Ace Facebook Ads: The DOs and DON'Ts of Facebook Advertising

Social Media Advertising

Article | July 13, 2022

Geo targeting is the most under-utilised targeting element available to marketers today, giving a huge opportunity to brands that invest time and money in smarter geo targeting. Most advertising platforms now allow for detailed geo targeting – often down to a zip code/postcode or even to GPS coordinates. Yet it is amazing how few advertisers are consciously investing effort in this area. Audience targeting/ retargeting (via cookies) has dominated online display advertising and is now under threat from legislation and the end of third party cookies. Targeting in search and demographic targeting in logged in social networks attract huge spends. With the end of cookies it has been contextual targeting getting the most attention. This has relegated geo targeting down the list in terms of investment and understanding. This is a mistake as in fact it has many benefits, and to succeed advertisers need to understand how it impacts their business.

Ad Networks

Article | October 20, 2022

When print publishers transitioned to online publishing, they were keen to find a way to generate revenue. Their revenue model in the print world was advertising, so they needed to monetize their content online. Display ads were a great start for them. They sold their advertising space to interested advertisers directly. Even then, there would always be some ad inventory that remained unsold. The need of the hour was a platform that could help them sell this inventory. That is when ad networks for publishers and advertisers came into the picture. Let us take a deeper look into how ad networks are helping both publishers and advertisers optimize their selling and buying processes. Ad Networks: Simplifying Ad Buying and Selling An ad network is a technology-backed platform that acts as an intermediary between a group of publishers who want to sell their ads and advertisers interested in buying them. Ad networks for publishers and advertisers first appeared in the mid-nineties as the earliest advertising technology to support online advertising. They helped advertisers buy ad space across multiple publishing platforms. The primary purpose of an ad network was to collect unsold ads from different publishers and put them up for offer to advertisers at a lower price than what a direct sale would cost. This kind of ad inventory was mostly referred to as remnant, non-premium ads that publishers struggled to sell directly. Today, ad networks for publishers focus on offering advertisers exclusive ad deals at premium prices. They pre-buy inventory from different publishers and then resell it to advertisers at premium prices to help advertisers get the impressions they expect. Types of Ad Networks Based on your audience, industry, topics, and formats, you have four main types of ad networks to choose from: Inventory-specific networks: Such networks have ads of a specific type, such as mobile or video. Vertical advertising networks: These are ad networks that focus on a specific topic, such as fashion, automobiles, or business. Premium networks: These are the networks that offer premium inventory, mostly from popular publishers. Targeted networks: These networks offer specific targeting capabilities through a built-in ad server. How do Ad Networks Work? Ad networks for publishers and advertisers keep on evolving with technological advancements. To understand how the best ads network works, here are the dynamic steps they follow to benefit publishers and advertisers: Ad networks compile multiple publishers with available ad inventory. Advertisers create campaigns using the ad network’s campaign panel, keeping in mind their budget, target audience, and any other special attributes. The publishers install relevant ad network tags on their websites. When there is a match between an ad campaign set by an advertiser and the publisher’s ad inventory, ad information is sent to the publisher. The ad network provider gets a share of the ad revenue generated from the campaign or by selling the inventory at a higher price than the publisher. Using the ad network’s campaign panel, the advertiser tracks and manages the ad’s performance. Ad Networks in Programmatic Advertising Ad networks for publishers and advertisers are a part of programmatic advertising, which is the process of automatically buying and selling digital advertising space. In this space, demand-side platforms (which help advertisers) and supply-side platforms (which help publishers) streamline the buying and selling process through real-time bidding (RTB). Businesses and enterprises rely on programmatic advertising for their digital advertising needs because publishers are adopting native ads on their websites. Thanks to native ads, ad blockers don’t affect advertising, and marketers can optimize and improve their ads with programmatic techniques for campaign success. It's no surprise that programmatic digital display ad spending is expected to increase by 25.8% this year (Source: Brand Equity). In conjugation with ad networks, an ad exchange connects DSPs and SSPs autonomously. An ad exchange came into the picture in 2005 when ad networks were not enough to solve the cumbersome problem publishers were facing ─ selling unsold ad space. Automation in the open marketplace for buying and selling digital ads was the solution. An ad exchange offers a streamlined platform for advertisers, publishers, ad networks, and other parties to connect their ad serving technologies for efficiency. Ad Network and Ad Exchange: What is the Difference? In the programmatic advertising ecosystem, the ad network and the ad exchange are two important components that are often mistaken to be the same because of their role in media buying. Let us take a look at the factors that separate the two. Attribute Ad Network Ad Exchange Function Intermediary between publishers and advertisers Open marketplace for everyone Identity Company Technology Key Users Publishers, advertisers and agencies Publishers, advertisers, agencies, ad networks, DSPs, SSPs and ATDs Important Characteristic Pre-segmented ads for particular audience. Promotes bulk buying and selling. Pool of various types of ad inventory. Based on an impression-per-impression trade Ad Quality Top-tier ad inventory, often sold for the first time All available inventory on sale including remnant ad slots Optimization Time consuming Optimization possible on-the-go Cost Stable and determined by the ad network Dynamic pricing based on real-time bidding by advertisers Impact on Advertiser Ad prices are higher Advertisers can define the pricing Impact on Publisher Low control over inventory pricing and optimization More control over value per impression Buyer/Seller Information Advertisers are unaware of the placement of their ads Publishers don’t know who the advertisers are Both advertisers and publishers have each other’s information Why Advertisers and Publishers Rely on Ad Networks? A Wider Range of Options With the help of top ad networks, advertisers and publishers can buy or sell more ad space. As a part of monetization strategies for publishers, they can rapidly increase their revenue through premium or remnant inventory because ad networks bring them the highest paying bids. Advertisers, on the other hand, can easily find any type of ad inventory that matches their budget for ad publishing. Higher Return on Investment Top ad networks bring in more revenue from advertising. The better the quality of ads, the higher the revenue for advertisers because they get precisely matched with their targeting needs and they can choose the most profitable deals. Increased Efficiency Automation in matching publishers and advertisers is the biggest advantage of advertising networks. It saves the time of manually looking for suitable deals or favorable pricing. The best publishers that bring the best impressions on ads can easily be approached. Publishers can get their inventory sold for the best price thanks to digital advertising networks. Features of an Ideal Ad Network for Publishers & Advertisers Here is a list of features you can refer to while choosing an ad network that caters to your needs: Size: The size of the advertising network matters because it facilitates a steady traffic. The more traffic it can deliver, the higher your ROI will be. Quality: Identify the quality of the inventory that an ad network offers. It should match the kind of inventory you need. Audience Targeting: Your ad network should support different audience targeting options so that ad campaigns work perfectly well. Format Support: Your ad network should support different formats like responsive, call-only, animated GIF or simple banners so you can diversify into different formats without any hassles. Reliability: Depending on your requirements, ensure that the network doesn’t go down and provides consistent service so your business remains unaffected. The interface should also be easy to use, clean, and rich with data to help your marketing team optimize their personalization efforts. CTV Streaming Platform Used PubMatic to Bump its Revenue by 400% Future Today, a premium CTV streaming platform, used PubMatic’s platform to drive its ad revenue. PubMatic helped Future Today partner with a leading CTV DSP and achieve a lucrative private marketplace (PMP) agreement to create incremental demand through direct integration and optimized engagement. “PubMatic has been one of Future Today's fastest growing demand partners in the last 6 months. The entire team has been a pleasure to work with and they genuinely understand the value of CTV in the market.” – Katya Shkolnik, Head of Partnerships, Future Today Inc. Key Takeaways Display, native, and banner advertising campaigns are critical for marketers like you to scale your business, so understanding how and what an ad network for publishers and advertisers does is important to creating the best, most effective advertising campaigns that bear results.

Advertiser Platforms

Article | August 2, 2022

The world is changing every minute and so is the structure of business and marketing tactics. Digital advertising has changed drastically over a period and is growing at a break neck speed. Although native advertising is at a nascent stage, it is a popular, creative, authentic, interactive, and engaging form of advertising. Native advertising is also called paid content or sponsored content. Gone are the days when native advertising was just a buzz word. Today it is the new marketing reality. Native content marketing has winged its way into emails, e-commerce platforms, social media platforms (Facebook, Instagram), video sites. Social media ads, recommended ads, and promoted search results are a few examples of well-known native ads. Native ads are cohesive with the content on the page and ingest themselves very well with the design and look of the page. Many online marketers are turning to native advertising that eases the opportunity of connecting to their users in the format they are comfortable with, such as articles, videos, and infographics. Native ads normally do not look like ads. They look like a part of the content in a user’s viewable area. Media companies like The New York Times, BuzzFeed, The Atlantic, and The Wall Street Journal are few examples that invest in native content advertising. Native advertising is the driving force leveraging advertising strategy. As per the Native Advertising Institute, by 2021, the revenue from native advertising is expected to increase by 46%. Types of Native Advertising There are various types of native advertising that publishers may offer on their sites. They may offer a few or all of these: In-stream In stream ads are the ads put in before, during or after the streaming of any video, music, and animation that the consumer has requested. In-stream ads termed as pre-roll, mid-roll, and post roll. In-stream ads are most commonly visible on YouTube. In-article In-article are the ad formats that helps you to put native ads between the paragraphs of the pages. These articles are optimized by google for better performance. They blend well and provide a better experience of the readers. Content recommendation Content or product recommendation provide you with personalized content or product recommendation based on data collected about user’s online behavior. Offering better effortless customer journey. Commerce Native video Native videos are the in-feed videos that are created and uploaded on various social networks. Facebook, , YouTube, and Twitter are most widely used platforms for native video. Custom formats Custom native ads are developed by brand itself. Custom ads are user-defined allowing you to define your variable. In-mail There are two ways of In-mail native advertisements, they are one-off long-form and programmatic. Native email marketing will boost KPIs. Sponsored content Sponsored content naturally blends in with content on the webpage but is marked as “sponsored” within the ad. What Does Native Advertising Look Like? In Feed Ads In Feed native ads are slipped between the content allowing the readers to view them easily and with less effort. Example of in-feed ads are the ads that appear in your newsfeed on social media and news sites (Facebook, Buzzfeed) Search & Promoted Listings Search and promoted listings appear at the top of your Google search results or in the side bar increasing the product visibility and sales. Search and promoted listings are fee-based advertising services. Content Recommendations These are the articles that appear at the bottom of the webpage. This is a great way to increase the audience and attract new leads. Content recommendations are the personalized articles keeping the target audience in mind. Best Practices of Native Advertising Content is King Content plays a key role in native ads for engaging the audience and comes in different shapes and sizes. Developing an innovative format for delivering quality content such as short snappy text, animations, infographics, videos, carousels of images, will earn you higher ROI. Customers are likely to return to your site without any native medium advertising. Successful native ads are colorful, easy to read, and stand out among other content around the same page. Keep Native Advertising Programmatic Partner with a top-notch premier content house to stand out. Keep native advertisements programmatic. Programmatic help brands make the most of micro-moments. In Programmatic advertising, automated technology is used for buying advertising space allowing advertisers to make native ads more relevant to potential customers. In the traditional buying media process, advertisers have less control over buying the placement. Native advertising can achieve higher engagement and conversion with the programmatic platform. Native Ads Placement Smarter Native ads are embedded onto the webpage much like the publisher's editorial. It is best practice to let the ad be on the same page for several days so that the potential customers come back to the website to have a look at it. Keep it Personal Keep your ad copy simple, interactive, and direct to connect with the audience. Try to call out the problem-solving content to make people feel identified and easily relatable with the solution. Keep content personal and relevant to increase engagement. The copy that is simple is more persuasive. Write ad copy as though you are speaking to your audience. The Rise in Video Popularity Trend Generating high-quality content that educates and entertains at the same time is far more effective in building long-term customer relationships. Video happens to be one of the successful formats of native content marketing. Video content accelerates the engagement of customers and the revenue earned from native video advertising. One of the successful ad trends is interactivity. Video content being interactive creates a sense of personal touch and leads to word-of--mouth marketing. Targeting the Right Way The success of any campaign largely depends on sites, audiences, and gadgets. Gather your user’s information through tools and analytics to decide your audience. Emphasizing the need of the audience is important to maintain the foundation of native advertising. Knowledge about the audience will ensure you target the right audience on the right native advertising platform. According to a recent study, click-through rates on native ads are higher on mobile devices. How Does Native Advertising Work? The most inevitable question arising to any advertiser’s mind is whether there is sustainable growth for native content marketing? Well the answer to this is very positive. Native advertising works in terms of demand and supply. Publishers fall under the supply category looking out for ads to monetize their site and advertisers fall under the demand category reaching an audience to generate promotion, sales, and lastly leads. The brand pays on a native advertising platform of their choice for the placement of their content. Selecting the right platform is an essential step of native ads. Once the content is created and approved, it will be tagged by saying something like, “Advertisements”, “Paid advertisement”, “Sponsored”, or “Recommended” to create transparency within native advertising platforms. Frequently Asked Questions What is native advertising? Native advertising is a paid content that mimics the design of the platform upon which it is published. Native ads are commonly visible on most of the social media platforms (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn) but are also seen on websites. They function differently from advertorials. Native advertisements blend perfectly with web page organic content therefore are not jarring. Why native advertising is important? Native advertisements bring brands and customers together on a single page by better targeting and using personalization technology, making it more engaging. Native advertising content has a longer shelf life and reaches the target audience through trusted channels. It generates higher CTR, boosts conversions, and creates higher sales for your website and company. What is an example of native advertising? Media companies like BuzzFeed, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, Instagram filter, Nickelodeon, and social media ads are a few popular examples of native advertising that have invested in the creation and distribution of native advertisements on their respective platforms on behalf of the brands. Why is native advertising so successful? The success of native advertising heavily depends on the relevant and engaging content, better received by target customers. Native ads are viewed 53% more than other banner ads. Native content is cohesive, blends smoothly with the organic content so they do not appear as ads, making people inclined to view them more and consume them. Native ads are worth the hype provided used correctly and created and promoted the right way. { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@type": "FAQPage", "mainEntity": [{ "@type": "Question", "name": "What is native advertising?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "Native advertising is a paid content that mimics the design of the platform upon which it is published. Native ads are commonly visible on most of the social media platforms (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn) but are also seen on websites. They function differently from advertorials. Native advertisements blend perfectly with web page organic content therefore are not jarring." } },{ "@type": "Question", "name": "Why native advertising is important?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "Native advertisements bring brands and customers together on a single page by better targeting and using personalization technology, making it more engaging. Native advertising content has a longer shelf life and reaches the target audience through trusted channels. It generates higher CTR, boosts conversions, and creates higher sales for your website and company." } },{ "@type": "Question", "name": "What is an example of native advertising?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "Media companies like BuzzFeed, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, Instagram filter, Nickelodeon, and social media ads are a few popular examples of native advertising that have invested in the creation and distribution of native advertisements on their respective platforms on behalf of the brands." } },{ "@type": "Question", "name": "Why is native advertising so successful?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "The success of native advertising heavily depends on the relevant and engaging content, better received by target customers. Native ads are viewed 53% more than other banner ads. 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Article | December 8, 2020

While brands have dabbled in augmented reality (AR) for years, 2020 marks the tipping point where it’s becoming an integral part of marketing strategy, helping create meaningful and emotional consumer connections. AR has finally grown up; once infamous for gimmicks such as face filters on social media, it’s now a cross-platform tool to build truly interactive environments, compared to VR which requires a headset to create computer-aided stimuli. The figures tell us that the global market is expected to grow substantially from $13 billion this year to more than $67 billion by 2024. The technology is graduating from being used solely for entertainment to providing real-world value and utility for marketers through immersive and experiential opportunities. So – in the midst of a global pandemic – what makes this the perfect time for AR to come of age, and how can marketers make use of its unique attributes? Extensive investment in the ecosystem is laying the foundations for AR’s long-awaited, mainstream emergence. Google and Apple’s mobile tech stacks, ARCore and ARKit, mean more than four billion smartphones across the world are already AR compatible, and Google now includes AR in mobile search. In addition, the imminent arrival of 5G will dramatically boost mobile connectivity, enabling developers and content creators to use approximately 100 times the bandwidth of 4G to build a new type of experiential, 3D environment where users can intuitively interact with the people, objects and information around them. Alongside these tech developments, the global COVID-19 context is inevitably changing consumer needs and behaviors, increasing demand for the virtual, contactless experiences that can be achieved through AR. And in the near future, wearable tech such as AR spectacles will also join the party to propel evolution in the space even faster. Here are four ways AR can be a game-changer for marketing in 2020: Enabling product visualization In a world where consumers order everything from clothes to cars online, marketers can harness AR to help shoppers visualize products in an interactive and immersive way that goes far beyond a static image or video. This could mean experiencing what it’s like to sit inside a dream car, watching AR panoramas unfold through the virtual windscreen, or seeing what a jacket looks like on the actual shopper, without them having to leave the house. Augmented Reality enables consumers to explore customization options and the unique elements that a product can offer. Brands that utilize the technology witness up to 8x longer dwell times, as giving consumers control over their digital experiences boosts engagement levels. For instance, participants at an AR smartphone launch can virtually see and interact with detailed specifications and features of the device. AR is certainly not restricted to just online browsing – it has a real benefit in the physical world too, for instance helping shoppers in stores discover how and where the product was made, just by scanning a code –subsequently helping move them along their purchase journey. Future-proofing education and development AR enables a more sophisticated, discovery-based form of learning. For example, students in a classroom can engage with virtual, 3D objects to help grow their understanding of certain topics. Teaching concepts such as orbits in the solar system can be optimized using AR-powered, interactive models. Additionally, AR allows for the gamification of learning experiences, helping to boost knowledge retention through educational puzzles and treasure hunts. The learning benefits of AR also extend beyond the classroom. In mechanical fields especially, the technology can train people how to complete tasks by superimposing the end result on the version the trainee is practicing with. Implementing AR in professional development cases has shown significant improvements to learning curves, creativity, and spatial awareness. In fact, according to a study by the National Training Laboratories, “learning by doing” has shown to increase learning retention rates by up to 75% compared to simply listening to a seminar or lecture. By progressing education onto understanding and experiencing, as opposed to reading and writing, AR offers huge benefits across the industry. Invigorating interactive advertising Product visualization, along with other attributes of AR, can be used to deliver interactive advertising experiences that truly connect with consumers and boost conversions by 40%. AR ad units drive far more engagement and dwell time than conventional media and can give digital display advertising a new lease of life. What’s more, the real-time interaction between user and ad enables advertisers to effectively measure the impact of their campaigns and optimize accordingly. Advertisers have cautiously experimented with AR for years but they have largely added minor elements to traditional campaigns simply to ‘tick a box’. To make the most of AR’s capabilities and deliver real engagement, marketers need to take a different strategic approach and put this disruptive technology at the heart of their ad campaigns. Superseding live events At a time when social distancing makes live events and product launches problematic, AR can be used to digitally create immersive and emotionally-charged experiences that generate buzz around a brand. In fact, AR improves upon the in-person experience by allowing marketers to scale events beyond the natural boundaries of any physical location and enable hundreds of thousands of participants from all over the world to share the experience simultaneously. This will revolutionize how audiences engage with live music and sports events in particular, enabling unique forms of interaction. By augmenting the user’s immediate environment with a digital presentation layer, AR allows users to interact with players and performers in a way that is not possible with a traditional passive offline event, and to be true participants rather than simply viewers. AR reduces the need for traditional physical events and paves the way for a new era of participative, immersive and scalable online experiences, with visceral and emotional engagement. The perfect combination of tech evolution, advanced connectivity and contextual circumstance means this is the year AR really comes into its own. By taking advantage of product visualization, interactive advertising and immersive digital events, brands can leverage AR as a game-changer for marketing in 2020.