The big secret: Marketing is still difficult Or what no one wants to admit about technology

There’s no magic potion for executing a successful marketing campaign through digital channels. Technologies, such as SSPs, DSPs and RTB are already showing their limitations

See blog post at http://thethingis.typepad.com

David Levy Thought leadership for digital business

david@davidlevy.nethttp://thethingis.typepad.com

This is 100% of your current audience

Not all of them buy your products and services

Some of them bought once but have not done so again

Some like your advertising and have clicked on banners

Some come to your site to look at content

Some just browse

Most of your revenue comes from a small group, say 33%

So, how do you grow?

Double revenue by doubling the audience, via SCALE

• Once you get another “set” of customers, you should see a similar distribution of buying patterns

• By doubling the audience, you have also acquired another 33% “slice” of buyers

Or convert more people into buyers via EFFICIENCY

• Use CRM, offers and better data to stimulate purchase from those who hadn’t before

• While the total audience is still the same, the “slice” of buyers has now doubled

Generally, companies have to make a trade off.

Conventional wisdom suggests that doubling your audience via scale--say through search or display advertising--is cheaper and easier than doubling your audience via efficiency—say by executing a sophisticated data driven customer relationship marketing strategy to cross-sell and up-sell your existing audience which is harder and more expensive

The solution: Technology to the rescue!

The phenomena of real time bidding (RTB), supply side platforms (SSPs) and demand side platforms (DSPs) and a host of other alphabetic technologies were supposed to allow marketers to do both…first via efficiency, then through scale

First get efficient: Learn what motivates your audience to buy

Through testing, you can understand what motivate these folks to buy, then…

…apply those lessons to the rest of the audience, and, Voila!...

You have the insights and data you need to convert more browsers into buyers...there’s your efficiency

Now Scale it!

Apply algorithms, appended data and smart analytics to acquire new audiences that are more likely to buy your products and services.

In other words, stop wasting your money attracting the people who merely browse.

Only acquire the buyers…and get them every time!

Point your rtb/ssp/dsp at more profitable audiences

Media buying and selling technologies give you efficiency in

buying at scale

One day, and soon!, you can be 100% efficient

Machine: “Only acquire purchasing customers”

The things is…the audiences don’t scale

Yikes! You’re only more efficient.

There is no magic potion, or technology

Media buying and selling technologies help you manage your marketing portfolio

You need to raise awareness

You need to get audiences at scale

You need to be efficient

You need to build relationships

You need to be social

Manage your portfolio. You need to do it all!