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Follow, Reach, Convert: Innovative Retargeting/Remarketing

Erin Heffernan, Paid Search Account Manager, Optimedia US
Seth Meisel, Remarketing, R&D and New Opportunities, Walgreens

The first half of this session focused on static display remarketing on the GDN. The second half dealt with dynamic remarketing. All the value I receive came during the first half.

• Retargeted consumers are 70% more likely to convert than consumers who are not retargeted.
• Cross-sell recent purchasers with accessory and related item ideas
• The more you segment your audiences, the better you target and the better you convert – the closer you will get to where the consumer’s mind is at the given time
• Measure audiences in GA
• Use Smart Lists in GA to create custom lists for remarketing
• Use time on site, avg pages viewed for segmenting. You MAY not want to remarket to bounces
• Ads – test “what’s new,” sales, “come back!” copy ideas
• Always use mobile ad sizes and address mobile remarketing needs.
• Set frequency caps -use the data on the Dimensions tab in Adwords to find your customer’s limits
• Bottom line: Segment as finely as possible, and create ads targeting each segment. Generic, branding ads are typically not going to perform well here.

Online Display Advertising Unwrapped: Key Tools and Trends

Pete Kluge, Senior Product Marketing Manager for Advertising Solutions, Adobe

There’s always that one session where the actual content doesn’t meet the expectations set by the session title and description. This was the one. It was really not more than an overview of the different ways to engage in display advertising. No tools were revealed. None. It’s like shrimp – you can bake it, you can broil it, you can grill it…

You can buy direct, you can buy via an ad network, you can buy via an ad exchange (auction). I think what the guy REALLY wanted to do was talk about the Adobe advertising platform and data management systems, but that was against the rules.

Okay. Next session, please.

Marketing in a Multi-Screen World

Amanda DeVito, Vice President of Engagement, Butler/Till
Susie Hume, Director, Digital Marketing, Excellus BlueCross BlueShield

By far the most entertaining duo – it was like Open Mic Night down at the Comedy Club. I have never heard so many uses of the word “fuck” in a training session. It was great! (Note to Blue Cross/Blue Shield – it was the OTHER lady using that word. And it was great!)

• Today’s consumer is “always on”
  • Behavior: distracted multi-tasking
  • Media: delayed viewing, choices easy to ignore
  • Messaging: inundated
• Concerns:
  • Targeting & technology – is it the same person?
  • Time & device – what time do they use each device?
  • Creative – has to fit the form and time
• Just because you can reach consumers on every screen, should you? What does the consumer want/expect? What can they tolerate? When are you going to piss them off?
• If your brand is loved, consumers are more tolerant of being bombarded on every screen
• Some brands are hated (cable companies, phone companies) and consumer tolerance is very low
• The vast majority of brands are treated indifferently – neither loved nor hated.
• Blue Cross/Blue Shield did a promotion called lifehasaplan.com – people upload “life” photos that might appear in a TV commercial. Very popular, and has increased brand awareness by 21%.
• Tablet & mobile will dominate within 5 years. Desktop may become mostly irrelevant. Now is not the time to wait and see what is going to happen. It’s already happening!
• Video and native advertising are poised for large growth and increasing dominance
• Screens will be everywhere – your car, your fridge, your stove, and wearable
• The “always on” consumer is also human. So be cool!
• Test, test, test.
• Respect and embrace the technology. Don’t fear it.

Tactics and Strategies to Fill the Middle and Bottom of the Funnel

Matthew Aster, Director, Internet Marketing, Embrace Pet Insurance

If you think selling insurance is hard, try selling pet insurance. Of all the pet parents in America, less than 1% have pet insurance.

Not a session packed with new information, unfortunately. Plus it was the last session of the conference – I think they do that on purpose. Half the attendees had already taken off.

• Mid-funnel keywords:
  • [brand/product] reviews
  • [brand/product] vs [competitor]
  • [brand/product] alternative
• Lower level keywords:
  • buy [brand/product]
  • [brand/product] price
  • [brand + product]
  • [model name/number]
• Less than 10% of social postings should be promotional – that seems to be the sweet spot for not annoying your followers.

A final word…

There were some really sweet ideas and nuggets of information that I haven’t shared here. I’m reserving those for the people who paid my way. As with any conference like this, a lot of it is “oh yeah – I knew that! Why don’t we do that?” and a smaller percentage of it is “holy shit – I can’t wait to get back and propose this!”

As a conference overall, I’d give this one a solid B. Maybe even a B+. The speakers were, for the most part, quite good. The crowd wasn’t huge – as these shows go, this one was kind of small in number of attendees, but the sessions were as good as you get at the larger meetings (IRCE, eTail, Omniture/Adobe Summit, etc.), and the sessions were MUCH less focused on SAAS companies pitching their products. That part I really liked. No vendors accosted me in the men’s room (which has happened). One complaint – the chairs in the salons were not very comfortable. And since my dad was in the furniture business for many years, I have an educated behind.

The hotel was top shelf. The food they catered for lunches was excellent, and the staff is world class. I’d stay here again without a second thought.

And now I take the 11 minute walk down Wabash to grab some soul food and listen to some great blues music at Buddy Guy’s club. Tomorrow morning I meet with our Chicago-based Google team, and then it’s back to O’Hare for the flight south to my honey in Baton Rouge!