A widely cited 2011 IDC study found that the amount of data in the world is now doubling every 2 years. This trend is especially apparent in marketing, as massive amounts of data are being created by ever-increasing numbers of search queries, SKU views, social signals, page visits, and more.

Unstructured Data Volumes Exploding

Traditional paradigms for managing data are struggling under this tsunami. In addition to the sheer volume of data, the fact that so much of it is “unstructured” creates special challenges.

AdExchanger.com recently quoted John Iwata of IBM as stating that 80% this data is “unstructured”. This means that it doesn’t come pre-packaged in neat segments, fitted into a cascading taxonomy of some sort.

Instead, the data is hugely varied and constantly evolving. As an example consider search, where new terms and groups of terms are continually being formed as new artists, politicians, products, companies, and other evolutions take place.

To read more visit >>> Search Engine Land

Display’s New Era

Online display advertising is in the midst of a major transformation. In fact, you could say it is entering into a new era. And technology is the key driver behind its evolution.

According to IDC, RTB-based display ads in the US are expected to quintuple from $1.1B in 2011 to $5.1B in 2015. The growth of RTB is being driven by several inherent advantages over conventional display advertising. These advantages are appealing to search marketers, as they include increased performance, more precise targeting, greater reach, and improved transparency.

To read more visit >>> Search Engine Land

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

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

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.

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!

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.

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.

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/

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.