Last week, we hosted a webinar on digital marketing metrics, and how we see the future of reporting shaking out. In short, we think there’s a problem with the current state of metrics, and offered what we see as some solutions. Let’s start with the problem(s). Only a quarter of ad spend ever hits real people, according to the Association of National Advertisers. A recent report from GroupM put the costs of ad fraud in…
This is the latest edition of our “Big Ideas” newsletter, a monthly missive on the larger issues in the digital marketing industry. If you’d like to subscribe, click here. Hi all, “People-based marketing.” It’s a phrase that gets thrown around in our industry too much. Like such overused stalwarts as “holistic,” “disruptive,” and “synergistic,” “people-based marketing” is being used by companies that don’t actually know what the term means. So let’s end the confusion: a true people-based…
We’ve got some news. We’re excited to announce that we’ve been included in the Inc. 5000 for the third time. The list is an annual guide of the 5,000 fastest-growing privately held companies in the U.S, and we’re in esteemed company. 2019 has been great so far, and the best is yet to come. Here are some reasons we’re grateful for the past 12 months — and pumped about what’s in store. We continue to…
Paid search, SEM, and SEO are three different things that have, over time, become entangled and mischaracterized in the digital marketing conversation. SEO was previously considered a component of SEM. But doing SEM didn’t always mean SEO was a part of the effort. But when it was, SEM was paid search + SEO. Confused yet? Probably. Because it’s confusing. (And needlessly so.) So let’s clarify some things. For the purposes of this article, we’re going…
“People-based marketing” is a term that gets thrown around a lot in this industry. There are companies that tout themselves as being “people-based,” but in reality, they’re persona-based at best. They have users’ desktop cookies, and maybe their mobile IDs, but are unable to tie any of this back to actual people (the way you could with PII data that’s been ethically sourced). This makes it impossible for these companies to accurately resolve users’ identities,…
Let’s assume for a moment that you’re not running a paid search marketing campaign for yourself or a client. But you’re doing some other things very well, especially at the top of the funnel. You’ve built an audience and are running highly-successful display campaigns. You’re killing it on Facebook. Ditto for email. Things are running on (almost) all cylinders. Your creative is great. Your team is happy. Your boss is impressed. Because of all of…
“People-based marketing.” It’s one of those terms that gets tossed around too much. Much like “rebranding,” “organic growth,” and our all-time favorite, “synergy,” people-based marketing has been used so loosely that it threatens to become fodder for a Dilbert cartoon. The thing is, people-based marketing actually solves huge problems for anyone trying to sell a product or get a message across. But before you embark on a people-based campaign, make sure your partner is actually…
Marketers have a problem. They’re not sure they’re talking to real people. This is an issue, as you can imagine. The inability to accurately track who your message is hitting across a litany of devices — the inability to know if your ads are even hitting real people (and not bots) — creates a host of problems, not the least of which is wasted money. Only one-quarter of all digital ad spend ever reaches actual…
You want to build a global audience. You want to make sure it’s full of real, verified people. You want to perform U.S.-style ad targeting in countries outside the U.S. All valid objectives. But up until recently, you may have faced obstacles. Perhaps your global data was sparse or didn’t come from reliable sources. Perhaps you didn’t have global data at all. Maybe you weren’t able to correctly identify your global audiences across the litany…
In its attempts to recruit younger workers, the government is facing some challenges. Since the 1980s, the median age of the federal workforce has climbed from 30 to 42. Around 7% of the federal workforce is under the age of 30. According to LinkedIn, “government” is one of the industries losing the most millennial job switchers. According to the 2018 Federal Workforce Priorities Report, agencies faced a host of problems in recruiting and hiring new…
