Overcoming the Learning Curve – Ad Network vs. Ad Exchange| HyperX Media

Overcoming the Learning Curve – Ad Network vs. Ad Exchange

January 16th, 2012 / Banner Network, Design, Digital Advertising, Digital Campaigns, Digital Media Buying/Planning, Web Development by Jordan Yospe - Digital Media Director

Many advertisers we talk to everyday have a general understanding of the display advertising space. They know the jargon of CPM, skyscraper, and ad networks. HyperX prides ourselves on our core products of search engine marketing, web and banner creative services, and specifically our niche banner advertising networks that allow advertisers to get in front of their potential customers. This includes the HyperX Local Ad Network, which we’ve run campaigns on for 20+ markets and hundreds of clients with direct relationships on the sites we advertise with.

We also understand that online marketing is an adapting and changing environment, and enjoy the challenges of each new day. Because of this, as of late HyperX Media has been launching new services in banner engagement tracking, White Labeled Ad Serving, Lead Generation, Pre-Roll Video advertising, Behavioral Targeting, and Retargeting. We are also helping client to leverage the power of the internet, including RTB (real-time bidding) and Ad Exchanges. We view the Ad Exchange environment as complimentary to what we offer with our Hyper Targeting network advertising campaigns, and enjoy helping clients navigate the waters of both. That’s why we wanted to give a few recommendations on the Pros and Cons of RTB Ad Exchanges.

For those not familiar with Ad Exchanges, inventory on the internet has shifted to act much more like a stock market trading floor. Companies have emerged that buy and sell data, and allow for, within nano-seconds, the bidding on inventory online. This has presented an interesting new challenge to marketers, with more control than ever but also more options than ever, which can lead to a machine gun approach where we’re hoping to hit the target. Companies are calling their products “Trading Desks”. Websites put all their unsold direct inventory on the table, and advertisers come in and bid. Highest bidder wins. Period.

There are a lot of intricacies we won’t go into, including cookies advertisers can utilize to bid on specific behavioral or demographic/psychographic information. However, in layman’s terms, here are the pros/cons of this environment:

Pros

Low-cost CPMs to the Advertisers, for a start. For the most part, most inventory on ad exchanges can be purchased for very low Cost Per Thousand’s (CPMs), often below $0.50. Campaigns and sites with a low Click Through Rate (CTR) can still deliver an effective Cost Per Click (CPC)

Transparency. With some ad networks, advertisers don’t always know which sites are serving their ads. This includes our own Hyper Local or Hyper Targeted ad network in many cases. With some ad-exchanges, advertisers can see the sites, and sometimes the pages, they’re running on. This makes display advertising management seem much more like managing an Ad Words or Cost Per Click (CPC) campaign, where the advertiser can find variations of sites/creative that are performing and optimize to those.

Lastly, ad exchanges offer standardization and efficiency. Ad sizes are uniform; the ad buying and selling process is simple. There will only be a single bill. And everything is done in real-time.

Cons

Ad exchanges typically won’t provide premium real estate. Sites tend to save those placements for direct sales. That’s where our HyperX Local product has a huge advantage. We only purchase on proven placements, and only buy Above the Fold inventory (ATF). Some exchanges do have premium inventory, but the CPMs get higher with that type of control and in most cases advertisers are better off working directly with the sites.

Ad exchange inventory is most often for low-value, non-premium/unsold placements. Many impressions are at the bottom of the page, below the “fold” of a typical monitor screen. So a served ad that counts as an impression may not have been seen by a consumer.

Ad exchanges can trigger bidding wars between advertisers due to the pricing structure’s nature. Price volatility is unavoidable and ad inventory will sell at fluctuating prices, as opposed to the set CPMs advertisers negotiate for with an Ad Network. The bidding system also means the highest bidder wins the impressions, so buyers with smaller budgets can be at a disadvantage.

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The Continued Emergence of Digital Media

November 2nd, 2011 / Banner Network, Design, Digital Advertising, Digital Campaigns, Digital Media Buying/Planning, Email Marketing, Mobile Advertising, Natural Search - SEO, Paid Search, Social Media, Viral Marketing, Web Development by Jordan Yospe - Digital Media Director

A recent Forrester Research study, an independent research company that provides advice to global leaders in business and technology, shows that interactive marketing/advertising spending will top $77 Billion by 2016!

Other telling stats in the study that show the healthy and growing behavior of online marketing include the rise of both social media and display media. We can see the emerging acceptance by advertisers to shift dollars from traditional media that are fading or losing effectiveness into new mediums online where people are spending the majority of their time reading, being entertained, and working.

HyperX Media has made it a focus to keep up with the changing nature of how people are consuming information. We have made it a focus to specialize in digital marketing to aid in the effectiveness of advertising campaigns, striving to put the right message in front of the right person, at the right time. At the consumer level, this includes engaging messaging and creative, coupled with partnerships on the websites they know and trust. It means being relevant for what they are interested in, if they are specifically searching products out via a search engine, or just casually informing themselves on a product through social media or a banner ad. For our clients, this means eye catching, dynamic creative, advanced targeting capabilities, detailed reporting, relevant engagement with their potential customers, and tracking of EVERYTHING from view, to a click to a mouse over, to an engagement, to a lead, and so on. HyperX is excited to help businesses and consumers usher in a new age in advertising technology. The shift of focus to the online world is a Win-Win because it means more advanced targeting with measurable results for advertisers, and more pertinent, relevant content and ads to those being advertised to.

You can download the Forrester study for yourself here.

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Proud Sponsor of SLC SEM

October 20th, 2011 / Digital Advertising, Digital Campaigns, Natural Search - SEO, News and Events, Paid Search, Social Media by Alan Pohlman - President

Last night was the inaugural event for SLC SEM, a newly formed association of Utah search marketing professionals. The group was partially the brain child of our director of search several months ago who noticed a need to bring some of the great local SEM talent together to network and share ideas. He worked closely with Elisabeth Osmeloski from Search Engine Land (http://searchengineland.com/) and what was a really good idea is now a really great group for local search and online marketers.

The group’s focus will be on SEM (SEO, PPC, etc.), but will also tie in how search affects all forms of online and offline marketing. Participants include search and digital agencies, in-house search teams, consultants, online marketing professionals, students and people who just want to learn about the industry.
The event last night was well attended and there is no doubt future events will be very successful. They announced that Danny Sullivan (http://searchengineland.com/author/danny-sullivan), widely considered one of the top search “gurus” around, will headline an upcoming monthly event. They also announced a big event in partnership with Bing and the Sundance Film Festival.

HyperX Media is proud to be a Founding Sponsor of SLC SEM. We are eager to have an active role in this unique association and watch it grow. It’s fun to meet with people in the industry and learn from each other. If the inaugural event last night is any indication of what the group will become, watch out, there are some really good things to come! We encourage you to become a member if you are near Salt Lake City, or interested in traveling here for our monthly events.

To learn more about SLC SEM, please visit the following:

http://www.slcsem.org/
https://www.facebook.com/SLCSEM
@slcsem

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Engagement Marketing

September 28th, 2011 / Digital Advertising, Digital Campaigns, Digital Media Buying/Planning, Natural Search - SEO, Social Media, Viral Marketing by Julie Bazgan Martinez - VP Digital Strategy

Engagement Marketing is nothing new. The digital landscape has transformed the way people communicate, digest and share marketing, and receive their advertising, making it more important than ever to incorporate an Engagement Marketing strategy into your online and offline planning.

Dave Chaffey’s recent Ad Tech London presentation on 12 Digital Marketing Trends for 2012 (you can see what they are and download the PowerPoint deck here) states that “An engagement strategy is important to cut-through,” and “The importance of developing an engaging, shareable brand increases each day: algorithms and people FAVOUR THE MOST ENGAGING BRANDS.”

When people interact with a brand in a personal way by participating and engaging, they are far more likely to become brand advocates and word of mouth marketers. This goes way beyond Facebook “Likes.” And with Search incorporating online engagement into its algorithms, it is vital to take a proactive role in strategically growing and nurturing your online engagement. Google using data from Google+ in search results makes the search experience much more personal. The implications of this are highly significant for brands.

Phygital Marketing (when the physical world meets the digital world) illustrates how digital devices and QR code technology are perfectly suited to engage people by combining things we do and interact with in our everyday life with an active, engaging, fun call to action. Check out what Fiat did recently with their Fiat Street Evo app. Hiding prizes in traffic signs? Pretty innovative, I’d say.

There are many ways to acquire customers and keep them engaged. Technology and a sound creative/communication strategy can personalize the marketing experience and keep customers coming back.

Are you incorporating an engagement strategy into your planning efforts? What out of the box and innovative ways are you using to engage your customers?

Are your marketing efforts relying on Interruption Marketing? Is that the best way to spend your marketing dollars? Get in touch with our Engagement Marketing experts at info@hyperxmedia.com for a consultation on what we can do to support your business.

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Stop Chasing the Coveted Facebook “Like” Faux Follower

September 22nd, 2011 / Digital Advertising, Digital Campaigns, Social Media, Viral Marketing by Jordan Yospe - Digital Media Director

A few months ago, when watching the news the night Osama Bin Laden was killed, the national news outlet I was viewing decided to pull up their Facebook Page on live TV to show what some of their viewers were saying about the big news.

Below is roughly how the exchange went….

“(News Anchor) Well, Amy Johnson says ‘God Bless America and God Bless our Troops’.“

(Keep in mind this is while they are showing their Facebook fan page live on screen)

Anchor searches for another politically correct viewer comment for a few seconds . . .

“And, Josh Hallowell says ‘The witch is DEAD’.”

(Again, keep in mind their Facebook page is live on the screen, the viewer can see exactly what he’s reading in addition to comments like ‘I hope all of his 72 virgins are men’, ‘Osama down, now off to find Waldo and Carmen San Diego!’, and some other vulgar commentary as well as cuss words.)

It seems that everyone is trying to plug their Facebook page lately. This is for obvious reasons. Despite recent changes to navigation within Facebook that have spurred user complaints, we’ve seen this story before and we’ll see the same result. People aren’t leaving. . . Facebook isn’t going away . . . and while Google + may disrupt Facebook or knock it slightly off course, it will not soon replace the behemoth.

Some have grown somewhat annoyed at corporation’s attempts to use Facebook to appear relevant. Increasingly, we hear across multiple news and media outlets and in television commercials, “Follow Us On Facebook!”

So, the question is, how do we successfully integrate Facebook into more comprehensive marketing and messaging plans for your business? We all understand the actual end goal . . . Increased exposure, additional opportunities for sponsorship/advertisers, etc. However, if you do not have something relevant or of value for the user to look at on your Facebook page, why promote it at all? This is the same content question that has plagued all marketers for 15+ years with the invention of the internet and websites.

Many brands and idea promoters want as many Facebook fans and Twitter followers as they possibly can, as soon as they can possibly get them. This is a repeated request we get from companies we work with, “How do we get more Facebook followers? We know we need to be doing social media, but we don’t know why or how.”

A lot of these fans and followers are not true followers. One thing to consider is how many of these fans and followers have hidden you in their news feeds. And, with recent Facebook changes, it may be even harder to market to an already existent pool of “followers”. Marketer Seth Godin calls these “Sunny Day Friends”. Users that “follow” in a fleeting moment of interest of attempt to take advantage of a one time offer. In an experiment Godin recently conducted on Facebook, 200,000 followers led to 25 clickthroughs. That’s a .01% CTR! Ouch!

In the chart above, the curves represent different ideas and different starting points.

Godin says, “If you start with 10,000 fans and have an idea that on average nets .8 new people per generation, that means that 10,000 people will pass it on to 8000 people, and then 6400 people, etc. That’s yellow on the graph. Pretty soon, it dies out.

On the other hand, if you start with 100 people (99% less!) and the idea is twice as good (1.5 net passalong) it doesn’t take long before you overtake the other plan. (the green). That’s not even including the compounding of new people getting you people.

But wait! If your idea is just a little more viral, a 1.7 passalong, wow, huge results. Infinity, here we come. That’s the purple (of course.)”

His point? Better ideas lead to better social media campaigns. More followers does not equal success. Less followers that are more engaged are better than more followers that are less engaged.

An example of a good use of a Facebook page to promote consumer loyalty: Corporate PR. Sponsor a contest to donate money to vote for the best charity, and donate money to the winning charity. Proper use of Facebook? Yes, you are promoting a social cause and getting good PR from it, all while doing positive viral marketing that is likely to spread. (Good marketing rule of thumb, the more emotional and personal a campaign, the better!)

Example of a bad use of Facebook page to promote consumer loyalty: “Follow us on Facebook and Twitter”. We hear this often on traditional media, but often one goes to a company’s Facebook page and there is nothing there. Nothing interactive. No call to action. No strategy. Why should I follow you? What’s in it for me?

Like I said, Facebook has its place and purpose, but too often it is promoted in an attempt to appear relevant and even REPLACE other crucially important marketing and messaging channels. The number of followers or friends you have says nothing to the actual experience or quality of the content you are discussing.

As Seth Godin puts it, “a slightly better idea defeats a much bigger but disconnected user base every time.

The lesson: spend your time coming up with better ideas, not with more (faux) followers.”

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Buying Online Display Advertising Inventory

September 12th, 2011 / Banner Network, Digital Advertising, Digital Campaigns, Digital Media Buying/Planning by Catherine Byington - Sales Director

It seems simple enough, pick up the phone and call the #1 website in your region to secure your advertising campaign. You can’t go wrong with buying inventory from the biggest website in the area, right? WRONG!

It is a common misconception in the online advertising world that biggest is best. While the biggest websites do attract a huge audience and garner millions of page views – you have to dissect those numbers to see if they can actually translate into sales for you. You must be educated in placing online advertising on the large websites and these simple steps can help you place ads on any website.

Questions to ask:

How much of your traffic is out of state? Or out of my sales geography?

It is common for large websites to have between 30%-60% of their total traffic out-of-state. If you have an e-commerce website and your product is applicable to consumers out of your traditional drive distance; then this can work to your benefit. Sites will often charge a premium for Geo-Targeted inventory
What are your traffic patterns?
Do you have a high bounce rate?

This usually means that the site is messy, confusing to navigate and/or long load times and consumers lose patience and leave quickly.
How many pages per visitor does your site average?

Are users willing to read through the site, dig a little deeper and stay a little longer? For online advertising to be effective you need to achieve a solid frequency number; traditionally, the consumer needs to see your ad several times before they interact with it.
What are the websites top performing sections/pages?

One of the biggest misconceptions about large websites is that the Homepage is the place to be! Most Homepages are the worst performing pages of the site in regards to ROI for ad placement; users land on the Homepage and quickly navigate away from the page to read top articles and visit their favorite sections. It is common to visit a Homepage and be served large ads, intrusive ads or ads that wrap the entire site (wallpaper ads). These ads are a premium cost and often times only run for one day. An entire ad budget for 30-days can be spent on a one-day campaign.
Almost every large website has niche pages/sections that have solid numbers in traffic patterns; more pages viewed, more loyal audience, longer time spent reading those pages. Dig deeper into your ad buying to familiarize yourself with the website.
Will my ad be seen?

One of the most frustrating components of display advertising is the number of ads that appear below the fold (so far down the page that over half of all visitors never see the ad!) Ensure you have confirmed your ad placement for the entire campaign. Remember, you pay for an ad when it ‘appears’ on a page NOT when a visitor to the site ‘sees’ the ad.
Match content/demographics with ads as much as possible!

The best ROI in advertising is when you can match up your message with the content/vehicle that is delivering your message. Within most large websites, you can break down the site to find your target audience; work to place your message in front of your audience!
Confirm the sections/pages your ad will run. The large sites are receiving high page views from various low performing sections: blogs/opinion pages, comments pages, classifieds. Ensure your ad is placed on quality pages.

Analyze, Re-target, Report, Test & REPEAT!

Always gather data on any campaign you run!

Know the traffic numbers of the sites/sections running your message
Analyze the data gathered from your own reporting (Google Analytics, Omniture, etc).
Gather additional data (phone tracking, in-store sales, walk-in traffic, SEO, Paid Search)
Test different ad placements, new messaging, new sites, etc as you go. Don’t throw the entire budget into a ‘test’ phase; but create a small portion of the campaign that is always testing new ideas and theories.
Repeat! Online advertising is the place to be – don’t pull your budget because the campaign didn’t run exactly as expected. Learn from your data and continue to place better, more educated campaigns.

At HyperX Media, we understand that buying online display advertising is not a simple process. We have put in the work to already know where your ads will be the most successful – it isn’t on one website but hundreds of websites. We have built an exclusive network of over 250 websites for Utah advertisers. We will help you create a custom campaign that will hit your target audience! Our network has 100% inventory above-the-fold, 100% Utah traffic (out-of-state is available upon request), customized channels (Sports, Religion/LDS, News, Blogs, Outdoor/Recreation, etc), campaign is optimized daily. If you ad is not performing on a particular website, channel or ad unit – we’ll optimize that out of the campaign. We are working for you, every day, to find the highest performing websites and ad units. To learn more about our display advertising product and services, call 801.566.0670.

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Utah Olympic Park | Free 2 For 1 Coupon

July 15th, 2010 / Design, Digital Campaigns by admin

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Welcome to the HyperX Media Digital Advertising Blog

Questions to ask:

Analyze, Re-target, Report, Test & REPEAT!