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

Branded newsletters

Edition #364 Food content creators, new Twitter ad types and misleading numbers. Have any readers worked on a virtual world branded experience? Or could you connect me with someone that has? Things like Nikeland on Roblox. Would love a connect. We’re also going to restart small events in NY. Will share more details as they come in. If anyone wants to cohost, let me know. One big thing I’ve had a few ask recently on trends in branded content. And one that’s a bit of an undercurrent, is going wide and deep with newsletters to build strong engagement as part of a plan. Not necessarily branded content but a great place to distribute and bring niche audiences in to branded content. Platforms like Hecto, Paved, SponsorGap & SwapStack are reducing friction to finding and buying them. In general there is still an over index of smaller creators. And the need for more I guess, middle sized newsletters. An easy win for any newsletter, is to have an advertise page. In many lists for top newsletters to follow. Anecdotally 1-2/10 of newsletters have such a page. Notable stories this week How one FoodToker is making a career as a content creator. Product content: the missing piece of product-led growth. Web3 enables content creators to gain this new superpower. Twitter tests new interactive ad types. Byron Allen warns ad market of Nielsen’s ‘Monopoly’ amid lawsuit. How big audience numbers mislead you. WTF is the Digital Markets Act. [Smart take] On product. Deals/M&A Kargo acquires Parsec. Campaign of the Week Kahlua Espresso Martini with Food52. Simple, instructional, can work across most platforms. Drives users into recipes on their website.   Continue reading

Ben Young
Ben Young
April 8, 2022
Commentary

Rebirth

Edition #363 The rebirth of native, spon-con standards and what $7m could get you. I’m looking for a writer to help with a regular piece each month. Sharing here in case any readers know someone who fits the bill. One big thing This week we see Brian Morrissey call the rebirth of native advertising or primary engagement media as he calls it. In tandem The Cut dealing with journalists also doing their own branded content deals on their social channels. Both pieces are a must read. What they point to is the coalescing around direct commercial models and direct consumer engagement. Limiting of cookies is also forcing limitations on commercial models. And as The Cut shows, maybe you can’t work direct with the publisher, maybe you work direct with the journalists, ala talent, who has built their own brand. With the help of the distribution from the publisher. Of course, with more fragmented buys and relationships, it makes all the more reason to use measurement, that consolidates your performance in one place ;) But seriously, that is an emergent problem of more engagements like this. Standardizing performance. And ensuring that you are getting value. And finding pockets of opportunity. And that works both ways, for the buyer and the seller. Notable stories this week The rebirth of native advertising. The Cut confronts its spon-con standards. Outbrain secures Axel Springers business. Morning Brew tops 4 million newsletter subscribers as it looks to expand with M&A. LinkedIn Pages can now publish Newsletters. How Web3 changes the content model and Examples of ‘emoji’ marketing. Twitter’s working on collaborative tweets to facilitate new opportunities for creators. Freakonomics Radio gets its own SiriusXM channel. Meta shares new view of the ‘Wendyverse’ and branded content spaces in VR. What’s the alternative to spending $7 million on a super bowl ad. The FT launches FT Edit, 8 selected stories each day for 99p/month. Russian tech giants Yandex’s data harvesting raises security concerns. [Long read] You don’t know much about Jay Penske. And he’s fine with that. Deals/M&A MGID acquires Italian native advertising company Metup. Nielsen agrees to sell to consortium for $10b. Netflix acquires video game developer Boss Fight Entertainment. Campaign of the Week AdWeek + Millions. The future is bright for brands that master sports advertising. Continue reading

Ben Young
Ben Young
April 1, 2022
Cartier Women's Initiative with Forbes
Cartier Women's Initiative with Forbes
Commentary

Found money

Edition #362 Found money, a creator tries to get fired by his brand partner and Buzzfeeds content biz continues to grow. I’m looking for a writer to help with a regular piece each month. Sharing here in case any readers know someone who fits the bill. One big thing Continuing last weeks thread on Owned stacks, Benedict Evans had a timely piece on unbundling advertising. Much of it we’ve discussed prior, but a nugget was that for… Continue reading

Ben Young
Ben Young
March 25, 2022
Analytics

How to set up eCommerce Analytics with Nudge

eCommerce Analytics helps marketers understand how customers are engaging with their store, which includes their content marketing and product listings. Nudge enables eCommerce marketers to get a better idea of what is engaging customers and finding areas to improve, to increase sales. To get set up, first create an account.   Sign up to Nudge First you need to sign up to Nudge, click the sign up button. Enter your email and a password, or log in with Google. Continue reading

Ben Young
Ben Young
March 21, 2022
Commentary

Models

Edition #361 Data models, Windows 11 ads and no more IPs. One big thing Measurement is a hot topic at the moment, so I thought I’d share a snippet from an older post, on what leads to success. “McKinsey recently published new research findings, stating that organizations that deploy the most technology appear to be the most successful. At first glance, this might seem somewhat illogical (as adding more technology into current infrastructures lead to more complexities and… Continue reading

Ben Young
Ben Young
March 18, 2022
Commentary

Owned stacks

Edition #360 Native awards, Microsofts new ad religion and elephant growth. Congratulations to all the winners of the native advertising awards! Nice to see a few familiar names. One big thing Kevel (formerly AdZerk) has built a nice business, with a build your own ad stack type solution. And it seems, that Google is now gingerly testing this space with retailers. With the view of, in a privacy-centric world, centralized ad technology has less room to… Continue reading

Ben Young
Ben Young
March 11, 2022
Commentary

Measurement redux

Edition #359 A measurement redux, opportunities in branded content & TikTok. One big thing A trend you may not have seen in the tea leaves is that a lot of measurement companies are being acquired right now. Oribi, Tunity, TVSquared, Playground XYZ & Shareables. And that’s just since December. What’s driving that? The instigator was Apples tracking changes. Forcing many firms to either throw our their existing technology or seek to add deep capabilities. The other area is connected… Continue reading

Ben Young
Ben Young
March 4, 2022
Coinbase Super Bowl Ad
Coinbase Super Bowl Ad
Product Updates

QR Codes

Edition #358 QR codes, how Fortune got to $100m and attention. One big thing The sheer bravery of Coinbase to run that ad in the Super Bowl is to be applauded. Yes it performed well, 20 million visits in one minute. Crashed their site. One quip I saw was that marketing beat engineering! But it might not have. For those that haven’t seen it here it is. A QR code bouncing around a screen, just like the… Continue reading

Ben Young
Ben Young
February 18, 2022
Plant Based Diet with Oatly & The Guardian
Plant Based Diet with Oatly & The Guardian
Commentary

Plant Based

Edition #357 The earnings merry go-round, content arbitrage & plant-based diets. One big thing I really enjoyed Ben Thompson’s summation of the digital ad eco-system as of 2022. And how the various pieces have come together in the past year or so. In particular you see Apples changes with ATT, moving spend away from Facebook, and in turn enhancing Amazon’s ad product. Because Amazons data all stays on platform. His macro takes are usually pretty good. We’ve had… Continue reading

Ben Young
Ben Young
February 11, 2022
Analytics

How to verify branded content

Are you looking to verify the performance of your branded content? Then you’ve come to the right place. What makes branded content verification different to other advertising, is the art and science. Content requires consumption to be effective. And then, often you need to verify the traffic sources to the content. Often also there are technical challenges that need to be overcome. The other challenge can be the scale, often branded content has less impressions than say a display campaign. Continue reading

Ben Young
Ben Young
January 31, 2022