Good morning, marketers! We hope you all had a nice weekend and are surviving the heat. Here is our roundup of performance marketing and digital marketing industry news, reports and insights to get your week started (hopefully from an air conditioned office).
Bloggers and digital influencers are reshaping the fashion and beauty landscape
Welcome to the new influencers: digital natives who post, snap and tweet to their hundreds of thousands or even millions of followers — who then rush out and buy the products they recommend. Gone are the days when women took their beauty tips mainly from fashion and beauty magazines. In the digital age, those titles — and their editors — are quickly becoming almost irrelevant, not only to consumers but to the brands themselves. Bloggers’ followers trust them, said nearly every person interviewed for a Los Angeles Times story, and as long as sponsored posts are clearly labeled as such, an influencer’s individuality and authentic voice allows them to connect to readers in a way that magazines are struggling to do.
Pinterest is changing the way it sells ads
As reported on AdAge, Pinterest is changing the way it sells CPM campaigns, as marketers will now be able to bid on inventory through an auction process. Previously, CPMs — or cost per thousand impressions — were only available on a fixed-priced basis. Meanwhile, the company also added that marketers can now add frequency capping, which will allow them to specify the maximum number of times a person can see their campaign. Home Depot, JCPenney and General Mills had been testing the new model prior to today’s rollout, according to Pinterest.
What will it take to tip the balance to the app opportunity?
The web may not be dead, as a famous Wired cover once put it, but on mobile it is certainly fighting for a survival with users spending 90% of their online time within applications. Programmatic ad spend is predicted to jump to $22 billion, driven chiefly by in-app advertising. Yet on exchanges, 70% to 85% of all programmatic ads are going to the mobile web, eMarketer analyst Catherine Boyle reported at a recent conference. In an app-led environment, why is the mobile web seemingly still prime for advertisers? In an AdExchanger op-ed, Gilad Amitai, chief operating officer at Ubimo discusses the imbalance between mobile browser and in-app advertising.
Best practices: how to use apps to drive loyalty and revenue
According to Tom Fishburne, “the best marketing doesn’t feel like marketing.” This week in AdAge, Elad Natanson explores how some of the most adept companies are using non-traditional avenues for the best and most effective marketing strategies. The best brands pair tried-and-true marketing strategies with cutting-edge app innovation to engage consumers like never before, bringing a high level of engagement and good old-fashioned buzz. Starbucks, Nike and Sephora are brand innovators that use branded apps as a platform for connection, brand loyalty and most importantly, to create a unique and exciting consumer experience.
IAB overhauls attribution, releases new primer
As reported on MediaPost, The Interactive Advertising Bureau’s (IAB) Advanced Attribution Working Group, part of the IAB Performance Committee, on Thursday announced an overhaul of its Attribution Primer. The Committee and Working Group are responsible for examining best practices on campaign development, digital insights, measurement, and attribution — beyond the last click. Benjamin Dick, director, industry initiatives, IAB, said: “Media and marketing technologies have evolved rapidly over the past few years, but too many ad buyers continue to rely on last-touch attribution approaches, which runs in the face of both common sense and market research.”
And something fun in the ever-evolving digital ad ecosystem…
New digital billboards can watch your speed, scan your car at traffic lights
Besides radio, one of the most effective ways for advertisers to connect with motorists is via billboards. And now, billboards are being connected with cars and even with the flow of traffic. The traffic data company Inrix, for example, recently debuted what’s known as a digital Out-of-Home advertising (aka billboard) technology for Dannon drinkable yogurt that adjusts based on the average speed on a given roadway. While digital billboards that vary with traffic flow are not new, this is the first time that a roadside ad has been able to change up to four times based on travel speeds. Read about the entire innovative campaign on Forbes.