William Exchange

There are many opportunities for apps and businesses to collaborate on co-branded experiences tied to brick-and-mortar locations. TikTok, the video creation app, is looking to  monetize  its popularity, and for good reason: since its founding in 2018, TikTok has achieved  one billion downloads . It was reported recently that TikTok is testing  sponsored ads  that direct users to advertiser’s websites. This development is not surprising because TikTok has already been doing this kind of advertising in China, where the app is known as Douyin. As TikTok seeks to grow, I think it’s worth considering whether location-based services could be part of the company’s future – a path that streaming app Spotify is exploring already. But as we know from apps such as Snapchat and Pokémon GO, there are plenty more opportunities for apps and businesses to collaborate on co-branded experiences tied to brick-and-mortar locations. This is where there is real fun to be...

How does Google's local algorithm really work? What are the factors that impact your results and how do you optimize for success? It's more imperative than ever to learn which tactics really matter. The concept of “local search” has always been somewhat ambiguous in terms of how it’s defined, how it functions and who uses it. Broadly speaking, local search helps users locate nearby services or retailers based on physical location. Over the years, local search has improved with the widespread adoption of mobile devices and the ever-increasing accuracy of geolocation services. But the lines have always been blurred. For example, does the local branch or store of a national or international corporation count as a “local” provider? And now, with the advent of one-day or even same-day delivery by giants like Amazon or WalMart, is “local” even a meaningful differentiator at all? These and other issues are the subject of  The Evolving Landscape Of Local Search  panel, ta...

The North Face's agency Leo Burnett Tailor Made covertly updated Wikipedia images to make sure the brand appeared at the top of Google image search results. Last week, outdoor clothing brand The North Face and its ad agency Leo Burnett Tailor Made, came under fire after the agency updated images on Wikipedia pages for popular travel destinations. The efforts were part of a campaign to get The North Face branding at the top of Google image search results when anyone searched for the corresponding travel locations. The brand initially claimed it collaborated with Wikimedia for the SEO campaign, but later apologized for the campaign after the Wikimedia Foundation published a response saying The North Face had unethically manipulated Wikipedia and risked the trust in Wikipedia’s mission, “for a short-lived marketing stunt.” “I am actually honestly shocked this campaign ran,” said SEO consultant and podcast host Dan Shure, “I don’t know how anyone seeing it doesn’t jus...

Combining native formats, audience targeting and AI can become an effective tool for achieving conversions with display ads when combined with search campaigns. As the web’s oldest form of advertising, display ads have long been a standby for brands. However, over the last several years, consumers have grown increasingly fatigued with irrelevant and intrusive banner and popup ads, diminishing ad impact and ROI. So how do you boost the power of display ads? By combining native formats, audience targeting and artificial intelligence, display ads can become an effective tool for amplifying your brand and achieving conversions, especially when combined with search campaigns. I’ve outlined some tips and insights to help you optimize your display advertising. Blend in with native formats One of the best ways to boost the impact of your display ads (and avoid reader blindness to banner ads) is to use native digital displays. Native ads appeal to readers because they blend into ...

The brands are part of a pilot program using a distributed ledger technology platform aimed at creating greater efficiencies within the digital ad ecosystem. Nestlé, McDonald’s and Virgin Media have signed on to be part of a pilot program by JICWEBS to test whether or not blockchain technology can accurately deliver “end-to-end supply chain transparency and clarity” on digital ad spend. “Blockchain is a new technology being tested in many diverse industries. It’s great to be one of the first brands to gain insight into it potential in programmatic,” said Nestlé’s Head of Media Communications Steven Pollack. The digital advertising industry has suffered from transparency challenges since its start. From programmatic ad fraud to brand safety issues, programmatic ad buyers are left to trust a network of ad tech vendors and platforms that is difficult to track with limited oversight. By implementing a blockchain — or distributed ledger technology...

Its DSP users will have a full view of the programmatic ad environment broken down by channel, ad format and exchange. Social Media has rolled out a new tool for its DSP users to offer more transparency into the programmatic ad platform. The tool, said Verizon Media, is designed to give advertisers a comprehensive view of the programmatic landscape — showing reach and cost analysis by channel (display, CTV, DOOH, audio, etc.), ad format and exchange. It also provides forecasting insights. “With today’s announcement, we are continuing to take a leadership role, bringing our DSP customers granular omnichannel intelligence at the auction level, giving them everything they need to understand how and where to best allocate budgets,” said Verizon Media’s chief business officer Iván Markman. Why we should care ? Advertisers have long been calling for more transparency from programmatic platforms and exchanges. With this feature, media buyers see granular reach and cost ...

There are lots of moving pieces in PPC campaigns and that can make it challenging to pinpoint the cause when performance changes. An investigation into the cause of the change can either be top-down or bottom-up. Here we’ll cover both ways to investigate the root cause and we’ll also share tools that make this process faster. The difficulty with investigating PPC performance changes What makes it so hard to know why results in PPC change is that all ads run through an auction every time a search happens and every auction has different parameters — like where the searcher is located, what time it is, what else they’ve been researching, and much more. Every time the advertiser makes a change to settings, it changes how they participate in the auction and that can lead to different outcomes for the main KPIs. A few examples: The advertiser changes their bid and this causes a change in performance because their ad is now shown for a different set of queries. The advertiser enab...

Particularly when you’re talking about e-commerce websites. Simplicity has been proven to routinely yield higher conversion rates, deliver a more positive experience, and even build trust among visitors. Why? In short, calls to action become more prominent, users aren’t overwhelmed or frustrated, and there are often fewer site issues. We’re logging more hours online than ever before, so naturally, we crave digital experiences that are intuitive, visually calming and straightforward. But creating simplicity on the frontend doesn’t necessarily mean the backend infrastructure of the website is uncomplicated. Simplicity often requires greater behind-the-scenes complexity. The devil’s in the details and so is simplicity. If your website isn’t clear cut and easy to navigate, there’s not enough attention to detail going on behind the scenes. The road to attaining a minimalistic website that delivers a streamlined user experience is paved with important design considera...

Know your market It all starts with knowing your market segmentation. You should conduct an exercise (links to the templates in the image below) and define in each area which product and service is the best fit based on which problems you are trying to solve.  Besides the best fit, you should also try and figure out which users may be the worst fit for your business. We also must separate the buyer’s journey from the sales journey. Maybe people consider the two to be the same, but the journeys are completely different. The sales team is looking at their job performance and doing what is best to get users to close. The buyer is becoming aware of a problem and then researching what to buy and where to buy it from to solve their initial problem. It’s our job as marketers to figure out who the audience is, but since users’ paths can be completely different, we need to research audiences in ways that make sense for each user. Using audiences in a meaningful way As people ta...

All advertisers claim to do A/B testing and segmentation on their target audiences, but few do it right. YouTube and its TrueView video ad formats have been built to provide advertisers with unique insight into their audiences that most video-focused content marketing cannot accomplish. The problem is, most advertisers don’t take advantage of it. Instead, they end up wasting thousands of dollars on unengaged viewers. A key differentiator for TrueView is its ability to qualify an audience based on users’ continued engagement with a brand or channel. Instead of focusing on video completion rates, which don’t provide real insight into engagement, advertisers can see how users engage with their TrueView ads and learn about what keeps them interested. We’ve all seen the bevy of RFPs on the coveted millennial audience. As a whole, millennials are the top audience segment that most advertisers want to reach. However, inside of this broad age demographic is a wealth of unique a...

When it comes to online marketing, pay-per-click advertising is one of the most powerful tools you can use. Year after year, it gets easier and easier to reach your target market on Facebook Ads, Google Ads and the like. Unfortunately, with all of the features and options we now have available, it can be overwhelming to find the right way to market your business. Even on a single platform like Google Ads, you have options for manual ads, automated text ads, click-to-call ads, banner ads, video ads and much, much more. Then, throw in half-a-dozen or more additional platforms and it can simply be too much to wrap your head around. While the array of marketing opportunities at your disposal may be dizzying, most of them can be placed in one of two categories:  paid search and paid social . There are a few other options, like display ads, but since paid search and paid social are the powerhouses of PPC, we’re going to focus on them here. When you look at your PPC advertisin...