Digital publishers optimistic for the next year

Board member confidence on financial prospects improved in Q4 2016, according to research by Association of Online Publishing (AOP) and Deloitte.

Growth forecasts increased for the 12 months from December 2016, accompanied by a 28% rise in sponsorship revenue.

Publishers have shifted their focus away from cost reduction initiatives towards growing revenue through non-advertising services.

This has lead AOP board members to increase their growth forecasts to 6.4% in Q4...

28 March 2017 | Publishing

Bridging the gap: CMO vs CFO

As marketing spend hits new highs, CFOs demand greater insight into ROI. With very different measures of value, there are huge opportunities for conflict between marketing and finance.

Where is the common ground? 

With a background as both CMO and CFO for organisations such as eBay, and now CFO for Optimizely, I like to think I’m uniquely placed to understand how best to overcome the natural tension between finance and marketing. 

In fact, consensus is...

27 March 2017 | Best Practice

What makes a successful influencer marketing programme?

(c)iStock.com/DeanDrobot

As one of the pioneers in the influencer marketing space, we have worked with many brands over the years and have seen our fair share of successes and failures of influencer programs. 

Behind the vast majority of influencer marketing fails, are two root causes: one philosophical and one operational. 

The philosophical reason behind the failure of an influencer marketing program is that most brands experimenting with influencer marketing...

7 October 2016 | Influencer Marketing

Enabling creativity: Collaboration technology at its finest

(c)iStock.com/STILLFX

In the UK the creative industries contribute £84.1 billion to the economy. To put that into perspective, they are growing almost twice as quickly as the rest of the economy. With this exponential growth there is an increased focus on productivity and efficiency — particularly as deadlines become tighter and budgets more constrained.

Time wasting in any industry can be a death knell for bottom lines, but especially in the creative sector where...

3 October 2016 | Best Practice

Why high impact advertising is the jewel in the marketing crown

(c)iStock.com/studiocasper

In the battle to capture a few seconds of consumers' fleeting attention spans, there is a key weapon that should be part of your marketing armoury: high impact digital advertising.

High impact does exactly what it says on the tin – it captures attention, builds an emotional connection and invites interaction. In fact, research shows that high impact ads have a 40 per cent higher overall likeability than standard display and are 78 per cent more...

29 September 2016 | Advertising

How to survive the Facebook algorithm change

(c)iStock.com/Prykhodov

In the last few months, Facebook announced that it is changing its algorithms so that users would see fewer posts from publishers and more posts from friends and family.

The publishing industry’s reaction to this has been understandably mixed; some feel slighted while others remain optimistic.

Facebook drives more traffic to publishers than Google, accounting for 38.2% of traffic last year. In the first month alone, almost every major news...

23 September 2016 | Publishing

RedPoint’s marketing platform now allows you to connect to IoT devices

(c)iStock.com/Highwaystarz-Photography

New tech is emerging all the time. From the advent of television to the desktop PC, marketers have had to adapt their style to suit how consumers were interacting with media for decades now. 

And that lifecycle is continuing. We are - or should be - past the age where marketers are figuring out how to engage an audience via smartphone, tablet and personal devices. But the next phase of tech, including internet of things (IoT) devices,...

20 September 2016 | Advertising Technology

The role of print marketing in a digital world

(c)iStock.com/RoBeDeRo

Over the last 10 to 15 years, technology has drastically changed workplace attitudes and processes. Mobile devices, CRM systems, cloud computing and big data have all left their marks on the way we work, run businesses and ‘do’ marketing.

According to McKinsey, technology drives business value in four ways, by enhancing connectivity, automating manual tasks, improving decision making, and innovating products and services.

With...

18 July 2016 | Advertising

Why publishing brands need to transform to survive

Not so long ago, we witnessed the demise of a new, print-only national newspaper, The New Day. It struggled to attract the readership levels that it required to make it financially sustainable and subsequently had a short-lived lifespan of only nine weeks.

There’s no doubt that we are living in the age whereby maintaining revenues from printed media is no easy feat, so the question here is whether it was misguided to attempt to launch a print newspaper at a time when almost...

4 July 2016 | Publishing

Why the digital marketing sector will survive Brexit

Daniel Reilly, co-founder at marketing analytics and call tracking solution provider Ruler Analytics takes a look at how the digital marketing sector will be affected post Brexit.

Here at Ruler Analytics, we were disappointed with the outcome of the referendum and saddened by the UK’s decision to leave the EU. As a business operating within an industry that transcends borders, we have felt the invaluable support that the international business community has lent to the...

27 June 2016 | Advertising