With advertisers set to pour more and more money into native ads, 2013 could be a great year for well-positioned publishers.
But publishers looking at native ads as a solution to ad blockers and paltry display CPMs should tread carefully.
Native ads aren’t a panacea and the premiums advertisers may be willing to pay for them shouldn’t distract from the fact that native ads can be risky ads.
Though 2012 showed promise, it was clear that no brand had yet to create a compelling experience in the mobile space.
The so-called ‘year of mobile’, almost a cliché at this point, turned out to be anything but.
The electronics industry just wrapped another CES, where the latest innovations in televisions, wearable tech, and mobile computing were out in full force.
What can digital marketers infer about the future media landscape from the hardware giants and new startup entrants in consumer hardware manufacturing?
Here are five trends and thoughts on why they are worth following.
A new year is a great opportunity to pause and take stock. It is a chance to look at how your digital offering evolved over the last year and what opportunities are ahead for 2013.
First, lets look back at last year. How much of your time was spent actively planning the future of your site as opposed to reacting to circumstances and requests for change? Did your digital strategy have clear leadership or was it shaped by events?
What about this coming year? Do you have a clear roadmap for development over the next year? Are things on that roadmap because they will help achieve clear business objectives? How are you going to measure the success or otherwise of your roadmap?
Finally do you have staff in place, not only for the ongoing management of your site, but to think and plan strategically over the long term?
Since the launch of our Content Marketing Survey Report, produced in association with Outbrain, the topic has continued to fuel discussion throughout the industry, as brands struggle for the attention of consumers and marketers find it ever more difficult to reach the top of the search engines.
As 2013 begins, we asked a series of marketers for their thoughts on where content marketing is going and what brands and publishers have been doing particularly well.
Their insights are below, along with some video shot by Outbrain at the launch of the Content Marketing Survey Report late last year.
Wikipedia is one of the world’s most popular websites and, in the eyes of some, was largely responsible for the demise of Encyclopaedia Britannica.
The good news for publishers: the market for encyclopedias is relatively small, so Wikipedia’s popularity has had a relatively limited commercial impact.
The bad news for players in the travel space: the Wikimedia Foundation’s entry into online travel may have broader commercial implications.
Billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman believes that Herbalife, a multi-level marketing company, is an illegal pyramid scheme.
And he says not just talking: he’s shorted Herbalife stock, which is publicly-traded, to the tune of $1bn.
As we’ve been off for a few weeks I’ve rounded up some of the best infographics that we’ve seen from the past fortnight.
The topics include festive insights for retailers, Facebook’s mobile advertising performance, content marketing and real-time bidding.
A new report into the use of social media among the UK’s top 50 tech companies has found that while usage has increased since 2011, engagement levels have actually fallen.
EML Wildfire’s study found that LinkedIn proved to be the most popular social network, with 98% of companies in the study having registered an account, compared to 82% on Twitter and 68% on Facebook.
Interestingly, Facebook usage has actually dropped slightly from 70% in 2011 and would have fallen further had it not been for B2B businesses.
In the 2010 and 2011 reports 100% of B2C companies used Facebook, however this fell to 83% in 2012, while B2B usage increased from 32% in 2010 to 65% this year.
Green is a great product marketing term. It’s almost perfect for every context, from those that are concerned about environmental impact, through to activists.
In between, there is a cultural change occurring and it is having a deep and lasting impact on marketing.
This middle ground is what I’d describe as Professional Green. This is a marketing space where brands can establish their credentials as aware, caring and proactive when it comes to The Environment.
Unfortunately early attempts to mix product marketing with environmental issues were branded as “green wash”.
That phrase was created purely as a negative response to the over-enthusiastic engagement by many brands that perhaps put more focus on being seen to be concerned about the environment, than actually having a positive impact.
Mobile optimisation is the most exciting digital opportunity for marketers in the coming year, according to stats from a new Econsultancy report.
Our latest Quarterly Digital Intelligence Briefing: Digital Trends for 2013, produced in association with Adobe, looks at what marketers see as the most important trends in the next 12 months.
Content, conversion, mobile, social and personalisation have emerged as some of the key areas for markerters to focus on this year.
Econsultancy has published a freely available trends briefing about digital trends in South-East Asia, based on the second Digital Cream Singapore event for senior client-side digital marketers held in November.
Key issues for those attending were the lack of resources and skills, and the challenge of creating mobile-ready environments.