Tag: advertising

  • E-tailers hit Hard by Changing Facebook News Feed Policy

    It’s the sign of the changing times. The digital domain is a dynamic and evolving world where nothing can be taken for granted. We had recently talked about the issue of changing Facebook News Feed Policy under the title – Facebook Starts Monitoring Promotional Pages. Now it looks like the Indian e-tailers who had until now extensively used the Facebook News Feed for promotional purposes are getting the short end of the stick.

    Though India is a developing country, the digital penetration in this part of the world is worth mentioning. Check for the latest Indian Internet users figure here which has already crossed the 250 million mark!  Facebook alone has crossed the 100 million users mark in India! This  burgeoning digital demographics here has given rise to sundry ecommerce players that are mushrooming by the day. For companies that did not have access to deep pockets or cutting-edge expertise in digital marketing, the Facebook News Feed was a fertile ground to sow their advertising seeds. But not anymore!

    Come January and the social networking giant will start monitoring overly promotional posts and desist brands from using it as a purely advertising tool. This has got the Indian ecommerce players quite chagrined. They will now have to shell out more money in order to advertise on the Facebook ad platform. But if you look at it closely, it’s not all gloom and doom!

    Your Efficiency is Your Edge

    This move from Facebook will surely separate the men from the boys of the digital marketing world. Going forward you will have to provide compelling content if you want people to like your brand or company. This will no doubt put a strain on your creative and design teams. But still it is worth the effort. If you can add value to your users on Facebook then definitely you don’t have to worry about this latest development from Facebook. It will be business as usual for you or maybe even better, since going forward Facebook will be looking to separate the contenders from the pretenders. Hence you need to equip yourself with the right set of skills in this digital war zone for more user clicks, impressions and leads.

    If you want to implement Integrated Digital Marketing, look no further and contact us now.

  • Apple iAd Expands into Programmatic Buying

    The programmatic buying bug has bitten brand Apple too. The iAd mobile advertising platform developed by Apple has finally gone the programmatic way. This platform is one of the biggest mobile ad platforms with tens of thousands of advertisers bidding on the available mobile inventory to promote their brands and businesses alike. So it was only natural that Apple resorted to programmatic buying in order to improve the speed and efficiency of the ad bidding process.

    iAd will now make more than 250,000 apps across its platform in over 100 countries accessible to the DSPs (Demand-side Platforms) and ad tech firms like MediaMath, The Trade Desk, Rubicon Project, GET IT Mobile, Accordant Media, Adelphic and AdRoll. These are just a few of the launch partner names. The network is going to expand rapidly in the days to come.

    Programmatic is the way to go when it comes to ad bidding since it reduces redundancy and improves overall efficacy of the process. Mobile is the dominant platform for advertisers to reach out to the young and aspiring demographics in any country. Apps have a preponderance over other forms of content consumption on the mobile platform. Apple brings with it phenomenal scale, high quality user experience and a unique, rich data set. This has got the advertisers quite excited.

    Key Takeaway for Digital Marketers

    With each passing day, more and more online processes are getting automatized. The ad bidding process if done manually is too cumbersome, especially if you are going to bid for tens of hundreds of ad spots and that too on a regular basis. Programmatic can help you make sense of what actually is offered to you and what are your options regarding the various ad inventories available. To learn more about the advantages of programmatic buying of ad inventory over traditional forms of buying ads, please visit the link here.

    With its move into programmatic buying, Apple has released an updated API for its automated buying platform the iAd Workbench. This new API allows the advertising fraternity to generate campaigns, make updates, access analytics and optimize bids seamlessly via their own systems. Learn more about it now at iAd Workbench API Guide.

    Has this new move from Apple got you all excited? Well, we can’t hide our excitement!

    Contact us now to get started with programmatic buying on the Apple iAd platform.

  • Apple iAd Offers Retargeting Sans Cookies

    Apple, a company that revolutionized cutting-edge gadgets is now trying to get a foothold in the lucrative mobile ads market that was hitherto dominated by industry giants like Google and Facebook. With the re-launch of iAd (Apple’s mobile ad platform), advertisers can now better target audience across the iOS mobile platform letting them have a shot at a bigger customer base. Apple for long was actively striving for cross-device ad serving and retargeting via the iAd platform without much influence. But this renewed attempt from Apple will help open the floodgates for advertising agencies cutting across industry sectors like retail, game developers, travel apps and a lot more. Thus, whenever a user is exposed to a certain ad, he/she can be tracked across the iOS platform in order to make the maximum impact.

    Apple has added audience retargeting capabilities to its mobile ad platform iAd on iOS 8. This means that digital marketers can now follow their customers across different apps and also various websites on iPhones & iPads. This way the customers will feel a greater sense of connection with the brand as advertisers make a renewed attempt at reaching out to them.

    Since cookies don’t work on mobile devices, Apple had to create a roundabout way in order to target the mobile users. They achieved this using the universal Apple Id that gives access to iTunes, iCloud, iMessage and all things Apple. This way digital marketers targeting Apple customers can get a detailed report of all the users on the mobile iOS platform helping them understand quirky user behavior to serve tailor-made ads.

    Using the Apple iOS platform you can create audience segmentation which will get updated automatically and thus you will see that you can target people in a certain segment using a unified strategy since there is a semblance of a single unit here. Now digital marketers can improve their ROI as they can send personalized messages to users depending on their past interactions with the iOS platform. Apple users spend a majority of their time on connected devices engrossed within apps. Hence no digital marketer can afford to lose such a big opportunity.

    If a particular user is at a certain level of a game he/she could be sent a targeted ad in order to encourage him/her to upgrade to the next level. If some user has abandoned an app then he/she could be encouraged to revisit that app. Thus the opportunities are many and Apple is just beginning to experiment with this new idea of tracking customers on their mobile devices where cookies seem ineffectual.

    Apple has been a late entrant in the mobile ad space or any ad space for that matter. But it is definitely hoping to take giant strides with the iAd upgrade. Looking at Apple’s history of triumphing at almost everything that it has undertaken in the recent past, it is just a matter of time before it succeeds in this venture too.

    If you are a digital marketer excited about this new advertising opportunity and would want to leverage it for your brand then please get in touch with us by clicking here.

  • Content Marketing, ROI of PPC Advertising and much more…| Best of the Week

    This week’s hot news, events and videos from the online marketing and social media world.
    Content marketing efforts
    From the Position² Blog This Week:
    Effective Ways of Measuring Your Content Marketing Efforts
    Content Marketing is gaining unparalleled traction today. This has led Digital Marketers to accord special emphasis on the quality of content being created. An effective Content Marketing strategy will give you a definitive edge. Read this incisive blog to learn more now.
    Top Stories this Week: Social Media
    Top Stories this Week: SEO, PPC and Digital Media
    Google tab manager Best of the Week Video
    Watch this insightful video that helps you effectively manage ‘tag deployment’ on your websites or mobile apps.
    White Paper: Increase Visibility for Your Content by 4x
    Today’s traditional SEO is inadequate: Ignite your search results by accelerating visibility in more places than ever before.Download this White Paper and learn:

    • SEO, why the way we know it is not enough
    • Introducing and implementing Enterprise Visibility Accelerator (EVA)
    • Using multi-channel tracking tools for effective monitoring
    • How EVA benefits businesses.

    Download the complimentary EVA White Paper now

    Know more about Enterprise Visibilty Accelerator(EVA)
    If you are reading this blog post via a RSS reader, please click here to subscribe.
  • eBay Set to Offer New In-app Mobile Advertising

    eBay Set to Offer New In-app Mobile Advertising

    The online marketplace company eBay is all set to launch an in-app advertising network giving digital marketers a new avenue to target customers on the Internet. The amount of time users spend on eBay is much higher than that spent on its competitor sites. This gives digital marketers a very compelling reason to connect with the app’s 4.6 million and burgeoning daily visitors.

    The eBay app is a hot favorite among online shoppers who are either looking for a great bargain or just doing regular shopping. Now a new feature like this from the online marketplace giant is only going to make things more exciting in the ecommerce arena. The digital marketers can at once lay their hands on information regarding the entire shopping journey of eBay users and glean useful data from it.

    eBay will allow placement of advertisements across multiple mobile devices like smartphones and tablets. The kind of customer data that is at eBay’s disposal is really humungous. Since the company’s app requires a customary log-in, all the information about the customer shopping habits are automatically saved and can later be utilized for targeted advertising. Hence, eBay need not rely on cookies but can directly track customers across varied device using first-party data.

    As a digital marketer this is a very attractive avenue for you to create targeted online ad campaigns. You can get data on customer shopping habits, their proclivities and quirky behavior. You know exactly what customers bought in the past, what they are seeking and what they would want to buy. This is an invaluable data for any digital marketer.

    The company is contemplating to launch this new feature in this year’s last quarter. In a video on eBay site, the online marketplace giant says that 40% of its sales occurred on mobile devices that contributed about $20 billion in gross merchandise volume in 2013. So whichever way you look at it the opportunity for digital marketers is too big to be ignored.

    So what do you think the new eBay in-app advertising platform holds in store for you?

  • [Infographic] Kickstarting Personalization

    Kickstarting Personalization

    Personalization. This word is being heard, rather a lot, in the industry. A lot of content is available on the same. This is why we came out with this infographic that talks about why you need personalization, its challenges and benefits, areas you can implement it and what you need to apply personalization. Check it out!

  • Twitter Offers Mobile Ads Beyond its Site and LinkedIn Shuts Polling in Groups

    Twitter’s Mobile App Install and Engagement Ads

    Post its acquisition of MoPub in 2013, Twitter is expanding its reach by selling ads in mobile apps beyond Twitter. According to Twitter’s blog, “For marketers, this means a rich, native ad unit that combines the best of Twitter Cards and Promoted Tweets. Users can easily install and engage with apps, directly from the Twitter timeline.”

    Through MoPub exchange, you can purchase ads that power mobile app installs and engagement. These apps appear on Twitter as well as thousands of apps on MoPub’s network. Currently in private beta, these ads will be available for purchase in Twitter’s ad auction. You can apply other targeting parameters offered by Twitter for these ads.
    Twitter’s Mobile App Install and Engagement Ads
    You can also participate in real-time bidding to buy mobile app installs and engagement ads programmatically through MoPub within Twitter’s ad system. The ads will appear in the form of banners, interstitials, videos and also in native formats.

    A few brands like Spotify, HotelTonight, Kabam, Deezer, SeatGeek, GREE and GetTaxi have already tested this feature in beta.

    Mobile app installs and engagement ads will work on both, Android and iOS.

    MoPub reaches more than 1 billion unique devices, which is a huge bonus for advertisers in terms of reach. With Twitter being a lead source of engagement, a wide reach can help brands in enriching user experience more.

    LinkedIn Group Polling is Shutting Down

    LinkedIn is closing the Polling feature in Groups. The announcement on its Help Center claims that this update is part of LinkedIn’s bid to build a better product suite.

    As an alternative, brands can continue to engage with fans by:

    • Posting questions to get the Group’s response
    • Sharing an update or
    • Participating in conversations directly on the LinkedIn homepage

    Though this update may not interfere with brand engagement on LinkedIn Groups overtly, it does make a difference where brands will no longer be able to engage through an organized ‘questionnaire’ format that LinkedIn Polling offered.

    Do let us know your opinion on these updates…

    Image Source: Twitter