For Advertisers
- We added a call out for the primary payment method in the billing tab and updated icons to address some confusion on the billing page.
- We created a filter for transaction types to items in billing history page to make it easier to scan just payments or just ad deliveries.

For Publishers
- The publisher dashboard and reports pages are now completely updated with our new look and feel.  The publisher dashboard was released last week, but the ad space and campaign report UIs are now also updated.
- We clarified the view details page for publishers, including the ad preview for new advertisers.

We’ll continue to update and improve the site, and we’d love your feedback. Visit our forum to log your comments.

• Manage your site-targeted and retargeting campaigns
• View weekly, monthly, or custom date range charts
• View metrics including impressions, clicks, CTR, and cost
• View top performing ads, sites, or campaigns

We hope you like the new interface, and we’re eager to hear your feedback.   We just launched a feedback forum that will help us all communicate better.  We believe that the best ideas come from users that are engaged in the system, and we welcome the opportunity to openly collaborate on the AdRoll platform.

Please visit our new forum and vote, create, or comment on ideas, bugs, or general feedback.

Look forward to hearing from you!

SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 27 /PRNewswire/ — AdRoll’s RoundTrip, the retargeting solution for brands of all sizes, has found that cross-platform retargeting campaigns deliver better ROI than retargeting on a single network alone. Through integrations with a host of partners, such as Google Ad Exchange, AdBrite, and OpenX, RoundTrip has seen advertisers’ cost-per-click decrease while maintaining higher click-thru and conversion rates, resulting in better ROI advertising.

Retargeting is an advertising technique that allows brands to bring back prospective customers who leave a site without purchasing, by showing them ads on other sites they visit later. RoundTrip’s large cross-platform inventory pool helps small and medium-sized brands (SMBs) achieve scale in retargeting campaigns and reach their customers more consistently. Access to greater inventory also improves optimization, leading to more cost-effective campaigns.

Cross-platform retargeting campaigns run on RoundTrip have resulted in a 30% cost reduction over retargeting run on a single platform. “Using a single platform to retarget is limiting. When you can expand the reach of a campaign, we see cross-platform results that exceed paid search ROI,” said Aaron Bell, AdRoll’s CEO. “As the first retargeting solution designed specifically for SMBs, we aim to simplify the process of running cross-platform campaigns and help brands generate sales and increase visibility.”

RoundTrip offers cross-platform campaign management and reporting in a single, easy-to-use dashboard. Advertisers can view and optimize campaigns based on ad size, placement, or platform. “Using AdRoll has improved my retargeting results. I see all my results in one place and can watch my CPC drop as I try new platforms,” said Scott Jordan, CEO of ScotteVest. “I’ve used retargeting in the past, but AdRoll’s cross-platform solution provides superior results to my earlier experiences, making retargeting simple and profitable for ScotteVest.” AdRoll is offering a free two-week retargeting trial to the first two hundred advertisers to sign up.

Attribution takes off

Microsoft has been beating the drum for engagement mapping for a while now, driven by their indignity of Google getting all of the credit (and $) for the “last click.” Despite their efforts, their message of attribution hasn’t really been embraced. That’s going to change.  As a recent Forrester report by Emily Riley points out, there are enough companies working on measuring and reporting attribution that someone is going to hit on something that’s easy to understand, and cheap enough to implement, and advertisers will finally take note.  It’s not a huge intuitive leap to understand that display ads can have a big impact; it’s just a matter of having tools to show it.  Even if most advertisers don’t actually implement attribution technology, it will become well enough understood to help display 2.0 take off in 2010.

Retargeting becomes a mainstay for all e-commerce advertisers

With results rivaling paid search advertising, retargeting is proving to be an essential, ROI-positive technique for brands of all sizes. Internet shoppers like to browse to find the best offers.  It’s been shown that 98% of them don’t convert on their first visit to an online store. Retargeting is an extremely efficient use of funds (ie, you are only targeting highly qualified window-shoppers as they browse cheaper inventory.) As more display inventory becomes accessible and efficient through ad exchanges, and retargeting ads themselves rapidly advance, 2010 will be the breakout year for this technique.

Ad networks actually consolidate

Over the past 2 years, industry insiders have loved to cite the unimaginable 300+ ad networks whose very existence is implied to be a crime against humanity. However, thanks to some tight relationships and the agency world’s slow adoption of new technologies (a whole other story) the presumed collapse of The 300 did not happen.  Well, with the launch of agency owned trading desks, DSPs, and Yield Optimizers aggregating impressions, the number of ad networks is going to decline.  It’s not just going to be obsolete vertical ad networks and undifferentiated arbitragers either; we’re going to see consolidation with the big guys as well.

We’ll swing back towards CPM as the preferred pricing model

If you follow conventional thinking, and the current trajectory, you’d assume performance-based pricing models would come to dominate the online media landscape.  However, there are a couple of factors that will not only change this trajectory, but will actually cause a pendulum swing back to CPM pricing.  This will occur because it’s the easiest way for savvy digital marketers who have proprietary data, or some other “secret sauce” to secure impressions that they know have particular value for them.  Along these lines, companies that buy media on behalf of end advertisers are actually making huge margins by charging on a CPA/CPL and arbitraging this through savvy CPM purchasing using cookie data, RTB, etc.  It’s just a matter of time before the end advertisers wise up, and ask that they see spend on a CPM basis.  This will make the margin the provider is taking more transparent, and ensure that the advertiser is not missing out on savings that come from effective optimization.  Good news for smart advertisers who know to ask for this, bad news for arbitragers.

At least one yield optimizer disappears/changes its business model

There are too many players, too much marketing that is way ahead of product, and too little value being created for all 5-6 to maintain the status quo.  The key to these models working is through servicing large publishers.  Small publishers have too little data to make it possible to optimize between ad networks, and it probably takes as much effort to bring one of them on as it does to bring on a large site.  Unfortunately, there’s a big storm brewing that will alter the relationship between yield optimizers and large publishers.  Now that yield optimizers are trying to reinvent themselves as ad exchanges, they’re basically creating channel conflict on steroids.  Channel conflict is the reason premium publishers decided to direct their scorn at ad networks this past year.  Just wait until they realize that yield optimizers are not only cannibalizing their direct sales by servicing buyers, but also have a disincentive to effectively optimize their remnant so they can sell it themselves to ad networks and others in order to keep more margin.  Sparks will fly.

A currently non-existent company will be both founded and IPO within 2010

Business cycles are turning over faster than ever with higher highs and lower lows.  Huge valuations are being handed out by former Russian enterprises to companies that sell weapons to mafia bosses (virtual of course.)  All the great stories lines of the next bubble are being written.  My working title for the movie:  Irrational Exuberance… this time it’s social.”

A lot of advertisers ask us how to build a great banner ad, and we’re happy to help.  Your customers see hundreds of ads daily, and it’s hard to make a good impression. A successful online ad campaign needs quality banner ads, so we’ve come up with a few guidelines to help you stand out from the crowd.

1. Keep it simple: Overly cluttered banners are tuned out. Many banner ads are too busy, packed with images and text that the customer doesn’t really read or need.  Keep your ad simple by using a single image and concise, clear text.

2. Clarity is golden: Your customers should know from a single glance at your ad what your product is and why they should want it. Your product name and a quick, descriptive slogan should be enough. You know more about your products than anyone else needs to know so write what you want to say and then cut that in half.

3. Be compelling. Banners that include compelling, interesting offers convert more than ones that don’t. For example, include a promo code specific to your campaign giving customers 10% off their purchase. This will also help you track conversions so you know which campaigns are performing. Free shipping offers also tend to convert well.

4. Include a call to action: The highest converting banners have a clear call to action directing potential customers to take the next step to becoming converted users. A defined button that says “Buy Now” or “Start Your Free Trial” is a great way to encourage clicks your banner.

*If you’re doing a retargeting campaign, remember that your potential customer has already been to your site. Show them something new, or bring them back with a better offer. Start a free trial for retargeting with the promo code FREETRIAL.

With AdRoll’s easy Ad Builder, you have a great opportunity to experiment with creating your own ads. We’ve seen a lot of ads out there, and the best performing ones with the highest click through rates are those which incorporate all or most of the suggestions above. Have you found other tactics that worked well? We’re always looking for ways to continue to improve campaign performance. If you have questions or want help, please get in contact with Adroll’s Creative team at creative@adroll.com.

Edit: Thanks to the folks at AdExchanger for the link. To clarify, we’ve been bribing our customers with burritos to test the new signup flow for us. We ourselves haven’t yet taken any food bribes but would not be opposed to them, especially in the form of burritos.

Snack Day is so integral to our being that an ad hoc Adroll Snack Day calendar has evolved around it. Snack Day Eve (the day before Snack Day) is a highly anticipated happy time, much like Christmas Eve or Erev Rosh Hashana. In contrast, every other non-Thursday can be a dark time in the Adroll kitchen, as these are the days that are furthest from Snack Days, both past and future. However if the prior Snack Day was well coordinated by Caitlin and Peter Lord of the Snack Budget has granted her leniency, there may not be a dark time in the Snack Day lull and we may have treats to guide us through the tunnel to the light that is the next Snack Day.

Like any good CSO, Caitlin is constantly modifying our company snack order strategy as Adroll grows and our collective snacking preferences change. She listens to her constituency and makes decisions that benefit the greater good. In anticipation of Snack Day today, we all wrote down a few thoughts about Snack Day and what it means to us. If you celebrate a corporate or personal Snack Day, please share in the comments what Snack Day means to you.

“Snack day is my guiding light, the wind beneath my wings” -Lem

“Snack Day allows me to relate to the common worker at Adroll, when I’m not eating mana.” -Aaron

“Snack Day is the master key that opens the gates of happiness.” -Peter

“Snack Day is like D-Day, but the exact opposite.” -Griffin

“Snack day compensates for unavenged sins committed against us.” -Adam

“Snack day is to Adroll what Bastille Day is to France.” -Joe

“Wonderful snack day. Our spirits rejuvenate. Cabinets replenished.” -Mitch

“Snack day is like a bacon wrapped butterscotch sunday dipped in beer.” -Greg

“Snack day and no one gets killed.” -Ben

“Snack Day. When the Adroll cup runneth over and the horn of plenty is full.” -Rob

“Snack Day is just like halloween, but with more mini twix bars.” -Schell

“On snack day the food appears but soon is gone sad pants.” -Matt