digital advertising industry moves toward a cookieless world, this data will prove to be more and more valuable.
The best travel ads take both the target audience and timing of the campaign into consideration. Use everything you know about potential tourists and their motivations to create impactful ads. Here are few examples:
It’s also important to react to any negative situations in the destination(s) you’re promoting. If there’s a natural disaster or COVID-19 outbreak in the destination, consider shifting to a more inspirational or uplifting recovery message rather than putting forward an immediate call-to-action. This keeps your brand top of mind without coming off as insensitive or putting the public in danger.
To prove the success of tourism marketing campaigns, it’s essential to set digital goals and KPIs that align with your business priorities and then implement the proper tracking to measure against those goals. Brands that handle direct bookings—like airlines, car rentals, and hotels—may be able to back into a CPA or ROI goal needed to stay profitable.
For destination marketing organizations or tourism boards that have a broader objective to increase brand awareness or overall tourism, key pageviews and site content can be tracked to make sure the target audience stays engaged after being exposed to digital advertising.
In situations where tracking sales or website content doesn’t align with the goals of the campaign, brand lift studies or verified walk-in lift studies can be helpful in evaluating the success of a campaign.
With a thoughtful strategy, brands and travel advertising agencies that keep a strong presence in 2020 can position themselves well for 2021 as digital travel sales start to rebound.
Connect with us to learn more about Centro’s travel marketing services!
These days, professional development can feel more challenging than ever before. Many professionals are experiencing fatigue from working remotely for many months, yet still understand the need to develop their careers in uncertain times.
Accomplished tech leader, speaker, and author Jeffery Smith joins the podcast to discuss finding new ways to grow during COVID-19, what authentic tech leadership looks like, and how to not let the pandemic—or your mindset—hold you back from career growth.
For as many digital years as I can remember, we’ve been discussing the “future” of video advertising. Most of that conversation revolves around two topics:
To be sure, these are both critical considerations for a modern media strategy. Broadcast is a stubborn (and reliable) dinosaur, but digital channels have been capturing more eyeballs and ad dollars for years now. If you aren’t producing mobile-optimized and short-form video, and you haven’t expanded your media mix to include OTT, or perhaps even live streaming, you’re being left behind.
So, get to it! You’re not alone—we have a great team of strategists to help.
On the other hand, if you’re one of those forward-thinking advertisers who’s already mastered the sponsored Instagram story and streaming video, you’re likely wondering what else you can do to guide your digital video strategy into 2021 and beyond.
Here are two modest predictions for the future of video.
The days of the third-party browser cookie are numbered. We’ve known this for some time, but with Google announcing a 2022 cookie sunset date for Chrome and its 66% browser market share, contingency planning is in full effect across the industry.
The death of the cookie, combined with looming privacy regulation, opens the door for an old friend—contextual targeting. This may seem like a throwback to Centro’s early days of local news ad buying, but we’re not just talking about sports-section takeovers anymore. Contextual 2.0 offers a host of machine learning solutions for discerning page sentiment—these solutions recognize images and dynamically insert creative alongside appropriate subject matter.
With the adoption of improved alignment technology, a contextual-first strategy could be a cost saver and performance driver, not just Plan B. Past studies have already suggested that contextually relevant advertising can improve ROI by 30%, compared to cookie-based targeting.
Plus, one of the most compelling use-cases for advanced contextual targeting is video!
Brands invest heavily in crafting video to evoke a specific emotional response among an audience in a specific mindset. Poor video placement (below-the-fold, in-banner video, anyone?) can undermine this desired effect, and at high CPM’s, waste your ad spend entirely.
Precise contextual alignment, with user-friendly ad formats, presents an opportunity for video ads to be more topical, viewable, and delivered to a receptive audience—all benefits that make this strategy arguably more valuable than user targeting.
Next steps:
As traditional retailers struggle just to survive 2020, the shift to e-commerce has accelerated dramatically. Social platforms are seizing on the opportunity.
If you’ve spent time on Facebook or Instagram recently, you’ve probably noticed how easy it is to make an impulse purchase through well optimized shopper ads (guilty!). And, to simplify the process even more, Facebook introduced Shops in May, allowing brands to sell products directly through its platforms.
And then there’s the Gen Z favorite, TikTok. TikTok’s growth has been explosive, with an addictive interface that drives massive numbers of views. To understand its long-term potential, take a look at how its parent company is approaching e-commerce, and how e-commerce and social video companies are collaborating in China.
TikTok and Shopify just announced a partnership that cements e-commerce as the real game plan. Not only will purchases from Shopify merchants be easier through TikTok, businesses will have access to TikTok’s ad platform directly through Shopify–something in-house marketing teams should be aware of. With its video-first, early adopters from Gen Z (a population that controls a growing $140 billion of spending power), TikTok is in a position to fundamentally change how people shop.
So with social media giants transforming into digital malls (and potentially making a run at Amazon), what does this mean for advertisers?
First, marketers can now use video to speak directly to consumers at the digital point of sale. With an audience that’s literally one click from conversion, brands should be developing a new class of video assets tailored to the actively engaged shopper.
To move the needle from impulse to purchase, consider an immersive, educational approach, including AR/VR and other interactive tools, as well as authentic testimonials or product demos.
Second, the shopification of social media increases the value of influencer- and fan-generated content exponentially. If Douyin (TikTok’s Chinese counterpart) is any indication, in-video search is on the horizon and will allow users to purchase products simply by tapping them in a video.
With every view representing an organic shopping opportunity, imagine the impact of your product appearing in tomorrow’s viral sensation. If content and influencer marketing haven’t been a priority in the past, now may be a good time to determine if they’re a fit for your brand.
Next Steps:
Learn more about video advertising with Centro.
Converge your direct and programmatic buying functions, and improve performance while you’re at it.
Every year, Centro hosts a wellness event called Wellnesspalloza. Wellnesspalooza is centered around free health screenings for all employees, as well as their eligible spouses. Centro sets a goal of 100% participation for all employees.
These screenings run over 30 tests, ranging from anemia, infections, and certain cancers to heart disease and stroke. Additionally, employees and their spouses can use their screening results to discuss with their doctors, assess their year-over-year health, and work towards being the healthiest version of themselves.
Each year these wellness screenings are complemented by a week of events promoting many aspects of wellness, including mental, physical, and financial health. These events have included cycling classes, cooking classes, on site manicures, massages, financial webinars, etc.
Every year the events change based on the needs of our employees, but the goal every fall is to provide an opportunity for employees to step away from their daily work and focus on themselves. It’s a time for employees to come together, have fun, and learn more about their health.
Even though all Centro employees remain working from home this year, we knew we still needed to offer this opportunity for our people. All events took place over two weeks, were hosted 100% virtually, and allowed for friends, family, and roommates to join in the fun and learning.
Employees volunteered to teach classes around fitness, cooking, and card crafting. External vendors and partners provided expert knowledge around 401k, RRSP, meditation, home buying, saving for the future, etc. The virtual setting still provided all employees and their families the opportunity to join in and learn something new to better themselves during a stressful time for many.
Apart from Wellnesspalooza, Centro strives to offer the best benefits to employees year-round. Centro’s health insurance plan for employees and their families includes medical, dental, vision, and preventative healthcare. All employees receive Headspace memberships, free and confidential access to our Employee Assistance Program, Rocket Lawyer legal services, student debt contributions, and more.
By offering these programs and initiatives, Centro follows through on our commitment to putting our people first, no matter what.