Less than a year after the world’s largest online social network introduced formats for devices, more than one in five dollars spent in Facebook advertising is now going to mobile ads. According to analysis of sample advertisers using its social ad platform Kenshoo finds that 20.3% of ad spend on Facebook is for ads that are being delivered on devices, while 79.7% of the spend is still going to Desktop views. Kenshoo analyzed over 2 million clicks and conversions in its Kenshoo social ad platform during November and December 2012. The research embraced both phones and tablets. One of the reasons that a fifth of spend is going to mobile is premium pricing. Kenshoo also founds that mobile ads are selling at a 70% price premium over desktop ads. “There are a number of factors related to the premium for mobile ads over desktop,” Todd Herrold, Senior Director, Product Marketing, Kenshoo tells Mobile Marketing Daily. Ad supply on the mobile platform is naturally restricted by screen real estate as well as the social network’s own policy about inserting ads here. “Facebook has been very cautious about the balance between organic and paid content in this environment,” he says. The premium pricing can be worthwhile when the marketer goals are well aligned with the platform. “Advertisers who are targeting mobile specifically and tailoring their goals and messages to the mindset of the mobile user are finding it a very effective medium,” Herrold says. Cost per click on Facebook desktop ads are averaging $.81 in Kenshoo’s survey of campaigns, while mobile CPC is $1.38. Marketers still are getting used to managing the cross-platform environment Facebook is offering them, however. “Of course in some cases, targeting overlays can lead to higher CPCs but it appears that the biggest driver of CPC is related to targeting and optimization for mobile placements specifically,” he says. “Many advertisers set up campaigns targeted to ‘all’ placements or what I call ‘run of device’ campaigns, rather than breaking their mobile and desktop placements out separately. Frequently, the lack of placement targeting and mobile customization/optimization can result in higher CPC and lower performance.” Interestingly, Android proved to be Facebook’s most lucrative smartphone platform, responsible for 71% of marketing spend on smartphones. Conventional wisdom often holds that Android may enjoy much higher device penetration levels than iOS, usage, monetization and conversion levels for the Google platform tend to be lower than its main rival in the space. Conversely, Apple’s dominance of the tablet ecosystem on Facebook is almost complete, with 97% of Facebook ad spend on tablets.
Less than a year after the world’s largest online social network introduced formats for devices, more than one in five dollars spent in Facebook advertising is now going to mobile ads. According to analysis of sample advertisers using its social ad platform Kenshoo finds that 20.3% of ad spend on Facebook is for ads that are being delivered on devices, while 79.7% of the spend is still going to Desktop views. Kenshoo analyzed over 2 million clicks and conversions in its Kenshoo social ad platform during November and December 2012. The research embraced both phones and tablets. One of the reasons that a fifth of spend is going to mobile is premium pricing. Kenshoo also founds that mobile ads are selling at a 70% price premium over desktop ads. “There are a number of factors related to the premium for mobile ads over desktop,” Todd Herrold, Senior Director, Product Marketing, Kenshoo tells Mobile Marketing Daily. Ad supply on the mobile platform is naturally restricted by screen real estate as well as the social network’s own policy about inserting ads here. “Facebook has been very cautious about the balance between organic and paid content in this environment,” he says. The premium pricing can be worthwhile when the marketer goals are well aligned with the platform. “Advertisers who are targeting mobile specifically and tailoring their goals and messages to the mindset of the mobile user are finding it a very effective medium,” Herrold says. Cost per click on Facebook desktop ads are averaging $.81 in Kenshoo’s survey of campaigns, while mobile CPC is $1.38. Marketers still are getting used to managing the cross-platform environment Facebook is offering them, however. “Of course in some cases, targeting overlays can lead to higher CPCs but it appears that the biggest driver of CPC is related to targeting and optimization for mobile placements specifically,” he says. “Many advertisers set up campaigns targeted to ‘all’ placements or what I call ‘run of device’ campaigns, rather than breaking their mobile and desktop placements out separately. Frequently, the lack of placement targeting and mobile customization/optimization can result in higher CPC and lower performance.” Interestingly, Android proved to be Facebook’s most lucrative smartphone platform, responsible for 71% of marketing spend on smartphones. Conventional wisdom often holds that Android may enjoy much higher device penetration levels than iOS, usage, monetization and conversion levels for the Google platform tend to be lower than its main rival in the space. Conversely, Apple’s dominance of the tablet ecosystem on Facebook is almost complete, with 97% of Facebook ad spend on tablets.
“This is not really a soap opera,” my wife complains during the first hour of the Sunday season opener of “Downton Abbey.” All other signs point to this being the case. The narrative and editing structure is pure soap, as minute-long scenes juggle multiple story threads and character dynamics at the expense of any larger narrative structure. Whatever depth and form these characters had for me in Season One has dissipated after the shark-jump of Season Two. I am in it for the meta-experience now, like watching Maggie Smith sit back and joyfully let Shirley MacLaine trip over her own overacting. The bout should have been called after one scene. “And clearly a man wrote this. Three minutes in the church and we just skip over the honeymoon?” My wife was sorely disappointed at the absence of pomp and porn. “This sucks as a soap opera,” she concludes. But hers was but one of many voices I was consulting during “Downton Sunday.” I was curious how this one played on the “second screen,” which otherwise tends toward reality programming, sports and events. In fact, when I fired up Zeebox, Masterpiece Theatre wasn’t even among the trending shows. Once I found the gang, however, posting to #DowntonPBS, the sheer snarky democracy of the crowd overran the show experience in much the same way the Grantham dinner party in this first episode devolved into an American-style barbeque. “No bachelor party? Is it me or is Branson the worst best man ever?” “Thomas even eats oatmeal like an asshole.” “Carson truly is Jim Henson’s most impressive Muppet.” “Wow a Drama about shirts. Leave it to the English” “Disastrous dinner party is the epitome of white people problems” “I hope Mary gets pregnant soon so she’ll get some boobs.” “I need to call people ‘clot’ more often” “Edith, back it up. They can smell your desperation in India.” Okay -- maybe not the most clever parallel narrative on social TV, but it is precisely the kind of counterpoint I count on finding in this new media space of crowd commentary. To be sure, “social TV” is a bit of a misnomer. TV has always been social. It grew up in the most social space in the post-WWII American home. And using the social setting as a way of erecting an antidote to TV culture is almost as old. I remember goofing on “Miss America” pageants in the basements of friends. Painfully self-consciously ironic ritual viewings of “Dallas” were a part of my grad school experience. TV media always had the filter of friends, family, parties. Twitter didn’t invent this stuff. But second-screen apps and the current shape of Social TV do change the game in some important respects that can impact the TV experience if we want them to. First, you can find the voice you want here. The quotes above are just the ones I picked from literally thousands of nondescript cheerleading tweets of the sort that make Twitter as tedious as it can be interesting. But they are what I was looking to find. By opening the doors to the crowd, the viewer can look for the complementary, supportive, contrarian, irreverent voices they desire. It is something like choose-a-crowd. We can filter the streams to highlight the voices an attitudes we want and craft for ourselves a virtual audience of the like-minded. What fascinated me about this process was that I was actively seeking that contrarian view. Much the same thing happened during the Olympics opening ceremony, which I found so laughably bad I was driven to discover whether others were seeing things the same way. In these early stages of “social TV” we tend to conceive of that online conversation around media as somehow a single entity unified by the technology. In fact, the cacaphony of perspectives and attitudes is closer to the cliques of high school. I was in search of the wiseasses who sensed along with me that “Downton Abbey” is imperialism porn of the sort only PBS can dish so well. Lord Grantham is the kind of benevolent patriarch that liberal cultural elitists like me eat up shamelessly. We get the pomp and order, the civility and repressed love of British class system -- all made palatable by hints of progressive politics, the promise of inevitable elite decline and the father figure’s decency. The only moral transgression Lord Grantham is allowed is a 20-second impure thought and kiss (literally) with a maid for which he scolds himself quickly and rewards her handsomely. Sorry, but how can one not make fun of this show? But I digress. Social TV media allows us not only to pull media on-demand. It also ultimately allows us to create a context on-demand -- surround ourselves with the audience with whom we most want to watch a program and tailor a media environment to our liking. There are some interesting prospects in this model on a number of levels. Simply as an evolution of media consumption, it adds a new set of wrinkles to the notion of context. To a greater extent than ever before, the viewer has the ability to enhance the experience by tweaking the audience. To some extent we always have done this on a personal social and familial level. Most Downton Abbey fans probably don’t want to watch the show with me in the room, for instance. It also opens up some interesting new possibilities for the content makers and their sponsors. In order to find the Downton Snarks, I have to visually triage a twitter feed. How about if media companies started providing both content and virtual social audiences as well? What if programmers of content also become programmers of audience, hosts who assemble niches of like-minded viewing audience subsets? And imagine what kinds of targeting could go on at the level of “attitude segments?” Someone was posting into #DowntonPBS t-shirts that mashed up the familiar Downton logo with Disney’s. I am guessing a few from my smirking tribe grabbed some of those. But imagine the conversions on targeting a viewing audience who self-identified with just the right attitude toward the show? Is it farfetched to leverage devices and social media to target subsegments of an audience who come at a show from different angles and tastes? We target team affinities for sports audiences, don’t we? Once the worldwide social sphere becomes an optional part of the media experience, it could change the way media companies think about themselves as both content and context providers. This is just a variant on the ways in which mobile has already moved us toward targeting “moods and moments.” Part of the job of the media programmer in a multi-screen age is not just to push content across screens but perhaps to construct various possible modes of reception, on-demand contexts that shape and enrich the experience.
Nike is moving its social media operations in-house, away from several blue-chip digital and branding agencies. According to Marketing Week, Nike aims to “gain a deeper understanding” of how its consumers interact with the brand on its owned social networks and third-party platforms like Facebook.. The move follows a review by Nike’s new social marketing lead, Musa Tariq, who pushed for full control of its social media offering. Predictably, social-media pundits have surfaced to proclaim this development as a natural evolution of social marketing. Danny Whatmough, director of digital strategies at PR agency EML Wildfire, posted on the Econsultancy blog: “[T]he best place for social media activity to be managed is in-house. Why would you outsource engagement with your customers and prospects to an agency?” There may be some truth to that in some situations, but certainly not in others. Therefore, the question of whether brands should manage social media in-house or externally may be the wrong question. The core question is: How should marketing leaders harness social media as it becomes more strategic and connected to business performance? As was always the case, it is the utmost responsibility of the marketer -- not the agency -- to lead marketing strategy, operations and accountability. Think of the CMO or brand marketer as a conductor, who must capitalize and coordinate on all available capabilities to maximize efficiencies and effectiveness to achieve business goals. Agencies or in-house capabilities may contribute at various points, but, ultimately, it is the conductor’s leadership and performance that will determine overall business success or failure. What does that have to do with social media? Brand marketing has always been about understanding audiences and their responses to content, experiences and propositions. Social has become a significant, always-on marketing channel, where you can listen, engage with stakeholders, publish content and amplify messaging to hyper-targeted audiences. This is all relatively tactical, but the scale of social has become significant. And great scale brings consequential outcomes, and that demands serious oversight -- by the marketer. While the tactical importance of social at scale is “interesting,” the explosion of consumer data presents a seismic shift in marketers’ ability to understand audiences, identify nuances and market better, more often. Social data segmentation has the potential to become the central nervous system of always-on, sense-and-respond marketing. This means social data becomes a critical enabler of better, measurable outcomes, across marketers’ entire marketing mix -- not just social. This introduces breakthroughs in things like: