• The Trouble With CTR As A Campaign Metric
    Now I know lots of folks in the industry are bashing the CTR right now, and it may seem like a trendy issue to some. But the truth is, the mere discussion of the CTR's proper place in digital campaigns is a sign of health: a sign that our industry is growing more ambitious as to what it can achieve through digital advertising.
  • A Metrics Miracle
    Twas the week before Christmas, when alone in my house/ I was finishing shopping, with a click of the mouse;/Then I cleared out my browser cache, cookies deleted,/ In hopes of nefarious snooping, defeated.
  • Why Campaign Measurement Falls Short -- And Why Automotive Industry Is Best Test Case For New Strategy
    Ever since the first display ad was shown back in 1995, marketers have been promised that digital advertising would make their jobs easier because everything would have more measurable ROI. Here we are almost 20 years later, and marketers are asking why we're not there yet.
  • What Predictive Analytics Means For Marketers
    Most marketers know that big data contains valuable information that, when used properly, can transform their marketing. The problem is that these large data sets are often unstructured and "noisy," and manually mining data to uncover patterns is often time-consuming, inaccurate, and can feel like looking for a needle in a haystack. The outlook is not all bleak for marketers, however, and many are turning to predictive technologies to help reduce the noise and derive actionable insights from their data.
  • Seeing Clearly With Your Analytics
    The fundamental role of analytics is to use data to gain insight and make decisions. But, like comparing fast food to a gourmet meal, there's a really broad menu of options for success. Analytics, when done well, is a wonderful combination of many different things: mastering the obvious, a few moments of clarity, great listening skills, connecting the dots, and some really smart strokes of insight and organization.
  • An MRAID For Measurement
    At an IAB Mobile Center board meeting last year, a very smart senior marketer at a major financial institution said that the industry needed an "MRAID for Measurement." I was thoroughly gratified by that statement -- MRAID (it stands for mobile rich-media ad interface definitions) has been one of my proudest IAB accomplishments -- but a little surprised, too: as an under-the-hood creative API, MRAID is not necessarily something I'd expect a senior brand marketer to have on his radar. My interpretation of that statement was that the chaos of mobile metrics created a need for a common framework for …
  • Overcoming Retargeting Challenges Through Predictive Segmentation
    In preparation for the holidays, I recently took a trip to a local electronics store to buy a gift for my son. While I have visited the store frequently in the past to browse their selection, I had yet to make a purchase. As I walked through the entrance, I was approached by an employee who was passing out coupons for a discount off their hottest item -- coincidentally, the item I came to purchase. As I considered this offline remarketing tactic, it got me thinking about its online equivalent, which we all know as retargeting. Retargeting platforms serve specific …
  • Better Understand Customers Through Smart Technologies, Predictive Analysis
    Marketing, in its purest form, tells a story -- ideally, a good story. However, the reception of the story, similar to the reception of a marketing campaign, can be highly subjective. A nail-biting account of the sudden death, come-from-behind win of the Super Bowl underdog will likely command a better reaction, and have a higher degree of engagement, when delivered at a sports bar than shared at a bridge club meeting. The customer response to marketing efforts, similar to the response to fairy tales and sports stories, can fluctuate greatly depending on the audience.
  • Glitches: An Open Letter to Nielsen & Network & Agency Research Departments
    Regarding the latest "technical glitch" affecting Nielsen's TV ratings, it would be useful and advantageous to have anticipated it before it happened. Next time, you can. We believe Nielsen is generally good, but every company makes mistakes -- and Nielsen is no different.
  • Fuzzy Logic: Not All Data is Created Equal
    At all of the recent industry conferences, one unifying theme stood out: data obsession is part of a winning strategy. Marketers are now using data to inform every level of their decision-making. And that's great. But not all data is created equal.
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