B2B Video Marketing Grows Up, Getting Briefer and Garnering More Attention
The standards for B2B video marketing are rising as marketers get the hang of the hottest, no longer so new medium. Marketers are learning to keep things short and sweet, decreasing the average video length from six to four minutes from 2017 to 2018, and audiences are tuning in longer, Vidyard reports in its annual video in business report.
TrustX Takes Aim at Opaque Programmatic Trading Practices
The lack of transparency in the programmatic space has finally reached a tipping point. According to a survey on the state of programmatic media buying, conducted by Digiday, 27% of media buyers say the greatest concern they have with programmatic advertising is the lack of transparency. While many players in the space are claiming that their hands are tied, and agencies continue to push back against audits, upstart technology firms are carving out niches as leaders in the push to bring trust into programmatic advertising.
Tim Cook Demands New Commitment to Responsibility from Big Tech
With the moral and commercial high ground in clear sight, Tim Cook used the spotlight at Stanford University’s commencement ceremony Saturday to slam Big Tech peers Google, Facebook, and Twitter for failing to take responsibility for the hateful content and disinformation on their platforms.
Marketers Prepare for Father’s Day Boom
With just two days to go before the big day, brand marketers would be smart to ramp up their campaigns now. Researchers at the digital advertising platform ZypMedia discovered that shoppers purchasing gifts for Father’s Day don’t plan nearly as far in advance as they do for Christmas and other major holidays. As a result, last-minute campaigns targeting shoppers are much more likely to have a major impact.
After Foursquare Acquisition, Placed Founder David Shim Talks Teaming Up With a Major Competitor
How did a Seattle-based ad tech company move up the ranks to become an industry darling, less than eight years after its launch? And how does the new relationship between Foursquare and Placed, which was previously the biggest competitor to the company’s Foursquare Attribution product, impact the location industry at large?
To find out, we caught up with Placed founder and CEO—and now president of Foursquare—David Shim. Here are his thoughts on what it’s like to go through an acquisition, and how two industry heavyweights who’ve competed for years are finding new ways to work together.
Report: Huge Hole in Location Data Market for O2O Attribution
Good news for the whole location-based marketing industry—a new report from location data firm Factual based on a survey of location data buyers finds the field is getting more effective and better at measuring its results. Nearly 9 in 10 marketers said location data is driving more effective campaigns. Eighty-six percent said it’s growing their customer base, and 84% reported higher customer engagement.
However, while use of location-based marketing is set to grow to 94%, only 24% use it or are planning to use it to establish offline attribution.
5 Privacy-Focused Data Marketplaces
Just 27% of adults feel like they have “some control” over how their personal data is used by mobile apps and services, according to a recent survey by Mobile Ecosystem Forum. The desire to have more say over how personal data is used is leading to a new technology vertical, as next-generation data brokers put together marketplaces where consumers can offer up their own data to brands in exchange for cash and other lucrative incentives.
Here are five examples of services that consumers are using to take control of the data they share with advertisers and keep their private information private.
4 Marketing Use Cases for AR Today
Augmented reality is making the leap from hyped technology of the future to driver of cutting-edge marketing techniques today. To document the state of the field and shine a light on those use cases, the IAB released its AR marketing playbook earlier this month.
In case you’re too busy to peruse the pdf, I’ll detail the major use cases outlined in the report.
Word of Mouth Remains Vital for Loyalty in Digital Age
Pundits have speculated that loyalty is becoming less and less important as mobile and especially voice search drive the consumer toward the most convenient purchasing options. That may be true, but the report indicates loyalty remains a powerful factor, with 53% of consumers saying they are more likely to buy from a retailer they know and trust.
Retail Insights: Inside The Vitamin Shoppe’s Omnichannel Strategy
The data that The Vitamin Shoppe collects in its CRM is used to create 360-degree views of each customer so that in-store associates can see in real time when customers have earned new awards and offer more personalized product recommendations based on previous purchases.
Consumers Still Do Not Understand How Companies Use Their Data
More than one year after the implementation of GDPR in Europe and with CCPA looming, consumers still have no idea how and why companies like Google and Facebook collect their data. That’s according to a global survey by mobile marketing firm Ogury, the largest of its kind to ask consumers about their understanding of marketing and privacy.
Nearly 40% of respondents in both Europe and the US were ignorant of what GDPR is. But more significant is that 52% of consumers report not understanding how their data is used.
Allset Redefines Its Position in the Mobile Ordering Space
Standing out in the mobile ordering space isn’t easy. GrubHub, Uber Eats, Door Dash, and dozens of other mobile ordering platforms are competing for business in what’s already become a tight market. So how does an outsider break into the business, and break away from the competition?
For companies like Allset, the answer is to create entirely new services that competitors aren’t offering.
Foursquare Acquires Placed, Announces $150M in Funding
Foursquare and Placed are location tech’s new power couple.
The location intelligence firm is acquiring Placed, which had previously been bought by Snap for its top-rate online-to-offline attribution solution, and the two will offer one of the most powerful attribution solutions in the location industry, to be called Placed powered by Foursquare.
As ad tech faces tougher times and a privacy-driven crackdown on data collection and ad targeting practices, more mergers and acquisitions are likely to transform the industry’s terrain. Teaming up and stockpiling as much first-party data as possible, thereby eliminating the need for less compliant modes of data harvesting, will boost the longevity of some firms while others flounder.
SMBs Warm Up to New Tech But Are Skeptical of Impersonal Interactions
A freshly released report from SMB software firm Broadly uses data from a survey of 300 SMB leaders to paint a picture of the American SMB in 2019: gradually embracing mobile-first communication, skeptical of innovation that undercuts human connection, and ambivalent toward large digital marketplaces like Amazon and Etsy.
Visual Search Moves Beyond Experimentation and Into Prime Time
After years of experimentation and broad discussions about how visual search would someday take hold, it’s clear that the future has arrived. Visual search has moved into the mainstream, and companies like Pinterest, Instagram, and even Google are paving the way for consumers to engage more deeply with the products they find online.
As visual search moves into the mainstream, questions are intensifying over what impact the medium will have on SEO and traditional search metrics.
Google Integrates Food Delivery into Search, Maps, Assistant
More or less following the model of Reserve with Google, which has seamlessly integrated the process of reserving a table at a nearby restaurant into SERPs, Google is now integrating food delivery into search, Maps, and Assistant, keeping consumers on Google properties for the entire journey as they make transactions via third-party couriers.
As GDPR’s One-Year Anniversary Approaches, Where Are We Now?
One year in, it’s clear that the full impact of GDPR still hasn’t been felt. The regulation is structured in a way that puts less pressure on large companies than smaller businesses, and that’s something that regulators will have to continue sorting out. But the changes Europe’s law portends are undeniable: Privacy legislation is coming to the United States, and the data collection practices that made many Silicon Valley pioneers rich will never be quite so unbridled again.
5 Visual Marketing Platforms for Brands
Amazon, Alibaba, and eBay are just a few online retailers with new visual search tools, and social media platforms like Snapchat are letting users take pictures of items to buy on Amazon and Pinterest. By using enterprise-level visual marketing platforms, brands can capitalize on their visibility across the web and drive more revenue from the images and other content their customers are creating.
Here are five visual marketing platforms that brands are using right now.
Lessons to Draw from How DTC Disruptor Brands Market Themselves
DTC brands are emerging across dozens of categories. Early and best-known examples of DTC brands include Casper, Brooklinen, Warby Parker, and Tesla. Most DTC brands not only bypass the typical retail sales and distribution model but also act in other nontraditional ways. This has earned them a label as disruptors.
Advertising intelligence and sales enablement platform MediaRadar took a close look at DTC brand trends to find what’s fueling DTC advertising and to gain an understanding of how DTC companies make ad buying decisions. MediaRadar surveyed our own DTC clients and analyzed our data for deeper insights.
Consumer Dollars Are Up for Grabs—If Retailers Can Master the Basics
To maintain the business of today’s consumers, consistency is key. Just under 70% of respondents said they’re less likely to return to a store after just one subpar experience. As for what earns a shopper’s approval, only 19% of consumers said they seek out food or entertainment from stores. More important are fundamental technical capabilities like mobile app integration and access to WiFi. Two thirds of shoppers even said retailers are too focused on experimental tech and should pay more attention to the building blocks of good retail strategy.