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June 18th, 2015

6/18/2015

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Stop.

Clicking.

My.

Ads.

I've recently taken it upon myself to dig into the complicated landscape of programmatic digital marketing, and I wanted to share some thoughts and research that I've come across with Facebook in particular.

In short: Clicks and impressions do not matter.

The old-fashioned bidding structures of display and social media are slowly becoming obsolete. Ten years ago when someone wanted to run display advertising across a network of websites and get a guaranteed rate, the only options were impressions and clicks. For example, if I wanted to have a market standard for how much I paid for impressions (CPM), I would pay $3 for 1,000 impressions of an ad. If I wanted to pay for actual clicks, I would bid $.35 on a cost per click (CPC,) regardless of the impressions, and regardless of the actions taken afterwards. Since these methods of advertising are easy to guarantee and easy to compare amongst other ad networks, they are still used.

Why they are outdated in 2014.

Advertisers are starting to find more value in bidding on conversions and acquisition (CPA,) than they are with impressions or clicks. This CTA model is best utilized with programmatic platforms. Programmatic, for those not familiar, is the automation of bidding, ad placements and optimization of digital media. Instead of relying on humans to manually figure out and adjust where media is being displayed and how much to pay for it, most ad networks are building out programmatic platforms to automate the process. There are a couple of reasons why this is happening. The first reason is because of competition. The competitive landscape of digital advertising is exhausting, and the only way to have a competitive edge is to have superior algorithms and intelligent, automated optimization systems. The second reason is because it is proving quite difficult to relate impressions and clicks with success and ROI. Just because someone sees or clicks on an ad, doesn’t mean that they are likely to engage or purchase anything. Ads could be served to a million people, but if they aren’t the right audience, then it’s wasted advertising. Programmatic platforms are optimized for people who are likely to convert, not just click.

Why clicks and impressions don't matter:

The beauty of programmatic buying is in the way that it optimizes campaigns. Instead of trying to achieve a goal of the lowest CPM or CPC, an advertiser should be trying to focus their direct response media to very specific and measureable goals. If the goal is coupon prints or leads, programmatic platforms record and analyze unique data about people who have performed actions on your advertisements. (If you're just interested in impressions or brand awareness, then my follow up article will be for you.)

Here's an example:

A brand wants to run a Facebook campaign with the goal of coupon prints. Initially, the platform will start off with high impressions and average click-through rates to the coupon. However, a tracking pixel was placed to record the action of printing the coupon, but not to record other actions. After a large enough audience has printed these coupons, the programmatic platform compiles thousands to millions of data points from these highly engaged users, such as interests, affinities, purchase habits, and demographical information. Facebook then matches all of the unique data from these specific users to create a new audience of people who are similar to those who printed coupons. These new audiences, (called lookalike audiences) begin to receive a bulk of the advertising, instead of general interest-targeted audiences. The bidding format is called Cost Per Conversion, CPL or CPA, and is measured by the cost of media paid divided by the amount of people who printed the coupon. When this happens, impressions drop (due to a smaller, more refined audience), the cost per impression varies (because of the hyper-targeted and more qualified audiences, but also the quality and creative of the ads), click-through rates will vary (because the audience is highly qualified to print coupons, but less likely to be just "Clicky"), and total clicks will generally decrease - particularly with Facebook.



Let me explain why the clicks decrease.

Clicks decrease because fewer people are seeing the ads and media begins to avoid serving the ad to people who only like to click on things. The programmatic platform begins to serve ads to people who will print the coupons, and not the people who like to click on anything shiny. Facebook, along with other data and research companies have done many studies in regards to clicks and ROI (see image attached) and have found that clicks don't correlate to success. If you are bidding on serving ads to people for more clicks, chances are, you're wasting you or your client’s money when compared to the programmatic approach.

Some people will click on anything and are a waste of money. It's as simple as that.

If you are focused on direct-response objectives like coupon prints, email signups, registrations, purchases, downloads, or anything similar, your primary focus should be on your cost per lead, not your impressions or clicks. In another post, I'll discuss why you should separate campaigns and platforms when you have direct-response objectives as well as reach and brand-awareness objectives.



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Rapture

5/12/2014

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Picture
Time to dust these rusty blog fingers off, rattle my brain, and kick some ass. 

It's been an extremely long time since I've been on the blog wagon, and my focus has been diverted to my career and future. I believe my career is coming to a point where journalism may be influential.  

I probably should not be writing this with weary eyes, but there is far too much blending around in my head right now. Where to start? 

Atlanta. That's where I'll start. I've begun my conquest of this beautiful city, and want to throw-up every time I think about how much potential this city has. The picture you see here, is the view from my brother's condo in Midtown. It's a great view, night or day.  Stick around for part two of this blog. 

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Website idea

12/9/2011

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Something has been burning a hole in my head lately. It's sort of a morally enhancing idea. If you are reading this, then you have certainly heard of coupon websites, one day deals, and so forth. The sole purpose of those websites is to make money. In actuality, it is one of the easiest money making strategies I've ever seen. All you do is collect a huge email contact list, get a business or service to advertise on your webpage for one day (which basically costs nothing,) and BOOM, you are making half of whatever the company made off of the deal. Easy right? Well I always thought that having a website like that would be amazing for charities. Most websites do 50/50 sales split with the client running the coupon. Well I wonder how profitable a coupon website would be if the profit was split 40/40/20. The company advertising would pick the charity or foundation that the 20 percent would go to, giving them moral incentive to run a coupon. Who doesn't like helping out the needy when they need it? I said something to my Friend Tim about it and jokingly came up with the name for a website. The name was JesusTakeTheDeal.com.  Brilliant right!? It is so dang catchy. The only catch is that the website would not be a religious and churches would not benefit at all. All proceeds would go directly to a charity or foundation. Instead of helping because of religious purposes, JesusTakeTheDeal.com would be simply people helping other people. I still haven't though out the logistics too well. Anyways, I am going to ponder this idea and maybe photoshop something for my entertainment. 
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Ode to Spanksgiving.

11/28/2011

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Has everyone come out of their food comas from Thanksgiving yet? I would not care if I never saw another piece of turkey again. Why do people make such a big deal about turkey anyways? Pork is FAR better.. Now that I've gorged myself on countless casserole leftovers, all that remains is a piece of chocolate cake and maybe some eggnog. This previous weekend was reminiscent of the tornado we had this year when the power went out for a week. Every relative, friend, and neighbor had cookouts and grilled copious amounts of meat and stews. Benjamin Franklin would not be proud of us, as the first of his thirteen virtues is temperance. Temperance calls for avoidance of overindulgence of food or drink. HA, we missed that one by a long shot. I think he may have as well.... 

Anyways, to get to my creative juices... Hang on, a good song just came on, I have to dance for a minute. Just in case your ears are curious, I put the music video at the end of this blog. 



Ok back to business. So this most recent turkey day I started thinking about why everyone cooks the same boring stuff every year. Maybe I'm just difficult (well I know I am,) but why don't people come up new stuff each year?   Every     Single   Year     the menu and recipes are the same except the occasional great aunt mystery casserole. Everybody loves casserole, and better yet, it provides a fully nutritional balanced meal. I want to have a casserole cook-off. Wouldn't that be fun? Why yes it would Stephen. Thank you, I thought you would like that. Now, of course I have to have a chili cook-off because that was the first cook-off idea, but casserole only seems like the next best thing. The possibilities are endless. But what else do people, food, and contests scream out? Eating contest! Hurray for gluttony! I've always wanted to be in a competitive eating contest. I'm sure you've thought the same thing. Maybe, we should have a casserole eating contest, pound for pound. I need to think more upon this subject.... and perhaps follow Ben's second virtue - Silence. 
Feel free to leave a comment or give me your ideas! 

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Resumes suck

11/17/2011

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After what seems like ages, I finally updated my resume. It kind of seems pointless to try and reproduce what I want to say and do into one page of text. Employers read through tons of resumes with no comprehension of what a person is actually like. If I was needing to fill a marketing/sales job, then I would hold an open invitation for anyone to come into my place of work and set up a meeting. It seems like people are getting lazy and just ask for you to send them a resume and cover letter. Doesn't that seem generic? Eighty-five percent of whether a person gets the job or not depends on the first interview, so why not just invite them in to speak with them in the first place. I would rather walk into someones office and tell them with my eyes what my intentions and goals are. Obviously resumes are for the sole purpose of trimming the fat on applications, but there has to be a better way. 
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Exodus.

11/1/2011

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Since yesterday was Halloween, I feel it only appropriate to carve and idea out of this annual spooky day. Hmmm... let me think. Ok, how about this. I saw a girl (7 or 8) with a dress on and a green face. When I opened the door with my Darth Vader mask on, I clicked the button on the controller and it did the "heavy breathing" that Lord Vader does in the movies. This cute little girl said "I love the sound that makes." I laughed and asked her what she was. She said "I'm a witch with a green face!" All I could think of was that she was too cute to be a witch. 
Hold on- there it is! An idea, that is. 
So, What is the only day of the year that people are willing to open their door to strangers? HALLOWEEN of course. What is the second reason people are willing to open their door throughout the year you ask? GIRL SCOUT COOKIES! 
Now, I know you're thinking "where is he going with this?" Bare with me for a minute. I have two trains of thought for this. The first idea, which is a kind of a marketing idea, I'll get back to. 
IDEA 2: How funny would a girl scout costume be paired with a costume of a box of thin mints? Why didn't I think of this before Halloween?  Oh well, there is always next year. Ok, back to the first idea. 
IDEA 1: If I did marketing/advertising for Girl Scouts, I would make Halloween the biggest selling day of the year. Firstly, the couple of days before H-day, people are out buying candy. Lots of candy. So, I would think about a few things. First of all, why doesn't Girl Scout have a store based cookie line that served cookies all year-round? People would buy the bejeezus out of it. I would even buy little mini-thin mints in a bag. I would start trick or treating again if thin mints were thrown into my cheap plastic pumpkin bucket. Also, wouldn't it be great if Girl Scouts put up cookie stands around town  for a couple of days? The money would flow like Fabio's hair. 
But before I go too deep into their cookie production on a store level, let's talk about door-to-door here for a minute. Where the *expletive have you been, Girl Scouts? I need some cookies! How many people turn down little girls trying to sell cookies???
NOBODY opens the door and doesn't buy cookies. So who is stopping Girl Scouts of America from selling on October 31st? Think about it. There is millions of people waiting on little kids to come to their door to give candy to. What a PERFECT opportunity to buy Girl Scout cookies. I would wait for those little brats by the door every year to buy some cookies. It would be like I was 20 years younger waiting on Santa to bring me a shiny new bicycle. It makes perfect sense. Girl Scouts could revolutionize their business. It is a perfect marriage of spOOky and cOOkie. God, I could market the hell out of it. It would be like taking candy from a baby. Well it would actually be more like giving candy to a baby and buying cookies from them too....but you catch my drift. You can tell who is home by their lights and decorations usually, so you could skip all the other houses- helping out with efficiency. 
Anyways. I wish I could elaborate further, but I need to sleep. Feel free to leave comments/questions. I'll have something up new pretty soon. 
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Genesis.

11/1/2011

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Alright. Bing,bong,boom. Here we go. I honestly do not want to do this right now (5 am), but I shall entertain the both of us anyways. Since I just created this page, I feel obliged to feed it something. Speaking of feeding... I could use a slice of pizza right now. Ok, do not get distracted. I feel like as if this page should be dedicated to ideas. Anything positive, proactive, and intuitive. My goal here is to focus on improving efficiency. Granted they are just ideas, but maybe we will find something useful out of this. 
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    A great man teaches ideas, not rules. 

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