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Advertisers actively following “Opportunities” in Google AdWords risk bid wars

Published by Joni on March 30, 2017

PPC bidding requires strategic thinking. Introduction. Wow. I was doing some SEM optimization in Google AdWords while a thought struck me. It is this: Advertisers actively following “Opportunities” in AdWords risk bid wars. Why is that? I’ll explain. Opportunities or not? The “Opportunities” feature proposes bid increases for given keywords, e.g. Week 1: Advertiser A has current bid b_a and…

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Belief systems and human action

Published by Joni on March 30, 2017

What people believe, sometimes because real because of that. 1. Introduction. People are driven by beliefs and assumptions. We all make assumptions and use simplified thinking to cope with complexities of daily life. These include stereotypes, heuristical decision-making, and many forms of cognitive biases we’re all subject to. Because information individuals have is inherently limited as are their cognitive capabilities,…

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Digital marketing in China: search-engine marketing on Baidu

Digital marketing in China: search-engine marketing on Baidu

Published by Joni on March 30, 2017

Introduction China is an enormous market, amounting to 1.3 billion people and growing. Out of all the BRIC markets, China is the furthest in the adoption of technology and digital platforms, especially smartphones and applications. Perhaps the most known example of Chinese digital platforms in the West is Alibaba, the ecommerce giant with market cap of over 200 $bn. Through…

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Media agency vs. Creative agency: Which will survive?

Published by Joni on March 30, 2017

In space, nobody can hear your advertising. Earlier today I wrote about convergence of media agencies and creative agencies. But let’s look at it from a different perspective: Which one would survive? If we had to pick. To answer the question, let us first determine their value-provided, and then see which one is more expendable. Media agencies. First, media agencies’…

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A few thoughts on ad blockers

Published by Joni on March 30, 2017

Anti-ad-blockers are becoming common nowadays. Introduction. So, I read an article saying that ad blockers are not useful for the users. The argument, and the logic, is conventional: 1) the internet is not really free; 2) publishers need advertisers to subsidize content creation which in turn is also in the users’ interest, because 3) they don’t have to pay for…

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Problems of standard attribution modelling

Published by Joni on March 30, 2017

Attribution modelling is like digital magic. Introduction Wow, so I’m reading a great piece by Funk and Nabout (2015) [1]. They outline the main problems of attribution modelling. By “standard”, I refer to the commonly used method of attribution modelling, most commonly known from Google Analytics. Previously, I’ve addressed this issue in my digital marketing class by saying that the…

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Programmatic ads: Fallacy of quality supply

Published by Joni on March 30, 2017

A major fallacy publishers still have is the notion of “quality supply” or “premium inventory”. I’ll explain the idea behind the argument. Introduction. The fallacy of quality supply lies in publishers assuming the quality of certain placement (say, a certain website) is constant, whereas in reality it varies according to the response which, in turn, is a function of the customer…

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Is “premium” ad space a hoax?

Published by Joni on March 30, 2017

Answer: It kinda is. “Premium publishers” and “premium ad space” — these are often heard terms in programmatic advertising. But they are also dangerously fallacious ideas. I’ll give three reasons why: A priori problem Uniformity problem Equilibrium problem First, publishers define what is “premium” a priori (before results) which is not the right sequence to do it (a priori problem).…

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Quick note: Measurement of brand advertising

Published by Joni on March 30, 2017

Two brands colliding. Hm, I’m thinking (therefore, I am a digital marketer). The classical advertising question has been: How to measure the impact of advertising on a brand? And then the answer has been “oh, you can’t”, or “it’s difficult”, or something along those lines. But, they say, it is there! The marketers’ argument for poor direct performance has traditionally…

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