Digital Media News

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."

Despite the numerous success stories we hear from businesses using it, paid advertising continues to get shunned by many marketers and business owners. Some of the most common reasons ‘why’ include, “it’s too expensive”,or “we won’t have enough control over our campaigns”. 

The truth is online advertising has come a long way since the early days of human-based methods like phone calls, faxes andmanual insertion orders. The arrival of programmatic buying and real-time bidding has automated the buying process, placement and optimization of advertising, andput the power back in the hands of the advertiser.

DSP’s

Advertisers typically use demand-side platforms (DSP’s) to help them decide which ad impressions to buy, and for how much. For the uninitiated, a DSP is a piece of software used to purchase display, video, mobile and search ads, in an automated fashion. As more and more marketers recognize the benefits of programmatic, the number of DSP’s on the market is also increasing; leading marketers to wonder which platform they should choose. Our advice? ExactDrive of course!

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.

Lets talk about what the term frequency cap means and why it is important to set it properly for online advertising campaigns.There must be an ad that you see online all the time. It may follow you around the web as you’re browsing, or appear repeatedly in the ad breaks of your favorite online TV show. Either way, it may beamusing the first or second time, but after the seventh or tenth time, it’s just plain irritating isn’t it?

Well, it’s the same for your customers. Once they’ve seen your ad more than a certain number of times – (the rule of thumb in the online advertising community is that 3 exposures seems to be the magic number), it’s unlikely to produce any more significant measurable results, whether they’re clicks, view-throughs, conversions, or intent to buy. When you move beyond that magical number, you are basically decrease the volume of your media dollars. (Note: naturally keep in mind that I am speaking in overview general terms for most online ad campaigns and there's an exception for every rule based on unique campaign parameters.).

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?

The online advertising industry is a fast moving beast that will not wait for assumed perfection to be made before release.

ExactDrive simplifies online advertising with strategic expertise and innovative insight you can’t find anywhere else. ExactDrive’s self-serve advertising platform coupled with offered managed campaign planning, management and optimization services deliver measurable value, empowering clients to find precisely targeted audiences and generate desired results.

Q:  Please tell us a little bit about your company – what is ExactDrive all about?

ExactDrive Inc. offers a self-serve online advertising platform coupled with managed services. Difference-making online advertising campaigns require innovative strategy, leading technology, careful planning and insightful analysis. ExactDrive’s self-serve advertising platform and managed services team provides all four, making it easier for you to generate the results you want most. Our ad platform delivers online advertising solutions that make it faster and easier to reach more people who are ready to embrace your brand.

At ExactDrive, we recently reached a milestone - with 1,000 worldwide user signups for our user-friendly,online self-serve advertising platform.

We are extremely proud of our ad platform, which has been designed to make online advertising quicker, simpler and more intuitive than our competitors’ solutions, by combining strategic expertise and innovative insight, with proprietary Internet advertising tools and technologies.

In order to celebrate how far we have come, we will be putting the spotlight on some of our media and data partners over the coming months, and explaining how our collaboration with them is helping to transform the World of self-serve advertising.

In this blog post we will be focusing onour partnershipwithdisplay ad design platform, Canned Banners.

What does Canned Banners do?