How to Win at Father’s Day: Tips for Your Campaigns

How to Win at Father’s Day: Tips for Your Campaigns

by | May, 2019 | Content, Native Advertising

The first Father’s Day was celebrated in Spokane in 1910, but it wasn’t until President Calvin Coolidge officially established Father’s Day as a national event in 1924 that it became a dedicated holiday to “establish more intimate relations between fathers and their children and to impress upon fathers the full measure of their obligations” (U.S. Census). Now a day of celebration and – yes – gift giving, here are some tips to get your campaigns ready for the upcoming shopping rush to honor dear ol’ dads!

1. Know Your Numbers

We’ll help you out with this one. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, roughly 6 in 10 men in the U.S. are fathers – that’s 75 million! Of those, 54% have adult children who are at least 18 years old and 1 in 4 men are grandfathers.

2. Who’s Shopping?

An estimated 77% of Americans will celebrate Father’s Day (t: 1. Drive Sales, 2. Drive Traffic to Blog Content, and 3. Offer-Driven Creative. Get your ad campaigns ready: make sure your creative is relevant and up-to-date, reflecting the holiday and any sales or special offers (some tips in here: What NOT To Do: 6 Creative Practices to AVOID When Writing Your Next Native Headlines!). If you’re working with a platform like Bidtellect, we can optimize towards these goals for you, ensuring that your Father’s Day campaigns are bringing consumers to high-quality content and – most importantly – helping your bottom line.

4. What Kind of Gifts Are They Buying?

According to NRF spending data, here’s a ranking of Father’s Day Gifts based on highest spend:

  1. “Special Outing” gift (concert, sporting event or dinner) ($3.2 billion)
  2. Clothing ($2.2 billion)
  3. Gift cards ($2.1 billion)
  4. Consumer electronic ($1.8 billion)
  5. Home improvement supplies ($878 million)

Offer some gift ideas within each of these categories in a blog post or article and distribute it as Native Ads! For example, in the category of home improvement, you might go for some of the best acrylic prints to advertise as decorations within the home. Dads love this! They love little DIY projects and making their home their own. In other words, anything they can get their hands on, such as fixing something, making something from scratch, or even placing wallpaper in the interiors, they might be interested. Therefore, anything in this department would go down a treat no doubt. You could even go ahead and help him out by procuring some landscaping supplies like from suppliers who could provide you materials similar to gravel richmond va to beautify your driveway or garden! There is no greater pleasure than helping your dad out in the things he loves the most. Be it Father’s Day, or any normal day – this should never go out of practice. After all, it is the simple things that we do that matters the most to them. That said, we’re very lucky to have a host of options online these days, to give us some simple ideas that our dads would love, no matter which category we choose. This does two things: establishes you as a thought leader during the holiday and increases the likelihood of engagement and sales! (Just see those stats below).
⇒ Wondering what kind of article? Try a Listicle!

5. Content Matters

As we always say… Content matters. Consumers are much more likely to buy from a brand they trust, are an expert, or they have built a relationship with – especially when it comes to gifts for someone they care about! Content makes consumers 131% more likely to buy (Twitter via Nudge); content can help double website conversion rates from 6% to 12% (Shopify) and marketers who prioritize blogging are 13x more likely to generate a positive ROI (Shopify).
Happy Father’s Day!

Valentine’s Day is Coming. Why Content First Should Be Your Strategy for Retail

Valentine’s Day is Coming. Why Content First Should Be Your Strategy for Retail

by | Feb, 2019 | Content, Culture, Native Advertising

Did you know early Valentine’s Day gifts were given to children to ward off sickness? How far we’ve come! Once a day dedicated to love and family in honor of St. Valentine, the popular holiday has evolved into a display of love and romance with flowers, gifts, romantic dinners, and even an “anti-Valentine” movement of self-celebration.

Which makes it tough to ignore: Valentine’s Day is a top retail holiday. It contributed about $19.6 billion to the economy in 2018, with more than half (55%) of the population getting involved, with each person spending about $143.56 (National Retail Federation). Hello shoppers! These lovers are not only looking for gifts, they are looking for inspiration: whether it be through a trusted brand or media source for direction.

Which brings us to the value of high-quality content. Shoppers are savvy and eager for information before making a purchase. As a retail store owner, you might feel that your concerns should lie more towards ensuring smooth sales, perhaps because you’re anticipating a lot of sales during any holiday season. Maybe you’ve just bought up a new store location after checking over a retail store lease overview with your attorney so you can be ready for on-the-ground shoppers. The good news is that innovative ways of operating have already begun to be prototyped on a smaller scale. Given that contactless shopping will soon become the norm, retailers might want to look to other industries that already provide similar services. Technology can also foster connections by giving every customer the impression that they have a personal shopper who has favorite items (in their size) waiting for them in a dressing room when they arrive or who can recommend similar pieces based on previous purchases. If you want to learn more about the future of the market, you can read the article about opportunities in retail and plan your business’s future accordingly. Since online shopping is likely to remain a driving factor, businesses of all sizes may be forced to reconsider how they set up their physical locations.

If you already have an efficient POS system (see https://revelsystems.com/features/reporting/ or similar pages for details) that can deal with things like check out, analysis and reports, inventory management and other such operational tasks, making the shopping experience seamless. However, since Valentines’ days is such a big holiday, your buyers would typically be looking for inspiration on what to buy, which is something they can get from your content. Even if you advertise human pheromones or something related romance to the couples who are celebrating, you can see how the demand for that particular product just rises up. Just as shoppers in the pre-internet era might turn to a trusted stylist in a department store or a discerning friend with inside scoop, shoppers now turn to blog posts, niche media outlets, and brand lookbooks for advice and guidance.

Not sure that’s true? Consider these:

  • Two Thirds (⅔) of shoppers say online video has given them ideas and inspiration for their purchases (Google/Ipsos)
  • When consumers read an educational article, they are 131% more inclined to buy from that company (Conductor via Forbes).
  • 36.9% of those shopping for Valentine’s Day on smartphones use it for research (National Retail Federation)

And if you still are skeptical about the bottom line:

  • Marketers who prioritize blogging are 13x more likely to generate a positive ROI (Hubspot via Shopify)

Even as shopping becomes increasingly isolated to screens, consumers still crave a human-to-human like personalization or recommendation. Creating high-quality content, like blog posts, videos, articles, and other visual showcases offer a personal touch and a perception of expertise; a thought leader will always cut through the noise.

Bidtellect’s Top 3 KPIs for Retail Advertisers:

  1. Drive Traffic to Blog Content
  2. Offer-Driven Creative
  3. Drive Sales

Make your Native ads a preview of what’s to come – what are you offering? Top 5 Gift Ideas for Your Picky Boyfriend? The Comfiest Pajamas for Staying In? Deliver insight and knowledge and stay true to your brand.

And don’t forget to appeal to last minute shoppers this Valentine’s Day! Last year, 1800Flowers.com saw a 30% jump in desktop conversions on February 13th compared to just a week before (Digital Commerce 360).

With high quality content, expert creative copy, and targeted placements, Valentine’s Day might be your new love affair.

Check out our Valentine’s Day Infographic for even more stats to put you ahead.

DOWNLOAD INFOGRAPHIC

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Sources:

National Retail Federation, “Holiday and Seasonal Trends: Valentine’s Day,”

Google/Ipsos, “The Role of Digital Video in People’s Lives,” July 2018

Conductor via Forbes, “Use This Strategy To Increase Willingness To Purchase By 131 Percent,” September 2, 2017

Hubspot via Shopify, “State of Inbound 2018,” 24 April 2018

Digital Commerce 360, “Valentine’s Day 2018 online sales recap,” 12 March 2018

4 Ways to Stay in the Game with the New Data Rules

4 Ways to Stay in the Game with the New Data Rules

by | Jan, 2019 | Native Advertising

It’s been eight months since European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) went into effect, strictly controlling what data a company can collect and what they can do with it. GDPR is now holding businesses to a higher data standard – from usage to storage – and ultimately returning personal-data-deciding-power to the consumer. Now more than ever is the time for businesses to take charge of their data and this can be done so with the best advice and solutions for all your IT related needs from an IT support company. Still, many companies are worried on how data protection will affect their ability to create and deliver content.
Understanding consumers’ wants, interests, and environment may be keys to helping deliver relevant content, but it does not have to be hindered by data protection law compliance. Advances in technology – like Contextual Targeting, contextual Forecasting, Dynamic Creative Optimization (DCO), and AI – make, arguably, stronger high-quality placements, but the increasing data standards serve as a reminder that nothing makes up for high quality content.

Contextual Targeting

If you haven’t caught on to optimizing by contextual placement, you’re behind. Not only are data protection standards changing, so are clients’ unique goals. If you have an ecommerce store on Shopify, you might want to look at an SEO checklist for new Shopify stores to gather information about how you can improve on your target placement and context of the content on the site. From the same checklist, you may be able to garner other relevant information regarding your Shopify store, such as maintaining the website which can actually help improve on-site SEO metrics. Bring in an expert technical team such as one from WebCitz, that can help you out with regular updates to the website as well as maintenance. The more up-to-date and easy-to-use your website becomes, the more potential customers will enjoy shopping on your store. That’s where your ad targeting investments can start to show results. The term contextual targeting – that is, targeting based on the information available of the site of the ad space, rather than user data – covers both. It’s possible to determine a unique ad space’s location, the time of day, day of the week, the size and location of the ad on the page, the site it’s on, the page of the site it’s on, and even specifics about what content is on that page. The look and feel of every single ad placement is unique, and can be correlated even more closely with user behavior.
Bidtellect’s Forecasting 2.0 – the most advanced in the biz – enables us to go a step further: forecast contextual preferences – revolutionary and necessary in a post-GDPR landscape. Forecasting for Context is the “new” match rate for data.

Read more about Contextual Targeting and why Forecasting is the future.

Take Advantage of AI

Advanced AI-based technologies not only make deep, contextual placement-level targeting possible, but allows real-time optimization, including to best-performing creative per individual placement. That’s right: AI-based technology means the most advanced real-time adjustment and learning => personalized customization in real time! At this point, you may be worried that loads of confidential customer info would need to be accessed to make use of such targeted, personalized advertising. Worry not! Advanced software such as Private AI can help detect and redact any Personally Identifiable Information (PII) from the data, and keep only what’s necessary to create customized ads based on consumer interests. AI creates a more seamless consumer experience and maximizes every dollar (hello maximizing budget! hello ROI!) by making decisions based on data from the decision before. And AI can help optimize media in new ways – like to best-performing creative or Dynamic Creative Optimization (DCO).

Read more about the Promise of AI.

Creative that Counts

Story-led copy. High-performing images. A data-backed approach that bridges the gap between arts and science is the winning formula. If the creative doesn’t woo a user, it doesn’t matter how good the content or landing page or the technology that placed it is – they won’t visit it. Take advantage of experts that know the difference: a data-backed, trained approach to creating high-performing headlines, descriptions, and images (like Bidtellect’s [b]+studio) makes all the difference.

Check out our Tips for Top-Performing Creative.

Quality Content

We’ve said it once, we’ll say it again. Relevant, high-quality content is what inspires users and ultimately creates customer loyalty. The stats prove it: content makes consumers 131% more likely to buy (Nudge, “The State of Content,” ), while content can help double website conversion rates from 6% to 12% (Hubspot via Shopify, “State of Inbound 2018,”). According to the same study, marketers who prioritize blogging are 13x more likely to generate a positive ROI.

Check out this infographic for more stats.

Remember, “less data” isn’t a scary thing. A combination of high-quality creative assets, cutting-edge technology, and content that delivers will put you ahead of the game even while the rules are changing.

Read about more Predictions for Native in 2019.

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How to Extend Your Holiday Campaigns #CyberMonth Style

How to Extend Your Holiday Campaigns #CyberMonth Style

by | Nov, 2018 | Content, Native Advertising

Black Friday and Cyber Monday are done – WHEW right? Not so fast. The next wave of shopping is underway. We have the (data-backed) strategies to take your Native campaigns to the next level – and help those holiday shoppers!

Black Friday and Cyber Monday are behind us, but the once one-day-only shopping affair has turned into Cyber Week if not Cyber Month. For many, holiday shopping may just be beginning, and they’re looking around to find that extra-special something for their loved ones. If your Black Friday campaigns were broader-reaching, now is the time for targeted, personalized content to inspire last minute (or, rather, very patient!) holiday shoppers.

For reference, the 2018 shopping season is off to a good start. Cyber Monday 2K18 surged to new highs: $7.9 billion was spent online that day, an increase of 19.3 percent from a year ago (Adobe Analytics via CNBC) and U.S. holiday retail sales are expected to surpass $1 trillion for the first time this year (CNBC).

Try Video!

Native video ads are quickly becoming the #trending ad type, offering dazzling visuals and immediate, quality content for viewers to engage with. According to Promo, 70% of people said they visit the publisher’s website after watching a video. And based on Bidtellect’s own Native Report, In-Feed Click-to-Play Video grew 143% from 2017 to 2018, pointing to a more proactive, engaged viewer. 2/3 of users said that say online video has given them ideas and inspiration for their purchases. Plus, Native video ads are usually better received by the users because they don’t “feel” like advertisements, and hence don’t disrupt their experience (Entrepreneur.com).

Consider: Adding video to your campaigns. Pssst have you seen all the different kinds of video solutions we have?

Mobile Madness

If we haven’t said it enough, we’ll say it again: Mobile. Is. The. Move. Since Mary Meeker identified a $25 billion mobile ad spending opportunity in her Internet Trends Report and marketers are catching up. If Black Friday is an indicator of how the rest of the shopping season will continue, consider that $2.1 billion in sales came from smartphones on Black Friday 2018 (TechCrunch) and more than half of shoppers’ visits to retailers’ websites Cyber Monday 2018 came from smartphones (Adobe Analytics via CNBC). It was also the year of new app downloads – as retailers sharpened their mobile app ease-of-use, consumers followed: new shopping app installs grew 9 percent over last year to reach 1.8 million.

Consider: Location-based targeting, non-intrusive Native mobile ads, drawing users to your mobile apps

Remember the Last Minute Shoppers

Saturday, December 23 was the second highest shopping day of the year in 2017 (eMarketer) – last minute shoppers unite! It’s not too late to up your campaigns or target or create inspirational content accordingly. For instance, last year 5 out of 10 of buyers on PC also purchase on mobile (Teads) indicating a unified, multichannel approach is key.

Consider: Targeting, offering personalized content to inspire that perfect gift and an integrated (multi-channel) approach. Did you know that Bidtellect offers dynamic creative optimization for Native?

Give a Gift!

Yes, put your brand out there with content-driven native ads, but remember to offer your consumers something of value they can’t refuse! This means using the headlines, descriptions, and the image or video itself should be offer-driven – think: an exclusive deal (promo codes included!), a brand new style, a perfect gift for your mom with high-quality, alluring visual imagery in line with your brand’s story. You can include this in your text campaigns as well, notifying customers right on their smartphones and even allowing them to shop online with one click.

Consider: Offer and value-driven creative to increase CTR

Keep Going…Past the 25th

Don’t lose steam just yet! Once the holidays are over, consumers are ready to spend their gift cards, exchange gifts, and capitalize on post-holiday sales. 46% of consumers are expected to shop after Christmas in store or online and in 2017, shoppers with a gift card overspent by $38. In fact, the Saturday after Christmas is the ninth busiest shopping day of the year, and the day after Christmas is the fourth busiest shopping day!

Consider: Running holiday campaigns well into January; creating post-holiday shopping campaigns.

All this to say: don’t slow down. Shoppers will continue shopping if you offer them the special something they are looking for! Cheers!

And remember…if you need a little help send a note our way.

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Is Your Digital Strategy Ready for Black Friday Weekend?

Is Your Digital Strategy Ready for Black Friday Weekend?

by | Nov, 2018 | Content, Native Advertising

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Sources:
1Shopify, “Black Friday Cyber Monday 2017: An Analysis of Over $1 Billion in Sales,” 28 November 2017
2Adobe Insights via CNBC, “Cyber Monday becomes largest online shopping day in US history,” 28 November 2017
3Bidtellect, Bidtellect Native Report 1H 2018,
4AdAge, “Google Says Programmatic Direct is Due for a Rise in 2017,” 16 December 2016
5Hubspot via Shopify, “State of Inbound 2018,” 24 April 2018
6Business Insider UK, “Sponsored content drives one-third of millennials to purchase,” 22 May 2017
7Google/Ipsos, “The Role of Digital Video in People’s Lives,” July 2018
8Twitter via Nudge, “The State of Content,” 2 November 2018