Digital Marketing

Paid Search Ads Are No Longer King

Display advertising will overtake Paid Search (pay-per-click) advertising in 2016 for the first time according to eMarketer’s estimates.  This fact underscores what we have been saying here at Vici for a while now…Paid Search isn’t the only game in town and it isn’t always the best use of your digital ad dollars. Paid Search is for customers who are ready...

What is a Facebook Custom Audience?

Here at Vici, we like to build campaigns with elements from all parts of the sales funnel. However, the most important piece to include is the retargeting element. This is because it is much easier to sell your products or services to existing customers, rather than to find new ones. One of the best new ways to do this,...

A Majority Of Digital Shoppers Say Targeted Ads Are “Helpful” – Really!

It is estimated that a person living in a city 30 years ago saw up to 2,000 ad messages a day, compared with up to 5,000 today according to recent research.  With so many messages bombarding consumers on the daily – how do you break through and get your message to the right consumer?  By targeting. Targeting consumers online...

How big should my advertising budget be?

When working with our clients, we are often asked how much they should be spending on advertising. Many companies spend a certain amount, but few know what that amount should actually be for what they do. The short answer: it depends. There are a few factors that should be considered before setting aside money for advertising purposes. I will...

Digital Ad Terms You Need To Know

A/B Testing: When you compare different versions of digital ads or website landing pages to see which one performs better. An A/B test for digital ads would be running two different versions of ad creative and then measuring which version gets a higher engagement from viewers. Above The Fold: This is a term from the print advertising industry. In digital,...

Do Digital Display Ads Drive Phone Calls?

If the question is “Does display advertising influence consumers to make a phone call?”  The answer to this question is absolutely “yes.”  Digital advertising drives phone calls, but they are not always immediate. According to a research study done by Marchex, display ads influence 60x more phone calls than they do a direct click-to-call. On average, they find that approximately 2%...

What is Co-Op Advertising? (Example)

Cooperative advertising is a great way to help supplement media spending and even increase your ROI by reaching more of your target audience. What is Co-Op Advertising? Cooperative advertising is when a business or brand who wishes to advertise, whether it be via radio, print, television, or digital, partners with a manufacturer of a product that they sell, and runs ads with that...

Facebook Advertising… in a Nutshell!

If you haven’t already noticed, Facebook is everywhere and it’s not going away anytime soon. But that’s OK. With over 72% of online adults using the platform, the highest of any of its social counterparts, Facebook has become an advertising goldmine. It’s not every day that you find an advertising platform that can let you target individuals down to...

Geo-Fencing and Geo-Targeting: What’s the Difference? (Example)

Digital jargon can be pretty confusing at times.  Many words can have different meanings and it's important to dig further into their true definitions.  For example, keyword targeting could mean Pay-Per-Click, organic keyword display, or can even mean targeting keywords on your website to increase a websites SEO value.  See what I mean? Confusing! Most often confused? GEOs!  I often...

7 No Cost/Low Cost Resources For Digital Marketing Help

You know that feeling you get when you learn a new shortcut? Whether it is a keyboard shortcut, a new trick on your phone or just a shorter distance between two places you travel regularly…finding a quicker way is exciting! You save time, resources and money all while eliminating stress. It feels awesome! If you are a small business or...

Mobile Ad Spend 2017: Why You Should Care

Back in 2008, an analyst by the name of Mary Meeker predicted that “mobile will overtake fixed internet access by 2014”. Many well-respected individuals laughed at her prediction. Fortunately, they are no longer laughing. Halfway through 2014, the number of global mobile users eclipsed the number of global desktop users according to a study by ComScore. In 2015, that...

Landing Pages: The Key to Conversions

Landing pages are specific pages on your website that someone lands on after they click or engage with an advertisement that are used to get a viewer to fill out a form, sign up for something, or to call someone. These actions are what we call conversions, and they are what every digital marketing campaign strives for. One of the...

What Is Household IP Targeting? (Example)

Are you currently running any direct mail campaigns? Do you have a niche customer base? Is reaching very specific households (or businesses) helpful? If you could purchase a list of new potential customer leads, what would you look for? These are just a few questions to determine if household IP Targeting is right for you.  IP Targeting is the...

What is A/B testing, and how can I use it to my advantage?

Digital display advertising is great. It allows you to show potential customers more than just a few words. It is this style of advertising that tends to better engage viewers. However, creating an effective display ad is not always the easiest thing to do. Sure, it has become A LOT easier to actually create the ads, thanks to the...

A Tool I’m Totally Geeking Out Over Right Now: Hotjar

Having been in the digital marketing business for quite some time I've tested out a lot of different tools: SEO tools, website auditing tools, keyword creation tools, pixel finding tools, traffic monitoring tools, etc.  I recently stumbled across a tool that I find completely fascinating and is helping to improve the efficiency of our website called Hotjar. In a...

Call Tracking: The Hidden Gem of Digital Advertising

When putting together a digital campaign, it is always important to figure out how you will track, monitor and evaluate them.The most common way is to look at a campaign report which will give you all sorts of useful data. However, there is one tool that is can help make the evaluation of your campaigns even more comprehensive. Call...

Ad Blocking? Does It Matter To Advertisers?

(updated 1/24/16) Ad blocking continues to be the hot topic in digital. Ad blocking has been around a long time but is in the news because of the Apple release of iOS 9 which now allows developers to develop apps for the iPhone that block ads. Ad blocking is not part of the operating system, a user would need...

Going Digital? Know your Audience.

Here at Vici we get asked a ton of questions about campaign optimization. One of the most popular questions is “What is the best way to target this specific group of people?” The answer to this question isn’t exactly straight forward, but there are a few things that can be done to help maximize exposure of a campaign to...

Ad Spending 2020: Digital Video is King

Rarely does something compel me to write, but an article I came across on Business Insider did just that. Well, the chart that accompanied it did most of the work, take a look. Digital advertising has without a doubt been on the rise. With increasingly more people adopting a digital and mobile lifestyle, the value of digital content has skyrocketed....

Chrome moves on without Flash. Finally.

Flash-based advertising has been around for a while, providing a way for digital advertisers to incorporate interactive, animated, and audio components into their ads. This type of advertising is often called "rich media creative" and often returns a higher CTR thanks to its ability to better engage a viewer. However, a huge player in the digital advertising world has decided it...

Digital Advertising: A History Lesson

When you think of where digital marketing is in 2015, I'm amazed everyday at how quickly advancements are being made to deliver beautiful marketing to the sophisticated web users.  As web users we expect a lot.   We are more informed about our purchases being made online and offline.   We have means of communicating to other consumers to...

10 Questions To Ask Your Digital Advertising Company (part 2)

In case you missed it, yesterday we covered the first five questions you must be asking when making decisions on who you should trust with your digital dollars.   If you do any type of advertising it is likely that you have been approached by a digital advertising salesperson or digital advertising vendor.   With so many people seemingly toting the...

10 Questions To Ask Your Digital Advertising Company

If you do any type of advertising it is likely that you have been approached by a digital advertising salesperson or digital advertising vendor. With so many people seemingly toting the same products it is hard to know who to go with. Here are questions to ask that lead to some key points of differentiation. These items set digital advertising...

What will my traffic/clicks be from my digital ad campaign?

There are two questions advertisers typically want to know about their advertising campaign:  how much traffic will my website get (aka how many clicks will I get) and how many leads will I get from my digital ad campaign.  If you’re a digital salesperson, you should be able to answer these questions, and if you’re an advertiser, you should...

Ad Blockers: No Need to Panic

In 2010, when internet users were granted the ability to block ads, advertisers were put into a tailspin of panic, thinking the ecosystem of digital advertising was about to be seriously disrupted.  The threat of destroying the entire system of digital advertising was soon proven to be irrelevant. This outdated argument became null when in the 5 years since ad...

Container Tags 101

If you want pixels for your campaign, container tags are essential.  A container tag is a snippet of code used in digital ad campaigns.  It makes it possible to track various campaign targets because it removes the need for multiple data tracking codes being placed directly on the site.   Instead, one code is placed across every page of...

How to Target the Hispanic Populations with Digital

Hispanic purchasing power is growing at more than two times the national rate, so marketing to this group is prudent for your brand.  However, it is still a mystery to many how to target the Hispanic population with digital advertising.  Below are a few ways to engage this demographic: One way is to target them through their mobile devices.  Hispanics...

2015: The Year of Mobile Marketing

We’ve all heard it before: the money is in mobile.  You’ve probably heard dozens of reason why it is so important for your business to have a strong mobile presence, whether it be a mobile website or by utilizing mobile advertising. We hate to say we told you so, but Google’s most recent mobile business report suggested that mobile devices...

Optimize Your Campaign with Google Analytics

Are you ever curious what leads people to your website? Well there’s an easy way to check the keywords people are searching to find you. By using Google Analytics! Never checked this out before? Don’t fret, here’s how: Once you sign into your Google Analytics, look at the left hand column and click on Acquisition. Underneath Acquisition you’ll go to Search...

Google AdWords Announces Cross Device Conversion Tracking

Remember the days when the only place you could access the internet was through a clunky, heavy desktop computer?  Those clunky computers may seem like a distant memory compared to the dozens of choices tech users have when they want to explore the internet.  Today’s tech users juggle multiple devices like laptops, mobile devices, tablets and now even watches...

How To Reach Millennials With Your Digital Advertising

With over 171.5 million people owning a smartphone worldwide, it’s almost irregular not to have one. Of those 171 million, 85% of these owners are millennials. To go even further into millennial smartphone usage: 85% of Millennials aged 18-24 own smartphone devices and 86% aged 25-34 own them. However, while there is a divide amongst ages, there isn’t a divide between genders....

“Above The Fold” Digital Ads – It Matters!

The average drop in viewability between above the fold ads and below the fold ads is 84%.  In one eyetracking study the difference was found to be as high as 102%! Above the fold positioning of ads means that the ad appears before someone has to scroll. As the numbers above indicate, where your ad falls on a webpage greatly...

Why We LOVE Canva

Have you ever struggled to make ad creative for your campaign? Well you’re in luck because there is a fabulous and free service called Canva. Canva is a great option for business owners or those who want to do-it-themselves to create quality graphics to market their company. Here’s how Canva helps the everyday business owner: Canva is super user friendly.  It...

Digital Advertising for Mobile: Game On

Angry Birds, Candy Crush, Trivia Crack, Bookworm, Gym Streak.  At any given time, there are millions of smartphone users with their noses glued to their screen using gaming apps or lifestyle apps like these. Smartphone users are so attached to these apps that the US mobile gaming user base has grown to more than half the US population for the...

Change Your Business Hours on Google

When you Google yourself, what do you see? Your customer's are doing searches everyday looking for business information, and if they aren't seeing your address, business hours, aggregated reviews, and directions to your location you are missing valuable leads.  Nothing is more frustrating then driving to business that is closed- or even navigating to the wrong address because your...

Fat fingers? Never fear! Accidental clicks just got a lot harder to make.

How many times have you been scrolling along on your mobile phone and accidentally clicked on an advertisement? Well, you’re not alone. To address it, Google has implemented several changes to reduce accidental clicks on mobile display ads. First, Google has identified the border of an image as those areas are particularly prone to accidental clicks. If you tap the...

Credit Union and Banks Turn to Digital to Reel in New Customers

Banks and credit unions are businesses that have served their customers' financial services and needs for centuries.  As many traditional industries are still learning to adapt to new technology, financial services are leading the change in the digital evolution as they attempt to keep up with our new fast-paced lifestyles. There is no disputing that technology has had an incredible...

The Future of Digital Advertising 2015 vs 2019

Digital marketing is expected to have a bright future. As consumer behavior migrates online, so will advertiser spending. In fact, online advertising is expected to overtake TV advertising in size by 2019. Below is an infographic that details the amount of spending and where that spending will be allocated: TV advertising spending is projected to grow from 71.1 billion this year...

Tips for Your Digital Marketing Strategy

Who doesn’t want the best, especially when it comes to your digital campaigns? Well, good news because there are simple things you can do to optimize your campaign right now. These strategies are simple and easy to implement and will help your campaigns so you can see results. The first thing you’re going to want to do is focus on...

100 Posts Later…Check Out Vici’s Most Read Blog Posts!

  Today is an exciting day for us at Vici Media, we are celebrating our 100th blog post!  We take pride in providing you with digital marketing education, campaign strategies, and trends in the ever-changing online marketing world. To commemorate 100 blog posts about effective digital marketing strategies, check out our five most popular posts ever.    These posts and many other...

Panic Over Click-Through Rates? Google Can Help!

Some of the most frequently asked questions in digital advertising revolve around click-through rates (CTR).  So what is a good CTR and what is a bad CTR?  The national average click-through rate for display ads as a whole is 0.07% (Criteo).  Keep in mind, that's across all industries and all ad sizes.  So it's important to know how your...

Is Mobile Eclipsing Desktop?

All around the cyber world, especially in the digital marketing universe, people are insisting that mobile usage will soon exceed PC usage. Although mobile usage has grown over the past few years, it has not eclipsed desktop usage. In fact, it seems as though desktop usage is increasing! According to the chart below from comScore, desktop usage has remained relatively...

Do Cookies Work on Mobile Phones? (Example)

A cookie is is a small piece of data sent from a website and stored in a user's web browser while the user is browsing that website.  A cookie can track everything from the websites the user visits afterwards, their behavior, purchase decisions, etc.  Cookies can even deploy ads back to the user inviting them to revisit the original...

How the Millennial Smartphone Addiction Can Benefit You

Do millennials ever put their phones down? No.  In fact, 24% of millennials attached themselves to their smartphones less than 5 minutes after waking up.  An even more astounding 52% of millennials start using their smart phones just after being awake for 5 minutes.  Throughout the rest of the day, these digital obsessed millennials are likely to check their smartphones...

Explaining the “View Through”

Think click-through rates (CTR) are the only way to manage engagement with your digital ads? WRONG!  View-through rate (VTR) can make a huge impact on your advertising strategy by showing what digital elements are working for your campaign.  A view-through measures someone seeing an ad, and then returning to your homepage through another channel, without clicking on the ad...

Just What Is An Effective CTA?

CTA is Call-To-Action!  You can have the greatest digital strategy implemented but if your ads don’t have an equally great CTA – a compelling reason for the person to click or convert - then your campaign will not get the results you want. So, just what is an effective CTA?  Something that reaches out and grabs your potential customer and...

Shop ‘Til You Drop: Digital Influence on Retail Sales Hits $2.2 Trillion

Could this be the end of coupon mailers and Sunday ads? The year 2015 has shown an immense positive correlation between digital advertising and in-store retail sales.  Digital advertising is expected to influence 64 cents of every dollar spent in retail stores, or $2.2 trillion, by the end of this year. This figure has grown considerably since 2012, where digital advertising...

Digital Ad Spending Approaches 60 Billion This Year!

Digital Ad Spending is expected to reach about $60 Billion this year, and retailers will comprise 22% of that, or $12.9 billion. Retailers, by far, outpace all other industries. According to Victoria Petrock at eMarketer, “mobile, digital video, and programmatic buying are the brightest stars in the digital advertising lineup." Retailers will spend nearly twice as much as any other industry...

Does My Business HAVE to Blog? Yes.

As a business owner, you may have asked yourself- What is the point of blogging?  What do I blog about?  Do I HAVE to blog? Yes. Not only do you have to, but you want to. As of May 2015, there were more than 47 billion Web pages indexed on Google.  Instead of letting the 47,000,000,000 other pages intimidate you, educate...