No More Mad Men: Today's Agencies Consider New Channels and Vertical Publishers

Agencies have come a long way since the "Mad Men" days. The rapid proliferation and fragmentation of digital, social and mobile platforms has fundamentally altered their role in the advertising landscape. Now they need to be mindful of integrating online and offline data, dealing with cross-channel attribution, implementing digital ad tracking technology, and more.

To help agencies get an overview of these considerations, we just released "An Agency Primer for Digital Advertising Optimization." It includes lots of integration and optimization strategies, and you can download a copy here.

As a quick preview into the Agency Primer best practices, let's take a quick look at how agencies can integrate new channels and vertical publishers. While the major search engines have held strong as the most utilized research channel, other channels and websites are stealing market share by offering a compelling research experience.

Here are 5 tactics to consider:

1. Leverage Niche Search Engines as an Acquisition Channel. Niche search engines often present attractive advertising solutions for marketers looking to enhance their visibility in the search results. In the travel vertical, consider Expedia and TripAdvisor. In retail, look into Amazon, eBay, PriceRunner, Twenga, and Kelkoo. Or think about comparison websites such as MoneySuperMarket, Compare the Market, Confused.com, or Go Compare.
2. Expand and Optimize Affiliate and Referral Networks. Affiliate marketing, which consists of a revenue sharing relationship between websites and advertisers, has grown considerably over the past several years. Agency marketers often appreciate the pay-for-performance model and recognize the channel as an important part of the customer journey. If you choose to go this route, make sure to review and optimize to reward sites with the highest quality traffic.
3. Advertise on Review Sites to Build Awareness and Consideration. Review sites offer opportunities for highly targeted advertising due to the amount of customer information available. Agency marketers should not be afraid to suggest using review site advertising as a way for clients to drive incremental traffic and revenue.
4. Leverage Retargeting to Re-Engage Potential Customers. In order to retarget a campaign, marketers can leverage a variety of Demand Side Platforms (DSPs) or ad exchanges. No matter how you decide to set this up, make sure to adhere to retargeting best practices. These include capping the number of impressions each unique user can be served to avoid over-serving any one user, and carefully crafting your retargeting criteria based on the content they previously engaged with.
5. Test Second-Tier Search Engines and Search Networks. Many agency marketers have started to experiment with second-tier engines as a means of sustaining traffic at target profit margins. While traffic is generally lower on these networks, acquisition costs can be quite attractive. Consider Sendori, AdKnowledge, Advertise.com, AdMarketPlace, and others.

For more strategies and tactics, download "An Agency Primer for Digital Advertising Optimization" today.