DTC

An important part of developing the in-house creative group at HexClad is to prove the return on investment, according to Head of Content Matt Duckor.

Principal-based buying isn’t inherently bad. When incentives are aligned, clients get more precision and speed than traditional agency models often allow. The issue isn’t the mechanism; it’s the incentives.

When it comes to the red-hot retail media sector, history doesn’t have to repeat itself. Here’s how to add accountability and transparency to a space where those attributes are sorely lacking.

Americans are dealing with tumultuous change. For an ecommerce ad agency, that means navigating the same tariff craziness, Temu advertisements being pulled from the US market, the Meta ad platform going haywire and platform AI solutions all looking to replace human agency services.

Ad industry growth will slow to single-digits next year; consolidation hits the CPG market; and predicting the future of the FTC based on a commissioner’s pitch to the president-elect.

Personalization and customization are great, but when marketers go overboard with targeting, they don’t cast a wide enough net to attract new customers and foster growth, says JP Jansen, SVP of marketing and CMO for North America at Mars Pet Nutrition.

The physical presence of the boutique is a force multiplier for Nespresso’s marketing efforts. Like many other DTC brands (including those it shares space with at the outdoor mall), it’s using a storefront to build brand equity.

Advertisers new to CTV tend to misunderstand performance metrics and overemphasize cost per thousand impressions (CPM) as a measure of success.

The programmatic open marketplace is designed to sustain the business models of ad tech, agencies and consultancies, rather than serving the interests of advertisers, audiences and media owners. It cannot be fixed. It must be rebuilt.

In today’s newsletter: Mobile and email providers face political blowback if they enforce ad policies; a new analytics startup sets its sights on Amazon attribution; and CFOs and CMOs are more aligned than you might think.