Category Archives: advertising

Lyft Introduces Lyft Media

advertising

Lyft has introduced Lyft Media, its very own media and advertising business. “As more people resume their daily travel, we’ve built a suite of new products to allow advertisers to engage with this growing audience throughout their transportation journeys.”

Lyft says, “Our vision is to build the world’s transportation media network, delivering value to advertisers while also elevating the platform experience for riders and drivers. Over the past two years, we’ve been growing our media business and are excited to share more details about our products, new partnerships, and future plans.”

Lyft Halo: Lyft Halos are smart digital rooftop screens that capture attention with engaging videos targeted to the vehicle’s exact location and time. Brands can reach mass audiences at the specific times and places most relevant to their business, and track the performance of their campaigns through Lyft’s attribution partners. This provides a level of targeting and measurement unprecedented in out-of-home (OOH) advertising.

In 2019, Lyft acquired rooftop advertising startup Halo Cars to start their own media business. These rooftop screens are available in New York City, Los Angeles, and Washington, D.C., with more cities to come.

Lyft Tablets: Lyft’s in-car tablets are seamlessly integrated with the rideshare experience. Riders can track progress along their route, rate and tip drivers, and control the music of their ride through Lyft’s partnership with iHeartRadio – all directly from the tablet. Brands can serve dynamic content to a highly engaged rideshare audience for the duration of the ride.

Lyft Bikes: Lyft operates the largest bike share network in the country, including Citi Bike (New York City), Divvy (Chicago), Bay Wheels (San Francisco Bay area), and Nice Ride (Minneapolis) with over 3,000 stations, 45,000 biles, and 36 million rides annually in those markets.

As Lyft rolls out their next-generation e-bikes, they will also be upgrading their stations to include digital ad panels.

Lyft Skins: Lyft Skins allows advertisers to engage the rideshare audience with Lyft’s most powerful digital channel – the Lyft App itself. Brands can reach Lyft’s almost 20 million active riders with a customizable branded icon and banner.

Lyft partnered with Cardi B for an immersive Lyft Skins campaign that went viral – generations over 2.6 million social media impressions, 50,000 code redemptions, and 2,000 tweets. The Lyft App is the starting point for all of Lyft’s transportation modes, and they are excited to continue bringing delightful experiences to it.

The Wall Street Journal reported that Lyft will work with third-party firms to help advertisers measure campaign performance using aggregate data, but won’t collect personal data from riders, said Kenan Saleh, general manager of Lyft Media and former chief executive of Halo.

Targeting for app, tablet, and rooftop ads will be based on the time and location of trips, and riders can turn the tablet off at any time, though fewer than 1% have done so in test studies, said Mr. Saleh.

As an immune-compromised person, I really don’t want to touch a tablet that has been touched by countless Lyft riders. That’s really not safe for me, especially if someone sneezed or coughed on it. I also wish that more ride-share drivers would wear masks because it would make it much safer for immune-compromised riders to avoid getting sick. Lyft wants to delve into advertisements – but should also consider the needs of people with disabilities.

Wife’s Search Appears In My Adverts

advertising

Anyone who has spent any time on the internet will have seen this. You do a search for a product or service, look at a few options, and for the next few days, you’ll see whatever you found advertised back to you in web pages. It’s annoying because either I’ve already bought the product or else I’ve dismissed it as unsuitable.

Here’s an example. The picture on the left is a holiday house in Iceland. The picture on right is the house advertised back to me later via a Dilbert email.

It all looks fairly normal, except that I didn’t do the search for the house. My wife did. The picture on the left is from my wife’s Samsung S2 tablet. The picture on the right is from my Huawei Mediapad.

I was very surprised to see this house. I only knew about it because my wife had shown me the pictures for Iceland as a holiday destination. Somehow the advertisers have managed to digitally link me and my wife. I have no idea how this was done as we have our own accounts on all our devices.

It’s really cunning. Advertise to partners for things that the other has already been searching on. Sow that seed in a husband’s mind – “Oooh, that looks like something Jenny would like! I’ll order that now.” Kerching…

Be aware of this. If you get advertised for something that you don’t recognise and would probably be of interest to your partner, you’re being fished.

And if it’s something that you don’t recognise, you’d quite like and your birthday’s coming up, just act surprised when you unwrap it.

Anyone else seen this? Very insidious.

Let Your Fingers Do The Walking

advertising,

A Yellow Pages came through my letterbox the other day along with other festive promotions. That was the first clue – a Yellow Pages didn’t used to fit through the letterbox, being usually left on the doorstep for the homeowner to trip over. The next clue was the blue flash in the top right hand corner “Final Edition”. That’s right, the paper copy of the Yellow Pages is shortly to be no more.

It’s not exactly surprising. This copy was a svelte 200+ pages of sub-A4, not the 1,000 page brick of a book that defied judo champions. First published in 1966, the last of 104 final editions will drop onto doormats in January 2019. Along with everything else, finding businesses has gone on-line and there’s now yell.com for all your local business needs.

Yellow Pages was responsible for some iconic catchphrases and adverts. “Let your fingers do the walking” and Fly Fishing by JR Hartley entered the zeitgeist in 1983, decades before the web and memes. I’m sure there will be fond memories of Bike, French Polishers and Cleaners too.

Truly an end of an era.

(This article is about the British Yellow Pages)

AdPlugg Can Now be Used for AMP Ads

advertising

AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) is a technology from Google that makes your pages load faster in mobile browsers. AdPlugg can now be used to serve ads into your AMP formatted pages.

AdPlugg can schedule, rotate, and report on the ads that appear in your AMP pages. This might be useful for those who want to include ads on their website, and it could potentially get your website more traffic from mobile users.

The standard way to implement AMP is to have two page urls, one regular one and an AMP one. Mobile browsers are told to use the AMP version. Pages that adhere to AMP standard often load almost twice as fast as a regular web page. This is due to a simplified structure, improved cachability and the elimination (or deferment) of slow moving resources.

AMP points out that it has strict standards regarding what can appear on an AMP page. This is to ensure fast load times. In order for an element to appear on an AMP page, it needs to be an officially approved AMP extension.

AdPlugg is now an official AMP extension and a provider of amp ads. AMP has also integrated with the AMP WordPress plugin from Automattic to make it easy to place ads into your WordPress powered AMP pages.

There is a helpful step-by-step list on the AMP website that walks you through how to make this work. It also has a brief description on how to add tags manually or programatically for people who are not using WordPress. Interestingly, AMP has a link you can click to see what the AMP version of their post about AdPlugg would look like on a mobile device.

Flattr Plus Seeks to Revolutionize Web Monetization

advertising, ,

Flattr Plus logoOne of the most common ways for websites to generate income is to post ads. Today, many people use ad blockers so they won’t be annoyed by all those ads. Flattr Plus provides a way for people to support their favorite websites and use an ad blocker at the same time.

Flattr Plus, which is currently in beta, was created by Flattr and Ad Block Plus. It is expected to launch at the end of this month. In short, Flattr Plus gives people an automated way to make micropayments that support the creators of the web content that the person engages with the most. You set a budget, and Flattr Plus’s algorithm automatically distributes the right amounts to the right sites.

According to E-Commerce Times, Adblock Plus and Flattr together get 10% of what is donated. It also reported that consumers need to provide a method of payment and specify how much they are willing to contribute to their favorite sites. A person can choose to make one-off donations or regular payments.

Flattr Plus solves the problems with existing micropayment solutions. In previous micropayment schemes, users had to manually fund single articles. The Flattr Plus algorithm automates that process.

Flattr Plus has information for publishers (or content creators). It states that the algorithm ensures that payments will be based on actual engagement with a website rather than just visits. Flattr Plus will work with all publishers and content creators who already have Flattr.

Flattr Plus has a really cute video that explains why it is needed.
https://youtu.be/7S3aQSOYUbk

Everyone Hates Ads that Cover the Screen

advertising,

Google App Interstitial adWhat do you do when you visit a website that allows you to view the content for a second or two and then covers the entire screen with an ad? If you are like me, you rush to close the browser. A (very narrowly focused) case study by Google reveals that people are not a fan of those types of ads.

Personally, I hate it when websites give me two seconds to look at the article I wanted to read, and then cover the entire screen with an ad. It’s a confusing situation to be in, for about a second or two, until I realize what happened.

Where did that article go? Oh, it’s been buried beneath a huge ad. The next thing I do is close the browser. It’s quicker than trying to figure out where to click on the ad to make it go away. I don’t want to waste time searching for an x to click when I could be visiting a different website that has the same information that I wanted to read about.

I don’t use my phone to surf the internet, but I’m certain that if I did, I’d be equally eager to evade those annoying “in your face” ads. And, I wouldn’t be alone. Google did a case study on their mobile ads for the Google+ app. They used interstitials that covered the screen in an effort to make people aware of their app. They had a feeling that they should remove the ad, but wanted to gather data about it before doing so. Here’s what they found:

9% of the visits to their interstitial page resulted in the “Get App” button being pressed. Some of those who clicked that button already had the app. Some of them never followed through and installed the app. I suspect that these clicks were from people who were just trying to get the ad out of their way.

69% of the visitors to their interstitial page abandoned the page. These people didn’t go to the app store, and they didn’t continue to use the Google+ mobile website. In other words, they were annoyed by the ad that blocked what they wanted to see, so they went somewhere else.

Google then chose to remove the interstitial ad, and replace it with a Smart App Banner. One result was that 1- day active users on their mobile website increased by 17%. They have since retired the annoying interstitial ad that was chasing users away from their website.

If there is a moral to the story, it is this: If you want people to visit your website – don’t cover the entire website with an ad seconds after a person decides to give your website a try.