Tim Mayer

In magazines, it’s called an advertorial. In academia, it’s a sponsored study. In search, it’s paid placement.

But whatever the name, the goal is the same – produce content that looks and feels unbiased but is actually an ad for a particular service or product. This is what we call native advertising, ads that blend in with the non-sponsored content almost seamlessly.

Facebook’s ad platform, Atlas, recently relaunched with an entirely rewritten ad server platform, a newly redesigned user interface and the ability to target and measure advertising across devices using the Facebook identity, even for channels beyond Facebook.
The news raises several interesting questions for the industry: How will this impact the ad tech industry overall? Will this new capability drive advertisers to migrate to Facebook from DoubleClick, which has long been considered… Show more

Facebook’s ad platform, Atlas, recently relaunched with an entirely rewritten ad server platform, a newly redesigned user interface and the ability to target and measure advertising across devices using the Facebook identity, even for channels beyond Facebook.
The news raises several interesting questions for the industry: How will this impact the ad tech industry overall? Will this new capability drive advertisers to migrate to Facebook from DoubleClick, which has long been considered market leader in the space, or is the market shifting? Should advertisers look beyond these two solutions? Show less

A new trend is emerging among CPG brands. They’ve started dipping their toes in the “loyalty program” pool, similar to what performance advertisers in verticals such as retail and travel services have been offering to their customers for years.
Familiar brands, such as Purell, are offering loyalty programs that, at their core, are being positioned as a way to learn about customers and better understand what they buy, why they buy and their common psychographic or demographic attributes, as… Show more

A new trend is emerging among CPG brands. They’ve started dipping their toes in the “loyalty program” pool, similar to what performance advertisers in verticals such as retail and travel services have been offering to their customers for years.
Familiar brands, such as Purell, are offering loyalty programs that, at their core, are being positioned as a way to learn about customers and better understand what they buy, why they buy and their common psychographic or demographic attributes, as well as what items and free gifts these customers desire for future product development.
Much as it is for performance advertisers, all of this information is extremely insightful for CPG brands to better understand their buyers. But what’s missing? Show less

Some of the largest companies on the Internet are working on ad IDs and complex identity-management solutions, both of which aim to serve as alternatives or replacements for the third-party cookie.
This is because the third-party cookie and associated ecosystem are facing major challenges. First, third-party cookies can be deleted by users, are cleared by security software programs on average every seven days and are blocked completely by many browsers and devices.

Data are wonderful things. Properly applied, data can provide insights into where to trim budget and where to increase it. Data will indicate what’s working versus what’s not, what’s a signal versus what’s an outlier. And, data help to determine the proper media mix for the overall campaign strategy.

Data-driven, performance-based advertisers reviewing their online display metrics often find it easy to justify spend on retargeting. After all, it’s very simple to see that retargeting is a… Show more

Data are wonderful things. Properly applied, data can provide insights into where to trim budget and where to increase it. Data will indicate what’s working versus what’s not, what’s a signal versus what’s an outlier. And, data help to determine the proper media mix for the overall campaign strategy.

Data-driven, performance-based advertisers reviewing their online display metrics often find it easy to justify spend on retargeting. After all, it’s very simple to see that retargeting is a big winner when it comes to display. But beware! There’s a trap in that data. Show less

With the ever-increasing drone of industry rumblings about the demise of the third-party cookie, many ad tech players have begun highlighting “first party” prominently as a key buzzword in their positioning.

Frequently, this is used in the context of “first-party data” and, in some cases, “operating in the first party” for online advertisements.

Retargeting is a great way to engage with consumers who have already demonstrated interest in your product or service and have entered the consideration phase of your purchase funnel.
Many marketers view retargeting as an opportunity to get a user back to their websites where they will move down the funnel, but retargeting is more complex than recapturing a wayward user. Fine-tuning is required. Often, there are cases in retargeting that lead to lost revenue, diminishing customer… Show more

Retargeting is a great way to engage with consumers who have already demonstrated interest in your product or service and have entered the consideration phase of your purchase funnel.
Many marketers view retargeting as an opportunity to get a user back to their websites where they will move down the funnel, but retargeting is more complex than recapturing a wayward user. Fine-tuning is required. Often, there are cases in retargeting that lead to lost revenue, diminishing customer satisfaction and damaged user trust. Show less

Advertisers in the display space have yearned for more transparency from vendors in recent years. This yearning has been amplified by the recent, rapid growth of programmatic display advertising.
The increased complexity, which is inherent to programmatic, led to continuous moaning from advertisers about less transparency, which may be the result of ad tech vendors, rather than programmatic advertising itself. The important thing to note is that when these advertisers request more… Show more

Advertisers in the display space have yearned for more transparency from vendors in recent years. This yearning has been amplified by the recent, rapid growth of programmatic display advertising.
The increased complexity, which is inherent to programmatic, led to continuous moaning from advertisers about less transparency, which may be the result of ad tech vendors, rather than programmatic advertising itself. The important thing to note is that when these advertisers request more transparency, they may also be talking around each other and seeking transparency into different performance metrics including fraud, viewability, pricing and publishers (where ads are running). Show less

We have all seen it: marketers deeply loyal to “last click attribution” and the comfort zone it brings along with it. With a last-click mindset, they have focused on maximizing their search marketing volume via Paid Search and SEO until the query supply is maxed out.display-ad-here-featured
These marketers also use remarketing (another comfort zone), with proven intent similar to search queries, as well as similar success metrics such as return on Ad Spend (ROAS) and effective cost per… Show more

We have all seen it: marketers deeply loyal to “last click attribution” and the comfort zone it brings along with it. With a last-click mindset, they have focused on maximizing their search marketing volume via Paid Search and SEO until the query supply is maxed out.display-ad-here-featured
These marketers also use remarketing (another comfort zone), with proven intent similar to search queries, as well as similar success metrics such as return on Ad Spend (ROAS) and effective cost per acquisition (eCPA).
But once these three channels are maxed out, what can marketers do to continue to ramp business? Show less

“Real time” – in terms of data or targeting – is an overused phrase in display advertising.
“The rise of programmatic display lulls us into believing that we are advertising in ‘real time,’” Dax Hamman recently asserted. In reality, it is often only the bidding process that is truly “real-time” in nature. Conversely, much of the data being used to determine bids and make decisions on which creative to serve to the user is based on “non-real-time” data.