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The Grommet Gains Insights Through Image Analytics

TheGrommetWhen it comes to maximizing the value of photos that ricochet across Facebook, Pinterest, Tumblr and other sites, marketers are moving the goal posts. Whereas it was once enough just to encourage consumers to follow your site and share your images, some companies are moving to the next level with the help of more robust analytics.

Ecommerce brand The Grommet produces a steady stream of photos and, early on, found value in Pinterest. Like other companies, however, it found tracking the virality of online photos a challenge. The Boston-based company turned to Curalate, an image analytics platform, for help.

Founded in 2011, Curalate tracks where images are shared on Pinterest and Instagram. It uses image recognition algorithms that examine online images and matches them to a database of images to determine which photos have been pinned by a Pinterest user or shared on Instagram.

If a Grommet customer, for example, pinned on Pinterest an image of a necklace that has been repinned numerous times without the brand’s name or website, Curalate will alert The Grommet that this is a popular item.

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Salesforce.com Reports Q1 Earnings, Reaffirms Marketing Ambitions

SalesforceSalesforce.com wants to be “number one” in marketing, said CEO Marc Benioff during the company's Q1 earnings call Thursday. “We’ve acquired our way into marketing, first by purchasing Radian6, then by buying Buddy Media,” Benioff said. “And we don’t want to just be number one in listening, publishing, or social advertising, but a number of other areas as well.”

The San Francisco-based company reported quarterly earnings of $893 million for the quarter ended April 30, a 28% growth from the same quarter last year. Analysts had estimated revenues of $887 million for the quarter.

Salesforce.com added more than 480 new employees in the first quarter, bringing its headcount to 10,300 employees, up 23% over Q1 last year.

Based on market share, revenue and other criteria, research firm Gartner named Salesforce.com the largest CRM company in the world earlier this quarter. To hold on to its title, it will have to be “number one” in three main areas: sales, customer service and marketing, according to Benioff, who claimed that the company had already achieved that title in the first two areas.

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Booyah + Rocket Fuel: How One Agency Makes The Most Of A DSP/Ad Network

troy-lernerLast week AdExchanger looked at the dynamic between ROI DNA, a performance-driven agency, and its preferred display-trading partner, Run DSP. (Read the story.)

There are many such relationships in ad tech, where a mid-sized agency relies on a key network or platform partner to drive ROI and provide hand-holding to its planners and buyers. You can find another example in the interplay between Denver agency Booyah Advertising and DSP/ad network Rocket Fuel.

Booyah has about 50 clients on behalf of whom it manages roughly $100 million in digital spend annually. Of the half that goes to display, 60% is programmatic. That makes $30 million in exchange-traded media.

Booyah began working with Rocket Fuel three years ago, adding it to media plans alongside traditional ad networks and direct site buys. Booyah President Troy Lerner says, "I didn't even know what I was buying."

As the agency's media buyers got more comfortable with the terminology of DSPs and RTB-focused ad networks, it tried some other similar partners, among them Turn and Invite.

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In Ziff Davis Acquisition Of NetShelter, Proof That 'Publisher Networks' Still Have Believers

Ziff Davis and NetShelterZiff Davis' acquisition of tech blog network NetShelter is part of a continuing strategy to expand its vertical content for IT pros and young men.

Ziff Davis has been a serial acquirer since former Time Inc. digital chief Vivek Shah took over the company as CEO nearly three years ago, with investment assistance from PE firm Great Hill Partners. The purchase of NetShelter from former parent inPowered Media is being supported by ZD's parent, J2 Global, which bought ZD last November.

For inPowered, the sale of NetShelter – terms of which weren't disclosed – represents a decision to remove itself from display ad sales and content management and delve deeper into being an earned media ad platform, CEO Peyman Nilforoush told AdExchanger. For Shah, the addition of NetShelter is something he's been eyeing since he began plotting ZD's turnaround into a display and ad targeting platform business.

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Tumblr Is Yahoo's Instagram – Or Is it?

Yahoo Tumblr InstagramFor the most part, internet analysts and ad industry observers are applauding Yahoo's $1.1 billion acquisition of microblog Tumblr. The timing appears to be right for both companies. Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer, fresh from a series of acqui-hires, saw an opportunity to bring a new media network with a young, socially engaged, and logged in audience.

In turn, Tumblr has been turning heads with some proof that the six-year-old company could actually start to generate meaningful ad revenues with the launch of mobile ads on Tumblr’s iOS and Android apps – a year after the PC version of Tumblr rolled out “Radar” sponsored ad units.

AdExchanger asked a number of Yahoo and Tumblr watchers for their take on the  acquisition news and what it means for the two from an advertising perspective.

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What Yahoo Sees In Tumblr: A Logged-In, Cross-Channel Audience

mayer-tumblrThere were two adjectives Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer used repeatedly when discussing the advertising opportunity with Tumblr, which her company agreed to buy for $1.1 billion. Those words: "native" and "aspirational."

It's what you would expect. In its short history of monetization, Tumblr has focused on organic ad formats, tentatively rolling out tools to promote organic posts. Yahoo execs, eager to demonstrate the huge price it is paying for Tumblr, are telling investors to expect ad revenue to go big-time in 2014.

But there's an additional opportunity around ad addressability of the constantly logged-in Tumblr audience – across both web and mobile – that is increasingly valuable in this era of decaying cookies. Mayer hinted at this opportunity.

"I don't want to pre-announce anything today," she said. "It is quite clear that the psychographic profiles on Tumblr are different than we have on Yahoo, which enriches the user base."

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Affiliate Marketing Going 'Mainstream' Says VigLink CEO Roup

viglink“Affiliate marketing has gone much more mainstream,” says VigLink CEO Oliver Roup.  That’s his hope, at the very least, since his 28-person company is built on the commission-based lead gen business model that has been a cornerstone of web marketing.

Roup adds, “[Affiliate marketing] has gone from coupons to content. Though coupon sites were dominating up until a few years ago, what you’ve seen since that time is mainstream publishers, who deal in real content are starting to delve into the affiliate world.”  Huffington Post and Wanelo are among the larger media companies using VigLink products today which, he asserts, “proves” that affiliate marketing is less on the fringes than ever.

And with Q4 2012 year-over-year revenue growth of 118% according to Roup, VigLink wants to continue to scale.  Bigger sites mean more inventory, which leads to more potential leads and more revenue to affiliate marketers, VigLink publishers – and VigLink itself.  And it all begins with the use of the innocent text hyperlink: when a sale is consummated, upstream credit is assigned to VigLink publishers along the clickstream who originally sent the traffic.

AdExchanger spoke to VigLink CEO Oliver Roup last week about his company and industry trends.

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For Priceline, TV Is For Branding, Programmatic For Conversions

Brett Keller, CMO, PricelineThere's been no shortage of talk about "programmatic direct," which involves using automated buying tools to support negotiated ad deals with presumably branding-oriented campaign goals. But for Priceline.com CMO Brett Keller, the idea is an illusion.

"We've been using TV as our branding vehicle from very the beginning of this company 14 years ago and we've had a commercial running practically every day since," Keller told attendees at Aol's Thought Leadership summit.

He said that while some spend has migrated to online video, the goal with the digital channel is conversion: "We've tried to move upstream and we'd love to get 'programmatic premium' – but we don't think it exists. For us, it's all about conversions, and that doesn't happen in online branding campaigns."

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IPG's David Bell Sounds Off: Ad Tech Complexity Unsustainable

David Bell at AOL SummitDavid Bell, the chairman emeritus for Interpublic Group, offered his take on some barriers to growth in digital advertising today at Aol's Thought Leadership Summit on programmatic advertising.

Number one on his hit list was the clutter of ad tech startups. He also took aim at the power wielded by procurement officers and bashed the ad industry for being meek in the face of legal and regulatory challenges around privacy.

Ad Tech Complexity. "The dollars flowing into ad tech have slowed," Bell said in his keynote address. "Those companies that haven't gone public and are generating less than $10 million will have trouble getting funding. There will be a wave of consolidation and some companies will just close up. That said, the benefits of simplification are huge. And that's what's coming."

Procurement. Given the number and range of vendors and tools advertisers have had to work with, it's no surprise that marketers' procurement officers have taken control of ad budgets. But with all the focus on ROI and demands for greater accountability, the process of advertising has gained more science and lost much of its art, Bell said.

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How Online Retailer Indochino Does Attribution

Indochino ImageOnline retailer Indochino uses a variety of digital ad tactics to promote its custom-made men's suits, including search and email marketing, mobile outreach and retargeting on the Facebook Exchange. Along with attribution software company Convertro, Indochino brings together all these marketing channels and determines what is working and what is most valuable, said Antonio Guzman, manager of online marketing.

“We’re really trying to put the right messages in front of the right person at the right time," Guzman said. "We want to understand that mix of messages, frequency and timing, and understand what levers we can move and change, and how that will impact subsequent touches."

AdExchanger spoke to Guzman about how Indochino works with Convertro, the importance of attribution tracking for the company, and the challenge of still not being able to track every visitor.

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