Chris Wood, Author at MarTech MarTech: Marketing Technology News and Community for MarTech Professionals Wed, 24 May 2023 13:59:46 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.1.1 How to build a customer journey orchestration strategy https://martech.org/how-to-build-a-customer-journey-orchestration-strategy/ Tue, 23 May 2023 17:38:48 +0000 https://martech.org/?p=384650 Organizations will often get a new technology before they know what they are going to do with it. Strategy must drive tech decisions.

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Customer journey orchestration (CJO) uses different tools to provide seamless experiences for customers and increase revenue. Because customer journey orchestration casts a broad net across the entire customer lifecycle it’s essential to have a strategy for your technology.

“When we talk about customer orchestration, we’re talking about much more than just a buyer’s journey,” said Carlos Hidalgo, CEO of martech consultancy Digital Exhaust, at The MarTech Conference.

Here are some guidelines for building a CJO strategy.

Technology is not a strategy

Too often, organizations put the cart before the horse and get technology without knowing what they are going to do with it.

“Technology can only enable the strategy that you’ve already designed,” said Hidalgo. “So if you’ve bought technology in the hopes of orchestrating the customer journey and you’re struggling with that technology, the chances are that it’s not the technology’s fault. The chances are that you don’t have a defined strategy.”

Consider the full spectrum of customer interactions

“Orchestration is also not funnel or conversion metrics,” Hidalgo said. “And it’s not an initial purchase path.”

A customer journey includes all the paths to purchase. The problem is that those paths don’t go in a straight line or easily discernible funnel, even though that is a common way in which marketers refer to it.

“Think more broadly in terms of that full customer spectrum,” he said, explaining that 90% of customer lifetime value exists after an initial purchase.

“A lot of that customer journey happens after the initial purchase, but there’s also a whole bunch that we need to be concerned about before the initial purchase, because that’s where we can really start to engage in meaningful interactions,” Hidalgo said. 

Mapping the customer journey

Customer journey orchestration is a strategy enabled by technology, said Hidalgo. It has to extend across the organization and can’t just be delegated to a single team like customer service.

Here are the general areas or “macro stages” a customer journey orchestration strategy should include.

To stay on top of these stages, you need real collaboration in the organization because different teams have to be included in the strategy.

“We know throughout all of these things, there’s ebbs and flows, there’s different people involved, there’s outside influences…that are impacting your customers and that are going to change how they interact with your products, that may change their buying process, that may change what they’re going to do from a renewal or a retention perspective,” said Hidalgo.

Get to know your customer

The stages of the customer journey correspond with roles in the organization. Follow up with these key people and discover what they know about customers at the specific stages.

Customer feedback, surveys, interviews and customer data are also sources to help find out about customers directly.

“There’s a lot of different ways to get to know our customers,” said Hidalgo. This especially applies to B2B customers, where longer conversations about their customer journey are appropriate.

“Speak directly to [customers], ask them what their end-to-end journey looks like,” he said. “From the time you engage with our brand, now you own our product or service and you’ve renewed with us — what does that look like? Who was involved?”

Dig deeper: Questions to ask vendors before buying a customer journey orchestration solution

Connecting customer journey orchestration to experience

“Without orchestration, you can’t deliver customer experience,” Hidalgo stated.

Once you know about the stages of your customers’ journeys and their needs at each stage, you can build digital experiences that meet those needs. This includes the website, mobile app, social media, service chats, paid media and other digital and offline touchpoints.

“When I’m talking about orchestrating, I’m not talking about you as an organization demanding a customer do these things so that you can sell your product or service,” said Hidalgo. “What I am saying is, understand that journey so you can orchestrate that engagement.”

A customer will always control their journey, he said. The reason marketers need to have a customer journey orchestration strategy is to be able to provide a better experience during that journey.


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Digital ad spend growth drops to 7.8% this year https://martech.org/digital-ad-spend-growth-drops-to-7-8-this-year/ Thu, 18 May 2023 17:34:13 +0000 https://martech.org/?p=384568 The upside: CTV approaches 10% of digital budgets with 21% growth increase. Retail media networks (RMNs) are also on the rise.

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U.S. digital ad spend is only expected to increase 7.8% in 2023, dropping below 10% for the first time in 14 years, according to a new forecast from eMarketer.

It is projected to rebound to 11.2% growth in 2024, the forecast said. Yearly increases in digital ad spending are predicted to hover around 10% through 2027.

Digital ad spend saw a dramatic rebound in 2021 following the initial wave of the COVID pandemic — when it saw growth of 37.6%. In 2022, the numbers fell to back to earth with 10.6% growth.

Digital slice of the pie. Overall media spending is only expected to increase 3.8% this year as traditional media investments continue to migrate to digital.

Digital media should make up 74.6% of total U.S. media spend, which is expected to reach nearly $264 billion in 2023. The digital slice of total media spending is projected to grow about 2% annually in the coming years.

Image: eMarketer.

Display and CTV. Connected TV (CTV) advertising keeps charging ahead.

To give some perspective, over half (55%) of digital spending is in display ads whose revenue is expected to grow 7.9% this year. CTV’s projected growth for 2023, however, is 21.2% — nearly triple digital’s growth.

CTV ad spend is on pace to hit $25 billion this year and account for 9.5% of total digital ad revenue, according to eMarketer.

Social display, on the other hand, is projected to see a growth increase of only 3.4% in 2023. Social network display advertising is about a quarter of total digital spending.

Dig deeper: Why we care about CTV and OTT

Search and retail media. Paid search represents 41.8% of total digital spending and should reach $110 billion this year. If it does, its growth will remain slightly higher than digital overall, at 8.2%.

Within search, retail media networks (RMNs) are a rising star, with 18.7% growth in retail media search. This segment is projected to be near $30 billion in spending in 2023.

RMN digital ad revenue (not just in search) is on course to rise from $31 billion in 2021 to $45 billion this year. If spending continues at its current rate it should surpass $106 billion in 2027.

Dig deeper: How Home Depot and Kroger use RMNs to improve shopper ad experience

Why we care. The long view from these numbers shows that digital advertisers are pumping the brakes following a remarkable rebound in 2021. A more modest rebound may also in the cards for 2024.

Outliers to this narrative — CTV and RMNs — show that regardless of overall trends, there is a marketing imperative to meet customers where they are. When TV watchers cut the cord and shift to streaming services, brands have to shift their budgets accordingly. They are also taking advantage of RMNs that provide new opportunities for brands to get closer to customers when they are shopping.


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What marketers should keep in mind when adopting AI https://martech.org/what-marketers-should-keep-in-mind-when-adopting-ai/ Tue, 16 May 2023 17:37:22 +0000 https://martech.org/?p=384423 Are marketers ready to make the most of all the new generative AI tools and AI applications now available to them?

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AI applications and generative AI tools are becoming more widely available to marketers, but are marketers ready for them? Do they have the skills needed to adopt this technology and take full advantage of its capabilities? 

That was the focus of a panel at The MarTech Conference, here are some of the takeaways from that discussion.

AI requires human supervision

As AI evolves, capabilities will expand. Can AI take over a specific business function and run it unaided? Not yet, according to Ricky Ray Butler, CEO of BENlabs, which uses AI to place brands’ products in entertainment and influencer content.

Artificial general intelligence or AGI is the kind of technology that is completely automated, and that’s simply not available yet.

“There is still human supervision [required] when it comes to data inputs or [telling the AI] what the purpose is to have successful outcomes,” said Butler.

“What AI really brings to the table is when it comes to the feedback loop,” he said. “It can structure data and a massive amount of data in a way that the human mind can’t even comprehend or compute. And it can do that at a scale where it can look at millions and millions of videos and monitor, prioritize and then also…make predictions with successful outcomes or or potentially unsuccessful outcomes. We are literally building a brain when we’re leveraging this type of technology to do what the human mind does, but to be able to do it even better and even more accurately.”

Dig deeper: A beginner’s guide to artificial intelligence

Generative AI writing tools need writers

Generative AI writing tools position themselves as writing assistants, not writers, said Anita Brearton, CEO of marketing technology management platform CabinetM.

“[These tools] describe their value prop as productivity,” she said. “They can help you write faster, they can improve SEO in fact.”

They can also help writers get started when all they’re staring at is a blank page. “They’re good for refining texts and creating some A/B versions of texts,” Brearton said.

Generative AI continues to improve in order to help creatives make text-based and visual content.

“I think we’re entering a very disruptive phase for creativity for designers, illustrators, video producers and writers,” said Paul Roetzer, CEO of the Marketing AI Institute 

A marketer’s point of view is more important than ever

As AI gets adopted for more marketing functions, marketers using these tools are needed to guide the technology and point it toward specific marketing objectives.

“The issue right now is the AI doesn’t have your knowledge of your product, it doesn’t have a knowledge of your customers, it doesn’t have knowledge about the internal politics of your company,” said Pam Didner, VP of marketing for consultancy Relentless Pursuit. “[AI doesn’t] have knowledge about even the road map that you are going to produce for your company. So AI can write very well, but you still need to add your own point of view. That’s where a human comes into play.”

Leaders need to know about AI when hiring

When AI is adopted by organizations, leadership needs to know how work has changed so they make the right hires.

“ChatGPT woke everyone up to AI, so we’re all testing the tools,” said Roetzer. “There’s pressure on CMOs and CEOs from boards and investors to figure out AI. Everybody needs to have a plan, and you have a whole bunch of leaders who don’t understand the underlying technology that now have to make decisions around staffing.”

He added, “We need to rapidly accelerate the comprehension of what AI is and what it’s capable of doing, what its limitations are. But, also [we need] to come to grips with where it’s going.”


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What marketers should keep in mind when adopting AI Are marketers ready to make the most of all the new generative AI tools and AI applications now available to them?
Marketing use cases for data clean rooms https://martech.org/marketing-use-cases-for-data-clean-rooms/ Thu, 11 May 2023 16:49:43 +0000 https://martech.org/?p=384344 What data clean are, who uses them and why, how much they cost, where they fit in your stack and more.

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Data clean rooms (DCRs) are a relatively new technology that marketers are using to enhance their use of data in a privacy-compliant way. Ana Milicevic, principal and co-founder of management consultancy Sparrow Advisers, recently gave The MarTech Conference some answers to pressing questions marketers have about how DCRs can power their stack.

“If you are in a decision-making role you are probably tasked with at least evaluating whether this is a technology that you need to pay attention to,” said Milicevic. “And if you’re a practitioner, you very likely have to come up to speed on how to use it and on whether it’s relevant to your company.”

What is a DCR?

“It’s a technology that creates a secure, collaborative environment where two or more parties can use data for specific, mutually agreed upon purposes while eliminating exposure of that data to other parties,” said Milicevic, citing the IAB.

Why use a DCR?

“The key innovation here is how potentially sensitive customer data sets are handled,” Milicevic explained. “[Marketers] simply need a better, more secure environment to collaborate with potentially sensitive data sets — first-party data sets in particular.”

First-party data is becoming increasingly scarce with the introduction of privacy regulations like GDPR and CCPA, as well as the phasing out of third party cookies by Google and other privacy actions by major tech companies along the lines of Apple’s Mail Privacy Protection (MPP) program.

Dig deeper: How companies are leveraging data clean rooms as cookies vanish

Who uses DCRs?

DCRs can be used by brands, agencies and publishers. The catch is that these organizations should already have a high level of data maturity — they’ve made prior investments in data technology and have substantial teams to work with the technology. This means that right now the technology favors larger companies.

“Process cost and maturity are two significant gating factors that currently put data clean rooms as a super-premium or ‘luxury’ solution,” Milicevic said.

How much does it cost to use a DCR?

Two-thirds of DCR users have spent a minimum of $200,000 on the technology, and a quarter of those surveyed by the IAB have spent over $500,000, according to Milicevic.

The annual cost can go up over $2 million annually when adding in privacy protection tools and other technology that makes the DCR usable.

What are current and emerging use cases for DCRs?

Current uses for DCRs include

  • Data privacy compliance;
  • Data anonymization;
  • Data cleansing and normalization and
  • Data transformation and enrichment.

Emerging use cases include:

  • Attribution;
  • ROI measurement and modeling;
  • Mixed media modeling and
  • Predictive analytics.

“In addition to privacy safety and the ability to combine first-party data sets is…being able to do very advanced analytics in a much easier way,” said Milicevic. “If you are a data scientist or have data scientists on your team, you’ve probably heard quite a few complaints about how long it takes to get data into a shape where it can be analyzed. Data clean rooms will reduce this complexity significantly for a lot of advanced analytics.”

Where does a DCR fit in your stack?

Generally, the DCR fits between the organization’s data layer and activation layer.

Here is a basic map that is by no means exhaustive:

At the bottom of the stack is the data infrastructure layer that might include a data warehouse, data lake or similar container. Data governance and identity tools also live in this layer.

Sitting above that is what Milicevic calls the “trust layer,” and that’s where the DCR is. Also in the trust layer are decisioning tools that use data to inform activation found in the layer above it. The activation layer includes all advertising activations and other tools like CDPs that can have activation capabilities.

“What’s particularly attractive about data clean rooms is that they pull out the business logic that used to previously live either in the data infrastructure or activation layers…and now it’s centralizing it,” said Milicevic.

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5 go-to-market recommendations for marketing leaders https://martech.org/5-go-to-market-recommendations-for-marketing-leaders/ Tue, 09 May 2023 17:48:52 +0000 https://martech.org/?p=384257 Here are the metrics and tactics you need for a GTM strategy that can drive revenue and survive economic challenges.

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Organizations need a go-to-market (GTM) strategy that uses the right metrics and mix of tactics or “motions” to drive revenue and survive economic challenges, said Sangram Vajre, CEO of analyst firm GTM Partners, in his second-day keynote at The MarTech Conference.

A go-to-market strategy is an organization’s plan to engage customers to buy a product or service and gain a competitive advantage. It can include new product launches, rebranding a product or introducing an existing product to a new market.

Here are five recommendations on how to get your GTM strategy off on the right foot.

1. Have a clear ROI story

Your customer, as well as anyone else interested in your company, will want some assurance about the health of your business. So have a clear ROI story to tell.

“Without an ROI story, your customers are running,” said Vajre. “Most companies’ decisions are being made by a CFO, so you’ve got to figure out how to [tell this story].”

Dig deeper: More pressure on B2B marketers to prove ROI

2. Net revenue is your most important metric

It’s more important for a business to measure net revenue retention (NRR) than other revenue metrics like annual recurring revenue (ARR). That’s because this metric, which comes as a percentage, demonstrates a business can still grow, even when it isn’t acquiring new customers.

Vajre used the example of two companies: The first had lower annual revenue ($35 million) than the second ($50 million), but had a higher NRR of 120% versus 75%. Vajre prefers the first company. 

“Even if the economy completely travels down, this company will be able to double its revenue because they have a higher NRR,” Vajre said.

“NRR [is] the number one metric that you need to focus on,” he said. “If you don’t have a goal assigned to it, find a way to get there.” 

3. Experiment with multiple go-to-market motions

“Go-to-market motions are not just about inbound or outbound, they’re way more than that,” said Vajre.

In fact, there are seven go-to-market motions:

Organizations use three or four of these motions simultaneously. 

“Each one takes time for you to understand what works,” he said. “Maybe product-led growth works for you. Or maybe it doesn’t because you are for enterprises and you need to have a different model. Whatever it is, make sure you have at least two or three models working at the same time in order to have that halo effect.”

4. Get on the road and meet your customers

It’s been difficult the last three years to meet in-person during the COVID-19 pandemic. During this time, marketers have developed new ways to meet, including through a series of smaller “roadshow” events.

For Vajre, there’s no replacement for meeting in-person.

“Get out of your zoom boxes and meet your customers,” said Vajre. “I have never lost a six-figure deal when I have met in-person with [a customer’s] executive team.”

5. Leaders must drive clarity, focus and alignment

Marketing leaders should also make clarity a priority. Vajre advocates for what he calls CAT: clarity, alignment and team.

“Get your teams together as often as you can,” Vajre said. “Be clear where you’re going, be aligned on who’s doing what and make sure that it’s a team effort where everybody knows what my role is in this bigger pie, in this bigger go-to-market operating system.”

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Microsoft Advertising introduces Chat API for publishers https://martech.org/microsoft-advertising-introduces-bing-chat-api-for-publishers/ Mon, 08 May 2023 12:00:00 +0000 https://martech.org/?p=384183 The ads-for-chat API gives publishers, apps and online services the ability to monetize chat experiences.

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Today, Microsoft Advertising announced a new API for publishers, apps and online services to deliver ads through chat. The new Chat API will allow sites and apps to customize their chat experience, choose ad formats that work best for them and incorporate relevant ads for their audiences.

This comes on the heels of new visual features and capabilities for Bing Chat users Microsoft announced last week. Users will see more visual components in Bing Chat and find it easier to use on a regular basis as part of their Edge experience with new chat history, exporting and sharing features.

Overall, Bing has over 100 million daily active users, and Microsoft sees about a third of those users using chat daily. Bing Chat has engaged in over half a billion chats since going live in February. And 15% of users use this chat to generate new content.

Why we care. A more robust chat experience with video provides more context for ads. Microsoft is reaching out to publishers and other partners with the API in order to build this next wave of chat experiences together.

Dig deeper: ChatGPT: A marketer’s guide

What to expect. The new chat API allows publishers to build their own chat experiences on sites and apps serving ads either from Microsoft or other companies.

Microsoft is encouraging experimentation while promising not to shake up the ad supply chain for advertisers. Advertisers using Microsoft Advertising will show up in chats based on the same outcomes-based metrics that serve those ads to other Microsoft assets like search and video games. 

“From what we hear, advertisers don’t want to be disrupted right now,” said Kya Sainsbury-Carter, corporate vice president, Microsoft Advertising. “Marketers are tired, they have less resources, they’ve had a crazy three years of pandemic and war and economy. People aren’t looking for wild disruption, but rather evolution and transformation that helps them move their businesses forward in a way that they have the resources to actually execute on — and this is a perfect instantiation of that type of transformation.”

Monetizing chat experiences. The new API gives publishers who build chat into their site or app an opportunity to monetize using the learnings from Microsoft Advertising on how to serve relevant ads in the chat.

“Our goal is really to focus with [publishers] on the monetization piece and to be the expert there, and for them to bring to the table what’s going to be best for their audiences and create the best overall experiences,” said Sainsbury-Carter.

Verticals for new Bing. In February, Microsoft launched the new Bing, which added chat to search. Microsoft is slowly serving ads in these chats, vertical by vertical, so they aren’t disruptive.  

They’re currently introducing hotel ads. Next, they’ll focus on verticals like travel and real estate.

“Integrating [ads] into chat and into the conversation flow when you’re specifically asking about these things is pretty powerful,” Sainsbury-Carter said. “We’re also very focused on just getting the basics right. As you can imagine with new technology, we’re paying close attention to overall optimization in the ads experience and really finetuning the marketplace to ensure we’re showing the right, relevant ads relative to this much deeper context that we are able to gain through the conversational mode.”

Context is king. Microsoft has kept the ad load low in chat thus far, but consumer response has been promising.

“What we’re seeing is that consumers are receptive to and engaging with ads,” said Sainsbury-Carter.

Queries in Bing Chat are on average three times longer than traditional search queries. There’s a lot more context, and, with that, the opportunity for chat ads to be more relevant than in traditional search. 

“If you do a long query in traditional search, any search engine is going to pick just a couple of words and look for those keywords and serve you something it thinks you’re asking for,” Sainsbury-Carter explained. “With the longer conversational period [in chat], there’s more to go on, but it’s really the context that you want to go on. So as long as we’re able to deliver ads that are relevant, you would expect that engagement will be there.”


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Bing Chat opens up to more users and developers with API, expanded visual answers https://martech.org/bing-chat-opens-up-to-more-users-and-developers-with-api-expanded-visual-answers/ Thu, 04 May 2023 17:05:05 +0000 https://martech.org/?p=384146 New design features and the ability to build third-party plug-ins will offer more tools for marketers using Bing Chat.

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Microsoft is opening up Bing Chat with an API for developers and rolling out its new Bing Chat to all users who download Microsoft Edge — there’s no more waitlist.

Over half a billion chats were conducted on Bing Chat since it launched 3-months ago, Microsoft corporate vice president Yusuf Mehdi said.

Why we care. We’ve been keeping a close eye on generative AI integrations throughout the martech space. Bing Chat attracts many users who come to Bing to carry out searches and get questions answered. The API and new functionality will expand the possible applications for marketers. Exporting and sharing Bing Chats, for instance, makes it easier for marketers to collaborate.

What’s new. There are four main points to what is new with Bing Chat:

  • Developer access to build third-party apps on top of Bing Chat.
  • Removal of the waitlist for Bing Chat by going from a “Limited Preview” to an “Open Preview.”
  • Gaining more visual answers for Bing Chat with rich images and videos.
  • Offering a multi-session experiences with new chat history and persistent chats within the Edge browser, as well as the ability to export and share Bing chats.

API. Microsoft said soon, developers will be able to build third-party plug-ins into the Bing Chat experience. This is also something Bing hinted was coming weeks ago. In the screen shot below, you can see an example of OpenTable helping you find and book a reservation with a restaurant. This is something OpenAI’s ChatGPT already supports.

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Image: Microsoft.

Improved experience with more visuals. Bing has updated the answers within Bing Chat to be more visually appealing by improving the formatting and layout, adding more rich images and rich videos, and also by adding charts and graphs when relevant. Also, Bing Image Creator is available in all languages, which means over 100 different languages, talk about getting more visual.

Microsoft also redesigned Edge to show chats in a better and more visual format. This includes streamlined look, rounded corners, organized containers and semi-transparent visual elements, the company said. Here is what it looks like:

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Image: Microsoft.

You can even go from the Bing Chat interface into the Edge sidebar interface, so you can browse the web and continue your chat.

You will also be able to ask Bing Chat for answers by uploading images as part of your chat. After you upload an image, Bing Chat can search the web for related content.

In addition, Bing Chat in Microsoft Edge has improved summarization capabilities for long documents, both in PDF and HTML formats.

Chat history and exporting. Microsoft has been talking about adding chat history for some time now and now Microsoft is rolling it out for Bing Chat. You can use Bing Chat and be able to pick up where you left off, then you can return to previous chats in Bing’s chat history.

There is a “recents” tab on the right side to pickup where you left off. You can also see a “saved” tab for chats you saved for later.

Microsoft is also adding the ability to export and share your chats from Bing Chat or Edge sidebar. You will be able to share your chats on social media or move them into tools like Microsoft Word, if you so desire.

Additional reporting by Barry Schwartz


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IAB NewFronts showcases video platforms armed for ‘challenging and unpredictable times’ https://martech.org/iab-newfronts-showcases-video-platforms-armed-for-challenging-and-unpredictable-times/ Tue, 02 May 2023 18:06:03 +0000 https://martech.org/?p=384086 YouTube, Amazon and Samsung Ads announce content and platform innovations for improved measurement and audience reach.

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This week digital platforms and streaming services are in New York to show off new programming and digital ad opportunities at IAB’s NewFronts.

It’s a chance for digital publishers to show how they are capturing audiences who cut the cord and now choose digital channels. They also want to convince advertisers that their platform innovations and programming are the best way to connects with viewers, especially younger ones.

U.S. digital video ad spend grew at almost twice the rate of overall digital media in 2022, 21% versus 11% overall, according to the IAB.

“Against this amazing backdrop of opportunity we should make no mistake — we are living in challenging and unpredictable times,” said IAB CEO David Cohen, in his opening remarks. “There is a lot at stake and a lot up for grabs.”

Why we care. Presentations at NewFronts make a convincing case that video has earned the attention from brands that television gets with their upfronts — presentations that broadcasters make to advertisers in the spring about upcoming programming. Audiences are moving to streaming services for traditional TV content like movies and sports. Younger viewers who never watched TV regularly are also spending time viewing short-from video content and playing games on their TVs and phones. Marketers have to follow this space in order to meet many of their customers where they are.

The NewFronts. “Despite today’s marketplace being 24/7 and 365-day experience, NewFronts provides a singular moment in time for buyers and sellers to meet and discuss planning for the remainder of the year and next,” Cohen told MarTech. “This is a business built on relationships and we know how important it is to bring the industry together at key times of the year.”

He added, “The video landscape has drastically changed, and ad-supported streaming is reaching a place of maturity. IAB NewFronts has solidified itself as a must-attend event for brands and agencies that are looking to understand where to place their video and streaming budgets. It has evolved into more than just a showcase of content, but a place where real dollars are transacted and real discussions are had about innovation in streaming.”

Samsung Ads. Samsung’s free ad-supported (FAST) service, Samsung TV, is a good example of how digital video is stepping up to deliver premium content in a fragmented landscape.

In their May 2 presentation, Samsung TV announced it’s adding Conan O’Brien TV as a channel to its FAST lineup, as well as expanded local news and weather content. For gamers, Samsung also announced partnerships with video game streamers Antstream Arcade and Blacknut for free ad-supported games.

Three-quarters of U.S. households have at least one Samsung device, including many smart TVs. Smart TV owners can access Samsung TV free to watch programming, play games and navigate to other subscription streaming apps. This gives Samsung Ads device-level data on TV viewers that other video publishers don’t have.

Dig deeper: How Home Depot and Kroger use RMNs to improver shoppers’ ad experience

“We have the number one TV viewing data set globally, which means our TVs provide more consumer viewing data than any other manufacturer by almost double,” said Sang Kim, EVP and GM of North America service business at Samsung Electronics. “This means that we have the number one addressable footprint in the U.S.”

Samsung Ads announced a new partnership with KERV Interactive to make ads on the platform shoppable and interactive. Earlier this year, Samsung Ads launched the ability for advertisers to run QR codes with ads.

They also announced the rollout of digital out-of-home (DOOH) ads later this year, which includes connections to in-store retail partners. This provides an alternative or supplement to brands who are advertising to customers through retailer-owned retail media networks (RMNs).

Amazon Live, Prime Video and Freevee. Amazon’s FAST streaming service Freevee announced it will debut new original programming in 2024, including “Mock the Week,” a panel show produced by comedian Trevor Noah.

Prime Video, which debuted Thursday Night Football last season, announced a new capability for national advertisers to send different commercials to different viewers through Amazon’s Fire TV devices. It also announced that the NFL’s first Black Friday game, aired on November 24, will be free to view for anyone in the U.S.

Also, Amazon Live will have expanded live shoppable entertainment allowing viewers to shop while they watch. New shoppable episodes of “Black Girl Stuff,” — produced by REVOLT, Sean “Diddy” Combs’s media company — will be shown beginning later this month.

The company wants to make “sense of the signals [and] insights at our disposal to create an optimal customer experience that drives business outcomes,” said Colleen Aubrey, senior vice president, ad products and tech for Amazon Ads

YouTube. YouTube is bringing smart advertising to short videos. They announced that its YouTube Select brand safety platform will become available to advertisers of YouTube Shorts content. According to the company, 1.5 billion logged-in monthly users view Shorts monthly.

Measurement and addressability. All the presenters mentioned their reach and datasets. But what about larger concerns across the digital advertising industry related to addressability? Last year, Cohen referred to this challenge as a “slow-motion train wreck.”

“We have always said that the future of addressability will be a portfolio of solutions it won’t be a simple replacement of the third-party cookies or identifier with something else,” Cohen told MarTech today. “Clean rooms, contextual, seller-defined audiences, cohorts, and many other innovations have been introduced into the marketplace.”

He added, “We continue to push all players in the ecosystem to test, learn, and deploy as the future will undoubtedly not fit into the containers of the past. Now is the time to get in the game.”


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How Home Depot and Kroger use RMN to improve shoppers’ ad experience https://martech.org/how-home-depot-and-kroger-use-rmn-to-improve-shoppers-ad-experience/ Thu, 20 Apr 2023 20:10:11 +0000 https://martech.org/?p=383776 Teams at both retailers are using retail media networks to transform the way customers interact with brands and their stores.

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Retail media networks (RMNs) are a rapidly growing channel for advertisers. RMN revenue in 2022 was estimated at $37.5 billion by the IAB in their Internet Advertising Revenue Report.

The key to RMN’s success is how interactions with brands can enhance the shopper experience. Digital media experts at Kroger and The Home Depot have spent years developing media networks keeping this key point in mind. If a branded ad interrupts the customer’s journey, it doesn’t help the brand, the retailer or, most importantly, the customer.

Helping when customers research products

Where can brands get involved in the customer journey? At The Home Depot, a supplier approached the retailer about retargeting customers on social media. Soon, the company created opportunities for other suppliers to deliver ads that drove customers to the retailer’s product pages.

This was back in 2018. In 2019, The Home Depot’s Retail Media+ (known as RM+) was launched. Brands now have opportunities to show ads on company owned properties, including homedepot.com, the retailer’s app, in-store and email, as well as offsite media channels like social and video.

“We didn’t want it to disrupt the customer experience,” said Melanie Babcock, vice president, Retail Media+ and monetization for The Home Depot. “Our customer spends a lot of time researching on our site before making a decision. They’re thinking about if they have the right tools, skills, time and capabilities for a project. You have a light to install, should you do it on your own? The consideration time is much less for traditional retailers.”

Because of this longer, more involved customer journey, the retailer decided  decided to let suppliers have the lion’s share of the RMN ad inventory. That means that most of the ads served to customers during their journey are endemic products, ones that can be bought at Home Depot.

“Onsight and in-store are very connected,” said Babcock. “We see that in our customers’ behaviors, and we wanted to be additive to that by keeping the customer in mind and not just monetizing the website. We’re bringing the supplier into the customer journey.”

Personalized precision with customers

Supermarket chain Kroger is another major retailer with a robust RMN, called Kroger Precision Marketing (KPM). KPM is managed under a wholly-owned subsidiary, 84.51˚.

“The common denominator is data science,” said Brian Spencer, KPM’s marketing director. “We have a legion of data scientists available under 84.51˚. There’s shelf assortment and other areas of personalization in our stores. That same talent base is what fuels the personalization behind Kroger Precision Marketing as well.”

Prior to starting its retail media business, Kroger built digital experiences for customers to search products, create grocery lists and receive digital coupons. These tools made it possible for KPM to introduce brands in a relevant way.

Unbranded search terms are 90% of the top 500 searches in Kroger digital touchpoints, Spencer said. That means many customers are looking for products without a specific brand in mind. Directing those customers to a specific brand or product is a logical next step in their journeys.

And, because digital customers are multi-taskers, they aren’t only looking for products available at a Kroger store. For instance, you could be planning a Super Bowl party and need to buy snacks. But what if you also are considering a new TV? Cases like that, but also many others, are where non-endemic brands fit in.

“As we explore non-endemic opportunities, top of mind is that this is activated in a way that isn’t intrusive or obnoxious to our consumers,” said Spencer. “If it’s something that makes sense for our shoppers, we’ll take a look.”

Expanding to offsite journeys

“Retail media data is very advantageous to all kinds of brands, particularly in the grocery category,” said Spencer. Grocery shoppers make purchases several times a month, and often multiple times per week. And these purchases cut across many categories. 

“That kind of information is obviously necessary for consumer packaged goods, but outside of CPG there’s greater interest because some of these non-endemic brands are looking for relevant ways to reach audiences,” he said. “Automotive brands or fast food brands, they may think of our data set as another way to activate across the open web.”

Offsite RMN opportunities are the fastest-growing area for KPM. Kroger has been a partner with streaming service platform Roku for three years. And this week, Disney Advertising announced a partnership with KPM for some Disney media properties, beginning with Hulu.

Dig deeper: CTV added to Kroger’s retail media network business

“Brands, but more typically agencies, are able to go in and activate programmatic display and CTV through a DSP of their choice, and set their own safety standards and activate through a self-service portal — and see sales results and optimize against in-store and online sales,” said Spencer.

“Retail media is more and more being considered as just media,” he added. “It’s more and more part of the total touchpoint consideration set that agencies are looking at. The traditional lines between shopper marketing and brand marketing are becoming more blurred.”

The Home Depot is also looking at how to expand RM+ offsite into CTV. It’s also piloting in-store video screens at 50 locations, currently, to see how shoppers’ digital journeys can be enhanced when they get to the store.

“We’re the last mile in advertising, which is always the most expensive part of the journey,” said Babcock. “There’s huge value to our supplier to connect to that customer and also to know more about that customer.”


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Ryan Phelan: Spotlight on the expert https://martech.org/ryan-phelan-spotlight-on-the-expert/ Tue, 18 Apr 2023 16:41:43 +0000 https://martech.org/?p=383681 A discussion with our expert contributor about how he went from nightclub DJ to email marketing expert.

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In this new series, we dig deeper into the stories of our expert contributors. This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Ryan Phelan has 25 years experience in email marketing and has written 83 articles for MarTech on that and other topics. He’s the co-founder of RPEOrigin.com, a digital marketing services company with an agnostic approach, and is the chairman emeritus of the Email Experience Council Advisory Board.

Q: How did you get into marketing?

A: I have a funny employment history! I went to college and studied to be a Catholic priest and decided, halfway through the program, that I didn’t want to be a priest. And so then I thought, well, I’m a pretty good DJ. So I worked at a nightclub for six years, being a DJ and running the club. And then I discovered DJing didn’t make any money, and that was during the dot-com boom. 

I got my first internet job with Giftpoint.com, which did gift certificates online. I worked in the affiliate world and I worked in email. And over the years I did a lot with affiliate marketing, and then decided that email is where I wanted to go. It was more fun, more exciting, more new. And that’s where I started my email career, back in 1998. It’s been a heck of a ride! I got a degree in psychology. Most marketers I know don’t have a degree in marketing, they have a degree in something else.

Q: From the DJs I know, it sounds like there’s a psychological component to hosting a party.

A: There is. There are two things I took away from being a nightclub DJ that I still use today that I think are great for marketers. I learned how to read a room. You’re up in the DJ booth putting on music and thinking: What is the crowd going to react to? What is the next song? And you get very attuned to what people are doing and the micro-movements around the room, who’s going up for drinks and so on. You read the entire room and that helps predict the energy level and where you go next. That customer-centric focus is really what I started back in ‘95, entertaining 600 people a night in a nightclub. Taking that into email, I think it’s really about putting the customer first and reading the room.

Q: In email marketing, there’s no single room where everybody is mingling together. Is that why it has to be data-centric?

A: The “room” in email is your reporting, your conversion rate, your online behavior, heat maps, all that kind of stuff. But it’s still this centric approach of reading the room and trying to figure out that everybody is different. 

When I was DJing we had a format, and it was a country nightclub. We developed, really, a science on how to play music in a nightclub. It started with a couple two-steps, a triple-step, which is a little faster-paced, and then another faster song, until you reach this crescendo. And different types of people come onto the dance floor based on what you’re playing. Then you crash it down to another two-step, bring it up again, play another slow song, and then start the whole thing over again. What that does is create a stream on and off the dance floor that is much like segmentation done in marketing. 

In today’s world, most marketers are doing one-to-many messages. They’re not doing any segmentation, it’s the same message to everybody. That’s like me playing the same music over and over again while I’m DJing. But what I’m doing, and what marketers should be doing, is using propensity, using demographic and geographic data, looking at persona-based models, and what you can do to differentiate your message to different archetypes and groups that you identify in the data.

Q: Why do you think email is still such an important marketing channel after all these years?

A: I think there are two upsides for email currently. Number one, we still have a large majority of marketers that still aren’t doing the advanced stuff — segmentation or “reading the room.” There are still companies that are struggling with that. COVID was a great example of how companies finally realized they were underweight in their technology in order to execute email, either in their staff or tech stack. Email came in and saved the day again during COVID. 

The second thing is that with the availability of data, email has the opportunity to continue to grow in sophistication. From identification, to third-party data, to touching outside of email into social media or text or web — email continues to power those full-spectrum experiences. And so the same future I saw for email 25 years ago, I still see today. But it’s predicated on the fact that first we have to get more companies to buy in on the sophistication that email can achieve with data.

Read our Spotlight on contributor Stacey Ackerman here.


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