My Interview for MarketingVoices about Influencers and Vertical Networks

I've been glad to dust off my blogging chops with this new DoubleClick blog lately, and furthering my Web 2.0 street cred, I was just interviewed for a podcast by MarketingVoices, which just went live here. The host, Jennifer Jones, focused the interview on how marketers can effectively reach word-of-mouth influencers, and in my reply I discussed three ways marketers can use blogs to do so: 1) set up a company blog (like this one) themselves, which admittedly is easier said than done well; 2) use next-generation PR tactics to reach out to bloggers in a manner that does more good than harm (again, often still a challenge to traditional-minded PR specialists), and 3) advertising on blogs.

That last point is only still just catching on among marketers, capitalizing on the benefit of the so-called "long tail" of content and ad inventory online, but in fact it may be the most effective of all three strategies, both in terms of reach and influence. For evidence on that point, I cited our research paper "Influencing the Influencers: How Online Advertising and Media Impact Word of Mouth," which concluded that influencers pay considerably more attention to web ads than non-influencers when in the purchase decision process.

As to how marketers can reach influencers through blog advertising, I talked a bit about the emerging trend of publishers forming what are known as "vertical networks" – that is, large web publishers such as Martha Stewart and Food Network reaching out to large numbers of bloggers to form niche networks of content with high-quality small publishers. This trend is really a win-win-win: the publishers extend their reach of relevant content and advertising inventory to keep pace with the rapid growth of industry spending without a huge investment in new editorial resources; marketers can effectively reach influencers in contextually targeted content areas via existing trusted partners, and bloggers can cash in on the value they are creating with their passionate content creation without having to develop expertise in ad sales. Have a listen, you might enjoy it!

Posted by Rick Bruner

Notes from the Digital Media Measurement and Pricing Summit

For the past two days, I've been the chairperson of the Strategy Institute's Digital Media Measurement and Pricing Summit. Throughout the event it was clear that measurement challenges go hand-in-hand with the increasing number of digital advertising opportunities today. In the 16 sessions of the conference, we covered topics including user generated content, social networking, paid search, in-game advertising, mobile campaigns, three types of widgets, digital signage, in-stream advertising, in-banner video, rich media advertising, podcast advertising and more.

This fragmentation is hitting agencies and marketers, which accounted for about 80% of attendees, the hardest. Their challenge is setting the right media mix across digital and traditional media. One comment on the marketing mix that really stood out is that one marketer was asked to provide a single line of pricing and measurement data to represent all their digital advertising initiatives for the company's media mix modeling analysis. The reality is that 10 or 20 lines of digital advertising data could be used.

I've noticed at the event, and day-to-day in my role at DoubleClick, that agencies and advertisers are very aware that one form of media affects the other. One attendee shared that they noticed a decrease in search results when they lowered their display spending. We do quite a bit of work in our research department to provide clients with insight into the correlation between search and display. We've also built advanced reports into DART to provide insight on topics like these. For example, our Exposure to Conversion report shows how media exposures beyond the last click or impression affect conversions. We're hoping to share some of this work at future events such as this one.

Posted by Rick Bruner

Pepperjam Shout Out

Talk about synergy! We announce a new capability, Spotlight for Rich Media, our client pepperjam blogs about it and the benefits it offers to their clients, and we blog about them blogging about us! It's the new economy!

Thanks for the mention Kat.

Posted by Ari Paparo

Attend the IAB Rich Media Measurement Guidelines Webinar

On January 23rd, the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), along with the Media Ratings Council (MRC), will be hosting a webinar that will take you through the recently released Rich Media Measurement Guidelines. DoubleClick has been heavily involved in this project from its outset and are big supporters of the IAB and their leadership role on measurement. In the webinar, George Ivie of the IAB and MRC will present learnings on the point at which rich media advertising impressions should be counted.

Webinar: IAB Rich Media Measurement Guidelines Webinar
Date: January 23rd, 2008
Time: 4:00 - 5:00 EST

This webinar is for anyone whose company hosts, sells or serves internet advertising and is especially relevant to clients of DoubleClick Rich Media, as our metrics our both IAB-compliant and MRC certified.

Posted by Ari Paparo

Announcing Spotlight for Rich Media

Today I'm happy to announce the release of Spotlight for Rich Media, a powerful new report for DART for Advertiser (DFA) clients that allows you to correlate how specific creative elements inside your DoubleClick Rich Media ads (i.e. videos, games, exit links, etc.) turn into purchases or conversion on your Web site. The report helps you answer questions like:

• How do interactions directly tie to results?
• Are users who watch the complete video more likely to come to our site later?
• Which drives more conversions, the "buy now" or "learn more" links?
• Are expanding ads worth the extra expense and creative cost?
• Does a video play change user behavior?

Starcom USA is one of the first agencies to use this reporting feature. For more information, check out the ClickZ article by Fred Aun about the report.

Posted by Ari Paparo

Spotlight on Spotlight Tags

We have a major announcement coming out Monday that's related to Spotlight tags. In light of this, I'd like to offer up some tips and tricks to using them.

• Woody Allen's advice that "80 percent of success is just showing up" applies surprisingly well to Spotlight tags. Any advertiser with the smallest direct response goal should be using Spotlight tags to gain insight into their campaign effectiveness. Advertisers should make sure that Spotlight tags are "showing up" on their Web site(s).
• The more tags the merrier. The use of multiple Spotlight tags provides more opportunities to understand how audiences respond to your campaign. An easy mistake to make is to use a single Spotlight tag to measure a single response goal, such as purchases. There's plenty of other Web site activities that indicate a response, such as visiting a specific page or filling out a form. Implement as many tags as you need to track all possible responses to a campaign.
• It's the little things that count. As a best practice, take a detailed look at Spotlight tag implementation from time-to-time. Check that the code for each Spotlight tag is at the top of the page it is coded for, but not in the tag. Don't use line breaks in the code. If you want an apples to apples comparison of one Spotlight tag to another, make sure they are setup in the same way. Make sure to setup Spotlight tags under the right advertiser in DFA. A campaign running under one advertiser can't take advantage of Spotlight tags setup under another advertiser.
• Put it to the test. DART for Advertisers makes it easy to test and monitor Spotlight tags. If DART finds an error in a tag, an error message will be displayed on the Navigation and Status bar under the Advertiser tab in DART. Be sure to check this tab after implementing new tags and on an ongoing basis to monitor existing tags.

Posted by Sally Cole