The ‘Cadillac’ of Online Video Advertising

by Alex Rowland , Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Most online video advertising today sucks. It essentially comes in two main flavors: annoying (pre-rolls) and distracting (auto-play banners and overlays). And if you look at where money is being spent in online video advertising today, it is weighted heavily toward the annoying end of the spectrum.

The good news is that brands are evolving their approach to online video and experimenting more aggressively with longer-form videos that can stand on their own. In response, a new standard is taking shape that prescribes best practices to both the creation and distribution of these videos. You could call this standard the “Cadillac” of online video advertising.

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Social Media As A Sales Tool

by Angela Hribar , Friday, February 19, 2010

Many companies are starting to experiment with social media and how it can be integrated into their overall marketing strategy to support company goals and objectives.

In addition to creating and promoting a corporate presence on various social media Web sites, it also makes sense for sales professionals to become familiar with social media, and to use it for the benefit of their business.

Getting involved in social media can offer value to sales professionals, without requiring hours of time.  In fact, there are a number of benefits to be gained by spending only minutes a week on popular social media sites such as LinkedIn and Twitter.

Take advantage of these six guidelines for engaging in social media as a sales tool: (more…)

Digital Shift in Marketing Budgets

According to a recent Econsultancy survey, conducted in association with ExactTarget of more than 1,000 marketers, the shift of marketing budgets from traditional channels to digital channels will continue to rise in 2010. 46% of companies plan to increase their marketing budgets in 2010, says the study, and 66% will increase their investments in digital marketing channels. A crosstab analysis on the changes in overall budgets compared to changes in digital budgets shows that 28% of marketers are shifting at least some of their overall marketing budgets from traditional to digital channels, says the report. (more…)

Friday Round-up: Super Bowl Controversy,

Howard Stern, and ‘American Idol’

Here’s a round-up of some of the other important stories around the web that we didn’t cover this week:

Television

• American Idol producers want Howard Stern to replace Simon Cowell next season.
• Super Bowl Focus on the Family advocacy ad raises the profile of the big game as an ad venue.
• CBS expects record ratings for Super Bowl XLIV.
• Super Bowl marketers tie ads to social media.

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Digital to Account for 24% of

Marketing Spend 2010: Econsultancy

A new report by Econsultancy and ExactTarget, Marketing Budgets 2010: Effectiveness, Measurement and Allocation, finds that digital marketing will account for 24% of overall marketing spend this year. (more…)

Will Online Video’s Ad Revenue Ever

Surpass Search Advertising’s ?

by Ashkan Karbasfrooshan , Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Ever since Google launched text ads and adopted the pay-per-click model, search revenue paved the way for online media’s growth. Today, Google generates the bulk of its $24 billion in annual revenues from search ads. In turn, search ads account for 40% of all new-media spending.

Will that ever change? It depends. EMarketer defines search ads as:

• paid listings (next to a search engine’s organic results),

• contextual text links (alongside content pages) and

• paid inclusion (in organic results).

In December 2009, eMarketer released its latest projections for U.S. online advertising, projecting search and video advertising to grow to $15.8 billion and $5.2 billion respectively by 2014.

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From Black Box to Legos:

Democratizing Behavioral Analytics

by Steve Smith , January 30, 2010

Back in the day…  Yeah, here I go again, waxing nostalgic for those early days of behavioral targeting when  someone like me found it  a lot easier to cover the field. Interview Bill Gossman at Revenue Science and Dave Morgan at Tacoda. Grab a few minutes with someone at Dow Jones or About.com  — and bam you had a feature story on that “new black art” of behavioral targeting. (more…)

 How do your open and click

rates compare?

really puts this article in perspective.

These three drivers are the forces that are changing marketing. When I look at them for commonalities, one comes to mind: in each, we have to get better at knowing the people on the other side of the transaction. We have to spend more time understanding what influences our prospects’ buying decisions, how we can participate effectively in the process and how we can help satisfy their intent. All of this depends on us getting to know our prospects better. It’s not a “market”; it’s dozens — or hundreds, thousands or millions — of individuals. And we have to learn to have conversations with each of them.

The emotional bound of marketing: Drake Morton

The Shape of Marketing: 2010 & Beyond

by Gord Hotchkiss , Thursday, December 24, 2009 (more…)