ByKeith Trivitt | Director, Marketing and Communications
The 2013 Online Marketing Summit is next week, and MediaWhiz, along with our SEO team, TLA, will be right in the thick of the show. If you’re in San Diego for the show (Feb. 11-13 at the San Diego Convention Center), be sure to visit booth #305 to chat with us about performance and search marketing, as well as SEO and content marketing. Several of our SEO and search marketing experts will be on site to discuss best practices for improving your SEO and search marketing campaigns.
Time/Date: 3-3:45 p.m. PST, Tuesday, February 12, 2013 Location: Room 29D, San Diego Convention Center
Session Description
It’s no longer enough to have great SEO for your website. In today’s Google-controlled era of search engine marketing, brands need great content that is engaging, informative and shareable to rank well and
generate leads. Join Daryl Colwell to learn about his best practices and techniques to increase your brand’s search engine visibility through content marketing. Session attendees will be given several examples and case studies of brands that have gone from ranking on page three to page one purely from professional-quality content marketing that they produce. You’ll come away from this session with a top-10 list of content marketing best practices that the pros use.
Must-Have Information MediaWhiz will be exhibiting at OMS San Diego, Feb. 11-13.
Meet us at booth #305.
Contact Keith Trivitt for more information or to schedule a meeting with us at the show.
What to Do in San Diego San Diego is one of America’s most beautiful cities. It’s perfect mix of Pacific Ocean breezes, sunny days and laid-back atmosphere make it a perennial contender as one of America’s top tourist destinations. And there is plenty to do for free. Here are some resources for great activities you can take part in while you’re visiting San Diego during OMS:
One of the hottest trends in online marketing is native advertising. While not necessarily a new concept — the relatively old-school advertorial has been around for decades — it has seen a resurgence in the current content marketing era. Recent examples of native advertising can be seen with Google’s paid search results, YouTube’s sponsored videos and, to a lesser extent, trending topics on Twitter.
Content marketing has led to innovative forms of online advertising. With the online user experience key to a successful marketing campaign, this non-disruptive form of online advertising will continue to capture marketers’ addition — and advertising dollars — in 2013.
Native Advertising: The Basics
Native advertising is considered one of the newest forms of online marketing.
According to a September 2012 article in Mashable, the term didn’t take root until famed start-up investor Fred Wilson told an audience at OMMA Global in early 2012 about “native monetization” for Web properties, which he described as ads that were “unique and native to the experience” of a website.
Dan Greenberg, the CEO of Sharethrough, is credited with coining the actual term “native advertising.” Here’s Greenberg’s definition: “Native advertising is a form of media that’s built into the actual visual design and where the ads are part of the content.”
What separates native advertising from the equally hot trend of content marketing is a matter of debate. John LoGioco, SVP and general manager of content at Outbrain, recently told Mashable that the two are pretty much the same. “Native advertising seems to be the thing that most are able to hang on to and get it.”
What Makes for Great Native Ads
At its best, native advertising blends seamlessly with the editorial content of a website while providing content that is valuable to the target audience. Below is an example of native advertising on Twitter.
Editor’s note: “Around the MediaWhiz Nation” is a regular editorial series in which MediaWhiz employees from across the country discuss the intricacies of their work.
Name: Maria Loreto Title: Media Planner Office: New York University: Pace University College Major: Marketing with a Concentration in Advertising
Prior to joining MediaWhiz full time in 2012 as a media planner you were an intern in the company’s Display Advertising unit. What attracted you most about the internship opportunity with MediaWhiz? I liked that the internship post looked like an actual job posting with real tasks and job responsibilities. Most importantly, though, I wanted to get into the digital marketing field. All of my previous internship experiences revolved around digital PR, which is something I didn’t want to pursue. The internship with MediaWhiz was an opportunity for me to get into the digital marketing field.
What was your first day like at MediaWhiz? It was great! Usually when you come in on the first day [of an internship] there is nothing for you to do, but our previous display media strategist booked a conference room and gave me a three-hour class on display advertising, MediaWhiz and Hyper Marketing Inc. He also trained me on Mediaplex MOJO, which is our ad server. That training served me well because that is what I use every day; it’s my bread and butter.
What type of goals did you set for yourself before starting the internship? When I came in for the interview I realized how little I knew about display advertising. So, one of my goals was to learn as much as possible about display advertising.
Do you believe your goals have been met? Definitely. I started at MediaWhiz as an intern and now I manage my own display campaigns as a full-time employee.
How was the school-work balance for you? It actually wasn’t bad. I had multiple internships throughout college, but this one was different because I took it in the summer right after I graduated, so that allowed me to join MediaWhiz as more than a normal college-based intern.
What do you feel was the best thing about the MediaWhiz internship? The training. The training I received during was exceptional. It was exceptional enough for there to be no problem when I started as a full-time employee.
Would you recommend this internship to someone who was in the same major as you? I was a marketing major, which can be pretty broad. Most people want to get into marketing and PR, but if you’re interested in digital marketing I would definitely recommend an internship at MediaWhiz.
MediaWhiz’s leaders are continually sought after as resources for opinions, advice and expertise, based on our deep understanding of industry trends, the needs of our customers and the broader marketplace in which we operate.
For the week of Nov. 12-16, 2012, MediaWhiz experts were quoted or featured on a variety of digital media news and trends, including online lead-generation in the post-PC era; extolling the role and value of affiliate marketing; best practices for online lead conversion; and what it’s like to be a digital media buyer. | Read previous MediaWhiz In the News posts.
Ori Carmel, VP of performance strategy, MediaWhiz To understand the impact of mobile on the lead-gen industry, and online marketing as a whole, marketers should look toward the developing countries in Africa and Central and South America. There they will find the future of mobile lead generation and e-commerce.
Lacking infrastructure, entire regions in the developing world have leapfrogged the PC era. People in these regions rely on mobile technology to operate and streamline many aspects of everyday life, including business interactions, regardless of how large or small those businesses are. At the click of a button individuals can conduct their entire business cycle, including acquiring new customers and solidifying existing ones through mobile-optimized e-commerce and lead-gen platforms.
For the lead-gen world, the implications are massive. As the U.S. transitions to the complete mobilization and personalization of both information and access, potential and existing consumers can now be reached at any time, in any place. This ongoing shift, which is only speeding up, is changing consumption patterns of information and purchasing right before our eyes. Marketers can gather more precise and relevant information to better tailor offers to behavioral and demographic profiles. Brands can pinpoint the exact moment at which the potential client is most receptive to signing up or converting.
Furthermore, with increasing resources going toward tailoring brands’ mobile presences and usability, consumers continually grow accustomed and now expect to be able to gather info, sign up and transact online. As a result, consumers are more receptive than ever to being targeted for intelligent, value-driven offers and opportunities on their mobile devices.
The future of PC usage in the U.S., or anywhere else for that matter, is far from obsolete. However, it is certainly past the growth stages of its life cycle.
Rodney Dangerfield would have loved affiliate marketing. It gets no respect, at least not from CMOs and senior marketers.
Long considered the ugly stepchild of digital marketing, affiliate marketing has grown to become one of the leading drivers of brands’ online marketing success. It accounts for more than $21 billion in online advertising revenues in 2011, according to the IAB.
Thankfully, this lack of respect is starting to change. Marketers are taking notice — affiliate marketing is a powerful force in brands’ online marketing strategies. Read more …
Welcome to The Friday Five, curated reads about marketing, advertising and digital media from the team at @MediaWhizLLC. Read previous Friday Five posts here.
The New Algorithm of Web Marketing | The New York Times In digital advertising, that formula is being increasingly tested by fast-paced, algorithmic bidding systems that target individual consumers rather than the aggregate audience publishers serve up. In the world of “programmatic buying” technologies, context matters less than tracking those consumers wherever they go.
The Original Social Networker? Your Insurance Agent| Advertising Age Here’s an interesting thought: your insurance agent may be the most natural social networker you know. Why not? As this Advertising Age op-ed notes, insurance agents were educating clients, investing in long-term relationships and growing their businesses through word-of-mouth referrals long before social, mobile and digital technologies existed.
Online Marketing At The Crossroads Of Nature And Nurture| CMO.com I’m sure you have been a party to animated debates about nature vs. nurture in the context of psychology. But how about as it relates to customer behavior and marketing? Nature, as I understand it, is the behavior that occurs without coaching. Nurture equates to behaviors that are learned. As marketers, our work falls somewhere between these two–understanding natural shifts in consumer behavior and shaping behaviors to achieve our end goal: engaging and selling to consumers. (more…)
Programmatic buying and premium display advertising were a big a topic of discussion this week at MediaPost’s OMMA Premium Display conference. Keith Trivitt, director of marketing and communications at MediaWhiz, moderated a panel, “Battling The Transformers – Can Media Maintain Its Value Against The New Ad Machine?” which focused on the state of premium display advertising among high-end publishers.
The panel was stacked with an all-star cast of speakers, including:
Andrew Sollinger, Managing Director, The Americas, Financial Times
Premium display advertising is clearly helping publishers and advertisers adapt to their customers’ needs.
Programmatic buying will not be completely eliminated from a company’s budget.
The appropriate balance must be found between publishers using programmatic buying to sell their low-end display inventory and meeting the high end of the premium online advertising market.
According to the Andrew Sollinger, managing director, The Americas, of the Financial Times, the biggest issue for publishers will be “moving [advertisers] from programmatic to premium.”
Although ad exchanges and networks are beneficial to high-end publishers, the best way to keep advertisers happy it to focus on what they want; and what they want is premium display advertising that is designed with value to the consumer in mind.
High-end publishers and brands continue to value premium display advertising, even as the sector gets squeezed at the margins.
Here’s a recap of what was a spirited 45-minute discussion about premium display advertising.
Programmatic Buying: Friend or Foe?
While all panelists agreed that programmatic buying is an important, if not vital, aspect of the business, they differed on its impact on the value of premium display advertising. “Custom premium is here to stay,” noted the FT’s Sollinger.
Through the discussion the point being driven is that premium display advertising is focused on the consumer and provides content that both consumers and advertisers want. “Premium display starts with the consumer or it won’t work. Ad experience needs to be built around the customer,” according to Katerine Kulik, global senior vice president of media sales at CBS Interactive’.
