Readings for Sept. 29

From the three readings, I believe the three main takeaways for modern audience advertising are:

1- Dig deeply into defining your audience using the advanced user data available.
The book chapter had a lot of emphasis on how specific an advertiser can target users, even to the level of uploading a customer list and having Facebook match it with their Facebook profiles. As we talked about in class, it can even use cookies to target "website abandoners" and generate ad content based on what they were looking at or considering. I found it interesting how he pointed out that our "cultural comfort" with Facebook's data mining has changed over the years as we find it more and more acceptable (well, mostly).

2- Look past "the click" as a measure of success and instead focus on engagement from cognitive, emotional and physical levels.
The white paper took some of the chapter and updated it along with adding to the idea that a successful digital ad campaign should be measured in more than just a "click." I liked the model of measuring cognitive, emotional and physical engagement. To me, it appears to try and strip away the distractions of technology and return to the roots of what makes an advertising campaign successful. I feel like sometimes we get so wrapped up in the shiny new gadget that we forget the fundamentals. These metrics apply good principals to new technology.

3- Seek users on the growing mobile platforms.
As hinted briefly in the book chapter from 2013, mobile is a growing area of audience participation that is becoming more and more important for advertisers to remember in their planning. While the fact sheet only shows 37% of digital advertising spending was mobile in 2014, it's up 12% from 2013. I think it's interesting to note how much Facebook's mobile display ad revenue grew, and feel that the book author could likely add an entire chapter on mobile advertising (with the same caveat that it will probably be out of date before it even hits the printer).