Case-Study on Adbeat

Old El Paso Spent $36M in 90 Days on Just 11 Creatives

Thu, 20 Aug 2026 21:05:27 +0000

Most brand spotlights on this blog track advertisers that spend consistently, test dozens of creative variations, and iterate on landing pages every few weeks. Old El Paso’s summer 2026 flight is the opposite of that story, and that’s exactly why it’s worth studying.

In the 90 days between May 20 and August 17, 2026, Old El Paso put an estimated $36.2 million in US ad spend behind a campaign that ran almost entirely on YouTube — and almost entirely on two video creatives. It’s one of the most concentrated big-budget flights in Adbeat’s index, and it’s a clean, real-world illustration of a media-buying philosophy that looks nothing like the performance-marketing playbook most digital advertisers follow.

GEICO and Liberty Mutual Both Bet the Budget on YouTube. Only One Kept Betting.

Tue, 28 Jul 2026 21:52:46 +0000

Auto insurance is one of the most fought-over advertising categories in the US. It’s a roughly $350 billion-a-year industry in direct written premiums, and because coverage is legally required in nearly every state, the competition isn’t about creating demand — it’s about being the name a shopper remembers the moment they start comparing quotes. That dynamic has turned GEICO, Progressive, State Farm, Allstate, and Liberty Mutual into some of the most consistent advertisers in the country, year after year, regardless of economic conditions.

How Red Bull Built a 4.2 Billion-Impression Ad Machine: A Brand Spotlight

Mon, 20 Jul 2026 20:30:47 +0000

Red Bull doesn’t advertise the way most beverage companies do. It doesn’t run coupon campaigns, loyalty offers, or grocery circulars. It runs video at a scale that would make a Hollywood studio envious — and it uses display advertising not to push promotions, but to pull audiences into an ongoing stream of events, seasonal product launches, and branded entertainment.

Over the past year, Adbeat tracked Red Bull generating an estimated 4.2 billion impressions across display and video channels — data spanning the US and the approximately 35 countries in Adbeat’s coverage network. That number is up 19% compared to the prior 12-month period. But the real story isn’t the volume. It’s the architecture behind it: a video-first strategy, a disciplined product launch calendar, and a landing page approach that turns ad clicks into content experiences rather than purchase pages.

How Grammarly’s $210M display ad strategy helped it become a unicorn

Wed, 22 May 2024 17:12:30 +0000

Whether you write professionally, like to keep your masterpieces within the notes app, or just stick to writing work emails, you’ve probably heard of (and even used) Grammarly.

With a motto of “better writing, better results,” this writing assistant app was founded in 2009 to help people write better, plagiarism-free content. Since its inception, this company has spent a fortune on display ad campaigns, with an estimated ad spend of $210.8M in the last year alone.

Inside VISA's $11.4M ad spend: How one of the largest finance MNCs in the world is disrupting the e-payments market..

Wed, 30 Oct 2019 14:53:48 +0000

Founded in 1958, Visa is an American multinational finance company that facilitates electronic funds transfers throughout the world, most commonly through Visa-branded credit cards, gift cards, and debit cards.With operations across six continents, Visa processed 100 billion transactions during 2014 with a total volume of $6.8 trillion, according to a 2015 Nilsen report. Let’s take a closer look at their advertising strategy: 2006: ‘Life Takes VISA’ After 20 years, VISA replaced their well-known tagline—“It’s everywhere you want to be” with “Life takes Visa”—as a part of their latest advertising campaign that was announced during the Winter Olympics. “We moved away from just being a consumer credit card long ago, but the brand hasn’t kept up with that,” Susanne Lyons, Visa’s Chief Marketing Officer (CMO), explained to WSJ. “ Life Takes Visa reinforces our brand promise to deliver innovative products and services that can be used anytime, anywhere and that empower Visa cardholders to experience life and business their way and on their terms,” she added.

Reimagine Home: How Zillow's using their $15.8M ad spend to dominate online real estate and fuel business growth.

Wed, 25 Sep 2019 09:45:58 +0000

Founded in 2006, Zillow is a real estate marketplace created by Spencer Rascoff (Cofounder of Hotwire), and former Microsoft executives + founders of Expedia—Rich Barton and Lloyd Frink. Apart from providing the estimated value of homes across the United States, the platform also offers several other features including price comparison of homes in and around a certain area; price change of a property within a given time frame (from one, to five, or even 10 years), a “Make Me Move” price information (which is an informal way to pre-market a house); aerial photographs as opposed to satellite imagery; credit check and eviction history report; and more. In September’11, Zillow had over 24 million unique visitors, representing a year-on-year growth of 103 percent. Out of these users, the company claimed that more than three-quarters were looking to buy or sell real estate in the next two years. Currently, 2 million real estate professionals are listed on Zillow, and 186 homes are viewed on mobile every second. In cities like San Francisco, Seattle, Los Angeles, and Boston, 90 percent of all the existing homes have been viewed. In 2014, Zillow bought Trulia, a long-time competitor, for $3.5 billion.The company reportedly generated a revenue of $1.3 billion in 2018 (Q1 2019: $454.1 million) and currently operates out of 10 office locations across 2 countries (Canada + United States).Let’s take a look at some of their most prominent advertising campaigns over the years: 2013-2016: “Find Your Way Home” For the first seven years, Zillow didn’t have a dedicated advertising budget, and relied primarily on the many USPs of their product to attract prospective customers. According to Rascoff—something that he also repeatedly told the company’s investors—Zillow, despite being the “largest web and mobile player in their category” had little to no brand awareness. “88 percent of Americans can’t come up with Zillow when asked to name a real-estate-related website,” he said. As a result, the company decided to double their advertising budget (a $10M to $15M increase) and started testing out some TV ads before announcing their Find Your Way Home campaign. After raising $147 million in IPO (September’12), Zillow partnered up with Deutsch (an LA-based marketing agency that’s worked with the likes of Taco Bell, Volkswagen, and Dr. Pepper) to launch a nation-wide advertising campaign that’d showcase the diversity of homebuyers in the modern times and the unique set of challenges that they face on the daily. Featuring relatable use-cases like a millennial buying his first home, a young family turning over a new leaf, and a multi-generation household searching for a new living space, the company ran 60, 30 and 15-second TV segments across popular cable networks.

Breaking down HostGator's $919.2K ad spend: How the web-hosting provider is using strategically-crafted campaigns to stand out from their competitors.

Wed, 11 Sep 2019 09:08:12 +0000

Founded in October 2002 by Brent Oxley (then a student at Florida Atlantic University), HostGator is a Texas-based provider of shared, reseller, virtual private server, and dedicated web hosting. By 2006, HostGator had crossed 200,000 registered domains and opened their first international office in Ontario, Canada.In 2008, HostGator reached 100,000 customers and started offering unlimited space and bandwidth as part of all hosting packages. Just a year later, they doubled their customer-base and launched toll-free numbers for customers who opted for business-level hosting packages at no additional cost. At the same time, Inc. Magazine rated HostGator as one of the fastest-growing companies in the United States.HostGator was sold to Endurance International Group (EIG) for $299.8 million in 2012. Currently, the company has 1000 employees, and a global reach with localized, in-language offerings for Chinese, Russian, Turkish, Indian, Singaporean, Chilean, Colombian, African, Indonesian and Mexican customersLet’s take a closer look at their advertising strategy: Ad Spend and Ad Networks In the last 6 months, HostGator has spent $919.2K on online advertising, out of which, the majority went towards Google ($766.1K), and Direct Buy ($142.5K).

Inside Vimeo's $28M advertising strategy: How Youtube's artsy, ad-free, alternative is making a dent in the video-sharing landscape.

Wed, 04 Sep 2019 14:56:17 +0000

Launched in 2004 by independent filmmakers—Jake Lodwick and Zack Klein—who wanted to share their professional/personal work online, Vimeo is an ad-free, video-distribution platform that caters primarily to a like-minded creative community. By Dec’13, Vimeo was representing 0.11% of the total Internet bandwidth with more than 22 million registered users, and 100 million unique visitors per month. Notable comedians like Kristen Schaal, “Weird Al” Yankovic and Reggie Watts have been actively using Vimeo to promote their content, alongside musicians like Kanye West, Nine Inch Nails, and Britney Spears. What’s more? Even Barack Obama, the former president of the USA, broadcasts his HD transmissions on the platform. According to Harris Beber, Vimeo’s CMO, the company clocked in a handsome revenue of $160 million in 2018, with a year-on-year growth of 54 percent. By comparison, YouTube, the Google-owned, video-sharing giant, continues to remain silent on their revenue numbers, however, analysts have projected that the platform generated $15 billion in sales the same year. Unlike Vimeo, YouTube doesn’t offer a subscription model to their customers, and instead, allows them to showcase their content on their platform at no charge—which is one of the biggest reasons why it has experienced consistent, monumental growth in the last few years.Regardless, Vimeo is currently home to 90 million creators (and 240 million monthly active users) who use the platform for selling their products/services, discovering potential sponsors, and receiving donations from their viewers via Patreon. The company also acquired VHX, Livestream, and Magisto in recent years to take their subscription-driven, high-definition, video creation platform to the next level. Considering that video content will command 80% of all web traffic in 2019, Vimeo, despite being a smaller, more niche platform, caters to the unique needs of creators (including brands). Let’s take a quick peek into their previous and ongoing ad campaigns to understand how exactly they plan to stand out in the competitive landscape. 2015: The “Interrupted” campaign: In order to highlight their ad-free experience, Vimeo launched a video ad campaign featuring two partners using sign language to communicate with subtitles transcribing their exchange. A few seconds in, a bunch of pop-ups begin infiltrating the screen and make it difficult for the viewers to follow the subtitles. You cannot skip, or “x” out of these ads because they’re part of Vimeo’s whole promo to illustrate that intrusive ads are just pesky distractions that ruin the overall user experience.

Monday.com raises $150M more in equity funding: Here's an in-depth look into their $12M ad spend.

Wed, 31 Jul 2019 15:11:51 +0000

Formerly known as Dapulse, Monday.com is a team management platform that was founded in 2012 by Roy Mann (former C-level Executive at Wix) and Eran Zinman (former R&D Manager at Conduit Mobile). Based in Tel Aviv, Israel, the company raised a $1.5 million in a seed funding round to build a “next-generation” collaboration tool that allows you to create tasks, share files, plan workloads, and ultimately, visualize projects and processes that your team is collectively working on.Aside from word-of-mouth, Monday’com’s initial growth was a direct result of hyper-targeting their target audience across social channels like Facebook and Instagram. In order to maximize their success, the company leveraged Facebook’s lookalike feature to upload a pixel of their existing customer database, in an attempt to find more people with similar personas. “Unlike the traditional B2B approach, [where we] target conventional decision-makers like CEOs and senior managers, [Monday.com] did something different and created a direct response advertising funnel,” explains Rotem Shay, Adwords Team Leader responsible for performance marketing campaigns on Facebook and Instagram. “Our target decision-maker [was] basically anyone [with] a computer [who] works with a team. Some might say that we hacked B2B to become B2C, but I say that our marketing approach has always been H2H—human to human.”After bagging $25 million in a Series B (2017) led by Venture partners, the company decided to move beyond Facebook, and ramp up their Adwords by targeting specific industries and verticals. In fact, 70% of their users came from the non-tech sector, like, construction, wedding planners, breweries, and even churches, amongst others. Since Monday.com is available in several different languages, the campaigns were tailored to reach prospects outside of the English-speaking market.Around the same time, the company also changed their name to Monday.com from Dapulse, that was “a big part of a maturity phase” according to Mann. “For billions of people all around the world, Monday means work. All that is good, all that is hard, and all that is real about work,” he wrote on the company’s blog. They even released a fun, light-hearted video announcing the rebranding, where they poked fun at their “dead name” and went over the unusual, yet hilarious reactions they’ve received for the same since inception.

How Comparisons.org's is successfully using affiliate marketing to drive traffic and engage with customers.

Wed, 12 Jun 2019 10:07:34 +0000

Comparisons.org accumulates useful information about tens and thousands of products to help users in making the right purchasing decision. With their unique “side by side” comparison functionality, they demystify the often complex world of credit cards, mortgages, auto insurance, refinancing and other similar services for an average person. Additionally, they also have simple, to-the-point articles on a wide range of topics that encourage readers to save money by being well-informed consumers. Let’s take an in-depth look at what their online advertising strategy looks like in terms of ad spend, publishers, creatives, and landing pages. Ad Spend and Ad Networks In the last 6 months, Comparisons has spent $15.3M on online promotion of their brand, with the majority going towards native advertising and content distribution platforms like Outbrain ($5.8M), Yieldmo ($5.3M), and Taboola ($3.8M). Additionally, the company also dedicated a substantial budget to other networks, including, Revcontent ($263.7K), Yahoo Gemini Native ($83.6K), and ContentAd ($28K). While there’s no money going towards direct ads, 66% of the company’s ads are native, and 34% are programmatic. In the last decade, brand engagement practices have tremendously on account of consumers everywhere embracing new digital devices evolving. In order to reach the right audiences, marketers are increasingly relying on programmatic buying to create highly-effective, relevant, and measurable ad campaigns—at scale. Programmatic combines the assurance and safety of reserved buys with the audience precision and automation of real-time auctions. As a result, ad booking is a much more streamlined process for both sellers and buyers that optimizes resource-consumption and boosts efficiency. For example, a recent Boston Consulting Group study found that using Google’s programmatic ad-buying tool is 60% less-time consuming for publishers and nearly 30% for agencies. Considering that 80% of the total mobile display ads are bought programmatically, it comes as no surprise that most of the Comparisons’ ads run on mobile devices, and not desktop. Publishers From the beginning, Comparisons has advertised prominently with CNN ($589.7K), Fox News ($407.5K), Rolling Stone ($354.6K), Someecards ($292.5K) and Hometalk ($2291.6K). On all the platforms, most of their money goes towards ensuring that the ads appear on the homepage. Other than that, there’s no specific placement pattern that Comparisons adheres to, as their ads are displayed alongside arbitrary articles, author profiles, and landing pages on the publishers’ platform. Most companies practice contextual targeting to attract their target audience and tend to put a lot of thought into their ad placement. In a previous post, we discussed how Mailchimp, a popular email marketing, and automation tool, primarily advertises with publishers that cover technology-related news. Not only this, their ads can be often seen on posts that are “latest smart home devices, upcoming innovations, and workplace productivity hacks”. Comparisons has struck gold by following a simple online promotion strategy: Advertising on the homepage of some of the most-visited platforms in the United States. Creatives Trying to initiate a conversation around insurance seems like a fairly boring and unattractive way to grab the customer’s attention, however, something about the headline makes you want to click and learn more. The obvious cliffhanger —”Drivers Around California are Furious About This New Rule” — creates an information gap by implying that there’s a future problem or concern that currently are unaware of, but should know about. Most people are likely to click on the ad out of curiosity. Although clickbait has certainly gotten plenty of bad reputation recently, one cannot deny that it continues to work in some cases by leveraging well-worn, psychological patterns that potential customers are drawn to. For example, by directly addressing “people born between 1953 and 1979”, they’re implying a degree of exclusivity that appeals to an individuals’ instinctual longing to feel special.If you truly believe in the product or service you’re selling, you’re obligated to do whatever it takes to get the brand name out there. In Comparisons’ case, the clickbaity headlines seem to be working well, considering they’re included in almost all of their creatives.The images accompanying the creatives make use of emotional triggers to connect with their audience and incite a favorable action. For example, the above ad features an image of a visibly-distressed old man. For an average viewer, this evokes fear and concern as the message is obvious —’Consider seeking help immediately, if you don’t want to end up like this person’. In short, using audacious images to elicit a strong reaction from viewers can be a great way to increase engagement and brand recall. Given that most of their ads are native, 80% of their ads are text/image, whereas, the 19% are image-based and 1% are text-only. Landing Pages There’s a clear disconnect between the ad (that promises you an Insurance fact that’s apparently shocking consumers everywhere) and the landing page that people get after clicking. Turns out, the much-hyped fact is simply about how consumers can use the internet to compare prices of the different insurances available in the market before making an informed purchasing decision. The content comes across as a thinly-veiled attempt to promote Comparisons and ‘trick’ readers into using the platform. There’s no real value proposition that the landing page offers, so people are more likely to leave after discovering that they’ve been misled and there’s nothing new for them to learn about insurance. While Comparisons’ landing page (and ad!) uses a catchy headline to drives click-through-rates, the content doesn’t provide enough “meat” for anyone to stay. However, this combination seems to be working great for them. Even if people are not particularly impressed with the “fact” they were promised, they can simply move on to get a free insurance quote simply by entering their age. Conclusion Contrary to the popular trend of direct ad buying, Comparisons has chosen to use the entirety of their $15.3M ad spend to run programmatic and native ads. For both creatives and landing pages, they’ve opted for a ‘clickbait’ approach, where they heavily rely on emotional triggers to attract a viewer’s attention and encourage them to click on a link. Considering that 50% of people still fall for a well-placed clickbait despite knowing the risks of clicking on unknown links, running ads that appeal to the curious nature of the human mind is a valid marketing tactic that’s proven to work. However, it’s important to remember that while clickbait makes it easy to entice users into clicking on your ad, a person is more likely to feel let down by the content that’s presented to them on the landing page. For all you know, they might end up switching to your immediate competitor for a more trustworthy and authentic experience. In the long-term, Comparisons can think about moving away from clickbait and adopt a slightly honest and reliable approach towards advertising. As far as publishers go, they have a very straightforward strategy of going with platforms that get a reasonable amount of traffic from people in the United States. They are not picky about placement and are happy to spend most of their money on featuring ads on the homepage of their publishers. Overall, Comparisons has figured out a few things that work great for them when it comes to advertising, however, there are still areas they can improve upon.

How TaxAct and H&R Block leverage the tax season to optimize their advertising strategy.

Fri, 07 Jun 2019 10:06:50 +0000

Tax preparation and filing can pose quite the challenge, and having a software that helps you accurately determine and manage your tax liabilities can be a game-changer. According to Exponential, more and more people in the U.S. prefer online tax filing or using a tax filing software, instead of relying on retail and walk-in tax services. The 2018 NSBA Tax Survey found that one in three businesses spend more than 40 hours and $10,000 every year doing their taxes. Given that 67% of small business owners consider “paperwork to be one of the biggest tax concerns,” it comes as no surprise that most of them are migrating to third-party platforms to file their returns. Today, the market is flooded with companies offering digital services, and software for individuals and businesses looking for an economical and timely way to file their tax returns. TaxAct and H&R Block, for example, are already big names in the industry. In this post, we’d learn more about how these two companies spend their advertising money and get a detailed understanding of their frequently used campaigns, creatives, publishers, landing pages and more. Let’s get started: TaxAct Founded in 1998, TaxAct offers a software package to professional partners, individuals, and companies, allowing them to file their state and federal tax return easily with a helpful, step-by-step guide. In 2000, the company launched a cloud-based version of TaxAct before selling two-thirds of the ownership stakes (worth $89 million) to TA Associates, a Boston-based private equity firm, in 2004. Finally, in 2012, TaxAct was sold to Bluecora for $287 million. The company is now pursuing new growth opportunities by investing in small business and mobile products. Let’s take a closer look at how paid advertising is helping them achieve their targets: Ad Spend and Ad Networks In the last 6 months, TaxAct has spent a whopping $5M on ads, with the majority being dedicated to Google ($2.4M) and $1.4M going towards Direct Buys. In the United States, the Federal individual income tax returns are filed with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) every year by April 15. As a result, companies like TaxAct tend to double down on advertising between January and April, in order to attract customers looking to file their returns without having to jump through multiple hoops. TaxAct’s ad spend has been $4.2M in the last three months alone (Jan: $1.3M, Feb: $1.8M, March: $1.1M) which means, they’re capitalizing on the current tax season to get as many conversions as possible. TaxAct is also one of the many companies that have added programmatic ad buying to their overall marketing strategy. Side note: Programmatic ads lead to better targeting of potential customers and 508% more conversions than pay per click (PPC). As a result, advertisers in the U.S. are expected to spend almost $69 billion in programmatic display advertising.Sixty-eight percent of TaxAct’s ad spend goes towards programmatic ads, and the remaining is dedicated to video ads (5%) and direct ads (27%). Publishers Most of TaxAct’s ad spend in the last year has gone to the same publishers—CBS Local, Merriam-Webster, YouTube, Wikia, and SpanishDict. Additionally, they also advertise on Reddit, AZLyrics, Urban Dictionary, ESPN, Yahoo, and Life Hacker, amongst other platforms. On CBS Local, where they’ve spent $287.7K in the last six months, their advertisements primarily appear on location-based homepages; for example, Detroit, New York, Boston, and Los Angeles. With Merriam-Webster, TaxAct adopts a more contextual targeting strategy and spends a significant amount to advertise on the ‘legal’ section of the dictionary that includes several terms related to taxes. Someone looking up the definition of ‘tax credit’—especially during the tax season—will be more interested to know what TaxAct has to offer. Similarly, on SpanishDict, in addition to advertising on the homepage, TaxAct also ensures that their ads appear on the ‘translate’ section of the website for commonly searched terms like, ‘Happy Birthday’ and ‘I miss you’ which most likely get a higher traffic than the rest of the pages on the platform. Creatives TaxAct’s ads prominently feature images (94%) and videos (4%). The copy is short, crisp and conveys the exact USPs of Taxact. For example, by using attention-grabbing terms and phrases like, ‘$0 filing’ and ‘Your biggest refund guaranteed’, the company is putting themselves in their customer’s shoes and speaking directly to the questions, reservations, and concerns they have about online tax preparation.

How Dating Apps Spend Millions on Native Ads to Get More Singles Aboard

Thu, 30 Aug 2018 18:36:23 +0000

According to Statista, 8% of 18– to 29-year-olds are in a committed relationship with a partner or spouse they met online. Using a dating app has become a meaningful and common method for people to find the love of their life. Of course, there are many more people out there using these various apps looking for casual dating, friendship, and other things.

Within this pool of eager singles, you have a plethora of subcategories for different niches and preferences.

How the Biggest Antivirus Companies spend their Advertising Budgets

Wed, 22 Aug 2018 22:57:36 +0000

The internet has become an integral part of human civilization. Every day, thousands of new users are gaining access to it. It’s not just about social media, though: The internet is changing the way we conduct monetary transactions. Even governments are using the internet for important missions.

With such huge implications, threats also have become more dangerous. Too much is at stake. This is why the global antivirus market is booming. According to SBWIRE, the global antivirus-software market is set to reach a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 18% by 2022.

How 3 Web Hosting Platforms use Digital Ads to Generate Leads

Wed, 15 Aug 2018 19:07:09 +0000

The web hosting industry is set to be a $154 billion market in 2022. Tens of thousands of companies are competing for a diverse audience — from college kids to multi-national corporations. To stay in business, most companies have differentiated themselves by catering to a specific niche.

The best of the lot use digital advertising channels to reach the top:

Rackspace has dominated the high-end corporate world with their interactive HTML5 ads that can test a website’s server speeds.
Liquid Web has captured the SMB market by strategically concentrating on specific niches at different intervals of time.
Bluehost has come up with clever ad campaigns to make WordPress users feel special with “exclusive” discounts.

We analyzed their complete advertising funnel — from the niche of publishers they’re running ads on to the type of ad creatives they’re using and even their landing page strategies.

How the Best Project Management Companies Spend their Advertising Budgets

Thu, 09 Aug 2018 05:39:49 +0000

Project management companies face a huge challenge when it comes to acquiring customers.

The project management industry is huge—it is set to hit $6.7 billion by the year 2022—and the number of tools on the market is exploding as well. That means that companies in this space face an unprecedented amount of competition when it comes to getting in front of potential users.

To cut through the noise, the best of the best are using digital advertising.

How Leading Website Builder Platforms Manage Their Advertising Campaigns

Wed, 01 Aug 2018 19:20:41 +0000

We’re living in the golden age of tech where it’s becoming increasingly easier to create customized experiences for customers.

One place we’re seeing this is in website design. Instead of hiring an expensive developer to build a site or spending hours trying to learn code and building a website DIY-style, online website builders are the new go-to because they help users save time and money.

With professional results that look like a developer invested several hours building, what user wouldn’t want to take advantage and try?

How the Best Gaming Sites Choose Their Ad Networks

Wed, 25 Jul 2018 19:21:57 +0000

Gaming has come a long way. Over the past few decades it’s evolved from pixelated arcade games to gaming consoles and handheld devices to high-def online games. Gaming still has its roots in entertainment, but the industry also includes educational and gambling options as well.

This evolution means that there are millions of users to target with hundreds of games competing for attention. The most successful games — from multiple player to educational brain games — have shown staying power because they’ve been able to keep up with user needs and adjusted not just the gaming experience but how they target users with ads.

Advertising Strategies from the Billion Dollar Business of Meal Kit Delivery

Tue, 08 Nov 2016 02:00:40 +0000

In 2012, Matt Salzberg, Ilia Papas, and Matt Wadiak founded Blue Apron, a cost-effective way for people to easily prepare meals without needing to scour the aisles of their supermarket looking for every single ingredient in a complex recipe.

They began beta testing the product by sending their pre-assembled meal kits to friends.

That was then.

This is now:

Blue Apron ships an estimated 8 million meal kits a month.

The Business of Display Part 8: Credit Card Affiliate Offers

Mon, 17 Oct 2016 23:10:53 +0000

If you want to look at America’s addictions, look at some of the biggest spenders on Display.

We’re addicted to celebrity gossip. We’re addicted to sports and political news. We’re addicted to weight loss and beauty.

And most of all:

We’re addicted to credit.

We received pre-approved credit card offers the day we turned 18. There are stories of dead dogs receiving credit cards and toddlers receiving cards with limits higher than those of their parents.

0 to 1 Million Customers in 3 Months: Jet's Display Strategy Revealed

Sat, 24 Sep 2016 18:53:23 +0000

Many start-up founders dream of being acquired by a massive Fortune 500 company. Well, less than 2 years after launch, Jet has been acquired by Wal-Mart for ~$3 billion.

This was a major power play for Wal-Mart, as it attempts to compete with eCommerce juggernaut Amazon.com.

Wal-Mart may never catch up to Amazon even after acquiring Jet (the critics are unoptimistic), but there’s no doubt that Jet must have been doing something right if it was able to get acquired by one of the biggest companies in the world just a few years after being founded.

Trump vs. Clinton on Display Part 2: Donald Trump

Fri, 09 Sep 2016 20:46:01 +0000

Note: This is Part 2 in a two-part series that reveals the two presidential candidates’ Display strategies. Click here to see Part 1: Hillary Clinton.

As of June 2016, there were rumors that the Trump campaign was running low on funds.

Subsequently, Trump blatantly started asking for public donations from supporters. There have been a few controversies over who he is asking and who is giving Trump these funds.

We’re not here to talk about those controversies.

Trump vs. Clinton on Display Part 1: Hillary

Thu, 25 Aug 2016 14:12:00 +0000

One of our most popular (and controversial) posts earlier this year revealed the display advertising strategies for the 2016 presidential candidates.

Well, a lot has happened since then.

The primaries are over, and only two contenders are left standing in the ring:

Now it’s time to drill down into the current Display strategies for Clinton and Trump.

First, if you go back in in time and read the original post, you’d see that Trump was not running any paid traffic whatsoever (h owever, advertisers have been piggybacking off his name for months).

The Business of Display Part 7: Making Money With Coupons

Wed, 27 Jul 2016 20:13:28 +0000

Is it possible to make money on display by giving away coupon codes?

Coupon sites are one of those “sexy” internet business models because they only require a little overhead to set up. You don’t have to create a physical or digital product. In fact, there are no deliverables whatsoever.

Plus, it’s pretty easy to build goodwill with your visitors because you’re not selling anything. In fact, you’re giving them deals on stuff they already want to buy.

An Uncensored Peek Inside Grammarly's $2.2M Display Strategy

Fri, 15 Jul 2016 17:24:02 +0000

We live in a very judgmental society, especially when it comes to proper grammar and spelling. Many people are quick to assume that someone is incompetent or lazy if they spot a grammar or spelling mistake.

We hate these people.

There is even a derogatory term for them:

“Grammar Nazis”

The fact of the matter is that poor writing and grammar is an epidemic. The vast majority of our population has atrocious grammar. Even highly intelligent people may use “your” when they should have used “you’re.” You see it all the time, and it doesn’t seem like things are getting any better.

The Battle of Streaming Video on Display: Netflix vs. Hulu vs. Amazon vs. Sling TV

Mon, 27 Jun 2016 19:22:00 +0000

Do you binge-watch Netflix?

A recent Deloitte survey found that 70% of respondents reported binge-watching TV shows on Netflix and other streaming video services.That comes out to an average of five episodes in one sitting.

The annual Netflix report claims that subscribers watch an average of 1 hour and 33 minutes of programming per day.

Needless to say… we’re watching A LOT of Netflix.

The fact is that fewer and fewer people watch “normal” television. Many of us prefer to consume media through streaming video services.

The Power of Celebrity in Display Advertising Part 1: Donald Trump

Thu, 02 Jun 2016 18:10:18 +0000

Imagine that you’re a personal trainer and you want to make the most money possible.

You’re given the choice between:

a) a photo of you training Britney Spears, or b) a degree in nutrition/training from the top university in the United States

Which would you choose?

Me?

I’m taking the picture of Britney Spears any day of the week.

Why?

Because it’s going to lead to more clients! Most people would rather be trained by the guru trainer to the stars than Joe Schmoe with a bunch of letters after his name.

The Razor War on Display Advertising (Gillette vs. Dollar Shave Club vs. Harry's)

Tue, 26 Apr 2016 12:29:18 +0000

In 1901, King C. Gillette had a revelation that would change the way products are sold forever.

Gillette was a salesman at the Crown Cork and Seal Company (CCK). CCK sold the first disposable bottle cap; the “crown” style cap you find on most glass bottles. After seeing the success of the crown cap, Gillette realized there was potential for other disposable products.

He specifically saw an opportunity in the razor blade market.

How Walmart and Target Use Display Advertising (The "Big-box" Blog Post)

Mon, 04 Apr 2016 20:59:28 +0000

What do babies, unisex bathrooms, and sausage egg casserole all have in common?

They all have to do with the Display Advertising strategies of the four businesses featured in today’s blog post.

Today, we’ll be looking at how some of the “Big-box” retail and grocery stores use Display Advertising to drive more foot traffic and online sales.

What’s a Big-box store?

Wikipedia defines a Big-box stores as being “a physically large retail establishment, usually part of a chain.”

How WebMD (and Others) Use Display Ads to Make $10m+ in Ad Revenue

Tue, 01 Mar 2016 02:39:38 +0000

“On the internet, every headache becomes a brain tumor in four clicks or less.” - Ron Gutman

According to the Pew Research Center, 72% of people looked online for health information within the past year.

Bad for doctors (because the internet diagnosis is almost always some form of cancer).

Good for the sites who provide this information and make millions in ad revenue every year.

Health publishers like WedMD, Lifescript and Healthline are booming. These sites bring in millions of ad revenue and sponsor money every month. Health publishers tend to have amazing SEO, and many have begun to advertise on Native networks like Taboola and Outbrain.

How Uber and Lyft Run Their Paid Traffic Campaigns

Fri, 11 Dec 2015 05:32:44 +0000

Uber and Lyft are two of the fastest growing businesses in the world.

But what do their Display strategies look like?

Combined, Uber and Lyft have spent an estimated $2M+ on Display advertising in the past 6 months. This is a drop in the bucket compared to what both companies are valued at ($41B and $4B respectively), but both companies appear to be making a big push at the end of the year/beginning of 2016 to use Display to recruit more drivers.

Revealed: Display Advertising Strategies of 11 Fashion Startups

Sat, 05 Dec 2015 02:58:19 +0000

The new wave of fashion startups is revolutionizing the entire industry, and investors are taking notice.

Millions of dollars in venture capital are being funneled into fashion businesses that sell everything from underwear (Mack Weldon), to fully custom suits and shirts (Indochino and Blank Label), and even trendy “try-before-you-buy” prescription eyeglasses (Warby Parker).

CB Insights reports that fashion startup brands have gone from $25M in funding in 2010, to $235M in 2015.

What Wealthfront and Betterment Can Teach You About Display Advertising

Mon, 26 Oct 2015 20:28:26 +0000

Are the days of fast-talking investment advisors in $3000 Armani suits, $150 haircuts and golden orange spray tans over?

Maybe. Maybe not.

What we do know is that more and more people are choosing to go with computers for their investment advice instead of living, breathing human beings.

Specifically…

“Robo-advisors.”

What the heck’s a robo-advisor?

Robo-advisors are automated investment services. You fill out a questionnaire about your income, investment goals and comfort with risk taking. Sophisticated computer algorithms then run through market data and optimize your account.

How Answers.com Uses Native Advertising To Make Millions in Ad Revenue

Thu, 15 Oct 2015 18:19:42 +0000

Looking for ways to drive more traffic and bring in more ad revenue?

Look no further than Answers.com for inspiration.

Answers.com is a large Q&A community that was created back in 1999. Originally called “GuruNet”, the company went public in 2004 and later changed their name to Answers.com.

Although they’ve been around for close to two decades, much of their recent growth has been fueled by content promotion through Native Ad networks.

[Case Study] B2B SaaS Paid Advertising Strategies

Mon, 26 Jan 2015 19:22:13 +0000

We’ll be the first to admit it.

Display Advertising can be tricky for B2B SaaS companies.

Many factors which include a longer time to see a positive ROI (longer sales cycle), difficulty targeting business owners (not consumers) and the constant harping of “display doesn’t work” all contribute to B2B companies shying away from display.

However, with the right targeting, a good landing page and a long-term mindset, Display advertising can be a very effective channel for B2B SaaS companies.