Shelby Dorsey says, “As the copy editor at MECLABS (parent company of MarketingSherpa and MarketingExperiments), I see a lot of content. Between the four blog posts published every week and the multiple case studies produced, I have an ample amount of exposure to the testing brands are doing and what their ads look like. That being said, I have very harsh eyes when it comes to examining ads. My job is to fix mistakes in text, so I often find myself looking for mistakes in text. It turns out, so do your customers. Few things are as fun to share on social media as when a company messes up.... [...]

Ayaz Nanji says, “Do consumers believe that native advertising pieces on media websites are written by companies—or journalists? Does the presentation of this type of content change how it is perceived? To find out, two researchers, Chris Jay Hoofnagle and Eduard Meleshinsky, showed a simulated blog page containing three articles to 598 consumers. One of the articles was an advertorial for diet pills labeled “Sponsored Report” in a font similar to other elements on the page. Respondents were then asked questions about the blog content. The complete findings were published in... [...]

Jeff Rajeck  says, “Digital advertising is big business. It is widely estimated that in 2016 digital ad revenue will top $150bn. And though it’s hard to find figures for what percentage is display globally, in the US around 50% of what is spent on digital advertising is spent on display ads. With so much money at stake, it’s not surprising that the industry has its share of issues. Persistent concerns about how ads are delivered, where they go, and how ad views are priced has made it difficult for marketers to know whether to keep investing. To summarize what’s going... [...]

Patricio Robles says, “With ad blockers here to stay, publishers and advertisers have rushed to develop new ways of reaching consumers online. One of the fastest-growing alternatives to traditional digital advertising is native advertising. Some publishers now earn significant percentages of their revenue from native ads, and there’s no evidence that interest in and adoption of native ads will wane any time soon. If anything, growth in the use of native ads will only accelerate in 2016. But native advertising has presented a number of challenges. Some of the biggest relate to concern... [...]

Zak Stambor says, “41% of marketers say they are either unaware or lack understanding of programmatic ad buying, which automates the ad-buying process. Marketers don’t totally understand a form of ad buying that will account for more than half of the digital display ad spend in the U.S. this year. That’s according to a new report from Forrester Research Inc. showing that programmatic ad buying isn’t well understood by many marketers. The term refers to systems that put available ad space on a web page up to bid as the page is loading in the viewer’s browser. Programmatic software... [...]

Andy Beohar says, “Every year more and more features are added to digital advertising platforms, and to stay in the game, you need to stay up to date on each. The trick is weeding through the noise and finding the advertising features that can actually benefit your business. Below, we’ve listed three of the latest paid ad features released in the fall of 2015. We break down each for you and show you tips for maximizing your use of them to drive results: 1. Twitter’s “Buy Now” Button About a year ago, Twitter began testing the use of its “buy now” button directly within users’... [...]

Michael Guta says, “The current digital commerce ecosystem has given everyone access to massive amounts of data. There is so much of it, you can quickly get overwhelmed if you don’t use the right solution to manage all the information. Managing ad campaigns is one area in which keeping track of the different data sets can be a job in itself. If you try to manually optimize your ad campaigns, the process can be time consuming, which leaves you less time to run your small business. In a post on the official Bing Ads blog, Andrew Goodman, president of Page Zero Media, points out automation... [...]

Jami Oetting says, “Women manage more than half of personal wealth in the U.S., drive up to 80% of all purchasing decisions, and control $20 trillion in consumer spending each year. Yet, the power of the female consumer isn’t reflected in the offices of either brands or their agencies. Reports estimate the percentage of female CMOs at anywhere between 8% and 30%. The lack of women in advertising, especially at the leadership level, is still a major problem: Case in point: There were seven sessions about the issue during the 2014 Advertising Week — more than there were about native... [...]

Chris Lucas says, “The Web has been abuzz the past few months with talk of Apple’s recent backing of mobile ad blockers. With the release of iOS 9, millionsof iPhone and iPad users can now block ads in the Safari browser. And they appear to be doing just that. Ad-blocking apps topped the Apple Store download list just one day after i0S 9 debuted. This is really no surprise considering how these apps tout their ability to enhance mobile web browsing by hiding online ads that eat up data and slow down web pages. But what does all this mean for digital marketers, considering that online... [...]

Ginny Marvin says, “Google released updates to the Display Planner in AdWords on Thursday to show click and impression estimates based on the bid and budget an advertiser inputs. The estimates rely on current auction data and show projections over time. The Display Planner will also show how much of the budget entered is likely to be spent with the placements selected. To see this forecast data, select “Get performance forecasts for your targeting” from the Display Planner start page“. Google Adds Forecasting Data In AdWords Display Planner Marketing Land  [...]