Digital Media News

According to the National Office of Statistics, in 2014, 38 million adults (76%) in Great Britain accessed the Internet every day (21 million more than in 2006, when directly comparable records began). So making a splash online and advertising in the digital arena is a business no-brainer.

Unlike traditional advertising channels, online advertising is less expensive, far faster to market and easy to measure. But without the right tools, it can be a minefield and tricky to keep a lid on your budget. So if you want the best return for your advertising budget you need to utilize some of the online tools that cangauge how effective and wide-reaching your online advertising is.

In no particular order, here’s what ExactDrive recommendstoensurethat your business, products and/or services are seen by the right people:

In today’s world, most of us have conducted some sort of business over the internet. There are millions of websites being built every year, many of which need to take payments from customers. But integrating a payment system within a website is tough to do. And with more and more financial transactions taking place, usability, safety and security are hot topics. Enter Stripe, ExactDrive's credit card processing partner.

Stripe is an innovative company that focuses on helping website developers to deliver a website that accepts payments between individuals and businesses. They’ve got a solid background. They’ve received $130 million in funding from the likes of Sequoia Capital and PayPal co-founders Peter Thiel, Max Levchin and Elon Musk.

Stripe provides a fantastic alternative to the hassle of setting up a merchant account. And while Stripe’s fee per transaction is slightly higher than that of their more traditional card-based competitors, the cost to the website owner is lower because of the lack of setup fees, monthly fees, validation fees or card storage fees. And due to the fact that Stripe only earns that fee after a successful payment, there’s no charge for failed payments either. With Stripe, you even have the ability to offer coupons and vouchers to your customers. This is a payment solution that’s built with your bottom line in mind.

Real-time marketing can help brands engage with their consumers, but it can be tricky to do well. Here are three companies that have gotten it right.

A proven guerrilla marketing strategy, real-time marketing (RTM) links into current events that are relevant to an audience, in an attempt to engage them with a brand. The ultimate goal is to connect consumers with the products they need now, in the moment, and it's an approach to marketing that's better suited for today's on-the-go audiences.

Here we take a look at three examples of real-time marketing and the lessons that can be learned from each.

1. Warburtons

The best RTM campaigns stay relevant to their marketing strategy, audience, and products. Following the birth of Prince George last year, there were plenty of attempts to cash in on Royal Baby fever, but this advert from Warburtons stood out as one of the best to capture the mood, while staying relevant to the company’s products and sense of Britishness.

Before partnering with HubSpot, a leading inbound marketing and sales software company, ExatDrive's website was constantly going down, posting a blog was a laborious task, analytics seemed to be stuck in a black box and every aspect of our social media and organic search lead generation was pathetic. 

Then comes our first HubSpot demo in Q1 2012. Our eyes opened wide, we looked at each other with wonder and excitement and whamo blamo we instantly made the decision to migrate over to HubSpot with the intent to immediately start digesting everything they have to offer, which is a significant amount of exciting features. Ranging from social media post scheduling to real-time SEO feedback on new blog posts, easy landing page creation and optimizing your call-to-action, HubSpot felt like it had everything we needed. And we were right.

This article was originally published on a leading professional marketing blog, BloggerIdeas.com.

At the heart of any discussion about a startup’s product or services is the question of value. How much value does your startup’s solution provide for its clients? How many hours of work does it save them? Is it something they could do themselves or are your services unique? These questions determine not only if your startup will achieve profitability, but how much you can fairly charge for your services in the event that it does.

Pricing your company’s services is a delicate process that must take into account a multitude of factors. We spoke to seven successful founder’s at different stages in their careers and asked what their best advice was for accurately pricing a startup’s product and services.

Retargeting can be an effective way to increase conversions among online customers, but many marketers aren't using the strategy to its full potential.

Many of us are shadowed around the Web by our favorite (or not-so-favorite) companies. You’ll be flicking through your friend’s Facebook photos, and an ad will pop up for the dress you were checking out the other day. This isn’t coincidental – it’s retargeting in action.

Retargeting is a hot topic in the online advertising space, as it gives marketers a chance to get their product in front of indecisive customers, or "window shoppers," with attractive, tailored ads that relate to an experience they had previously on your site. Basically, you get another chance to close the deal.

Despite the fact that retargeting has become an established part of the digital marketing lexicon, many marketers are still unfamiliar with what it is and how it should be used. So let’s look at how to do retargeting "right."

Display ads need to captivate consumers with compelling creative and dynamic messaging. But creating a fresh and engaging ad takes precious time and effort. Until recently, high quality ad creation waschallenging for marketers, (particularly in small businesses) but all that has changed with the advent of dynamic ads.

Dynamic ads in a nutshell

Dynamic ads are unique in that they adapt themselves to the person seeing them. Each ad is personalized based on criteria such as the viewer’s product interests, location, or demographic, and then served in real-time, with a relevant product, offer, or message.

The idea is that by being personalized to the viewer, dynamic ads will attract more engagement than standard, generic ads. Not only that, but by sending each person directly to the web page that’s most relevant to them, dynamic ads reduce clicks in the conversion path, which can ultimately boost conversion rates. However, it is also important to not overly personalize your dynamic ads to the point where the viewer is creeped out.

ExactDrive recently had the opportunity to be interviewed by The Startup Journal, which is a platform for Indian startups to showcase their innovation and creativeness to a wide entrepreneurial community. The Startup Journal is dedicated towards fostering entrepreneurial culture.

"He who knows only his own generation remains forever a child." Those were the words written above the library at my alma mater, and while they rang true at University, they have proven exceptionally true in the startup environment. Launching a startup is largely an exercise in trial error, and regardless of how much experience one has, its always advisable to keep learning and seeking the advice of those who came before you.

Often, entrepreneurs become jaded after their first successful launch, and assume that all other entrepreneurial endeavors will follow the same path. In doing so, they limit themselves greatly in their ability to respond creatively when things don’t go as planned, and more importantly, fall behind in an industry where it pays to be well-read. The difference between failure and success in the startup ecosystem often comes down to an entrepreneur’s willingness to keep learning about their constantly changing environment, and as such, its advisable to read as much as possible to stay up-to-date. We spoke with 12 successful startup founders and asked what book all entrepreneurs should read and why. Here’s what they said.

ExactDrive recently had the opportunity to be interviewed by Fresh Infos, who discusses geeky creations, weird incidents, funny LOL stories as well as latest of technology, gaming, gadgematic, and social news. Basically we bring out fresh new ideas to the world wide web, ‘Refreshing Your Mind.’

Its a well-known fact that most startups are bound for failure. Some companies are doomed from the start, with products that are either unnecessary or that do not differentiate from the competition. Other startups meet their demise due to having made certain mistakes, mistakes that could have been avoided if they’d made a greater effort to learn from the experiences of those who came before them. Its often been said that successful people know how to learn from their own mistakes, and really successful people know how to learn from the mistakes of others. We spoke with 10 successful startup founders and asked what the primary reason for startup failure was, and how recently launched startups can avoid it. Here’s what they had to say.

Advertising is the lifeblood of the internet. It funds a lot of the great content that we enjoy on a daily basis, and provides brands with the means to innovate; inspire and entertain. And withcontinual advancements in programmatic advertising technology, online advertising has never been easier, cheaper or more efficient.

You can see for yourself, by test-driving ourmarket-leading self-serve advertising platform, which delivers online advertising solutions that make it faster and easier for you to reach your target audience and generate that all important ROI.

Well-oiled machine

Our ad platform is constantly being refined, but it is true to say that it wouldn’t be the slick, well-oiled machine it is today without the support of our data partners, including Proximic.com, Bluekai.com (Now part of Oracle) Grapeshot, and our ever-growing number of integrated media partners — such as AppNexus.com, who we will focus on in this blog post.

What does AppNexus do?