Archive for the ‘Product features’ Category

Build political lists with Xspots

Thursday, March 11th, 2010

Never miss an opportunity to get someone’s email address. That’s the key piece of advice the article called Online Advocacy Tools: Email Lists gives to advocacy organizations and political campaigns.

“Successful campaigns,” the article continues, “make every effort to convert casual visitors into active supporters,” who, typically, become a primary source of contributions.

Using easy-to-customize calls to action, you can convert any Mixpo Xspot into a list-building tool. Because viewers who join a list through an Xspot have chosen to watch and interact with the ad, they represent a highly-qualified group of leads.

Watch this Scott Brown demo Xspot to experience the list building features for yourself.

While the Xspot plays, expand the INFO menu and click the Volunteer Today! link. Click the Become a Scott Brown Supporter! overlay to open a custom lead capture form.

Note These lead capture calls to action are for demo purposes only and weren’t actually used during the Scott Brown campaign.

Learn more about dynamic video advertising for politics.

Contact us to learn more about building lists with Xspots.

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Posted in Measurement and metrics, Product features, TV and Xspots | No Comments »

Telescope voters to more detail

Wednesday, March 10th, 2010

A senate candidate ends a general campaign Xspot by giving voters the choice to branch to more detailed Xspots covering 3 hot-button issues.

At the end of a short presidential campaign Xspot, viewers, based on their IP addresses, are automatically redirected to Xspots featuring local gubernatorial races.

These are just two examples of what’s possible with the new telescoping, or redirect, feature available in the Mixpo platform.

Click the Economic Crisis overlay toward the end of this Scott Brown demo Xspot to experience a simple example of telescoping in action.

Note This telescoping example is for demo purposes only and was not used in an actual Scott Brown campaign ad.

Telescoping is just one of several new Mixpo features released recently as part of a package aimed at political campaigns. Learn more about the full package by visiting our political microsite.

To talk with a Mixpo representative about dynamic video advertising for politics, contact us.

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Posted in Agencies, Product features, Publishers, TV and Xspots | No Comments »

Build polls into political Xspots

Tuesday, March 9th, 2010

In a paper called Five Steps to Online Effectiveness for Political Leaders, Bailey Hill Media advises political campaigns to “ask questions, use polls, and respond to feedback. Be prepared for conversations coming from people who interact with your content. It’s this interaction that builds the type of strong voter relationships that can help you win elections.”

Mixpo Xspots include a number of features that foster dynamic interactions between advertisers and the audiences they target. The latest addition to this feature list, of particular interest to political campaigns, is polling.

Take the poll in this Scott Brown demo Xspot to see how the feature works.

Note The survey is for demo purposes only. It was not part of the actual Scott Brown for U.S. Senate campaign.

By building real-time, multiple-choice surveys into Xspots, you simultaneously make the Xspots more engaging, gain valuable voter data, and further your campaign goals.

Learn more about dynamic video advertising for Xspots.

Get more information about the polling feature at our product blog.

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Posted in Agencies, Product features, Publishers, TV and Xspots | No Comments »

Turn an Xspot into a social media tool

Monday, March 8th, 2010

In an article about how an effective online strategy helped elect underdog Scott Brown in Massachusetts, Kyle Trygstad and Mike Memoli quote Justin Hart, director of new media for the Chuck DeVore Senate campaign. “Immediacy,” says Hart, “is one of the incredible values that Twitter brings to the table. And immediacy in campaigns is sometimes life and death.”

By taking advantage of the new social media package, political strategists can leverage Mixpo Xspots to contribute to the immediacy of the campaigns they manage.

As this demo Scott Brown Xspot demonstrates, viewers of social media Xspots can easily share the Xspot with friends, sign up to follow the candidate’s Tweets, become a Facebook fan, link to a candidate’s blog, and more.

Contact us to discover how easy it is to run a social media Xspot campaign.

Learn more about dynamic video advertising for politics.

Visit our product blog to learn more about incorporating interactive social media icons into Xspots.

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Posted in Agencies, Product features, Publishers, TV and Xspots | No Comments »

Rich media with Xspots

Friday, December 11th, 2009

Advertisers whose branding goals include aided brand awareness, online ad awareness, brand favorability, or purchase intent should invest in rich media with video.

That’s the conclusion from the June, 2009 DoubleClick research report, The Brand Value of Rich Media and Video Ads, which presents the results of a comparison of brand metrics for more than 4,000 online campaigns across a variety of verticals.

If your advertising clients are running Flash banner ads and TV spots separately, you can now offer them an easy way to jump in to the rich-media-with-video space.

In the Mixpo platform, you can upload and customize the two ad formats so that, on click or mouseover, the Flash display ad expands to an Xspot.

The following examples of an expanding 160×600 skyscraper Flash display ad demonstrate the power and flexibility of the feature. (Note: Because these ads are for demonstration purposes only, clickthrough URLs and lead capture emails are directed to Mixpo rather than the actual advertiser.)

Example 1 On mouseover, a 160×600 skyscraper display ad expands to a 400×300 Xspot anchored in the bottom right corner.

Example 2 On mouseover, a 160×600 skyscraper display ad expands to a 400×300 Xspot anchored at the bottom left corner.

Example 3 On mouseover, a 160×600 skyscraper display ad expands to an 800×600 Xspot anchored at the center right.

You can access all of the performance data for the two associated ads in one easily accessible location.

But remember, even the most effective format can’t compensate for weak content.

In a MediaPost article, Judy Franks, principal of The Marketing Democracy and faculty member at Northwestern University, reminds agencies and advertisers that “People love good video content and they’ll take it wherever they can get their hands on it.”

The cautionary advice in a 2007 Beyond the Click article that all online video ads are not created equal is just as true in 2009. While data from 101 campaigns showed that all video ad campaigns positively moved at least some branding metrics, the most memorable campaigns performed dramatically better than the least memorable. In fact, least memorable campaigns had little or no effect on brand favorability or purchase intent.

More information

Mixpo subscribers can learn more about expanding display ads by visiting the Create page, and then clicking Can I run a display ad using the Mixpo platform?

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Posted in Agencies, Product features, TV and Xspots | No Comments »

Monitor Xspot views by DMA

Thursday, December 10th, 2009

Online video advertising is increasingly local. The Kelsey Group predicted that local online video ad revenue would reach $1.5 billion by 2012.

In an interview with Fred Aun of ClickZ, Matt Booth, SVP and program director for The Kelsey Group’s Interactive Local Media practice, explained the revenue growth this way: Local video ads are effective and result in action. Kelsey’s "User View" study found that 47.3 percent of the people who watched a local video ad visited the advertiser’s website.

In keeping with these predictions, large and small advertisers are jumping on the local video bandwagon. National advertisers are increasingly turning national campaigns local by geotargeting calls to action and contact information.

With this trend toward local advertising, advertisers need to know if their ads are reaching the intended audience. That’s why Mixpo recently supplemented the Viewer Locations map that we’ve always provided with a new analytics feature that allows advertisers to monitor Xspot performance by designated marketing area (DMA).

Viewer Locations map

Viewer Locations map we've always provided

By generating a custom Xspot report in the Dashboard, you can immediately see a list of the 210 U.S. DMAs arranged in descending order by the number of views that occurred in each.

Portion of DMA list in custom report

Portion of DMA list in custom report - Click for larger image

How DMA data can shape campaigns

Suppose a state agency is running a campaign for the local lottery. By examining the DMA view data (especially in combination with the Domain filter), the agency can tell how effectively publishers are delivering impressions to the target audience. Based on the data, the agency can modify its media plan or work with existing publishers to improve targeting.

Suppose a travel agency is running an Xspot campaign to promote discounted fares to the Caribbean. Based on click data from the DMA list, the agency can identify cities where the campaign generates the most activity. This gives the travel agency valuable insight into shaping future campaigns by directing impressions toward the most active markets.

More information

Mixpo subscribers can learn more about monitoring performance by DMA by visiting the Reports page, and then clicking Can I monitor Xspot views by DMA?

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Posted in Measurement and metrics, Product features | No Comments »

Conversion tracking for Xspots

Monday, November 30th, 2009

Publishers charge more to run online video ads than display ads. But, in many cases, video ad click-through rates (CTRs) are not substantially higher than display ad CTRs. Is the higher CPM cost worth it?

A June, 2009 DoubleClick research report, called The Brand Value of Rich Media and Video Ads, suggests a resounding Yes. Viewers exposed to rich media ads with video showed a 1.16% increase in purchase intent compared with only a .50% increase for viewers exposed to rich media ads without video.

But for many advertisers, recommendations based on cumulative research data simply aren’t compelling enough. They want to see concrete results based on their own ads for themselves.

That’s why, at Mixpo, we now offer advertisers an easy way to compare the number of conversions that result from a display ad versus an Xspot.

Advertisers can use the Mixpo platform to run a display ad and an Xspot simultaneously and track the number of people who visit a landing page after:

  • Opening the page where the online ad is embedded.
  • Viewing the online ad.

In addition, advertisers can compare what Aaron Reinitz, in Clicks, Cookies, Conversions, and Cough Drops, calls “intention metrics.”

Conversion tracking intention metrics

Conversion tracking intention metrics

For each type of online ad, advertisers can track visitors’ progress through the purchase funnel, from the landing page, through the purchase intent page, to the page where the final sale occurs.

This not only answers the question about which type of online ad drove more sales. It also generates valuable consumer insights and helps advertisers optimize their purchase processes.

Resolve the display ad versus Xspot controversy for yourself. Contact a customer service representative about running your own display-ad-versus-Xspot campaign.

More information

Mixpo subscribers can learn more about conversion tracking by visiting the Advanced page, and then clicking Track conversions resulting from an Xspot.

Didn’t know you could run display ads using the Mixpo platform? Visit the Create page, and then click Can I run a display ad using the Mixpo platform?.

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Posted in Measurement and metrics, Product features, Research and industry data | No Comments »

Track performance by domain

Monday, November 23rd, 2009

If you’re running campaigns across multiple publisher sites, as most advertisers and agencies do, you need data that helps you best optimize your media spend. It’s crucial to understand which publishers are giving you the best return on your CPM investment.

At Mixpo, we’re always refining our performance analytics to give you the data you need. Recently, we added a Domain filter to the Dashboard that allows you to compare impressions, views, clicks, exposure, viewer locations, and even Xspot placement across publishers.

Example: Compare Xspot Position maps

Suppose you’re seeing large differences in engagement rates between publisher sites. Xspot placement may explain it.

Compare the following Xspot Position maps. The first, for the publisher with a lower engagement rate, shows the Xspot running primarily below the fold. In contrast, the second map, for the publisher with a higher engagement rate, shows the Xspot running above the fold.

Xspot running primarily below the fold

Publisher 1: Xspot running primarily below the fold

Xspot running above the fold

Publisher 2: Xspot running above the fold

Example: Compare Viewer Location maps

Suppose you’re seeing loads of impressions for one publisher but few views or clicks. Another publisher has fewer impressions but a significantly higher views-to-impressions ratio. Audience targeting may explain it.

Compare the following two Viewer Location maps for an Xspot targeting a Montana audience. The top map suggests that the Xspot is being served to all viewers regardless of their locations, which results in a lot of wasted impressions. The bottom map suggests that the Xspot was better targeted at the appropriate local audience.

Xspot served to all viewers

Publisher 1: Xspot served to all viewers

Xspot served to viewers by location

Publisher 2: Xspot served to viewers by location

More performance analytics enhancements are on the way, including an analysis of performance data by designated marketing area (DMA). Check back soon for details.

More information

Mixpo subscribers can learn more about the Domain filter by visiting the Reports page, and then clicking Can I monitor Xspot performance by domain?

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Posted in Agencies, Measurement and metrics, Product features | No Comments »

Yes, Video a Hit with SMBs!

Wednesday, June 25th, 2008

Online video is a hit with SMB’s and will continue to be so as they realize that it can be so much more than hosting and publishing video.   Greg Sterling just released a post titled, " Yes, Video a Hit with SMBs." Greg says, "Much like websites, if you build it they won’t necessarily come." We agree 100% and have built our platform for driving measurable direct response and the ability to make your video ad campaigns more effective over time.  We invite you to check out. 

Posted in Product features | 1 Comment »