Category Archives: Tactics

The Forgotten Boolean NOT

Posted on Tuesday, 3 April 2018 9:02 am by

I spent last week in Glasgow and London, with a UK SIM card temporarily in my phone. As part of my daily routine of checking Twitter, I learned that many social media advertisers and agencies have forgotten how to use … Continue reading →

Posted in Data, digital marketing, Direct Response, Media, Social Media Marketing, Tactics | Tagged , , , , , , ,

The Root of Digital Advertising B.S.

Posted on Thursday, 25 January 2018 9:41 am by

For years, Bob Hoffman has been writing about the delusion held by advertisers that people want to interact with us or our ads. I was an early adopter of that now-disproven fantasy. I bought in back in ’89-’90 when I … Continue reading →

Posted in Analysis, Data, digital marketing, fraud, Marketing, Tactics | Tagged , , ,

Humans Still Go To Malls

As long as we’re going to malls ourselves and not sending non-human traffic–like drones or social media strategists–there to get our stuff, programmatic OOH makes sense. See, I’m not totally against buying media programmatically!

Aside | Posted on Wednesday, 27 December 2017 8:42 am by | Tagged , , ,

Déjà Vu: The Partner Curse

Posted on Thursday, 30 November 2017 9:13 am by

I’m sure you’ve read about Hyphbot, but if you haven’t, here’s a good piece at The Drum which you should read. In the article, this line from Jay Stevens, the Adform CRO, hit me: “Premium publishers, like the FT are … Continue reading →

Posted in Branding, digital marketing, fraud, Marketing, Media, Sales, Tactics | Tagged , , , , ,

Your Holiday Season Mission: Customer Acquisition

Posted on Wednesday, 29 November 2017 10:17 am by

We’re in peak marketing season, with under 30 days to go. Digital CPMs are rising, clearing spots at acceptable CPA is getting harder, email in-boxes are more cluttered than ever, and sales promotion is off the hook. Nothing we haven’t … Continue reading →

Posted in Analysis, Marketing, Media, planning, Sales, Strategy, Tactics | Tagged , , , , , , ,

Another Day, More Digital Fraud

Posted on Wednesday, 22 November 2017 9:20 am by

How many of your ad tech and mar tech technology providers called you in September and October and said “Hey, we’re seeing some odd things happening and we think maybe there’s some new fraud taking place. Maybe you should cut … Continue reading →

Posted in digital marketing, fraud, Media, Security, Tactics | Tagged , , , , , , , , ,

GroupM Shines Light on Middlemen

Posted on Wednesday, 15 November 2017 8:05 am by

Bravo to Group M for starting to shine the light on the adtech middlemen who reduce our working media to, at times, a pittance. Advertisers need to demand more of this behavior from our agencies. Here’s the report I want … Continue reading →

Posted in digital marketing, Marketing, Media, Philosophy, Tactics | Tagged , , , , , , ,

ABD (Always Be De-Averaging), ads.txt Edition

Posted on Wednesday, 1 November 2017 9:04 am by

Now that ads.txt is getting traction, with about 44% (and growing) of the top 10,000 domains using it, you’ve got some homework in your future. Here’s the assignment: Pull together your campaign data at the source (e.g. somedomain.com) and “source/source” … Continue reading →

Posted in Analysis, Data, digital marketing, Marketing, Media, Tactics | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Continuity Marketing: Profit or Scale?

Posted on Tuesday, 24 October 2017 9:17 am by

I had an interesting discussion on continuity acquisition strategy yesterday, which boiled down to two questions: Do we spend profitability, at break-even, or to penetrate (i.e. at a loss) at the margin? By profit, do we mean gross margin, marketing … Continue reading →

Posted in Direct Response, Marketing, Philosophy, Strategy, Tactics | Tagged , , , , ,

Re-Seal the Deal: Category Repurchase

Posted on Tuesday, 10 October 2017 8:17 am by

Three years ago today, I wrote about a great piece of direct mail I received from a local driveway sealer company. The piece had everything needed to make a purchase decision: a great offer, strong call to action, and perfect … Continue reading →

Posted in Direct Response, Marketing, Strategy, Tactics | Tagged , , , ,