Matthew Dybwad Archives - CRAFT Media | Digital

Quick, what sites performed best for your most- recent network campaign? What drove the most clicks? What about conversions?

Media buyers and planners need to know these answers to key questions to better plan, execute and optimize existing and future campaigns. Yet, many do not, and cannot, know these answers. Why?

Because of a lack of transparency. 

Lack of transparency can damage a campaign in several ways, including:

  • Wasted Client Money
  • Potential Loss of Revenue
  • Brand Dilution
  • Damaged Reputation

All of these could threaten the success of your business, resulting in lost clients and lost jobs.

Let’s look at this through the lens a traditional ad buy. A TV buyer would not spend his clients’ budget on ads without knowing where they are airing. So why should a digital buyer, with greater access to insights, accept a lack of full transparency?

Transparency, more than programmatic or native advertising, is the key to the future of digital advertising.

Notably, without transparency you cannot make truly informed decisions about your ad campaign. Without transparency, your “big data” is misinformed and can lead your campaigns astray. Without transparency, you are generating false data and wasting budgets.

We’re not the only ones pulling back the curtain on this. AdWeek’s Mike Shields wrote a compelling article ”The Amount of Questionable Online Traffic Will Blow Your Mind The World Wide Rip-Off“ that examines this ever-increasing problem for buyers and sellers – lack of transparency. In that article, Zach Coelius, CEO of Triggit, hit the nail on the head when he said, “Whenever you buy from someone who won’t tell you where your ads are running, there is a real danger they are ripping you off.”

Following up on this, Digiday published an article “The Hidden Cost Bots Add to Online Ads,” where they continue to highlight and address the fraud issues facing digital buyers and sellers. The article points out, “Not only are brands paying for fraudulent ad impressions, but they’re also finding bots are leading them astray in their efforts to reach real humans.”

So what can buyers do to help ensure their data is real and their campaigns optimizing correctly?

Demand transparency.

If you can see the sites that are driving traffic you can make informed decisions and more easily detect fraud. If you are running a public affairs campaign, and the bulk of your clicks come from ads on CollegeHumor (mentioned in AdWeek article), you should question the results.

Don’t waste your budgets on fake or misguided impressions or clicks. Before you plan your next campaign, make sure you can monitor and manage the sites where your ads run. Demand transparency.

We are excited to announce that CRAFT | Media/Digital has been named a 2013 Google Engage All-Star.  Digital Advertising and Marketing Specialist, Andrew Burk, managed the online advertising campaigns during the length of the contest. This win represents CRAFT’s ability to achieve growth for our clients by both meeting and exceeding specific online advertising and marketing goals.

The Google Engage program helps to enhance companies that offer online planning and strategy, website design and development, digital engagement and search engine marketing. Once a year, Google gives 14,000 leading agencies worldwide the chance to compete to show the most growth for their clients using the search engine’s marketing platform, of which only 200 agencies are invited to attend. In order to be selected as a winner, CRAFT had to reach specific pay-per-click goals across all active marketing and advertising campaigns.

Partner Matthew Dybwad and Andrew Burk, will represent CRAFT at the summit in Google’s California headquarters August 12th. At the Engage event, the pair will receive insights about market trends, one-on-one consultations with Google managers, a tour of Googleplex and more.

Expect the two to share what they learn and their experience right here on CRAFT Framework and for live updates be sure to follow them on Twitter: @mdybwad and @AndrewABurk

Business Insider recently released THE DIGITAL 50: The 50 Hottest People In Online Politics, and CRAFT Partner, Matthew Dybwad, made the cut.

In the feature, Dybwad cites the success CRAFT brought to the Mia Love campaign this past cycle:

“The big takeaway from that race was that it was a great way for us to prove the effectiveness of the integrated model and bringing together different parts of our shop. We proved we could take events that normally would’ve gotten little coverage and make them huge events that got tons of traffic, inches in stories, tons of interest and tons of donations.”

Read more of the Business Insider spotlight here.