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Michael is a seasoned online marketing professional with experience in PPC, SEO, display advertising, remarketing, paid social media and affiliate marketing. He is a self-professed data nerd and Excel junkie. He enjoys traveling to new places and beating his friends and family at board games.

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3 Takeaways from the Marin Masters Series in Chicago

Marin Software

Marin Software is an industry leading bid management platforms for online advertising. Advertising sources that can be incorporated into Marin include: Google AdWords, Bing, and Facebook. Vovia is proud to be the only Canadian agency to be Marin Certified.

Cloud Gate sculpture in Millenium ParkEarlier this month, Vovia was fortunate enough to be invited to the Marin Masters Series in Chicago. This gathering is meant to bring together Marin Software ‘Power-Users’ to discuss best-practices of using Marin, share case studies, and to have a discussion on where the online advertising industry is going.

This event is always illuminating, and this year was no exception. Here are 3 high-level trends that were pervasive throughout the presentations and during the cocktail parties.

Trend #1

Omnichannel Measurement and Attribution

Everyone agreed that this trend is in the midst of revolutionizing online marketing—and it will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. Omnichannel search means looking holistically at the customer journey to determine marketing strategy.

This means examining everything from how different online marketing channels (organic, search, display etc) play together, to how customers engage with your ads and website on different devices (desktop, mobile, tablet), to how offline and online marketing channels interact to create value.

Understanding how these different variables interact is essential to knowing how to best use your marketing spend. Having a solid omnichannel perspective allows marketers to answer questions like “if I dropped bidding on brand terms, what would be the impact on my overall revenue?” with greater certainty.

Trend #2

Searchification of Display Advertising

Display advertising is growing up and with this maturation comes the shedding of youthful indiscretions, such as CPM (cost-per-thousand) only buying. It was a widely held belief amongst attendees that display will begin to look more and more like search over the next couple of years.

What does this mean and why should we all be excited? With ‘searchification’ comes algorithmic bidding on millions of websites based on performance of individual websites, banner position, banner creative—the list goes on.

The Display Network/Demand-Side Platform (DSP)/Data Management Platform (DMP) industries are also consolidating more and more.  Why is this great for digital advertisers? Less sources that you need to coordinate buying from and fewer platforms to navigate will save marketers time (not to mention alleviate frustration).

And don’t worry, there will still be enough competition in the industry so that you won’t have to pay ‘Google prices’ for display inventory.

Trend #3

The Audiencification of Search

It’s not just display advertising that is maturing—search is also becoming more layered and complex by the day.  One of the main drivers of this search revolution is the incorporation of audiences into search campaigns.  

How does this work? Imagine that you are a car dealership and someone types “new car deals” into Google. How much should you pay for this click?  In the non-audience world of search, a smart marketer would consult historical performance relating to that keyword, match type and geographic market.

This is all good information to base a decision—but knowing who the user really is brings this calculus to a new level. Knowing if the searcher is a college student or a CEO would allow the car company to tailor search bids and ad creative to that specific audience. In other words, you won’t push the Mercedes ad onto the student or bid $20 for a click from the student looking to buy a second hand Pinto.

Layering in audiences into search is now possible through Marin. They have established a partnership with one of the leading DMPs, Blue Kai, which has over 40,000 custom demographic and psychographic segments.

Final Thoughts

What is the implication of all of these exciting and revolutionary changes? In my opinion, the marketers that ‘get it’ and adapt will be put at a significant advantage. The ones that don’t, will be placed at a significant disadvantage. Thankfully, we get it!

Want to make sure your online marketing program isn’t falling behind?  Want to leverage the tools and tactics mentioned above?  Contact us and we’ll make sure you’re always ahead of the digital marketing curve.