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Getting back to basics: Marketing ROI

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Getting back to basics: Marketing ROI

Is marketing return-on-investment missing in action? Are you looking in the wrong place? Are you even looking at the right numbers?

The mystery of the marketing spend has baffled many CEOs, often illustrated by this quip that half the spend is wasted, if they only knew which half. Well, it is possible to know which half, according to Michael Brenner, CEO and founder of the Marketing Insider Group, an agency that specializes in content marketing. 

Brenner came to marketing from sales. “[M]ost of my peers thought I was crazy.” he recounted in his blog post,What is marketing?

“Increasingly, after more and more conversations with real customers, I had bought into the idea that marketing represented the future. I sold what was ‘in the sales bag.’” He wrote. “Marketing is not about who can talk faster, or close better. It is about deep psychological understanding of customer needs.”

Brenner does not stop there. Marketing’s effectiveness can be quantified and justified. The CMO can be held accountable for the spend, but he must be able to speak to the CEO in terms they can understand. 

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Marketing is about measuring customer engagement, not the repetition of a message, and showing how that drives sales. 

Read next: 19 questions to ask marketing attribution vendors

Great expectations, great disappointments

“I like to say that marketing has a marketing problem,” Brenner said. Ask people what they think marketing is, and they will base their answer on what they see (or hear) — billboards, TV ads, radio ads. “My former employer, Nielsen, said it was 7,000 messages a day,” he said. “It’s our experience to think that marketing is just ads.” Marketing, as it is taught in college, heavily stresses promotion, Brenner noted. 

Promotion was just one part of the “Four Ps”— product, price, place and promotion”, a concept developed in the 1950s to describe marketing, Brenner explained. The textbook definition of marketing was a conversation between a market and its consumer.

“Yet how many executives think of marketing as a conversation?” Brenner asked. “They think of only one arrow, ‘We will tell you why we’re awesome.’” This expectation “rolls all the way downhill to the marketing coordinator who is managing the social media accounts, who thinks their job is to send out more and more and more messages about how awesome the company is.”

Relying on promotion turns out to be a poor move. “Analysis of data shows that it is probably … the least effective form of marketing.” Brenner said. “A lot of companies spend a large majority of their marketing budgets on advertising and can’t show that direct line correlation or causation from advertising spend to dollar of revenue achieved.” 

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“For 99% of businesses that have to educate their buyers, promotion is the worst way to start,” Brenner said. 

One statistic Brenner likes to quote is the average click-through rate of a banner ad — just 0.5%. The number of people who see a Facebook ad for a brand is under 0.1% — and that fraction comes from people who already follow the brand. Click-through rates in general have gone down as marketers have increased their spend on this type of advertising. 

“It’s not a law of diminishing returns.” Brenner said. “Was there ever a return?” Here Brenner recalls the experience of his clients, who spent on average $80,000 per month on digital advertising, and their average return was a loss of 15 to 25 cents [per dollar spent], he said. “It’s not a diminishing return. It’s a bigger loss.”


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Lines of miscommunication

Skewed expectations for the marketing budget makes for a poor starting point. The path to the bottom line becomes more confusing when the CEO and CMO are not even on the same wavelength. 

In “What CEOs want from marketing,” Brenner cited a study done by the Fournaise Group, that shows that poor starting point. About four out of five CEOs do not trust their marketers, sincerely believing that they are too disconnected from short-, medium- and long-term financial reality. Further, these CEOs believe marketing bungled its mission of gaining new customers and increasing revenue in ways that could be measured and quantified in business terms.

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“Marketers can fall easily into the trap of sticking to traditional roles like advertising and brand development.” Brenner wrote. “However, many C-suite executives now see marketing as a critical player in a company’s overall rise and expansion.”

“When CEOs misunderstand the evolving role of CMOs, marketing teams can find themselves unaligned with the rest of the company.” Brenner wrote. “To be effective, CMOs must walk a fine line between listening to what CEOs want from marketing and giving them what they need. It helps to create a planning hierarchy, get buy-in from the CEO, and always stick to it.”

Here Brenner explained how his sales background shaped his perspective. “As a former sales person, I came into marketing because I felt marketing should be held accountable to a number.”

“It starts with CMOs saying ‘I am accountable’…at some level a strategic driver of value, and here is how we are going to measure it.” Brenner said. Here Brenner falls back on his authorship of The Content Formula, to suggest a mathematical approach to measuring the return and value of marketing. When he shared it with CMOs, it not well received.

“The reason I wrote my second book, Mean People Suck, is because math isn’t the problem. The culture is the problem.” CMOs need first to accept being held accountable, but also need the storytelling skills and political prowess to “position themselves and the marketing function as strategic and financial”. 

“The alternate view is the order taker.” Brenner continued. “The CEO thinks the job of the CMO is to manage a budget, to stick the logo of your brand on a stadium.” The CMO spends money at the CEO’s request. The marketing department follows that cultural model, of just doing what you are told, and you won’t be held accountable for the results, he explained. Such units never get a chance to sharpen their skills to build and explain a business plan and get results, he said.  “The top-down business model of management doesn’t create a sustainable work environment that anyone wants to be a part of.”

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In the second part of this two-part article, how to go about measurement in marketing.


About The Author

Getting back to basics Marketing ROI
William Terdoslavich is a freelance writer with a long background covering information technology. Prior to writing for Martech, he also covered digital marketing for DMN. A seasoned generalist, William covered employment in the IT industry for Insights.Dice.com, big data for Information Week, and software-as-a-service for SaaSintheEnterprise.com. He also worked as a features editor for Mobile Computing and Communication, as well as feature section editor for CRN, where he had to deal with 20 to 30 different tech topics over the course of an editorial year. Ironically, it is the human factor that draws William into writing about technology. No matter how much people try to organize and control information, it never quite works out the way they want to.


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YouTube Ad Specs, Sizes, and Examples [2024 Update]

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YouTube Ad Specs, Sizes, and Examples

Introduction

With billions of users each month, YouTube is the world’s second largest search engine and top website for video content. This makes it a great place for advertising. To succeed, advertisers need to follow the correct YouTube ad specifications. These rules help your ad reach more viewers, increasing the chance of gaining new customers and boosting brand awareness.

Types of YouTube Ads

Video Ads

  • Description: These play before, during, or after a YouTube video on computers or mobile devices.
  • Types:
    • In-stream ads: Can be skippable or non-skippable.
    • Bumper ads: Non-skippable, short ads that play before, during, or after a video.

Display Ads

  • Description: These appear in different spots on YouTube and usually use text or static images.
  • Note: YouTube does not support display image ads directly on its app, but these can be targeted to YouTube.com through Google Display Network (GDN).

Companion Banners

  • Description: Appears to the right of the YouTube player on desktop.
  • Requirement: Must be purchased alongside In-stream ads, Bumper ads, or In-feed ads.

In-feed Ads

  • Description: Resemble videos with images, headlines, and text. They link to a public or unlisted YouTube video.

Outstream Ads

  • Description: Mobile-only video ads that play outside of YouTube, on websites and apps within the Google video partner network.

Masthead Ads

  • Description: Premium, high-visibility banner ads displayed at the top of the YouTube homepage for both desktop and mobile users.

YouTube Ad Specs by Type

Skippable In-stream Video Ads

  • Placement: Before, during, or after a YouTube video.
  • Resolution:
    • Horizontal: 1920 x 1080px
    • Vertical: 1080 x 1920px
    • Square: 1080 x 1080px
  • Aspect Ratio:
    • Horizontal: 16:9
    • Vertical: 9:16
    • Square: 1:1
  • Length:
    • Awareness: 15-20 seconds
    • Consideration: 2-3 minutes
    • Action: 15-20 seconds

Non-skippable In-stream Video Ads

  • Description: Must be watched completely before the main video.
  • Length: 15 seconds (or 20 seconds in certain markets).
  • Resolution:
    • Horizontal: 1920 x 1080px
    • Vertical: 1080 x 1920px
    • Square: 1080 x 1080px
  • Aspect Ratio:
    • Horizontal: 16:9
    • Vertical: 9:16
    • Square: 1:1

Bumper Ads

  • Length: Maximum 6 seconds.
  • File Format: MP4, Quicktime, AVI, ASF, Windows Media, or MPEG.
  • Resolution:
    • Horizontal: 640 x 360px
    • Vertical: 480 x 360px

In-feed Ads

  • Description: Show alongside YouTube content, like search results or the Home feed.
  • Resolution:
    • Horizontal: 1920 x 1080px
    • Vertical: 1080 x 1920px
    • Square: 1080 x 1080px
  • Aspect Ratio:
    • Horizontal: 16:9
    • Square: 1:1
  • Length:
    • Awareness: 15-20 seconds
    • Consideration: 2-3 minutes
  • Headline/Description:
    • Headline: Up to 2 lines, 40 characters per line
    • Description: Up to 2 lines, 35 characters per line

Display Ads

  • Description: Static images or animated media that appear on YouTube next to video suggestions, in search results, or on the homepage.
  • Image Size: 300×60 pixels.
  • File Type: GIF, JPG, PNG.
  • File Size: Max 150KB.
  • Max Animation Length: 30 seconds.

Outstream Ads

  • Description: Mobile-only video ads that appear on websites and apps within the Google video partner network, not on YouTube itself.
  • Logo Specs:
    • Square: 1:1 (200 x 200px).
    • File Type: JPG, GIF, PNG.
    • Max Size: 200KB.

Masthead Ads

  • Description: High-visibility ads at the top of the YouTube homepage.
  • Resolution: 1920 x 1080 or higher.
  • File Type: JPG or PNG (without transparency).

Conclusion

YouTube offers a variety of ad formats to reach audiences effectively in 2024. Whether you want to build brand awareness, drive conversions, or target specific demographics, YouTube provides a dynamic platform for your advertising needs. Always follow Google’s advertising policies and the technical ad specs to ensure your ads perform their best. Ready to start using YouTube ads? Contact us today to get started!

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Why We Are Always ‘Clicking to Buy’, According to Psychologists

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Why We Are Always 'Clicking to Buy', According to Psychologists

Amazon pillows.

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A deeper dive into data, personalization and Copilots

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A deeper dive into data, personalization and Copilots

Salesforce launched a collection of new, generative AI-related products at Connections in Chicago this week. They included new Einstein Copilots for marketers and merchants and Einstein Personalization.

To better understand, not only the potential impact of the new products, but the evolving Salesforce architecture, we sat down with Bobby Jania, CMO, Marketing Cloud.

Dig deeper: Salesforce piles on the Einstein Copilots

Salesforce’s evolving architecture

It’s hard to deny that Salesforce likes coming up with new names for platforms and products (what happened to Customer 360?) and this can sometimes make the observer wonder if something is brand new, or old but with a brand new name. In particular, what exactly is Einstein 1 and how is it related to Salesforce Data Cloud?

“Data Cloud is built on the Einstein 1 platform,” Jania explained. “The Einstein 1 platform is our entire Salesforce platform and that includes products like Sales Cloud, Service Cloud — that it includes the original idea of Salesforce not just being in the cloud, but being multi-tenancy.”

Data Cloud — not an acquisition, of course — was built natively on that platform. It was the first product built on Hyperforce, Salesforce’s new cloud infrastructure architecture. “Since Data Cloud was on what we now call the Einstein 1 platform from Day One, it has always natively connected to, and been able to read anything in Sales Cloud, Service Cloud [and so on]. On top of that, we can now bring in, not only structured but unstructured data.”

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That’s a significant progression from the position, several years ago, when Salesforce had stitched together a platform around various acquisitions (ExactTarget, for example) that didn’t necessarily talk to each other.

“At times, what we would do is have a kind of behind-the-scenes flow where data from one product could be moved into another product,” said Jania, “but in many of those cases the data would then be in both, whereas now the data is in Data Cloud. Tableau will run natively off Data Cloud; Commerce Cloud, Service Cloud, Marketing Cloud — they’re all going to the same operational customer profile.” They’re not copying the data from Data Cloud, Jania confirmed.

Another thing to know is tit’s possible for Salesforce customers to import their own datasets into Data Cloud. “We wanted to create a federated data model,” said Jania. “If you’re using Snowflake, for example, we more or less virtually sit on your data lake. The value we add is that we will look at all your data and help you form these operational customer profiles.”

Let’s learn more about Einstein Copilot

“Copilot means that I have an assistant with me in the tool where I need to be working that contextually knows what I am trying to do and helps me at every step of the process,” Jania said.

For marketers, this might begin with a campaign brief developed with Copilot’s assistance, the identification of an audience based on the brief, and then the development of email or other content. “What’s really cool is the idea of Einstein Studio where our customers will create actions [for Copilot] that we hadn’t even thought about.”

Here’s a key insight (back to nomenclature). We reported on Copilot for markets, Copilot for merchants, Copilot for shoppers. It turns out, however, that there is just one Copilot, Einstein Copilot, and these are use cases. “There’s just one Copilot, we just add these for a little clarity; we’re going to talk about marketing use cases, about shoppers’ use cases. These are actions for the marketing use cases we built out of the box; you can build your own.”

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It’s surely going to take a little time for marketers to learn to work easily with Copilot. “There’s always time for adoption,” Jania agreed. “What is directly connected with this is, this is my ninth Connections and this one has the most hands-on training that I’ve seen since 2014 — and a lot of that is getting people using Data Cloud, using these tools rather than just being given a demo.”

What’s new about Einstein Personalization

Salesforce Einstein has been around since 2016 and many of the use cases seem to have involved personalization in various forms. What’s new?

“Einstein Personalization is a real-time decision engine and it’s going to choose next-best-action, next-best-offer. What is new is that it’s a service now that runs natively on top of Data Cloud.” A lot of real-time decision engines need their own set of data that might actually be a subset of data. “Einstein Personalization is going to look holistically at a customer and recommend a next-best-action that could be natively surfaced in Service Cloud, Sales Cloud or Marketing Cloud.”

Finally, trust

One feature of the presentations at Connections was the reassurance that, although public LLMs like ChatGPT could be selected for application to customer data, none of that data would be retained by the LLMs. Is this just a matter of written agreements? No, not just that, said Jania.

“In the Einstein Trust Layer, all of the data, when it connects to an LLM, runs through our gateway. If there was a prompt that had personally identifiable information — a credit card number, an email address — at a mimum, all that is stripped out. The LLMs do not store the output; we store the output for auditing back in Salesforce. Any output that comes back through our gateway is logged in our system; it runs through a toxicity model; and only at the end do we put PII data back into the answer. There are real pieces beyond a handshake that this data is safe.”

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