Download A Guide For Marketers Looking to Take Their Digital

eCommerce Insight Series:
A Guide For Marketers Looking to Take
Their Digital Business to the Next Level
A compilation of articles written by MediaMath
experts, the leaders in programmatic advertising.
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Contents
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Why Programmatic?
Programmatic for Retailers: Success is Always In Stock.................................................. 5
Customer Experience Optimization
7
Understanding the Many Reasons Behind Shopping Cart Abandonment................. 8
Shopping Cart Retargeting That Works........................................................................... 10
Lookalike Modeling and Contextual Targeting............................................................... 12
Beyond the Click.................................................................................................................... 15
The Future: Marketers and Consumers
17
An Interview with L.L Bean CMO, Steve Fuller................................................................ 18
What Does the 2015 Consumer Look Like?..................................................................... 20
Act Now
22
MediaMath Retail at your (Full) Service............................................................................. 23
MediaMath Retail
25
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Why Programmatic?
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Programmatic
for Retailers:
Success is
Always In Stock
BY JENNIFER VLAHAVAS
VP, Account Strategy
The idea that
programmatic
is synonymous
with remnant or
sub-par inventory
no longer
holds water.
Programmatic
buying is about
efficiency – and
every retailer
can benefit from
cost efficiencies
and process
efficiencies,
regardless of what
you sell or where
you sell it.
Retailers are using data in a myriad of ways to revolutionize the online and
offline customer experience while creating a competitive advantage for
themselves. Kohl’s, for example, is offering digital coupons, via smartphones,
to shoppers who visit their stores. By marrying the in-store experience with
consumers’ heavy reliance on mobile technology and consumer purchase
motivation driven by the desire to get a good deal, retailers are delivering a
seamless (and far superior) customer experience across channels.
Retailers are keenly aware of the power and potential Big Data has to inform
an omni-channel strategy, yet, for many, a disconnect still exists between
owning data and putting it to use in a way that yields measurable success. A
programmatic media buying solution embedded within a retail organization can
serve as the foundation for creating numerous applications for that data, and
more importantly, drive business results.
Retail organizations that apply data through programmatic solutions gain a
holistic view into:
• Where the brand’s message is resonating most consistently
• What targeting strategies and tactics are working or not working
• Who is most responsive to messaging and why
• How your marketing dollars are being spent
• How you own control of your data
• Who you’re working with to achieve results
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The use of programmatic technology allows
retailers to pinpoint where brand affinity resonates
strongest across all digital media channels. Because
of this, retailers are not only able to maintain a
unified message but they can also identify which
channels perform best. Programmatic technology
organizes a retailer’s data, as well as 2nd and 3rd
party data, and layers that data on top of digital
media buys for increased targeting capabilities.
By housing all of that data within one centralized
campaign management tool, retailers have access
to learnings that serve to improve media across all
channels, better inform their messaging strategies,
identify the best co-op partner prospects, and so
on. Say your CMO wants an easily digestible view of
online & in-store spend impact across your display,
social, video and mobile programs while the digital
media team is hungry for performance data. Not a
problem; all of that information is available within
one centralized marketing operating system.
Let’s say the same CMO is bullish that her brand
is associated with premium content or publishers.
Easy enough - a marketing operating system like
MediaMath’s TerminalOne™, through its Deal
Discovery app, identifies both RTB and premium
supply deal opportunities available to buyers.
As a result, time is saved identifying the supply
sources that work best in terms of cost, targeting
parameters, and availability.
The idea that programmatic is synonymous with
remnant or sub-par inventory no longer holds water.
Programmatic buying is about efficiency - and
every retailer can benefit from cost efficiencies and
process efficiencies, regardless of what you sell or
where you sell it.
Let’s take it one step further: Your head of
business development has asked procurement to
vet attribution vendors (or any 3rd party vendor
for that matter). Imagine if you could send out
multiple RFIs in bulk, via one email, to key players
from a single platform instead of spending time
navigating through the complex vendor landscape
to find the appropriate contact to begin the RFI
process. That would be efficient, right? MediaMath
works with over 250 partners and launched its
OPEN portal (open.mediamath.com) featuring a
partner marketplace to educate digital marketers
and seamlessly connect buyers with the best of the
digital ecosystem.
Programmatic technology doesn’t just provide
rich insight as to how campaigns perform; it also
provides a full breakout of every dollar spent in the
system. Advertisers only pay what the impression is
worth to them specifically. CFOs can sleep better at
night knowing how they’re spending their marketing
dollars.
Retail brands can accurately assess the safety
and appropriateness of websites to avoid fraud
or disparaging a brand’s image in the eyes of
customer. Additionally, programmatic media buying
technology places the retailer in control of their
data and how it’s used. Transparency, as it relates to
both data sources and publishers sites, offered by a
programmatic platform means that retailers have a
deep understanding, and ultimately better control
of their brand’s presence online.
From the CMO to the digital team to the CFO,
programmatic technology adds value throughout
the retail organization. A technology platform, like
MediaMath’s TerminalOne™ Marketing Operating
System, deeply engrained into, and across a retail
organization promises to empower retailers by
delivering transparency, insight, and control to their
digital marketing campaigns.
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Customer Experience
Optimization
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Understanding
the Many
Reasons Behind
Shopping Cart
Abandonment
BY DANNY ESSNER
Vice President, Demand Generation & Marketing Operations
A one-size-fitsall retargeting
approach to
converting cart
abandoners
cannot work.
Abandoned shopping
carts are painful for any
eCommerce business. You
work so hard and invest
lots of money driving traffic
to your site and getting
customers to select a
product, only to see them
walk away prior to purchase.
What’s worse, it happens
frequently. According to
eMarketer, consumers
abandon close to 70% of all
shopping carts.
eCommerce marketers have
aggressively attacked this
problem through display
retargeting, serving ads to
customers who have left
items in their carts with
the hope that they’ll return
to complete the purchase.
While this strategy can be
effective, it wrongly assumes
that all cart abandoners are
the same.
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The fact that the overwhelming majority of
customers abandon their cart suggests that there
is more than one why reason behind this behavior.
Numerous buyer surveys on cart abandonment,
including one by eCommerce platform Magento,
show a few key causes for cart abandonment.
Rather, customers are increasingly using mobile for
early-stage research and consideration, and then
jumping to desktop or going in-store to complete
their purchases. This means that many mobile cart
abandons are just channel transitions.
4.CHECKOUT FRICTION
What do we mean by friction? Friction means all of
the site hiccups that online stores have that slow the
checkout process down. Too much friction causes
customers to give up and walk away. All sites have
some unavoidable friction points such as asking
customers for their billing and payment information.
However, many have unnecessary fiction that causes
customers to get frustrated and walk away. This
includes forcing customers to create an account or
log in, asking for unnecessary personal information,
or having a checkout process that is overly complex.
Let’s explore a few reasons why customers abandon
their carts so that we can better execute more
relevant and effective retargeting campaigns:
1.TOTAL COST INFORMATION
Customers frequently use the shopping cart to
confirm pricing. While retailers usually display
product prices on their category and product
detail pages, those prices often do not reflect
any discounts or shipping fees. This problem can
be exacerbated by marketer’s own promotion
programs which require customers to reach spend
floors to qualify for free shipping, or to apply a
promotion code in the checkout flow to redeem a
discount. Customers push products into the cart
to get a true understanding of a product’s cost,
inclusive of discounts and shipping costs, in order
to make selection and purchase decisions.
5.WISHLISTING
Shopping is often aspirational. Customers may
research and choose the products that they want
now, but not be ready to buy them until much later.
The cart enables them to keep track of what they
want and save for future purchase. In this scenario,
the customer is not abandoning their cart, rather
they are merely deferring the cart for a future
purchase.
2.PRODUCT SELECTION AND DECISION
Just because a customer has added one or more
products to their cart does not mean they’ve made
the decision to purchase. Consumers often use the
cart as a way of evaluating and comparing two or
more products they’re considering. An abandoned
cart can imply the customer is still deciding
between two products, or hasn’t found what they’re
looking for altogether.
With this understanding of the varied causes of cart
abandonment, it is obvious why a one-size-fits-all
retargeting approach to converting cart abandoners
cannot work. The more we can personalize our cart
abandonment campaigns to individual customers
based on their reasons for walking away, the more
effective our cart abandon retargeting campaigns
will be.
3.CROSS-DEVICE / CROSS-CHANNEL
PURCHASE
Research shows that more than 85% of purchases
touch two or more devices or channels. Even
though mobile is exploding, we’re not yet seeing
conversions significant conversions through mobile.
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Shopping Cart
Retargeting
That Works
BY DANNY ESSNER
Vice President, Demand Generation & Marketing Operations
Tie your
message to the
specific stage in
your checkout
process from
where your
customer
walked away.
In my previous article I explored various reasons why customers abandon
their shopping carts online. This post will address the next logical question
for eCommerce marketers: “How can we use this knowledge to execute more
effective retargeting campaigns?”
Marketers can use on-site consumer activity to infer the underlying reason
behind their abandoned cart, and subsequently implement a more focused
retargeting strategy to drive that customer to purchase. Using dynamic creative
in retargeting campaigns is just one example of an incredibly effective tool in
helping to create more focused, personalized experiences.
Here are some other recommendations for marketers looking to make their
retargeting campaigns more relevant and effective:
1) DIFFERENTIATE BETWEEN THE SHOPPING CART AND CHECKOUT
The shopping cart and checkout flow may feel like one in the same, but they are
really separate parts of your site with distinct functions. The shopping cart is a
customer tool, helping them with product research, comparison, selection and
pricing. The checkout flow is a merchant tool, helping the merchant acquire the
necessary information required to process and fulfill the order. Cart abandoners
and checkout abandoners walk away for different reasons, so treat these two
groups separately with different retargeting campaigns.
Customers who abandon a shopping cart may still be in the research and
selection portions of their buyer journeys, and may not be committed to buy.
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They may need help with product selection or
comparison. Consider the following tips to help
move shopping cart abandoners down the path to
purchase:
dynamically insert them into your retargeting ad
creative to create the social proof customers need
to make a purchase decision.
3) TAILOR YOUR MESSAGE TO
EACH PLATFORM
Use a cross-platform retargeting campaign to
help customers bridge the cross-platform and
cross-channel divide. Remind customers that
their shopping cart is available online for desktop
checkout. Consider using mobile ads that can
dynamically message the nearest retail locations
with in-stock inventory. Additionally, make sure that
you’re tying in-store sales back to mobile browsers,
so you don’t bombard customers with messages
after they’ve already completed a purchase.
• Use ads that show product categories they’re
interested so they can continue their research
and selection.
• Dynamically insert relevant category page
information into your creative to help
customers decide.
• Dynamically insert promotions into these
campaigns to help convince customers to buy.
Customers who abandon mid-checkout flow have
likely made a purchase decision but have walked
away because of too much checkout friction.
Checkout abandoners may need messages that
remind them they qualify for free shipping, explain
return policies, or that provide assurances that they
can check out as a guest without having to create
an account. Tie your message to the specific stage
in your checkout process from where your customer
walked away. Don’t waste marketing dollars on
discounts with this group; they’ve already decided
to purchase, and most likely did not walk away due
to price. Instead, focus on removing the friction
that caused them to walk away.
4) TAKE A LONG-TERM APPROACH
TO WISHLISTERS
Many customers who use the shopping cart as a
wishlist tool may be planning future purchases.
This group requires a longer campaign with lower
impression density immediately after they populate
their wishlist. Try a recurring campaign where
you engage your customer for a few days, then
disengage for a week and then engage again. You
can dynamically tailor these long-cycle retargeting
programs with key events that might trigger
purchase, such as Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day or
Christmas.
2) DYNAMICALLY INSERT USER
GENERATED CONTENT
Social proof is a powerful selling and conversion
tool. When customers see their peers wearing or
using your products or commenting positively on
their experiences with them, they are much more
likely to purchase. Sites like Rent The Runway
have been hugely successful, in part, by providing
customers the opportunity to show themselves off
wearing the gowns the site rents out. Pull in your
user generated photos and product reviews and
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Drive New
Shoppers Through
Lookalike Modeling
and Contextual
Targeting
BY JENNIFER VLAHAVAS
VP, Account Strategy
A true lookalike modeled
segment uses
predictive
algorithms
to identify
the unique
attributes of a
consumer group
(pre-packaged
targeting
segments might
include dozens
of attributes).
Shopping doesn’t end with the holidays, and neither does competition in the
retail space. To keep their numbers up, retailers have to keep shoppers flowing
into the store (online or otherwise). We recently spotlighted remarketing as
a successful tactic to achieve this goal. This time, let’s talk about lookalike
modeling and contextual targeting. Lookalike modeling can be used very
effectively to prospect and drive new shoppers into the funnel. Contextual
targeting refers to aligning advertising with content to increase the relevance of
the advertising and ideally, advertising performance.
LOOKALIKES
Lookalike modeling is one of the best ways to put “big data” to work and
drive new customer acquisition. Pulling data from first party data sets – POS,
transaction, loyalty data or online behaviors – and combining that with other
data on these consumers can create a detailed picture of who your best
customers are across categories. With this information, marketers can create
detailed profiles of each type of shopper. These profiles may include attributes
like shopping behavior, product affinities, price sensitivities, devices used for
shopping, and more. These profiles can then be used to target audiences
with similar attributes – audiences that “look like” and “behave like” your best
customers.
It’s important to note that the term “look-alike” often means different things
to different people. On one end of the spectrum it can mean running a simple
overlap report where you examine the packaged 3rd party data segments that
over-Index the highest against your online “converters” or your best customers
via your offline data set. A true look-alike modeled segment uses predictive
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algorithms to identify the unique attributes of a
consumer group (pre-packaged targeting segments
might include dozens of attributes). And to add
even more complexity, the MediaMath “brain”
– our decisioning algorithm – is really a model,
determining the unique media characteristics and
scenarios that are more predictive of your desired
outcome. Let’s take a look at each of these options.
MODELED SEGMENTS
Marketers can also leverage data companies
like eXelate or AddThis to create true look-alike
models that use complex predictive algorithms to
identify very granular attributes & combinations
of attributes that uniquely identify an audience
the marketer is trying to replicate at scale. These
companies have a tremendous amount of data that
they piece together into targeting segments. But
they can also use the individual data components
that make up a segment to create modeled
audiences that are more precise and therefore
(hopefully) drive stronger performance. This option
can also help marketers better understand their
best customers and how they differ from other
targets, hence making the entire media planning
and targeting process smarter for current & future
campaigns. In some cases, the biggest downside
to this option is cost – depending on the campaign
goal, adding a $1-2 data CPM on top of media costs
can be prohibitive. But if the performance is high
enough, the incremental cost is neutralized.
SEGMENT OVERLAP REPORTS
When a marketer is trying to reach a specific, yet
finite audience, segment overlap reports can offer
a quick, potentially cost-effective way to expand
reach. These reports examine any online audience
– an online converter (that might be aligned to
a lower-funnel marketing tactic) or a homepage
visitor (which might align more appropriately with
a prospecting/upper-funnel tactic). In either case,
marketers may want to find more people “like”
that in an effort to acquire incremental customers.
All platforms offer some sort of “Overlap report”
that leverage pre-packaged segments from 3rd
party data providers like eXelate, BlueKai, etc..
The downside to this option is that it is not a
very precise method by which to identify unique
audience attributes – the segments are a prepackaged group of multiple attributes so it is
absolutely a “broad stroke” approach. That said,
it is easy to implement and depending on what the
overlap analysis says, it can be very cost effective.
For example, if the overlap analysis shows that your
best customers are Moms with young children who
enjoy NFL football, you can easily add contextual
targeting to a buy or simply focus in on specific
sites that reflect this audience or create whitelists
that align with these audiences. Buying the
3rd party data segments themselves is also an
option, but might be cost prohibitive based on the
campaign goal.
Upside: more precise
Downside: often require a minimum spend
commitment which means optimizing away from this
tactic if it’s not working isn’t an option
MEDIAMATH “BRAIN”
The “brain” is MediaMath’s machine-based
decision algorithm that decides when to bid on an
impression opportunity and what value to associate
with that impression. It ingests a marketers
campaign goal (sales, enrollments, downloads,
application completes, etc.) and identifies the
unique media characteristics that tend to result
in that “conversion”. It then makes future bids
decisions based on that information and continues
to learn overtime as more conversions come in.
While it’s not a look-alike product, the MediaMath
brain is a predictive model that examines 20+
variables at once to optimizes a campaign run
through the MediaMath platform in an automated
fashion.
Upside: can be cost effective & easily to implement
Downside: less precise
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Upside: easy to implement, always on option to
optimize campaigns, no incremental cost
Contextual targeting and lookalike modeling offer
retailers a valuable method to reach shoppers in
a smarter way – while they’re consuming relevant
content or because they possess similar audience or
media attributes as a group of consumers that have
already proved themselves valuable to the retailer.
Downside: NO DOWNSIDE!
Marketers looking to identify incremental
consumers in a manner that is smarter than the
“spray and pray” approach can leverage “lookalikes” via a programmatic marketing operating
system like MediaMath’s T1 to reach these
consumers at scale.
Ultimately, the beauty of the MediaMath platform
is that you can test multiple targeting tactics like
these to see what works best for your brand and
then quickly and easily shift budgets toward the
strategies that are working best.
CONTEXTUAL TARGETING:
A PERFECT COMPLIMENT
Contextual targeting can lead to better campaign
results as ads are viewed as less intrusive given
their high relevance to adjacent content. This
targeting tactic is also cost effective which also
lends to success. A classic and simple example
would be showing a shopper yoga pants as she’s
reading an article about perfecting her warrior
pose. She’s already thinking about yoga, so
she’s likely to at least be interested in the yoga
pants. Similarly, if a consumer is reading about
the latest innovations in audio technology, new
headphones might be really appealing. Contextual
targeting is not “intent-targeting” – these folks
have not necessarily expressed their intent to
buy a product via a search or product site visit
– but it can represent an opportunity to drive
better performance as you reach consumers while
they’re in the right “mindset”. Note that the best
contextual tools will ensure that they’re relevant
in a good way – so the ad for headphones doesn’t
appear adjacent to content about the dangers of
listening to music at high volumes.
Another highly valuable use of Contextual targeting
is to define an advertiser’s brand safety policy – to
some advertisers, celebrity gossip isn’t brand safe,
but to others this is the perfect environment. Other
options available via Contextual targeting include:
showing up on pages with only 1-3 ad spots, highvisibility units, and those sites less likely to attract
fraud.
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Retail
Marketing
Beyond
the Click
BY JENNIFER VLAHAVAS
VP, Account Strategy
Moving beyond
the click to a
more fractional
attribution
approach not only
allows marketers
to understand the
media scenarios
that yield the
best results,
but - supported
by a technology
platform - to
activate against
that data.
“THE CLICK”
With click-through rates (CTRs) clocking in at a fraction of 1% at best, we
know that they are not the best metrics to measure the success of campaigns.
Otherwise, we would accept the fallacy that 99% or more of our marketing
dollars have no effect on consumers and are wasted spend. But the CTR is like
the “easy button” - it’s easy to track, easy to report. I worked at DoubleClick
in the early days of online advertising, so I take some credit for promoting this
metric as the end all/be all. That was fifteen years ago, and today we’re smarter
marketers with smarter technologies that allow us to better measure the efficacy
of our advertising.
The idea that the last click should somehow get all of the glory would imply that
the first four exposures in a campaign with an average frequency of five had no
impact, or that 80% of our impressions and 80% of our spend was worthless.
Logically, we know this isn’t the case, but the “easy button” reporting systems
often facilitate our dependence on this metric.
Attribution companies offer marketers the ability to view the impact of all
campaign exposures on a consumer and on that consumer’s behavior with
regard to the brand. This insight is critical to gain a comprehensive and
transparent view of marketing performance.
The ingestion of this data into a platform like MediaMath’s TerminalOne allows
our decisioning algorithms to consider additional attributes when determining
whether to bid on an impression and the value of that impression to a marketer.
Moving beyond the click to a more fractional attribution approach not only
allows marketers to understand the media scenarios that yield the best results,
but – supported by a technology platform - to activate against that data.
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FULL-FUNNEL APPROACH
Remarketing is a retailer’s best friend. It delivers
measurable sales lift at a high ROI. And why
wouldn’t it be effective? Remarketing simply
reminds folks of what they already know: they want
to buy that sweater (or TV, or toy, etc.) they’ve
been considering on your site. It’s a tremendously
successful tactic to get consumers over the finish
line and secure the sale. For retailers, that results
in higher site conversion rates, more orders, and
higher revenue. Awesome!
GOING BEYOND THE LAST CLICK
Employing prospecting tactics that leverage digital
media will build awareness and consideration – and
ultimately grow your remarketing pool. Building
your remarketing pool is a crazy-successful way
to increase conversions. But what happens if
you do this, and then use last-click attribution as
your performance measurement strategy? Your
campaigns will be just as successful, but you’ll
be giving ALL of the credit to the remarketing
tactic. That could result in a reduced budget for
prospecting because it’s not “performing.”
What marketers often lose sight of, though, is that
they need to employ upper funnel digital marketing
tactics to drive awareness and consideration of their
brand to attract more website visitors. (This is with
the understanding that the vast majority won’t click
on that ad to get to the web site, although they may
visit later. You’re staying top of mind!)
The best way to prevent this from happening is to
identify goals per tactic. Prospecting will never
perform like remarketing; it’s not supposed to. The
goal of prospecting is to bring new (incremental)
consumers to your site, adding them to the pool.
Then the remarketing campaigns can do the heavy
lifting, reminding shoppers that they’ve been
considering a purchase and still need to pull the
trigger.
The idea of keeping the funnel “full” is critical
when you realize that a remarketing pool is only
composed of the shoppers that have actually
landed on your site. That’s a limited number of
visitors! Digital media offers a unique opportunity
to get your message and brand in front of a whole
lot of eyeballs in a cost effective way, adding more
shoppers to the top of the funnel and keeping the
remarketing pool full of new customers rather than
simply delivering your message to the same folks
over and over again.
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The Future:
Marketers and Consumers
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An Interview
with L.L Bean
CMO, Steve Fuller
BY RACHEL MERANUS
Chief Marketing Officer
I see
programmatic
technology
increasing
performance for
us through the
consolidation of
touch points into
one platform.”
Steve Fuller
CMO
L.L.Bean
Steve Fuller, CMO of Maine headquartered L.L. Bean, recently sat down with
MediaMath’s CMO, Rachel Meranus, to dive into L.L. Bean’s use of MediaMath’s
TerminalOne Marketing OS™ in driving their programmatic strategies.
Rachel Meranus: How do you see the role of programmatic advancing for L.L. Bean?
Steve Fuller, CMO, L.L. Bean: With the new year around the corner, I see
programmatic as a critical connection to reaching and driving engagement with
our consumers. It’s not just a means of accessing remnant inventory; in fact,
we will be driving more and more of our direct buys through our programmatic
platform in the year to come. And as we ramp up our usage of programmatic,
we’re testing interesting things like in-app advertising through MediaMath and
iAd, advancing our use of programmatic social; and, we hope to be testing
programmatic TV in the new year. But as you know, this is all a means to an
end; the real goal is driving the efficiency of L.L. Bean’s marketing programs.
Programmatic is part of that process. In addition, I see programmatic advancing
the attribution and performance insights for L.L Bean’s marketing efforts. As a
traditional cataloger, we sit on a wealth of quality first-party data. TerminalOne
allows us to leverage that first-party data in ways we never could before. Lastly,
I see programmatic technology increasing performance for us through the
consolidation of touch points into one platform.
Meranus: You mention scale as a benefit of programmatic for L.L. Bean, can you
elaborate on that a bit more? What are some of the other benefits? How are you
employing ‘test and learn’ strategies?
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Fuller: Yes – it starts with the consolidation of touch
points that we just discussed. Programmatic allows
us to easily look across customer groups, creative
treatments, content stacks – you name it. We can
measure revenue and, depending on performance,
reallocate resources to optimize revenue for the
organization. L.L. Bean has a very long history
of “test and learn.” It’s been a core marketing
principle here for over 100 years. Programmatic
provides the perfect platform to continue that
discipline and it’s one of the key reasons that we
made the move.
• We look for people who ask “does this
make sense?” There’s a lot of data flowing
through these processes and consistency is
still a challenge. It’s far too easy to sit back
and accept the numbers blindly. If outcomes
feel that they’re “defying gravity,” we want
someone who’s willing to dig into the detail to
better understand the dynamics.
• The ability to “interpret” is also valued
here. Too often, there’s a temptation just to
push along reports. We want people who can
narrate a point-of-view, e.g. “Here’s what this
means and here’s what we should do…” Yes,
you’ll be wrong occasionally. But if you’re
learning from those mistakes, you’re going to
come out way ahead.
Meranus: Do you think it was beneficial to have a
programmatic platform in place during this busy
holiday season?
• Attention to detail. These systems are only as
good as the data that goes into them. If you’re
not paying attention – or don’t understand –
your 3PAS tags, pixels, etc., you’re going to
have a rough day. Especially when the results
are challenging.
Fuller: Definitely. Whether it’s a video campaign,
banners or combinations, we are able to see how
those views translated into site visits and ultimately
shopping cart check outs. We can tie back actual
advertising revenue to our strategies and ROI
goals. This is extremely important to us. From the
“pre-holiday” season up to Black Friday and Cyber
Monday, and beyond, our programmatic campaigns
have been and will be crucial in our seasonal
marketing efforts.
• Experience in advertising? Yes, it definitely
helps and the work that MediaMath is doing
to train future leaders in this area is amazing.
But some of our most valuable employees in
this area have never worked for an agency or
in an advertising department. They’re smart,
they ask questions and they want to push the
program forward. And that matters most of all.
We are actively recruiting so if you know any
great marketers who have both the qualitative
and quantitative skillset – creative + analytical
– send them our way!
Meranus: Lastly, you mention you have a ways
to go with programmatic and I know from our
conversations that a lot of this is focused on putting
the right team in place. You’ve got the foundation
of a terrific team today, and I understand you are
continuing to build out that group. What are some
of the skill sets are you looking for?
Meranus: I sure will! Thanks for your time, Steve!
Fuller: Thank you.
Fuller: When it comes to staffing our programmatic
team, there are definite traits that we look for in
potential hires. Many overlap with the skills required
in all of our marketing positions, but a few are
unique to this area.
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What Does the
2015 Consumer
Look Like?
BY EDWIN LEE
VP, Global Retail
Apple Pay will
forever change
the way all of us
buy things.”
Tim Cook
CEO
Apple Inc.
Retail shoppers have changed with the times. Consumers today embrace digital
devices and tools, research products on the go, showroom to get the best price
on what they want, and turn to their digital device to make a purchase, rather
than turn into the parking lot of their favorite brick and mortar store. Personally,
I have changed my shopping habits using Apple Pay and ‘showrooming’ with my
device in hand.
And most recently, the introduction and proliferation of digital payment
systems into the mainstream has only furthered the transition from physical to
digital. Systems like Apple Pay, for example, could be a differentiator, taking
nearly all the friction out of the online purchase process, while also making
offline purchases faster and easier. A recent Business Week report on mobile
payment start up Venmo titled “Cash is for losers” attests to the larger trend
of consumers using new transactional networks to make payments digitally, and
represents a shift of power to the consumer in our ever-evolving e-economy.
While consumers have always had the power to vote with their wallets, they now
wield even more power, with decentralized digital currencies like Dogecoin and
Bitcoin. There are a plethora of options, ways and places to shop. Therefore, it’s
crucial for retailers to not only be responsible with customer transactions to earn
and keep their trust, but also to create easy and consistent experiences from
within the store to on the device.
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As a result, retailers need to understand more than just the technology landscape. They need to
understand how it has fundamentally altered consumers and their behavior. Scott Snyder, senior fellow at
Wharton, outlined several new consumer segments that should be recognized by retailers:
ANALOGS:
Those who aren’t able or aren’t interested in
engaging in digital/mobile technologies
PARANOIDS:
The hardest users to persuade of value, and the
easiest to turn off
WANNABES:
Nascent users who are eager to get up to speed
and catch up to the cool kids
CHAMELEONS:
These users change their behaviors according to
their present interests and situations. They are
protective of their data and take it upon themselves
to understand how it will be used
MAINSTREAMERS:
“The pregnant middle of the market, ready to be
nudged toward behaviors and outcomes that are
good for them and others.” These are the most
eager and valuable users.
DIGITAL NOMADS:
While willing and eager to share their data for a
fair value exchange, retailers would be wise to
remember that these users expect an exceptional
experience as that return.
It’s important for retailers to understand each of these segments and how they should be approached
at every stage of the buying cycle. Companies that are able to reorient their marketing and productdevelopment efforts around digital customer segments and behaviors will tap into the hypergrowth that
mobile, social and wearables are experiencing,” says Snyder. What’s important is, as always, to put the
user first and create experiences that are relevant and appropriate to each audience. So, retailers, how are
you optimizing interactions, activating data, and tailoring messaging in order to engage with the new and
varied consumers of 2015?
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Act Now
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©2015 MediaMath, Inc.
MediaMath
Retail at Your
(Full) Service
BY EDWIN LEE
VP, Global Retail
This new service
delivers a tailored
solution that
meets the unique
needs of digital
retail marketers;
by combining
MediaMath’s
marketing
technology with
expert services,
and retail industry
expertise,
MediaMath Retail
is a holistic solution
for retailers that
want to elevate
their retail
marketing practice.
Retail marketers are no strangers to the effectiveness and potential that
programmatic marketing provides. In fact, retailers outspend every vertical in
the programmatic space. Yet, unfortunately, that doesn’t mean that creating
a programmatic marketing practice is a simple or necessarily straightforward
process that happens overnight. While retail marketers know more about their
customers than probably any industry in the world (retailers sit on a vast wealth
of 1st-party data), they face specific data challenges related to leveraging that
data to drive greater ROI in their digital marketing efforts. Additionally, retail
marketers cite difficulty in measuring their offline store sales back to their online
media spend, and creating a holistic view of their audiences across channels as
other hurdles to creating a truly omni-channel marketing practice.
That’s why we’ve introduced MediaMath Retail. This new service delivers a
tailored solution that meets the unique needs of digital retail marketers; by
combining MediaMath’s marketing technology with expert services, and retail
industry expertise, MediaMath Retail is a holistic solution for retailers that
want to elevate their retail marketing practice. The combination of technology
and service ensures that retailers are fully equipped to achieve success
with TerminalOne, with account direction, strategy support, to campaign
management. This package empowers retailers to put the technology and their
data to optimal use, giving them the potential to create campaigns that speak to
their customers in novel and meaningful ways.
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Optimize in real-time to fine-tune everything: The
last component of the MediaMath Retail technology
solution is the optimization solution. Retailers can
now understand the value of each touch point &
optimize against that type of insight. Additionally,
retailers can identify sales gaps in their customer
life cycle to understand what media is performing
and what’s not, which audiences are performing
best against goals, and which creative is delivering
the best outcomes.
MediaMath Retail gives retailers the power to:
Create a 360-degree audience view: With all the
data available from first party sources, including
purchase data, loyalty data, web analytics and
more, retailers have a solid view of who their
shoppers are. With MediaMath Retail, retailers can
leverage that data and put it to action, delivering
the best possible experience for the shopper while
yielding optimal business results. Additionally,
retailers can refine their audience targeting with
MediaMath’s data partners. When third party data
is added to the mix, retailers can target against
audience collective data, retail-specific segments,
and more.
These are the possibilities brought to light by
programmatic. With MediaMath Retail, the
advantages of programmatic technology and
data can go to work for your business today. It’s a
complete technology stack that puts all the pieces
together for you: audience, media, messaging,
and optimization. MediaMath Retail fulfills the
promise of one-to-one retail marketing with a single
operating system—empowering today’s marketer
to find and segment customers, deliver the right
messages on the right device, and optimize
consumer interactions to make digital marketing
more precise and powerful than ever before.
Create relevant messaging in real-time:
MediaMath Retail delivers one-to-one advertising
with its messaging solution. By connecting retailers
with best-in-class partners for dynamic creative,
retailers can vary their creative based on goals,
audience, market, and more. Retailers are now able
to move customers through the path to purchase
even faster – regardless of whether they are crossselling, up-selling, or prospecting.
Scale beyond all measure – vast, infinite, and
growing. With 3.6 trillion impressions available in
addressable media every month, the scale offered
by programmatic through MediaMath Retail is
unparalleled. One connected source provides
retailers access to addressable media on all
channels – desktop display, mobile, video, social
and emerging media channels like programmatic
native.
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Retail
MediaMath
A One-Stop-Shop Solution
Customized to Retailer Needs
MediaMath Retail fulfills the promise of one-to-one retail marketing. A single operating
system—empowering today’s marketer to find and segment customers, deliver the
right messages on the right device, and optimize consumer interactions to make digital
marketing more precise and powerful than ever before.
It’s the perfect
marketing
combination of
data management,
creative
management, crosschannel media
execution, and
decisioning in a
single streamlined
workflow.
An Audience Solution
Providing a 360° view of your target audience across all media, connecting offline and
online—influencing a customer’s path to purchase in all phases of the customer lifecycle
HARNESS THE POWER OF YOUR 1ST PARTY DATA
You have the data and with MediaMath, you can activate it, buying media in a more
targeted way to drive greater returns.
Whether it’s site visitors or store purchasers, loyalty card data, email data, direct mail
data, and so on, MediaMath helps you to consolidate that data and connect those
customer profiles.
LEVERAGE BEST-IN-CLASS 3RD PARTY DATA
With MediaMath’s OPEN program, you can refine your audience targeting with retailspecific curated third party data partners.
A Messaging Solution
Dynamically displaying relevant creative to each user
DELIVER 1:1 PERSONALIZED MESSAGING WITH DYNAMIC CREATIVE
Aligning to the customer journey, make sure the right customers see the right product
offers—moving them through the path to purchase even faster.
• Vary creative based on goals, audience, market, etc.
• Sequence messaging based on audience location on the customer life cycle
• Gain insight into ad performance and create a creative feedback loop
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A Media Solution
We utilize
MediaMath to really
understand and
measure where we
should be spending
our marketing
dollars, […] It gives
us one view into
the Internet […]
and allows me to
be in control. It
gives us the ability
to understand our
data, in real time
and make real time
decisions.”
Providing access to addressable media across all channels, devices and publishers—
connecting them for a single, holistic view
Chris McCann
As markets move and your goals change, our system adapts at the push of a button,
driving continuously increasing returns on your marketing spend.
President & COO
1-800-FLOWERS.COM
GLOBAL SUPPLY SCALE & DEPTH
Access over 3.6 trillion monthly global impressions—across RTB and programmatic
premium channels, including display, video, social, mobile, and emerging channels.
An Optimization Solution
Continuously and automatically refining your strategies to most efficiently optimize to
your retail goals
FOCUSING ON YOUR BUSINESS OUTCOMES
MediaMath’s TerminalOne Marketing Operating SystemTM begins by identifying the
quantifiable marketing goals your business is looking to achieve, from awareness to
purchase to loyalty.
Our technology considers all available data, both online and offline, to identify the
precise combinations of audiences, media, and messages that will best achieve those
outcomes, and automatically execute ad buying in real time across all digital channels.
GAIN FULL INSIGHT INTO ANALYTICS & ATTRIBUTION
MediaMath provides full visibility into algorithm outputs and performance—from media
and audiences purchased, economics and attribution.
Successful and accurate attribution of consumer action to advertising impressions is the
key to demonstrating performance and proving the effectiveness of ad spending.
• For every dollar you spend on media, know the return
• Only buy those impressions of most value to your campaign goal
• Determine the right price to bid for each impression
• Measure your offline, in-store sales against your programmatic media
• Reveal sales gaps and make your marketing dollars work harder
MediaMath Retail combines industry leading
marketing technology with superior service
and support, plus retail industry expertise.
We provide retailers with all the ingredients
for marketing success.
Learn more and Contact Us
at MediaMath.com/Retail
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