Posts tagged digital advertising
The alternative to charging for content – and still make money
Mar 10th
Publishers are faced with an ever growing challenge as print sales slip and readers largely reluctant to pay for content online.
Sure they could start simply churning out advertorial. That would surely keep the advertisers happy, but where’s the editorial credibility or ethics?
A new tool could well be the much sought after holy grail offering to monetise content both ‘seamlessly’ and ‘ethically’.
It comes from Skimlinks, a content monetisation service that we picked up on UTalkMarketing some time ago, and now operating on more than a half million sites - blogs, newspapers, content networks and forums - worldwide.
Fans include the Mirror.co.uk, whose Head of Digital, “SkimKit places the content and the commercial opportunity together,” said Paul Hood, has praised the content and the commercial mash-up.
“The editors have complete control over the content that they’re selecting and the commercial happens automatically. We’re not missing any opportunities,” he adds cheerfully.
Skimlinks helps website publishers by automatically turning normal retailer links in their editorial content into affiliate links. Each time a user clicks through and makes a purchase, the website earns a commission from the retailer. Simples, eh?
So why is it important? Well, the service is ideal for publishers lacking the resources or capacity to harness affiliate marketing as a revenue source, in a market that industry analysts predict will grow to $4 billion in the U.S. by 2014.
Now a new desktop tool – SkimKit – aims to empower editors and bloggers to easily produce revenue-generating content in a way that critically distances them from the commercial side of the process.
The tool offers a live, searchable database of millions of products from Skimlinks’ merchants. The tool lets publishers research, find and link to products they are writing about, with immediate access to deeplinks and image URLs.
It also features a service that creates shortened, monetised links for use in Twitter and email newsletters, turning a means of communication into a potential revenue source.
While SkimKit makes the creation of content more efficient for publishers, it is also more lucrative. So, if a publisher chooses to feature a product found in the tool, they earn a commission on the sale.
“Skimlinks gives publishers a way to generate revenue streams beyond banner ads and text ad units by making the most of the commercial value of the content they are already writing,” says Alicia Navarro, CEO and co-founder of Skimlinks.
“SkimKit makes it even easier by allowing editors and bloggers to actively play a role in the monetisation process without feeling any impact on their integrity or impartiality, as they are still writing about the kinds of products and retailers they normally write about.”
Why do marketers get branded iPhone apps so wrong?
Dec 1st
With over with over 100,000 applications on the iTunes App Store, brands are left with the dilemma of how to get their offerings noticed.
So what’s the secret of becoming a hit? What’s the magic formula that will get you on someone’s phone and close to them 24/7?
According to a new report from Adweek.com, two factors come into play.
Firstly, it argues that brands operating in the digital space have the advantage over non-digital brands.
No great surprise there. Unsurprisingly they get the space, how it operates and the needs and wants of online users. Oh, and they already have a profile in the online sector.
The second is ‘Utility’ – offering something of value to customer.
Any marketer is faced with the challenge of persuading consumers that their product/service is something they can’t live without.
It’s no different in marketing apps. Bottom line is do some research and do it early. If the feed back is that what the app is offering is rubbish, it’s most likely rubbish.
But don’t simply our word for it.
According to VP of Business Development at Symsource, Tim Ocock, in a recent article on UTalkMarketing.com the three guiding priciples for any brand developing an app should be.
1. Make sure you understand the capabilities and limitations of the technology.
2. Do something that can only be done on mobile.
3. Build something useful, not a gimmick
Ahhh, ‘something useful’ as in a Utility then! Have we made our point?
Display advertising makes a comeback with new Google backing
Nov 24th
Google is investing in new technology that will tailor make display ads for individual users
Google’s rivals have struggled to compete against the search king when it comes to the search advertising marketing.
The giant has relentlessly implemented new technologies to ensure the effectiveness of its search advertising over the years to ensure its position as market leader – and it still commands a massive 65% share.
It has added weight to this with a stream of improvements each quarter designed to boost the monetisation of search results, increasing the click-through rate and ROI for advertisers, as well as Google’s own profits.
It is now on the war path of display advertising, as today’s news that it has bought Teracent, a private company whose technology is used to customise and target display ads, suggests.
Google’s acquisition is a warning to search rival Yahoo that the pace of innovation in the digital advertising market is picking up – post GFC.
Internet advertising is now worth £1.75 billion a year in the UK, which display advertising accounting for 18.1% (or £316.5m).
Most ad targeting on the internet tries to select the best advert to send to a particular user after making an estimate of things like his or her tastes, age and location. Teracent aims to go one better and has developed technology that designs what it thinks will be the best version of an ad to send to each individual user.
Advertisers who use the service basically hand over a collection of advertising elements to Teracent, which then combines and recombines them to reach what it believes will be the optimum result.
Its algorithms rely on machine learning: the more versions of an advert that are shown, the better it understands which will work best in each set of circumstances.
Targeted advertising is again rearing its head. It’s been touted by marketers as the next generation in marketing for years. The mobile advertising platform has given the idea further weight, but as far as we can see, no one has quite mastered individually ‘targeted’ advertising yet.
Will this new Google acquisition be the beginning of a beautiful relationship between consumers and ads?
It certainly sounds like it could change the way we see display advertising, but response rates are low (0.25% ) and that most consumers simply ignore display ads or are immune to them.
Could display advertising make a comeback if it has the backing of such a giant as Google?
We’d love to know what you think…
Futurist who predicted social networks sees ‘thought interfaces’ by 2016
Nov 5th
Thought interfaces – that’s right. Soon enough we’ll be able to control our computers with our thoughts. Sound a little far-fetched? So did ‘micro-messaging’.
Ross Dawson, the Australian futurist, has a knack for predicting future trends in technology and business and is The Chairman of Future Exploration Network as well as a prominent international public speaker.
He is best known as the author of the best-selling book, Living Networks, published in 2002, in which he forecast the rise of social networks, micro-messages (Twitter), crowdsourcing and various other digital developments we now take for granted.
This week, Dawson released a list of extraordinary technologies he thinks will be commonplace by 2016.
They include:
People wearing video glasses as they commute, experiencing new forms of television, news updates and information about the world around them and people they meet.
‘Lifestreaming‘ will be commonplace. We will capture, store and share almost continuous videos, photos and conversations from our everyday lives.
We’ll have natural telephone conversations with computers, with almost all call centre staff replaced by automated systems.
Public measures of individual reputation will guide who we hire, do business with, and date.
Over 40% of us will work independently rather than as employees, many providing services to organisations all over the world instead of commuting to an office.
A next generation of ‘thought interfaces‘ will allow us to control our computers just by thinking. While the technology will still be basic, we’ll have begun to merge machines and humans.
What does this mean for digital advertising? All these new technologies are thought of on the basis of us spending more time on our computers meaning the migration of traditional advertising to digital will continue with full speed. However, advertisers will have to be clever in order to capture consumer attention if we only see what we want to see. Ads will have to be more viral, more entertaining and more tailored to individual needs.
What do you think?
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