Using data science to improve your enterprise paid search marketing results
As QuanticMind looks to move in on Marin Software's territory, which platform is right for you? Columnist Travis Wright explains how data science can boost your campaigns and ad spend.
If you’ve been in the enterprise search game for as long as I have, you’ve seen many of the same vendors dominate the ecosystem for the better part of a decade. Marin Software, Kenshoo, Adobe Media Optimizer/Efficient Frontier, Google DoubleClick and others have been the major players, yet many of these have yet to capitalize on the trend of using data science to automate the optimization of your PPC.
QuanticMind recently announced that it’s capitalizing on the re-platforming of Marin Software’s core infrastructure — offering current Marin Software customers a free migration tool to make the integration of, and transition to, QuanticMind as smooth as possible.
QuanticMind is one of the leading predictive advertising management software companies, and when it announced that it was an improvement over Marin Software’s platform, there were plenty of naysayers. After all, Marin has repeatedly shaken up its products, including social, display and search.
Marin Software has been a staple of paid search for years, with more than $7.8 billion in advertising spend going through the platform. But because technology is always in a state of leveling up, there may be other providers out there that have the remedy you’re looking for.
Enter predictive advertising management
Predictive advertising management is supposed to improve advertising performance, but if that transition isn’t smooth, then chaos ensues — along with lost revenues and customers.
One of the reasons I personally think QuanticMind could have a leg up over its rivals is the sheer volume of data points that it optimizes for. Marketers who take advantage of all the data signals available have a competitive advantage over those who are using a more limited set of data.
For example, what if you could target searchers based on keyword, device, time of day, ZIP code, weather conditions in two days and the current NASDAQ rates? Today, modern advertising management platforms provide this level of granular targeting. When data science meets search advertising, you can improve advertising ROI dramatically.
Data that you can optimize your paid search campaigns around today. Data science, FTW!
Digital Marketing Depot’s “Enterprise Paid Media Campaign Management Platforms 2016: A Marketer’s Guide” report by Marketing Land discusses targeting for search marketing platforms, which is one of the cornerstone services that QuanticMind wants to deliver to customers. This method ups the value of a customer for life by mixing purchase intent with data.
Migration delays
At the end of 2015, Marin segued its Display traffic product to a new platform right on the heels of the migration in mid-2015 to the SocialMoov application. Just a few months later, in 2016, SocialMoov was again migrated to yet another new platform.
Earlier in 2016, Marin Software gave shareholders a heads-up that there would be more delays thanks to a re-platforming of their Search products, moving the deadline from late Q2 to Q4. However, most migration isn’t slated to begin until 2017. This was the reason that several of my enterprise clients moved over to QuanticMind.
“The migrations involving Social and Display are steps in an evolutionary process as we move toward releasing the new platform later this year,” John McNulty, vice president of global marketing at Marin Software, explained in an email. “Each release provides efficiencies and more functionality for our clients. And, none of the migrations involving Social or Display have affected our Search customers.”
Meanwhile, QuanticMind has a plan in place: New customers will get Marin Software data import tools to ensure data files configured for their software can be transferred to QuanticMind with no format changes required.
The CEO of QuanticMind, Chaitanya Chandrasekar, said in a statement:
[blockquote]The tools, methodology and training we’ve put in place will accelerate a successful switch… [QuanticMind] was founded to bring the advertising management platform category into the future.[/blockquote]
For those customers migrating from Marin Software to QuanticMind, Chandrasekar mentioned that there would be free integration to a number of data sources like advertising, CRM and A/B testing, and more are on the table, as is a standardized methodology of best practices that were developed through prior migrations.
Finally, training programs created by QuanticMind consultants who have worked with Marin Software for years will help end users achieve a smooth transition, according to the company.
As with any marketing technology, sometimes a leader can grow complacent, which gives its rivals a more competitive edge. It appears that QuanticMind may be looking to gain an advantage.
If you’re spending more than $1 million a year on enterprise paid search, it may be worthwhile to your organization to consider moving onto a platform that uses smart data science to optimize your campaigns and ad spend.
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