Blog
Bridging commentary on the art & science of content; content marketing, branded content, native advertising and the analytics, attribution and intelligence that powers it.
DoubleClick is used by the vast majority of leading advertisers, agencies and publishers, and some of the things we keep hearing in the market are: a. As an agency or advertiser we’re already supplying everything through DCM and would like our content analytics to be wrapped up in this. b. Some publishers aren’t able to install the code directly on the page but we can install via DCM. Follow this… Continue reading
This week I got out of the big smoke and headed to Chicago & Boston to talk native with existing and soon-to-be clients. It’s the best part of my job — sitting down, helping people adopt native. The common thread is what I touched on last week, there’s a bunch of brands still sitting on the fences, as they need some help getting started with native. So whilst early adopters are getting slick, the bulk of the adoption curve need… Continue reading
We see a native acquisition (with more in the works I hear), WaPo launches a new native unit – and BurdaForward releases insights on how native content drives attitudinal shifts. Notable Stories this Week NY Times looks to programmatic ad sales in international markets. Related, the Director of Programmatic from NY Times, Sara Badler, will be speaking at the native ad talks next week. RSVP here. Continue reading
As a marketer, you are used to spending your time slaving away on your laptop, liaising with creative agencies, going back and forth to the graphics team to nail that particular infographic – sadly, no matter how great your content is, it simply won’t make any difference if your distribution strategy isn’t on point. A growing numbers of advertisers and publishers that we talk to feel like they have tapped out in terms… Continue reading
It’s a cold and blustery day in NY as I write this week’s Week in Native! A strong thread of conversation as we kick off 2017 is — who is gonna win native? As the industry hits an inflection point, in a winner-takes-the-majority kind of market, who is going to do that? The brands that won early on won’t necessarily get that mass market appeal. It’s something I’ll focus more on this year, who is breaking out and what are… Continue reading
Put yourself in this situation: you have just launched a new campaign and you can see that your content is live, the publishers are distributing it and money is being spent. As an advertiser you’d typically have to wait for a minimum of 24 hours (it’s actually seven days for most advertisers) before you’ve been sent a report from your publisher. This means that you have absolutely no idea how your campaigns are doing, you can’t… Continue reading
With Ben out this week I’ll be jumping in (Hollie-Blue) to look after TWINA. Another big week for news here in the US, Super Bowl LI around the corner and from native news a focus on programmatic, the future of native, revenue from content distribution and why newsletters are hot again. Notable Stories this Week How AI and New Technologies Will Push the Limits of Native Advertising. Native will reach highly customised formats, tailored to individuals… Continue reading
Proving that consumers take action is the ultimate proof point. Marketers are too often lead to believe that a conversion has to be a final step in the buyer journey; that’s not entirely true. ROI metrics has been, and still is the number one problem for content marketers. However, this is no longer the case for Nudge customers (read more about it here: Native Can Convert). Conversion is the ultimate proof point that a campaign… Continue reading
With the past week dominated by Trump headlines – we’ve all simply got on with it. Polar released some great data around the future of premium branded content and who will grab the lion share (premium publishers). Google shares some info on how many publishers it has banned – and T Brand Studio gets vocal about the evolving publisher/agency dynamic. Notable Stories this Week The [Adjective] [Number] Things You Need to Know About Clickbait. If content doesn’t leave… Continue reading
As a marketer, it’s so easy to find yourself in a situation where looking at performance metrics just turn into a bunch of meaningless numbers. And even if your metrics tell you how you’re performing compared to previous weeks/months/years, you still don’t know what you should be able to achieve within your industry and/or vertical. Without a bigger picture you’re in danger of riding into battle with your competition, blindfolded. Speak to a member of the… Continue reading