Marketing Tactics – Chief Marketing Technologist

Interactive content hits a milestone in The Great Content Wars

August 2, 2015 / Marketing Tactics / By Scott Brinker / 5 Comments

Last Wednesday was a bit of a historic moment. When I visited The New York Times website that morning, I was amazed to see that the featured story on the front page was implemented using interactive content. The story — How Many Times Has Your Personal Information Been Exposed to Hackers? — was produced as an interactive assessment tool, not merely a regular article that a reader would passively consume. Just to make sure we’re …

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Interactive Content on The New York Times Front Page

21 native ads for marketing geeks that will shock you

July 28, 2015 / Marketing Tactics / By Scott Brinker / 6 Comments

I get exposed to a lot of low-brow native advertising as I puruse the web. If this is the result of intentional, personalized targeting — yikes — I shudder to imagine the profile that these advertisers have concocted for me. I’m constantly being tempted to learn surprising secrets of weight loss, the one trick my bank really doesn’t want me to know about my mortgage, and shocking revelations of aging actors from the 80’s. Every …

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The 4th Wave of Content Marketing (recorded webinar)

July 2, 2014 / Marketing Tactics / By Scott Brinker / Leave a Comment

Last month I did a joint webinar with Jerry Rackley, Chief Analyst at Demand Metric, on the growing phenomenon of “marketing apps” as a new wave of content marketing. Demand Metric had just completed a research project with 185 marketers to compare the effects of passive vs. interactive content on their digital marketing programs — and the results were quite exciting. If you were interested in my post a couple of months ago about why …

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Moving a blog is quintessential marketing technologist work

February 4, 2013 / Marketing Tactics / By Scott Brinker / 3 Comments

Migrating a blog from one platform to another reminds me of the saying: “In theory, theory and practice are the same; in practice, they’re different.” In the process of moving this blog from Typepad to WordPress — on the occasion of our 5th anniversary — I was struck by how this is exactly the sort of work for which marketing technologists are ideally suited. The blog itself is a marketing mission. There are all kinds …

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“The problem is very rarely data…”

August 16, 2012 / Marketing Tactics / By Scott Brinker / Leave a Comment

“The problem is very rarely data, or that we don’t have access to data.” So said Avinash Kaushik, web analytics and marketing data guru, in his keynote at this week’s SES conference in San Francisco. In Avinash’s view, business optimization in the digital world requires mastering three things: Influence — reaching the right people at the right time with the right message Experience — delivering remarkable customer experiences in all channels Value — recognizing the …

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Advertising on Google? Helps to know Javascript

August 15, 2012 / Marketing Tactics / By Scott Brinker / 3 Comments

Javascript is something that all web programmers should know. But advertisers? The people who manage paid search campaigns on Google? What possible use could they have for learning Javascript? Google has one in mind. At SES San Francisco this week, I sat in on a Google session where they were demonstrating new features in their AdWords and DoubleClick advertising platforms. One announcement in particular leaped out at me. Google is now beta testing an AdWords …

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How to manage social media marketing (book review)

July 14, 2012 / Marketing Tactics / By Scott Brinker / 1 Comment

I just read Social Marketology by Ric Dragon, and I have to say, I love business books like this. It’s intelligent and practical, written in a direct yet entertaining style, and delivers meaty ideas that you can put into practice pretty much immediately. First, full disclosure, McGraw-Hill sent me a free copy of the book to review. But life is too short to read bad books, so I wouldn’t have made it past a casual …

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Brand impact or conversion rate? Both, please!

April 18, 2012 / Marketing Tactics / By Scott Brinker / Leave a Comment

From my latest article on Search Engine Land, 5 Colorful Sketches on Conversion Optimization: The accompanying write-up in the article: There can be a perceived tension between conversion rate optimization and brand impact, which dates back to the early rivalries of direct marketing vs. brand marketing. But it’s a false choice: you can — and should — do great on both dimensions. Sure, there are cheesy used car salesman type tactics that you can use …

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Why landing pages are awesome (a Venn diagram)

April 2, 2012 / Marketing Tactics / By Scott Brinker / 3 Comments

I picked up the new 53 Paper app for the iPad this weekend. Really a beautiful piece of software for sketching ideas without having to be an Illustrator jockey. Inspired me to share why I find landing pages (and microsites, conversion paths, and other kinds of post-click marketing) — the focus of my company, ion interactive — so fascinating and rich with possibilities: The intersection of performance marketing, content marketing, and technical wizardry. What’s not …

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3 takeaways on advertising and trust from Nielsen

September 14, 2011 / Marketing Tactics / By Scott Brinker / Leave a Comment

Dave Chaffey curated a great graphic from Nielsen’s most recent report on Trends in Advertising Spend and Effectiveness: As a visualization of Nielsen’s Global Online Survey of U.S. Internet consumers from Q1, there’s a lot of insight embedded here. Of course, recommendations from people I know leads by a mile — 76% of people trust those kind of “earned ads.” Word-of-mouth and referrals remain the bedrock of building a brand. And as Dave rightly pointed …

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