Search & Display explores the intersection of traditional display media with search advertising and how online advertisers can leverage targeted keyword advertising alongside a branded display campaign to achieve greater lift, maximize click-through rates, conversion and engagement metrics. We’ll explore best practices and tactics for re-targeting, as well as share insightful data and meaningful case studies to help you navigate through the challenging, converging world of search and display.

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Can Search Marketers Own ‘Programmatic Marketing’ & ‘Big Data’?

Nov 28, 2012 at 1:05pm ET by Dax Hamman

Let’s keep this BS free. For years now, we (as an industry) have been talking about some mythical overlap between search and display, demonstrating how both channels should be managed by the same team. The theory goes that when they are put together, we start defying the laws of math, and that 1 + 1 equals 3. The reasoning behind such an argument, in part, comes down to simple efficiencies and management fees, but also because search marketers can contribute a unique type of thinking to media because of their background in auction-based buying. I am yet to see it really be proven true. [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Display | Search & Display

Unstructured Data Brings Search Effectiveness To Display

Nov 21, 2012 at 12:17pm ET by Frost Prioleau

Music lovers are able to buy individual songs without buying the whole album. Investors are able to buy individual stocks without buying a mutual fund or ETF. Search marketers are able to bid on individual search terms without buying pre-packaged bundles of terms. Until recently, however, display marketers have been mostly confined to targeting audience segments, without the ability to identify and bid on the individual components within those audience segments. This is now changing with the advent in display advertising of targeting with unstructured data. A Perfect Pair: Unstructured Dat [...]

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The Most Frequently Asked Questions In Search Retargeting

Nov 7, 2012 at 1:47pm ET by Dax Hamman

Since we first brought true Search Retargeting to the market several years ago, we have seen a shift in the questions that prospects want answers to. Two years ago, the market was fuelled by excitement and intrigue, ‘how does it work?’, ‘how much does it cost?’ and ‘how do we get started?’. But driven in part by imitators confusing buyers, the questions have become much more sophisticated, and as we continue to move along the adoption curve, this will likely continue. Beyond the basics, there are 7 questions that are most commonly asked of us: Where do you get the search [...]

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Boo! Are You Unintentionally Scaring Your Customers?

Oct 31, 2012 at 12:10pm ET by David Rodnitzky

Targeting in online marketing has gotten really good – scary good, in fact. Think for a moment about the level of granularity that AdWords now provides SEMs. If I wanted to, I could create a targeted campaign that only shows ads to people: In San Mateo, CA Using their iPhone Using WiFi On AT&T Online between 7:00 and 7:15PM Who have previously visited a specific page of my website Who typed in the query “Dracula costume” With all that data, I could create ad text and landing pages that might make someone wonder if I’ve hacked into their device and stolen some [...]

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See You At The Voting Booth: Political Search & Display Strategies

Oct 24, 2012 at 9:12am ET by Gus Spathis

Political ad campaigns are far from a new concept. A quick scan of The Living Room Candidate provides a look at the rich historical legacy of television ads for presidential campaigns, ranging from the earliest days of television to today's sophisticated :30 spots. Even before television spots were the norm, the DNC pioneered the use of the newfangled moving picture to produce Woodrow Wilson’s famous 1912 campaign film "The Oldway and the New." A recent article in The New York Times even explained that in ancient Rome, negative campaigning was a well-established practice through the use o [...]

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How To Jump Start Display Ad Campaigns With Look-A-Likes

Oct 17, 2012 at 9:03am ET by Frost Prioleau

Advertisers will tell you that they don’t like to waste money. This is especially true heading into the holiday season. However, that is exactly what many advertisers do by not taking advantage of Look-a-like technology, which has made great advances in recent years. Look-a-likes can reduce waste, save time, and improve performance by defining highly effective targeting parameters before the first impression is even served. What Are Look-a-Likes? It is a method of profiling the behavior and actions of existing site visitors and customers (sites they visit, searches they perform, sub [...]

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Search Retargeting: The Must-Have Media Tactic For Q4

Oct 3, 2012 at 12:59pm ET by Dax Hamman

As we rapidly enter the busiest period for the year for retailers, many are turning to Search Retargeting as the keystone for their digital marketing programs. Whereas in Q4 2011 many dipped a toe into the pixeled waters to test out its effectiveness, this year they have embraced it at scale. In its simplest form, Search Retargeting allows a retailer to find those individuals who have searched for a relevant term on Google, Yahoo! and Bing, but have not yet visited their site. This latter point is critical – Search Retargeting is unlike a typical retargeting or remarketing program in that [...]

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Part 2: A Bird’s-Eye View Of The Search & Display Lumascapes

Sep 26, 2012 at 12:25pm ET by Aaron Doades

Welcome to Part 2 of the "A Bird’s-Eye View of the Search and Display Lumascapes." In Part 1 last month, we covered two main topics: There is no à la carte targeting data in SEM Display is not catered to the long tail My third topic is an important one; it encompasses both the defining similarities and differences in the operation and infrastructure of search and display landscapes: display looks like search. This is an extension of my last point in the previous article, which explained that display is not catered to the long tail. However, since search caters to the long tail, [...]

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How Dynamic Audiences Can Maximize Display Advertising Performance

Sep 19, 2012 at 12:59pm ET by Frost Prioleau

I’m often asked whether it is better to change an ad to fit an audience, or to change an audience to fit an ad. Many in the online advertising industry are familiar with the concept of dynamic creative, which customizes the content of an ad to match the interests of the user seeing the ad. Dynamic creative is used heavily in the site retargeting space, where there is a fixed audience that has been defined as a group of users who have visited the advertiser’s site. Typically the ad is customized to show the user a product that he/she has recently viewed on the advertiser’s site, [...]

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The Simple Truths About Why Retargeting Is Broken

Sep 5, 2012 at 11:06am ET by Dax Hamman

As a parental co-founder (or dad) of 3 girls, I often have to teach them hard truths for their own good – ‘no, your science experiment can’t be asking your sister to stick a fork in an outlet’, 'no, you can't marry your 8 year old boyfriend' and ‘you are absolutely not going out in that!’. Sometimes, as marketers, we also need to hear similar truths – I particularly find myself telling those about the myths of ‘retargeting’. ‘No, site retargeting is not a prospecting tool’ ‘No, using 5 simultaneous site retargeting vendors is not a good idea, even if they all thin [...]

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A Birds-Eye View Of The Search & Display Lumascapes

Aug 29, 2012 at 1:13pm ET by Aaron Doades

Ah, the Display Lumascape. While I’m not an expert in Slideshare, I’m pretty sure that no other ad-tech related slide has received close to the amount of views as Terry Kawaja’s ubiquitous representation of the digital ad industry. But despite how helpful and how many views the Display Lumascape has received, few people seem aware of the existence of Terry’s other fine piece of work: the Search Lumascape. As separate entities, the Search and Display Lumascapes are explanations of two distinct industries with different types of media channels and varying companies. H [...]

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What Do Audience Segments, 8-Track Tapes & Pay Phones Have In Common?

Aug 22, 2012 at 12:29pm ET by Frost Prioleau

Yup…you guessed it. Audience segments are going the way of the dinosaurs. This may not come as much of a revelation to search marketers, who wouldn’t dream of running a search campaign where they couldn’t see the performance of each individual search term and vary bids on each search term as needed. Search marketers know that the ability to optimize their search campaigns at the keyword level is an integral part of making search campaigns successful. In online display advertising, audience segments are a relic that pre-dates the real time bidding (RTB) era. Prior to real time [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Display | Search & Display

View-Through Attribution For The Search Marketer

Aug 8, 2012 at 3:10pm ET by Dax Hamman

Ah view-through! Rarely does a topic in our industry solicit as much debate as this seemingly innocent metric. Display planners rely on it, search marketers don’t trust it (but would secretly love to get credit for it from PPC), and the clients are confused and uncertain. When 3 CMOs all asked for help on this topic within the space of a single week, I decided we needed a new resource that looked at the arguments ‘for’ and ‘against’, and so have published a new white paper on the subject: View-Through Attribution Exposed: What Last Touch Isn’t Telling You. In order to reach a [...]

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How To Extend & Improve Your Retargeting Efforts

Jul 25, 2012 at 12:38pm ET by Frost Prioleau

Invariably, when people get a taste of a good thing, they want more of it. This is definitely the case with online advertisers and their use of first party data in site retargeting. Site retargeting has been one of the hottest sectors in the online advertising space over the last couple of years, as advertisers with Web properties have experienced high return on their advertising spend (ROAS) by targeting ads to users who have already visited their site. Because of the excellent performance of site retargeting, networks, advertisers, and their agencies often ask us how they can extend [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Display | Search & Display

A Different Type Of Industry Confession – Or A Rant?

Jul 12, 2012 at 11:40am ET by Dax Hamman

There has been a fascinating and brilliant series of secret confessions taking place over on Digiday, and everyone from a ‘startup CEO’ to a ‘junior copywriter’ has had their turn. Some have criticized what seems to be mostly negative commentary that paints a picture of everyone being unhappy, underpaid and cheating their way through the display workdays. I see it differently; I see it as the tough love this industry needs to be able to grow at our full potential, and the smart ones of us will be listening and learning. Like ‘Undercover Boss’, this is our window into what’s [...]

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“Search” Beyond The “Engine”: Alternative Search Sites

Jul 5, 2012 at 11:54am ET by Aaron Doades

By now, you’ve all heard about this new whatchamacallit – the Googles. We all use the Googles quite a bit in our daily routines, and some of us even do a bit of marketing on them, too. However, as search evolves and continues to be fused with display, it’s important for marketers to take a step back and consider how and why consumers use conventional search engines, what type of data is afforded from these search engines and what types of results marketers want to gain. Why Do Consumers Use Search Engines? 1. People use search engines to decide if they want to buy a product or ser [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Display | Search & Display

How Search-A-Likes Can Improve Both Search Retargeting & SEM Campaigns

Jun 27, 2012 at 2:10pm ET by Frost Prioleau

Regardless of medium, the best marketers know cross-channel integration is key, and the exchange of information between channels should be a two way street. The world of online marketing is no exception, as more and more search marketers are looking to search retargeting as a way to leverage their knowledge of search engine marketing over into the rapidly evolving world of online display advertising. There are several motivations for search marketers to get involved with display advertising. These include: Lower CPC costs. In many cases, CPC costs are lower in display than they are in s [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Display | Search & Display

How To Sell Search Retargeting To The CMO

Jun 13, 2012 at 12:48pm ET by Dax Hamman

Whether you are a search marketer or a display planner, chances are you now know what search retargeting is and are contemplating a test (for those of you not familiar, search retargeting is a display media buy that focuses on just those individuals who have searched for something that matters to you but who haven’t yet visited your site). The last barrier to overcome is to convince the CMO of its merits. How Does Search Retargeting Work? If you are going to sell a search retargeting test internally, you need to know the basics better than they do: search retargeting is a display me [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Display | Search & Display

7 Tips For Lowering Cost Per Action (CPA) Using Search Retargeting

May 30, 2012 at 11:47am ET by Frost Prioleau

Value, like beauty, is usually in the eye of the beholder. In online advertising, the relative value of various campaign metrics has been subject to much debate. For brand marketers, well-designed banners shown to targeted consumers on high quality sites are perceived to have high value. Similarly, clicks and high click through rates (CTRs) that drive targeted consumers to the advertiser’s site are often seen as very valuable to brand marketers. However, in the world of performance display, where high return on advertising spend (ROAS) and/or return on investment (ROI) is the goal, [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Display | Search & Display

Do Search & Display Really Belong Together?

May 16, 2012 at 9:27am ET by Dax Hamman

The premise is simple – PPC and display are both media buys trying to achieve similar outcomes; both are forms of ‘bought media’ and now with display moving to a biddable environment both now require quantitative skill sets to manage them. It’s not a tough sell to convince a budget holder that a single agency or resource should own both the PPC and the display media campaigns. Back in November, I asked 4 experts from AKQA Media, Booyah, ethology and iCrossing whether the overlap was real (see: The Industry Speaks On The Overlap Between Search & Display) and the general consensus [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Display | Search & Display

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