How To Maximize Online Advertising And Retargeting With Chris Stark

The new year has finally arrived! Are you ready for it?

In this episode (#31), I’m in the lab with Chris Stark, president of Digital MGMT. We talk digital advertising and remarketing—two increasingly important visibility channels. The Biz Hack covers a 2015 reading list for entrepreneurs.

1. Can you tell us a little bit about your journey? What led you to create Digital MGMT?

I had originally been working for a company that needed help making more money off their website traffic. That evolved into other sites asking me to do that, and it turned into a business. After about a year at my old job, I started my own company that was slowly growing and eventually turned into what it is now, representing websites and helping them make more money.

2. You recently had dinner with Bob Parsons, the infamous founder of Go Daddy. How did that come about?

A friend of mine asked me to a holiday dinner. It just so happened that one of the companies that Bob Parsons invested in after Go Daddy is an agency here in town. Pretty interesting guy, definitely tech royalty in Arizona. He’s definitely animated, as you can tell from interviews he’s done or TV appearances. He’s definitely like that in person. He’s a funny guy. When you’re at that point, you can kind of say whatever you want, and he definitely speaks his mind!

3. You work with publishers of high-traffic sites to massively grow their revenue stream. One trap they often fall into is trying to manage all of the content production that got them the audience in the first place, along with the advertising. Are there common mistakes you see publishers make?

The most common mistake I see made is this: They’re good at what they know and start to push the boundaries of their knowledge on the business side of things. As they grow, they start to see themselves having issues across the board: a huge traffic spike that shuts down their website because they don’t have the hosting in place for that, or not having advanced systems that can make them more revenue, or the systems they have aren’t set up incorrectly. A lot of the time, the sites that they start working with will have a rat’s nest of things wrong with them. We’re about coming in and either making sure those systems are set up correctly or adding to them.

4. Are there any tips you can share for how publishers can maximize their revenues?

Something that’s not necessarily directly related to advertising but definitely affects it is site speed. The number one requested feature of any site is speed. There’s been a number of polls that have been done by big websites to ask, “What’s most important to you?” If a site doesn’t load, it doesn’t matter. Focus on site speed as your first priority—over design, over features—so that people can actually get to your site. That’s a big issue that people tend to lose site of.

5. On the flip side, you also work with advertisers on digital marketing—online display advertising, retargeting, mobile marketing… the list goes on. Are there common mistakes you see online advertisers making?

There’s two big issues I’ve seen. One, their creatives are too simple. They have a graphic designer build a static ad that’s just an image and hope that people click on it. A lot of the time, they’re not doing a lot of the best practices they should be. Going to a more sophisticated creative drastically increases performance. Then, once people have actually seen the ad, there’s tracking. A lot of clients I work with initially might be using bitly. They’re really only tracking that direct click, and once that happens, they don’t necessarily know what was produced out of that. With that, there’s maybe a third issue, too: Having a valuable key performance indicator—getting an e-mail address or a sale, as opposed to sending them to a dealer page. The money that was spent on advertising is effectively lost. Those three things: creative, attribution, and picking a key performance indicator that’s of value and trackable.

6. What online ad tools do you like?

There’s a lot of tools out there. The major one is Google AdWords. You can reach Google’s display network through that, including YouTube and any banner ads that anyone runs the Google ad network through. If you wanted to do a search engine marketing campaign on Google, the original AdWords is where you’d do that, as well. That’s the main tool that most people use.

7. What retargeting ad tools do you like?

The two major services right now are Perfect Audience and AdRoll. There are number of options out there, but those are the two biggest. You can also do retargeting through Google AdWords as well.

8. Do you like display ads or text ads?

It depends on your goal. In general, display is a richer experience. This is why TV continues to be a good place to advertise for some. People want a rich experience. Text and links tend to be vague, maybe even to the point of being deceptive. You don’t want people to click into something because they’ve been duped. Giving someone the experience of mousing over an ad and having it pop out to a video about your product is a really good way to make people aware of your product, so they can then perform an action. They’re prepared before they get there.

9. Do you have a favorite productivity tool or best practice you can share with entrepreneurs?

Asana for time management, and Harvest for time tracking. For Gmail, I use Boomerang, Banana Tag, and Rapportive.

10. How can folks connect with you?

On the Digital MGMT website—the contact form there is a good way to get in touch with me. Also on Twitter, @digimgmt.

This week’s Biz Hack:

As entrepreneurs, many of us have an insatiable thirst for knowledge and, as such, love books. We may not feel we have the time to read but love it nonetheless. We often want to know what other successful entrepreneurs have read, what they’re currently reading, and the top books they recommend.

As you put together your 2015 reading list, here are 10 entrepreneurial books to consider.

Action Item:

Continually learning will keep you motivated, inspired, and sharp. If you’re ever feeling a lull, seek out something educational or inspirational. Develop or sharpen a new entrepreneurial skill or get through that reading list you’ve been saving in your inbox. See this week’s action item.

Quote of the Week:

“The successful warrior is the average man with laser-like focus.” ~ Bruce Lee

Next week I’m in The Lab with Denise Duffield-Thomas. She is the founder of Lucky Bitch where she teaches entrepreneurs how to release money blocks and start getting paid what they’re worth. Be sure to tune in! Until then, have prosperous week, and let’s make it an amazing year!