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How To Get The Most Out Of Your Digital Ads In 2022

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By Jia Wertz

As an e-commerce operation in 2022, chances are the bulk of your advertising budget is earmarked for digital advertising. With a forecast of $524.3 billion this year, the sector spans video, social media, mobile, search, display ads, native ads and email. Given the number of channels, the quickly evolving landscape, and the difficulty of tracking channel-specific ROI, the digital ad landscape can be complex for marketers to navigate and with so much of our ad budgets focused on digital ads, the stakes have never been higher.

When you add in ad fatigue of users, privacy concerns, an adoption of ad blockers, and rampant digital advertising fraud, building your digital ad strategy can be downright daunting.

Fortunately, there are best practices that can help you maximize your return on investment while protecting your brand’s reputation with consumers. Here’s how to get the most out of your digital ads in 2022.

Make Sure Your Ads Are Going To A Quality Audience

Most advertisers don’t realize how rampant digital advertising fraud actually is. Ensuring that you’re buying traffic from a reputable source is essential in getting the most from your ad dollars. Moreover, nefarious practices by some traffic providers, such as ad injection fraud or domain spoofing, can be bad for your brand’s reputation and potentially even result in legal fees.

Ensuring your traffic partner has first party data and is fully compliant with the regulatory landscape is essential – not only for the integrity of your advertising budget, but also for the integrity of your brand.

Connect With Consumers At The Right Moment

The timing and placement of digital ads, and the context in which they’re received by the consumer, should factor into your overarching strategy.

Gone are the days of bombarding consumers with ads that are disjointed from their purchase path or even their mood. To be effective in today’s advertising ecosystem, you need to reach consumers when it adds genuine value to their purchase journey, or to strengthen your brand by enhancing and sharing in the moment or mindset they’re in.

When ads are perceived as disruptive it can have a net negative impact on the brand. Moreover, marketers should consider ways to provide value through ads rather than simply monetizing consumer attention. Remember that putting your ad out into the world is only the first step. It’s crucial to consider how and when ads will be received by consumers, and their potential impact.

Measure Your Results

It’s likely that your digital advertising budget will be spread across multiple channels – from social media, to display ads, search, email marketing and more. Take the time to create infrastructures for tracking channel-specific results.

The first step is understanding exactly what you want to accomplish with your ads. Many brands are good at tracking ROI from sales, but neglect to measure other key performance indicators (KPI) like increased brand awareness, brand sentiment or the discovery of the brand by new audiences.

Once you understand what’s important to you, identify how you’re going to measure success in those areas. This is also a good time to communicate what success looks like with your team, and get their buy-in on big picture brand goals.

Optimize Based On Data

When you have channel-specific data, take action on it. Often, advertisers will go to great lengths to track results, but stop short of taking the critical step of making the data actionable.

In addition to understanding which channels are performing the best for your key performance indicators, you’ll also want to optimize based on what you’re learning from your audience and their experience.

Is your message resonating better with a key demographic? Is a particular ad driving more purchases, while others are driving more engagement? Are you having more success in particular geographical areas? There’s so much to learn from your data, it’s important make room for continual optimization.

With so much competition in the digital advertising ecosystem, it’s important to be intentional about your strategy. Aligning with reputable traffic sources and taking a data-driven approach to optimization are good best practices to follow. Even more important is remembering how you like to be treated as a consumer. To stand out in a crowded landscape, go beyond your KPIs and practice the golden rule.

Feature Image Credit: getty

By Jia Wertz

Follow me on Twitter or LinkedIn. Check out my website or some of my other work here.

I am a documentary filmmaker and the Founder of Studio 15, a socially responsible fashion brand. After leaving behind a 15-year career in the corporate fashion world, I started a company that focuses on doing good and supporting women. It’s Studio 15’s mission to promote and collaborate with other female-owned businesses and to support female entrepreneurs in developing countries through a partnership with Kleos MFG, a non-profit organization.

Sourced from Forbes

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‘Advertisers think it’s just like buying digital’: Myths of connected TV advertising

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By Tim Peterson

This year connected TV overtook mobile as the screen on which the most digital video impressions were served. However, as the hype around streaming settles into a legitimate channel for advertisers and publishers, there are some myths to be dispelled around “connected TV,” the catchall term for videos streamed over the internet and watched on a TV screen.

Myth: Connected TV and OTT are the same thing
Connected TV refers to the device on which someone is watching a video or an ad, whereas OTT (over-the-top) refers to how that video or ad was delivered. OTT predates connected TV and originated as a way to describe TV networks letting people watch their shows online, bypassing the cable or satellite TV box (why the term is “over the top” not “over the internet,” I have no idea). If someone is streaming Hulu through its mobile app, they are accessing that content over the top and watching it on their phone or tablet; if someone is streaming Hulu through its app installed on their Samsung smart TV, they are accessing that content over the top and watching it on their connected TV.

Myth: There is a lot of TV-quality inventory available on connected TV
For as many apps as there are available across connected TV platforms like Apple TV, Roku and Amazon Fire TV, four apps account for 75 percent of time that people spend streaming video on their connected TVs, according to Comscore: Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Hulu and YouTube. Two of those apps — Netflix and Amazon Prime Video — do not carry ads, while Hulu and YouTube each offer ad-free subscriptions in addition to their standard ad-supported services.

“There’s still a very limited amount that is truly ad-supported on a volume basis relative to TV. A lot is no ads or few ads. The idea that there’s this massive growing pool of premium video inventory on connected TVs is not the case,” said Dave Morgan, CEO of Simulmedia.

Myth: Connected TV inventory is cheap
The connected TV inventory that is available is significantly more expensive than digital video and on par with linear TV. “There is a little bit of sticker shock,” said Ari Paparo, CEO of ad tech firm Beeswax. Connected TV CPMs average in the mid-$20s, which is comparable to linear TV, and can even be slightly higher than linear TV prices, said Raphael Rivilla, partner for media and connections planning at Marcus Thomas.

Myth: Connected TV ads can be tracked like other digital ads
Advertisers may be aware that connected TV is a cookie-less environment, but they may think, well, mobile in-app advertising is also cookie-less, but we can track ads there; shouldn’t that be the case for connected TV too? No. “A lot of advertisers will think it’s just like buying digital: I can now track actions that happen on a website or foot traffic to a store. That is a myth,” said Rivilla.

There is a workaround if advertisers are able to collect connected TV devices’ IP addresses to link their CTV campaigns to laptops, phones and other devices that use the same internet connection, said Rivilla. However, that’s becoming harder to do as one of the biggest CTV platforms, Roku, has limited ads’ ability to collect devices’ IP addresses.

These tracking limitations mean that table-stakes digital advertising tactics, like frequency capping and using third-party data for ad targeting, are difficult to deploy for connected TV campaigns.

Myth: High-quality connected TV inventory is not available programmatically
Ad tech companies including The Trade Desk, Beeswax, SpotX and Telaria have been laying the pipes for connected TV inventory to be bought and sold programmatically. That inventory is often user-generated content, but TV networks, including HGTV and DIY Network, and other premium publishers are increasingly making their connected TV inventory available to buy programmatically, said Rivilla.

However, the higher-quality inventory may not always be available in open programmatic marketplaces. Some TV networks only make their connected TV inventory available programmatically through private marketplaces so that they cannot be polluted by lower-quality inventory that’s more likely to be fraudulent, said Morgan.

Myth: Connected TV is a fraud-free environment
Connected TV is not immune to bad actors trying to trick advertisers into paying for impressions that nobody actually sees. In the third quarter of 2018, 19 percent of connected-TV ad impressions globally and 18 percent of impressions in the U.S. were fraudulent, according to fraud prevention firm Pixalate.

Connected TV can be particularly susceptible to fraud because the potential for TV-level ad dollars makes it a more alluring gold mine for fraudsters and the nascent ad infrastructure can make it more difficult to detect and disable fraudulent impressions. Connected TV ads commonly use server-side ad insertion, which means the ads are attached to content and then delivered to the device. That makes it easier for fraudsters to claim that an impression is for a connected TV without companies, such as measurement firms, being able to collect the device information to verify that the ad will or did run on a connected TV screen. “We’ve been measuring connected TV impressions for the last two years and have seen the growth of SSAI and other fraud vectors for the last year and a half,” said Pixalate CTO Amin Bandeali.

Myth: Connected TV is only for video ads
The bulk of connected TV inventory may be pre-roll and mid-roll ads attached to the videos that people stream through their connected TVs. But that isn’t the only inventory available on connected TV screens. “The ad experience isn’t solely tethered to the apps themselves. A lot of Samsung smart TVs, for example, have a home screen that advertising can be fed through as well,” said Kyle Turner, senior director of strategy at United Entertainment Group.

By Tim Peterson

Sourced from DIGIDAY UK

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Digital Ads Are Tired. Here’s What Smart Businesses Are Doing Instead

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By Quora

Brands are shifting more of their spending into things like experiential events, live social media campaigns, and influencer marketing.

How effective is Google AdWords? originally appeared on Quora: the place to gain and share knowledge, empowering people to learn from others and better understand the world.

Answer by Justin Rezvani, Founder & CEO at theAmplify, on Quora:

For the past decade, digital advertising has been on an exponential growth curve.

Big brands have shifted huge amounts of their advertising budgets (previously reserved for more conventional methods such as display, television, or print) into things like Facebook ads and Google AdWords.

And it’s clear why: digital platforms are now where people are spending their time.

However, in 2017, what we’re beginning to see is a peak to the summit. According to CNBC, brands are reported to lose $16.4 billion to online advertising fraud–meaning the digital ads you purchase aren’t being served to the customers you think they are (if at all).

On top of that, advertisers lost about $12.5 billion in 2016 due to invalid traffic–clicks driven by bots instead of humans.

These are huge issues for brands who expect to see a return on their marketing investments. And recently, CFO of P&G, Jon Moeller, made a strong move to cut spending on digital advertising, only to reach a substantial conclusion. “We didn’t see a reduction in the growth rate… what that tells me is that the spending that we cut was largely ineffective,” he said, according to Business Insider.

CEO David Taylor explained further, cited by the Wall Street Journal, that more than $100 million spent on digital advertising was largely ineffective.

For one of the biggest brands in the world to say their digital advertising efforts were not as effective as they had originally hoped for is certainly a shocking statement.

But I believe it’s a step in the right direction.

As more and more studies begin to reveal the underlying issues with digital, specifically programmatic advertising, we are now beginning to see brands shift more of their spending into things like experiential events, live social media campaigns, and influencer marketing.

Here’s why.

1. Ad blockers are tuning out the noise.

In 2016, the usage of ad blockers increased nearly 30%. That’s not something to be taken lightly.

To combat this rampant rise, brands like Jaguar, Absolut, and MasterCard, among others, are starting to invest more in real events interacting with consumers in real time. According to AdWeek, president of WME | IMG’s (now Endeavor) experiential agency IMG Live, Bryan Icenhower, said that “experiential is a uniquely fast and effective way to build brand awareness through one-to-one connections with consumers. It engages all five senses, sparking emotions that form lasting memories which have been shown to drive brand loyalty.”

This something we believe in strongly at theAmplify, whenever we are coordinating influencer campaigns for big brands. Consumers want to interact with influencers, see and meet their favorite influencers, and even create content with these influencers in real life.

A consumer or a fan will go to great lengths to be at an event with someone they follow closely online. And they will be far less likely to pay attention to an ad that tries to convey that same value through an eye-catching call to action or headline.

2. Live streaming is an unstoppable trend.

Live video is far more popular than you think.

In fact, nearly half of US internet users watch live video at least once per week. On top of that, Facebook Live videos are watched 3x longer than regular videos, proving that Live is a catalyst for engagement.

But one of the qualities that makes a great Live stream is the involvement of influencers. People want to watch people they recognize, they follow regularly, and they know will provide them with whatever it is they’re looking for: entertainment, education, news, etc.

Although Facebook Live has been ramping up speed for a while now, it’s worth giving credit to Snapchat for really bringing the value of Live mainstream, since Snapchat Stories gave viewers the feeling that it was Live. Stories led to influencer takeovers, and now we have influencers partnering up with brands to host award shows or perform branded stunts on social media live streams.

It’s only a matter of time before more and more brands realize the value of Live experiences over conventional digital ads.

3. Influencer marketing isn’t slowing down any time soon.

Why spend money on a text ad when you can spend that same amount on a relevant social influencer with a highly targeted following of loyal fans?

What makes influencer marketing so compelling for brands is the association that comes with a high-profile influencer. An ad will always just be an ad. But an influencer, because they are a human being, inherently brings a level of reliability and relevancy no programmatic ad budget can buy.

But furthermore, influencers themselves are just as measurable, if not more so, than things like Google AdWords or even Facebook ads. A few years ago, influencer marketing wasn’t there yet, but we now have the software to be able to determine the right influencers, for the right campaigns, long before the first dollar is spent–and that’s powerful. Actually, since data is so important in making the right marketing decisions, we decided to build our own proprietary software and platform in-house, called Reach. And it has been the backbone of every one of our big brand strategies and influencer campaigns.

This question originally appeared on Quora – the place to gain and share knowledge, empowering people to learn from others and better understand the world. You can follow Quora on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. More questions:

Feature Image Credit: Getty Images

By Quora

Sourced from Inc. 

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These Simple Changes To Your Digital Ads Can Improve Sales Now

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By Gabriel Shaoolian.

Designing digital ads doesn’t have to be incredibly difficult, but it does take skill and strategic thinking in order to do it well. The internet has made us all very capable of tuning out visual distractions. It’s a necessary skill in an era that is defined by the incredible volume of information and marketing messages we’re exposed to on a daily basis.

But this user ability to tune out visual distractions presents a challenge for brands using digital display as part of their marketing strategies. How can you design digital advertisements that get noticed and generate sales? Below are 5 tips.

  1. Use better CTAs

It should be obvious, but all of your banner ads need to have calls-to-action (CTAs). CTAs tell users what to do next by guiding them toward the action you want them to take. They compel the user to act. Without a CTA, your ad is just window dressing on someone else’s website.

So, yes, you need a CTA, but more specifically you need a good CTA. What defines a good CTA? For one thing, it should be as specific as you can make it while still keeping it concise. Take a look at the CTAs you’ve used on previous ads and consider whether they could have been more specific so as to better prime the user for where you’re taking them once they click. Test adding specificity to your CTAs — for example, does a CTA to “shop jackets” perform better in a winter clothing ad than “shop now”?

Another CTA issue that can be detrimental to click-through rates is when buttons or link text is difficult to identify within the ad creative itself. CTAs should be visually distinct so they stand out from the rest of the creative. The user should never have to look for a CTA — it should always be clearly visible and easy to locate without searching.

Image Credit: IBM Bluemix

When it comes to driving engagement and getting users to click on your ads, a compelling CTA is critical.

  1. Write better value propositions

Your ad’s value proposition is the thing that tells the user why she should click on your ad. A good value proposition — one that creates a sense of need or desire in the user — is a major component of a successful banner ad.

Value propositions have to do a lot of work in very little space, so they need to be concise. Ideally they also need to focus on what your company can do for the user. A lot of companies take the approach of trying to tell users how great they are. For example, they’ll say something like “We have over twenty year of experience in the industry,” but they never clarify how that experience benefits the user. If you want to generate better results, you should write your value propositions as though you’re solving a problem the user has. Tell the user what you can do to save them time, money, improve their quality of life, make them look stylish, or whatever other benefit they’ll get from becoming a customer.

  1. Eye-catching visuals

Strong CTAs and effective value propositions are both essential to designing banner ads that perform, but neither of those things are going to get your ad noticed. The first thing users see will almost always be the visual element of your ad, so you want your visuals to be enticing, bold, and lively.

If you’re looking for ways to improve your digital ad performance, try testing different types of visuals. Photos of people using products may perform better than photos of products on their own, for example. Images of your actual platform might very well outperform stock-looking photos of business people looking at a computer screen.

Make a strong image your focal point, and test different kinds of imagery to find the variations that work best for your brand.

  1. Revisit your landing pages

Sometimes what seems like a problem with a banner ad is actually a problem with a landing page and website design strategy. If you’re getting pretty good clickthrough rates on your banners, but users are converting at rates that seem exceptionally low, it could be that your landing page does not meet the expectations you set up in your ad.

There needs to be a consistency of experience between banner ad and landing page, otherwise you run the risk of confusing the user who thought they were clicking on one thing and wound up somewhere that feels totally disconnected. Examine whether the messaging on your banners aligns with the messaging on your landing page. Does the information on your landing page feel like an extension of the idea or information laid out in your ad? Is the branding in your ad consistent with the branding on your landing page?

Image Credit: Grammarly

As shown in this example, Grammarly uses ad content that corresponds with landing page content.

  1. Include an offer

Few things incentivize action quite like a good old fashioned special offer does. It’s usually worth offering the customer something extra if it means getting them in the door, especially for the first time. But an offer doesn’t have to be something major — it can be as simple as a free whitepaper download, a complimentary consultation, or free shipping. It doesn’t even need to be an offer created exclusively for use in your ad campaigns. For example, even if you always offer free shipping on your website, you can still call it out in your banner ads as an offer to users.

Offers can go a long way toward giving users the extra little push they need to feel good about clicking your ad.

Image Credit: Intuit Quickbooks

Offering an incentive, similar to Intuit Quicbooks’ ad, can be a key component to increasing click-through-rate.

Designing effective digital ads requires strategy, planning, and ongoing testing. Always consider who your target users are and what’s most important to them. User needs should form the basis of your messaging and visual strategies. When in doubt, follow the tips above for easy ways to optimize your digital ad performance.

To learn more about digital advertising campaigns, visit Blue Fountain Media online.

Feature Image Credit: IBM, Grammarly, Quickbooks

By Gabriel Shaoolian

Sourced from Forbes

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