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Can Blockchain Ensure Artificial General Intelligence Develops to Benefit Humanity?

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By Mina Down

AGI doesn’t exist yet, but fictional depictions of intelligent machines eradicating or enslaving humanity abound. One startup is hoping it can use blockchain to develop AGI in a more utopian direction.

What is Artificial General Intelligence?

Artificial intelligence or “AI” refers to machines that can learn and perform tasks like a human. “Artificial General Intelligence” (AGI) is something different. It would be like combining all AI devices into a network. This network would be far greater than the sum of its parts because it would be able to generate a collective artificial general intelligence through the combined experiences of each machine, as well as the interactions of machines with each other.

Thus, AGI would combine the best of human-like thinking and reasoning with the advantages that computers have over humans — perfect recall and the ability to perform near instantaneous calculations. If AGI could also control robots as dextrous and mobile as a person, it would result in a new breed of machines that could take over any role performed by humans. While AGI doesn’t exist yet, experts agree its development is inevitable. The question is what direction will this development lead?

Dystopia or Utopia?

We’re all familiar with fictional dystopian depictions of intelligent machines eradicating or enslaving humanity, for example, The Matrix, 2001: A Space Odyssey and The Terminator series. Not everyone thinks such scenarios are far-fetched. SpaceX and Tesla founder Elon Musk calls AGI the “biggest existential threat” facing humanity and famous physicist and Cambridge University Professor Stephen Hawking said, “the development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race”.

At the same time, such dire predictions may go too far. An AGI equal to or better than humans could also help develop solutions to problems that seem intractable today, such as climate change and war. Nonetheless, at a minimum, we must worry whether AGI will merely empower the small group of powerful individuals that rule the world today with better means of mass surveillance and population control. Given that most of human history seems to reflect the principles of winner-take-all and might-makes-right, we (humanity) might only have one chance to get AGI right.

Blockchain and Decentralized Apps: One Startup’s AGI Solution

As overwhelming as the challenge of developing beneficial AGI seems, some innovators are aiming to do just that. Kassy.ai is a new startup with the goal of creating a community-developed open-source AGI. Kassy plans to do this by creating a “Knowledge as a Service” (KaaS) Blockchain to function as an infrastructure for a global AI computing system. The Kaasy network will offer a set of kits that developers can use to expand their software applications, better optimize processing times and access load balance computing. The open-source KaaS blockchain code can also be forked to create private knowledge blockchains, for tasks which may involve privacy concerns and other data restrictions.

On top of the KaaS blockchain, Kassy will build an AI algorithm marketplace. The marketplace will be distributed so anyone can use and add new algorithms. The AI algorithms can be optimized to run distributed calculations and power machine learning, thus producing AI skills usable by anyone using the platform. Applications include video processing, machine learning, molecular simulation, AI conversation partners, employee-as-a-service solutions, augmented and virtual reality solutions, and real-time robotic fleet management. The marketplace will also have a built-in compensation mechanism where contributors earn rewards when someone uses their algorithm. Skill rewards for complex skills are issued as a tree, where each complex skill payment is split between itself and the integrated simpler skills.

Building Blocks for a Beneficial AGI

In the short term, Kaasy’s plan consists of linking a global community of AI specialists within an ecosystem of projects that allows each to contribute to the direction they want AI development to move in. However, the technical features described above support Kassy’s long-term goal of using blockchain technology to make AI accessible in the simplest of applications and devices, which will in turn act as building blocks for a future global Artifical General Intelligence.

Disclaimer: I do not own KAAS coins and I have no plans to participate in the ICO. This is not investment advice.

By Mina Down

Sourced from Hackernon

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Over Half Of Firms Still Not Compliant With GDPR: Study

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With GDPR in force for five months, 56% of companies are still not compliant — and 19% say they will never be, according to the IAPP-EY Annual Privacy Governance Report.

Yet they are spending money on compliance — an average of $1.3 million to date, with an additional $1.8 million spend expected.

And some GDPR challenges do not seem as daunting as they did last year. Rated on a difficulty scale from one to 10, data portability has fallen from 6.3 to 5.3.

And gathering explicit consent has declined from 5.9 in 2017 to 4.6 this year.

However, U.S. firms are still struggling with some of those requirements. For instance, they rate consent as 5.5% in difficulty and the right to be forgotten as 6.6.

American firms are more daunted by deleting customer data and access requests.

Overall, 76% say GDPR has motivated them to delete data, and 21% plan to do so in the near future.

In addition, 75% have appointed a data protection officer, although 48% say this is to perform a valuable business function as much as it is to deal with the law.

Of the European firms, 89% have named a DPO, while 67% of the U.S. respondents have done so. But U.S. firms are more likely than their EU counterparts to have a chief information security officer.

Almost 60% of the privacy leaders at companies have taken on the DPO responsibilities themselves.

The research also found that 25% have changed data processors in response to GDPR, and 30% are considering future changes.

Of the vendors polled, however, only 7% say they have lost processing business.

Of the average GDPR spend, 33% has gone into staff, 22% to tech solutions, 18% to outside counsel, 15% to consultants and 12% to training. However, 79% cite training as their leading GDPR investment priority for this year.

Despite the GDPR spending, the average privacy budget has fallen from $2.1 million last year to $1 million.

This is largely due to large firms cutting back now that they have spent large amounts on the GDPR preparation cycle, the report states.

The study also found that full-time privacy staffs have grown to a mean of 10 people. Oddly, B2B marketers are more likely than B2C marketers to have full-time privacy professionals on board.

Of the companies polled, 83% report GDPR status compliance to their boards, but 68% report data breaches — down from 80% in 2016.

The IAPP surveyed 550 privacy processionals who subscribe to its Daily Dashboard. Of that sample, 76% feel their firms fall under GDPR.

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Sourced from MediaPost

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There are two types of creativity, and you can practice one of them every day

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By Lucy M Davies & Lynn Newton

When you think about creativity, it might be highly creative people like Mozart, da Vinci, or Einstein who spring to mind. They were all considered to be “geniuses” for their somewhat unique talents that led to global innovation in their fields. Their type of creativity is what’s known as “Big C creativity” (or historical) and is not very common in everyday life. Not all of us can create works of art or music or scientific theories that are new to the world.

But while we can’t all be Mozart, da Vinci, or Einstein, many people do enjoy creative activity—through hobbies such as water colour painting or playing the piano. And these types of pursuits are often what people think of when asked what being creative looks like. Our finished pieces may not be comparable with the likes of the great masters, but often the process is therapeutic and the end result can be aesthetically pleasing.

On top of hobbies and interests, we all possess creative attributes that can help as we solve life’s problems and make decisions. It is this type of creativity that enables us to plan different routes to get to the same destination, or how to fit in a trip to the supermarket when our schedule looks full.

It might not sound very creative, but this aspect of creativity relies on our ability to consider options and assess their suitability, as well as how to make decisions based on personal prior experience or what we have learnt formally or informally. These examples are known as “small c creativity” or “personal everyday creativity.”

Creative outcomes

While Big C creativity is valued and celebrated, it is often small c creativity that has allowed humans to flourish over thousands of years. It sets us apart from other animals and it is also the type of creativity which can be fostered through our education system and beyond into the workplace.

Traditionally, research tells us that creativity has been largely associated with the arts. Our previous research has shown that teachers are often able to give examples of creative activity in arts subjects, but find it harder to do so when asked to describe creativity in subjects such as science.

But there is a growing realization that opportunities to be creative are found across a broader range of subjects. For instance, engineering provides opportunities to be creative through problem solving, and history gives the opportunity to think creatively about why events happened, and what motivated those involved.

Research has shown that training teachers to ask particular types of questions can be one way to help support creativity across the curriculum. This is because generating solutions to problems and explanations are creative processes, and these are vital if children are to have a “complete education”.

Our research also shows how it can be more helpful to talk about “thinking creatively” rather than “creativity.” This is because people tend to see thinking creatively as independence of thought and a willingness to take risks and seek new perspectives. It is also seen as a way to perceive new relationships, make new connections, and generate new ideas.

Moving creativity forward

The Durham Creativity Commission is a collaboration between Arts Council England and Durham University that aims to identify ways in which creativity, and specifically creative thinking, can play a larger part in our lives.

We are working alongside people in education, as well as businesses and arts and science communities, collecting their views on creativity and creative thinking. We will also be looking across these groups to determine whether or not there is a relationship between creativity and mobility, creativity and identity as well as creativity and well-being. We hope to be able to show that thinking creatively can not only be encouraged and furthered in a variety of contexts, but can also lead to positive outcomes on a personal, social, and economic level.

In a rapidly changing world, creativity is important for people and society on many levels—it can help to generate personal satisfaction and be important for economic development. This is why creative thinking must be a key priority in educational environments.

In the same way, creativity must also be recognized and encouraged in the workplace. Because, after all, it’s creative thinking that leads to problem solving and innovation in a range of areas.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

By Lucy M Davies & Lynn Newton

Sourced from Quartzy

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‘Building the digital factory’: 3D printing comes to Shopify

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By Michael Bodley

It used to take almost a month for the owner of It’s The Island Life, a small, Texas-based direct-to-consumer business selling on Shopify, to receive its 3D-printed cookie cutters. Now, it’ll take less than a week.

It’s The Island Life is one of a few brands piloting a new 3D printing program with Voodoo Manufacturing, a Brooklyn-based company that aims to lend its 3D printing production services to small businesses. Today, the company is launching a design app for 3D printing on Shopify, the $17 billion e-commerce platform that has become the go-to e-commerce platform for DTC startups.

Voodoo wants to open up previously pricey 3D printing capabilities for small businesses. Traditional, large 3D-printing corporations employ expensive machines — ranging from $50,000 to $1 million a piece — that pump out millions of products, everything from car parts to baby bottles. Voodoo uses 200 low-end machines that cost less than $5,000 in an effort to provide a production scale without increasing costs.

(Voodoo is not the only app on Shopify: Shapeways, a competitor, recently launched a Shopify app of its own.)

“Our vision is building a digital factory that can produce a large number of the products that people buy in the world,” said Voodoo co-founder and chief product officer Jonathan Schwartz. “It would be impossible for new brands and products to be created and be successful if they needed to invest a lot of time and money in launching large products. That’s something a large company could do, but not a small one.”

Inside Voodoo’s 2,000-square-foot facility, its printers heat plastic to 230 degrees Celsius and squeeze the material through a hot glue gun-like nozzle, spraying one thin image on a plate at a time, line by line.

The company is looking to capitalize on the growing 3D-printing industry, expected to be worth more than $7 billion by 2024, according to Market Research Engine. Unlike traditional machines, Voodoo’s printers require no molds.

Thanks to the typical upfront cost associated with the manufacturing model, 3D printing has been most often associated with brands with deep pockets. Nike, Adidas and New Balance are all competing to make 3D-printed shoes mainstream, while HP this month announced it was building a 3D printer to help companies produce metal.

Lucy Hutcheson, owner of It’s The Island Life, sells six different cookie cutters designed with the app. The one week it takes Voodoo to turnaround an order compares to the month it used to take other 3D printing companies Hutcheson used before.

The app’s one-week turnaround time outpaces the month it used to take other companies Hutcheson did business with to deliver her products. Many large 3D-printing manufacturers are based in China. At Voodoo, some goods may take up to six hours for a printer to spit out, and the company theoretically could create 200 unique items at a time with each of its 200 printers.

“Our app is going to let people come up and create products that no one else in the world is selling that can be incredibly unique and niche to their customer base, and yet not have to make any investment up-front,” Schwartz said.

By Michael Bodley

Sourced from DIGIDAY UK

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Back to Basics: Email Marketing For B2B

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By Tobin Lehman

In the B2B space, we can sometimes get lost looking for the newest shiny objects and forget about the basics of digital marketing. Don’t let that happen to email. There’s a reason it’s tried and true – it still holds the highest ROI.

It’s time to go back to the basics.

The Basics of Email Marketing

For most B2B organizations, email is used in every aspect of their business. Your sales guys send emails. Your marketing team sends emails. Your customer service team sends emails. For most organizations, email is the number one touchpoint for communicating with customers. Your customers likely receive more email from you than they ever receive phone calls or in-person visits. So, the content and context of your email marketing should never be taken lightly.

That said: why do we think about email so little in our organization? We’re going to dive into three areas of our business to determine how to best use email to reach our goals.

Sales Team Emails

As I mentioned, your sales team should be sending a lot of email. The reason they do this is because with the advent of email marketing and CRM integration, you should be able to send a lot of emails that cut down a lot of time and increase productivity. But we still get asked this question often: “What kind of emails to our sales team be sending?”

Well, it’s a good question. The reality is that email offers more of a challenge for sales guys than it does for any other department. (If you’re a sales guy, you can quote me on that.)

The reason why it’s much more difficult is that you’re expected to be both personal and automated at the same time. In other words, you need to get a lot of emails out, but it can’t be willy-nilly, because your potential customer is looking for personal attention and customization. They want to feel that you’re paying attention to them – and so does everyone else. The problem is that you’ve only got so much attention to give.

Marketing helps with this a bit, but it can’t totally fill the role of “personal attention” for the customer. Yet, without that, the prospect can feel funneled, or herded, which would detract from the impact you are trying to have.

This means that from a sales perspective, an intelligent CRM-based email marketing with high customization is an absolute requirement. If you’re sending out templated emails but you are not using a system like HubSpot or Infusionsoft, you’re probably spending a lot of time doing it. Or, if you’re not, you’re definitely not doing it well.

If you’re just getting started, the key is to start slow and find the biggest bottleneck. Then, work to find the areas where email automation can have the biggest impact – places where it can really help you save time and increase your productivity. Create those templates first, and find easy ways to automate them. If you’re not using HubSpot Sequences, for example, this could be a real leverage point for you in the organization.

Marketing Emails

Marketing is the act of positioning your product or service within the marketplace. Advertising is the expression of that position to the targeted customer. So your goal, in a marketing context, is to continually position your firm or service within the mind of your potential customer.

When you think of a channel such as email, this could include such tactics as an email newsletters and drip campaigns, but on a bigger level, you should push thought leadership. The marketing message should focus on the unique differentiators of your firm or service within the market. This means you need to drive the value of your firm’s service every time you send an email.

So if you are a professional services firm, this positioning should include your expertise, which is really the summation of all your experiences being applied to a customer problem. Don’t just send your latest project; send some of the thinking that made your latest project successful.

The success of your communication will directly correlate to how well it helps customers solve their problems. If you’re constantly talking about yourself or your products and services without a correlation to your customer, or if you never tie in how your product or service will solve their problems, you’re just creating noise.

There are too many product and service emails that simply talk about what’s being offered without ever considering the benefits that the end customers actually care about.

For example, you may have the highest-rated service on Yelp, yet that means nothing to me if you don’t address my pain points specifically.

This is a high-level review of marketing email, but hopefully it provides direction toward where you should push.

Customer Service Emails

The communications you have with your customers over requests, service calls, or even the day-to-day management of an account are sometimes just viewed as inconsequential. But how could we leave these major touch points to chance?

What’s most important is that every email that’s sent out of your firm is thought through in terms of how it affects the customer experience.

Have you reviewed your customer service rep’s email sent box recently? Think about what kind of information you could find in there. If they’re being polite, if they address the customer concerns, if there’s terseness – frankly, there could be a whole array of challenges or wonders inside of that email box in terms of who is winning and losing accounts when it comes to customer service.

Since every firm and company is different, let’s talk about this from a conceptual standpoint. You should determine your email communication standards from a customer service perspective on day one. This could include response times, response context, and other technical standards, all the way down to the signatures and closing remarks of emails.

A good email customer service strategy may need to be broad to encompass all situations; it could also be very narrow in terms of an escalation or communication policy around particular issues. If you’re setting up a meeting, for example (which seems minor), you could have templates for emails that are sent out to make sure all the details are covered. The alternative is to just ad hoc it, sending an email saying, “Hey we got a meeting tomorrow here’s the agenda see you then..”

Yikes.A properly thought-through strategy could include some reminders on directions and the more formalized greeting, for example.

Don’t Take Email For Granted

All this to be said, every email from your firm or your company is a piece of communication to your customer. Don’t leave it to chance.

Email should be thoughtful, purposeful, and measurable to make sure it’s having the best impact. The emails you send will be a large part of the communication experience your customer has with your firm.

ByTobin Lehman

Sourced from Business 2 Community

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7 Online Marketing Plans For Small Business To Ensure “GUARANTEED” Success

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Sourced from Lyndax

Establishing yourself in a market that is brimming with competition is never easy.

Especially if you’re a small business competing with the likes of bigwigs and numerous other small businesses like yours.

One tactic that brands, big and small, have adopted is to leverage the internet for spreading their brand message.

And you should too.

You’re probably wondering how being part of the herd helps you.

Consider this.

Smart Insights reported that 49% of organizations do not have a properly defined online marketing strategy.

Now pair that with HubSpot’s findings that 39% of marketers don’t find their brand’s digital marketing strategy effective.

It’s starting to dawn on you that there is indeed a competitive advantage to be gained here, isn’t it?

And if you don’t want to become one of those numbers, it’s critical that you nail your digital marketing strategy.

That’s why we’ll be looking at some highly effective marketing plans for small businesses. These are guaranteed to make you a success.

1. Social Media Marketing

Social media marketing for small business can be very tricky to get right. While the hype for it has solid ground, it’s not an easy plan to integrate into your business.

Depending on the type of small business you have, you need to first choose the right platforms. Then work on creating the appropriate content for it.

Your campaign on social media can serve two purposes:

  1. Firstly, it can help you gain targeted followers. Thus, assuring your brand gets the maximum amount of relevant attention possible.
  2. The other purpose it serves is to amplify the number of visitors to your website. Where you’ll be able to convert them into customers.

State Bicycle does a good job of this. They promoted a giveaway on Facebook to get new people to sign up on their site.

Albeit a lot of this is actually dependent on content marketing and influencer marketing strategies of your small bussiness. Both of which we’ll talk about shortly.

The important thing to remember is that social media doesn’t just help with your brand awareness. It also allows you to freely engage your customers.

In fact, you have the edge here compared to big brands. Customers like authentic, prompt responses. And as a small business, you’re more than capable of delivering that.

2. Search Engine Marketing

Search engine marketing (SEM) is an absolute must of in a marketing plan in small businesses. When I talk about SEM it includes both its components – SEO (search engine optimization) and PPC (pay per click).

To explain the components in simpler words, SEO is about optimizing your site and content to improve your search engine rankings. Thereby, improving your site traffic.

No wonder it’s a top inbound marketing priority for 61% of marketers. This is according to the previously cited HubSpot report.

Paid search or PPC marketing is all about advertising within the sponsored listings of a partner site or search engine. You pay for each click coming through the ad or per impression (CPI).

It’s evident then, that SEO helps you boost your traffic organically while PPC can help your traffic grow faster.

They both clearly have their own benefits. And if I were to recommend a marketing plan for small businesses, I’d go for a balanced strategy involving both.

3. Content Marketing

SEM gives your small business a good marketing foundation and social media gives you a good delivery platform.

The next obvious step is to create and market content that is capable of causing a surge of traffic to your web pages.

Content marketing can take numerous forms, depending on your goals and marketing strategy.

If you’re looking to publish detailed content, then ebooks, white papers, and other long-form content are the ways to go. These can help you gain downloads, site traffic, and leads.

46% of marketers believe research reports generate leads with the best conversion possibility.

That’s exactly what the Content Marketing Institute does. In fact, they have a dedicated online library for users to download their ebooks from.


On the other hand, you can also use content like testimonial videos or brand advertisements. They are great ways to generate buzz about your small business.

Click HERE to read the remainder of the article

Sourced from Lyndax

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AAI November’s Advertisers’ Toolkit Seminar

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Max Brady, Executive Producer from Pull The Trigger Ltd, will be presenting
Stereotyping in Advertising – not guilty?

This will be an in-depth look at stereotyping in advertising, including a discussion about what other countries are doing to address gender stereotyping, highlighting brands that are brave, and giving consideration to representations in advertising across the years.

Today, Max is co-owner, Managing Partner and Executive Producer of the creative production company Pull The Trigger, Ireland’s biggest commercials production company.  Having worked as a producer in the fields of TV Programming, live broadcasting, and documentaries, Max was first attracted to the fast-paced, demanding genre that is creation of commercials and branded content production some twenty years ago.

No stranger to embracing change, some might even call Max a bit of a radical. But it is exactly this kind of attitude that has propelled Max to forge a unique and successful path in the world of TV and Commercial Production.

On 27th November #AAIToolkit will take place at Core, 1 Windmill Lane between 8.15 a.m. & 09.30 a.m.
Please register your attendance at https://stereotyping.eventbrite.ie 

Tickets are free of charge for AAI Members although registration is still essential.
Non AAI Members are charged €35 + booking fee.

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Why Digital Marketers Should Pass Call Data into Google Marketing Platform

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By Derek Andersen 

On June 27th, Google combined its DoubleClick and Google Analytics suites under the name Google Marketing Platform. This unified stack gives advertisers a single point of control to plan, buy, measure, and optimize digital media. As a result, marketers can see a unified channel view and measure results across the online customer journey.

It’s easy for Google Marketing Platform users to plan ads, place bids, and optimize their customer experiences based on the online results of their campaigns. But what happens when someone engages with your marketing by calling? Are you capturing that interaction in Google Marketing Platform? Not having accurate offline data on calls can be problematic, since mobile ads alone will drive 162 billion calls to US businesses in 2019.

The disconnect between the online and offline customer journey makes it difficult to prove the full ROI of your spend and optimize your messaging, targeting, and bidding strategies to drive more customers at a lower cost per lead (CPL).

Marketers who pass data on their callers into Google Marketing Platform receive a holistic view of their campaign results, allowing them to make smarter optimizations in an increasingly competitive landscape. Below, we break down all the advantages of adding call data to Google Marketing Platform — specifically, to its Display and Video 360, Search Ads 360, and Optimize 360 products.

What Call Data Is Available to Pass Into Google Marketing Platform?

With the right call analytics solution, marketers can not only collect a wealth of analytics data on calls to better inform their strategy, they can pass data on the calls they care about into Google Marketing Platform and other tools. You can capture demographic data on each caller, track the marketing source driving each call, understand how calls are handled, and determine which calls are quality leads. See the specifics below:

With a call analytics solution like DialogTech that uses AI to analyze conversations, marketers can also select what callers and data they pass into Google Marketing Platform. For instance, if you’re focusing on driving new customers with your campaigns, you can choose to pass only first-time callers into Google Marketing Platform. Or, to remove support and unqualified callers from your metrics, you can just pass quality leads into the platform. As another option, you can pass callers who converted into Google Marketing Platform so you can exclude them from seeing future ads.

Why Pass Call Data to Google Display and Video 360?

Google Display and Video 360 is a product for planning campaigns, applying audience data, buying inventory, as well as measuring and optimizing results for display and video ad campaigns. It provides marketers with the transparency to see exactly how their budget is being spent and where their display and video ads are running — across all campaigns. For video ads, you can select the percentage of the ad that must be on screen and the amount of time an ad must be visible to register as an impression. Google Display and Video 360 also automates bidding and optimization to help you meet your marketing goals.

By adding call attribution data and AI-powered conversation insights to Google Display and Video 360, digital marketers can track how many calls their display and video campaigns are driving, in addition to online conversions. You can collect this call attribution data regardless of whether the caller clicked on — or simply viewed — your ads.

In addition to understanding the amount of calls your campaigns are driving, you can also use analytics from conversations — including caller intent, product interest, and call outcome — to determine which campaigns are generating the best calls. As a result, you’ll be able to allocate spend to the campaigns that are truly driving the most revenue.

Call data also helps Google Display and Video 360 marketers improve their ad campaign targeting. For instance, if your business fails to convert a caller, you can use the intelligence from that conversation to retarget them with a relevant ad — perhaps offering a discount. If a caller converts to a customer, you can target them with an upsell campaign to entice them to upgrade their product or service. Or, if there’s no opportunity for an upsell, you can exclude the converted caller to avoid wasting spend. Finally, you can put callers who converted into lookalike campaigns so you can find similar audiences to target with display and video ads that are proven to work.

Why Pass Call Data to Google Search Ads 360?

Search Ads 360 helps agencies and marketers manage search marketing campaigns across multiple engines. Through a combination of powerful reports and automated bidding, Search Ads 360 allows marketers to make smarter campaign optimizations.

Call data can assist Search Ads 360 marketers in all the same ways it assists Display and Video 360 marketers — it attributes calls to the marketing source (in this case, down to the specific search keyword), shows you which search campaigns are driving the highest-quality calls, improves ad targeting, and allows you to create lookalike campaigns with proven ads.

Sylvan Learning, the leading provider of personal tutoring and enrichment services for students in grades K-12, uses Search Ads 360. To optimize Sylvan’s enrollments and reduce cost per lead (CPL) from search, its agency — DAC Group — needed complete attribution data for every conversion: web forms and phone calls. By collecting call attribution and analytics data using DialogTech and passing those insights into Google Search 360, Sylvan was able to see which paid search ads were driving the most new customer calls to their locations. Using these insights, they made optimizations to reduce their CPL, while increasing search marketing leads by 33%.

Why Pass Call Data to Google Optimize 360?

Optimize 360 allows marketers to run multivariate website tests to increase engagement, interactions, and ROI. This robust product lets you test up to 36 multivariate combinations and run over 100 simultaneous experiments. In addition, Optimize 360 allows you to seamlessly import your Google Analytics 360 custom audiences, so you can create and test segmented web experiences for different customer groups.

Without call data, Optimize 360 isn’t showing your team the full picture. You’re able to test which website layouts and customizations drive the most online conversions — but you’re missing valuable data about call conversions. And for many industries, calls are the most popular and valuable conversion.

Consider the following website conversion data:

  • Site layout A drove 50 online leads worth $100,000 in revenue
  • Site layout B drove 40 online leads worth $70,000 in revenue.

With this data, site layout A looks like your best-performing option. Your team would probably elect to use it.

However, when you add call data into Optimize 360, you see a distinctly different picture:

  • Site layout A drove 55 leads (online + calls) worth $110,000 in revenue
  • Site layout B drove 75 leads (online + calls) worth $150,000 in revenue.

If your team failed to pass call data to Optimize 360, you would’ve made the wrong website optimization and selected site layout A — missing out on valuable revenue opportunities in the process.

Read more at https://www.business2community.com/digital-marketing/why-digital-marketers-should-pass-call-data-into-google-marketing-platform-02130483

 

By Derek Andersen 

Sourced from Business 2 Community

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How To Decide If You Should Keep Your Agency

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By  Avi Dan

This is the Age of Disruption and the marketing ecosystem is being transformed daily by technology and disintermediation. Marketers and agencies are trying to adjust to the new forces that shape the marketplace, but transformation is not easy. The future is about marrying data-based creativity with technology, entertainment, and influencer marketing, which means marketers will have to make sure they have staff on board that can handle it. Data is no longer the by-product of innovation but is the innovation itself. Ad agencies are especially inadequately prepared for the realities of what’s coming and continue to cling to their TV commercials.

When it comes to hiring an agency, I believe that the traditional model is obsolete. Agencies today need to update their skills and develop up-to-the-minute expertise. Any Procurement and Marketing team, or a search consultant worth their salt should ask the following questions….

How tech literate are you?

Gaps in technology services and skillsets leave agencies less than fully relevant. Have they developed platforms that bring business, brand, design, operations and technology together which and create a seamless omnichannel experiences? Most agencies ignore investment in this, creating a vacuum that is happily occupied by the consulting firm.

Are you a cross-channel data expert?

For most agencies, data-driven marketing is tactical rather than strategic and transformative. You’d like to know how they leverage data from myriad sources across paid, owned and earned channels, and also be able at creating real-time dynamic ads, delivered through hyper-relevant targeting.

Do you think beyond screens?

By 2020, 30% of web browsing will be done without screens, and these interactions will be controlled by voice, gesture, or neural prosthetics. Some 100 million consumers will shop via AR. Context will take center stage and will have to be integrated seamlessly with real-world locations 3D modelling and game design.

Do you collaborate with machines?

Now that micro targeting is becoming more common, the need for content has exploded. As machines are increasingly used to generate and place assets, the roles of agencies need to evolve from just concepting, to including curating and iterating. Advertisers should be looking for agency partners that can create personalized marketing.

Do you understand eCommerce?

As more brands, both B2C and B2B, put emphasis on selling their products and services online, commercialization and the branding model of communications is evolving. There is more emphasis on customer lifetime value model and subscriptions for meals, clothes, cars or razor blades.

Do you create branded Entertainment?

As audiences migrate to commercial-free streaming platforms, more brands are looking to engage customers with original programming. This requires a fundamental reboot from traditional marketing and content marketing. Whereas traditional brands focus on positioning their brands in the minds of their customers, entertainment positions brands in the lives of their customers.

Do you understand influencer marketing?

As traditional advertising is becoming less impactful, and social media becomes prime platforms, always-on influencer campaigns are evolving from a tactic to a mainstay of the brand’s marketing strategy. But the growth of influencer marketing requires agencies must learn how to measure ROI of these campaigns.

Are you blockchain-enabled?

Kidding and over-hyping aside, blockchain is around the corner. Ad-blocking software has over 200 million users and counting, but blockchain technology could make these tools obsolete. Blockchain will allow consumers to decide what to watch, and hopefully, give advertisers a modern, sophisticated means to producing high quality leads.

Are you ready for the Amazon disruption?

If Google disrupted discovery, Facebook disrupted social, and Amazon’s data-enabled dynamic pricing is the biggest disruption ever in the marketing ecosystem. It threatens every brand and can commoditize markets at will. Brands will need to adopt custom-tailored strategies specifically applied for this fast moving, algorithm-enhanced and complex platform.

An agency that is not is not the solution is an agency that is the problem. Historically, smart agencies always used new platforms, from radio to TV, to change consumer behavior. As these platforms are becoming more complex, marketers I speak are becoming more frustrated that many agencies haven’t adapted and are falling behind as innovative resource.

Feature Image Credit: Getty

By Avi Dan

I am the founder of agency search consulting firm, Avidan Strategies. I have more than 30 years of leadership experience with Madison Avenue agencies, managing iconic brands for companies like Procter & Gamble, Kraft Foods, Bristol-Myers, General Motors, Pfizer, Mars, Th…MORE

Avi Dan is CEO of Avidan Strategies. It improves agency partnerships, and manage agency search and compensation

Sourced from Forbes

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With Snap Originals, Snapchat turns to TV-like show programming

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By Tim Peterson

Two years after Snapchat premiered its first original show, original programming has taken on new importance for the app, which has struggled to grow its daily audience. Snapchat is formalizing its original programming push through the formation of the Snap Originals brand.

Snap Originals will encompass Snapchat’s existing original shows, like political news series “Good Luck America,” as well as a new slate of scripted and documentary series that will begin to premiere on Snapchat on Oct. 10 and mark the platform’s entry into TV-like programming.

At the same time as Snapchat has seen its daily audience shrink — losing 3 million daily users in the second quarter of 2018 — its made-for-Snapchat shows have sustained regular viewerships. Half of the audience for two of Snapchat’s existing shows — NBC’s news show “Stay Tuned” and ESPN’s “SportsCenter” — tune in at least three times a week, said Sean Mills, head of original content at Snapchat’s parent company, Snap. Now Snapchat is looking to give people more reasons to check Snapchat more often by premiering episodic series that are designed to be watched on a recurring basis.

Through Snap Originals, “serialized storytelling will be possible [on Snapchat] for the first time. So we’ll be launching a slate of scripted and docu-series shows that are serialized [and] that, building on this daily habit, will be released in a daily cadence,” said Mills.

Snapchat will debut six new original shows this month with six more in development, all branded as “Snap Originals” in the app. The initial slate includes “Endless Summer,” a docu-series following influencer Summer McKeen from “Keeping Up With the Kardashians” producer Bunim-Murray Productions; “Class of Lies,” a scripted whodunit from independent studio Makeready; and “Vivian,” a docuseries about model scout Vivian Benitez from NBCU Digital Lab, production studio The Intellectual Property Corporation and modeling agency and Benitez’s employer Wilhelmina. The Snap Originals will be exclusive to Snapchat for a period of time, and most of the shows are exclusive to Snapchat, said Mills.

To recoup the undisclosed money that Snap is spending on its original shows, the company will sell six-second-long, non-skippable video ads that will be slotted within the shows’ episodes, which will typically run between three and five minutes in length. Snap expects to insert two or three of these commercials per episode, said Mills.

Advertisers will have two options to buy ads against the shows. They can buy commercials through Snap’s self-serve ad buying tool, Snap Ads Manager, which will make the ads eligible to run across any and all of the Snap Originals series and targetable using Snap’s ad targeting tools. Or they can buy the ads directly from Snap’s sales team to advertise against a specific show. Advertisers can also get their brands featured within the shows’ episodes. While Snap is not selling brand integrations or product placements as standalone options, Snap will make these opportunities available as a part of larger ad buys when it fits a show’s narrative, said a Snap spokesperson.

Snap has a fair amount riding on original shows given its audience decline. It will run its first off-Snapchat marketing campaign that promotes specific content on Snapchat, according to Mills. The campaign will begin to roll out on Oct. 10 and span billboards as well as ads on digital platforms including YouTube and Reddit, and while it will largely focus on the Snap Originals brand, it will also tout individual shows, said Snap spokesperson.

By Tim Peterson

Sourced from DIGIDAY UK

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