Ads in AI Era

http://www.campaignasia.com/article/google-launches-machine-learning-powered-automated-ads-on-adsense/442866

Google announced the launch of its machine-learning powered automated Ads on Adsense.  It made me started to think about what the Ads will be in the AI era. 

 Firstly, in the AI era, more devices are intelligent or machine-learning powered. The actions users made will be highly determined. For example, if one person turn overs more during the sleep and twist his neck in the morning for two continuous day. His wearable devices will possible notify these actions and analyze with his daily sports information, then figure out he may hurt his neck during the tennis last weekend. Then some neck recovering push over Ads will possibly appear on several his screens.

Secondly, besides the smart devices, all the information/actions will be analyzed carefully. All the online purchasing information is currently recorded. In the future, it is possible that the machine learning technology will even find out when is your most likely place the order period of the day and determine the different time you would like to spend on comparing prices when you are using different devices at different location. For example, the system may find that when you are doing online shopping on your MAC at weekends at home, you would like to compare the prices through internet, so they would probably provide the most competitive price for you at that time to make sure you will place the order. However, when you are checking Amazon through your mobile when you are moving (possibly in the transportation), your whole purchase will be quick. It means that you are in a hurry to buy something urgently. So the system will provide you with higher price, because they new you do not have the time to do the comparison.

It would be more convenient and efficient when we are entering the AI ear, however learning the tricks of technology might be fun as well.

A new way to promote iPhone's camera

https://www.apple.com/sg/three-minutes/

https://9to5mac.com/2018/02/01/chinese-new-years-three-minutes-iphone-x-film/

  

The Chinese New Year has just passed, and there are several brands that successfully grasped the opportunity to promote their products. Apple's Chinese New Year seasonal short movie Three Minutes made a hit and reached 13 million views within a day.

It's a short movie directed by Peter Chan, a world renowned movie director from Hong Kong. Unlike other marketing videos, this short movie talks nothing about iPhone. Instead, it was entirely filmed by iPhone X. As a laptop viewer, I couldn't tell the difference at all, as expected by Apple. It is astonishing how a small phone can achieve such filmmaking capability.

The only thing left for us is the decision of whether to spend your red packet money on the new iPhone X, knowing that we won't be able to make a movie as good as Three Minutes, but hopefully close to it. 

Open Communication on Social as A Marketing Strategy

Advertising has always been a fast-moving and quickly-evolving industry. However, in the past decade – with the rising dominance of social media – the pace of change has increased significantly. These changes present new opportunities – often allowing new brands to create close relationships with customers and supplant traditional brands. However, this rapidly changing environment also opens up the opportunities for costly missteps – as I think we are seeing with Deciem.

Consumers today are so savvy that they quickly see behind messages and campaigns that are inauthentic. It was only a couple years ago when the path to sure success was to get an ‘influencer’ to post a photo with your product. Now that seems so passé and tacky. Customers quickly saw these influencer campaigns for what they are: paid product placements.

Now we find ourselves at a time when consumers want to speak directly with a brand. Not a spokesperson or PR agency. In fact, consumers feel like they have the right to have conversations with their brands. We have seen companies respond to this – in part by having the founders and/or CEOs speak directly to their customers through social media – especially Instagram. When done well, this creates a powerful connection – where customers feel like the CEO is speaking directly with them. 

With this great opportunity to foster deep relationships with customers also comes great risk. In the case of Deciem, the founder and co-CEO, Brandon Truaxe, started a new approach where he would speak openly, honestly and directly with his customers through Instagram. Initially there appeared to be a huge and positive reaction to this honestly. Unfortunately, this did not last long. Mr. Truaxe started speaking completely off-script – even seeming to make important strategic decisions through his Instagram posts. The end result appears to be alienated customers and an organization that seems to be in disarray.

Ultimately, direct and seemingly open communication with customers can be a very powerful tool – but it must still be backed up by a comprehensive marketing and communication strategy. The messages, however spontaneous they may seem, must still align with the brand values, messages and voice. This balance – between open communication and strict adherence to the brand values – is difficult to achieve and I think that we will see companies meet it with varying degrees of success. 

Source: https://fashionista.com/2018/02/deciem-the-ordinary-skincare-instagram-ceo-drama

Interactive Emails - Google AMP Project

Source: https://techcrunch.com/2018/02/13/google-wants-to-use-amp-to-make-email-more-interactive/

Google’s Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) project was meant to fix following problems:

• First, it ensures that sites have a common infrastructure. Apps or browsers can pre-install the infrastructure and to load a page they simply have to download the content (similar to apps) 
• Second, by controlling the spec and infrastructure, Google can effectively serve the content from their servers and increase the speed

Google AMP format made the mobile pages render faster. Recently, Google has gone beyond the websites and launched new AMP format for the emails. Google claims that this will allow developers and publishers to add interactivity to the emails and it will improve the user experience by rendering the emails faster. It will also make email messages dynamic and actionable. For e.g. an emailer from the airline would show up-to-date flight information whenever you will open the same email.

This should significantly improve the user experience. I support the idea but I am worried about a private company creating its own version of the web which is walled-garden. And, of course, Google is doing it by leveraging its search monopoly.

How Roku Survives in a Google & Amazon World

Roku's recent reports about how much revenue they are generating off of advertising has raised a number of questions about how they continue to survive in the market given the presence of two industry giants: Google and Amazon. Their CEO raises a couple of interesting points about what is driving their survival. For one, they don't have the conflict of interest that Amazon and Google have of being a content generator in addition to a hardware/software company. And second, they aren't facing the struggle of trying to fit existing technology into TV (as both Google and Amazon have), they've been solely focused on building technology for TV.

As programmatic advertising on OTT and Connected TVs increases, having Roku as a neutral party increases the opportunity for advertisers to reach consumers across all channels and content points. Giving advertisers the ability to reach as targeted of audiences as they need, across whatever channels  (YouTube, Netflix, Prime, etc.) or content they are viewing, ultimately is the most valuable to advertisers. It also hopefully means more meaningful and relevant advertisements for viewers.

One point that Anthony Wood did not mention is the added complication of the big players also acting as retailers. Roku, as a neutral party, has been able to exist virtually unscathed in a world where at any given time one of the big players could decide to stop carrying the other's products. It's likely that if consumers are looking for a specific product they're going to go to whichever online retailer is carrying it, but when a major competitor has control over how easily they can find it, there's increased potential for risk there.

http://www.businessinsider.com/roku-tv-box-ceo-how-to-compete-with-apple-google-and-amazon-2018-2

Is Google Chrome’s AD blocker good for everyone?

https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/14/17011266/google-chrome-ad-blocker-features

Google announced to block five kinds of advertisement on Chrome recently. It aims to upgrade the experiences of everyone.

Have you ever annoyed by some abusing advertisement? I do have some experiences with annoying advertisements. Once a while, I was working in a tech company with a lot of travel. One day, when I was checking my calendar for th planning of next week. I found I had the meeting appointment in a hotel of a different city. I was about to book the air-tickets and click the calendar item. Then I surprisingly found the meeting was arranged by a email advertisement. I can not imagine what the sequences if I bought the ticket and fly to that city on that day. Some advertisers did not even care about the experience of their target audience. So at this point, Google's new actions will definitely bring value to the users.

However, there are some advertisers complaining about the change. Putting myself in advertisers' shoes, I think there might be one thing Google chrome should explain more - how to define the annoying ads. Especially when Google itself was also a advertisement,  whether there will be double standard to different platforms will be tricky. The conflict of interest may put Google in a dilemma or even be claimed as monopoly. In my opinion, Google should provide more detail information to comfort advertiser and industry.

6 Landing Page Mistakes that Hamper Your Email ROI

Even though email has the highest conversion rate and ROI compared to other digital marketing tactics, it is ineffective unless accompanied by a thoughtful, well-designed and relevant landing page. This is particularly important considering landing pages are often catered for each individual marketing campaign, as opposed to just leading you to the website homepage, which has a much lower likelihood of conversion.

Connecting an email campaign with a thoughtful, customized landing page is a critical component to success that can often go overlooked. There are common mistakes in these efforts that lead to the loss of customers at the point of sale, if not for good. The first is too many distractions - including irrelevant content or a myriad of images that overwhelm a customer and complicate the message/sale trying to be delivered. Another is having only a single landing page for multiple offers - this means more clicks and navigation before the customer can get to what they are really looking for, when the point of an email campaign is to make conversion as seamless as possible. Lack of optimization and poor mobile compatibility are yet more, and lead the customer to think they are dealing with a JV operation. Finally, slow loading time is a critical mistake that can lose a customer in a world where speed is constantly prioritized.

In a world where spam bots bombard individuals with a variety of meaningless offers, tying a targeted email campaign to a customized landing page is critical to gaining and maintaining customer attention. And in these efforts, companies must be cognizant of the above mistakes in order to make the process as seamless as possible.

https://www.business2community.com/email-marketing/6-landing-page-mistakes-hamper-email-roi-02017378

FROM SPACEJAM TO GHOSTBUSTERS AND MYTHS BEHIND AR

FROM SPACEJAM TO GHOSTBUSTERS AND MYTHS BEHIND AR

Blog Post 5

The ever-changing Google Universe recently launched the ARCore platform where augmented reality can bring and/or create experiences in real life situations. In other words, certain devices will have the functionality of bringing to life images and characters on real live images. Even though it is still on the test phase, companies are taking advantage of the innovative platform to launch games such as Ghostbusters World, where users will be able to hunt real live ghosts. The idea follows the recently launched Pokemon Go and I think it will lead the way to other players in a new era of virtual reality.

In terms of digital marketing, I think it is a brilliant idea to generate awareness and drag new consumers or users into the application and into their mobile phones. In September 6, 2016, Forbes published an article called “The Digital Marketing Lesson of Pokemon Go” where it mentions that many of the locations where Pokémons were located were sponsored locations on Google Maps. The article discusses the impact and opportunity in dragging real life traffic and real life users into spots or places, and potentially generate a sale of a product or service.

Two years later, with new advances in computer generated images, and indirect views of the world, companies should be better positioned to take advantage of these applications or games in order to use a successful brand to drag traffic. In other words, Ghostbusters Go might be a new version of Pokemon Go and the opportunity lies in the success behind AR. Augmented Reality goes back in history and I personally remember the launch of the Space Jam movie in 1996 where Michael Jordan and Bugs Bunny interacted. Today, the Ghostbusters might even bring you into a certain store and through a story, interact with users and influence behavior. Exciting...

Source 1: https://www.forbes.com/sites/baininsights/2016/09/06/the-digital-marketing-lesson-of-pokemon-go/#486a50252cb4

Source 2: https://techcrunch.com/2018/02/23/can-ghostbusters-copy-pokemon-gos-success-with-its-own-ar-mobile-game/

Source 3: https://www.warnerbros.com/archive/spacejam/movie/jam.htm

Netflix's Deep Understanding of Its Customer

https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/308822

Not only does Netflix exhibit its skill in understanding its customer in the delivery of its product and service through customization of content for each individual user (to a stunningly accurate degree), it has been equally as effective and creative at using digital marketing techniques to attract and retain customers.

The benefits of content personalization are seen not only as effective measures to suck people into video content, but in improving the odds of a sale (or a larger sale) in online shopping, concert ticket buying, etc. While the tools used to do this can be expensive, there are other options on the market that are more affordable for newer firms with less resources to utilize and get creative.

Netflix's digital marketing utilizes an integrated multi-channel strategy that meets the customer where they are. Many other brands can take note of this - given the amount of time spent on social media, utilizing even non-sponsored posts can help you reach your customers with content that fits with the experience you want them to feel with your brand.

AT&T and Bayer Bet on Blockchain to Tame Digital Advertising

https://adexchanger.com/online-advertising/att-bayer-bet-blockchain-tame-digital-advertising/

Is there anything that blockchain can’t do? It seems that lately every company is trying to utilize blockchain for one application or another. The latest is that some major brands like Bayer and AT&T are looking to use blockchain to bring transparency to the digital media supply chain.

In 2016 ANA released a blockbuster media transparency report that warned advertisers that the digital ecosystem was fraught with waste and fraud. This report got companies like Bayer and AT&T scrutinizing all aspects of the digital supply chain. Now, both companies are working with Amino Payments, a blockchain tech platform. Mark Wright, VP of media services and sponsorships at AT&T says that he hopes the technology will enable him to identify “who specifically are those tech providers [in the supply chain] and how much of a fee are they assessing to my working media dollars? It’s pretty murky and thus you need technology to help you get under the hood right now.”

Blockchain can only reveal who’s in the supply chain if all the stakeholders are connected. This is a big challenge for blockchain vendors (since media networks and publishers must be added one at a time), but AppNexus comes to the rescue by integrating its entire supply network. AppNexus is currently works with Amino and sees it as a better way to manage reconciliation in digital media.

From my perspective as a digital marketer, more transparency in digital media can only be a good thing. It seems that we are still early on the journey to bringing blockchain in to help solve this problem, but the technology can benefit many of the players in the ecosystem. I would be willing to bet that this trend is here to stay and that the transparency challenge is at the (very) beginning of the end.

The Beginning of the End of Organic SEO?

This AMA article covers a lot of ground, and I won't address all of the issues discussed, but it is worth reading in its entirety.

It comes as no surprise that Google has chosen to focus on its revenue generating streams, AdWords and Google Shopping, and as a result, the impact of organic search results is greatly decreased.

Again, while not a surprise, this severely impacts the way the internet as a platform for the smaller voices, smaller companies, without large budgets. It gives Google a LOT of control over what is seen, and who is heard. No amount of keyword stuffing will gain the effects that a paid search return with an image or rich snippet can provide.

One of the more interesting and playfield-leveling factors to come out of these changes affecting the Google Search algorithm is RankBrain, which seeks to promote the honest websites, those with honest product reviews, and the use of normal language, with the intent of providing the most relevant content to a search. The more authentic and qualitative a site is, the higher it will score with RankBrain.

While the exact inputs that affect RankBrain's website score is unknown, it does show Google's interest in maintaining some kind of order to the internet, as it benefits them and their users. As soon as you can't find what you're looking for, you stop searching on Google. Obviously, that won't work for Google. Assuming people continue to scroll past the paid section of the search results, trying to please RankBrain with an authentic, quality website, in addition to leveraging social media and other online platforms, smaller internet players have a chance at being found.

Digital Trends in Advertising

http://www.adweek.com/digital/just-how-pervasive-is-technology-in-our-lives/

Key data points from the report: 

• “Four out of five executives (81 percent) agree within the next two years, AI will work next to humans in their organizations, as a co-worker, collaborator and trusted advisor.”  
• “Eighty percent of executives believe it will be important to leverage XR solutions to close the gap of physical distance when engaging with employees and customers.”
• “Eighty-two percent of executives say their organizations are increasingly using data to drive critical and automated decision-making at unprecedented scale.”
• “Seventy-nine percent of executives agree that organizations are basing their most critical systems and strategies on data, yet many have not invested in the capabilities to verify the truth within it.”
• “Sixty-three percent of executives believe it will be critical over the next two years to leverage customer hardware and hardware accelerators to meet the computing demands of intelligent environments.”
• “Eighty-three percent of executives agree that edge architecture will speed the maturity of many technologies.”

The above summary captures it all. These innovations will make, change and break our existing ad markets!

Concerns with Email Marketing

Email is one of the older marketing channels that is still being used today. In fact, it is more than 20 years old, but it is still relevant and will continue to be a tried, true and healthy channel for brands and marketers. In 2017, 58% of US marketers are planning to increase their spend on email marketing because they truly think that email works. Looking at the demographics of people who access emails, today, 76% of US population (roughly 240 Million people) is using email and this number is estimated to increase to 79% of the population in 2020. There are a few concerns with email marketing that typically comes up in every conversation.

The first concern is that whether millennials or younger generations engage with email in the same way as the other generations? Studies have shown that Snapchat and other messaging platforms don’t cannibalize the email channel. Those channels are for one on one communication but to receive messages from a brand, email is still the preferred channel because it is less invasive than messaging.

The second concern is how relevant are the email benchmarks for marketers who are thinking of holistic performance of all marketing activities. Typically, email performance metrics are things such as open rate and click rate. Studies have shown that although the volume of email is increasing day by day and is it is now bigger than the size of audience open rates have also increased. Click rate, however, depends on the industry and there hasn’t been a clear trend. So while these are still important metrics, marketers should consider the context of the metrics. For example, time of the day that the email is sent has an implication on the open rate and click rate. 

The third concern is how to look at email in a holistic way of omnichannel marketing. Marketers are more and more using the data that they have from different channels (e.g., CRM, location data) to improve email marketing. They are also using technology in new ways to interpret this data. Although most companies are at the early stages of using holistic marketing data to improve email marketing, we will see more and more companies focus on doing this.

Source: https://www.emarketer.com/Article/Listen-In-What-Future-Hold-Email-Marketing/1016569

Condé Nast's Digital Endeavor

Condé Nast, the legacy publisher who attracts more than 164 million consumers across its 20 brands and media - such as Vogue and Architectural Digest, has released a collection of digital and social first brands under the umbrella of Next Generation Network. The company appears to be vying for advertisers and wants to showcase its diverse Generation Z and Millennial audience.

These digital brands are incredibly diverse, while still having a small audience at approximately 40 million viewers, and include the likes of GQ Style, Teen Vogue, and The Hive.

                                                                      Credit: vanityfair.com

The Hive, for example, The Hive is a male-focused platform that has a lens on finance, business, and politics. This Vanity Fair brand has attracted its own community and audience outside of the typical Vanity Fair reader and has managed to woo a new audience: millennials.

In the #MeToo era, a recent purchase by Condé Nast bodes well for them. Lenny Letter, the feminism and activism focused newsletter, is being transformed into a complete digital brand. With these diverse digital platforms in one location, it will allow the parent company to draw content from and link content to other internal brands.

It appears that Condé Nast wants to set itself apart by high-quality and highly curated content. The strategy seems to be that if you have great content, you will build a great following. They have access to the most influential storytellers in the world, and now have an ability to streamline and showcase this. Will advertisers be wooed? Stay tuned. But, it appears Condé Nast is finally keeping up with the times.

http://www.adweek.com/digital/conde-nast-is-launching-a-digital-brand-network-in-the-hopes-of-attracting-a-diversity-of-advertisers/

NFL Streaming

http://adage.com/article/digital/amazon-youtube-twitter-eye-bids-nfl-rights/312396/

I grew up watching football on Sundays with my family. Given we are Green Bay Packers fans living in New Jersey, we were entirely dependent on Direct TV to be able to watch all the games in the comfort of our home. Naturally, we succumbed to paying for it for the entire year to make use of it ~12 weeks a year when the Packers were not on national TV.

Fast forward 15-20 years and streaming is now a thing, as are the distractions and mobility of smart phones. I have the ability to stream the games to my laptop through my family's DirectTV account, but wonder when the day will come that I won't need to pay for the service at all. It seems we are on the track for that. The new generation of NFL watchers want to watch multiple games at once, and watch wherever they are. The NFL is already struggling a bit with the loyalty of their audience, and recognize the need to enable streaming.

Enter competition of Amazon, YouTube, and Twitter to bid on the rights for this streaming. NFL games have historically brought in high levels of television advertising revenue. All of these companies see an opportunity to capitalize on that willingness to pay as advertisers shift their ads to digital for the streaming viewers.

It will be interesting to see the types of ads that are produced for this medium, given the audience will not be as captive when viewing on their smart phone, laptop, or smart TV given all of the other distractions available when the game goes to "commercial".

The Case Against Google

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/20/magazine/the-case-against-google.html

Charles Duhigg wrote an article for The New York Times Magazine - ‘The Case Against Google’. It is a great read where Duhigg also acknowledges the consumer benefits that Google provides.

Duhigg considers that the Microsoft antitrust lawsuit is the single biggest part of Gary Reback’s legacy. Duhigg’s argument is rooted in an argument made to him by Gary Reback, who spearheaded the Microsoft antitrust lawsuit. Duhigg notes that Microsoft could have redirected Internet Explorer users to MSN Search but for the supposedly failed lawsuit. He also claims that a failed antitrust lawsuit led IBM to open up its hardware to 3rd party software, creating the industry that would ultimately do IBM in.

However, he failed to consider that Microsoft employees will always blame the antitrust lawsuit instead of themselves for having missed the opportunities in both search market. He ignores that Microsoft faced a significant obstacle in search: its business model was about building compatibility walls around its ecosystem and charging for access. Google’s success, from the business model to the technical acumen that includes PageRank was predicated on taking Microsoft down. There is no way that Microsoft could have out-competed Google. And even if Internet Explorer may have been dominant, the paradigm shift of the web and Google’s superior ability to make sense of it would have helped Google overcome any obstacles Windows may have put in its way.

It’s same in the mobile as well - Microsoft’s defeat had nothing to do with antitrust, but rather the incompetence to break out of its licensing model and the assumption that the PC would always be a user’s most relevant device.

In short, to believe that Microsoft would have dominated search without antitrust is hard to believe. Clearly, that wasn’t the case in mobile, and I don’t think it was the case for search.

Less Work With Auto Ads

Just this week, Google unveiled an optional update to its AdSense system. The AI add-in, dubbed Auto Ads, utilizes machine learning to not only optimize what ads you see, but also where they're placed. This technology will essentially decide how many ads are appropriate for a given page and where to put them. 

                                                                  Credit: Search Engine Roundtable

While AdSense is already fairly hands-off, the new AI will allow advertisers to place one piece of code to their ads - just once - and Google handles the rest. The new system is said to save companies time and increase their revenue up to 10%. 

"Finding the time to create great content for your users is an essential part of growing your publishing business," says Tom Long, AdSense engineering manager at Google. "Auto ads use machine learning to make smart placement and monetization decisions on your behalf, saving you time."

It appears utilizing this technology is a no-brainer for a company, however, I do wonder about this machine learning innovation causing issues. How are companies going to track where ads are placed and how they are performing? How are fake ads/news and sketchy promotions being handled? What about placement of inappropriate content? 

I trust as the roll-out and evaluation of this innovation continues, Google will address these concerns and continue their movement to a more AI focused organization. And time will tell on how companies react to giving up more control of how their ads are placed and utilized.

https://techcrunch.com/2018/02/21/google-debuts-adsense-auto-ads-with-machine-learning-to-make-placement-and-monetization-choices/

Google Chrome Ad Blocker: Benevolent Browser or Monopolistic?

Last week, Google Chrome introduced a browser update that will ban particularly intrusive ads, such as screen-dominating or automatic-playing ads. At first glance, the update seems to benefit consumers and improve the web browsing experience by filtering out annoying ad placements. Google and the Chrome browser have a history of continuous user experience upgrades and display ads play a central role in these improvements. Take for example Google’s homepage, it is impressively clean and simple with only a Google doodle and search bar. Google’s search results pages are also relatively clean with only two sections of display search ads at the header and right sidebar. This tradition supports Google’s intention that the ad-blocking update is focused on better user experience.

Additionally, ad-blocking software and plug-ins, like AdBlock Plus, have grown in response to consumer demand to eliminate irksome ads. Therefore outside of Google Chrome, there are wider market trends to improve the web browsing experience. Chrome’s update could be seen as a complementary response to this trend.

However, Google gained its dominance in search (74% market share in 2017) and Chrome in web browsing (59% market share in 2017) not be benevolent actions, but through capitalistic business decisions. Underlying this Chrome update is Google’s attempt to further control the ecosystem and maintains its dominance in digital advertising. This update preempts more comprehensive ad-blocking plug-ins and will allow Google to profit from high-quality advertising into the future.

Furthermore, the standard for ads is based on recommendations set forth by the Coalition for Better Ads. This consortium is made up of corporations like Google and Facebook and lacks a true consumer perspective.

While we are quick to applaud the elimination of annoying ads, we should remain wary of the true intentions of Google Chrome’s update and the continued dominance of Google in search and browser and their ability to shape the ecosystem of web browsing advertising, not to mention the privacy concerns.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/18/business/media/google-chrome-ad-block.html

Blog #5: Facebook and the quest for meaningful ad metrics

Facebook has built one of the largest technology companies by connecting people across the world, but more impressively they have monetized this customer base by selling ads. In 2017, Facebook had $39,942 million in advertising revenue. So what value is Facebook providing its advertisers that is worth almost $40 billion dollars? Part of the answer would be page views and hopefully some conversions, but arguably, the main source of value would be Facebook's data - ad metrics. However, advertisers struggle with deciphering ad metrics and to make matters worse Facebook's ad metrics has had issues.

Luckily, according to a recent TechCrunch article, Facebook is looking to update its ad metrics and provide advertisers more clarity on how to measure their spend. Facebook has acknowledged that its ad metrics has had issues in the past. Recently, a group of researchers found that Facebook's reported reach was greater than the US Census population in every state. The main update Facebook will implement is to update how ad metrics will be labelled- they will now explicitly point out estimates and figures that are in development. Facebook will also reduce the number of metrics particularly outdated or redundant fields.

So why are these changes important?  Ad data helps advertisers by:

• Context - they provide insights on where/how customers are viewing ads
• Behavior - they allow advertisers to direct ads to customers based on their interests and behaviors
• Personal Identity - they allow identification of various customer segments (i.e. demographics, psychographics, etc.)

Advertisers need data to help meet their goals and Facebook recognizes that.

Source: https://techcrunch.com/2018/02/22/facebook-ad-metrics/

4 AdTech Trends to Adopt in 2018

http://www.dmnews.com/agency/4-adtech-trends-to-adopt-in-2018/article/745801/

1. Header Bidding
Up until now, the bidding model on Google Doubleclick has reigned supreme (whether advertisers like it or not). However, Header Bidding presents advertisers with an alternative: Using hidden website coding to ensure the best possible pricing for the best ad spots. Although a growing phenomenon, currently only 12% of premium websites are using this model.

2. Next Gen Social Media
Until now social advertising almost exclusively referred to Facebook and Linkedin, however Twitter and Snapchat have made major investments to ensure that they capture market share. Both platforms have made major investments in ad tech and look to be more turnkey solutions for advertisers to reach their intended audience in a social context.

3. Disappearing Ads
Here again, Snapchat has proven incredibly influential within social advertising. Realizing that consumers who want access to on-demand services will make decisions immediately and on the fly, fewer brands are investing in retargeting and instead on ads that do not reappear after the initial impression. "Ephemeral Marketing", catalyzed by Snapchat's disappearing content, uses short term content and flash deals to connect with viewers in real time. This has become a particularly salient tactic for promotion and awareness campaigns by the likes of McDonalds and Taco Bell.

4. Purchase Intelligence
Increasingly brands are emphasizing the importance of purchase intelligence to strengthen their audience targeting. Banks, in particular, have been using these technologies to better understand their customer base and market to them based upon individual behavior. Customizable ad experiences built for each users unique journey is the new normal; this is predicated on purchase intelligence. 

In sum, ad tech continues to shape the way that brands engage their audience. With emphases on social, audience targeting, purchase data and alternative bidding models, 2018 will once again change the way that major brands use the internet to reach and communicate with their customers.  

P&G to Cut Another $400 million in agency costs

http://adage.com/article/cmo-strategy/p-g-cut-400-million-agency-produc/312488/

In 2017, P&G notoriously cut $140 million dollars in digital ad spend citing concerns about brand safety and where P&G ads had been appearing. This alone is troubling for the industry, but the fact that since this decision P&G's organic sales have outperformed both analyst forecasts and key rivals at 2% growth is downright startling. What does this say about the impact digital advertising has on impacting revenues? Is digital advertising simply an ineffective waste of marketing spend?

The CPG giant has doubled down on this notion and plans to slash another $400M by 2021, totaling more than $750M in savings over the last three fiscal years. This includes disassociating from 80% of P&G's agencies and doing more "open sourcing" of projects, rather than relying upon an agency of record.

Unilever, the number two global ad spender, has followed P&G's lead and is cutting agencies, their fees and production costs. Overall, around $2.5 billion of the $7.5 billion Unilever plans in cost savings by 2019 will come from a combination of marketing and overhead reductions. Once again, these budget cuts have had no demonstratable effect on Unilever's bottom line.

What does this trend say about the industry at large? Corporations are no longer simply throwing money at digital; they are getting smarter and leaner. Rather than a threat to digital advertising, this creates a litmus test of sorts where vendors and agencies need to truly demonstrate their impact in empirical terms. Gone are the days where a flashy new ad unit will suffice to obtain investment; agencies need to demonstrate brand lift, measure impact and influence revenue. Hopefully, the trepidation of giants like Unilever and P&G will remove the "pretenders" from the industry and enable those who truly create value to rise to the top. 

SMS is the Next Big Thing...Again?

I was fascinated to read in this article that ecommerce retailers are “re-examining” SMS as a vehicle for marketing. It’s most fascinating because it seems like the technology of 5 years ago is coming back, and I can’t think of another example of technology having a boomerang effect like that. The examples that the article provides, with Khiel’s using SMS to reach some of their best customers, and other retailers utilizing it for retargeting, make complete sense. When you’ve built an existing relationship with customers, sending them a reminder, or an easy way for them to place an order, can be very helpful.

What drew my attention was the comments in the article about how “there’s no spam in SMS” the way there is in email. Right now I’d agree with that statement, but I would also say that much of what I consider to be spam in my inbox, is emails that I opted into. Yes, it’s a matter of semantics, but the point is that as more and more marketers turned to email marketing back in the day, consumers’ inboxes became completely flooded with promotional emails. This turned into such a problem that we’ve resorted to having separate folders for promotional content, where these dozens (hundreds?) of emails per day are filtered off to the side. I can’t be the only one who searches my Trash when I need to find a specific coupon code or promotion.

So while SMS may be the “next big thing…again” I question whether it’s only a matter of time before it goes the way of email marketing and becomes a completely saturated market. The handful of texts we receive today from marketers may be manageable, and often helpful, but how long will it be before a constant stream of messages becomes intrusive? Not to worry, we’ll just put those messages in a separate folder.

https://adexchanger.com/mobile/whats-old-new-online-sellers-rediscover-sms-text/ 

Blog #5_Snap Royalty Kylie Jenner Helped Erase $1.3 Billion in One Tweet

https://www.bloombergquint.com/business/2018/02/22/snap-royalty-kylie-jenner-erased-a-billion-dollars-in-one-tweet

Social influencers have been an integral part of branding and marketing in modern history. Celebrities are often used in this role and traditionally leading companies had utilized the celebrity as a spokesperson to tie celebrity popularity with a certain product or the overall brand. 

The internet and digital consumption have moved to the forefront of commerce, forever changing consumer behavior and the way consumers view and purchase products. Successful advertising campaigns began to phase out the traditional spokesperson and began to leverage multiple social influencers that reach different demographics. The power of these influencers has been increasingly evident as social media platforms have become part of our daily lives.

One of these social influencers, Kylie Jenner, recently demonstrated the power of social media and how firms need to be constantly adapting to understand social media trends. Jenner made a comment that she doesn’t use Snapchat anymore, leading to a significant spike in negative trends about the app’s redesign. Although Jenner didn’t make an overt negative comment, she was able to create enough focus on an existing product flaw that contributed to significant financial repercussions. 

Some of the top TV programs of 2017 averaged around 20mm viewers per episode, Jenner has 24mm followers on social media. To reiterate, although she has no direct connection to Snapchat, she was able to communicate with the same sized audience as a leading national TV program, for free. This should be a warning for all companies / products.