The Stairwell

How to Create Display Ads That Work

September 18th, 2013 Posted by charles in Digital Advertising, Findings, Marketing, Tutorials, Uncategorized

Sam Karow, our esteemed guru of dynamic display advertising, recently spoke at the latest national Bizo webinar for marketers in every vertical. Below is a reprint of his quick-hit presentation which we think will be of value to anyone currently advertising online or looking to.

Making great display ads requires careful planning, proper evaluation and use of best practices.

Planning
1. Begin by ensuring the website is ready. This includes campaign landing pages, conversion and retargeting tags and a clear picture of the conversion path, conversion rate and average order value (if the brand has an ecommerce product)

2. Also

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Amazon Owner Buys Washington Post: What That Could Mean For The Digital Space

August 29th, 2013 Posted by joshuasinason in Business, Digital Advertising, Findings, Marketing, Uncategorized

I’d like to start off today by talking to you about a great investment opportunity. This guy I know he’s starting this awesome service that will take all the news from the last day and bundle it up, and he’ll deliver it to your door every morning. You can take this bundle of news on the train with you. There’s no need to download anything, no iPad needed, no tablet compatibility issues, it’s all right there in your hands, and when you’re done you can just throw it away and he’ll make sure you get it again the very next

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Amazon and Barnes & Noble Gear Up to Fight for the Future

July 11th, 2013 Posted by in Business, Digital Advertising, News

Barnes and Noble has been in a state of flux these last few months, as the last major chain bookstore standing, people have looked to them as the last vestige of the brick and mortar stores against the growing juggernaut of the digital retailer. In the last few weeks, Barnes and Noble have made plans to outsource the nook and hopefully revamp and bolster their retail chain. Rumors started swirling about just who this third party vendor could be, with companies like Microsoft and Sony being the favorites with some people looking to Facebook and video game billionaire Gabe Newell

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Food Trucks Use Social Media Better Than Restaurants

May 30th, 2013 Posted by joshuasinason in Business, Digital Advertising, Findings, Marketing, Technology

Sometimes people ask me what was the best taco I’ve ever had. Okay, no one really asks me that. But if they did I’d say it was the Korean Taco Truck here in Chicago that I was lucky enough to stumble across. The moment they stopped the first thing I saw was a sign about just how to follow them on social media. They had QR codes for every site and every special. In short, they knew how to use social media. They thrived on it. It was as integral to their business model as the wheels on their truck.

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Harry & David Harvests 70% Higher Average Order Value Using Billups Design Ecommerce Ad Campaigns

May 15th, 2013 Posted by in Business, Digital Advertising, Findings, News, Technology, Uncategorized

For this article as it appears in Wall Street Journal Market Watch, go here: http://on.mktw.net/10dsfvT

CHICAGO, May 9, 2013 — Billups Design announces the results of extremely successful Fall and Holiday ecommerce campaigns for Harry & David, and being picked as the lead digital creative agency for Harry & David’s 2013 ecommerce ad campaigns.

Harry & David ads combined branding with dynamic headlines tailored to specific customer behavioral segments and real-time product carousels to produce a 70% increase in average order value compared to 2011 Holiday campaigns.

Harry & David dynamic remarketing ads performed exceptionally well producing an 83%

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Streamy Awards Highlight Talent Making It Big On Small Budgets

February 21st, 2013 Posted by joshuasinason in Awards, Business, News

In the last few weeks I’ve written a lot about how YouTube has attempted to drive original content on their site and begin to operate like a real TV medium, a genuine alternative to traditional cable outlets. Those attempts have had some stumbling blocks, but it’s been a huge boom for content creators, some of whom have build entire companies out of their YouTube channels.

Starting a few years ago The Streamy Awards began highlighting a few of these companies to show just how much new media has made, even if some of the major content generators cannot get it

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Facebook vs. Google: Clash of the Digital Titans

February 8th, 2013 Posted by joshuasinason in Business, Digital Advertising, Search Engine Marketing

Working with Google SEO has become an ever-changing task. One minute you’re working on keyword integration and the next thing you know, they’ve merged Google Places and Google Plus into something and you find yourself working on a social media site. In Google’s ever increasing attempts to establish for all intents and purposes a monopoly position in search engine marketing, they’ve ruffled the feathers of many big agencies and others, the biggest amongst them being Facebook.

Google’s initial attempts to compete with Facebook have had less than encouraging results. Google Wave and Google Buzz failed to obtain any foothold within

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The Relics of Mass Market Marketing

January 25th, 2013 Posted by joshuasinason in Business, Digital Advertising, Marketing

I spoke to a gentleman who was still using newspaper ads. He listened to all the people who told him print was dead. He was a smart guy and he had a pretty good print media strategy, but the fact was that instead of paying for a newspaper ad that reached a wide demographic, he could spend less and target his exact audience. In response, this smart older guy told me that he liked newspapers because he reaches the widest possible audience.

This not a wrong statement, well it actually is… but there was a time when that idea represented

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The Cable Cutters Continue To Rise And Revolutionize Your Advertising Dollars

January 16th, 2013 Posted by joshuasinason in Digital Advertising, Marketing, News, Technology

There is an old saying amongst marketers working for casinos and the entertainment industry. When I worked in the marketing department of a casino during some of the worst economic times they referred to their business, along with movies and television, as “recession proof.” They thought, as others have believed since the days of Sullivan’s Travels, that entertainment and media would make money in any economy. Ultimately people will find the dollars to be entertained. Many of the same media strategists figured this old adage would extend to TV. However, based on an increasingly large culture of people looking

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Twitter and Neilson Start Tracking Television Views For Ad Revenue

December 26th, 2012 Posted by joshuasinason in Business, Digital Advertising, Marketing, News

It seems on a week to week basis there is a different Social Media site trying to work their way into the television industry. Whether it’s YouTube pushing for original content and exchanging funding for ad revenue or Facebook hinting at their own TV App that lets you surf what your friends are watching, the world is inching closer to using social media as the main source for entertainment and multimedia ad revenue. This week Twitter entered the game by announcing partnership with Neilson (the company that provides the TV ratings your favorite shows live and die by) to create

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