Category Archives: Philosophy

In digital advertising comes from the advertisers. That means advertisers ultimately call all the shots: where they buy, how they buy, and what technologies they use.

Posted on Wednesday, 12 April 2017 11:07 am by markpilip | Comments Off on 100% Of The Money

No Monday morning quarterback ever threw an interception or missed a receiver. No Monday morning quarterback ever wore a Super Bowl ring either. Continue reading →

Posted on Monday, 10 April 2017 11:25 am by markpilip | Comments Off on Monday Morning Quarterbacking: The 8 am Meeting

Ignore “Three Rights” At Your Campaign’s Peril

Posted on Tuesday, 4 April 2017 8:58 am by markpilip

I believe in the old “40/40/20” rule of direct response marketing which states that 40% of the performance of a campaign is dependent on the the list, 40% on the offer, and 20% on everything else. You can also think of it as the “Three Rights” which you must do correctly to for successful digital performance marketing campaigns. Continue reading →

Posted in Communications, Direct Response, Marketing, Philosophy, planning, Tactics | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Ignore “Three Rights” At Your Campaign’s Peril

One word that seems to have been banished from business is “vendor.” It has been replaced by the kinder, everybody-gets-a-medal term “partner.” I hear this all the time in pitches to my clients. “We want to partner with you to … Continue reading →

Posted on Friday, 24 March 2017 8:50 am by markpilip | Comments Off on Partner? Nope. Vendor!

Segment the universe first, determine your target audiences, and craft offers that appeal to those people. If you’re mostly worried about audience reach or how many devices are in your graph (whatever that is), you’re not marketing. Sorry.

Posted on Tuesday, 21 March 2017 10:26 am by markpilip | Comments Off on Marketing: It’s About People

Advertising Needs More History Majors

Posted on Monday, 20 March 2017 10:15 am by markpilip

In the United States in 2014, only 1.7% of the undergraduate degrees awarded were history degrees. In the period since 1971, the share of history and social sciences degrees has declined from 18% to 9%. 1 Why study history? According to … Continue reading →

Posted in Leadership, Marketing, Philosophy, Strategy | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off on Advertising Needs More History Majors

67% of everything is mediocre (+/- one standard deviation from the mean) and 84% of everything is mediocre or worse. Seems like 84% of the comments I see on social media start with “amazing” or “remarkable” or similar. Heuristic: When you … Continue reading →

Posted on Monday, 27 February 2017 5:36 pm by markpilip | Comments Off on “Amazing?” “Remarkable?” Actually, Not Likely

We used to call this stuff “advertorials.” It was easily identifiable, except to the most gullible reader, and was usually purchased by the most gullible advertiser. The digital crew call it “native advertising” but it’s the same thing. Two questions: If … Continue reading →

Posted on Tuesday, 14 February 2017 9:52 am by markpilip | 1 Comment

Why Would They…

Posted on Tuesday, 7 February 2017 10:14 am by markpilip

Shift spending time on a hobby and pay attention to your messages instead? Stop spending money on the competitive product and buy yours instead? Reduce buying in one category and buy more from you? We all work with fixed amounts … Continue reading →

Posted in Marketing, Philosophy, Strategy | Tagged , | Comments Off on Why Would They…

Just reviewing a marketing services (adtech) company’s financials and found myself laughing over the non-GAAP section of the investor presentation. It started my day off with a smile. Takeaway: Put your hand firmly in your pocket when the IR team … Continue reading →

Posted on Friday, 27 January 2017 8:01 am by markpilip | Comments Off on “Non GAAP” = We Just Made This Up