#thefridayroundup

The Friday Roundup - September 28, 2018 Each and Every Friday – I outline a few of the articles and /or books that I have read over the last week or two that are worth ta king a look at.

Built To Last by Jim Collins

In Built To Last, Jim Collins and Jerry Porras research and explain the characteristics of companies that have massive success over a long period of time. These companies are: Premier institutions in their industry Widely admired by knowledgeable business people Made an significant impact in the world Had multiple generations of CEO's Been through multiple product (or service) life cycles Were founded before 1950 How do we know that these companies are so valuable? They compared these visionary companies with a comparison company that were founded at a similar time and in a similar industry. Think Ford vs GM, or HP vs Texas Instruments. In other words, other solid companies that were better than the general market. They found that $1 invested in the comparison companies would have returned two times what the general market would have returned. But the visionary companies would have returned fifteen times the general market. In essence, these companies have something to teach us about what it takes to be very good, for a very long time. Go here to grab a copy of this classic book...

Marketers prepare for changes in states’ sales tax nexus laws

It’s been two months since the Supreme Court ruled that states can now introduce legislation that will require e-tailers above a certain sales threshold to collect sales tax. It overruled a previous decision that took them off the hook from collecting sales tax from customers in states in which they did not have a physical presence — or nexus. The new decision paved the way for states to introduce their own sales tax nexus laws. Shortly after the ruling, the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) recommended that states wait until Jan. 1, 2019, “to begin sales tax collection requirements on remote sellers.” No state has yet introduced sales tax nexus legislation, but most marketers know it’s imminent. Since then, it’s been quiet. Too quiet. Meanwhile, is there anything that marketers can do? There’s no need to panic, SMBs will be fine Scott McKirahan owns and operates e-commerce websites and teaches businesses how to run their own. “The Supreme Court ruling only threw another monkey wrench into an already confusing system,” McKirahan said. “Fortunately, very few online stores will be affected … Most SMBs have very little to fear from the recent ruling.” Go here to finish reading the article...

Facebook Partner Categories Removed: What Now?

Facebook’s removal of Partner Category targeting options has been a topic for some months now. However, Facebook recently sent out an email to advertisers, warning them that they may have campaigns using these now-defunct targeting options. If you’re left wondering what to do with these changes, read on. What is Partner Category Targeting? Partner Categories are simply targeting groups that Facebook had previously made available based on partnerships with third-party data providers. This type of data sharing is common practice in digital advertising realms, but following various challenges (i.e. Cambridge Analytica news stories), Facebook has removed these targeting options. Continue Reading Here...

When Fear is Stopping You From Pursuing Meaningful Work

The Friday Roundup - September 21, 2018 Each and Every Friday – I outline a few of the articles and /or books that I have read over the last week or two that are worth ta king a look at.

Man's Search For Meaning  by Viktor Frankl

Viktor Frankl was a remarkable man. He was a prisoner in the concentration camps of Nazi Germany during WWII, and lost his wife, father, mother and brother there. Yet through all of the horrors he witnessed and the physical and mental suffering he endured, he was able to survive because of what he calls "the will to meaning." In his book, Man's Search For Meaning, Frankl recounts his experiences there, and how we was able to use his theories - called logotherapy - to stay alive when most people were not. Head over to Amazon and grab a copy of the book by clicking here...

The state of advertising on Instagram Stories in five charts

The rapid growth and consumption of Instagram Stories has made it hard for advertisers to ignore, even if they have reservations over whether they can match the high-end, premium content on the platform. Spending is shifting to Instagram, with brands like Smirnoff, Nike and Stella Artois starting to spend more money on the vertical video format. Here is the state of advertising on Instagram Stories, in five charts Advertisers are shifting ad dollars to Instagram due to Instagram Stories. Ad budgets are flowing into Instagram. Instagram ad spending is growing at a rapid rate thanks to the rise of Instagram Stories. Instagram accounted for 23 percent as much spend as Facebook in the second quarter, according to Merkle’s analysis of own clients’ spend. Go Here to Finish Reading...

Project Feels: How USA Today, ESPN and The New York Times are targeting ads to mood

Lately, media companies, including The New York Times, ESPN and USA Today, have rolled out ad products that they say can match ads to people in certain moods. USA Today Network in 2016 started categorizing its content by topic and tone, and scoring it based on the emotions it’s believed to most evoke. Last year, it started to sell advertising based on that knowledge with a product called Lens Targeting. Kelly Andresen, svp and head of Get Creative, USA Today Network’s content studio, said the publisher is trying to show a link between the emotions a story is likely to evoke and ad performance. An ad campaign for a nonprofit that was targeted to people reading inspirational stories resulted in a 25 percent higher donation rate than ads that weren’t targeted, she said. Go Here to Finish Reading....

Give Up Comfort

The Friday Roundup - September 7, 2018 Each and Every Friday – I outline a few of the articles and /or books that I have read over the last week or two that are worth ta king a look at.

12 Rules For Living  by Jordan Peterson

In life, there is a constant struggle between order and chaos. As human beings, we crave order and meaning in our lives in order to help us deal with the chaos and uncertainty we face on a day-to-day basis. In order to help us better deal with the realities of the world we live in, Jordan Peterson (Professor of Psychology at the University of Toronto) gives us his 12 Rules For Living. Here is Rule #1: Rule 1: Stand Up Straight With Your Shoulders Back Peterson starts off the book by discussing lobsters, and how the pecking order is determined at the bottom of the ocean. Basically, they determine the pecking order by fighting each other. Except, most of the fights are determined before any punches (or claw slams?) are thrown. When the lobsters come face to face, they size each other up. Most of the time, it's clear who the more dominant lobster is. As Peterson describes it, they are easy to pick out of a lobster line-up: they are a cocky, strutting sort of shellfish, and they are much less likely to back down when challenged. Of course, this is a metaphor for how things work in the real world for us. If you walk around with a straight back and your shoulders back, other people will view that as a signal of confidence. People conveying confidence get treated differently than people who convey weakness (slouched posture, shoulders slumped forward). It's a virtuous cycle, because the social reinforcement of being treated better will lead you to become more confident. So, stand up straight with your shoulders back. Go Here to grab a copy of this book...

Bring Purpose & Mindfulness to Your Work

Our work lives are filled with busyness, distraction, procrastination, responding to messages, checking on messages, and getting lost down rabbit holes. We struggle to be mindful and to focus on our meaningful work. And yet, many of us want to create a life of meaning, focus, and mindfulness. We know this, and yet we struggle. Why? What keeps us from this life of mindful focus and meaningful work? In this guide, I’ll talk about why we get pulled away, and then how to bring mindfulness to the process to find focus and create an impact with your work. Why We Can’t Focus If you think about how you spent your last few days, most of us would say we’re more distracted than we like. We procrastinate more. Or we’re super busy, responding to a thousand things, making lots of decisions, and not very mindful during this chaotic work day. What’s going on? A number of things: Go here to finish reading...

3 Google Analytics Reports Every Business Should Monitor

You’ve probably heard the phrase “Knowledge is power.” Well, that is absolutely true when it comes to your website. Without in-depth knowledge of what’s happening on your website, you’re basically flying blind. You don’t know how people are finding your site. You don’t know what they’re doing once they get there. And you don’t know which visitors are buying which products. In other words, you’re powerless to actually improve your website’s performance… because you don’t know what’s working and what isn’t. That’s where Google Analytics comes in. When you know how to use it, Google Analytics can tell you SO MUCH about your website and the people on it. Who are your users? Where are they coming from? What actions are they taking? This is the kind of information (power) you need to make smart, informed decisions to grow your profits and your business. But for many people, Google Analytics can seem overwhelming. Confusing. Complicated. And that’s especially true if you’re a beginner and you don’t know where to start. Go here to finish reading the rest of this post...

Amazon streamlines ad products under new Amazon Advertising brand

The Friday Roundup - August 24, 2018 Each and Every Friday – I outline a few of the articles and /or books that I have read over the last week or two that are worth ta king a look at.

Presuasion by Robert Cialdini

For nearly three years, author Robert Cialdini did research about what practices encouraged people to say “yes.” He studied salespeople, direct marketers, TV advertisers, charity fund-raisers, public relations specialists and corporate recruiters. Surprisingly, he learned that the highest achievers spent more time crafting what they did and said before making a request. The best persuaders become the best through pre-suasion, the process of arranging for recipients to be receptive to a message before they encounter it. It should be noted that no persuasive practice is ever foolproof. There are moments in time when an individual is particularly receptive to a communicator’s message. Cialdini used to go around at parties and offer to read people’s palms. Most of the time, he was simply saying broad statements such as “you are stubborn” or “you are unhappy about something,” but the guests always believed him. This is because, when deciding whether a possibility is correct, people typically look for confirmations of the idea rather than disconfirmations. Frequently the factor most likely to determine a person’s choice in a situation is not the one that counsels most wisely, it is the one that has been elevated in attention at the time of the decision. A marketer can greatly increase the chances of finding survey participants if they first asked people if they considered themselves helpful. A scientist can increases the willingness to try an unfamiliar product if they begin by asking if they consider themselves adventurous. Go Here to Grab a Copy of the Book....

Facebook removes 5K ad targeting filters to keep advertisers from discriminating against ethnic & religious groups

Facebook is continuing the push to make its platform safer for users, this time removing more than 5,000 ad targeting filters from its system to keep advertisers from discriminating against ethnic or religious groups. This latest move aims to prohibit advertisers from using filters for housing, employment or credit-related campaigns that could potentially keep ads for things like job postings, housing offers or credit applications from being displayed to specific ethnic or religious groups. “While these options have been used in legitimate ways to reach people interested in a certain product or service, we think minimizing the risk of abuse is more important. This includes limiting the ability for advertisers to exclude audiences that relate to attributes such as ethnicity or religion,” Facebook writes on its news blog. In addition to removing ad filters, Facebook will also be launching a certification tool within its Ads Manager platform that requires housing, employment and credit advertisers in the US to certify they are in compliance with Facebook’s non-discrimination policy. Go here to finish reading the article...

Facebook rolls out mobile-first video creation tools for advertisers

Facebook has rolled out a set of tools to help advertisers create video ads that are optimized for mobile environments. Marketers can use the tools to add motion to existing images and videos or create video ads from assets such as logos or photographs, the company announced in a blog poston Wednesday. Facebook first mentioned plans for the tools in July; its Creative Shop team unveiled a framework called Create to Convert to add lightweight motion to still images earlier this month. In its blog post, Facebook said it has “found that mobile-first creative has a 27 percent higher likelihood of driving brand lift and 23 percent higher likelihood of driving message association compared to video ads that are not optimized for mobile.” The tools include: Go here to finish reading the article...

How to Be Mindful All the Time

The Friday Roundup - August 17, 2018 Each and Every Friday – I outline a few of the articles and /or books that I have read over the last week or two that are worth ta king a look at.

The Organized Mind by Daniel Levitin

A place for everything, and everything in it's place. It's a principle that, for centuries, has allowed us to keep our physical world in order so that we can focus on whatever the task at hand is. However, these days we have added the complexity of our digital and social worlds to the mix, making it harder and harder to keep things organized, and thus stay on track with the most important goals in our life. Each day we are confronted with an unprecedented amount of information. Each of us processes about 100,000 words a day through all of the messages we are exposed to. The average person watches 5 hours of television each day, which is the equivalent of processing 20 gigabytes of audio-visual images. What does this have to do with your mind and how well it's organized? There are two things to consider here. First, your brain evolved to focus on one thing at a time. The processing capacity of the conscious mind has been estimated at approximately 120 bits per second, which means you can barely understand two people talking to you at the same time. Multi-tasking is a myth - your brain simply doesn't have the capacity to do it. To learn the second and grab a copy of the book - go here...

Blended ROI: The Ad Metric Pro’s Rely On But Rookies Don’t Even Know About

First let me start off with the problem that “Blended ROI”solves for you. Have you ever had an ad campaign that was good, but just not bringing in enough sales? Maybe it was just a few sales and the money was great, but it was just a handful of sales so didn’t really impact your life much? This strategy will help you scale your campaigns while still keeping them affordable. The problem is most people are shooting themselves in the foot. I first learned of this while working for Agora (who spends millions per month on ads). It was the only way we were able to scale from a few sales per day to 500+ sales per day. It’s called “Blended CPA” (CPA = cost per acquisition/sale/lead whatever) Now, if you’re already a pro media buyer you might be rolling your eyes. To the pro’s this is elementary, but I find MANY people still don’t know what this is or why it’s so important. Let’s work in real life examples… Go here to finish reading the article...

The Real Cost of Phone Addiction

You, like most people, probably use your phone too much. People spend an average of four hours a day staring at their handheld screen, according to the time-tracking app Moment, and that doesn’t include time spent using their phones to do other things, like listen to podcasts or take calls. Engage in any activity for that long and it changes your brain. Those changes may be positive if we are talking about, say, meditation. Less so if it’s time spent staring at your phone. For the past three years, I have been conducting research and writing a bookabout our relationships with our phones. I’ve since concluded that phone time is affecting everything from our memories and attention spans to our creativity, productivity, relationships, stress levels, physical health, and sleep. In short, if you feel like your phone is changing you — and not always for the better — you’re not crazy. You’re right. When we can’t check our phones, our bodies release stress hormones such as adrenaline and cortisol. Phones, advertising-based apps, and social media are designed to be hard to stop using. It’s their business model: The more time and attention we spend on them, the more data they can collect and the more targeted ads they can show us. These companies are so good at manipulating our brain chemistry that we often don’t even realize that we’re being manipulated. By always making sure there’s a new post or a potential “like” waiting for us, they have conditioned us to associate checking our phones with getting a reward— which makes us want to check even more. Go Here to Finish reading...

You’re Selling Wrong—But This is How You Fix It Using Instagram

The Friday Roundup - August 10, 2018 Each and Every Friday – I outline a few of the articles and /or books that I have read over the last week or two that are worth ta king a look at.

Radical Candor by Kim Scott

Author Kim Scott has seen a lot during her career. She's run startups, worked at Google for Sheryl Sandberg, and worked at Apple at their famed Apple University. Along the way she's made her share of mistakes, but has also picked up what makes leaders at companies like Google and Apple so successful. To set the stage, let's first take a look at what leaders and managers are actually responsible for.As Scott points out, bosses are ultimately responsible for the results that their teams create. And, because you need to get the work that creates the results done through people, the role of a boss is to guide a team to achieve results. Getting that done requires three separate things. First, managers are responsible for guidance. This mostly comes in the form of feedback, which after years of having it done to us (or by us) poorly, is something that most people have come to dread. Second, managers are responsible for team building. Work gets done through people, and the dynamics of the team you build has a lot to do with the results you get. If you build a great team, you get great results. Third, managers are responsible for creating results. What those three responsibilities require, Scott says, is strong relationships. Go here to grab a copy of the book...

5 ways to hack a higher marketing ROI

We often talk about marketing ROI, or the return on investment in advertising, as if it is a fixed and immutable number. You may have heard the story of a marketing professional at a large consumer goods company headquartered in Cincinnati who famously carried a little card around with the ROI of each media channel printed on it. Whenever a media salesperson pitched a new media channel, this dog-eared reference would be consulted. The marketing pro would compare the ROI of the proposed media to those listed on the card and frequently reject it based on these fixed (and inaccurate) ROI scores.Unfortunately, this anecdote represents a common theme in marketing. Looking at ROI in this myopic way limits the overall potential of your marketing mix to drive higher returns and increased performance for your business. So how should one look at marketing ROI, and more importantly, are there ways to increase it? Go Here to finish reading the rest of this article...

The Practice of Vast Open Sky

A number of meditation traditions have practices that are a dropping of the ego into wide open awareness. I’d like to share this kind of practice with you, because it is one of the most powerful experiences you can have. What happens when you open your mind to seeing its vast open nature … is transformational. You are no longer stuck in the smallness of our usual self-centered world. You become free.Imagine getting into a frustrated story about someone else, about how they’re behaving. If you can free yourself from the smallness of this worldview, drop the ego and let your mind open into the vastness of the open sky … you are all of a sudden much more open, much less constricted, much more relaxed. You can deal with the other person in a loving way, in an appropriate way that doesn’t come from pain or fear. Just as important: you are all of a sudden fully immersed in this moment. You are experiencing the moment just as it is, without the added layer of your story about what’s going on. Without judgments or ideals, without getting caught in thoughts about the other person. Just pure experience. And it is absolutely gorgeous. Finish reading by clicking this...

Customer Value Optimization: How to Build an Unstoppable Business

The Friday Roundup - August 3, 2018 Each and Every Friday – I outline a few of the articles and /or books that I have read over the last week or two that are worth ta king a look at.

Principles  by Ray Dalio

Ray Dalio, the mega billionaire founder of Bridgewater - the largest hedge fund in the history of the world - has this to say: "Before I begin telling you what I think, I want to establish that I’m a “dumb s-word” who doesn’t know much relative to what I need to know." The rise of Bridgewater from his apartment in Manhattan to a world power in the financial world is remarkable. What's even more remarkable is the way he did it, and what he attributes his success to. "Whatever success I’ve had in life has had more to do with my knowing how to deal with my not knowing than anything I know. The most important thing I learned is an approach to life based on principles that helps me find out what’s true and what to do about it." This book is divided up into two parts - Life Principles and Work Principles. (A must read...)

Facebook updates video ad metrics

Facebook is making adjustments to the way it measures video ads, offering a new metric, removing others and bringing in a new third-party measurement solution for video advertisers. Unrepeated watch time reported Based on feedback from advertisers, Facebook says it is changing the way its 3-second and 10-second video view counts are calculated. Before today, these metrics included time accumulated if a viewer rewound or rewatched a video. Now, the 3-second and 10-second video view metrics will only include unrepeated seconds of watch time. “Businesses have told us they’d prefer that these two metrics only count unrepeated seconds watched to more accurately measure consumption, so we’ll be updating how we calculate these two metrics across all video reporting in Ads Manager and Page Insights to no longer incorporate watch seconds from rewinding,” Facebook writes in the announcement on its business blog. Continue reading...

8 Key Lessons for Living a Simple Life

Living a simple life is about paring back, so that you have space to breathe. It’s about doing with less, because you realize that having more and doing more doesn’t lead to happiness. It’s about finding joys in the simple things, and being content with solitude, quiet, contemplation and savoring the moment. I’ve learned some key lessons for living a simple life, and I thought I’d share a few with you. • We create our own struggles. All the stress, all the frustrations and disappointments, all the busyness and rushing … we create these with attachments in our heads. By letting go, we can relax and live more simply. •Become mindful of attachments that lead to clutter and complexity. For example, if you are attached to sentimental items, you won’t be able to let go of clutter. If you are attached to living a certain way, you will not be able to let go of a lot of stuff. If you are attached to doing a lot of activities and messaging everyone, your life will be complex. •Distraction, busyness and constant switching are mental habits. We don’t need any of these habits, but they build up over the years because they comfort us. We can live more simply by letting go of these mental habits. What would life be like without constant switching, distraction and busyness? Continue Reading...

Facebook Paid Reach: Why Your Reporting May Miss the Complete Picture

 The Friday Roundup - July 27, 2018 Each and Every Friday – I outline a few of the articles and /or books that I have read over the last week or two that are worth ta king a look at.

Start Thinking Like a Buyer by Jerry Acuff

“People hate to be sold but they love to buy.” The essence of Stop Acting Like A Seller and Start Thinking Like A Buyer is that to succeed in sales, you need to transform a selling experience into a buying experience. You do that by asking great questions that uncover whether a fit exists between what your customer needs and what you have to offer. In this book you'll learn the DELTA method: Develop, Engage, Learn, Tell, and Ask. It's far more powerful than any slick sales technique, and you can start using it today. Head over to Amazon and pick it up: Click Here...

LinkedIn overhauls Campaign Manager for marketers managing high-volume accounts

LinkedIn has overhauled its Campaign Manager, giving it a redesigned interface and building out its back end to load data faster. The refreshed tool, announced Thursday, is designed to offer a more intuitive experience for marketers running multiple campaigns on the platform, with one-click breakdowns of campaign data and personalization options around what reports they see. High-level changes include a new navigation structure that allows users to switch between accounts and campaigns and drill down into ads with two clicks. The search feature has also been updated so that ad managers running multiple campaigns can quickly locate data for a specific campaign by querying the campaign name, campaign ID or ad format.  Click here to keep reading...

8 ways to use content to skyrocket user engagement

Much like commercials on TV, users are bombarded with content at every turn as they surf.  It’s overwhelming and as such, marketers are struggling to find ways to capture their attention and stand out. As marketers, not only do we need to conduct extensive research so we can make great content, we also need our content and web pages to be promoted, discovered and engaged with. To help with all facets of content development, user engagement, or “user signals,” should be actively tracked in Google Analytics as part of your content marketing campaign. This is important since it’s long been speculated that user experience is a ranking factor. Understanding who engages with your content will help with future content campaigns and business decisions. When users engage with your content and you actively track their actions, you can benefit by: An increase in leads and conversions. Increasing the chances of a return visit. Indirectly influencing search engine rankings for relevant keyword terms. Cultivating brand loyalty. Establishing your presence and visibility on the web. Increased conversations and “chatter” about your brand. Go here to finish reading the article...

The Three Most Powerful Motivations