Search Retargeting: 4 Tips To Use Recency To Drive Performance

November 29, 2011 by simplifiblog

In life, timing can be everything. But in marketing, it can make the difference between a sale and a missed opportunity. That’s why the topic of recency is so important to marketers. Fortunately, search retargeting can help marketers capitalize on recency to drive performance.

Understanding Recency & The Window Of Opportunity

The concept of recency has been a key element in marketing for decades. It speaks to customer engagement in relation to time. For example, a consumer who interacted with your brand two days ago is more engaged and has a better recency score than someone who did the same a year ago.

In short, recency informs marketers about the window of opportunity to reach a consumer. I think industry legend Erwin Ephron said it best:

“… there is a window of opportunity for the ad message preceding each purchase. Advertising’s job is to influence the purchase. Media’s job is to put the message in the window.”

To read all tips, visit >> Search Engine Land

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5 Reasons Online Display Advertising Is Simpler Than Ever

November 1, 2011 by simplifiblog

A good glass of wine is one of life’s simple pleasures. However, industry “experts” often make it sound complicated. This is the case with online display advertising today. But marketers need to know that display advertising today is a lot simpler than many of them believe.

Complexity: Old News

Time and again, we are told about how complicated the world of online display advertising has become. We see complicated charts showing hundreds of companies occupying the space, with each supposedly doing something different.

We hear of administration costs of 20% for executing online advertising placements compared to 3% for executing television campaigns. And agencies struggle to figure out the differences between the latest and greatest technology platforms.

It’s no wonder advertisers feel like they have no other option but to pay lots of middlemen just to get their banner ads served.

But is online display advertising really that complex today? Hardly. The truth is that the image of complexity that surrounds online display advertising today is based on an old industry model. Unfortunately, this outdated image deters marketers from giving display a try and capitalizing on the channel.

Read more on >> Search Engine Land

 

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“Search and the New Retargeting” Panel at OMMA Behavioral

July 22, 2011 by frostprioleau

Earlier this week I participated with an august group in a panel on the OMMA Behavioral Conference in San Francisco entitled “Search and the New Retargeting”

It was great to see that advertisers at a Behavioral Targeting conference are now understanding that search retargeting is not just for search advertisers, but for display advertisers as well. As discussed on the panel, search retargeting has significant advantages over many types of behavioral targeting:

  • Custom Segments to Match Each Campaign/Creative.
    • Because audiences to be targeted are defined by the keywords searched on by users,  advertisers can quickly create custom audiences that are precisely tuned to each campaign simply by uploading or editing lists of search terms.
  • Fully transparent.
    • Just like search, advertisers can bid, report, and optimize at the keyword level…enabling them to see precisely the costs, impressions, clicks, click through conversions, and view through conversions attributed to each keyword.
    • Campaign performance can be improved by de-averaging at the keyword level (eliminating poorly performing keywords and putting more budget behind keywords that are performing strongly).
  • Instant on/instant change.
    • Keywords can be instantly added or removed from campaigns, without the need to build new cookie pools every time there is a change.
  • Fully intent based with variable search recency.
    • Search retargeting targets users who have signaled their intent by entering search terms that the advertiser specifies.
    • Search recency can be instantly changed any time through out a campaign.

The panel also spent some time on whether search retargeting should live with the display teams or with the search teams in agencies. I’m not sure that the panel came to a conclusion on this topic. Of course, we think that it can be used by both search and display teams. Search teams use search retargeting to extend their search campaigns and drive more branded and lower funnel search. Display teams use search retargeting to drive brand awareness with user who are currently in market.

A third topic of the panel was attribution. This topic could be a whole panel (or conference!) to itself. I think that everyone agrees that better attribution models are needed, and that for the most part these models will shift some credit from lower funnel paid search to display as well as upper funnel paid search. In the meantime, we work with what we have!

For anyone interested, a video of the panel is posted here.

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Mediapost Article on De-Averaging Behavioral Targeting Segments

July 13, 2011 by frostprioleau

Great article by Laurie Sullivan of Mediapost. Read it here.

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De-Averaging Sausage…or How To Make Behavioral Targeting Work Better

July 5, 2011 by frostprioleau

Recently I was at a conference and one of my favorite topics came up: de-averaging behavioral targeting segments. This is an important issue for marketers today. Let’s take a look at why.

Why BT Sausage Can Be Dangerous

The typical audience segments used in behavioral targeting today are anything but transparent. In fact, they are a lot like sausage — you don’t really know what you’re getting. They are made up of many components and can contain a variety of data and signals from different sites, providers, activities, etc.  And while some of these components may perform well for a given campaign or creative, others may not. Consequently, such laggards can reduce average performance for the overall segment.

Why BT Sausage Isn’t All Bad

So does that mean that marketers should stop buying behavioral targeting sausage? No. These segments contain both “excellent cuts of meat,” as well as other less desirable “protein sources.” However, the trick is realizing that in online advertising, different data components perform differently for different campaigns, and even for different creatives used on the same campaign. In other words, one campaign’s mystery meat may be another campaign’s filet mignon.

Solving the BT Sausage Problem

But in order to fully capitalize on the different components within a segment, marketers need insights. If an advertiser could gain insight into how the various components of a behavioral targeting segment are performing, then they could “de-average” it. Such insight would allow them to eliminate the “bad” components, and drive more budget to the “good” components. Doing so would enable them to significantly improve overall performance.

The Key to Making BT Work Better

To gain the insights needed to drive better performance for behavioral targeting, marketers need a platform that:

  1. Allows custom BT segments to be built and launched quickly
  2. Provides full transparency as to how each component of the BT segments are performing, including spend, clicks, and conversions, etc.
  3. Allows instant editing of the BT segment, without the need to rebuild a cookie pool every time a component is added or removed.

Fortunately, Simpli.fi, has a platform that does all of the above, and more.  In fact, while advertisers can bring their own data to our system and keep it private for only their own use, they can also fashion custom segments out of the 8 Billion monthly search events that we license from our dozens of search partners.

So, the next time you are ready to dine at the behavioral targeting buffet, give Simpli.fi a holler, and we’ll help you to turn your behavioral targeting sausage into some steak that delivers results!

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New Feature in Simpli.fi Platform

June 10, 2011 by Simpli.fi

Simpli.fi has added dynamic graphical charting capabilities below the campaign screens.  The new feature allows for users to get a visual overview of their campaign(s) over a selected time period.  Some test data below shows impressions over spend for a sample month.

The chart below shows the default set of parameters for campaign charting.

The chart below shows a simple impressions over spend.

A user can choose additional charting parameters by clicking on the desired metric in the legend below the chart.  In the chart below, many parameters have been selected for overlay in the chart.

Impressions over Spend, Clicks and CTR

In order to zoom in, a user can select a subset area of the chart with their mouse.  In the chart below, a user selected a six day period to look at from the master chart.

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Exchangewire Interview

April 14, 2011 by frostprioleau

Exchangewire.com just published an interview about Simpli.fi’s launch in Asia. Read the article here:

http://www.exchangewire.com/apac/2011/04/13/frost-prioleau-discusses-the-simpl-fi-dsp-offering-in-china-and-the-state-of-the-apac-exchange-marketplace/

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Ni Hao RTB!

March 8, 2011 by frostprioleau

Today we announced the availability of the Simpli.fi platform in Asia. With this launch, advertisers looking to target Asian consumers can do so directly through the Simpli.fi interface. Press release is here:

I’m very proud of our team for the great work that they did in getting us live in our new Hong Kong data center. It is a testament to both them and our platform that we could get live so smoothly.

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Why Keywords are Key to Search Retargeting

February 21, 2011 by Simpli.fi

Two distinct flavors of search retargeting have emerged in the past several months:

• Audience Segment Search Retargeting
• Keyword-Level Search Retargeting (a.k.a. keyword targeted display)

In Audience Segment search retargeting, a single audience segment is created from all users who have searched on a list of terms within a specified period of time. This segment of users is then targeted with the same bid, and reported on as a single group. There is no visibility as to which keywords are driving the most traffic, which are performing best, etc.

In Keyword-Level search retargeting (which…you guessed it…we offer here at Simpli.fi), bidding, reporting, and optimizing are all done at the keyword level. So, just like search campaigns, advertisers get to see exactly the number of impressions, clicks, and conversions attributed to each keyword that they specified. Also, just like search, advertisers are able to change bids individually at the keyword level, raising bids on keywords that perform the best and lowering them on poorly performing keywords.

So…why should you care about Keyword-Level search retargeting? Here are a few reasons:

• Improved performance. As search marketers know well, individual keywords perform differently on different campaigns. By enabling advertisers to see the number of impressions, clicks, and conversions attributed to each individual keyword, advertisers are able to optimize campaigns for CTR, CPC, or CPA by raising or lowering individual keyword bids.

• Keyword discovery/expansion. A tried and true technique for search marketers is to launch a campaign, see what types of keywords are performing, and then expand the keyword list with similar keywords. In search retargeting, this technique is available only when advertisers are able to see how each individual keyword is performing. We see time and time again where the best performing keywords are those added after a keyword-level analysis of the first few days of a campaign.

• Improved transparency. Many advertisers want to know who they are reaching with their campaigns. For a health insurance campaign, for example, how many impressions are reaching users who searched on “health insurance” vs. users who searched on “flu symptoms”.

• Instant On/Addition/Removal of Keywords. Search marketers are used to being able to start up new campaigns instantly, and also being able to add and remove keywords instantly from campaigns. With most audience segment based search retargeting systems, whenever an advertiser wants to start a campaign or add/remove a keyword from their list, they need to restart the process of building a cookie pool. This can take 1-4 weeks. With a keyword level targeting platform such as Simpli.fi‘s, changes to keywords lists go online instantly at full volume, as the need to build and rebuild cookie pools upon any change to a keyword list is eliminated.

So…give us a holler if you want to learn more about keyword-level search retargeting!

Thanks for listening…

Frost Prioleau

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Top Seven Reasons Search Marketers Should Use Search Retargeting

January 18, 2011 by Simpli.fi

I was inspired by this recent Mediapost article by Janet Driscoll Miller to write up the top 7 reasons search marketers should be using Search Retargeting. Here goes:

With the massive amounts of display impressions now available through real time bidding, search retargeting is quickly becoming an integral part of search marketing efforts. Just like with search, search retargeting enables marketers to bid, report, and optimize display campaigns at the keyword level so they can maximize performance and insight from campaigns. Here are seven reasons all search marketers should be including search retargeting in their plans:

1. Reach more searchers. With search campaigns, the vast majority (typically 95%+) of users who searched on your keywords never make it to your site. Using search retargeting, advertisers can reach highly targeted prospects who have shown their intent by searching on your targeted keywords, but have not clicked on your organic or paid links.

2. Reach searchers more often. With search, your only opportunity to advertise to the searcher is when they are on the search engine results page (SERP) right after he/she searches. With search retargeting, platforms like Simpli.fi can reach users up to 200 additional times in the month following their search, allowing for repetitive messaging to these in-market consumers.

3. Reach searchers more effectively. Search retargeting enables advertisers to serve fully branded flash and/or static banners, which deliver advertisers’ messages more effectively than plain text ads used in search.

4. Target expensive upper funnel, broad search terms. Upper funnel, broad search terms are very expensive in many verticals from travel to financial services to telecommunications. Search retargeting enables advertisers to efficiently target broad, upper funnel search terms that are critical to reaching consumers early in the purchase cycle.

5. Target competitive terms. Most marketers covet the opportunity to increase market share by advertising directly to users who are searching on competitive products. Search retargeting enables such competitive targeting (or “conquesting”) against a broad range of competitive terms.

6. Generate more search traffic. Studies, including this recent one by Yahoo!,  have shown time and time again that exposure to display campaigns drives increased search traffic for your branded terms.

7. Manage more budget. Search retargeting is the perfect opportunity for search marketers to leverage their expertise in keywords and keyword bidding into display advertising. Not only will this make their search campaigns more effective, it will allow them to manage more budget…always a good thing for marketers!

Frost Prioleau
CEO
Simpli.fi
@phrossed

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