The average load time for mobile sites is 19 seconds when running on 3G connections, which Google says is "about as long as it takes to sing the entire alphabet song." Some 77% of mobile sites take longer than 10 seconds to load when running on 3G networks. On 4G networks the average time isn't much better at 14 seconds, per Google. Google's latest study — The Need for Mobile Speed — found 53% of mobile site visits are abandoned if pages take longer than 3 seconds to load. One out of two people expect a page to load in less than 2 seconds. The data is based on analysis of more than 10,000 mobile Web domains. Sites that load in 5 seconds versus 19 seconds observed 25% higher ad viewability, 70% longer average sessions, and 35% lower bounce rates. The study also analyzes the relationship between page speed and revenue. While there are several factors that impact revenue, the model projects that publishers whose mobile sites load in 5 seconds earn up to 2 times more mobile ad revenue than those whose sites load in 19 seconds. Google says that file size, ads, images, videos and measurement technology slow Web site load times, providing the following stats: The average mobile Web page is 2.5MB in size, which means the data alone takes 13 seconds to download on a fast 3G network. The average size of ads is 816KB, which takes 4 seconds to load over a 3G connection. And 1.49MB is the average size of content, which takes seven seconds to load over the same speed network. Speeding up the Web requires more than Google's Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) project, according to the execs at Marfeel, an ad-tech platform that is changing the way publishers create mobile Web sites. The company's product is compatible with AMP. It has been serving customers content via HTTP/2 to more than 1 billion visits worldwide and claims the publishers it works with serves content on their sites in less than 0.8 seconds.
According to Wise Data Media, the Democratic and Republican conventions in July strongly impacted fill rates and overall CPMs in certain regional digital ad markets. Data from media buys made on the Wise Data platform showed fill rates increased more than 20% in Ohio and Pennsylvania, where the GOP and Democratic conventions were held respectively. In Ohio, Wise saw fill rates of 42% prior to the conventions. The rate increased to 56% during the GOP convention and up to 70% during the Democratic one. Similarly, Pennsylvania fill rates through Wise’s platform were at 55% before the conventions, 65% during the GOP event and spiked to 87% during the Democratic one. CPM rates were also significantly impacted. Wise was experiencing average CPM rates of $1.36 in Ohio pre-conventions. That dropped to $1.25 during the GOP convention and to $1.11 during the Democratic one. In Pennsylvania, the CPMs fell from $1.32 to $1.24 during the GOP convention and to $1.11 during the Democratic event. “In the next upcoming months until November 8, our forecast is that there will be significant growth in the numbers due to high interest and primary focus from the audience as well as from the publishers,” said Tomer Sade, CEO of Wise Data Media. “The high rate of impressions and low CPMs in comparison to the average for both throughout the year shows the benefits of ad campaigning during the elections -- even more specifically, benefits during campaign events,” he stated. Other insights from Wise’s platform data:
Cable and satellite providers will have to make television programs available to subscribers via apps, under a new proposal put forward Thursday by Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler. If the FCC passes the proposal, consumers will no longer have to rent set-top boxes from their cable companies, at an average cost of $231 a year, in order to watch TV. Instead, most cable and satellite subscribers will be able to watch programs on smartphones, tablets and other devices. "These rules will open the door for innovation, spurring new apps and devices, giving consumers even more choice and user control," Wheeler said today in an op-ed published in the Los Angeles Times. The apps plan comes more than eight months after Wheeler unveiled a more sweeping proposal for regulations that would enable Google and other companies to develop set-top boxes that could access pay-TV programs. That original plan was supported by the White House and consumer groups. But the potential regulations met with strident opposition from cable companies, as well as content providers and the ad industry. The new version of the plan would require large providers (collectively accounting for more than 90% of subscribers) to offer apps within two years, and medium-sized providers to do so within four years. Providers with fewer than 400,000 subscribers will be exempt. The new proposal also requires cable and satellite providers to provide apps for popular platforms, including Roku, Apple, iOS, Windows and Android, according to material released today by the FCC. In addition, cable and satellite providers would have to let consumers record programs for later viewing, provided that those companies offer that function in their set-top boxes, a senior FCC official told reporters Thursday. The FCC also said Thursday that the rules will require "a standard license governing the process for placing an app on a device or platform." "A standard license will give device manufacturers the certainty required to bring innovative products to market," the agency said on Thursday. The FCC adds that the license won't affect any contracts between programmers and cable providers. The organization Incompas (formerly Comptel), which includes Google and Amazon as well as some broadband providers, praised Wheeler's latest proposal, as did the consumer advocacy group Public Knowledge. "With this action, the Commission could save consumers billions of dollars a year. Under the Commission's plan, consumers would be able to access their TV subscriptions on any device, and in many cases on devices they already own," Public Knowledge senior counsel John Bergmayer said in a statement. But the cable industry group Future of TV Coalition said Thursday that it opposes the FCC's revised approach. "Like the original mandate, this new scheme would violate copyright law and destabilize the programming ecosystem by depriving creators and distributors of the ability to control their work and limiting the options consumers will be able to enjoy," the group wrote on Medium. The Future of TV Coalition particularly criticized the component of the plan that requires new licensing arrangements. "When this proceeding first started, advocates claimed it was needed to bring consumers new choices and save them money on monthly rental fees," the group wrote. "But apps can quickly accomplish this without the need for some ill-defined, indefinite, and unaccountable third-party licensing body."
Tim Cook premiered the second iteration of the Apple Watch on Wednesday at Apple’s annual iPhone event, with the Apple Watch Series 2 expected to begin shipping on September 16. Apple did not disclose exact sales numbers, but The Wall Street Journal reports that analysts estimate that 12 million to 13 million Apple Watches were sold in their first year on the market. That’s nearly twice as many units sold compared to when the iPhone first premiered in 2007. With Apple Watches slowly penetrating mobile technology, more and more consumers will first view their emails on their wrists. So how can email marketers ensure their messages are readable on a small screen that ranges from 38 to 42 millimeters? Scott Heimes, CMO at SendGrid, shared seven tips for how marketers can optimize their email campaigns for the Apple Watch. SendGrid is a cloud-based communications platform and email solutions provider. Short Subject Lines It’s no surprise that given the smaller interface of the Apple Watch, email marketers should prioritize content that is easy to digest. Seven-word subject lines are the most common, but a study of 5 million unique subject lines by SendGrid highlighted that three-word subject lines have the highest engagement rates. Subject lines referring to “yesterday” and “tomorrow” resulted in higher engagement rates than “today,” according to the report. Eliminate Links and Hashtags SendGrid’s study discovered that subject lines containing URLs or hashtags have poor engagement rates, averaging less than 10.5% in engagement. If the best performing subject lines are three words, adding a long URL or hashtag wastes valuable space. Instead, marketers should consider incorporating that content in calls-to-action within the email body. Design Slim Email Templates Heimes says that most email templates are designed for a desktop computer, with a set HTML width of about 600 pixels. This is too wide for most smartphones, let alone the even-smaller Apple Watch, and could prevent horizontal scrolling. Easy to Read Reading is limited in scope on the Apple Watch due to its confined space, so Heimes recommends that marketers stick to an email template with an easy-to-read single column format. Calls to action should also be clearly defined and easily found. Make it Shareable “A simple call-to-action with a relevant offer combined with easy sharing features are important,” says Heimes, recommending that email marketers design action buttons that are large enough to be easily tapped on a screen. Recognizable ‘From’ Address “Make sure your "from" line is instantly recognizable with your brand name and not some generic email address or department name,” says Heimes. Clean Tags Unlike many mobile clients, Apple Watch email readers do not automatically download images when an email is opened, so marketers should be prepared to revert to alternative tactics of engaging with consumers. Heimes recommends that email marketers ditch CSS in favor of HTML to take advantage of the ALT tag for email images.
Remember the smartphone platform wars? Back when you actually had to think for more than five minutes when choosing which new phone to buy, because there was a whole bunch of options -- Blackberry, Nokia, Microsoft, Android, iPhone -- each with its own platform and handsets? For a period, that abundance of choice created a real conundrum for app developers, since, unlike on the Web where you could “write once, run anywhere,” on smartphones it was “write once, run on only one OS.” And so, rather than creating OS-specific versions of the same app for Blackberry OS, Symbian, Windows Mobile, Android, iOS, most developers just focused on the last two. And the rest, as they say, is history. We know who won that particular platform war. When it comes to simplifying consumer choice, duopolies can be quite convenient. As young as it is, the VR hardware industry seems headed into similar territory. The Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, Samsung Gear VR, and Sony Playstation VR are separate systems with their own specs, and there is no guarantee that applications and content developed for one platform will run on another. Not to mention AR platforms like Magic Leap and Microsoft HoloLens. This creates a major distribution challenge for VR app developers, and content creators, and brands seeking marketing opportunities within these new experiences. To be clear, by “VR” I do not mean “360 video.” The two are not the same. Done well, true VR (Toy Box as experienced on Oculus, say) is so completely immersive that the human brain perceives itself to be physically present in this new world. The experience can be sublimely awe-inspiring, highly personal, and deeply emotional. With its ability to transport you to worlds you wouldn’t otherwise visit (war-torn Syria, for example), VR has been called “the ultimate empathy machine.” At this point, anyone who still believes VR to be a gimmick probably hasn’t tried it. But these experiences come at a cost, because VR is rewriting the rules of video game design and movie-making. Pre-VR, content was all designed for screens that are some distance away from our faces — whether movie, TV or smartphone — and don’t port well to VR. In fact, bad VR experiences can easily make you vomit, as Josh Lovison wrote recently in VR insider. And so companies large and small are rushing to create new content specific to the platform. Media companies currently developing content for VR, or investing in it, include The New York Times, Conde Nast, Vice Media, Discovery Communications, HBO (invested in Otoy), Disney (Jaunt), and Comcast (NextVR). And to the extent this new content is advertising-supported, marketers will follow. Which brings us back to the problem of distribution. No company wants to spend millions of dollars on VR content to find that it only works on one of many possible devices. Many companies, and not just content creators, cite their biggest barrier to doing VR as having to choose which piece of hardware to distribute on. This suggests that, over the next couple of years, individual media companies and marketers will end up taking one of three avenues when it comes to VR: 1. Invest heavily in VR content for a year or two, without full awareness of the challenges around distribution, user adoption, and specific creative parameters native to the device. In this scenario, proving ROI becomes difficult, frustration mounts, and budgets get cut. 2. Forego VR for now, and focus on developing AR experiences instead, where the smartphone is the platform and Android and iOS are already well understood. This means a lot of 360 video, but also some truly innovative new experiences, as we’ve seen with Pokemon Go. 3. Invest in VR now -- after all, which marketer doesn’t want access to consumers inside an “ultimate empathy machine”? -- but with eyes wide open, clearly cognizant of the challenges. Take the long view on ROI and find partners, like EntryPoint and Immersv, to help with distribution and monetization. As an investor, I’m very focused on avenue 3, particularly those startups developing infrastructure to help big media companies and brands clear the structural hurdles of VR. As a media strategist, I think avenue 2 contains more near-term opportunity for most brands, especially since great marketing opportunities within great AR experiences already exist (Snapchat). Avenue 1, as you might imagine, is one path I’d advise against.
As marketers in this content-centered world, our goal is to break through the noise and make meaningful connections with our consumers. Reaching Moms has never been as easy or as challenging as it is today. We have an abundance of channels in which to reach our target audience, but attention spans are shorter than ever. To make a noticeable impression, marketers need to have an in-depth understanding of their audience. Personas have been something that marketers have relied on in the past to create strategies and drive content. A lot of the time, these personas are made up of demographic data and gut-based assumptions that speak to the target audience in a very broad sense. Moms are an incredibly influential audience, as they make the majority of buying decisions. To reach and engage them, you need to relate to and understand them. While creating mom-centric strategies is the obvious choice, what about their interests in addition to being a mom? What else interests them? What else makes them unique? Grouping Moms into general target personas is a great first step, but stopping there is a great first step, but stopping there will hurt your brand. Our interest-based segmentation analysis on anyone who self-describes as “Mom” and lives in the USA r revealed 12 distinct interest-based clusters. These interest-based audience segments included "Authors + Bloggers," "Country Music Fans," "Christian Conservatives," and "Real Housewives Fans." The best way to relate to each segment varies, but there are at least three core ways to connect with Moms on a deeper level: 1. Understand their interests While Moms most definitely have parent-related interests, everyone is unique and has other interests as well. To learn more about their culture and what they are passionate about, dig into the celebrities they love, their favorite TV shows, the music they listen to, influential individuals the follow, their preferred news outlet, etc. Use these insights to relate to people through something that is familiar to them. For example, a high-end pen company may look to engage the “Country Music Fans.” To do this, they might engage a high-affinity country music singer to use their pens while signing autographs at the Grand Ole Opry. On the other hand, if they were looking to engage “Authors + Bloggers,” they might look to engage a niche influencer to do a review of their favorite writing tools. 2. Know how they communicate Creating content using the same tone and language that your target communities use will make you more relatable. Understand the content they engage with, and the hashtags and keywords they use regularly. Let’s say the high-end pen company is looking to create engaging social content that resonates with the “Real Housewives Fans” Moms. By understanding the hashtags that they use in the context of their interests, the pen company can join in on the conversation without being seen as a “noob.” 3. Read the content they read Know where your target audience goes to get their content, then go read it. Understanding the content that your target audience consumes regularly will help inform a personalized, data-driven strategy that connects with consumers. Let’s say the pen company is looking to create a blog post that will resonate with “Christian Conservative” Moms. By going to the same sources they do to get their content and information, you can understand the tone and subject matter that they find valuable. You can then match your tone and subject matter what already resonates with this community. By knowing your ideal consumers on a deeper, cultural level, you will be able to create content strategies that break through the noise and make meaningful connections. Know that there are many definitions of “Mom” and understand that they want to feel appreciated as individuals. Go beyond basic demographic data to understand who your target audience truly is.
When a survey proclaims “nine out of 10” people have the same opinion, you can be pretty sure you’re watching a commercial. Or if not, you’re reading results from a new survey, “The Ad-Verse Consumer” by Brightcove that is about commercials. In that one, nine out of 10 people think the online video advertising needs to improve the viewing experience. In fact, 92% think that way, and what’s more, by two measures, half of them think the quality of online video has improved, while more than 70% say the advertising has stayed the same old bad or gotten worse. The Brightcove study is of 4,000 Europeans in the United Kingdom, France and Germany, conducted by Vanson Bourne. So we’re not talking about the U.S. But we are talking dissatisfaction and we’re talking ad blockers. In Europe they’re quite the thing. Overall, 82% of the survey respondents knew about ad blockers (and an astounding 88% in Germany) and one in two use or have used a blocker. Another 23% are thinking about it. Brightcove uses the study as a pitch for its Brightcove Lift, an new ad optimization solution that attempts to mitigate the effect of blockers and help publishers deliver a TV-like experience on all platforms. Generally, this survey says consumers are aware ads pay the freight (except in France, which this report says was the one nation in the study that was “least likely” to accept that rationale). But they mostly don’t want to pay for content or pay to avoid ads because they understand the monetary underpinnings. In the UK, a extraordinary 76% agree with the ad-supported model. Brilliant! I view consumer surveys about advertising quite skeptically. Nobody likes ads too much, and in this case, that’s made abundantly clear when respondents are asked to recommend ways to make the advertising experience better. Of the four top suggestions, two basically suggest doing whatever is necessary to just get the damn things over with; 57% would like shorter ads, which is, hands down the most popular suggestion, and 41% want to be able to fast forward through them. On the plus side 58% said interactive ads are more tolerable. And 21% would like it if ads were better targeted to them. That brings up an interesting point. Over a third (36%) say they never see an ad that is relevant to them, and among baby boomers, that rises to almost half (47%). Brightcove uses a British expression--”the grey pound,” as in the British currency--to describe the over 55 set.This report says the irrelevant-ad-syndrome stat “fuels the growing sentiment” that older consumers are increasingly being ignored by companies. (Couldn’t the Dos Equis guy still be interesting?) About those ads. It seems where the ads are shown makes a difference: 53% said they’d be willing to watch two or more ads during a 30-minute episode if they’re watching on a smart TV. (“Perhaps optimistically,” the report says.) But 60% said advertisers better not try more than one ad if they’re watching on smartphones. Similarly, respondents seem resigned to ads shown accompanying movies or TV shows, Only 11% want to watch an ad before viewing content from a “vlogger or a social media star.” That would seem to be a slam against YouTube. But it’s not as easy as that because 63% said YouTube is the social platform they’d most feel comfortable watching an ad while Pinterest (42%) and Snapchat (11%) were the least. pj@mediapost.com
Internet publishers face a programmatic advertising market that is still incredibly fragmented on the demand side. Given the continued move of advertising dollars to programmatic, this fragmentation is costing publishers a lot of money. Over the last couple of years, publishers have responded by embracing header bidding. Before header bidding, publishers who used DoubleClick for Publishers (DFP) as their ad server had to rely on the integrated Google Ad Exchange, and to work independently with other demand sources — passing inventory to each, one by one, to try and maximize yield. At every step of this waterfall approach, publishers would lose inventory and revenue. Moreover, there was no true competition with Google Ad Exchange. Header bidding improved on this by allowing publishers to gather bids from other demand sources and pass them into their ad server, where they could compete with AdExchange, and raise their yield without the loss of inventory. While header bidding improved yield, it was difficult for publishers to manage the different tags to maximize both performance and yield. In response to these difficulties, over the last year, innovative publishers began adopting header-bidding wrappers. Wrappers are the newest technology being touted to simplify the complex integration of adding and managing multiple potential buyers and tags, while minimizing latency -- the main complaint about header bidding. The mainstreaming of header bidder wrappers was seen in the recent announcement by Time Inc. that it would be the first major publisher to adopt one. The truth is, though, while wrappers are a step forward, they are not the best solution. Instead, the real opportunity lies in server-to-server integrations. The fundamental problem with wrappers is that while they may be faster than individual header bidding tags, they are still running on the client side, and can still affect site speed and performance. As such, the publisher’s ability to add more bidders and increase yield will remain limited. This is why a publisher’s ultimate goal should be server-to-server integrations. Integration at the server level means that bids can be collected in the background without impacting the user’s experience, and the bid responses can occur at lightning-fast, data-center connection speeds. Google’s announced response to header bidding, known as EBDA, is a server-to-server product that is directly integrated into DFP. EBDA promises publishers the ability to integrate bidders other than Ad Exchange and allow them to bid on inventory. However, it comes with significant limits: All bidders must be approved, and Google is going to limit the information on the auction that is available to publishers. These are significant drawbacks. Publishers need full access to all bid data, so they can understand the true market value of their inventory. What’s needed is what AppNexus, in a recent whitepaper, called open dynamic allocation: multiple server-to-server integrations with demand sources and full access to all bid data. Header bidding has already shown the potential of competition to increase publisher yield, and header bidding wrappers have made managing header bidding tags a lot easier. However, all client-side bidding solutions will come with issues around latency and performance regardless of how well they are managed. That’s why smart publishers need to move to server-to-server integrations. While using a technology like EBDA will be easier, and will certainly help with latency and yield, it will not give publishers ownership of the valuable data that comes with a truly open system. Since data is the most valuable asset publishers have, the most innovative will invest in the technology and talent to build or integrate a customized server-to-server platform. And the payoff will be worth it, as they can use this data not only for auction optimization -- but for content optimization, and to better understand users, among a host of other possibilities.
Honesty in marketing is more important today than ever before in the creative work we do, especially as we engage younger generations who are circumspect, mindful and resist solicitation more every day. As advertisers, our jobs are to tell interesting, powerful stories, but often these stories lack enough truth they become distracting. Sugary soft-drinks promoted as energy-boosting, QSR’s believing they’re the crucial element of great house-party or a perfect night out; hyperbole like these, while effective in the past now ring false to anyone who engages with these products. In today’s connected world, we have no choice but to be honest. The Internet has made sure of it. There will always be room for brilliant imaginative narratives, but when it comes to defining and demonstrating how products fit in our lives, it’s time we were more judicious. Especially when attempting to engage with generations who’ve grown up being sold and marketed to every day of their lives. These generations quickly see and reject being manipulated to think or feel something false. They know we’re trying to sell them stuff, so as soon as we can get that out of the way without pretense, they’ll be more open to considering the product. A brilliant recent example of honesty, transparency and self-awareness directed at a younger generation is Droga5’s Clearasil campaign We know acne, we don’t know teens. And don’t forget REI’s #OptOutside campaign. Closing its doors on Black Friday, the biggest retail day of the year, shutting down its e-commerce, encouraging consumers to stay away from the shopping insanity and paying its employees to take a break from the madness was a stroke of genius from a company that truly understands and connects with its audience. Here are a few things I do to keep things honest: 1. The Truth Is Just A Few Clicks Away. Challenge brands to be honest with themselves. Ask them: Are they really reinventing the wheel with their latest product or innovation? Or essentially selling the most recent “improvement?” Unless their claims are unequivocally true and the company’s place in the world is true, the story won’t be nearly as effective. That’s not to say a brand can’t have a motivating statement, or a brilliant story, but at it’s core it must come from a genuine truth. After all the truth is always just a Google search away. 2. Consider Ourselves Consumers. We are our consumers. We buy and use the products we sell. Or at least we should. But, we often tend to act like marketers first, ignoring our own truths of how we actually interact and use the product. I believe we should never work with a brand we wouldn’t buy or use. Additionally, the people working on a brand should be genuine consumers of it. They should make an effort to connect with consumers, and talk with them not in focus groups but personal conversations. We don’t need solutions or amazing ideas from them, just a filter to keep us honest. 3. Don’t Abuse Culture. Lifestyle is an important message for brands, especially for purchases like cars and clothes, but we can’t create a culture where there is none. Younger generations don't believe any product, no matter how high-end or exclusive, defines them. They no longer believe a brand can intrinsically change who they are as people. They look at products for what they are. Things. Coming clean and admitting that people don’t always use brands to make a statement about themselves is liberating. Products can solve a problem or just be fun, and that’s plenty. 4. Honesty Begins at Home. Finally, let’s be transparent in our business relations. Advertising has been getting a black eye lately for ambiguous practices between agencies and clients. Fortunately on the creative end transparency is not at issue, but dishonesty trickles down, creating a division and friction between clients and agencies. I believe in total transparency with clients. Building trust makes better relationships and therefore better work. I’d wager most of the ads consumers can’t recall involve some element of dishonesty. I believe using a stricter, more honest filter on work, on our conversations with our clients, and on ourselves helps us all communicate more effectively. Younger generations are more savvy than ever. We should respect them and treat them as so. Give them credit. They’ve lived in a world of marketing for so long we can’t believe we hold all the cards — we don’t. We need to enter their world. Or risk exposure with a few simple Google searches.