Targeted: How Technology Is Revolutionizing Advertising and the Way Companies Reach Consumers - Hardcover

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Targeted's author Mike Smith is Vice President of Revenue Platforms and Operations at Hearst Magazines Digital Media and General Manager of Core Audience at Hearst Corporation. The former President of Forbes.com and former Chief Digital Officer of Forbes Media, Smith is an authority on how using real-time bidding systems with finesse can dramatically promote online advertising and branding. Before joining Forbes, Smith was Vice President and Chief Information Officer at TheStreet.com. He also worked at HBO in a variety of positions, including director of information technology. Smith is a graduate of the New Jersey Institute of Technology.

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"The Internet has become the driving force in the economy thanks to advertising that runs on a maze of technologies and services so complicated that even professionals are confused. Targeted demystifies the rapidly evolving world of online advertising and is a must-read for any Internet executive or investor." -- Roger McNamee, Cofounder, Elevation Partners, Silver Lake Partners, Integral Capital Partners

"Digital is the media industry's Rubik's Cube--and every few months the puzzle gets scrambled yet again. Mike Smith has one of the keenest minds in seeing trends others simply do not, making Targeted essential reading for anyone involved in media transformation." -- David Carey, President, Hearst Magazines

"Department-store pioneer John Wanamaker famously observed that he knew that half of his advertising was wasted but he didn't know which half. The Digital Age has blasted away the throw-it-on-the-wall-and-see-what-sticks, Mad Men approach to advertising. In this timely, well-written book, Mike Smith provides the perfect guide to the rapidly growing, precision-guided, online world of advertising that is emerging. Wanamaker would have been pleased. You will be too." -- Steve Forbes, Chairman and Editor-in-Chief, Forbes Media

"In this world of ever-changing technological innovation and advancement, sometimes it's a good idea to take stock of where we've been and where we are going. With regard to digital advertising and real-time bidding (RTB), Mike Smith's new book does both, and offers a unique look at the inner workings of a multibillion-dollar industry." -- Ted Meisel, former CEO of Overture Services and Senior Advisor, Elevation Partners

"The brave new world of digital advertising has now fully arrived. Mike Smith's book Targeted demystifies this world and gives you the tools to embrace it and win. No one who sells anything can afford to keep their head in the sand. Targeted lays it all out. Read it and keep it close. Your financial future will depend on it!" -- John "Jay Jay" French, Twisted Sister founder, musician, artist, manager, producer, writer, motivational speaker, and charter member, Long Island Music Hall of Fame

"Part history, part handbook, Targeted is a compelling, inside look at the way digital advertising impacts businesses and consumers around the world. Mike Smith is a savvy digital industry veteran, and he gives the reader an insightful look at an industry that is significantly changing the way we do business. The lessons learned here are invaluable." -- Stephen M. R. Covey, New York Times and #1 Wall Street Journal bestselling author of The Speed of Trust and coauthor of Smart Trust

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Introduction

The Internet is a compelling engine of engagement. It’s a network where we can get any kind of information, conduct our business, and connect with others anywhere in the world at any time. This relentlessly churning and navigable Amazon of information and interaction has channels numbering in the millions through which the current flows in any direction. No medium ever invented gives us so much control over our entrances and exits. We can leave it on a whim and without any effort. It is changing our lives in ways we need to pay attention to. Its influence is and will be as profound as if something had been implanted in our brains or had modified our genome.

Everything we get from the Internet we get for free because others pay for it. The Internet has grown and been sustained by advertising. Whether we think publishers have earned our attention or advertisers have hijacked it, it is money from advertising that has put the content at our disposal. Advertisers subsidize the medium to get our attention, however fleeting or ungovernable it may be, in order to pitch their products to us.

To some, this phenomenon is like a beanstalk on Internet growth hormone, which will lead to a bonanza in cyberspace. To others, it’s the humongous man-eating plant from Little Shop of Horrors, insidiously tracking them and invading their privacy.

However you see it, there is no denying that digital advertising in all its forms is vastly different from every sort of advertising that has preceded it. It has grown and transformed itself with stunning speed. As with the Internet that spawned it, it is changing the future we will inhabit. Even as “realists” assumed digital advertising was a gimmick with little utility, it went from a concept in entrepreneurs’ imaginations and the wishful thinking of venture capitalists to an apparatus of commercial promotion that reached critical mass while many were still wondering if it was for real.