Digital Media

Playbook

(Almost) Everything You Need to Know About Digital Media

2012 Edition

Digital MeDia Playbook

Table of conTenTs

1. 2. a. b. c. d. e. f. g. h. 3. a. b. c. d. e. 4. a. b. c. d. e. f. g. 5. a. b.

History: How We Got Here . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Landscape . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Owned vs. Paid vs. Earned. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Publishers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Networks & Exchanges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Social Media. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Search . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Email . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Mobile . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Emerging Platforms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Media Buying . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Per Volume . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .11 Per Performance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .11 Time Based . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Per Engagement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Bidding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Targeting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 The Cookie . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Content Targeting. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Audience Targeting. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Behavioral Targeting. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Retargeting. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 4th Party Cookies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Search Retargeting. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

6. a. b. c. d. e. 7. a. b. c. d. e. 8. a. b. c. d. e. f. g. h. i. 9.

Media Creative . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 Statics & Standard Flash . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 Rich Media . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 Video . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 Dynamic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 Mobile . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 Tracking & Analytics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 3rd Party Ad Serving. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 3rd Party Measurement Aggregators . . . . . . . . . . . 24 Ad Verification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 Social Media Monitoring . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 Privacy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 The Future . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 The Digital Takeover . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 Location Based Services. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 mCommerce. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 RFID . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 NFC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 Augmented Reality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 Clouds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 Media Integration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 Recognition Software . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 Glossary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

About the Author . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 Measurement, Optimization & Testing. . . . . . 17 Key Performance Metrics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 Multivariate Testing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

1. History: How we got Here

In 1704,
the fIrst prInt ad, which sought a buyer for a Long Island estate, was published
in The Boston News-Letter. It would take 131 years for the next ad medium to debut the billboard made its first appearance in 1835 advertising a local circus. Seventy-four years later in 1909, the first magazine ads were published. A mere 13 years after that in 1922 the first radio ads aired on WEAF in New York. Bulova Watches was the focus of the first television ad, which aired on NBC in 1941. And in 1994, AT&T published the first online clickable ad unit. The growth of the advertising industry has been exponential since that first print ad in 1704. It took radio 38 years to reach 50 million users, and 34 years for TV to do the same but just four years for the Internet. It took the iPod less than three years to do the same, and in less than nine months, Facebook added over 100 million users. We have reached a place where technology advances at a blistering pace. Advertisers in todays world have to be more efficient, more savvy, and more strategic than ever before to merely keep up with the curve let alone to write the future of this everevolving industry.

Digital MeDia Playbook History

landscape

2. lanDscaPe
the
sIze and scale of dIgItal medIa is amazing, especially considering the short time
it has been around. Google estimates that there are five million terabytes worth of information on the Internet today. Thats five billion gigabytes or five trillion megabytesa whole lot of zeros any way you count it. An estimated 300 billion emails are sent each day, roughly 89 percent of which are classified as spam. The web continues to become more and more social. There are over 152 million blogs, with 900,000 new ones created daily. Facebook has over 600 million active users who upload over three billion photos a month, compared to 400 million users last year. Twitter has over 175 million users who tweet at a rate of 1,620 tweets per second, up from 600 in 2010. People upload 35 hours of new video content to YouTube per minute, up 75 percent from a year ago. Professional social network LinkedIn has over 120 million members worldwide. Social media has become so huge that it recently surpassed pornography as the number one activity on the Internet blurring the lines between owned, earned, and paid media. These changes arent by chance. Many of them have to do with the adoption of digital media by Gen-Y, who now outnumber Baby Boomers in the U.S. An astounding 96 percent of Gen-Y has joined a social network. Todays digital socialites have become overwhelmingly dependent on community recommendations. Over 78 percent of people in the U.S. trust peer recommendations, compared to 14 percent of those who trust television advertising. And fortunately or unfortunately, for some 34 percent of bloggers are posting opinions about brands or products. As the story continues to become broader and more fragmented, many are asking, Where do I begin? and How do I rise above the clutter? In this document, we will try to break the digital landscape into simple and digestible pieces that can help answer these questions.

a. owned vs. Paid vs. earned When talkIng about the medIa landscape,
historically three types of media have existed: owned, paid, and earned. Owned media typically refers to media that a brand owns the rights or content to, including a website or microsite. Paid media refers to media that has been bought, largely defined as

Digital MeDia Playbook lanDscaPe

advertising. Earned media has normally been the term given to press coverage. The development of a more social and collaborative web has really meshed the three types together. What do you call it if youve paid for a campaign to enhance consumer perception of your brand through your Facebook page? The reality is that this is an owned, paid, and earned media experience. Brands used to leverage three different agencies to handle these different verticals. Today, forwardthinking agencies must understand all three spaces to build brands in an ever-evolving landscape. The realm of digital public relations is incredibly complex and diverse. The press used to be driven by a few high-paid voices, but now the ease and low cost-of-entry into social media has given anyone with an email address the opportunity to broadcast their opinions, whether via a blog or Tweets. By identifying connections and ranking sentiment and influence, new technologies enable advertisers to map ecosystems of individuals discussing a brand, making it easier to navigate the complex new world of digital PR (See Section 7d for info on Social Media Monitoring).

b. Publishers publIshers are

the heart of paId medIa. Online publishers come in all different sizes,

with different content and different audiences. They range from one-page websites to large portals like Yahoo and AOL. Publishers play an important role in advertising in that they host the content on which ads will live. Depending on the publisher and their ad serving capabilities, their targeting abilities may vary (See Section 4 for info on Targeting). While large publishers often represent themselves, smaller publishers may choose to be a part of a network or to sell their ad space in an exchange (see next section for more info on exchanges). Some publishers sell their inventory through multiple sources, a fact that should be taken into consideration when planning media to ensure that youre not competing against yourself for inventory, thus inflating the price.

c. neTworks & exchanges netWorks represent

number of publisher sites and typically sell their inventory in aggregate, instead of site by site. Most networks have limited capabilities to do more custom executions with one particular site, as theyre more concerned with the whole rather

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than with individual sites. Networks allow advertisers to reach across a wide spectrum of highly targeted sites, saving money and time by not having to contact each site individually. Additionally, many networks are able to layer advanced audience targeting across their sites (See Section 4 for info on Targeting). While networks are efficient performers, exchanges have become the shiny new penny in the efficient media space. Exchanges enable individual publishers to put their inventory up for sale. Advertisers are then able to bid in real time on this inventory. This incremental bidding system helps advertisers get inventory for the lowest price possible. Because an exchange is not a physical place that an advertiser can go to buy media, they use Demand Side Platforms (DSPs), which allow them to bid on and optimize media in real time. Many DSPs enable advertisers to bid across multiple exchanges at once. While advertisers can gain great cost efficiencies from buying on networks and exchanges, one of the biggest challenges is the lack of transparency that comes with many of them. Because of the speed, the mass reach, and the fragmentation of sites that the media can run across, it is extremely vulnerable to running on unfavorable content. Because of this, vendors have created technologies to verify this inventory and even block ads from running on unapproved placements (See Section 7c for info on Ad Verification).

d. social Media socIal medIa has become

one of the hottest topIcs in marketing, and for good

cause. It is a powerful way for brands to hear user feedback and have on-the-ground conversations with consumers. In addition, social media is an efficient way to manage customer support, as well as a tool that brands can utilize to build their offerings to suit consumer demand. Social media is broken into four primary buckets: listening, outreach, service, and creation. The first step in any social media campaign is listening. What are people saying about the brand? Who is talking? Where are they conversing? Answering these important questions will help provide the insight for a sound socialmedia strategy. Social-media monitoring tools make monitoring the social sphere of the web easier than ever before (See Section 7d for info on Social Media Monitoring). These tools aggregate and measure conversations from across the web, perform sentiment analysis, and even provide a singular platform from which to respond. As good as it is to hear

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glowing product reviews, oftentimes the negative remarks can be more valuable. They give brands time to get ahead of potential PR problems, address product issues, and defuse potential fires early on. Think of listening to your community on the web as having a focus group of millions. After a brand has listened to the social sphere, the next step is to engage. There are three types of engagement models within social media, the first of which is outreach. Outreach refers to brands talking to and with members of their community. Campaigns often include pushing deals, responding to user comments, and influencer outreach, and are often seen occurring on sites like Facebook and Twitter. It creates a unique environment for users to engage directly with the brands that is unlike any that has existed before. The third type of brand engagement is around service. Brands may use social media as a platform to listen to and address customer-service problems. Some brands have created further efficiencies by building platforms through which their community members can help each other a self-serving service model, so to speak. The fourth and final type of brand engagement involves creation. More and more brands are using social media as a platform to crowd-source ideas and leverage mass collaboration to develop new products or refine existing ones. This can range from reviews on shopping sites to crowdsourcing sites where the users collaborate to build new products. As the social web has grown, content creation and management are becoming increasingly important, as they help brands to keep their social fan base engaged.

e. search search marketIng

Is typIcally

dIvIded into two buckets: SEM (Search Engine

Marketing, sometimes also called SEA or Search Engine Advertising) and SEO (Search Engine Optimization). SEM is the practice of paying for media to run on a search engine like Google, Bing, Yahoo, AOL, etc. SEM is typically bought on a costper-click basis and on a bid-based model, where ones maximum allowable bid and relevancy to the search term determines ones paid search rank, or where on the page the search text is located (See Section 3 for info on Media Buying).

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SEO is the practice of optimizing a webpage to improve its PageRank, a site quality score determined by the search engine. These optimizations affect how search engines rank a website against a particular keyword, which in turn impacts where on the SERP (Search Engine Results Page) a website appears after a user has searched for a particular keyword. Sites are optimized through page-copy optimization, meta-tag (a standardized piece of code that is read by search engines) optimization, and so forth. Another factor in determining the PageRank is the number of inbound and (to a lesser extent) outbound links. In the eyes of a search engine, a large number of links to and from a page helps to validate the quality of that page.

f. eMail there

are several avaIlable opportunItIes with email. The first is to run dedicated

emails to an internally owned and managed database of individuals. Options may include databases of individuals who have signed up or opted-in to receive communications from your brand, or purchased email lists managed through an internal database. CAN-SPAM laws enable companies to initiate emails with an individual, as long as there is a clear and easy opt-out option that is updated frequently, a clear and honest indication of what the email is about and who it is from. Conversely, the FISA (Canadas version of CAN-SPAM) requires that individuals must opt-in to receive an email before they can be emailed. The second way to target users via email is to send via an email vendor. In this circumstance, the email will contain brand content however, it will be sent from the vendor and often be formatted in the vendors template. Some vendors allow for brand-dedicated emails, while others only offer ad space in their own emails.

g. Mobile before the

mobIle Web, the only

available mobile advertising was through SMS or text messages. Since the expansion of Internetenabled mobile devices, mobile advertising has seen large growth. With new interactive web browsers on mobile platforms, advertisers are able to dynamically serve creative into mobile web pages, and the expansion of HTML5 (a revised version of HTML coding language) is enabling vendors to produce rich media type ad units on

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mobile. While mobile advertising has expanded greatly over the past four years, mCommerce challenges have inhibited the adoption of advertising on mobile devices (See Section 8c for info on mCommerce). Mobile phones should not be considered just another computer screen. There are many considerations when planning for mobile, including consumer mindset and where they are when using the device. Advertisers leveraging mobile devices for advertising should seek to create experiences that provide value to the consumer. Mobile phones are designed for engagement and utility there are better platforms to simply push brand messaging.

h. eMerging PlaTforMs WhIle neW emergIng platforms are coming into the market every week, there
are a few that have already had a big impact on digital media. The first is the tablet, a category that includes Apples iPad, which just passed the DVD player as the fastestadopted technology in history. The tablets touch screen and high-resolution multimedia capabilities provide a rich and engaging platform to build advertisements for. Tablets have already started taking over the print world, seen in doctors offices instead of a table of magazines and at restaurants, with tablet menus where a customer can click on an item to see a picture of it and instantly read reviews that others have written about the item. Customers are now able to make customized orders through their menus, and when theyre done eating, all they need to do is swipe a credit card to check out. The second emerging platform that is starting to creep its way into the retail and restaurant industry is the surface computer. These interactive and engaging surfaces allow users to do things like view different outfit combinations, put in orders, and preview content before purchasing all through a large touch-screen surface computer. Crossing the bridge between printed media and digital media, QR (Quick Response) codes are matrix barcodes that can be read by scanners, including mobile phones. When mobile phones read one of these barcodes, it can respond by sending an image or text to the phone or by directing the phone to a website. Another emerging technology that is being adopted by mobile devices is augmented reality. Augmented reality is a live real-world view where virtually created elements are built into the image. Yelp has adopted this technology into their mobile app where you can look through your phone camera and as you hold it up to a local business, it

QR Code

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displays the businesss Yelp profile. Companies like Nokia and the University of Washington are building augmented reality glasses and contact lenses with augmented reality capabilities. While the list is long, the last emerging platform that will be addressed here is gaming. While gaming devices have been around for a long time, for advertising purposes these consoles have changed dramatically over the past few years. Most major gaming platforms are now Internet enabled and have the ability to dynamically serve ads into the game. The advertising may appear as a billboard on the side of a street you are racing down, or on the sideboards of the football stadium your virtual team is playing in. New handheld gaming devices, including Apples iOS devices, have created unique platforms where advertisers can reach consumers.

Digital MeDia Playbook lanDscaPe

Media buying

3. MeDia buying
a. Per voluMe dIgItal medIa can
be bought in several different ways. The most basic buy model is a

CPM (Cost Per Mille or Cost Per Thousand). When buying on a CPM, an advertiser is paying a rate per 1,000 impressions. While CPM buys are by far the most common purchase model, there are some associated risks to the advertiser. Because the advertiser is paying for each impression, they must take particular caution in understanding where each impression is being served. Dynamic CPMs, or dCPM models, are similar to buying on a CPM except that instead of paying a fixed cost for each impression, advertisers pay varying costs for their impressions that average out to their CPM. For example, if an advertisers dCPM is $5, they may get inventory for $1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 8, & 9, but it will all average to a $5 CPM in the end. This can be an effective buying model because publishers can optimize the low CPM inventory (<$5 inventory) to top performers, while giving the advertiser more premium CPM inventory (>$5 inventory) that they may not be able to afford otherwise.

b. Per PerforMance payper-performance

buys typically come in two forms:

CPCs and CPAs. CPC (Cost Per Click, sometimes referred to as PPC or Pay Per Click) is a rate paid each time a banner or link is clicked on by a user. This can also be referred to as Cost Per Call on a mobile device where the click leads to a call. CPA (Cost Per Acquisition) or CPEA (Cost Per End Action) is a rate paid each time a user completes a particular agreed upon action. In the case of a sweepstakes, an advertiser would pay only when a user entered the sweepstakes. One benefit to performance-based buys is that an advertiser doesnt have to worry as much about wasted impressions as they only pay when a particular action takes place. Typically, performance-based buys will be bought on a network or an exchange, and they are typically served in high-impression volumes to help fulfill delivery (See Section 2c for info on Networks & Exchanges). Because the spend is not guaranteed, performance-based buys

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Digital MeDia Playbook MeDia buying

are often prioritized below CPM buys, which can result in several adverse outcomes. First, this may mean that the inventory is sub-prime remnant inventory. Because of this, and the high volume of impressions served, performance-based buys are often at risk of ending up on unfavorable sites. Finally, because of this low priority performance-based buys can see great fluctuation in performance and spend levels, especially during times where CPM advertising may spike (typically holidays or major media events). Despite the risks, performance-based buys can work quite well for advertisers backing into tight metrics.

c. TiMe-based f or certaIn custom or hIgh - Impact placements ,

advertisers may negotiate a timebased buy, which is a flat rate for placement over a certain period of time. For example, an advertiser may run 100 percent SOV (Share of Voice) on the AOL homepage for a 24-hour period. Buys are often done this way when its difficult or impossible to project the exact number of impressions on a page. These buys are at risk of under-delivering, thus increasing your eCPM (effective CPM is the CPM you would have paid at the end of a time-based buy, given the overall cost and the impressions). Conversely, a big unforeseen event may cause a large spike in traffic to a particular page, thus lowering your eCPM greatly. While there is risk of fluctuation, most publishers have a lot of historical data to quite accurately project expected volume.

d. Per engageMenT neW types of medIa executIons have spawned new buying models. A CPE is a costper-engagement model where an advertiser pays only when a rich media ad unit is engaged with (expanded, played with, video view, etc.). Like pay-per-performance models, engagement buying models reduce the risk to the advertiser by only charging them for actual engagement, meaning they are not paying for wasted impressions.

e. bidding exchanges (and

search ) have opened the gates for bid-based buying models. When

publishers release inventory to an exchange, advertisers grant a maximum bid they are willing to pay

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Digital MeDia Playbook MeDia buying

for inventory and are charged incrementally more than the other advertisers bid until theyve hit their max (See Section 2c for info on Exchanges). Because advertisers only offer incrementally more for each impression, opposed to committing to a flat CPM, they can often get inventory for much cheaper than when bought on a flat CPM.

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Digital MeDia Playbook MeDia buying

targeting

4. targeting
targetIng
has become one of the most controversIal (See Section 7e for info on
Privacy) yet most important parts of digital advertising. It helps advertisers connect the right message with the right person, at the right place, at the right time.

a. The cookie the cookIe Was

orIgInally Invented to enable shopping carts for ecommerce. Imagine

youre shopping online and put three items into your shopping cart. You then leave the page and 10 minutes later return and open your cart. Cookies make it possible for the website to recognize your computer and restore your shopping cart. Cookies are ID markers that publishers put on your computer. These markers can then be read at later points in time. Companies will look at the types of sites you visit in order to make inferences about who you are. If you visit a lot of parenting sites, its likely that you have a child. If you visit ESPN 30 times a day, its likely that you are interested in sports. Advertisers can then use this information to serve you relevant ads.

b. conTenT TargeTing content targetIng Is the

sImplest type of targeting and what is typically found in

traditional media. It pairs ads with a particular piece of content that it believes is relevant to the audience its trying to reach. If youre trying to reach sports fans, chances are that the people reading an article about the NFL will fall within your audience.

c. audience TargeTing advertIsers use a combInatIon of cookie profiles, online profile data, and IP addresses to
demographically and geographically target individuals. They can target geographic regions typically down to the DMA, but depending on the publisher, it can be as granular as zip code. Demographic targeting may include variables like gender, age, household income, education, age of children, and ethnicity. Advertisers can also target different parts of the day, which is referred to as day-parting.

d. behavioral TargeTing advertIsers use cookIes to build

behavioral profiles for users and then target them based on their behaviors. They may identify a person shopping online for jeans as in market for jeans, and based on this behavior, serve them Levis ads or ads for a complementary product.

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Digital MeDia Playbook targeting

e. reTargeTing retargetIng Is an

extremely effIcIent and effective way of targeting.

A publisher will place a pixel on a particular page or a number of pages. Once the pixel is placed, the publisher can then retarget users who have hit that page. These users have self-selected themselves as interested through their initial visit to the page. This can be particularly effective when trying to get a user through a user flow. An advertiser can target individuals who started in the user flow but left before they completed it, getting them back to finish the action.

f. Third-ParTy cookies one of the neWest means of

targetIng is with third-party

cookie data. The targeting works just like any and/or all of the above targeting methods; however, the cookie data comes from a third-party vendor that aggregates cookies from across the web. This data can be particularly valuable when looking for in-market buyers. For example, a third-party data vendor may capture data from BestBuy.com, information that an advertiser would normally not have access to. If you are Samsung and are trying to sell TVs, this data can be particularly captivating. Because the third-party data vendors are able to collect and distribute the data blindly, advertisers are able to leverage it. The business of buying and selling this type of data has been a booming field over the past couple of years.

g. search reTargeTing search retargetIng is when a publisher targets a user with

a display ad based on a previous search result. When someone enters your page, you can read a script that tells you the URL of the website they came from. If the user came from a search engine, the referral URL will contain the keyword from the most recent search query. Data vendors collect and use this keyword data to target users.

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Digital MeDia Playbook targeting

Measurement, optimization & testing

5. MeasureMent & testing

One of the biggest differentiators of digital media is how highly measurable it is, down to each single user action. These granular measurement capabilities allow for detailed optimizations and have opened the door for sophisticated testing.

a. key PerforMance MeTrics

When building a tracking strategy, its important to begin with your end point. How will you determine success and what are the variables that determine the outcome of your end point? Once youve identified these points, a tracking strategy can be put into place. This end point and variables may vary greatly depending on the campaign. The three most standard Key Performance Metrics (KPMs or KPIs, Key Performance Indicators) are impressions (the number of times an ad was served), clicks (the number of times an ad was clicked), and a particular end action, which may range from a landing page hit to the completion of a form or placed order. Tracking impressions and clicks is relatively straightforward with any ad server (See Section 7a for info on Third- Party Ad Serving). Advertisers typically look at Click Through Rates (CTR) to determine initial ad performance. CTR is the rate at which the ad was clicked per the number of impressions served (CTR=Clicks/Impressions). When measuring conversion success, advertisers typically calculate a Click-to-Conversion (CTC, also called a Continued Action Rate, or CAR), which is the number of conversions per clicks (CTC=Conversions/ Clicks). This metric is important when considering landing page or conversion-path optimizations because it only accounts for individuals who make it to your landing page. Advertisers also look at Conversion Ratio (CR), which is the number of conversions-perimpressions served (CR=Conversions/Impressions). This is an important all-up number because it takes into account the full user flow, from ad served to conversion. For several reasons, including misleading creative messaging, some ads may see a high CTR but a large drop off once the user hits the landing page. Other ads may see a low CTR but high CTC because the creative is only recruiting the highest-qualified individuals. Conversion rate shows the overall efficiency of an ad to drive a conversion.

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Digital MeDia Playbook MeasureMent, oPtiMization & testing

Beyond these three standard metrics, rich-media creative often has metrics of its own. Expandable ad units will track expansion rates, the number of times an ad is expanded per the impressions served. For ads that a user can interact with inside the ad unit, they may look at engagement rates for different aspects of the creative, whether its clicks on a button, views of a particular tab, or the number of times a game is activated or finished. Video units often track plays and finishes, but can also show how long various people are playing the ad unit for. This type of information can be helpful in identifying if the video includes a particular problem spot where a lot of individuals drop off. Brand-measurement studies can be done to test ad effectiveness. These often take place in the form of online surveys, which can be dynamically loaded and highly targeted to individuals based on whether or not they have seen an ad.

b. MulTivariaTe TesTing
The ability to do multivariate testing in digital media is very important to its success. Basic models of testing might put five different creative units into equal rotation across a buy with the hopes of seeing if one outperforms the others. Advertisers have built sophisticated modeling tools to not only show which of the ads is the most successful, but also to determine the attribution effect that the other ads had and create rotation weightings accordingly. For example, Ad A may do very well at driving conversions, while Ad B does not directly drive conversions; however, we may see that while users who view Ad B arent clicking on the ad, theyre following up by searching for the product and converting at a high rate. If we only used CTR or CR as a metric of success, we wouldnt have the full picture. By testing through a more critical lens, were able to see the entire story. This type of basic testing has another flaw, which is that we dont know if a user saw multiple ads. If were looking to do a clean multivariate test, we need to ensure that individuals that see Ad A only see Ad A, and individuals that see Ad B only see Ad B, or some standardized combination or order of the two. This is also important when testing landing pages to ensure that a user who visits the page multiple times doesnt find four different landing pages. Through the use of cookies, were able to segment audiences and serve across a campaign in this controlled manner.

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Digital MeDia Playbook MeasureMent, oPtiMization & testing

Media Creative

6. MeDia creative
a. sTaTic & sTandard flash
Static creative typically refers to a static image ad, typically just a GIF or JPEG. A standard flash unit is a simple Flash ad, perhaps animated and clickable, but one that does not allow for much in-banner engagement. Static and standard flash units are by far the most common creative types, and are typically the most inexpensive. However, they typically see lower engagement rates than richer ad units.

b. rich Media
Rich-media creative typically allows for in-banner engagement or interaction between the ad and the page. Types of rich media include expandable ad units, floating ad units, synced ad units, and interactive ad units. Some rich media units may enable video (See Section 6c for info on Video). Rich media ads may be more expensive to create and serve. However, they typically see much higher engagement rates than static or standard Flash ads, which can help offset the higher cost.

c. video
Video creative is, as the name implies, creative that plays video. These typically come in two varieties In-Banner or In-Stream. In-Banner videos play within an ad unit. In-Stream videos play during a stream of content and include pre-roll video. Typically, auto-play videos see much higher engagement rates than videos that require an action such as a click or rollover to initiate the video.

d. dynaMic
New technologies now allow creative to be served dynamically based on different variables, including demographics, geographic location, or even by the weather. For example, a retailer may dynamically insert a woman into an ad being viewed by a woman, and a man into an ad being viewed by a man. Users in New York will see a New York skyline and users in San Francisco will see a San Francisco skyline. The creative dynamically loads the images based on the user that receives the ad.

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Digital MeDia Playbook MeDia creative

e. Mobile
Mobile creative is still in its infancy. Previously, most mobile platforms were only able to serve static images. However, the development of HTML5 has enabled more engaging ad units that act similarly to rich media and can even play video. Due to the lack of cookies on mobile devices, on-mobile creative targeting is still quite limited. In addition to visual creative, mobile platforms also allow for SMS messaging (text messaging), typically involving text copy.

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Digital MeDia Playbook MeDia creative

Tracking & Analytics

7. tracking & analytics

a. Third-ParTy ad serving
Third-party ad servers utilize a piece of code called an iframe to serve their ads. The iframe pulls the ad creative off of the server and allows the unit to be tracked in the process. Ad servers have a host of tracking capabilities. On the most basic level, they track the number of times an ad was served, which is also known as impressions. They can also track the number of times the ad was clicked on. Through the use of 1x1 pixel placed on a web page that is called an action tag, ad servers are able to not only tell how many times that page has been hit, but also if a page has been hit by a user who clicked on a particular ad. The industrys leading ad servers include Atlas, DFP & DFA, MediaMind, PointRoll and EyeWonder. On a more complex level, ad servers can track rich media units, as well as different engagement metrics. Some of these include time spent in ad, video views and view length, the number of times an ad is expanded, and the nu,mber of clicks on different parts of an ad. Ad servers can go deeper by enabling cookie targeting and attribution modeling, which attributes value to ad units that came before the final click based on their impact in driving an action (See Section 5b for info on Multivariate Testing).

b. Third-ParTy MeasureMenT aggregaTors

Third-party measurement aggregators measure publisher, advertiser, and audience data across the Internet. Audience and publisher measurement aggregators include vendors like Comscore, Nielsen, and Quantcast. Metrics include site size, audience composition on a site, site demographic and geographic data, and psychographic data. Advertiser measurement aggregators like TNS measure metrics including advertiser campaign spend and provide screenshots of in-market creative. Audience measurement aggregators include companies like MRI and measure audience affinity indexes across behavioral and psychographic categories. Research firms like Forrester and eMarketer also do similar audience research; however, they do not provide raw data as it is provided from MRI.

c. ad verificaTion
The reach and lack of transparency accompanied by many digital buys has led to brand safety concerns. Additionally,

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Digital MeDia Playbook tracking & analytics

malware technologies can serve ads in a way that the impressions may be wasted and never visible by the user. Due to these issues, ad verification software has emerged from vendors like Double Verify, mpire adXpose, and AdSafe. These technologies can do three things, the first of which is ad tracking. Through ad tracking, they are able to identify when ads have been placed on unapproved content or are being subjected to fraud. The second verification is creative verification, which tracks ad engagement, time on page, and page placement to identify if ads are being served in a way that they are not being seen. Lastly, at the pinnacle of ad verification, is ad blocking, which actually prevents ads from being served if they are not compliant with the Insertion Order (or IO, the contract between the publisher and the advertiser outlining the terms of the buy). This could be a result of inappropriate content, impression fraud, below-the-fold ads, ads hitting geographic regions that they are not assigned to hit, and so on.

d. social Media MoniToring

As social media has grown massively on the web, so have the tools to measure and track it. Social media monitoring tools come in a range of shapes and sizes, from free analytics tools to expensive and complex tracking and engagement tools. On the light side of the social media monitoring spectrum are free web based tools that allow users to search for a keyword and will give trending information, like volume of posts over time, for a particular term. These range from tools like Twitter Search and Google Alerts to analytics tools like Trendrr. In the middle of the pack are tools like Radian6. These are web crawlers that scan the entire web for particular keywords or groups of keywords. They aggregate all of the relevant posts and can analyze volume, trending, sentiment, and location of posts. New tools like Meteor Solutions enable advertisers to track how their information is shared online, showing which information was shared, by whom, and where. On the complex side are tools like Visible Intelligence, which provide a full suite of measuring and analytics solutions. The Visible Intelligence interface also provides a platform that can be used to manage workflows and engage across a multitude of sites. There are dozens of options, and the correct tool for a particular brand depends on the brand itself and its goals. However, it is clear that as social media grows, so does the ability to measure its success.

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Digital MeDia Playbook tracking & analytics

e. Privacy
Ever since the development of the Cookie (See Section 4a for info on Cookies), online privacy has been a huge topic of conversation. The establishment and growth of social media has brought this conversation to a whole new level. It is important for publishers, vendors, agencies, and clients to respect the privacy of consumers. We need to use user information cookies or otherwise only in ways that benefit the consumer, and understand that what is good for the consumer is good for the brand. As an industry, we need to respect the boundaries and privacy of consumers before regulations strip away our ability to perform an important part of our job.

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Digital MeDia Playbook tracking & analytics

The Future

8. tHe future
Unless youre reading over my shoulder as I write, its likely that by the time this document hits your desk most of the above will be outdated. Well, not literally, but you get the idea. The reality is that this industry moves incredibly fast, and it takes a commitment to continued education to keep up to speed, let alone to get ahead of where the market is going. There are a lot of changes evolving in the industry that will shape the future of the world we live in, and the situation is constantly evolving.

a. The digiTal Takeover

Despite popular belief, print is not dead though many print publications are shifting to digital. While newspapers are at their lowest circulation of all time, only 37.8 million, magazines are going strong, with nearly 93 percent of Americans reading them. However, tablets may soon change that landscape. Tablets are now the fastest adopted new technology of all time, which will certainly move more magazine publishers to a digital platform. Book publishers are also seeing a lift in sales, largely driven by digital downloads, which are up 164.4 percent for the year to date. This trend is projected to continue as new competitors like Amazons Kindle Fire enter the market and drive the costs of tablets down. Even higher education publishers are pursuing opportunities to publish their books digitally. Like print, radio has already made a large leap towards digital media. Services like Pandora and Last.fm offer customized radio online, and an increasing number of Internetenabled devices have allowed these digital radio platforms to live beyond the computer. Second to online, out-of-home media has seen the largest growth over the past few years, and this is due largely to digital integrations. Digital billboards and televisions in doctors offices, on gas pumps and in cabs have changed the world of out-ofhome media. New subway billboards have cameras to detect the age and gender of each passersby, and will dynamically serve ads accordingly. In-store, multi-touch displays enable shoppers to accessorize an outfit before theyve even hit the dressing room. The possibilities for digital out-

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Digital MeDia Playbook tHe future

of-home are virtually endless. Television, while maybe the slowest medium to transition, is moving towards digital as well. Smart TVs are changing the way that people watch television. Both televisions and compatible devices are increasingly WiFi enabled, allowing them to connect to the Internet and dynamically stream content. It is only a matter of time before users are dynamically served TV ads based on the programs they watch. The affects of digital media expand beyond the conversion of traditional media into the digital realm. Digital media has built a new level of integration between the online and offline worlds. Social technologies like Facebook Connect have added a new level of connectivity across the web, tying your social profile with everything you do online. Instead of having ten individual logins for ten different sites, you can now have one connected login to access them all. New social networks are integrating the online and the offline worlds. One is Bump, a social network of drivers that is tied to your license plate. You can now send a message to a fellow driver without honking your horn and screaming out the window.

b. locaTion based services

Every year, for the last six years, advertising outlets have proclaimed that this is the year for mobile. While that has yet to be the case, mobile has made some large strides in the advertising space. One of the biggest is the development of location-based services. Applications like FourSquare, Twitter and Facebook Locations enable local businesses to target consumers at or close to the point-of-purchase. Google Latitude allows you to see where your friends are at any particular time. While its still in its infancy, the possibilities for location-based advertising are broad, ranging from couponing a user for a fresh smoothie as they pass by on a hot day to developing sophisticated scavenger hunts.

c. mcoMMerce
One of the biggest barriers keeping mobile from breaking out has been the challenge of making on-mobile purchases. While

A location-based application

Apples iTunes has started to crack the code on mCommerce, were still a ways out from sophisticated mobile purchasing where

an order can be made with a click of a button tied to a stored credit card or an online account. There are many vendors currently trying to solve this problem. Once they do so, we will see a drastic shift in the way mobile devices are used for advertising.

d. rfid
While RFIDs (Radio Frequency Identification) tags have been around for decades, they are close to paving the next generation of advertising. RFIDs are tiny-micro chips that can be made as small as a human red

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Digital MeDia Playbook tHe future

blood cell. Imagine you walk into a grocery store and fill up your shopping cart. Each item is tagged with an RFID. Once youre ready to check out, you simply walk out of the store and head to your car. As you exit through the door, each of the items is scanned via its RFID tag and the total is summed. Once totaled, the system instantly bills your credit card, which is tied to another RFID tag embedded in your cell phone. You just scanned your entire shopping cart and charged the purchase all by just walking out the door with your cell phone. RFID tags offer more than just the opportunity for convenience. Imagine a man gets into a car accident and is unconscious, but has no identification on him. He arrives in the ER and the doctors scan the RFID tag embedded in his arm. Immediately, they are able to pull up his medical records and treat him accordingly. Because they hold unique identifiable information, RFID tags open the opportunities for advertisers to connect on a one-to-one level at any place and time. Using the food-shopping example, supermarkets may have screens in the aisles that automatically scan whats already in your cart and use that information to make product recommendations. Similar screens in retail shops might read your outfit and recommend similar items. The opportunities with RFID tags are endless, and many of them remain to be seen.

e. nfc
NFC, or near field communication, is a type of RFID technology that only emits and receives signals within a short range, typically of four inches or less. NFC technology can be embedded into cellphones for the use of mobile payments and other secure transactions. The reason NFC is used as opposed to regular RFID tags is that the short distance required between transmitter and receiver helps protect the information being transmitted. This is especially important with banking information. RFID tags, which can transmit upwards of 40 feet, could create a security problem if someone within range of you was trying to gain access to your information.

f. augMenTed realiTy
Augmented reality (AR) displays a live view of a physical environment that is digitally augmented. Essentially, it digitally alters the live image to display something that isnt actually there. When you watch a football game on TV, the NFL uses AR to place a yellow first-down line on the field, making it appear as if the line actually exists on the field when in reality, it doesnt. On mobile devices, apps like Yelp use AR to display location information on different buildings as youre walking down the street. Marketers are adopting AR technology for a variety of different effects, from digitally displaying product information to allowing users to try on different outfits without changing clothes.

Yelps augmented reality display of nearby restaurants.

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Digital MeDia Playbook tHe future

g. clouds
Cloud computing refers to computation and data access where the information is stored at a remote location. The Internet is considered a large cloud, where information is housed on remote servers that individuals access through web browsers, opposed to the files that are stored on the computers hard drive. Many believe cloud computing is the future for mobile devices, as it would allow cell phones to contain minimal storage, enabling smaller phones that were still able to access unlimited amounts of data. Amazons Cloud Drive and Apples iCloud are paving the way for this technology.

h. Media inTegraTion
New technology is providing more integrated cross-media experiences than ever before. Mobile and tablet software can now detect a commercial playing on your TV and deliver ads to complement your experience. Consumers can now use their mobile devices to engage with billboards, playing games and redeeming offers in real time.

i. recogniTion sofTware
Scientists are developing more and more sophisticated facial and product recognition technologies. These advancements allow advertisers to identify a vast array of information about a passerby, from the products they have with them to their age and gender. They can then use this information to dynamically serve them a billboard targeted to their specific tastes. As new technologies continue to evolve, so will the world of advertising. If the last ten years are any indication of how the next ten will be, this long-standing industry will continue to see drastic changes. As advertisers, its our job to not only stay up to speed on these emerging technologies, but to help build and utilize them for the future of our brands and clients. The possibilities with new technologies are vast, but it is obvious they will require a fundamental shift in our lifestyle and in our ability to handle privacy concerns. Technology is evolving at a pace that makes it simultaneously impossible to predict what the future holds while ensuring that no matter what, it will be exciting.

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Digital MeDia Playbook tHe future

Glossary

9. glossary
action Tag: A piece of code placed on a website that tracks every time the piece of code is loaded. This allows advertisers to tell how many times, and from where, a page was hit. ad blocking: A technology that, in real time, prevents an advertisers ad from being served onto a page or placement that is deemed inappropriate or unsuitable for the brand. ad server: A technology that places advertisements on websites and tracks them. ad verification: A service that tracks ad delivery and reports the placements and pages on which the ads were served. aTf (above-the-fold): The portion of the website that is visible in the browser without scrolling when a website loads. attribution Model: A model that assesses and assigns value to the multiple brand touch points that a consumer may have, not just the final one before they take an action. audience Targeting: Targeting a specific set of consumers based on criteria which can include geographic location, age, gender, sex and household income. augmented reality: A live view of a real-world environment whose elements are augmented by computergenerated inputs. auto-play: Referring to an ad or media unit that automatically starts upon the page loading. behavioral Targeting: Targeting users based on their individual web browsing behaviors and actions. blog: A user-generated web log typically including commentary, personal descriptions and other media assets. blogger: Someone who blogs. bTf (below-the-fold): The portion of the website that is below the area visible in a browser window without scrolling when the website loads. can-sPaM: Stands for Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography And Marketing Act of 2003, CAN-SPAM is a set of standards established by the FTC for the sending of commercial email. cloud computing: Computation and data access where the information is stored at a remote location, known as the Cloud. conversion: Referring to when a consumer completes a desired action. cookie: Stored text data on a consumers computer that can be used to authenticate a consumer or store information, like shopping cart contents. cookie Targeting: A type of targeting that identifies and targets users based on their cookie data. cPa (cost-per-action): # of completed actions/cost. Also called Cost-per-conversion, CPA is the average

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Digital MeDia Playbook History

cost to get a user complete an action. cPc (cost-per-click): # of clicks/cost. CPC is the average cost paid for each user click. cPe (cost-per-engagement): # of engagements/cost. CPE is the average cost per each user engagement. User engagement is advertiser defined, but may include when a user plays and watches a video for 5 or more second, or when a user interacts with a rich media ad unit. cPea (cost-per-end action): See CPA (Cost-per-action) cPM (cost-per-mille): 1,000 Impressions/cost. CPM is the cost per 1,000 impressions. conversion rate (cr): # of conversions/impressions. Conversion rate is an indicator of the percent of users who converted after seeing an ad. creative rotation: Ad impressions/overall impressions. The percent of impressions an ad unit gets compared to the total number of available impressions. Total creative rotation of all ad units in market should equal 100%. creative verification: A service that tracks ad creative and reports the placements and pages on which the ads were served. crowd-source: Sourcing tasks typically performed by an individual to a large group or community of people. cTc/car (click-to-conversion/continued-action-rate): # of conversions/clicks. CTC/CAR is an indicator of the percent of users who converted after clicking an ad. cTr (click-through-rate): The # of clicks/impressions. CTR is an indicator of the percent of users who clicked on an ad after seeing it. day-parting: Only running ads during a particular time of day. dcPM (dynamic cPM): Ads bought on a dCPM run on inventory from a range of CPMs but they are set to meet an average CPM. This average CPM is referred to as a dCPM. dMa (designated Marketing area): A designated geographical region. dsP (demand side Platform): A system that allows advertisers to manage multiple ad exchanges and data exchanges from one interface. dynamic ads: Ads that dynamically load content based on a set of predetermined parameters, which can include location, weather or time of day. earned Media: Media coverage that a brand has earned, not paid for. Typically thought of as press. ecPM (effective cPM): 1,000 Impressions/cost. Average CPM paid on a program that was not bought on a CPM basis. end action: See Conversion

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Digital MeDia Playbook History

engagement rate: The # of engagements/# of impressions. Engagement rate is an indicator of the percent of users who engaged with an ad after seeing the ad. exchange: A technology that facilitates the bidded buying and selling of ad inventory from multiple sources. expandable ad: An ad unit that expands in size across a webpage. fisa: The Fighting Internet and Wireless Spam Act is Canadas anti-spam legislation. flash: A multimedia platform that allows for movement, video and interactivity on webpages. floating ad: An ad unit that moves or floats around a webpage. gif: Graphics Interchange Format, a GIF is a type of compressed image. hTMl: HyperText Markup Language is the predominant markup language, or code, that website are written in. hTMl 5: The fifth and newest version of HTML that allows for more complex web applications across multiple platforms, like mobile. It allows for interactivity in ways that HTML 4 and other versions do not. iframe: An HTML element that defines a frame within which other content can be loaded. impression: An ad view. impression fraud: Term used when publishers are falsifying impression data or serving ads that are not visible to users but still taking credit for the impression. in-banner video (ibv): Video that is served in an ad unit. in stream: Video that is served during another multimedia format, such as pre-roll video. insertion order (io): A contract signed between the advertiser and publisher that outlines the terms of the media buy. interactive ad: An ad that allows the user to engage and interact with it. iP address: Internet Protocol Address is a unique identifier tied to every computer in a network. JPeg: Joint Photographic Experts Group, a JPEG is a type of compressed image, typically achieving a 10:1 compression with losing little image quality. keyword: A word searched in a search engine to find a search result for the term. kPi/kPM: Key Performance Indicators or Key Performance Metrics are the main metrics by which a campaign is measured. location-based services: A mobile device service that makes use of the geographical location of the device. Malware: Malicious software designed to enable abusive behaviors, like disruption of services or stealing private information.

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Digital MeDia Playbook History

Matrix barcodes: See QR Codes. mcommerce: Mobile commerce. Purchases made on a mobile phone. Measurement aggregator: A technology that aggregates and centralizes data from multiple data sources or measurement tools. Multivariate Test: A technique used for testing complex, multi-variable systems. network: A group of websites that collectively sell their ad inventory. nfc (near field communications): NFC is a RFID technology that allows for the simple exchange of data between two devices in close proximity. owned Media: Ad inventory or media that an advertiser owns the rights to (for example, their website). Page Placement: The location on a particular webpage where the ad inventory is placed. Pagerank: A link algorithm used by search engines to determine where a website ranks in the search results when a particular keyword is queried. Paid Media: Media that an advertiser pays to use, typically considered advertising. Pay Per Performance: Media that is bought on the basis of performance, including CPC, CPA and CPE buys. Pixel: A single point on an image, and the smallest addressable screen element in a display device. Pre-roll: An ad unit that runs before a video. Publisher: A publisher owns the page on which ad inventory is placed, i.e. they publish the content. Qr codes (Quick response): A type of two-dimensional bar code. retargeting: Targeting users who have already visited a page or completed a particular action. rfid (radio-frequency identification): A technology that uses radio waves to transfer data from an electronic tag. rich Media: Ad units with advanced capabilities, such as expanding, floating and interactivity. sea (search engine advertising): See SEM. search: Typically referring to SEM. search retargeting: Targeting users based on previously searched terms. seM (search engine Marketing): Advertising on a SERP. sentiment analysis: An analysis of feelings and emotions. seo (search engine optimization): Optimizing a website to increase its PageRank. serP (search engine results Page): The results page that loads after a keyword is searched in a search engine. share of voice (sov): An expression of a brands weight defined as a percent of a total defined market.

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Digital MeDia Playbook History

sMs (short Message service): Also referred to as a text message, SMS is a communications protocol that allows for the exchange of short text messages via mobile devices. social Media: Websites that allow for the exchange of user generated content. social Media Monitoring: Technologies that track and report on social media activity. social network: A social structure of individuals (called nodes) that are somehow tied together (these relationships are called ties). static ad: An ad that does not have any motion graphics. Typically a GIF or JPEG. synced ad: Multiple ad units on a web page that are synced or interact with each other. Tablet computer: A complete mobile computer primarily operated through a touch screen. Targeting: See Audience Targeting Tweet: A post on the social network site Twitter.

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Digital MeDia Playbook History

about tHe autHor

Steven Clough is a media director for Williams Helde Marketing Communications. Contact: stevenc@williams-helde.com

abouT williaMs helde

Williams Helde Marketing Communications is a 43 year old boutique agency in Seattle, WA dedicated to creating harmony in the universe.

conTacT
Marc williams Williams Helde Marketing Communications (206) 285-1940 slf@williams-helde.com

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Digital MeDia Playbook History