Transparency: the key to digital advertising success
The subject of transparency in digital advertising cannot be ignored. With issues like brand safety and ad fraud long having made headlines, the digital industry is demanding change. Transparency in digital advertising is important from two perspectives: cost and inventory. You need to know where (and in what context) your message is being served, and where in the ad chain your money is being spent. Without this data, you cannot make well-founded decisions. Over the last decade, marketers have given digital agencies a lot of freedom when buying ad space. Agencies have made a lucrative business out of running an arbitrage-based model, buying digital inventory in bulk and then marking it up for advertisers. Writing for the Wall Street Journal, Alexandra Bruell points out that “clients didn’t cry foul, because they were happy with the performance of digital campaigns. Or because they weren’t clued into the complexities of digital ad buying and agency profitability.” However things are changing. We now live in a world dominated by Google, Facebook, and programmatic ad exchanges which is anonymising the ad selling process. This is in stark contrast to the pre-digital era, which was intensely personal. Essentially, a large number of brands got used to pouring money into a black box marked digital advertising. But as clients become more informed and aware of better options and channels, they are now asking for more transparency within these processes. Performance marketing is by far the most transparent model out there. While brand marketing has its benefits, when it comes to transparency and calculating return on investment, performance marketing’s strength lies in one simple concept: The agency network must meet client-defined metrics and achieve the desired impact (a measurable business result) to fulfill the client/agency contract. In other words, the agency must “perform” or they don’t get paid. The process is simple. First, a client defines the desired action and its qualifying criteria. Then, the marketing agency/network designs a campaign that drives the greatest number of completed actions for the client. The most common actions include: Purchasing a product Installing an application Filling out a form (lead generation) AdMarula works with numerous agencies to help achieve these performance metrics for their clients. The agency/network relationship can be a tremendously beneficial one since the agency’s strength often lies in delivering the creative work, while the network’s strength lies in generating performance-based results. For clients, the results move their bottom line in the right direction and allow for greater investment in and collaboration with the agency. A win-win for all. Daniel Gross – CEO
A quick update
As I see the autumn colours around me I am reminded that time does not stand still and that the middle of 2019 is just around the corner. A good time for reflection and a bit of a sanity check to see where we are. I am happy to report that as we approach our 8th year of business, AdMarula is still growing. In fact, Q1 of 2019 has been our strongest quarter yet, thanks to clients dedicating more of their marketing budget to the performance channel and AdMarula’s targeting technology yielding continued results. I can also report back that our round-table seminar at the Two Ocean’s Aquarium on the 9th May was a big success. We had a full-house, some very interesting discussions and good feedback from our audience. Thanks to our speakers and to those of you who attended. We hope to host more of these events in future as we believe it is important to connect with our partners and clients face-to-face – these discussions and knowledge exchange can only benefit our industry as a whole. The performance marketing model works best after all when we work together. Below are a few pics from the event: Finally I would like welcome Wanda Meyer to the AdMarula team. Wanda joined us at the end of last month in the role of Account Manager and holds a degree in Marketing from Stellenbosch University. No doubt many of you will be hearing from her in the coming weeks as she gets acquainted with the business and our partners/clients. We wish her the best of luck in her new role. Onwards and upwards! Daniel Gross – CEO
Save the date!
Be sure not to miss our first ever round-table lunch seminar at the Two Oceans Aquarium on the 9th May! Come and listen to our guest speakers, all experts in the online and performance marketing industry, discuss what lessons they’ve learnt and what they expect to be the big game changers in the next few months. Entrance is free, but places are limited. Light lunch included. Register today to secure your spot! Download the invite here.
Understanding Intelligent Optimization
The terms SEO and Optimization are nothing new and we’ve covered both topics extensively in the past. While having a well-executed SEO strategy is vital for any online business to succeed, the buck shouldn’t stop there. Many web developers still overlook the importance of other on-site tactics that go beyond SEO auditing, to create value from users. This is Intelligent Optimization and the new future driver for search engines. What we are talking about here is taking it a step further; think expanding into sales funnels, pixels, automation and most importantly, data harvesting. In recent years SEO tactics have focused heavily on rankings, but the next time you and your marketing team sit in a SEO pitch with an agency, be sure to bring up these points: Which pixels? – Simple? Sure. Yet very important to get this right. Not only should a Google Analytics tracking code be placed, but a Facebook Pixel needs to be added as well for the most effective retargeting. The best way to organize your pixels is still through Google Tag Manager. If they’re not familiar with GTM, they need to be. Automation, the right way – No, we are NOT talking about automated follow-up emails here. These are very apparent and generally come off as cheap, annoying and dishonest. However automating social media postings from the blog will save your business time AND doesn’t require personal interaction with customers. A simple Zapier script that cross-posts to all social channels from your blog would be a great start. Data harvesting – One of the first questions your SEO agency should ask is: “how do you collect data on customers.” Data driven marketing is the future, and being able to leverage your site’s data is the first step in creating a high end one-to-one marketing campaign. Combining web pixels, sales funnels, and custom audiences gives your company an edge to creating a powerful CRM database. Do they know Schema.org? – Schemas are lines of code added into the backend of your website that tell search engines, like Google, information about your site. Google treats schema marked-up sites with authority, allowing you to move up in rankings quickly. More importantly though, schema creates rich snippets (those boxes you see in Google search), allowing your business to be found more easily. Do they understand your sales funnel? – It may be simple for you, but many web developers don’t understand sales. Intelligent optimization places a heavy emphasis on pushing your web visitor to create an action. This is common place for business owners, but web developers need to understand this as well. For e-commerce sites, make sure your best selling items are also presented at the bottom of your page (you want them at the top as well). Happy selling! Daniel Gross – CEO
AdMarula CEO, Daniel Gross, interviewed on current and future trends in digital marketing
Websiteplanet.com Editor, Ditsa Keren, recently interviewed our CEO, Daniel Gross, on the current and future trend in digital marketing.
