Erik Matlick says, “The lull between Christmas and New Year’s is traditionally a time for looking back at the best practices (and missteps) of the year gone by, in the hopes of getting a jump on the trends that will dominate the coming year. For B2B marketers, 2017 will be about three Cs: Consolidation, Convergence and the Collective. Consolidation of vendors and dashboards 2016 might best be described as the year Account-Based Marketing (ABM) took over B2B marketing. While the basic principles of ABM are not new, ad tech and martech providers worked hard in 2016 to make the process of... [...]

Josh Todd says, “Throughout my column this year, a few topics have come up again and again. Most notably, I’ve discussed the Mobile Engagement Crisis — the idea that marketers are failing to connect with users, despite spending a huge amount of resources on winning them over in the first place. Yes, they’re getting the initial download. But getting those users to stick around? That’s another story entirely. The good news is that some marketers are starting to catch on. Brands have begun to embrace personalization. Most notably, we’ve seen companies begin to embrace segmented push... [...]

Chuck Moran says, “CMOs are charged with managing a brand’s relationship with consumers, but the CMO’s most tangible relationships are more likely with the partners and service providers that comprise their full tech stack. Building, selecting, integrating and managing the right tech is the first step in understanding and interfacing with consumers. At best, both the advertising and marketing stack can help create more intimate understanding between brand and consumer. At worst, it can stand in the way. Too often, the complexity of building and managing the stack is a huge barrier to... [...]

Alison Lohse says, “Full disclosure: I am not a data scientist, yet below I’ll talk about modeling for marketing measurement. Disclosures are tricky. Facebook will be sued over its disclosure of the snafu in its video metrics. Would they be in this legal mess if they had not revealed the mix-up? I think the answer is yes, eventually, as truth cannot stay hidden, and marketers demand and deserve transparency. This is especially true for marketing measurement modeling. You get transparency by asking the right questions. Here is a list of questions to ask your vendor or data scientists to... [...]

Ginny Marvin says, “As the industry continues its move away from Flash to HTML5/JavaScript-based ads, the IAB Technology Laboratory is pushing a clear cutoff point for the industry to shift from Flash-based ads entirely. On Tuesday, the trade group issued guidance for the migration, along with the recommendation that all video ads be HTML5-based by July 2017. Along with transition guidelines, the Tech Lab released checklists for publishers and brands and agencies, with tailored suggestions for addressing the technical requirements and communication best practices for making the transition. The... [...]

Carl Erik Kjærsgaard says, “With 2016 coming to a close, it’s time for marketers to think about the past year. Was it the year we pushed our industry toward a better future, or just another year with minimal change? As the year progressed, two key themes continued to drive the conversation throughout the industry: trust and transparency. Where would we be without trust? Truly think about that for a moment. Customers need to be able to trust a brand before they are willing to engage, or the brand risks losing their business. And building trust is easier said than done; building and maintaining trust... [...]

Josh Manion says, “Industry forecasts for marketing technology in 2017 will come fast and furious with the year’s end. But as we look ahead, a persistent issue confronts digital marketers of every stripe: data ownership. Why is this topic at the top of the agenda for 2017? Owning your marketing data seems simple at first blush. But with every new channel, platform, device, and the combinations thereof, data ownership becomes more strategic and complex. Consumers continue to expand the customer journey as a mix of interrelated touch points. As Forrester forecasts, for example, cross-channel... [...]

Marry Wallace says, “Most of us have baked a cake at one time or another. We’ve put all the ingredients in a large bowl, mixed it up, dumped it in a pan, and then put it in the oven. When the cake was baked, we let it cool and added icing to the top. Why do we add the icing? Because icing makes a delicious cake even sweeter and provides a smoother, shinier confection to behold. Marketing automation does the same for marketers; it enhances how marketers engage leads and drive business. It makes what we do even better. Digital body language icing Regardless of whether it’s a huge enterprise... [...]

Barry Levine says, “This week, marketing tech company Streamwize is releasing a new product to help publishers deal with ad-blocking users. But, in preparing for its release, the San Francisco-based company said it discovered something essential: Publishers are only detecting a small percentage of the ad blockers used by their site visitors. The new product, Adtoniq, helps publishers detect blockers and then offers remediation, like asking visitors to disable the blocker or suggesting they subscribe to ad-free versions of content. And, the company says, it can detect nearly 100 percent of... [...]

Barry Levine says, “Data onboarding is one of those many processes in digital marketing that is, essentially, a black box. To help shed light into this particular black box, management consulting firm Winterberry Group has released its first report on data onboarding in the U.S., “The State of Consumer Data Onboarding: Identity Resolution in an Omnichannel Environment.” Winterberry says this is the first such report outside of onboarding providers themselves, which include Acxiom’s LiveRamp, Experian, and Lotame. The study addresses at some length the definition of data onboarding.... [...]