By Adam Carroll, Senior Marketing Strategist

It was not long ago that display advertising, in the form of banner ads, was becoming the dinosaur of online marketing. Declining click through rates and poor brand engagement meant that marketers were allocating their budget to more effective online channels. However, in the last couple of years key developments in targeting technology and media buying platforms have significantly boosted the effectiveness of display advertising.

At the forefront of these advancements is the concept of ‘Audience Centric Buying’. To understand why this new approach is such an important development in online advertising it is important to understand the existing model for buying ad units online:

Typically the editorial environment was considered to be a critical piece of ad placement and targeting, so advertisers would attempt to reach their target audience by purchasing placements on contextually relevant sites. For example- a car tire manufacturer would place ads on automobile sites, hoping to find customers looking to purchase car tires. While this form of targeting certainly goes some of the way to reaching a responsive audience, it does not take into account the behavioral, demographic and financial characteristics of individuals that will influence the likelihood of them making a desired action. Furthermore, a targeting strategy focused on contextually relevant placements means that you are often vying for limited ad units with your competitors, forcing up media costs and cluttering the space with similar ads.

Wouldn’t it be great if there was a way to identify browsers who we know are most likely to respond to a particular message and serve them an ad across any site, rather than simply casting a wide net by placing ads on what are believed to be relevant sites? ‘Audience centric’ targeting makes this concept a reality, providing a more scientific approach that ensures ads reach the most engaged and relevant audience.

So how does it work?

‘Audience targeting’ works by analyzing customers who have already completed a desired action on an advertisers site (such as making a purchase) and using this to identify and target other browsers with similar characteristics across virtually any site or network. Ultimately, this means you are buying and targeting a qualified audience, as opposed to simply buying pre-fixed ad placements across set sites.

Let’s take a slightly closer look at this process:

From Drop Box

1. Cookie based technology collects data on customers who have been to an advertiser’s site and/or completed a desired action eg: purchased goods; requested further information etc.
2. This data is used to build a profile of a browser most likely to complete a desired action. This profile includes multiple layers of behavioral, financial and demographic characteristics (eg: browsing history, age, gender, income etc)
3. Through ‘ad exchange’ buying platforms, advertisers are able to match the data they have collected with that of 3^rd party providers and effectively bid for individual ad units (impressions) across the web that are served to browsers whose cookie information is aligned with that of the ‘ideal’ customer profile.
4. A display ad is served, with copy and message that is targeted specifically for that browser, significantly increasing the likelihood of a desired outcome.

Essentially this process ensures that only the customers who are most likely to respond are served an ad no matter which sites they are browsing on.

Apart from the obvious advantages of reaching a more relevant audience, this form of targeting provides further benefits. Firstly, the advertiser knows the exact characteristics of their target audience and the online behavior they are able to segment this audience and deliver a more timely, customized message in the ad creative this compounds the level of engagement and value from the advertising spend. Additionally, being able to target an engaged audience in a non-contextual environment can help ads to stand out as they do not get lost in the clutter and ultra-competitive space of contextually aligned sites.

For advertisers this new technology really is a big step forward. Rather than simply landing on the target, advertisers can now have the data required to hit the bull’s-eye.

Whether the campaign objective is getting a direct response (lead, sale etc) or brand awareness the result is going to be a more responsive and engaged audience and less wastage on poorly targeted ad placements. I believe this is going to see display advertising once again become a vital component of the online marketing mix.

It is no secret in the industry that this is going to be a key trend in online advertising in 2010 but the biggest opportunity will be in the first half of the year where advertisers who adopt audience centric targeting will reap the full benefits of reach and cost advantages whilst the rest of the online advertising world catches up.

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By Vincent Ma, the Product Guy

Even if you’ve never heard of APIs or web services, there is a good chance that you have benefited from them. If you ever posted a tweet from an iPhone app, used Google Maps outside of Google, or found a lost cow while playing FarmVille, you have used a service that takes advantage of APIs. Wikipedia defines an application programming interface (API) as “an interface that a software program implements to allow other software to interact with it.” An API is essentially a bridge that allows an authorized 3^rd party to programmatically interact with data and features of a particular web application.

Why would a company like Twitter want to provide API access to 3^rd party developers?

Having a good API is a great way to extend a company’s brand visibility, foster innovation, and ultimately drive underlying business success. APIs have been a major reason why companies like Twitter and Facebook have experienced such tremendous growth over the last few years. As documented by the programmableweb.com Twitter mash-up directory, there are at least 350 web applications that use the Twitter API. It is no wonder why more and more web applications are implementing APIs as a strategy to gain users and spur growth. Recent news of services like Foursquare (a location based social network and game) and Bump (a mobile data exchange application) announcing new APIs indicate that the trend isn’t going stop anytime soon.

Why should we as marketers be excited about this API trend?

APIs offer marketers and their agencies a quick and easy way to build and deliver compelling and engaging branding experiences and to integrate useful data/services/features into their existing websites or marketing campaigns. A great example is the partnership between Foursquare and Bravo where users of the television channel’s city guides app can access the “check-in” Foursquare feature through Bravo’s own mobile app and earn Bravo themed Foursquare badges.

In addition to opening up the creative possibilities for advertisers and their agencies, APIs also provide the plumbing required to connect, automate, and optimize campaigns across your multi-channel digital marketing strategy. For example, Red Bricks Media use many channel specific APIs in our suite of workflow and management tools, including promotion scheduling and automated SEO audits that allow our client teams to work more effectively and efficiently. Beyond the streamlining of marketing operations, APIs allow us to more easily collect, process, and act upon the mountain of data marketers receive on the weekly if not daily basis. Our marketing intelligence platform, Kunu, utilizes a host of APIs in order to provide the analytics and deep insights required by our clients and account teams. As more marketing technologies and platforms offer APIs, we’re getting closer and closer to the development of a centralized marketing engine for creating, managing and optimizing truly integrated marketing campaigns.

How can marketers leverage APIs to drive content sharing that takes less than an hour to implement?

If you regularly update your corporate blog, send out press releases or have marketing content that you would love to have shared across social media platforms, considering adding a content posting and sharing button (like the one you see at the bottom of this post) to make it easier for your readers and customers to share your content with their friends. Marketers can either add the sharing functionality provided directly by each social networking site or use 3^rd party providers, such as sharethis.com and addthis.com, which have packaged solutions that make it even easier to add sharing functionality across all the top social networking and social bookmarking sites. If you have another hour or two to spare, think about integrating commenting functionality from social media sites like Facebook to your content that will allow your customers to not only leave comments on your website that can be easily posted to their profiles but also discover content on your site filtered by your user’s social network.

As the digital worlds continue to integrate and move towards an integrated seamless experience, developers and marketers are challenged to create experiences and solutions that take advantage of this ever changing services landscape. It is an exciting time and I’m personally anxious to see (and use) the next great web service or mash-up to make the headlines. In the mean time, what are some of your favorite web services or mashups that you’ve come across? Feel free to leave a comment at our blog about your favorites.

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Craig Hordlow, Chief Strategist

Marketers should only be as serious as the consumer takes their product. I’m not saying if the consumer doesn’t take your product seriously you don’t have to show up to work, but rather calibrate your work to their depth of interaction. This concept is a common oversight on landing pages that starts with the marketing message and is reflected in design, copy, and layout.

For most marketers, being less serious means stop talking about value propositions and start focusing on the consumers’ emotional drivers. Research tells us time and time again that consumers purchase largely for emotional reasons, so stop trying to appeal to their reason with logic when you should be making them feel guilty for eating that, fear of not using your product (Minoxidyl, Viagra), or salvation when you save them from their own laziness.

Not all products are bought for emotional reasons as evidenced by commodities and RFP’s, and many products have both logical and emotional drivers. If you can’t understand why someone would logically buy your product, neither can I. But I can help you emotionally manipulate consumers, and I am happy to do so.

Primary Motivators & the Seven Emotional Drivers

From Drop Box

Before you select which emotion you’re going to manipulate, there are business inputs to start with. Obviously, you should know the ethno graphics of the consumer, but beyond that, it is also helpful to know:

Industry Inputs:

· Sector

· Sales cycle

· Price / consideration level

· Alternative products

Consumer Inputs:

· New vs. return

· Depth of interaction

· Language

· Technical abilities

These inputs will have some impact on which emotion you manipulate and how you go about doing it.

Selection an Emotion to Manipulate

Avoid selecting multiple emotions unless you are sure they work together. While it is tempting to make a complete and thorough argument for your product, when it comes to emotions it only takes one to trump logic. The child who stands on the high dive hesitant to jump can hear everything known to man about gravity and bodies in motion and be no closer to jumping, whereas one supportive and comforting cheer from an older child and the leap is made. Adults are no different. Choose one emotion and be powerful.

It should go without saying that the emotional motivator you select is communicated to every member of the team.

Secondary Motivators

While primary motivators are the reason why the leap is made, secondary motivators either contribute or detract from that intent, and for that reason I am listing them in two columns.

From Drop Box

Each of the five secondary motivators should be considered for each landing page element. Ask yourself questions like, “is the call to action urgent?” and “does my copy create confusion or is it clear”? If you have too much information, you can cause anxiety, or too many links and you’ll create distraction.

Pairing Primary and Secondary Motivators

Now we are at last ready to effectively and efficiently emotionally manipulate our beloved consumer.

EXAMPLE: PRIMARY EMOTIONAL DRIVER IS FEAR

If we select fear as the primary, then the secondary motivators becomes evident. Urgency can be expressed as before something bad happens, trust through awards, a BBB logo, images of happy families we’ve helped, etc. Iterate through the secondary list with your primary emotion and you’re landing page becomes emotionally coherent and you are now effectively manipulating the emotions of your consumer base.

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By Scott Neslund, CEO

When you look across the media landscape you see many significant changes. DVR household penetration has topped 40% giving more consumers the ability to shift television viewing to a time of their choice and skip commercial advertising. Sites like Hulu give consumers even more control over when and where to watch video content. The print industry is in massive transformation as many local newspapers went bankrupt last year and the New York Times put a stake in the ground by deciding to charge consumers for their digital content. E-readers are moving from one of kind with the Kindle to a sea of choices including Apple’s perceived Holy Grail with the iPad.

Social networking has taken the communications industry by storm as Facebook visitors grew to over 300 million and the crowd on Twitter seems to be topping out around 60 million at the moment. And probably one of the most telling statistics indicating how much consumers have embraced the digital environment is that holiday shopping online increased 5% to over $27 billion in sales last year while brick and mortar sales saw declines. Even struggling retailers like Sears have discovered that their best hope for revenue growth is online and launched an aggressive plan to save the company by building an e-tailing effort that captures 40 million visitors each month.

All of these sweeping changes in consumer media behavior and technological advances emphasize the importance of search in advertising. With expanding choices at their fingertips consumers will continue to exercise more and more control over their information and entertainment options. Any business that hopes to grow in the next decade will need to know to capitalize on search behavior in order to have a winning business plan.

“Serving 23 Billion Each Month and Growing”: ComScore announced that U.S. consumers conducted 23 billion searches in December, a 22% increase over the same month last year. Worldwide the number of conducted searches was 131 billion, a 46% increase. Media behavior like this can’t be ignored and it shows how routine search behavior has become among consumers.

For advertisers to thrive in this new world order where consumers are in control and search for what they want or need versus simply reacting to messages that are placed in front of them, they will need to know how to do the following:

· Understand how their total media investment drives consumer search behavior. SEO and PPC are not the only ways to drive search online. Television, print, OOH and all media including WOM influence how consumers search.

· Optimize based on insights and analytics: Each web traffic report has the potential to show advertisers better ways to improve search results and add value to the business. Advertisers must have the right tools, processes and people to take advantage of this data.

· Engage consumers with creativity and relevance. Simply driving consumers to a specific site is not enough. The information needs to be relevant, interesting and in many cases creative so that consumers want to interact with the advertising.

The power of search marketing delivers all of this for advertisers and gives them a significant opportunity to build their business at a time when the media landscape is changing racially. Agencies for the future realize this and agencies that don’t will find themselves managing decline for the next decade.

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By Micah Fisher-Kirshner, Search Strategist

As any other marketing channel, search engine optimization must be taken to a new level for international campaigns in order to properly optimize a site across one or many international websites. A cookie cutter approach to internationalization may work in some cases, but without a proper foundation of international SEO, this will most likely lead to an array of SEO issues further on.

Stay Consistent

Setting the ground work for sub-domains or separate domains requires consistency across all international sites as mixing and matching can often lead to confusion and tracking problems. Even then, prepare for potential problems in advance where some domain names may already have been purchased or where specific countries (such as China) prefer acquiring a domain hosted within that country.

Consider who controls each international SEO area in order to avoid problems with delegation of authority. At the same time, establish some baselines of allowed practices so that inconsistencies are not brought to light negatively such as Google Japan’s use of paid blogs that violated Google’s own SEO guidelines.

Provide Flexibility

A strict policy guideline or best practice for international SEO will quickly fail as Google does not dominate every market, particularly in the Asia-Pacific region. Even Google’s algorithm is not universal where certain tactics long-since forgotten in the United States is alive and well abroad.

Avoid Duplicating Duplications

More than likely the main domestic website already includes numerous amounts of duplicate content that is in the pipeline to be fixed. Keep in mind that those issues will be compounded if not planned for out of the gate for international campaigns. Search engines will be particularly confused which website to rank in which country if content is exactly the same across the US, the UK, Ireland, etc. Create new content and custom-tailor it to the specific geographic area.

Translate

Even with English as language of commerce, many countries primary online language is something other than English. Many countries in Europe have more than two languages as the national language, so be prepared to have multiple same-country websites in multiple languages in order to satisfy both the user and the search engines for searchers’ preferences. Furthermore, find a good translation for your business name and products in order to avoid horrible conversions such as when Chevy went into the Mexico car market with a brand product called Nova (translated as “no go”).

Localise the Language

Even if your website is launching in another English-speaking country, this does not mean that the same spelling, words, or meanings are going to equate. Optimizing a website for a common spelling in the US and exporting that to the UK may result in one’s SEO being optimized for a misspelling. The same goes for any other languages (Spain vs. Venezuela vs. Mexico vs. Columbia, etc.) and optimizing a website on the wrong keyword phrase or spelling can result in a perceived poor quality from both visitors and search engines.

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Be Human. Get Personal with your Customers

Take time to get close to your customer base, because in 2010 customers will continue to dictate your marketing efforts. Take care to polish up your company’s blog and social media channels, like facebook and twitter, and keep them healthy by posting regularly. If your communications are sparse, users won’t respect you as an authority. It is necessary to participate in conversation and contribute valuable content to be respected in your marketplace. Providing direct and timely responses to customer feedback is a powerful and effective marketing tool.

Follow the Search Funnel

In-depth conversion tracking and analysis can shed light onto the profitability of search campaigns. Just as some keywords or ads may provide a great number of clicks but low conversion levels, high-converting keywords and ads provide different levels of customer engagement and revenue over longer periods of time. These sorts of ‘deep dives’ into conversion tracking will provide more customization, optimization, and ROI in the long term.

Analyze and Synthesize

Research and invest in new tracking technologies and tools in the marketplace which will benefit your marketing campaigns. Social media tracking, for example, gives concrete insights into what your customers are saying about your brand. This newfound ability to listen to and adapt to customer trends in real-time is a valuable resource. Likewise, a comprehensive and properly configured analytics platform is probably the most important tool that a marketing team can have. If your marketing data isn’t interpretable and actionable, it isn’t useful.

Diversify and Integrate

Your many marketing channels should be working as one. Integrated campaigns consistently perform better than campaigns running separately. When insights are shared among functional marketing teams, a comprehensive strategy may then be developed which incorporates findings and best practices from each marketing channel.

Audit and Update

Everything has a ‘Best By’ date, and your website and marketing collateral are no exception. Consumer tastes change as quickly as the seasons, and the images and copy which will generate positive responses need to be refreshed frequently as well. Update your paid search ad copy – revamp your homepage! Optimization of imagery and messaging are often overlooked, but the results are valuable marketing assets.

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Red Bricks Media’s Global Paid Search Director, Andrew Leinicke, will be speaking at the OMMA Performance conference on January 25, 2010 at the Hotel Nikko, located on 222 Mason Street, San Francisco. 

Leinicke will be a featured panelist in the ‘Email is a SHARE Tool’ panel, which will be held at 4:15PM on January 25. 

From the OMMA Performance website:

While email marketing is known as a conversion agent for direct marketing, it is also the most pervasive method of communicating with your community of friends, community of workers and extended brand relationships with retail and business outlets. We know Social Marketing is a function of “reach” and distribution, but research has showed it is less valuable in driving conversion. The challenge for most is how do you create content and experiences in email and social environments that work together, but leverage the best of direct response and reach value for the brand? This panel of social media companies and brands will discuss these consumer behaviors and how to program efforts that get the most reach from a connected social audience, while still maximizing conversion value through email.

The session will be moderated by Lisa Riolo, Co-Founder of Impact Radius. Leinicke will be joined on the panel by David Baker, VP of CRM Solutions at Razorfish, Dan Lewis, Senior Product Manager at Microsoft – Windows Live Hotmail, and Michael McMahon, Founder of Quick Ops.

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By Elliott Easterling, Co-Founder and Chairman of the Board

We have some very exciting news from Red Bricks Media. Scott Neslund has been named CEO as of Monday, January 11, 2010.

The team at Red Bricks Media feels that with Scott on board we have achieved another great milestone on our organization’s history. Our exceptional team and services, combined with Scott’s exceptional leadership, will make us the team to beat in 2010 and beyond. In the past few months we have not only made the INC 500 list of fastest growing companies in America, but we have secured one of the top talents in the industry. The future of online advertising lies with leading independent shops like Red Bricks Media.

As you may know we had been conducting a professional CEO search for several months. It has been my personal belief that the time had come for a new leader to take Red Bricks Media into a new phase of growth. The founders of the company have been just that, great at setting the foundation and getting the firm off the ground.

Scott has an impressive and consistent track record managing and growing agencies and offices domestically as well as internationally. Most recently he was CEO of Mindshare, one of the world largest media buying agencies. Here is a bit more detail on Scott: http://www.linkedin.com/in/scottneslund

Scott has a wealth of management expertise and deep agency know-how. His background in traditional advertising combined with his proven entrepreneurism is exactly what our company needs to realize its great potential. One of the things that I like most about Scott is his ability to connect with folks and his appreciation of the people that work for him. He is a very strong cultural match for Red Bricks Media and for our valued clients.

The year has only begun. Watch what happens at Red Bricks Media.

Read full press release here.

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Under the new Guides, advertisers may no longer use the phrase “results not typical” in their campaigns. Instead, advertisements must disclose the results that consumers may typically experience.

Paid or gifted endorsements must also be disclosed in advertisements, and this extends to bloggers and ‘word-of-mouth’ marketers as well.   This means that bloggers may no longer accept payment or free products in return for promotion without disclosing that fact. If your company is providing material or monetary compensation in exchange for promotion by bloggers or celebrities, this exchange must be communicated to the consumer.

Furthermore, if compensation is provided to a research organization which is cited in an advertisement, this fact must be made public within the advertisement as well.

Interestingly, the FTC Guide now holds endorsers more accountable for their statements. As of December 1^st, endorsers and advertisers may both be held liable for false, unsubstantiated or misleading product statements.

While the FTC Guides are not officially binding laws, they are part of the Federal Trade Commission Act, which is included in federal legislation. For more information, visit:

http://www.ftc.gov/multimedia/video/business/endorsement-guides.shtm.

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Your name, sir?

Kelly Olson.

And what is it that you do here, at Red Bricks Media?

I am the COO and CFO at Red Bricks. The CFO side is pretty self-explanatory. I deal with all the company finances and make sure we have money in the bank. On the COO side, I work with all of our service lines and functional managers in a supporting role as well as working closely with The West Coast Client Services group to help manage client relationships as best as possible.

It’s not common that you run into someone with the dual roles of CFO and COO. Some might call you a Superman as you seem to be tasked with a Herculean degree of responsibility. Do you see yourself as Super?

Well, if I had to choose a superpower, it would be the ability to not have to sleep, because you could always be spending more time on the business to improve things. But no, I don’t view myself as a Superman and I couldn’t do what I do without having a solid management team in place, which I’m glad to say we do.

If you weren’t doing this job, at this company, at this time in history, what different career path could you see yourself in?

The things that would most interest me would be teaching and coaching, which I think would be pretty attainable. [At this point in the interview, Kelly launches in to his world famous football metaphors. I never know what he is talking about when he does this, so I have stricken it from the record.] And the other path that has always interested me has been film directing.

Interesting indeed. I was not aware you had a bit of the old creative yearning. Nice one. Desert island, three films, go!

‘The 3^rd Man’. I’m a big Orson Welles fan. ‘Rear Window’ or pretty much any Hitchcock film for that matter. And ‘Fargo’, a Coen Brothers masterpiece.

Wow. Who knew? Okay one last work-related question: How would you describe the aesthetic style of your office?

Pretty poor.

I completely agree. I might even go so far as to call it awful. Moving on, can you describe an ideal Saturday for Kelly Olson?

Hit a local college football game. Do some tailgating before hand. Head home for a nap afterwards. Meet up with friends for a good meal in the evening and then if I’m up for it, maybe hit a club or two and do a little dancing.

On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you describe yourself as a dancer?

A 5 or a 6.

How modest of you. Will we be seeing you and your stylistic moves at this year’s holiday party?

There is a definite possibility of that happening. However, I can tell you with complete certainty that you won’t be witnessing any pole dancing.

Will you save a dance for me?

Only if it’s a slow one.

As told to Russell Bongard, RBM Creative Director - 2009

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