Archive for the ‘New features’ Category

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Make Xspots easy to share

Thursday, April 1st, 2010

In a post on the Groundswell blog, Forrester Research analyst Josh Bernoff describes the addition of a new category of users to the social technology hierarchy: Conversationalists.

Conversationalists represent about 33 percent of online US adult consumers. According to the hierarchy, Conversationalists are people who update their status by conversing on social media websites and/or post updates on Twitter at least once a week.

The new Share option in the Mixpo Player’s INFO menu takes advantage of the emergence of Conversationalists by making it easy for an Xspot to be passed on.

Selecting Share opens a Share with Friends window. Viewers click an icon to access their Facebook, Twitter, or dozens of other social media accounts where a link to the Xspot landing page is automatically available to be passed on.

Share with Friends window in Xspot

Viewers easily share an Xspot on Facebook, Twitter, or dozens of other sites

Play the following Xspot to try the option for yourself. When the Xspot starts playing, place your cursor over INFO and then click Share.

Note This is a demo Xspot only. It did not run in this specific format during the actual Scott Brown for U.S. Senate campaign.

More information

Mixpo account holders: Find instructions for adding the Share option to the INFO menu by visiting the Client Resources page, and then searching for facebook or twitter.

Learn more about dyamic video advertising for politics.

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Telescoping: Redirect Xspot viewers

Wednesday, March 10th, 2010

Telescoping means moving from a wider perspective to a narrower one. In the world of video it means moving viewers, automatically or through self-selection, from general interest video content to locally or individually relevant content.

For example:

  • A national auto dealer runs an video ad campaign in several local online publications. After a general introduction to the newest model, the Xspot automatically sends viewers, based on their IP addesses, to Xspots created by their local dealers.
  • A candidate in a tight congressional race wants to clearly distinguish her policies from those of her opponent. At the end of a brief introductory Xspot, she directs voters to 3 detailed Xspots that describe her approaches to the economy, health care, and national security.

In both cases, the transition from general to detailed Xspot occurs seamlessly within the same Player.

Telescoping options similar to these are available now using the new Redirect overlay action in the Mixpo platform.

Click the Economic Crisis overlay at the end of this Scott Brown campaign demo Xspot to experience a simple example of telescoping for yourself.

Note This telescoping example is for demo purposes only and was not used in an actual Scott Brown campaign ad.

If you’ve used overlays before to link to webpages or open lead capture forms, you’re already familiar with the basic process for adding redirect actions to Xspots.

More information

Learn more about dyamic video advertising for politics.

Mixpo account holders: Find instructions for setting up telescoping by visiting the Client Resources page, and then searching for redirect.

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Add real-time polls to Xspots

Tuesday, March 9th, 2010

As Don Guy, president of the polling technology company, Orion Systems, put it, in an article in Elect Women Magazine, “understanding how voters feel and think can help you craft a winning message, and conduct a successful [political] campaign.”

But polls can be expensive and time consuming to conduct.

With the most recent release of the Mixpo dynamic video advertising platform, you can now incorporate polls into the Xspots you run on the Internet.

Including polls in Xspots offers dual benefits. Polls not only provide advertisers with valuable feedback about where viewers stand. They also increase the likelihood of engagement by providing viewers with a way to express their opinions.

Tip While this example focuses on a political Xspot, advertisers in retail and other verticals will also benefit from the data polls provide.

Note This poll is for demonstration purposes only and does not reflect an actual poll that ran during the Scott Brown campaign.

Respond to the poll in the example Xspot to get immediate feedback on all poll responses to date.

Advertisers can update existing polls or add new ones at any time during an Xspot campaign. Changes go live immediately everywhere the Xspot is published.

In addition, advertisers can generate poll reports in Microsoft® Excel® format, which provide response data by date range or from the time the Xspot went live to the current day.

More information

Learn more about Mixpo’s dynamic video solution for politics.

Mixpo account holders can learn more by visiting the Client Resources page, and then searching for survey.

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Incorporate social media into Xspots

Monday, March 8th, 2010

As online marketing consultant Patrick Patullo points out, in 2009, largely in response to Obama’s effective presidential campaign, social networking and media took off.

Now, many large and small businesses and most political campaigns maintain an active presence on at least some of the major social media sites.

You can easily and effectively promote an advertiser’s social media presence from within an Xspot using the familiar website icons that virtually all viewers instantly recognize.

For example, take a look at the use of social media icons in the following Scott Brown demonstration Xspot.

Place your cursor over the Xspot as its playing and expand the INFO menu, where you can include other built-in social networking calls to action. This demo Xspot includes Send to a Friend, which encourages viral sharing among acquaintances.

In the Mixpo platform, we’ve included all of the popular social media icons in our stock media library. With just a couple of clicks, you can add a Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, or other icon to an Xspot as an overlay, and then associate the overlay with the URL for the appropriate feed, webpage, or video.

Social media icons in the Mixpo stock library

With a couple of clicks, add a social media icon to an Xspot as an overlay

And, as the Scott Brown demo Xspot illustrates, you can draw viewers’ attention to the icons using color and a glow effect.

More information

Learn more about dynamic video advertising for politics.

Mixpo account holders can learn more by visiting the Client Resources page, and then searching for social media.

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Add printable coupons to Xspots

Friday, February 19th, 2010

Typically, offering online videoad viewers something they have to print involves a fair amount of effort on their parts.

For example, a retail outlet or restaurant might link viewers to a website where they can print a coupon. Or, a political campaign might encourage voters to visit a webpage and print a “Candidate on the Issues” handout.

The new Print overlay action in the Mixpo platform takes the effort out of the print call to action.

Clicking coupon image in an Xspot

Clicking a coupon image overlay in an Xspot

One click on an inviting image overlay opens the printable image at its actual size along with a Print dialog box.

Tip To encourage viewers to click, you can place “Click to Print!” text on top of the image without interfering with the print action.

Print dialog box that opens when viewers click a coupon overlay

After clicking the overlay, viewers can immediately print the coupon at its original size

No webpages to visit. No browser window printing confusion to sort out. Just a friendly, familiar OK button.

More information

Mixpo account holders can learn more by visiting the Client Resources page, and then searching for print.

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Show Player controls in Spanish

Wednesday, January 27th, 2010

When an Xspot is running on a website or network visited primarily by Spanish speakers, you can localize the Mixpo Player to adapt to the primary audience.

You have two localization opportunities:

Turn on the Spanish language Player controls

When you turn on Spanish controls, the Player buttons, close box, and some INFO menu options automatically appear in Spanish.

The following thumbnail shows the localized Roll Over to Play button.

Roll Over to Play button in Spanish

Roll Over to Play button with Spanish Player turned on

Use Spanish for INFO menu calls to action

You can customize the Website Link and Contact Us INFO menu calls to action by typing them in Spanish.

The text in the first two INFO menu options in the following thumbnail were typed in Spanish. The bottom 3 sharing options (which you can choose to show or hide) are localized automatically when you turn on the Spanish-language Player.

INFO menu options in Spanish

Spanish language INFO menu options

The text fields for the custom calls to action support all of the special Spanish characters.

More information

Mixpo account holders can learn more by visiting Client Resources, and then searching for spanish.

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Auto-optimize Xspots

Monday, January 25th, 2010

A small change in a video ad’s creative can have a significant impact on an advertiser’s ROI.

For example, thumbnail image A may generate significantly more views than thumbnail image B. Or, call to action C may result in significantly more clicks than call to action D.

But how does an advertiser know which creative will produce better results? And, in a one-shot media buy, how can an advertiser learn what works best and act on it?

In the Mixpo platform, you can now resolve all of these problems in the course of a normal Xspot campaign by taking 3 easy steps:

Try different creative

Unless an advertiser has two TV spots to run online, switching creative may seem overwhelming. You can, however, make some quick and easy changes that may significantly affect an Xspot’s performance.

Just two clicks creates a duplicate version of any Xspot. By opening the new version in the Studio, you can replace an overlay or INFO menu call to action, upload a new thumbnail image, and more.

Copy button in Dashboard

Click Copy to duplicate an Xspot or auto-generate new thumbnail images

Tip Clicking Copy also gives you the option of automatically generating Xspot versions with different thumbnail images.

More information

Mixpo account holders can learn more by visiting Client Resources, and then searching for duplicate or thumbnail images.

Compare performance

To see which creative execution performs best, set up ad rotation.

Ad rotation means rotating different Xspots randomly through the same Player to see which generates the most engagement and exposure.

After you create the Xspot versions you want to compare, setting up ad rotation is as simple as selecting a few check boxes.

Setting up ad rotation

Two versions of the Xspot will rotate randomly through the same Player

You can track results for the different versions as you always do in the Dashboard or through weekly and monthly PDF reports.

More information

Mixpo account holders can learn more by visiting Client Resources, and then searching for ad rotation.

Act on the performance results

The good news is that you don’t really have to act on the performance results. If you enable auto-optimization, the Mixpo platform does the acting for you.

All you have to do is set the number of impressions after which you want optimization to occur, select a performance metric (for example, active view rate or clickthrough rate), and then sit back and relax.

When the impression limit is reached, the platform automatically runs the best-performing ad and stops running poorer performers.

More information

Mixpo account holders can learn more by visiting the Improve Xspot Performance page, and then searching for auto-optimize.

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Publish display ads with Mixpo

Friday, January 8th, 2010

Have you been longing to resolve, once and for all, whether an Xspot or display ad drives more conversions?

Have you been eager to jump in to the rich-media-with-video space but aren’t sure how to get started?

Or, do you just want one straightforward approach to publishing and tracking the performance of all types of digital ads your advertisers want to run?

Now you can achieve all of these goals in the Mixpo platform.

Upload display ad files

If an advertiser has an image or .swf Flash file, you can upload that file to the Mixpo platform. Then, you can publish, run, and track the performance of the display ad just the way you can with Xspots.

In addition, if an advertiser is running TV spots and display ads as part of the same campaign, you can upload both the Flash and video files to create a display ad that expands to an Xspot.

The platform supports all of the common display ad sizes (and you can provide a custom size). As the following examples of an expanding 250×250 display ad illustrate, you have a lot of control over expansion size and direction.

More information

Mixpo subscribers can learn more about the new display ad options by visiting the Create page, and then clicking Can I run a display ad using the Mixpo platform?

To learn about conversion tracking for both Xspots and display ads, see the blog post Impressions and views mean conversions.

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New ways for Xspots to expand

Thursday, December 10th, 2009

You may have used our original expander to add action and appeal to advertisers’ Xspots.

When a standard 300×250 display ad is set to expand, a viewer’s click or mouseover resizes the ad to 560×300. You can fill the 300×250 space to the left of the Xspot with a widescreen version of the video, an image, or a message.

560x300 expander

Picture of 560x300 expander with image on the left

Visit our Gallery to interact with a variety of expanding Xspots.

On the Google content network and other publisher websites, you commonly see a couple of other expander sizes:

  • 600×250
  • 500×300

With our latest release of the Mixpo platform, you can now set 300×250 Xspots to expand to both of these sizes. As with the original expander, you can fill the expanded space with a widescreen version of the video or add an image or message.

More information

Mixpo subscribers can learn more about the new expander sizes by visiting the Publish page, and then clicking How do I set an Xspot to expand?

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Analyze local response by DMA

Thursday, December 10th, 2009

Advertisers typically pay by CPM to run Xspot campaigns. It’s in their best interest to know that as many impressions as possible are being served to relevant target audiences.

Now you have an easy way to get advertisers exactly the audience information they need.

Custom reports generated in the Mixpo Dashboard include a table that lists views, clicks, and other performance data by designated marketing area (DMA).

DMA table in custom report

DMA table in custom report - Click for larger image

Because the 210 U.S. DMAs are organized in the table in descending order by number of views, advertisers can see at a glance how target viewers are responding.

More information

Learn more about how DMA data can shape Xspot campaigns.

Mixpo subscribers can learn more about monitoring views by DMA by opening the Reports page, and then clicking Can I monitor Xspot views by DMA?.

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