Home Breadcrumb Blog

Blog

Bridging commentary on the art & science of content; content marketing, branded content, native advertising and the analytics, attribution and intelligence that powers it.

Newsletter #314 – Does Google need us?

One big thing What happens when Google doesn’t need you anymore? It’s still a ways away but it kind of is the trajectory. The same way Uber was considering a world without drivers. Google is moving towards a world without click out search results. When you consider things like GPT3, an AI that can create copy to fulfill a result, having been trained off data. A search results page that fully caters to your needs is… Continue reading

Ben Young
Ben Young
February 5, 2021

The Best Native Advertising Examples of 2021

Read on to see the best native ads of 2021. When people speak about native ads, they typically either talk about native content or native display. So, in an effort to avoid confusion, I want to make it clear that in this piece, we’re concentrating on content. Throughout, you’ll quickly notice that we use additional terms that are synonymous with native content, e.g. branded content, sponsored content, and custom content. Each week, we handpick exceptional content campaigns that we’ve… Continue reading

Ben Young
Ben Young
February 3, 2021

Newsletter #313 – The Peoples Stimulus

One big thing With GameStop this week, we saw what can happen when collective action happens, the emergence of a subculture (WallStreetBets) clashing with another (traditional Wall Street). When I (and others) made the call of the roaring twenties at the start of last year, no one could have imagined that this would be the kind of thing that it could lead to. But what does this have to do with content… Continue reading

Ben Young
Ben Young
January 29, 2021

Newsletter #312 – Bill of rights

One big thing This week Axios shared the Axios Bill of Rights, their promise to readers. Check it out. I’m always a fan of a mission statement, or an outline of principles, the act of sharing it, itself tells something about the publication. With theirs, the very first one is: Every item will be written or produced by a real person with a real identity. There will be NO AI-written stories. NO bots. NO… Continue reading

Ben Young
Ben Young
January 22, 2021

Newsletter #311 – Welcome 2021

Happy New Year! Our first note of 2021. We’ve decided to not cover the suspension, Parler and related this week. We may in the future but felt like it clouded important stories, which would otherwise be overlooked. Of note is the M&A/deal activity since the last edit. One big thing I’ve said whether the Olympics go ahead or not may be the canary in the coal mine for the marketing and media industry this year. If they go ahead, it… Continue reading

Ben Young
Ben Young
January 15, 2021

How creators can look after the brands that invest in them

I saw that WorkLife is hosting a creator event, on how to Convert your Audience to Cash: Creator Monetization Post-Covid. The session covers the methods and latest tech that can help grow the empire. This post covers what I see as an important part of anytime a creator works with a brand. That is the aftermath: Handling the conclusion of the campaign and the wrap report. You’ve finally nailed that big deal! You know what to… Continue reading

Ben Young
Ben Young
October 8, 2020

Anatomy of bots: how we saved a major tech company from paying seven figures for fraudulent traffic

We hear a lot about bot fraud and fake traffic. There are astounding numbers and when the money is being paid for a brand budget but being lost to these bad actors, you can be sure there’s no significant business growth coming from it. It is essential to take this beyond the headlines, from abstraction and dive into what is happening here. Following is a vivid example of a bot campaign in action, with one of our clients. All names… Continue reading

Ben Young
Ben Young
June 1, 2020

Edition #283 Home buyers and their adtech taxes

Inspired by a tweet from Hunter Walk, this week at the very bottom we’ve added a few newsletters we dig. Please do check them out and give them a try. One big thing I didn’t really comment on the revenue sharing piece a few weeks back. Wanted to mull on it for a bit as I felt too much nuance was left out of the conversation. To recap, PWC after completing a two-year study found;… Continue reading

Ben Young
Ben Young
May 29, 2020

A Better Alternative to Google Analytics for Content Marketing

Content marketers are seeking a better alternative to Universal Analytics (Google Analytics) or GA4.  In the early days of the internet, we visited homepages, clicked around, and left. We didn’t even have tabs, smartphones, or social sharing. It was in this context Google acquired Urchin to form Google Analytics. That was the old way. Now we live in a multi-tab, multi-device, multi-format world. Content is delivered to our customers seamlessly and on-demand. Users are blind to banner ads. To stand… Continue reading

Gustaf Stenlund
Gustaf Stenlund
May 26, 2020