Digital Media News

I recently had the opportunity to catch up with Kirby Winfield, the SVP of corporate development at comScore, Inc., (now the founder of vacation rental mobile app Dwellable) and ask him a few questions about consumer data and data in general.

Tim Nichols: What is the biggest mistake marketers make when purchasing and applying consumer data products?

Kirby Winfield: Not going in with a clear sense of what they’re trying to measure, and why. It’s easy to get lost in all the data when you don’t go into it with an understanding of what your marketing objective is. For example, are you trying to optimize your TRP, or are you trying to lower your cost per lead? The same data can be applied in very different fashion to achieve those distinct objectives. When you have a clear sense of purpose up front, it makes the data a lot more manageable.

Myles is head of marketing and business development at Canned Banners, a platform that automates and streamlines display ad design. I caught up with Myles on the state of display ad creative.

Tim Nichols (Exact Drive): Everyone keeps predicting the death of the banner ad, yet Canned Banners has staked its business model on making it easy to create banner ads. Why do you think there’s still opportunity there?

MY: That’s a multi-part answer. First: many display ad detractors are basing their arguments on very outdated assumptions. In 2012, they’re griping about poorly targeted, poorly conceived 90s-era banner ads. It’s like complaining about low gas mileage when all you’ve ever driven is a 1960s Cadillac. True, lots of display advertising is still stuck in the Dark Ages, but that doesn’t reflect poorly on display advertising as a channel, it reflects poorly on marketers, agencies, and ad salespeople.

“Do Not Track” supporters listen up. I’ll admit it, I can be a bit self-centered sometimes, but I’m going go out on a limb here and suggest that so are most people. I’m not the first person to say it and I won’t be the last: people are very into themselves. We like to think that the world revolves around us. Perhaps it’s a biological thing? Maybe a feature that sets us apart from other organisms on the planet? Whatever it is, this idea of us being into ourselves shouldn’t be ignored, especially when discussing online advertising and the highly debatable topic of “Do Not Track”.

The Makegood is pleased to welcome Tim Nichols as a contributor to The Makegood. Tim is the Principal Media Director at Exact Drive and has been involved with digital media and the online advertising space for nearly 10 years and has been with Exact Drive since its founding. Most recently, Tim played a key role in developing and launching Exact Drive’s Campaign Builder software, which helps clients plan and execute their Internet advertising campaigns.

Moderation in almost anything in life is advised; in many cases it should be a requirement. I’m currently in Erkheim, Germany, a lovely town about 60 minutes west of Munich. Almost anyone I share this fact with is intrigued and tells me how lucky I am to be working in Europe. In many respects they are correct, except my travel schedule hasn’t had any moderation as I have visited five countries in the last nine days and have had way too many work meetings. As a result, the quality of my current experience is being degraded due to an overload of what should be more enjoyable pastimes.

The key is moderation. A lot of buzz and discussion is constantly going around the ad industry about data, including behavioral data, first-party data, third-party data, contextual data, retargeting age, demographic data, remarketing data, and so forth. There are too many conversations about wanting to utilize more and more data and media planners just blindly applying one data layer on top of each other without actually analyzing the quality, consequence, overall worth, and return on investment (ROI) of the different data layers.

What is media planning? Today seems like as good of a day as any to open up a discussion about media planning for online advertising campaigns. Have you ever found yourself traveling in a new city, right after it has gotten dark, without a map, no money, hungry, thirsty, and no place to sleep for the night? Well, if you have had such an experience, it’s not very fun, and you probably developed a pretty skewed view of the city and your related experiences. This is because you visited the city without a proper plan and limited information and as a result you most likely had a stressful and negative experience. You could have been visiting a great city, full of wonderful potential, but without properly planning ahead of time you had a very difficult time experiencing the full potential of your environment.

This is similar to trying to write a digital media plan and execute a digital media buy without an accurate customer profile or useful customer data. You shouldn’t expect to be able to guess and estimate your way through this process and have a successful digital media buy as a result. Yes, you might be lucky a couple times, but in the long run your client will become dissatisfied and your competition will sway your client in their direction.

What do St. Paul, MN, Phoenix, AZ, Washington D.C. and Austin, TX all have in common? They all are innovative, flourishing, and rapidly growing, yes, but most importantly they all house the offices of Exact Drive, a leading online advertising and Internet marketing firm. Exact Drive is very excited about their recent expansion into Austin. As a result, Exact Drive Brings Digital Media Planning and Buying Services to Austin Texas

Austin, TX – Austin Ad Fed. Leading online advertising and Internet marketing firm Exact Drive co-sponsored an Austin Ad Fed hosted event focusing on media consumption and advertising impact. Charlie Ray of Broad Street Interactive was the guest speaker. Mr. Ray has over 15 years’ experience as a marketing strategist, product development manager, and interactive consultant. He reprised his annual State of Digital Media presentation using the latest research on media consumption and digital advertising trends from Pew Internet Research, eMarketer, comScore and others.

The presentation detailed the shift in media consumption in the United States and forecast the latest trends in digital advertising spend for 2012. It offered insightful data about the explosive growth of mobile advertising, the increasing popularity of video advertising and the importance and complexity of display advertising and Internet marketing as a whole.