An excellent, nonpartisan perspective about the tangible impact of brand safety in advertising online during national election cycles, courtesy of the great peeps at DoubleVerify.
If you are advertising on social media and/or the open web via hashtag#programmatic display, take some extra time this year to understand the available brand safety settings offered by each ad vendor or platform where you run campaigns.
The second stat below is quite clear. Over half of all consumers feel it's your job as the brand to control what content your ads are seen next to, even if you buy your media exclusively on a programmatic or automated method.
The third stat is equally as blunt in terms of outcome, if you don't control where your ads get served - 3 out of 5 people would be less likely to buy or use your product if it was advertised next to questionable content.
What defines "questionable content" will require you and your stakeholders to make some decisions which become updated ad targeting parameters and thus refined business rules around brand safety.
Why should you sell or license your artwork, technology or other IP products? Why should you commercialize & advertise the innovations and art you create?
Years ago, this long winded phrase hit me like a brick: Innovation without monetization is art without an audience.
It sounds lofty, but the premise is straightforward. If you or your firm creates something amazing and it can't or doesn't get nurtured commercially, it won't be seen or used (art without an audience).
Whether you create entertainment content, artwork in any form, or technology & software, innovation, the cornerstone of progress, propels us forward, igniting revolutions across all industries, and occasionally helps reshape the contours of human existence.
Your brainchild's potential lies dormant without the vital tether to monetization. This intricate relationship between innovation and monetization mirrors the symbiotic bond between art and its audience. Just as art finds its purpose in the eyes of beholders, innovation finds its validation in the market's embrace. To overlook this nexus is to consign innovation to the shadows, rendering it a mere echo of its potential.
The intersection of innovation and monetization is indispensable, akin to the relationship between art and its audience. Just as art finds its purpose in the eyes of beholders, innovation finds its validation in the market's embrace. Innovation without monetization is akin to art without an audience—devoid of impact, relevance, and resonance.
Build and create products, technology and art that matters. Bring it to market and let innovation be fueled by audiences who benefit from the existence of your work.
I have been asked a lot about what my approach is with paid media and the output of media buying work done after 27 years of being hands on.
As a principle learned from my technical colleagues and applied to the purchase of performance driven media on all platforms: optimizing advertising budgets requires embracing an agile approach!
More simply, it's about being scrappy!
In today's competitive market, every dollar counts. That's why we've adopted an agile methodology to our paid advertising strategy, ensuring we make the most of our resources while maximizing results, no matter the client, industry or audience focus.
Here's how we're maximizing impact:
**Efficient Allocation:** With agility, we're able to quickly identify high-performing channels and allocate budget accordingly. By continuously monitoring and adjusting our spend, we ensure that every penny is working towards our goals.
**Cost-Efficient Experimentation:** Agile empowers us to test new ideas and strategies without breaking the bank. By running small-scale experiments and learning quickly from the results, we minimize risk while uncovering valuable insights.
**Optimized Performance:** By focusing on what works and cutting out what doesn't, we're able to optimize our advertising performance over time. This iterative approach allows us to continuously improve efficiency and drive better ROI.
**Adaptability to Market Changes:** With agile, we're able to swiftly respond to shifts in the market or changes in consumer behavior. Whether it's reallocating budget to capitalize on emerging trends or scaling back in response to external factors, we stay nimble and adaptable.
**Transparent Reporting:** Agile is not just about making quick decisions—it's also about being data-driven. We provide transparent reporting on the performance of our advertising efforts, giving stakeholders visibility into where every dollar is spent and the return it generates.
All of these factors and more are applicable to every paid media format and platform, from paid social & SEM, to programmatic display.
Embracing an agile approach to advertising budgets isn't just about stretching your dollars—it's about making smarter investments that drive real results.
Staying current with the theory and best practices for LinkedIn advertising after several years of lead gen experience with buying paid advertising on this very valuable B2B network at the applied use level, with direct accountability for spend & ROI.
Curating wins for enterprise client growth via targeted paid media buying efforts is a passion 27 years in the making.
Never stop learning, even when you are nailing the metrics on the daily!
View Scott's certification here
As a media buyer for clients running campaigns on many digital media platforms, I have the humbling pleasure of utilizing artwork created by a diverse range of passionate artists, to help tell the story of client brands to prospective target audiences.
Sometimes, an afternoon at the museum, in this case the High Museum of Art, can help inspire the next campaign’s visual themes through reflection on the meaning behind incredible artworks. Today did not disappoint.
Let’s face it, the adult internet game has always been rife with competition. Everyone is trying to get their slice of the porn industry pie. When competition is fierce and the amount of porn available online is so staggering, it is almost serendipitous when someone lands on your porn site, especially if you aren’t actively advertising.
As a site operator, it can be difficult to compete in the adult content landscape, but there are ways to do so. One is niche - the narrower the niche your content covers, the better your chances of competing are.
Relationship is another way that you can set yourself apart from the competition. Relationship has been a difference maker in sales since the beginning, when the first cave man was selling his buddy a new club.
What do I mean by relationship as it relates to your sites? Simple. Any interaction between two human beings results in a relationship. In our case, your websites act as an agent for you in the interaction with the other party. The better the interaction, the better the relationship developed.
I learned the impact of relationship first hand as one of the founders of Adult Revenue Service, more commonly known as ARS. In the early days of the internet, it was difficult to find places that were selling website traffic. And we needed website traffic to sell porn site memberships.
There came a time when I had exhausted all the available inventory and had to look elsewhere to further our growth. It was in the affiliate market that we focused our efforts with the creation of Adult Revenue Service.
There were other affiliate programs operating and they all had a policy of not communicating with the affiliates that were referring customers. With Mancash, and ARS, I took the opposite approach. I embraced communicating with affiliates. I made the phone number, email address and ICQ contacts available. And I personally answered affiliate requests for a long time.
During a time when contacting an adult affiliate program operator was nearly impossible, having the ability to pick up the phone and speak to another human being on the other side was a huge deal to affiliates. This resulted in many, many relationships developed that created not just loyalty, but a word-of-mouth growth machine that brought us new affiliates by the hundreds.
Once we learned the lesson of relationship, we doubled down on our efforts. We introduced weekly payouts one week after the end of the payment period, in many different formats. We introduced the first rewards program, designed to improve our relationships with affiliates and earn their loyalty.
We designed the only program of its kind called Experts in the Field. This program recruited experts in a certain niche that were available to any affiliate to help them learn how to sell in that respective niche.
All of these were driven by our desire to build profitable, trusting relationships with our affiliates, who kept us supplied with customers, so much so we didn’t have to spend much on advertising our porn sites directly. We set the bar for all other programs to try to reach in order to attract affiliates and our numbers proved it. We were paying out over $1M a month in affiliate commissions in late 1999.
This is how relationship makes a difference and helps you compete in a highly competitive market. If you want to build relationships as a strategy to compete in your market, you need to first solve for your customers happiness - by giving them what they want. In the case of porn sites, that usually comes in some format of valuable content.
You can infer what your customer wants by narrowing down in terms of niche offering. You can infer what they want by how they got to your website. But the best way to know what your potential customers want is to ask them.
“Ask what people want, then give it to them.”
- Ask. by Ryan Levesque
If providing value through content is the engine that drives your sales funnel, it’s user intelligence that helps you create the valuable content they want. The user journey is where you collect this intelligence. Each piece is integral to growing your relationships, which will in turn grow your business.
What are you doing to grow profitable relationships with your visitors, leads, and customers?
If you’re interested in leveraging relationships to amplify your adult business, talk to me and my team. Let’s make the relationship better.
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Becky is COO and head of Marketing Technology at Buoyancy Digital, the premier digital advertising team for age restricted industries, including adult entertainment. For more information, contact her via email at becky@bdllc.org , on XBiz.net or at BuoyancyDigital.com
The wide array of SEM and overall search marketing options from Google are mission critical to the marketing plans of companies & organizations throughout the global economy.
Staying current with paid search best practices & techniques as well as AdWords policies & feature updates through certification is part of our commitment to bringing our best game to every client project.
As a committed digital marketing and SEM service provider, Buoyancy Digital is pleased to re-certify its' standing as an AdWords certified Google Partner, with a specialization in mobile SEM.
There are plenty of firms and individuals that carry some expertise in branding across the globe, but few have the consistent insights as Martin Lindstrom, the New York times best selling author of Small Data.
When you need to learn from a tried and proven branding expert at scale, talk to Martin, listen to his insights and read Small Data.
#SEM is not optional for marketing.
Buoyancy Digital is proud to become a Google partner with certifications for the management of #AdWords & #mobileadvertising
I once had an unforgettable retail encounter at the Gateway Computers store in San Diego. It was the year 2000 and Gateway was king when it came to PCs. Remember them, the brand with the black and white spotted cow logo? You know you do! They were as ubiquitous and visible in their peak as the once mighty AOL, who so kindly adorned every coffee table in the USA with enough free trial CD-ROMs to provide complete coaster collections for the bulk of the population.
The point is, I had broken my PC Card modem (PCMCIA back in the day), and while there were already options to buy and replace products with merchants online, I decided to do it the old-fashioned way: I was going to go to the actual store.
Thus one fateful Saturday saw me, broken PC Card modem in hand, pay a visit to the local Gateway Computer shop to buy a replacement. Simple enough, right? I was even aware that Gateway would probably charge more than other places, but since they were close by, kitschy, and cool, I figured it was worth it. I actually thought buying a modem from them would reinforce their image and leave me wanting to buy a Gateway laptop down the line.
Upon entering the store, I could clearly see they stocked and sold the exact item I needed: the laptop modem card. The staff (who for the record were very professional and very nice) engaged me, asking how they could be of service. I told them what I wanted to buy and they paused, then asked me if the modem was for an existing Gateway laptop, or for one I had on order.
Figuring they were just using a sales technique to prop up Gateway products, I politely explained that I didn’t own a Gateway laptop, nor did I have one on order. Without a moment’s hesitation, the well-spoken staffers informed me thatcompany policy prohibited the sale of peripherals they sold *in their stores* for use with non-Gateway products.
Visa in hand, ready to pay the stiff retail markup for this add-on, I was literally told I couldn’t buy the laptop modem card. (This was particularly annoying since Gateway wouldn’t even have to provide support after the sale due to disclaimers in-store regarding 3rd party products). No ifs ands or buts, and no one even suggested alternative stores where I could get what I needed.
But wait! There’s more! The uber helpful store helpers then shared that they’d happily sell me a PC Card if/when I bought or could document existing ownership of a Gateway laptop. (Right, because by now I was oozing brand loyalty for them).
Then … wait for it … they let me know that as a non-Gateway customer, I was allowed to buy their miniature stuffed cow mascot, which “could be given as a gift.”
In the 15 or so years since, as both a consumer and manager, I was directly involved in the purchase of or approval to purchase for staff, dozens of laptops. You probably know where this is going. Guess how many Gateway laptops I purchased or approved (ever)? Yep – zero. In some instances, buying from them years later would have even saved me or my teams I worked with a few bucks. It didn’t matter. Inflexibility lost them a customer for life.
My own personal passion for the digital universe has driven my career – whether that involved buying and selling over a billion click-throughs, managing digital display media sales, SEM campaign management, digital content licensing or where I am now, managing our kickass eCommerce tool at OpiaTalk for accelerated sales growth. The point is, whether selling people-backed products or services, the constant has been that client experience needs to be exceptional, period.
Even if you can’t satisfy every desire stated by your clients, I’ve observed that they can and will stick by you if a) your product or service creates measurable value (real ROI), and b: you treat them well, which means meeting their actual needs, whether or not that involves you.
When I sold ad space, clients needed new staff, hosting, language services, application development and related services all the time. I made it my business to understand the service provider ecosystem behind the digital universe. If I couldn’t provide the solution, I could at least point a client, vendor, partner or lead in the right direction. I always tried to find someone who could help – and I certainly didn’t penalize people for not using our ‘products.’ The most important thing was whether customers (or potential customers) were getting what theyactually needed.
Today, I manage digital operations at OpiaTalk. My colleagues and I have the humble pleasure of overseeing every facet of account care inside and out for some of the largest and most successful eCommerce companies and institutions around the globe. These clients and aggregators use our widget to drive sales growth online from the organic traffic they already have.
Thank you, Gateway, for your unforgettably bad customer experience; it has informed my view of customer relations ever since. Which is:
Treat clients better than you wish to be treated. Exceed expectations. Get in their heads and their industry, to understand what they truly need. Then help them get it. If you help with that, your clients will be happier, spend more, and retain, aka stay with you longer, no matter what you sell in the marketplace.
