- August 7, 2020
- 9:58 pm
Have questions about MarketChorus Engage? Then you’re in the right place. These are some of the most frequently asked questions by our publishers. If you still have unanswered questions after reading this, then please reach out to us.
What is MarketChorus Engage?
MarketChorus Engage leverages AI to personalize article recommendations based on the content a website visitor is currently viewing via email and Slack push notifications (alerts), and then turns the resulting first-party data into a monetizable resource for the publisher.
How Does It Work?
It’s a 3 part program that is both technology and service, in that our machine learning experts and coders will take care of all the technical aspects on our side, without requiring more than a typical one-line code snippet to be installed in your website header.
MarketChorus Engage will index all your content on an on-going basis automatically, alert users who’ve opted to “follow” related stories, and (separately) generate contextual data to monetize in ad campaigns and to power your subscriber acquisition efforts.
Why do this? Well, let’s walk through the 3 parts of the program to see how they work together…
Part 1: Acquire Email Addresses With “Follow This Story” Alerts
When a reader signs up for a news alert, by clicking the “Follow This Story” button that we insert into your website design (remember that one line of code?), they are required to provide a valid email address to create their account.
This creates a lead pipeline for digital subscriber acquisition…
Once an account has been created, the reader is presented with the option to activate alerts by email or Slack. Email alerts summarize the top ten stories in the preceding 24 hours related to the article the reader was on when the alert was created.
Slack alerts occur up to once an hour, to provide readers near-real-time updates on the story they’re tracking.
This allows you to expand your visibility within the millions of organizations that use Slack to collaborate on a daily basis.
You own the email addresses collected through this process, and MarketChorus will only send emails related to their alerts, or to administer their account. Your marketing team can use these email addresses for outreach via email, social advertising, etc. to convert them to subscribers.
Part 2: Drive Return Visits From News Alerts
By alerting readers with more articles they’ve expressed an interest in reading, we will increase the number of times those readers return to your website, building loyalty -but also generating additional ad impressions and first-party data.
More views means more opportunities to display an ad and more first-party targeting data that can be monetized via Facebook, Google, and other ad platforms (see below).
Loyal readers are the most valuable asset any publisher can invest in and MarketChorus Engage provides a 100% automated approach to growing reader affinity while generating a pipeline of potential subscribers.
Part 3: Monetize Readers Off-Platform / Drive Subscriptions
If you allow us advertiser access to your Google, Facebook, etc advertising accounts, and the related website pixels, we can generate hyper-specific retargeting audiences of your readers, based on the content they consume on your site.
This allows you to advertise to individuals who’ve read specific combinations of your articles, virtually anywhere they go on the web.
Ex. Audiences of thousands of people who read reviews of the symphony orchestra as well as might be of interest to home audio/video providers, for example.
By leveraging your own audience data to create retargeting audiences on external ad platforms (Google, Facebook, etc.) you’re extending your ability to influence (and monetize) your readers and eliminating the targeting data fees typical with ad campaigns on those platforms.
This creates nearly limitless ad inventory for your ad sales teams to capitalize on, and simultaneously increases your margins very significantly.
And while this revenue opportunity cannot be overlooked, there is a potentially greater opportunity in creating niche retargeting segments of your readers to power your own internal marketing efforts.
Running extremely cost-effective Facebook ads to loyal readers with personalized subscription offers is a potentially game-changing addition to your digital strategy.
How Does This All Fit Together?
Ok, big picture…
MarketChorus Engage acquires new email addresses by offering personalized news alerts, which increases reader loyalty and return visits, generating more data which can be monetized and used to grow subscriptions.
How Do I Get Started?
Please let us know you’re interested by filling out this form, we will be in touch. from a technical and integration standpoint, you will put a couple of lines of code on your page where you want the button to appear, and that’s it.
Can The Email Alerts Be Customized With Our Branding?
Yes! We will format the email templates with your logo and the “Follow This Story” button with your color/styles.
What Will MarketChorus Do With The Emails That Are Collected?
Your organization owns 100% of the email addresses collected. We do not track, monetize, share, or sell any data whatsoever. No additional cookies or pixels will be added to your website. MarketChorus only uses the emails for administration purposes, like “Forgot My Password” emails, and to deliver any email alerts readers have authorized. We will deliver all the email addresses collected and statistics such as total users, articles tracked, and articles sent upon request.
Can Recommendations Include Content From Other Sources?
Yes. We offer publishers the choice of sending readers only content from their own websites, area/regional content from other publishers, or curated national news. In each case, the publisher can supply a white-list of other sites to include in the email results.
Does This Replace Our Other Email Newsletter Software?
We recommend leaving all of your existing newsletter efforts intact, and adding this alerting feature at the story level. as it learns from every article you publish and will alert readers on a daily basis if new stories match, the feature should complement your other efforts and be an additional, non-competitive way to increase reader loyalty and extend your reach.
What Kind Of First-Party Data Does MarketChorus Generate For Publishers?
When MarketChorus is provided access to your ad pixels (Facebook, Google, etc.) we’re able to generate retargeting audiences in your ad accounts on those platforms, based on the types of your readers are consuming on your site.
For example, if you wanted to promote subscriptions to your Arts & Life crowd, we’d build audiences containing people who read articles about topics like the local arts community, cultural events, and community history.
If you have customers in the wealth management space, we’d create audiences of people who read your content about investing, tax management strategies, and business acquisitions; for you to sell to the advertiser as retargeting campaigns.
What Is A Retargeting Campaign?
Retargeting is a technology that allows you to deliver digital ads to people who’ve visited your website (or specific pages on it), which can be very effective at converting prospects into customers. The more specific the content, the more effective the retargeting audience…
Retargeting visitors to any page on your website is generic.
Retargeting visitors who’ve read your political content is more specific.
Retargeting visitors who’ve read 2+ articles each about the topics, gun control, LGBTQ rights, and Bernie Sanders, is precision.
Precision in ad campaign targeting means more impressions are delivered to potential buyers, which means better rates of conversion, and lower costs per acquisition. This produces happier advertisers that are willing to keep spending money. And you can leverage this technology internally to improve your own subscriber acquisition campaigns the same way.
How Do We Monetize These Retargeting Audiences
Since the actual ad campaigns are running on common platforms like Google and Facebook, selling them is extremely simple. Most publishers have, at least, experimented with selling Facebook Ads and programmatic already. If you have, this is exactly the same thing.
If not, don’t worry, this is the typical sales approach we recommend:
“As an advertiser with our publication, you trust our reach and value our audience. This is an opportunity to reach the same engaged, local audience, wherever they are online; such as Facebook -or reading other news sites. These are high-affinity segments of our readers who’ve recently consumed multiple pieces of content on topics like [examples relevant to the customer]…”
The ads are standard ads. The hyper-targeted audience is what’s unique and special. You’re selling your readers, on Facebook, Google, etc.
How Do We Execute Retargeting Ad Campaigns?
If your ad execution team sells any non-owned media, like programmatic, or social advertising campaigns, this is exactly the same thing -but a little easier. The retargeting audiences we generate will be deposited in your advertising account, once you’ve given us “advertiser access”. Your team simply needs to select the audience as a targeting criteria when building the ad campaign.
If you don’t have an internal digital media team, please contact us to discuss alternatives.
What Sets Engage Apart From Other “AI” Solutions For Publishers?
There are plenty of solutions providers trying to solve problems for publishers, and a growing number which incorporate “AI” (machine learning, natural language processing, etc.) but we believe MarketChorus Engage is fundamentally different for a number of reasons.
We index your content every 15 minutes, and deliver alerts up to once an hour, so your readers will be able to watch stories develop in near-real-time.
Next, we seamlessly integrate with your existing Facebook, Google, etc. ad pixels, to provide you with advanced contextual retargeting capabilities (targeting readers based on the content they consume). This allows you to extend your reach to influence your readers while they’re on Facebook, Google, and other platforms.
Finally, we’re focused on your revenue generation. The competitors we’re typically asked about like Klangoo, NativeAI, Ezoic, and others, are all using AI to provide insights and recommendations; which is valuable. We take this one step further by providing you the tools to monetize and grow your audience directly, leveraging Facebook and other advertising platforms.
We’re also always on-hand to provide strategic consulting to help you uncover opportunities to grow revenue and increase subscribers using this technology. This combination of intelligent software, revenue generation, and white-glove service is what we believe sets us apart from other solutions providers.