business

Best Female-Founded Brands to Support

Photo by LinkedIn Sales Solutions on Unsplash

Oh, how far we’ve come! Recently, it was revealed that — finally! — women CEOs at Fortune 500 companies outnumber male CEOs named John. A dubious milestone, but it's something to celebrate.

Though women have come pretty far in society, the progress we've made is far from enough. From the pay gap to daily microaggressions, it’s still obvious that women are treated as lesser than in society. This is especially clear when you look at how few female-founded businesses there are.

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How To Find Efficiency With Native Advertising

In the age of the digital duopoly, network diversification is more important than ever.

Ever-changing privacy and data policies surrounding major platforms like Facebook and Google mean that advertisers can never have 100% certainty on the effectiveness of their advertising.

That's why over the past decade, native advertising has exploded as a unique opportunity for content markets to reach unique visitors (often for a fraction of the cost required from popular social platforms).

Native advertising can take on many forms, but at the end of the day, it's all about getting your content in front of a user who is already reading similar content. Native is a technique used in paid advertising that matches the look, feel, and function of the media format in which they already appear. Therefore, native advertisements don't look like advertisements at all considering their non-disruptive context.

But considering the extremely high efficiency of traditional social media ads, why even bother with native advertising? For one, consumers actually view native ads 53% more than display ads. Moreover, these native ads allow for an 18% increase in purchase intent with a smaller increase in visual engagement. Finally, native ads can fight ad fatigue as brand exposure cloaked in editorial content will not tire out your audience as quickly as display ads.

And while there are many different types of native advertising, here at GeistM, we pride ourselves on our proficiency in programmatic native advertising. Programmatic native advertising brings native to a new frontier by enabling brands and businesses to optimize their native advertising ROI (Return On Investment) by using programmatic auction of native ads via RTB (Real Time Bidding).

To offer a quick overview of how this works, first a SSP (Supply Side Platform) sends a bid request on behalf of the publisher. From there, the DSP (Demand Side Platform) responds with metadata metrics such as headline, thumbnail image, URL, or description text. Based on the relevancy of the metadata and the competitiveness of the bid, the SSP selects the winning ad and configures the native ad into a template fit for a web page or app.

However, what really makes or breaks success when it comes to native advertising is the targeting and optimization efforts. For example, GeistM recently set out to lower the CPA of a client in the Health & Wellness vertical through native advertising efforts. To accomplish this, we leveraged Verizon Media's Predictive Segments which is composed of over 2 billion digital touchpoints directly tied to pixel events which dynamically refresh on a daily basis. The result saw turbo-look-alike audiences that provided significant traction from the get-go, lowering CPAs by nearly 300% over several weeks.

Similarly, GeistM leverages a similar feature courtesy of Taboola called Attentive Audiences, instead of traditional remarketing audiences (like site visitors) to drive down our client's retargeting CPA. Taboola's Attentive Audiences are constructed via the Taboola Pixel which helps the algorithm define a retargeting audience based on a myriad of customer behaviors such as number of recurring visits, time spent on site, scroll depth, number of pages viewed, and more.

Arguably our most used platform when it comes to native advertising has to be Outbrain, and for good reason. Of all of the programmatic native ad platforms out there, Outbrain gives marketers an extremely flexible pay-per-click model that provides full control over how your budget is spent. Targeting and exclusions based on CPCs allow you to maximize ROI by making adjustments to dimensions such as geo-location, device, time of day, publisher, creative, and more.

Not only does native advertising provide an exciting opportunity for diversification, it can also be extremely economical if done correctly. To get started on your native efforts, contact us today at [email protected].

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Savvy Tips for New Real Estate Investors

Long gone are the days when the majority of Americans dreamed about owning a home with a white picket fence.

The traditional American Dream may be on its deathbed, but that doesn't mean a core component of the vision can't survive. It simply takes a diverse perspective. People can still believe they can attain their own vision of success in society with hard work, knowledge, and risk-taking. Investing in today's American Dream may literally mean investing money in our modern economy, starting with our infrastructure.

Real estate investing in particular is a lucrative method that can boost income and secure a better financial future for many. There's always risk involved, but the payoffs can far outweigh the uncertainty. Selecting solid financial investments is about confidence and competence. If you're looking for some advice on this kind of investment, here are a few savvy tips for new real estate investors.

Stick To a Specific Strategy or Niche

Real estate is a challenging sphere of the business world, one that requires several key skills: groundwork knowledge, networking, perseverance, and organization. True knowledge of the real estate market will come with time and experience, but it's a smart idea to select one area of the market and stick to it. This is the best way to attain in-depth familiarity with your specific niche.

First, choose a geographical area close by and then a niche strategy within it, such as house flips, rental rehabs, or residential or commercial properties. By doing so, you can become aware of current inner working conditions in the market and you'll have a better idea of how these trends may change in the future.

Be Vigilant About Viable Financing Options

While it takes money to make money, you don't have to use all your own money. A common misconception about real estate investing is that you must be wealthy to start off. This isn't straight fact, however. A majority of people can test the waters of real estate investing without a lot of initial cash in their pocket.

Aside from traditional financing options from banks and institutions, private lending options can be worthy solutions. Hard money lenders are popular, reasonable choices, and they tend to have fewer qualification requirements upfront. However, be sure to strategically choose a hard money lender to find the best possible fit.

Master the Art of Finding Good Deals

There may be hundreds of thousands of available properties for sale on the current market, but the bulk of them will never amount to the final money-making result you desire. Another great tip for new real estate investors is to use good math to estimate profit. Taking risks is part of the process, but you have the ability to analyze properties and use networking sources to find the greatest deal. You can't win every deal, but you can steadily work towards a thriving financial future.

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Why And How You Should Demand Your Next Raise

The self employed

"Thank you" is a powerful phrase. "Thank you" is a powerful phrase.

Gratitude and grace go hand in hand, which doesn't leave much room for push-back when you've been slighted, especially when it comes to money. Demanding a raise from an employer often feels a little like unwrapping a present and then telling the giver, thank you, but this really isn't going to cut it for me.

But no matter how remarkably skilled or utterly irreplaceable you are, no employer wants to pay you what you deserve. Most folks will save money by any means necessary, even if it's at your expense. It's not personal, it's business. Which is why the etiquette around gratitude changes in a professional setting. There are no battles won by taking your first offer — you only get what you negotiate for.

So forget everything you know about settling, and focus instead on what's next: how you're going to ask for a raise.

According to the New York Times, when you ask for a raise can be just as important as how you ask. So before you begin scripting your speech and prepping your Powerpoint, be sure to talk dates. First, set aside a substantial brick of time. This is important — this is your livelihood. It's not a case you want to make in passing, en route to another meeting.

Next, make a point to schedule your conversation in the aftermath of a personal success of yours — did you just win a big client? Publish a viral story? Ride that wave right into your boss's office. "You want to enter a salary negotiation on a high note, with indisputable evidence of the value you're contributing to the company," says Devon Smiley, a negotiation consultant. No matter how strong and consistent your work is, you want to walk in with numbers.

If possible, consider the fiscal calendar of your company, and determine when is the best time to ask for a raise. As much as we'd like to believe that our higher ups have the power to make financial judgement calls when they believe in them, we're all beholden to a devious, evil thing called budget cycles. "Even though discussions may not happen until April, for example, those budgets have been decided months earlier, and that is when you need to start laying the groundwork for your raise," says Ms. Smiley. Once you make your case, someone else needs to make that case to the finance department. Making sure the company is in a good financial position when you ask for your raise, can make that conversation as seamless as possible.

Once you've decided on a good time to talk to your boss, start collecting your materials. While it'd be great if the merit of your testimony was enough, numbers speak louder than words. Arrive with documents. Know what you're going to say. Treat this like a presentation you might have given in the 8th grade at a science fair. "One recommendation is building negotiation experience and training," says Dr. Alice Stuhlmacher, department chair of DePaul University's psychology department. "Practicing in low stakes situations can build confidence."

I received my first raise (a whopping 5k), having presented a six-page proposal to three different managing editors. The first told me the decision was over his head. The second told me it didn't make sense in the current context of our budget. The third made both cases before I told him I would have no choice but to look for positions elsewhere under these circumstances — an assertion that ran counter to everything my mother had taught me about decorum and gratitude. Not 24 hours later, I received a raise — and an apology.

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