Category Archives: Strategy

Algorithms: Recipes for Disaster

Posted on Thursday, 22 March 2018 8:15 am by

When we purchase digital advertising, we place our faith in the algorithms–a fancy word for “recipes”–used to determine things like the final price of the inventory, which creative is shown, and the frequency at which those impressions are shown. There’s … Continue reading →

Posted in Data, digital marketing, Education, Leadership, Media, Strategy | Tagged , , , ,

Media Whitewash

Posted on Wednesday, 21 February 2018 8:29 am by

The ever thought-provoking Don Marti wrote something in “This is why we can’t have nice brands” on February 17th that reminded me of a standard direct mail practice: “Twitter has a solution that keeps its ads saleable: just don’t show … Continue reading →

Posted in Branding, digital marketing, Direct Response, fraud, Media, Social Media Marketing, Strategy | Tagged , ,

Name Those Ads

It’s been two days since the Super Bowl. Quick, and without thinking too hard, write down: The ads you saw on the Super Bowl on Sunday The digital ads you saw this morning as you read the news with coffee … Continue reading →

Aside | Posted on Tuesday, 6 February 2018 8:52 am by | Tagged , , ,

Remove Tracking Pixels, Secure Your Data

Data leakage from publisher sites results in loss of data revenue for the publisher. An unsophisticated buyer would never buy premium first-party data from the publisher, when they can buy “the same” stuff for pennies on the dollar from vendor … Continue reading →

Aside | Posted on Friday, 26 January 2018 8:29 am by | Tagged , , ,

Digital Marketing Tips From El Al

Posted on Wednesday, 24 January 2018 8:57 am by

El Al airlines has never been bombed and only hijacked once. This in spite of being a constant target for well-funded and persistent criminals. An enviable track record. How do they do it? Isaac Yeffet, El Al’s former head of … Continue reading →

Posted in Data, digital marketing, fraud, Media, Philosophy, planning, Security, Strategy | Tagged , , , , , , ,

No Real Marketer Wants Their Budget Increased…

…properly-trained marketers focus on improving business performance. A bigger marketing budget might be a second order effect.

Aside | Posted on Wednesday, 24 January 2018 7:10 am by | Tagged , ,

Publisher Advice From a Buyer

Posted on Friday, 12 January 2018 8:31 am by

Dr. Augustine Fou wrote a brilliant article yesterday, Five Unintended Consequences, Counter-intuitive Outcomes that Publishers May Not Have Thought Of,  that got me thinking about the advice I’d give publishers as a buyer. Here they are: Remove all the tracking widgets … Continue reading →

Posted in Branding, Data, digital marketing, Marketing, Media, Strategy | Tagged , , , , , ,

Improve Ad Performance With Slow, Deep, Breathing

Posted on Tuesday, 9 January 2018 8:01 am by

My mission for 2018 is to help marketers improve their digital marketing performance. It’s a mess out there. The latest example? News UK (publisher of The Sun and Times of London) finds that SSPs were still offering their inventory for … Continue reading →

Posted in digital marketing, fraud, Marketing, Media, Strategy | Tagged , , , ,

>$5 CPM for This? YouTube Head-Scratcher

Posted on Monday, 1 January 2018 11:06 am by

I’ve got a YouTube channel for experimentation purposes and “monetize” (I hate that MBA non-word) the videos to see what happens. Looking at it this morning, I noticed that  a fairly recent video of a guitar I purchased generated $6.19 … Continue reading →

Posted in Analysis, digital marketing, Guitar, Marketing, Media, Strategy | Tagged , , , , , , , , , ,

Let’s Market to Humans in 2018

Posted on Friday, 29 December 2017 9:36 am by

Market only to humans. If you only change one thing about how you undertake your marketing in 2018, let it be this one. According to the U.S. Census bureau, there were about 252.8 million adult (18+) humans in the U.S. … Continue reading →

Posted in Behavioral economics, Data, digital marketing, Direct Response, fraud, Leadership, Media, Philosophy, Predictions, Privacy, Strategy | Tagged , , , , , ,