Would You Pass The End Of Year Digital Marketing Quiz?

2012 has been another big year for digital. And in such a fast changing industry, how do we really expect everyone to keep up? Being ahead of the game on the topics that matter will put you head and shoulders above the competition, so take the quiz below and see how you would fare. Then […]

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2012 has been another big year for digital. And in such a fast changing industry, how do we really expect everyone to keep up?

Being ahead of the game on the topics that matter will put you head and shoulders above the competition, so take the quiz below and see how you would fare.

Then check out my responses below to see if you agree – extra points for disagreeing and commenting with your own opinions.

  1. What is the difference between Search Retargeting and Site Retargeting?
  2. How/When does de-duplication occur in display advertising, and what is its impact?
  3. What is the opportunity with the Facebook Exchange (FBX)?
  4. Complete the sentence, “View-through attribution is…”
  5. What are ‘Programmatic Marketing’ and ‘Big Data’?
  6. Bonus question: Will 2013 be the year of ‘mobile’?

1.  What Is The Difference Between Search Retargeting & Site Retargeting?

In brief, search retargeting is a prospecting buy – it finds those individuals who have searched for relevant terms on Google, Yahoo! or Bing and targets them with display ads.

Site retargeting refers to targeting individuals who have visited your site and then left, often without completing the action you want them take. It talks exclusively to those individuals who have already visited, and so is a double investment in the same audience.

The two work very well together: search retargeting for prospecting, and site retargeting for increasing conversion rates.

2.  How/When Does De-Duplication Occur In Display Advertising & What Is Its Impact?

De-duplication occurs in an ad server such as DoubleClick, Atlas, Mediaplex, etc., and refers to situations when credit for conversions is taken away from a particular media placement because multiple tactics contributed to each of those conversions.

Such ad servers are trying to do good – clearly if a site generated 1,000 conversions in a month, then the ad server should not report more than those 1,000; but, given each conversion can be influenced by many placements, if you were to add up each of the conversions the vendors report, they would total more than 1,000.

De-duplication therefore, is the action of reducing the number of conversions down to the real total. And, you may say that’s a good thing – I would – but it is the way it does so that causes the problem. Ad servers utilize last-touch as their default algorithm, and that causes lots and lots of problems.

At Chango, we are commonly asked to find brand new prospects for our clients, (and who wouldn’t want new prospects!), and then, the client will have site retargeting in place to help those individuals convert.

By design, search retargeting should be bringing the new people, and site retargeting helps to push them over the line. But when de-duplication occurs, all the credit is given to the tactic that last touched that person, which of course is site retargeting…

De-duplication is really an attribution problem, and one that causes smart marketers to make really dumb decisions.

3.  What Is The Opportunity With The Facebook Exchange (FBX)?

The Facebook Exchange is the latest advertising offering from Facebook. You are likely aware of their Marketplace ads that are sold on a CPC basis, and use Facebook member data to decide whom to target. In contrast, the Facebook Exchange (FBX) operates on a dynamic CPM basis, uses the advertisers’ 1st party data, not Facebook data.

Currently, the majority of dollars flowing through FBX are rumored to be retargeting dollars – this makes most sense as a site visit is the easiest 1st party data for an advertiser to work with.

The opportunity is broader, though. There is no limit to the data that can be used, and as an example, Chango became the latest integrated partner for FBX, and uses a massive amount of search data to prospect for new customers based on their searches on Google, Yahoo! and Bing – the intent of search married with social.

4.  Complete The Sentence, “View-Thru Attribution Is…”

View-thru (VT) attribution is a way to measure the impact of digital advertising. A view-thru event occurs when an individual is exposed to an ad, goes on to make a conversion or a visit, but has never clicked on that ad.

VT is one of the most controversial topics in digital today because marketers have been led to believe everything in digital should be 100% accountable down to the last cent or pixel. Advertising is advertising though, and given the many different possible touch points there are for an individual today, getting a 100% answer is impossible.

I like to use a Winston Churchill quote to respond to marketers who don’t believe in VT (see How Winston Churchill Solved the View-Thru Attribution Argument).

Anyway, what Winston Churchill did was offer a woman a large amount of money to have sex with him, to which she agreed. He then asked if she would have sex with him for $20. She responded, “What do you think I am, a prostitute?” Churchill replied, “Ma’am, we’ve already established that you are a prostitute. Now we are just negotiating the price.”

So, when we talk about VT, the argument is we know advertising influences consumers, otherwise we wouldn’t run it; therefore, we have already established what sort of metric VT is, now we are just negotiating how much we should use (see: View-Thru Attribution For The Search Marketer).

5.  What Are ‘Programmatic Marketing’ & ‘Big Data’?

Don’t we make things difficult for ourselves?! We have already adopted these terms, declared them as the next big thing, and then completely screwed up the definitions! You would be forgiven for getting this one wrong.

Big data, by definition, is a set of data so big that it’s cumbersome to use. Oh great, that one is helpful! Programmatic is a rules-based method for using data in your advertising program. So, a simple answer is that programmatic advertising is a way to design complex targeting rules, and it solves the problem of big data by making it usable (see: Can Search Marketers Own ‘Programmatic Marketing’ & ‘Big Data’?).

6. Bonus Question: Is This The Year Of The Mobile?

No.

How Did You Do?

Did you get all 6 about right? If you did, then well done – but if you didn’t, I suggest you use the holidays to catch up a little. None of these topics are going away in 2013, and in fact will only grow in complexity and scale. Right now is the time to ensure you understand those things that have moved from being advanced topics to being the basics.

Happy holidays everyone!


Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land. Staff authors are listed here.


About the author

Dax Hamman
Contributor
Digital marketer and co-founder of 3 awesome daughters. Chief Revenue Officer / Chief Strategy Officer and member of the Founding Team at Chango, the solution to programmatic marketing and 'big data'. Living on a plane between San Francisco, Denver, Toronto, London and beyond. Prior, I founded and led the iCrossing / Hearst global Media group, developing the concept of 'performance display', an innovative planning strategy that drove significant ROI from display advertising for some of the world's largest and coolest brands. Chango provides simple and effective Solutions for marketers in an era of real-time media and big data. Our proprietary platform, Chango Madison, combines the data management capabilities of a DMP (Data Management Platform) with the media buying capabilities of a DSP (Demand Side Platform) allowing for a truly Programmatic approach to both segmentation and media buying across Display, Mobile, Social & Web. Our clients include the world's largest brands & agencies, including 75 of the top 500 retailers, which has helped fuel 600%+ growth year over year for the last 2 years. We have offices in New York, Toronto, London, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, Atlanta and Dallas. The blood flows in pixels!

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