As content marketing picked up speed throughout 2013, top brands of all sizes took the plunge by increasing their budgets in this area. This year, an estimated $118 billion was spent on content across multiple platforms, including video and social media.
Why has content seen such success? Because 90% of consumers find custom content useful, and therefore both B2C and B2B marketers are increasingly putting focus on providing content that is entertaining, informative, and relevant. We've scoured the web to find the year's top guides to content marketing to discuss best practices for blogs, newsletters, case studies, videos, white papers, infographics, and more. Here are the top 5.
This year we decided to make our holiday eCard in Design Studio. Using parallax scrolling always delights, so I decided to go that route.
This was to my second time around with parallax scrolling, which I originally played with in February. The resulting card uses 2D layers of various sizes to mimic a 3D effect...
As you are shopping online this holiday season, you may notice display ads popping up for items that you recently searched for on other sites.
That feeling of being followed around the web by ads is real — it’s a process called re-targeting. Through online behavioral advertising (OBA), companies can collect data about your browsing behavior in order to show you more personalized and relevant ads. Some find this helpful, while others may find it a bit creepy.
But ad re-targeting is just one thing to keep in mind regarding privacy when shopping online. Here are a few tips to consider.
1. Know your options regarding retargeted ads
How you feel about being tracked and re-targeted with ads depends on your feelings about online privacy. Privacy is personal — everyone has their own idea of what privacy means to them. Recent TRUSTe research reveals that 80% were aware of being tracked in some way while online, and 52% did not like it. 35% even stopped doing business with a merchant because of privacy concerns. Check out the data in an infographic here.
You may or may not welcome re-targeted ads with open arms, but as a consumer, you are in full control. You have a variety of options when it comes to privacy. 82% of those surveyed managed their online privacy by manually deleting cookies, 68% used ad/tracker blockers, and 64% opted out of tracking using website controls such as AdChoices. If you see a little blue icon in the top right corner of a display ad, you can click it and follow the instructions to opt-out of ad targeting.
2. Consider Virtual Credit Card Numbers
Many banks and credit card companies allow consumers to create temporary credit card numbers. These “virtual” numbers are typically valid only for a limited period of time or number of transactions, and allow you to avoid exposing your sensitive financial account information online.
Our latest case study looks at a last-minute ad campaign that had incredible engagement results. But what makes it so remarkable is the speed at which the campaign went from concept to launch.
Case Study: P&G Launches Event-Driven, Multi-Screen Campaign in Less Than Two Weeks Using Flite
Summary:
P&G chose to promote and underwrite the costs for Swim for Relief, a charitable event benefiting victims of Hurricane Sandy. Swim for Relief featured long-distance swimmer Diana Nyad, who swam for 48 hours straight to raise money for AmeriCares' relief efforts.
In concert with the event, P&G ran over 20 million targeted ad impressions...
The Thanksgiving food coma is over. Presents are being wrapped (or have already been unwrapped). Unspeakable cold is making San Francisco feel more like Siberia. But our blog is buzzing! Check out the five most popular blog posts from the past month:
5. Five Rich Media Navigation UI Patterns
If you're at a loss as to the most intuitive ways to present images, videos, and other content within a content-rich ad, Rob's post provides you with plenty of visual guidance. Carousels, grids, hotspots, and more are described and represented with simple, functional examples.
(Note: The contest has finished.)
Ready for the holidays to begin a little early this year? We think so, too. And we'd love to continue to spread the news about Flite's new Design Studio HTML5 along with some holiday cheer. So enter our giveaway every day this week and help us do both!
At Flite, we’ve worked with an extensive base of Fortune 500 brands and major publishers for years. While each campaign is unique, we’ve found that there are themes that successful advertising campaigns have in common. Here are a few tips that we've learned about what works in rich media.
1. Don’t try to do too much in a tiny ad.
Sometimes in the pursuit of making each ad as content-driven and interactive as possible, you end up cramming too much into a tiny 729x90 space. There simply isn't much real estate in banner ads -- compared to landing pages, print ads, billlboards -- to do very much.
And if you try to do too much, your ad can become cluttered, messy, and confusing. Therefore it makes more sense to aim for an overall positive brand experience, and to prioritize what kind of content or functionality you want to include that would be the most impactful.
According to a recent OMI study, 2014 State of Digital Marketing Talent, the largest talent discrepancies for marketers are in analytics, mobile marketing, and automation.
The OMI asked advertising and Fortune 500 marketing executives which digital marketing skills they found most valuable, and which of those skills their team actually possesses.
Talent Gap was calculated as the difference between whether those surveyed felt the skill was important/very important to have, and whether they felt their talent was stronger/much stronger than other teams. Here are some of the results.
IBM recently released its 2013 Holiday Benchmark report on Black Friday, and what jumps out is the growing impact of mobile in the browsing and purchasing process. Maybe facing possible death at a brick-and-mortar store is what has encouraged shoppers to break down the online doors instead, but growing penetration and usage of smartphones and tablets, as well as the growing accommodation of mobile users through responsive layouts and robust smartphone and tablet versions of the site.
Have a gander below to grasp the growing clout of mobile on the biggest consumer shopping day of the year, or read the full report for additional insights.
