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.
ByKeith Trivitt | Director, Marketing and Communications
At MediaWhiz, we’re proud of the stellar reputation of MonetizeIt, our affiliate network. Perennially ranked as one of the top cost-per-acquisition (CPA) networks in the world, MonetizeIt delivers consistent, accountable leads and sales for brands.
It’s for this reason that the publication of the annual Online Advertising BLUE BOOK, published by Revenue Performance magazine, is a highlight of the year for us. While it’s one thing for those of us who work at MediaWhiz to be proud of MonetizeIt and recognize its value in the marketplace, it’s quite another when our industry peers do so as well.
The recent unveiling of the 2013 CPA network rankings marked another milestone for MediaWhiz. Our No. 5 ranking marked the fourth-straight year that we have been rated among the top-20 affiliate networks and the second-straight year we have been in the top-5.
Peter Klein, senior vice president of media services, sent the following note to MediaWhiz staff to address this year’s rankings.
Team,
The 2013 Blue Book Top-20 Networks rankings have been released. I’m proud to inform you that MediaWhiz ranks No. 5, retaining its status as one of the world’s top affiliate networks. This is the second-straight year MediaWhiz has ranked in the top-5 and the fourth-straight year ranked in the top-20.
By Keith Trivitt | Director, Marketing and Communications
The release this week of a major report on the growth of the online performance marketing (OPM) industry in the United Kingdom represents a seminal moment for this young industry. The facts and figures it provides are evidence enough that performance marketing is here to stay; that it is a mature, growing online marketing channel that provides significant value to advertisers and publishers.
As Chris Johnson of A4U details in an excellent analysis of the IAB / PwC OPM study, the affiliate marketing industry in the U.K. has been valued (alongside lead generation) as a £9 billion ($1.43 billion) revenue generating industry.
Key Highlights
There are c. 3,000-4,000 advertisers and c. 10,000 publishers actively engaged in Online Performance Marketing in the U.K. (in this instance — Affiliate & Lead Generation).
Advertisers expected to spend (through commissions, management fees, bonuses and other marketing spend) £814 million on Online Performance Marketing in 2012, generating c. £9 billion of sales for advertisers.
This spend was achieved through at least c.100 million transactions and an additional c. 70 million leads generated.
This is equivalent for c. 7-9% of U.K. digital marketing spend, and drives c. 5-6% of retail e-commerce in the U.K.
The largest end-sectors include Finance, Retail, Telecoms & Media, Travel & Leisure.
Market growth of c. 14% p.a (2008-11) and c. 7% p.a in 2012 (expected).
Cashback, voucher, loyalty and price comparison websites are the leading publisher types.
Sites designed specifically for mobile and tablet account for c. 4-5% of advertiser spend on Online Performance Marketing. (more…)
With the holiday marketing season closing, many performance marketers have already turned their attention to 2013. Inevitably, their thoughts turn to what they should do to finish the current year on a strong note and ensure the new year is an equal success. Here’s a checklist of what you should do:
Finish Q4 2012strong. Lead-generation marketers must ensure their budgets have enough leeway to meet seasonal offers for the holidays. The holidays are the best-performing season for cash-advance offers. It’s important to keep existing clients happy, as they will undoubtedly present additional budgets at the last minute. Lead-gen marketers need to do their best to meet clients’ year-end demands to ensure inclusion in advertisers’ 2013 budgets.
Assessstaff and optimize processes. As the year closes, and more people tend to take time off, now is the time to ensure your org chart and process are maximized. If you are able to move the business forward without some of your employees, then you need to cut ties or upgrade their positions. If you can’t succeed and are inundated with tactical maneuvers, then it’s time to get job specs together for the positions you need and seek out the right staffing level. (more…)
Editor’s note: This is the second post in a two-part series on predictions in performance marketing in 2013.
In my last column, I offered my 2013 predictions for companies in the performance marketing industry and potential new regulations. This column addresses predictions for performance marketing media channels in the new year, as well as how certain vertical markets will fare.
Media Channels Given all the opportunities and challenges, it will be critical for the performance marketing community to help educate and drive media-channel-specific results for clients.
Perhaps the easiest growth prediction is that mobile marketing will become a much larger piece of the advertising market. eMarketer forecasts 138 million mobile phone users in the United States in 2013, or 43 percent of the total U.S. population. That number will increase by 20 million users per year through 2016, reaching almost 200 million Americans (74 percent of the U.S. population). It will be critical for advertisers to optimize websites and lead-generation forms for mobile devices.
Agencies will continue to focus on branding and awareness for their clients in the digital space. This will mean the farming out of more performance marketing budgets to trusted networks. (more…)
Editor’s note: This is the first post in a two-part series on predictions in performance marketing in 2013.
The performance marketing industry has undergone massive changes in 2012.
The list of challenges the industry weathered over the past year is long and varied. It includes news of several long-standing affiliate networks going out of business; email delivery getting more difficult; Facebook and Google all but banning affiliate marketing; the federal government becoming more involved in the cash advance and “for-profit” education verticals; the rise of real-time bidding (RTB); data management platforms (DMPs) becoming critical in display advertising; and mobile marketing efforts gaining prevalence among marketers’ digital strategies.
While performance marketers shift priorities and tactics on the fly, the good news is that money continues to pour into performance marketing for its scalability, ROI focus and measurable results.
With all that in mind, 2013 looks to be a significant growth year for the companies that continue to survive in performance marketing. Further advancing the industry’s prospects will be the increasing influence of Online Darwinism — a term I coined to describe the natural evolution of the performance marketing industry, particularly its ability to rid itself of rogue marketers and agencies. (more…)
The performance marketing industry continues to grow. And with that growth comes significant opportunities — and challenges — for digital marketers looking to tap into performance marketing’s core strengths: data, technology and accountable results. Recently, I sat down with Peter Klein, MediaWhiz’s senior vice president of media services and head of MonetizeIt, the agency’s affiliate network, to discuss the state of performance marketing and his predictions for the industry’s future.
You can read a full transcript of the interview here.
It’s not much of a stretch to state that performance marketing is the future of online marketing. The 2012 IAB Internet Advertising Revenue Report indicates that more than two-thirds of all marketing transactions will be paid for on a performance basis. Total U.S. spend on performance marketing will grow by almost $5 billion, to $25 billion in online advertising revenue, versus 2011 spend.
Peter Klein, who is head of MonetizeIt, the MediaWhiz affiliate network, has been in performance marketing since the early days of the industry. With nearly 20 years of experience, he has seen the industry grow into one of the most highly demanded forms of marketing. In addition to his duties running MonetizeIt, Klein also oversees MediaWhiz’s AdNet Display Advertising and Data Acquisition divisions.
He recently sat down with us and discussed the state of performance marketing and how they can help your business more profitably engage, acquire and retain customers.
Sultan Riaz: Let’s start with the basics: What is affiliate marketing? Peter Klein:Affiliate marketing is a type of performance marketing that involves advertisers, publishers and an affiliate network. An advertiser is typically a direct response client/brand that has a product that they want to sell or generate leads for. The publisher, also known as an affiliate, is the one that actually conducts the marketing via the media channel they specialize in. The affiliate resides between the two entities. It acts as everything from operations, compliance, technology, tracking and media planner.
The three marry together nicely to form a kind of performance marketing ecosystem where everybody shares in the profits and work towards driving marketing results (more…)
Daryl Colwell, VP of Business Development, MediaWhiz
The holiday shopping season is officially here and plenty of businesses have taken advantage of the shopping frenzy. With holiday online retail sales expected to reach around $80 billion, companies developing and promoting their lead-generation campaigns before the holiday season have benefited greatly. If your business has not taken advantage of lead generation yet, there is still some time left.
Daryl Colwell, (@DHColwell) vice president of business development at MediaWhiz, gives a few tips for those who haven’t yet taken advantage of the holiday season with lead generation and its rewarding benefits. Click here to watch a video snippet of this interview.
Sultan Riaz:In a recent article in DMConfidential, you mention that marketers need to be ahead of the of competition and promote their brands and offers before Thanksgiving. What advice would you give a company that has waited until now to advertise/market their product/service online? Is it too late for brands to start lead-gen campaigns focused on the holidays?
Daryl Colwell: Get busy! Start working some long hours. Most companies spend plenty of time developing their creative message, media strategy and negotiating their buys long before Thanksgiving. When Thanksgiving arrives they hit the ground running with their Black Friday and Cyber Monday splashes. If you haven’t done it, it’s not too late! There is still some time before Christmas, but now is the time to work on it.
SR: How big of a role does lead generation play when it comes to brands’ holiday marketing campaigns? DC: Lead gen plays a big role. The key, however, is not what you do during the holiday season; it’s what you do before that. Your company’s best asset, when it comes to marketing, is your in-house list. As the marketer, if you have been diligent in acquiring names, as well as messaging customers with relevant content, relevant offers and keeping them engaged with your brand, your customer will be that much more engaged when they do get that holiday splash offer. (more…)
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. 26-30, 2012, MediaWhiz experts were quoted or featured on a variety of digital media news and trends, including Peter Klein’s predictions for Performance Marketing in 2013; what lead-gen marketers must do in 2013; the success of the click-to-call campaign for MediaWhiz; and what marketers are thankful for in 2012 | Read previous MediaWhiz In the News posts.
DMConfidential | Nov. 28, 2012 | Op-Ed by Peter Klein
The performance marketing industry has undergone massive changes in 2012.
The list of challenges the industry weathered over the past year is long and varied. It includes news of several long-standing affiliate networks going out of business; email delivery getting more difficult; Facebook and Google all but banning affiliate marketing; the federal government becoming more involved in the cash advance and “for-profit” education verticals; the rise of real-time bidding (RTB); data management platforms (DMPs) becoming critical in display advertising; and mobile marketing efforts gaining prevalence among marketers’ digital strategies.
While performance marketers shift priorities and tactics on the fly, the good news is that money continues to pour into performance marketing for its scalability, ROI focus and measurable results.
MediaWhiz, a leading integrated digital media agency, today released results from the first six months of managing clients’ click-to-call campaigns in partnership with RingRevenue. Total calls into MonetizeIt, the MediaWhiz affiliate network, nearly quadrupled from the second to third quarters of 2012 as a result of the integration of RingRevenue’s patented call performance-marketing technology. Calls driven through the network increased 64 percent during that time period.
Search Engine Journal | Nov. 27, 2012 | Op-Ed by Marc Purtell
The key to remaining competitive in organic search is to always be two steps ahead of the search engines. Given the frequency and impact of search engine algorithm updates, those who don’t consider the long-term effects of their optimization efforts are subject to pitfalls similar to those many brands experienced after Google’s Panda and Penguin updates of 2012.
Part of the puzzle of predicting the future of search engines will take with respect to changes to their search algorithms is first understanding their goals and aligning them with the goals of any brand’s SEO campaign. Google’s mission is to provide users with the most relevant and useful information relevant to a user’s search. Therefore, in order to maintain organic performance, a brand’s content plan must take similar aim.
DMConfidential | Nov. 26, 2012 | Featuring Peter Klein
Holiday offers Just as consumers should be doing, marketers should be budgeting for the holidays. More specifically, they should be planning on ways to capitalize on the festive season by having enough money in their budgets for seasonal offers to their clients, according to Peter Klein, senior vice president of media services at MediaWhiz.
“Lead-generation marketers must ensure their budgets have enough leeway to meet seasonal offers for the holidays,” he says. “The holidays are the best-performing season for cash-advance offers. It’s important to keep existing clients happy, as they will undoubtedly present additional budgets to hit for year at the last minute. Lead-gen marketers need to do their best to meet clients’ year-end demands to ensure inclusion in advertisers’ 2013 budgets.”
Plan and set goals Part of closing one year is planning for the next, so it’s only logical for lead-generation marketers to do likewise. But how should they go about this? “Review your financial projections for 2012 and plan realistic goals, month-by-month, for 2013,” Klein says. “Once the numbers are planned, it’s critical to outline how you plan on hitting these numbers, such as staffing, advertisers and potentially acquisitions.”
He adds that the first quarter requires special attention, given the slow start that’s likely to come thanks to New Year’s Eve/Day and conferences. “There are good offers to take advantage of, such as tax season and auto insurance, to help offset some of the slowness and set the proper tone for 2013,” Klein says.
Review org charts and processes The end of the year is when people tend to take time off – it’s also a good time to take a sober look at your org chart and processes, according to Klein.
“If you are able to move the business forward without some of your employees, then you need to cut ties or upgrade their positions,” he says. “If you can’t succeed and are inundated with tactical maneuvers, then it’s time to get job specs together for the positions you need and seek out the right staffing level.”
As marketers ensure that org charts include positions, descriptions and an ideal model, they should also make sure that all processes are running smoothly. “Whether it is establishing weekly meeting agendas, sales processes, offers setup or just basic document storage, the quieter, post-holiday weeks at year-end are the time to go through everything in preparation for a successful 2013,” Klein says. He adds that marketers don’t even need to be in the office to carry out these kinds of audits.
DMConfidential | Nov. 21, 2012 | Featuring Peter Klein
Peter Klein, senior vice president of media services atMediaWhiz:
“I’m thankful for a dedicated, hardworking team that has continued to drive client results despite many challenges this year in our space — from Yahoo in email, to Google in search and Facebook in social media, among many others. I’m also thankful for the industry making significant positive progress in lead quality via great monitoring services, such as CPA Detective, in addition to the stellar self-regulation efforts from industry leaders and organizations like the Performance Marketing Association. I’m most grateful for the advertisers that see the value in paying for performance vs. branding, which is contributing to the growth of performance marketing by billions of dollars each year.”
