Preventing and Monitoring Web Form Spam

Preventing and Monitoring Web Form Spam

by | Dec 8, 2023 | Blog, Business, Performance

Preventing and Monitoring Web Form Spam

Owen Yorio

The Cowbell Agency

If you own a website, you should know by now how pervasive web form spam can be. It can start as a nuisance, but can quickly turn into an actual security threat. While the constant unusable “leads” are an issue, a greater threat is someone trying to take over your site. That is why it is important to take some precautionary steps to prevent this invasive spam.

Annoying Spam

These and other AI downsides and challenges need to be considered before allowing yourself to be assimilated. One important consideration with using AI is maintaining your brand voice. It’s important to tailor and customize the AI-generated content for your audience, as it relates to your brand. This way customers still get to experience that personal customized touch, and businesses can still enjoy time-saving content creation. 

Phishing Spam

There are also types of spam that are sent out by a computer system designed to send out phishing submissions to a site. This information could be used to trick site admins or other notification receivers at a company to click on links, or hand out personal information that could be used against them. These types of spam form submissions are easily avoided for people who understand what these look like. It is also important to avoid clicking on any links you may come across in these web form submissions, as they could have malware attached to them, or on the link’s destination.

Malicious Spam

Another type or web form scam can potentially give site control over to a would-be hacker. If your site is not properly maintained and monitored, there could be holes left in its defenses. If there are any of these in our site, a web form could turn into an open doorway for malicious content. It is important to constantly be checking on your site, and monitoring it for any strange changes. Keeping any backend themes and plugins updated is another great way to make sure that doorway stays closed.

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Mastering the Art of Conquest Campaigns: A Powerful Marketing Strategy

Mastering the Art of Conquest Campaigns: A Powerful Marketing Strategy

by | Aug 30, 2023 | Blog, Business, digital marketing, Marketing, Performance, Programmatic

Mastering the Art of Conquest Campaigns: A Powerful Marketing Strategy

Adam Latham

The Cowbell Agency

In the arena of business, it’s time to acknowledge a simple truth: it’s a war. And victory and survival hinges on outmaneuvering your competition or, at the very least, securing a slice of their market share.

As we’ve explored in recent posts delving into Programmatic Advertising, there are numerous methods to target potential customers today. However, one method that stands out for its simplicity and effectiveness is what we call a “conquest campaign.”

You’ve probably encountered this type of advertising, even if you weren’t aware of it. Imagine you visit a new car dealership, which we’ll call “dealer A.” Later that evening, while watching streaming television, you come across a commercial for one of their rivals, “dealer B.” You might think it’s a mere coincidence, but in reality, it’s no accident. Your phone was active, and you entered a “geo-fence” that categorized you into an audience receiving ads from “dealer B.”

These conquest campaigns, as mentioned earlier, are strategically straightforward and remarkably potent.

Now, let’s delve into the businesses that are prime candidates for this style of marketing. Suppose you’re launching a new nail salon. Sure, you could attempt to persuade individuals who infrequently get their nails done to give your salon a try. But is that more effective than sending a coupon to all existing customers of nail salons within a 10-mile radius of your new establishment?

Here’s the blueprint:

  1. Craft Your Message: Start by formulating a compelling offer or claim that entices potential customers to try your nail salon.
  2. Identify Your Competitors: Locate all your competitors and establish geo-fences around their locations.
  3. Geo-fence Your Storefront: Define your own conversion “target zone.”

Once your campaign is live, individuals who visit your competitor’s nail salons will start seeing online display ads while browsing the internet over the following weeks. These ads may even pop up in the mobile apps they frequently use, with in-app advertisements being particularly effective for this campaign. For businesses with more substantial budgets and high conversion values, extending this strategy to streaming television can provide an even broader exposure. However, it’s crucial to assess the cost per thousand impressions (CPM) to determine if it aligns with your goals.

Every time someone who viewed your ad subsequently walks into your establishment, it’s considered a “conversion.” This approach undeniably stands out as one of the most potent ways to swiftly compete in a market primarily reliant on in-person, brick-and-mortar interactions.

A successful “conversion” necessitates three essential components:

  1. Presence in a Competitor’s Establishment
  2. Receipt of an Ad
  3. Subsequent Entry into Your Business

If you’re eager to delve deeper into this cutting-edge marketing strategy, don’t hesitate to reach out to us. Our team is here to guide you through the intricacies of conquest campaigns and help you attain the competitive edge your business deserves.

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Unlocking the Power of Targeted Advertising

Unlocking the Power of Targeted Advertising

by | Jun 14, 2023 | Blog, Business, Marketing, Performance, SEO

Unlocking the Power of Targeted Advertising

Adam Latham

The Cowbell Agency

In the ever-evolving landscape of digital advertising, businesses are constantly seeking ways to maximize their return on investment and reach the most receptive audience. The key to achieving this lies in identifying and targeting the right audience – individuals who are most likely to become customers. By focusing their efforts and budget on engaging with this specific group, advertisers can enjoy significant cost savings. In this blog post, we will explore the different methods of identifying the right audience and how it ties into the effectiveness of a DSP or programmatic advertising model.

(Even before we get too deep into this, I realize I have already introduced some jargon or acronyms that people who don’t speak advertising geek might not understand. If you want to better understand exactly what DSP or programmatic advertising is you can refer to HERE

Identifying and Targeting the Right Audience

To effectively reach the right audience, advertisers have access to a wealth of data-driven insights that help them understand consumer behavior and preferences. Now, some of you right now are repulsed by the notion advertisers have access to this data. But get over it. We do. Take your consumer hat off for just a moment, please your business owner or advertiser hat on, and just embrace the many different ways we can target. 

Personal Demographic Information:

Understanding the demographics of potential customers is crucial. This includes factors such as age, gender, marital status, education level, income, home value, and even specific details like car make and model. By analyzing these demographic attributes, advertisers can tailor their messaging to specific subsets of the population that are most likely to be interested in their products or services.

In fact, trying to prepare a list or spreadsheet of ALL of the different levels of demographic data is virtually impossible. The depth of different attributes changes and evolves from day to day, and the true beauty is when you combine different attributes, which can provide an almost infinite list of possibilities. If that sounds like an exaggeration, imagine if you will for an advertiser who might make branded accessories for people who own Jaguars. Imagine the ability to deliver everything from online display ads to actual television ads, during the most popular streaming television show, but only paying to deliver that ad to people watching who a) own a Porsche, b) have an online behavior history purchasing similar items, and even has 5X to 7X the average discretionary income. 

Gone are the days of paying to deliver ads to people who don’t want, need, or can’t afford your product or service.

Online Behavior:

Online behavior provides valuable insights into consumer interests and habits. Keyword search analysis allows advertisers to identify individuals who are actively searching for products or services similar to what they offer. Contextual content viewed allows targeting based on the type of content users are consuming, ensuring that ads are relevant to their interests. Moreover, analyzing the types or categories of websites visited provides valuable information for advertisers to determine the online preferences and align their ads accordingly. 

Previous Purchasing Behavior and Habits:

Studying customers’ past purchasing behavior and habits helps businesses identify potential customers with similar characteristics. By analyzing previous purchase history, brands can create lookalike audiences – individuals who exhibit similar behaviors and preferences to their existing customers. This approach enables advertisers to target prospects who are more likely to convert, thus optimizing their marketing efforts.

Geographic Location:

Geographic location plays a pivotal role in targeting the right audience. Advertisers can narrow their focus to specific regions, cities, or neighborhoods by leveraging geographic location data. This allows them to tailor their messaging to local audiences who are more likely to be interested in their offerings due to their proximity to the business location.

Event or Business Geo-fencing:

Event or business geo-fencing is a powerful technique that enables advertisers to target individuals in specific physical locations. By setting up virtual boundaries around events, trade shows, retail stores, or competitor locations, advertisers can deliver relevant ads to individuals who enter or exit these boundaries. This approach allows businesses to engage with potential customers who are physically present at specific locations or have shown interest in similar events or businesses.

The Role of DSPs and Programmatic Advertising

Here’s where all this comes together. After you identify your ideal target audience, you want to be able to reach them. This is where Demand-Side Platforms (DSPs) and programmatic advertising play a crucial role in efficiently doing that. When we say “demand-side” what we are talking about are these opportunities when when websites, video providers, social media platforms, and yes, even streaming TV content providers, are asking for ads to serve up. If you watch any streaming television (and there are more of you than cable watchers now), it happens very fast. The show is pausing for a commercial and that little wheel in the corner of your screen is spinning. A few seconds later, it tells you how many minutes of commercials it is going to show you. In those few seconds, the AI in the background found ads specifically targeted to you. Cool, uh? Well, I think it’s cool. Some people find it scary. But for the life of me, if I have to be served up two minutes of ads, I can’t understand why it is better to see an ad meant for a 17-year old, female, who is actively downloading boy band tunes. Why not see ads for things I actually might want to buy. And yes, I get how that gives us marketers a lot of power. Again, embrace it and take advantage of it. 

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Understanding Demand-Side Platforms (DSPs) and the Programmatic Advertising Revolution

Understanding Demand-Side Platforms (DSPs) and the Programmatic Advertising Revolution

by | Jun 13, 2023 | Blog, Business, Performance, SEO

Understanding Demand-Side Platforms (DSPs) and the Programmatic Advertising Revolution

Adam Latham

The Cowbell Agency

Programmatic advertising has revolutionized the way digital ads are bought and sold. Instead of manual negotiations and direct sales, programmatic advertising uses data, algorithms, AI, and automation to streamline the ad-buying process. It allows advertisers to target specific audiences, optimize campaigns in real time, and achieve greater efficiency and effectiveness. In this blog post, we will delve deeper into programmatic advertising and explore how it enhances targeted advertising efforts.

What is Programmatic Advertising? 

Sometimes, the most fundamental or basic questions are the most difficult to answer. If you were to ask two different marketers you might get two different answers. Here’s the way I like to explain it. Let’s look at the different “functions” of advertising. There’s creating content and messaging, and then there’s delivering that content and messaging. Pretty basic concept. 

Now, we have DSPs, or Demand-Side Platforms that are asking for ads. They have demand, and they want that demand filled so they can get paid. They can be part of the Google display network, an independent website, an app, or a video news site, or…geez, this list could go on forever. Let’s just say they deliver content, even as far up the food chain as an entertainment provider like Hulu, Tubi, or Netflix. 

What happens very quickly is a transaction. And this happens constantly, 24 hours a day, and simultaneously. There’s no way any individual could see the request, read the request, and agree to the request. So what happens is you configure a campaign that is programmed to respond to these requests. That is why it is “programmatic.”

And just to confuse things even more, the content providers could never agree to these things in advance because they don’t know the parameters of the deal until that final variable is in place: YOU are watching the content. Each and every one of us merits a new negotiation.

This isn’t as complicated as you may think (or maybe it really is and I’m just so dived into this my perception of reality is altered). Let’s say individual A, who is a 65-year-old male who lives in a specific geographic area, is watching a college football broadcast on a Saturday afternoon. There may be a thousand different campaigns that want to show him ads as long as they don’t exceed $1.50 to show him. The demand goes out, the order is filled, and he is seeing ads. Now, let’s change that slightly. Individual B is watching the same exact broadcast from the same exact content provider and lives right next door to Individual A, but, this individual is a 35-year-old who owns a Porsche and has 7X the discretionary spend level of the average American. For this individual, the request goes out, and it finds that a company that makes Porsche-branded leather jackets is willing to pay up to $3 to show that person an ad. Guess what, the content provider finds, offers, gets acceptance and shows him this ad so that they double their money.

If you want to learn more about the many different ways we can target including geo-fencing, go to this link HERE

These offers and acceptances take place while you are waiting for commercials. This real-time bidding (RTB) is a key component of programmatic advertising. It enables ad inventory to be bought and sold in milliseconds through automated auctions. Advertisers can bid on ad impressions based on their targeting criteria, and the highest bidder gets their ad displayed to the desired audience. This dynamic bidding process ensures efficient allocation of ad spend and maximizes the potential reach of campaigns.

The “programs” that run these campaigns use a combination of Big Data and AI to keep these running in the background. They are called Demand-Side Platforms (DSPs). These software platforms provide advertisers with a centralized interface to set campaign parameters, target specific audiences, and optimize ad spend. DSPs integrate with ad exchanges and supply-side platforms (SSPs) to access ad inventory from multiple publishers, ensuring a wide reach for advertisers.

The capabilities offered by DSPs are diverse and powerful. Advertisers can leverage audience targeting features to define their ideal customer profile and deliver ads to the right individuals. Real-time bidding on ad exchanges enables them to bid for ad impressions based on predefined criteria, ensuring that their ads reach the most relevant audience.

Furthermore, DSPs offer ad creative management tools, campaign tracking features, and comprehensive reporting capabilities. These functionalities enable advertisers to monitor campaign performance, make data-driven optimizations, and gain valuable insights into their ad campaigns’ effectiveness.

That’s how I describe the whole thing, acronyms and jargon included at no extra cost.  But if you’re the type of person who likes the Wikipedia sort of way of answering that question of “what is programmatic advertising”  it might read:

“Programmatic advertising empowers advertisers to leverage sophisticated targeting options to reach their desired audience segments. By utilizing demographic information, browsing behavior, location, and interests, advertisers can tailor their ad campaigns to specific audiences. This level of precision targeting ensures that ads are shown to the right people, at the right time, and in the right context.”

That actually wasn’t as painful as I thought. 

Conclusion

Programmatic advertising, facilitated by Demand-Side Platforms (DSPs), has transformed the digital advertising landscape. It offers advertisers greater efficiency, precision targeting, and real-time optimization capabilities. Through programmatic advertising, businesses can reach their target audiences more effectively, improve campaign performance, and achieve a better return on investment (ROI).

DSPs play a critical role in programmatic advertising by providing advertisers with the tools and infrastructure to manage and optimize their ad campaigns. These platforms enable advertisers to leverage data-driven insights, reach the right audience at the right time, and make informed decisions to drive their digital advertising success.

As the digital advertising industry continues to evolve, programmatic advertising and DSPs will remain key components in the arsenal of advertisers seeking to maximize their online advertising efforts. By harnessing the power of programmatic advertising and utilizing DSPs effectively, businesses can elevate their digital advertising strategies and achieve their marketing goals. Embracing programmatic advertising opens up a world of opportunities for targeted advertising, enabling businesses to connect with their audience in a more precise and impactful manner.

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Protect yourself from online brute-force attacks

Protect yourself from online brute-force attacks

by | Sep 30, 2021 | Blog, Business, Performance, SEO

Protect yourself from online brute-force attacks

Owen Yorio

The Cowbell Agency

If you own a website, or have used any type of online account before, you may be familiar with a brute-force attack. If you are unaware, a brute force attack is a common way hackers or malicious sources could try to access your sensitive information. Essentially, nefarious code is executed that attempts hundreds of passwords a second in an attempt to gain access to locked content. There are a few simple ways to protect a website or user from these types of attacks, we’ll go through two of those now.

Good Password Management

The most simple way is to be diligent with your passwords. If your password was created with extra symbols, numbers, and cases, that greatly increases the time it would take for a program to brute force into. There’s a cool website that proves this point with simple math, https://www.passwordmonster.com/. This tool shows how long it would take for a brute-force attack to break a password. Let’s try an easy password, “tomorrow.”

According to this tool, it would take less than a second for a brute-force attack to crack this password, notably because it is an actual word, with no special characters, numbers, symbols, or case changes. Now, let’s try to make this password a bit more secure by trying a different approach.

In doing this, we’ve made our password virtually impossible to break. No need to worry about a brute force attack anymore! This number is astounding by the way, 4 thousand trillion (sextillion) years works out to about 289 billion times longer than the universe has existed for. There are other tools to use that can help you manage complex passwords like this as well, Google Chrome has some built right in.

Lock account after too many login attempts

Most people have encountered this measure before, almost all sites enforce this one by default, others may not. Nearly all websites you could have an account with use this function to protect you, not just to frustrate you when you’ve forgotten your password. So why shouldn’t you use it on your own website if you’re not already?

If you need any help with website security, give us a call or contact us here on the site!

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Famous Last Words – I Can Do It Myself

Famous Last Words – I Can Do It Myself

by | Aug 30, 2021 | Business, Marketing, Metrics, P.R. & Social, Performance

Famous Last Words – I Can Do It Myself

Olivia McDonald

The Cowbell Agency

There are no shortcuts when it comes to managing high performing Google Ads campaigns. 

Have you ever had a home improvement project that needed to be tackled and said to yourself “This should be easy. I can do it myself.” only to encounter unforeseeable roadblocks that left you feeling in over your head? And when it was all said and done, those roadblocks lead to far more of your time, energy and money than you expected, and it probably would have been less expensive to hire a professional to do the work?

This “I can do it myself” attitude is the same one many business owners take when they decide to get into the digital marketing space with Google Ads. At a glance, creating and managing your own account doesn’t seem all that overwhelming. However, like that home improvement project, you will soon realize that it is going to take far more time, energy and money than you originally anticipated, and the day-to-day operation of your business may be neglected as a result. At Cowbell, we have a team of certified Google Ads experts who have been trained in the best practices of Google Ads and know the best way to optimize campaigns based on your market, competition and budget. 

There are clear advantages to having an agency get behind the wheel of a Google Ads account and take the results to new heights. For starters, there will be no wasted budget. Your Google Ads Specialist has the skillset to take any budget and maximize results, from making adjustments to ads to improve quality score to reducing the average cost per click to increase the daily number of clicks. Next, Google is doing their best to persuade small businesses to adopt an automated bid structure. They make it seem as though they are helping you by taking the pressure off you to monitor and optimize as often as you usually would. In reality, this takes away the advertiser’s control and gives the advantage to bigger businesses with bigger budgets. More times than not, small businesses with smaller budgets end up paying more per click, quickly eating up the daily budget far quicker which leads to serving ads to less people. Lastly, without an automated bid structure, monitoring and optimizing campaigns takes a significant amount of your precious time. You can’t just set it and forget it. Passing the torch to your certified Google Ads expert frees up your time to focus on what is most important – running your business. 

Running a Google Ads campaign yourself only makes sense if you have extensive experience in Google Ads and its constantly changing landscape. If you don’t, you may be setting yourself up for a costly learning experience. If you want to see results without it costing an arm and a leg, it’s crucial to go to the experts. There are no shortcuts when it comes to managing high performing Google Ads campaigns.

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