Using a CMP in conjunction with DMPs, DSPs, or both has distinct advantages for advertisers and publishers alike, allowing for customized content based on audience segmentation, location data, and media type. There are three main use cases for CMPs in 1:1 marketing.

Advertiser + CMP + DMP

A DMP allows advertisers to identify different audience segments based on first and third-party data. Segments can be super-specific, like auto intenders, travel enthusiasts, or left-handed acrobats; or they can be broader, like whether the user is male or female.

A CMP allows advertisers to build and deliver different creative to each segment. From there, messages can be tested to see what creative resonates with them. For example: do middle-aged male auto intenders prefer ads featuring a Camaro or a Tahoe? Do they prefer cars that are red or gray? Custom content makes for more than just clicks; it acts as a gateway to meaningful, personalized communication with customers.

Advertiser + CMP + DSP

If DMPs answer the question of “who,” then DSPs tell “where.” A DSP shares essential information about which publications are running ads, along with specifics about where those ads appear on the page; this means ads can be tailored not just to the reader but also to the page. This is important because an advertiser might want to feature different vacation packages in ads for travel enthusiasts who are reading USA Today versus those reading The New York Times. By coupling this insight with third-party audience data such as user location, a DSP can inform media and creative in tandem, maximizing the impact of this 1:1 approach.

Advertisers using DSPs also may want to change the creative of an ad depending on where it appears on the page. Maybe one variant gets better results when it’s placed at the bottom of the page instead of the top. That’s a surprising result, but not an impossible one—heatmap research has shown that while many users tune out content below the fold, their attention spikes again at the very bottom of the page.

Advertiser + CMP + DMP & DSP

This is it: marketing’s Holy Grail. By targeting creative messaging with maximum precision, the powerful combination of CMP, DMP, and DSP brings advertisers as close to their dream of true 1:1 as anyone can get. Using audience data from the DMP, advertisers can customize hundreds of different ads within the CMP, varying everything from the background image to the call to action that the end user sees. They then serve up these personalized ads across their DSPs—but the real impact comes from what happens next. As the campaign runs, the DSPs and CMP channel their results back into the DMP, which continues to influence the ads created in the CMP. The result? A feedback loop that optimizes ads in real time, translating user behavior directly into media and creative changes.

These are a few main examples of how CMPs can help in the 1:1 Marketing process. Next time we will outline five tips for actualizing everything explained so far. If you’d like to read the eBook, in its entirety, check it out here!

“One interesting aspect of (creative automation) is the ability to let the system create weird ads no one would otherwise have written, bringing to life ideas that are absurd, and seeing whether by being absurd they are more effective. The power of using data in this way is that algorithms can expose things from beyond the human realm of preconceived notions and self-editing.”

Researchers estimate that 47% of white collar jobs in the United States will be automated by 2033. But whose jobs are specifically at risk? While recent studies show that “highly creative” occupations have little risk of being automated, creatives are increasingly using data and technology to automate a significant percentage of their daily tasks.  

If robots are replacing doctors and pilots, it isn’t completely unreasonable to think that marketing and advertising jobs may someday share the same fate. But can creativity be automated? And if so, to what extent?

Flite’s VP of Product & Design, George Penston, was recently covered in AdAge where he conveys his personal stance on the topic.

Check out George’s article here!

In a world filled with data, it is often challenging for brands and publishers to understand and apply it for future efforts. Benchmarks alleviate some of that, by utilizing data to compare how a current campaign is performing compared to past results. Report Dashboard displays benchmarks for metrics such as interaction rate, engagement rates, average time on unit, and CTR. These benchmarks are customized and calculated for each account, and then automated based on set goals.

Here’s one example where Benchmarks played an instrumental role for a CPG client:

The CPG client leveraged benchmarks to better understand the optimal time to refresh creative. Because they were using Flite’s Datastream technology to build ads, integrating one of their social feeds into ad creation, they could easily refresh creative anytime the CTR dropped below their established benchmark. Once the CTR rose above benchmark levels, the cycle continues. This eliminated any guesswork out of how and when to refresh creative. Instead of creating an arbitrary schedule, the client used their own data to direct their decision-making.

Clearly this is not the end all for clients. But what the benchmarks feature does is better inform brands and publishers on how build and serve more relevant creative, in an efficient manner.

Stay tuned for details on other features of Report Dashboard - including our pacing widget and impression delivery tools.

Since the advent of digital advertising, marketers have been pining for a way to reach consumers on a personal level, at scale. When emails first got personal, the best marketers could hope for was calling a customer by name. These days, our inboxes are bursting with custom content. For instance, airlines not only use geographic data to offer location-specific flights in email subject lines, but also include the customer’s current total status points to sweeten the pot for potential travelers.

And personalization works. According to one survey, personalization of email subject lines increases open rates by 26%. Of course, personalization has moved far beyond simply calling customers by name; years of A/B testing and mountains of data have gone into the search to find out exactly what makes consumers click. But thanks to advances in real-time analytics, it no longer takes years of careful testing to see how audiences respond. For digital advertising, the time to solve 1:1 marketing is now.

CMPs Are The Key to 1:1 Marketing

Over the past decade, the ad tech industry has created and honed all the necessary pieces to effectively reach our targets. Ad platforms, ad exchanges, supply-side platforms (SSPs), and demand-side platforms (DSPs) are efficient means to transact media inventory. Data management platforms (DMPs) have evolved to add sophisticated data to the equation for real-time decisioning.

Now, creative management platforms (CMPs) have made it possible to add personalization and interactivity to HTML5 ads across mobile, desktop and tablet. A CMP utilizes programmatic technology to help design, serve, and optimize intelligent creative in real time for a more engaging user experience. CMPs have put the final piece in place to make 1:1 marketing and mass personalization a reality.

1:1 marketing in digital advertising means changing the ad itself to match the consumer who’s viewing it. In order to do that, the ad has to be three things: dynamic, tied to user data, and tied to the marketer’s content or assets. All three of those things require a creative management platform.

In other words: CMPs are the glue that ties the whole 1:1 ad tech stack together. They let marketers take data from DSPs and DMPs and apply it directly to creative. Besides allowing marketers to dynamically vary their creative, CMPs allow them to test its effectiveness too—the same way they test different subject lines in emails. Are female runners more likely to click on a sneaker ad that features a green versus a pink shoe? Do travel enthusiasts with families prefer ads for beach vacations or water parks? CMPs let marketers answer these questions, and therefore grow closer to their users. The CMP is an environment where marketers can test, learn, and optimize their creative, then apply the results across all media channels—even print and TV.  The result brings marketers ever closer to the coveted 1:1 relationship.

Stay tuned for our next installment of the “Reaching True 1:1: The Modern Marketer’s Reality” series, as we’ll walk you through some use cases on how CMPs can help in 1:1 Marketing. If you’d like to read the eBook, in its entirety, check it out here!

In a recent IAB survey, 47% of media buyers are still conducting last-touch-attribution using cookie-based data.

Some contributions to this are:

• Lack of education by buyers on what attribution is

• What other attribution options there are

• Resources on implementation of tags across media buys

With mobile, social, and apps gaining more popularity, marketers want to know which of these channels are contributing to their conversions. Though these additional channels pose more complexity, all is not lost. Marketers can combine tons of attribution data to better tell their story and drive business goals.

A few of these data sources include:

• Modeled Sales data (Datalogix, IRI)

• Mobile App data (SDKs)

• Location data (Beacon)

• Actual Sales data (POS systems)

• Addressable TV (Comscore Rentrak)

• People data through a CRM

Though there are a wealth of data sources for marketers to leverage, it goes back to the aforementioned implementation challenges of an attribution model. Marketers do not know where to start when thinking about selecting a multi-touch attribution model (MTA). This is where the IAB has stepped in to help marketers.

They released a great 1-sheeter that provides an overview of what MTA is and the different approaches marketers can think about when choosing a model. While the IAB recognizes more needs to be done to move marketers away from last-touch-attribution and onto something "better," this is a great first step. "Better" is what the IAB wants to address in the remaining part of 2016, with the help of the the marketing community.

There isn't a one size fits all model for all campaigns, but universal best practices can still be developed. One thing discussed last week was diving into individual industry verticals and providing recommendations on which model can best suit a marketer’s business needs. The other big discussion point was getting accreditation for MTA with so many options out there, but that also raised the question if the IAB, MRC, and others should be the ones to do so.

As more consumers are moving between devices, the entire industry (Agencies, Brads, DSPs, DMPs, CMPs, Ad Tech etc) needs to work together on standardizing some best approaches and methodologies. It is the “one team, one dream” approach that will improve the outlook of attribution for all.

Key Metrics: Lets advertisers and publishers go beyond standard performance metrics by customizing how performance is gauged and gain more insight into what an audience is thinking. (i.e. Primary & Secondary CTA, Branding, Content & Social Link-outs, Content & Product Expand/Scroll/Navigation, Email Signup, Hotspot Interaction)

Global Variables: Gives advertisers and publishers the ability define data (1st and 3rd party), audiences, or attributes across multiple campaigns, and measure performance universally. (i.e. Site/Domain/Property, Content Category, Audience Segment, Gender, Marital Status, Customer Status, Location, Product, Color Scheme, Tagline)

These features allow users to centralize their media performance and 3rd party data, providing a real-time feedback loop within Flite’s CMP - yielding in a custom, holistic view of performance at the creative-level.

Below are some use cases of how this advanced reporting can be applied to campaigns:

Advertiser Use Cases

• Observe performance of different CTAs by different creative executions. (i.e. Image of the blue car led to 50% more clicks of product whereas the red car led to more clicks back of branding.)

• Combine customer information to show specific sets of products. (i.e. Show the minivans image to Families and show sports cars to Singles. Then see of the different minivan models, which got more clicks to the product.)

• See what content resonated the best with users. (i.e. The images from Pinterest got 50% more engagement than the images from Instagram.)

Publisher Use Cases

• See performance by Advertiser “vertical” (Auto, Retail, Alcohol, Entertainment, Electronics) to define benchmarks.

• View CTA performance by different demographic group. (i.e. Married, non-smokers clicked to product page 50% more than other groups.)

And here’s a video that demonstrates these new features within our platform.

“...the single largest issue is being able to create breakthrough content and still have the budget to fund distributing that content. It’s hard enough to justify the budget to create that content, but it’s even more challenging to then push for sufficient budget above and beyond the content creation to distribute this great content.” - Greg Samarge, Digital Marketer at Nestle

To maximize ROI on our marketing budget, marketers need to leverage new technologies that capture audience attention with minimal production costs. Luckily, tools like Flite’s Datastream technology can help you leverage customer demographic information and real-time data feeds to create timely, relevant advertisements without prohibitive production costs.

Leverage existing content

Since Datastream allows you to connect your ads with data feeds, you can leverage other content sources to automatically populate ads with fresh content from your company’s twitter feed, blog posts, calendar events, new product offerings, and more. This means designers and producers will spend less time and money creating ad variations, which frees up additional budget for distribution.

Instantaneous updates, timeliness

With Datastream, you can embed live video feeds from sporting events or breaking news directly into your Ad unit. Flite recently worked with the NBA to integrate their NBA.com video feed and display ad units to better drive awareness for the upcoming NBA playoffs and finals. The results were an impressive 82% video completion rate and a 380% increase in click-through rate!

You can stream a number of different data sources to your ad units. Datastream accepts feeds from any JSON, XML, or RSS feed, in addition to social channels like Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.

Of course, Datastream also gives you the ability to curate specific items from your feeds, so you still have complete control over the messaging and feed items that are displayed.

Getting Started

Digital shopping is changing the way millions of consumers shop for clothes, and there is no change of that in sight. This is creating a divide between luxury brands and millennials, as the device-savvy shoppers are focused on sites that offer style, mixed with reasonable pricing, and convenience.

Flite conducted a survey to provide fashion advertisers with insights on the habits & attitudes of today's digital fashion consumers, so campaigns can be tailored effectively. 

From the ad formats most consumers engage with, types of personalization they crave, to preferred social channels, this survey was chocked-full of insights. Which is why Luxury Daily featured here and why we created the infographic below! 

Old world marketing was much more straightforward as information moved at a slower pace. Print, television, and radio advertisements took months to produce and were very expensive to promote nationally or globally. If yesterday’s marketing travelled at the speed of the fastest courier, today’s marketing travels at the speed of light. Advertisements today are lightweight, and cheap to produce. Ad networks allow even the smallest of brands to target a global audience in minutes with minimal cost.

To stay competitive, brands need to embrace agile marketing practices that keep them on the cusp of behavioral shifts. Brands must also be ready to react to sudden changes in corporate strategy, competitor moves, as well as economical, political, environmental, and cultural events.

At Flite, speed and agility are paramount. This is especially evident in our ability to help marketers respond quickly to unpredictable changes. As soon as a digital ad campaign goes live, the campaign and creative are dynamic and editable. If changes need to be made, marketers can edit copy, call-to-actions and other design elements, as well as video content in real-time.

Ripple Live Updates is the patented technology behind Flite’s real-time editing capabilities and enables brands to push changes instantaneously to live campaigns. This ensures marketers can reach their entire audience base with speed, scale, and precision.

When new trends sweep the world, brands need to be able to capitalize immediately, or risk losing relevancy with their customers. The recent popularity of Pokémon Go is a great example of how brands can leverage Flite’s real-time capabilities to respond to pop-culture phenomenon. With Ripple Live Updates, you could integrate Pokémon creative or relevant gameplay functionality in your advertisements in real-time.

Ripple Live Updates and Flite’s Autopilot technology work in tandem to help marketers deliver high-performance campaigns in real-time. While Autopilot provides the foundation to test infinite variations of ad copy, visuals, and user targeting, Ripple Live Updates enable you to respond to Autopilot’s test results and make instantaneous changes to live campaigns. This ensures marketers can reach their entire audience base with unprecedented speed.  

At the campaign level, marketers can add, swap or delete creatives or alter campaign rules and conditions. At the creative level, marketers can alter specific elements like texts, images, icons, and user actions.  

With Flite’s Autopilot and Ripple Live Updates technologies, marketers have unparalleled insights and real-time control over their campaigns. For more information on Ripple Live Updates, connect with our sales team for a demo. Stay tuned for our upcoming post on Datastream and how brands can stream content from any live feed into digital ad campaigns.

Some, including The New York Times, are experimenting with different ad formats and sizes like the Immersion Unit developed by Flite. The New York Times started using Immersion Units late last year and the format has quickly evolved as a go-to format that the Times has incorporated into premium ad offerings. 

The units are designed to deliver content-rich native experiences with non-standard ad sizes. These in-stream ad units are helping publishers increase engagement rates and making advertisers see the merit in leveraging a CMP like Flite.

Read the rest of the article with MediaPost here →

On July 21st, Flite teamed up with Kiip to gather some of San Francisco's smartest digital marketers to discuss a topic that is near and dear to us: respecting the user experience.

Guests began pouring in at 5.30PM, and cocktails and conversations flowed quickly and seamlessly throughout the night. Kiip’s colorful garage-turned-office was the perfect setting for mixing with some of the brightest and most creative minds in our business -- including our new friends from the SFBIG community.  

The discussion was led by our very experienced panel - Adam Broitman (Managing Partner at MEC, formerly Global VP Digital Marketing at MasterCard), Giles Goodwin (CEO at Flite), Heidi Browning Pearson (SVP Strategic Solutions at Pandora, formerly Executive VP of Global Digital at Universal McCann) and Steffan Postaer (Executive Creative Director at JUMBOShrimp, famously known for his work on Altoids during his time as Chief Creative at Leo Burnett); and moderated by Kiip’s CEO Brian Wong.

Main takeaways from Thursday included: i) how marketers can advertise products while delivering valuable experiences to people, ii) what user-experience "success" looks like and how to accomplish it, iii) the big do's and don't's for effective ad design, iv) why personalization is still key, and practical steps marketers can take today to implement personalization tactics that "work". 

The passion and enthusiasm around the subject-matter, from both panelists and audience, was abundantly clear. Perhaps because we were all "users" with our own personal viewpoints - but together as marketers, we felt a strong sense of responsibility for delivering only the best experiences, and were driven by a desire for improving our methods. Needless to say, the exchange between our panelists and audience was incredibly energizing. 

We had a phenomenal time hosting our first partnered event with Kiip! Whether you joined us in person or followed the conversation via Facebook or Twitter, thank you for taking part! We hope you enjoyed yourselves as much as we enjoyed hosting. In case you missed our live discussion, catch the entire conversation here.

Highlights from our #RespectUX Twitter conversation:

And some of our favorite shots from Thursday night:

Photos by Mekuria Getinet, Visual credit: Marly Gallardo 

Perhaps the most powerful part of our Creative Management Platform is AUTOPILOT -- the underlying technology that intelligently personalizes, learns, and optimizes your campaigns in real-time, so your brand communication resonates instantly with your audience. Let’s take a deeper look at the various functionalities of Autopilot.

DATA-DRIVEN AD CREATIVE

In a sea of digital ads, it’s crucial that your brand’s messaging stands out. The best way to ensure your brand’s message resonates is by targeting your exact audience. Autopilot pushes key audience information and data signals into the creative, making it possible to deliver precise, personalized creatives at scale.

SCALABLE CREATIVE VARIATION

Copywriting is difficult, and you don’t want to rely on your gut when choosing which headlines and copy will work best. Great campaigns use hundreds of different variations of headline, copy and call-to-action and rely on real interaction data to determine the most optimal messaging. Autopilot makes it possible to generate numerous versions of an ad by setting any creative element as ‘interchangeable’ variables.

INFINITE CREATIVE TESTING

Once you’ve generated all of your creative variations, you need to administer the campaigns. Administering hundreds of variations is a daunting task in most platforms. But with Autopilot, it’s a cinch. In addition to A/B testing, Autopilot makes it possible to evaluate the performance of unlimited creative variations simultaneously.

AUTOMATIC CREATIVE OPTIMIZATION

Autopilot also serves as Flite’s version of DCO (Dynamic Creative Optimization). It optimizes campaigns in real-time, by delivering top performing creatives automatically as it learns from your customer interactions.

Since your campaign is consistently performing at it’s best, this means you’re getting the most out of every dollar of your ad budget, while Autopilot does all the heavy lifting -- saving you valuable time and effort.

It’s imperative that marketers understand and keep up with new technologies. Those who are willing to experiment and adapt will stay miles ahead of their competition. The future of marketing lies in high performance 1:1 communication -- lucky for us, technologies like Autopilot make this completely achievable today.

To learn about how Autopilot can help you ship better performing campaigns with less effort, contact our sales team to setup a demo. Be sure to stay tuned for insights on Flite’s next core technology: Ripple Live Updates.  

TAKING YOUR BRAND TO THE NEXT LEVEL: RESPECTING THE DIGITAL USER EXPERIENCE

JOIN US TONIGHT, July 21st LIVE at 6.00 PM PT via FACEBOOK or TWITTER

Some might say that "thinking" about user experience simply isn't enough, and that it needs to be obsessed about instead. For major publishers like the Atlantic, Slate, VICE and the New York Times, building and embracing a UX-centric culture has been critical to their success as today's digital frontrunners. Yet as brands and agencies quickly follow suit, majority still struggle to apply core UX principles into their own daily marketing practices.

Tonight, starting at 6.00 PM PT - we'll be joining our friends at Kiip (a rewards-based mobile advertising company) along with San Francisco's top digital creatives & marketers to discuss how brands can take their communication efforts further by honoring user experience. We'll be hearing from Adam Broitman, Managing Partner of MEC, Heidi Browning-Pearson, VP Strategic Solutions at Pandora, Steffan Postaer, Executive Creative Director at Jumbo Shrimp, as well as our very own Giles Goodwin, Founder & CEO of Flite. Moderating the discussion will be Kiip's Founder and CEO, Brian Wong. 

Main takeaways from this evening's discussion to include: (1) how to best advertise your product & message while respecting the user; (2) how to define and measure user experience success; (3) the major do’s and don't's for effective ad design; (4) why personalized user experiences are the future, and (5) how to incorporate personalization methods into your marketing campaigns, among others. 

For those interested in tuning in - follow the discussion on Facebook Live tonight at 6.00 PM PT, or via Twitter under #RespectUX. For those in San Francisco attending tonight, we look forward to seeing you!

Visual credit: Marly Gallardo

Facebook has done a stellar job offering engaging and interactive ad products, and Canvas is no exception. In case you are unfamiliar, Canvas is a media-rich, full-screen mobile ad format in the Facebook app that has quick load times.

This ad product was built knowing that consumers' time spent is drastically shifting to mobile-first and brands need to follow suit. 

Having said all of that, there is education needed to unlock the entire toolbox to marketers. Flite's CEO, Giles Goodwin, offered up some pro tips to help brands, publishers and agencies as they unpack Canvas and start to make the most of it.

Read the rest of Giles’ article with MarketingLand here →

By Daniel Alexander:  Co-founder and Chief Meteorologist, WeatherAlpha

“How was the weather while I was away?," I asked my wife upon arriving at La Guardia after a business trip in early May.

“Horrible.  It rained every day,” she replied.

Of course, as a self-confessed weather junkie, I knew exactly what the weather had brought. In fact, I had observed that exactly 0.82” of rain had fallen across four days in my absence – not an insignificant amount, but rather ho-hum for Northeast springtime standards. 

“Yeah, but it didn’t rain that much, right?” an air of holier-than-thou weather nerdiness in my tone.

“I don’t know – all I know is that it was foggy, chilly, drizzly and just miserable.”

The takeaway here is that the impact of weather on society cannot be seen through one data point alone. In this case, rainfall amount isn’t the best proxy for the overall weather - it is a combination of many data points:

• Cloud cover:  During the first few days of May, it was completely overcast during 95% of hours in NYC
• Temperature: Temperatures crested in the 50s each day, 5-10 degrees below normal for the time of year
• Hours of precipitation: Yes, for the period in question, only a moderate amount of rain fell - but it was spread out over many hours of light rain and drizzle, extending the general atmospheric dreariness.
• Additional weather conditions: Each day had fog, a weather condition straight out of an antidepressant advertisement.

Fast forward a few weeks to Memorial Day weekend when 1.65” of rain fell in a single day – except the majority of this rain fell during a few overnight hours. The high temperature that day still reached 82 and was bookended by two sunny days in the mid 80s. Yes, this rain may have been a lawn soaker, but it did not permeate the public’s consciousness like the extended period of light rain earlier in the month.

My company, WeatherAlpha, provides weather data, analytics, and consultation to weather sensitive companies and brands. Our primary business application has been digital marketing, and we have been honored to work with such brands as Home Depot, Kingsford, Sears, Columbia Sportswear, Sudafed, Dairy Queen, Zyrtec, and many others.  We pride ourselves in not only providing the best weather data to advertisers, but also a comprehensive understanding of how best to apply this weather data to enhance their campaigns and drive results. 

And when we advise clients who are considering a weather-triggered ad campaign, we preach looking beyond the obvious.  For the products/services with rainfall sensitivities, this means incorporating additional data inputs beyond current or forecast rainfall amount – like daily cloud cover, temperature, fog, rainfall hours, wind speed, etc. - into the trigger plan.  It is this detail that personalizes and makes more meaningful connections with consumers; therefore, yielding improved results.

By combining customized weather data with a creative management platform, like Flite, brands can apply this personalized, weather-based creative, at scale. When a brand’s campaign is more relevant to users, and each user’s experience; positive results tend to follow!

Would you ever want to receive only a percentage of something you paid for? Of course not. This is precisely why the concept of “video viewability” has been of great interest to brand advertisers, publishers, and agencies, over the course of the past several years.

With the rise of digital video advertising, followed shortly thereafter by the rise of the “bad actors” of the digital ecosystem – ad fraudsters, bots, suspicious traffic, and malware – viewability has become an important metric when analyzing inventory, as well as when analyzing campaign performance.

Video viewability, in the simplest sense, is the percentage of video ads that are actually seen by human beings. Seems like an easy ask, right? Not so fast. The industry has been struggling to agree on what constitutes the reasonable definition of an actual view, ever since the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) thrown down the gauntlet in December 2014, issuing a recommendation that campaigns should be held to “a 70 percent viewability threshold through 2015 as the industry transitions to buying and selling ads on a viewable impression basis in 2015.”

Alas, the confusion only begins there. Defining a video “view” varies widely depending on the platform or the organization:

·      The Media Ratings Council, or MRC, defines a view as two consecutive seconds, at least 50% viewable

·      Snapchat counts a view when it appears on the screen, for no minimum time period, but must be 100% viewable

·      Facebook/Instagram defines a view as appearing for three seconds and must be at least 50% viewable

·      YouTube pins a true view at roughly 30 seconds, but doesn’t adhere to a strict definition

·      Twitter sees a video view as being three seconds and 100% viewable

Although most buyers rely upon third party measurement platforms such as MOAT and DoubleVerify to measure viewability, the issue itself remains top-of-mind for buyers, who have generally adopted it as a key metric. However, a recent study on viewability led by media agency conglomerate GroupM found that buyers were frustrated with the metric, especially when they attempted to compare the "views" they purchase across different platforms. Another key issue identified in the study was that the metric can’t yet consistently capture viewability for non-standard ad units, which historically perform better for brand campaigns. Respondents cited reluctance to try more innovative creative executions because they aren’t yet included in current standards.

One bright spot may be the viewable cost-per-thousand impression metric, or vCPM, to evaluate campaign performance. Or, taking it one step further, consider the viewable cost per view (vCPV), which considers not just views and viewability, but also cost.

Marketers know that paying for an ad impression that nobody sees is the very definition of wasted media budget. Focusing on viewable impressions is quickly becoming a powerful way for marketers to gauge the true cost of reaching real consumers.

Amidst the global fanfare of Euro 2016, people from all over Europe filling the streets to catch a glimpse of the match on the big screens, or cramming into bars to cheer on their nation, a not-so-small tech conference took place. And this was no ordinary industry event. Paris has quickly become a hub for tech companies and Viva Technology Startup Connect reflected that.

Viva Tech was a broad gathering from across Europe emphasizing new technology and startups. I was impressed by how many startups were present on the main floor and the quality of the presenters. Panels and fireside chats were held with luminaries like Tim Armstrong and Eric Schmidt. On day 1, an especially interesting discussion was had between John Chambers and Nancy Hulgrave where user experience and advice shined through.

The panel I took part in discussed mobile monetization and how best to actually monetize. Joined by leaders from Facebook, The New York Times, and IAB, we discussed the various approaches and challenges present to publishers and marketers on mobile. There is clearly a lot of interest on how best to monetize mobile, but also lots of confusion. And without a unified plan within an organization, these monetization efforts will suffer. One area where mobile can benefit is improving the user experience. Without giving users, readers, or shoppers an optimal and easy environment to conduct their actions, monetization will not be strong.

Being involved with conferences and panels is always exciting. Especially when it occurs in a city so rich in history and culture, and one can witness a developing new culture - of the tech variety. It was great to take part in the discussion with the leaders of our industry and to hear that all are in agreement that fixing the user experience is paramount. The conference ended, and Euro 2016 fans continued to roar. As the mobile experience is prioritized more and more, will users roar just the same?

It’s been some time since we showcased how to build one of the many beautiful and engaging Flite ad products. Well, today you’re in luck. We're going to build a Video Mosaic ad in 3 minutes or less.  

Video Mosaic captivates audiences by displaying episodic video content or series of short branded films in a single, collective, in-banner experience. This is a great way to feature multiple videos within one ad, much like multiple images from a social feed may be featured.

To build the ad you'll need a few assets:

• YouTube URLs for each video (in this example there are three)

• Thumbnail images

• Headlines

• A 300x250 Branding banner for the footer

• Logo

• Tagline or CTA

• Clickthrough URL

Once you've gathered your assets you can begin the build. Let’s go!

1. Select a “Make New Item” in Flite Console.

2. Choose “HTML5 Ad…”.

3. In the Ad Products category, select the “Video Mosaic” ad product. (In Design Studio, there are many components already built in that handle the animation, layout, and styling).

4. Once in the ad, input each of the assets from top to bottom, starting with each video URL. (If your videos are hosted on YouTube, input the URL into the field within the YouTube component. If the video is hosted in Flite, replace the YouTube component with the Hosted Video component.)

5. Move down the Layers panel inputting the headline and thumbnail image for each of the videos.

6. Upload the Footer Banner. This asset can be as simple as a 300x250s or a solid background color with a CTA.

7. Finally, upload the logo to its location at the top of the ad and the build is done.

Once you're done building you can review the ad and see how the video overlays on the top half of the unit when it is played. You can also visit the Help Center here for further details.

That’s it. Yet another engaging, interactive video ad that can be personalized and scaled for your various audiences. Until next time, go build an ad in Flite!

The Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity brought together everyone and anyone who is either a decision-maker, an influencer, or a trailblazer in the industry. It has been said not being there is a louder statement than being there, and it is so true. The festival attracts advertising agencies, brands, media companies and platforms alike. Once you look past the yachts, parties, and epic scenery, the center of the event is around creative, but now data and media have joined that party.  

Tons of panels occurred during the week, but few broke away from the clutter. One of the more memorable panels I attended was "Visual Storytelling in the Modern Era,” featuring panelists Shenan Reed (President of Digital, North America at MEC), Kevin Knight (Head of Creative and Brand Strategy at Pinterest) and Bonin Bough (Chief Media & eCommerce Officer at Mondelez).

The conversation was an open forum around whether creative or media comes first. Which should come first? And how can we move forward in the digital space without the two working together from the moment of ideation?

All were in agreement creative needs to be better, however media has the money, so media decides where the creative is going, regardless of it's relevance. Another challenge brought up was creative is often in a totally separate company then media.  Creative is usually brought in from the beginning and by the time media gets the creative they are often left to "make it work."  

Many companies, such as MediaLink, DailyMail and Snapchat dominated their presence with yacht parties, private house parties, and musical talent (such as Chris Martin, Dave Grohl, and Wyclef Jean). Other companies focused on signage or event presence including: NBC, Facebook, Twitter, Pandora, NinthDecimal, PopSugar, AdWeek, AdAge, Ad Council, Truex, Thrillist, CBSi, Purewow, Samsung, Publishers Clearing House, Clear Channel, Maker Studio, Pandora, Sito and so on and so forth.  

Cannes Lions is a great environment for connecting with clients, building new relationships, and meeting with business partners. The attitude and tone of the week was positive, innovative, and all about relationship-building.  Many companies use this setting to meet new clients, create new business partnerships and strengthen the ones they already have in place. And just like the copious amounts of panels, the key is to ensure your connections with the movers and shakers break through the clutter.

The IAB’s recent report on digital video’s explosive growth was the veritable symphony to the chorus that we’ve all been hearing from the industry the past two or three years. All the facts are there. Digital video is white-hot and everyone — publishers, brands, agencies, and yes, consumers — want it. But how do we properly measure it? Ah, the $100,000 question.

While the IAB and others have endeavored for several years to create and issue guidelines, what will truly determine viable, workable metrics, may ultimately be the market itself. In other words, what brands and agencies deem logical measures, specifically for successful digital video campaigns.

The reason for this is, video is simply a different advertising animal altogether. Relying on impressions and clickthrough-rates (CTRs) for banner ads is bad enough; trying to apply it to video is even worse. Those clicks could very well be consumers trying to find a pause, close or mute button (the exception might be when digital video has interactive components, such as a ‘shoppable’ feature, and in those cases, clicks can actually be useful).

Trying to apply metrics normally associated with measuring linear television advertising, such as reach, frequency, and gross ratings points (GRPs), to digital video, equally falls short. Those measures specifically help buyers understand reach within an intended audience, but do not address aggregate consumption of a particular video ad.

In recent years, the video completion rate (VCR) has been heralded as a possible gold standard for digital video. VCR can be a valuable indicator and its sister metric, ‘time spent,’ is a useful supplemental measure of how much attention consumers are giving your ad. On top of that, creative effectiveness can be parsed by examining video ‘drop-off point’ which tells exactly you where the viewer lost interest in your ad.

However, those measures are simply not enough. Where one might find the Holy Grail of digital video metrics is with engagement. Video units with responsive features, sequential storyboards, animations, links to products, product galleries, web pages and social channels are beginning to actually measure engaged viewers. Unlike simple banner clicks that can often be accidental, engagement metrics are strong indicators that the viewer chose deeper involvement with your brand.

As we all look to capitalize on digital video’s meteoric growth, it’s critical to substantiate the medium with strong metrics such as engagement, VCR, and time spent and prove its value in driving business.