VM Weekly Roundup #thisweekineverything

Welcome to our industry news roundup, where the rubber meets the roadmap.

Digital Advertising:

Snap Launches Ad Manager, Touts Auction Buying

Instagram and Facebook may have spent the past year trying to eat Snapchat’s lunch with newly added “Story” features and photo filters, but it looks like Snapchat is ready to hit back with their debut of a new Ad Manager platform. Like Facebook Ad Manager, the platform will be self-serve and auction-based, and advertisers will have the option of creating special “Snap-sized” video ads through Snapchat’s Certified Partners program.

10 Second Tip: Snapchat has finally given businesses a clear, usable method for taking advantage of Snapchat’s massive user base for advertising–both creating ads, and monetizing them.

Test Drive: With an ad platform this new, there’s no guarantee that advertising with Snapchat is a wise bet just yet. But if your target demographic skews young, it makes sense to start thinking about what a Snapchat video ad could look like for your business.

Influencer Marketing:

How marketers can weather influencer marketing’s messy puberty phase

41% of advertisers who’ve used influencer marketing report that they’ve seen better results from traditional advertising efforts, and 63% of those who’ve used influencers plan to increase their budgets for it this year. But as the latest in mega-hyped marketing trends, you’ll find a lot of information online about using influencers that’s overblown, both pro and con.

10 Second Tip: The cat’s out of the bag on influencer marketing, which means lots of competitors are using it. That means there’s a lot more noise right now than there is signal, but the opportunities offered by influencer marketing can still be real–if you’re discerning and choose an influencer right for your brand and budget.

Test Drive: Go ahead and try reaching out to an influencer if you’ve already worked to build content and a reasonable following in your niche. If your niche is clear and your messaging is strong, you’ve got a much better chance of getting influencer marketing that resonates and leads to more user-generated content.

B2B Marketing:

How B2B Marketers Leverage Data to Target Buyers

Marketing Automation seems to be here to stay, and eMarketer shows how B2B marketers are putting all that data to use for user personalization. Their research showed that up to 70% of those surveyed used some form of data collection to inform their efforts, and 65% were counting social media metrics (from Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, or Instagram) in that figure.

10 Second Tip: Everybody’s doing it: big data collection is part of smart marketing today. As our devices become more and more personalized, advertising has to address this shift with personally relevant marketing.

Test Drive: Don’t market into a vacuum–keep track of your social media analytics and any other marketing data you gather and use it to create smart content your target demo will respond to. Experiment with different ad formats and messaging to find what works.