Yahoo! brought together advertisers, bloggers, agencies and big brands like Sara Lee and Harpo Studios for an engaging panel discussion of its Connectonomics Women  study. Held at the beautiful Ivy Room in Chicago, the event was stimulating and chic—two qualities every woman enjoys.

Watch this video for expert marketing tips straight from the event:

And take a peek inside the event with these photos:

Yahoo!'s Mollie Spilman with Harpo Studios President Erik Logan and Editor-in-Chief of Yahoo! Shine Brandon Holley

How do you market to women? To answer the question, Yahoo! created a study and invited a panel of marketing and content experts at a live event in Chicago for a select audience of marketing executives.

Speakers at the intimate breakfast event returned to one common theme brought up in the Yahoo! Connectonomics study: despite economic and demographic differences, women’s needs online are often very similar.

“Ultimately as a marketer, you’re not just targeting a single woman,  a baby boomer in Chicago,” said Radha Subramanyam, Yahoo! VP and head of corporate and media research, who introduced the study. “Our products cut across a swath of women. Understanding the common needs of women helps us reach more.”

Brandon Holley, editor-in-chief Yahoo! Shine, the online publication for women,  moderated a panel that included Erik Logan, president of Harpo Studios; Phillippe Schaillee, CMO of Sara Lee; Kim Moldofsky, a blogger and founder of MomImpact; and Danielle Wiley, senior VP of consumer brands at Edelman Digital Chicago.

Know her “day in the life” and tailor your messages to it
Schaillee said that digital marketing becomes more powerful when you understand what a woman needs. “If you really understand what a day in your prime prospect’s life really looks like, and you understand what those connections are, digital opens up a whole new world where you can really tailor your message to her.”

Tell an authentic story
When you’re trying to reach women via multiple channels, says Harpo’s Logan, it’s important to be consistent. For example, he says, Oprah has been able to push into online, radio, and TV by remaining focused on what she—and her brand—does best. “We  are fantastic storytellers,” he says. “We hone-in someone’s authentic voice and we never deviate from it.”

The group talked about the study’s finding  that women are not necessarily receptive to marketing messages on social networking sites, where advertising can be seen as intruding on a conversation among friends. One way around that is to participate in online communities that you—and your brand—are passionate about.  “That way, when you do talk to your audience,” says Edelman’s Wiley, “it’s not coming from someone who’s interrupting a private conversation—it’s someone who’s there already.”

— Jeff Sweat, Blog Editor

If you’re marketing to women—and since they make roughly 85% of household buying decisions, you should—you need to know what women are seeking online. So we created the Women Connectonomics study, which examines how and why women are using different kinds of online sites, to help you start connecting with women online in a more meaningful way.

Yahoo! partnered with research firm AddedValue and surveyed 3,000 women across the country, conducting focus groups and one-to-one interviews. The resulting study provides a new framework for targeting women online, one centered around the needs of today’s woman. It found that:

• The most important needs for women revolve around personal growth, as well as their interdependencies on others in their social circle. 
• 44% of women say they get information about products and brands on women’s lifestyle sites.
• Women’s lifestyle sites like Shine and special interest sites fulfill the most needs for women. They also offer anonymity which can result in deep emotional connections for women.
• Women are most receptive to marketing messages on lifestyle, specialty and review sites. These channels deliver 3 times the impact on purchase decisions in comparison to the other online sites we looked at in the study.

Understanding the needs of women
Personal growth and connecting with others emerged as the top reasons women use the Web. This involves specific things like caring for oneself, self improvement and feeling enabled.

Interestingly, we found that the fundamental reasons why women communicate online and what sites they leverage are more similar than different – no matter what age group, profession, or life stage. 

Understanding where women are online
Women revealed they are using a number of online channels to connect with others. We explored the needs of women as associated with their use of the following communication channels and content sites:  Social Networking Sites, Twitter, Email (for personal use), Online Community Groups, Instant Messenger, Blogs, Review Sites, Women’s Lifestyle Sites (Yahoo! Shine, iVillage, SheKnows, etc), and Special Interest Sites (CafeMom, BabyCenter, etc).  The study found that communication channels like social networking and IM are used most often to help women to stay connected. However, the connections through these channels tend to be more casual. 

Content sites like women’s lifestyle and special interest sites fulfill the most needs for women. Surprisingly, the study found that the anonymity these channels offer can lead to deeper emotional connections for women. Women said these sites offer users access to like-minded women and solutions to problems without the risk of being judged by people they know in real life. 

Understanding where women are most receptive
So, where is a woman more receptive to ads? Not all websites are equally persuasive.  We found that women are most receptive to advertising on women’s lifestyle sites, special interest sites and review sites.  In fact, these channels deliver three times the impact on purchase decisions than the other online channels looked at in this study.

By understanding how different channels meet different needs, marketers can optimize how they target women and maximize engagement on each channel.  Simply put, marketing effectivess is a function of Needs + Channel + Receptivity.  Here’s a quick cheat sheet of the top ways advertisers can fine-tune their messages to women by channel:

For more, visit Yahoo! Advertising, or download this .pdf.

—Amy Janis, Senior Manager, B2B Market Research

Online ad spending up
Here’s a little silver lining for agencies and publishers: Online ad spending will see double-digit growth, reaching $61.8 billion worldwide this year and $96.8 billion in 2014, according to an eMarketer report cited by AdWeek. Hopefully that rising tide will lift all boats.

Business schools heart social media
You knew it would come to this. One minute you’re tweeting just for fun about how yummy that bagel was this morning, and the next you’re running a comprehensive social media campaign that “leverages the power of peer-to-peer networks to optimize brand evangelism and foment expanded sales opportunities” for your company. Now it’s official, because B-schools like Harvard and Columbia are offering bit-ticket courses in social media marketing, according to BusinessWeek.

What’s more important? Your keywords or landing pages?
Not surprisingly, the answer is that they’re both vital to your efforts. So says Dan Darnell, director of product marketing at Adchemy. Writing on Adotas, Darnell says that too many advertisers focus on either their paid search ads or their websites, when they should be looking at “the contributions of the entire advertising experience—from keyword selection to bids to ad copy to landing pages.” It’s only obvious after someone takes the time to point it out.

Got an ad for that, señor?
As a marketer, would you willingly overlook a potential audience of 50 million Americans? Well, according to AdAge, some one in six U.S. residents are expected to classify themselves as Hispanic in the 2010 Census. It’s a market with a huge potential—the second largest market in the U.S. Don’t speak Spanish? Don’t worry. Nearly half of that 50 million are perfectly comfortable with English. Muy bueno!

Old Spice sales up 107%
It’s an endless debate in the agency world: What kinds of ads are most effective? Groovy, polished, brand-based ads, or simple “buy now and save” ads? Recently, skeptics had bashed Old Spice’s cool “smell like a man” viral online video campaign as ineffective. But, reports AdAge’s David Griner, your father’s deodorant’s sales are up 107 percent over the last 52 weeks. Coincidence? We think not. (Of course, advertising a sale now and then can’t hurt, either.)

Yahoo! giggles
While sitting in your office today, turn the volume on your computer all the way up, go to the Yahoo! homepage, mouse over the exclamation point in the Yahoo! logo and click. If it doesn’t get a giggle from your coworkers you’re working in the wrong place.

Ad man by day, mohel by night?
On an even lighter note, BNET’s Jim Edwards reports that one lucky Twitter bug has landed a $70K-a-year job at the venerable firm of Saatchi & Saatchi for tweeting, well, a circumcision joke. Ouch.

— Michael Mattis

Marketers have long attempted to label women for marketing purposes, but putting “soccer” in front of “mom” is so 1994. Even “hockey moms” rejected Sarah Palin’s bid to represent their unique demography. And while we’ve yet to see a “crowdsourcing” attempt to create a feminist anthem as alluring as 1972’s “I Am Woman,” women and women who also happen to be mothers have a strong and undeniable presence online.  Maybe, instead of trying to label women and moms, we just try to understand their online behavior and how marketers can target this powerful audience segment.

Women: An engaged  audience of vast scale
There are 34 million women online aged 18-34. Forty-one million moms aged 18 to 64 navigate the information superhighway. And 62.8 million women aged 18 to 49 are going online to connect, catch-up and commune with others—mostly in their local areas. In fact, no matter their age or life stage, women are going online seeking information about their interests, looking to be entertained and wanting to connect with a small, tightly-knit social network. And while not all women are moms, all moms are women so it’s no surprise that similarities abound with a few subtle differences withstanding.

The greatest difference between women aged 18 to 34 and women aged 18 to 49 is the more narrow age range’s use of social networking and texting. Not to say that there aren’t some female Generation X-ers out there with “texter’s thumb”, but the broader age range seems to distinguish itself by being the thriftiest. 49% state they typically save money by purchasing average quality items, and 44% say they are less interested in a big bank account if it means sacrificing balance and quality-of-life.

Women control the purse strings
We can’t talk about moms and marketing to them without mentioning that widespread rumor (or, who knows, maybe it’s backed by statistical data) that moms, or Chief Household Officers—as they’re often called for their uncanny ability to both bring home the bacon and fry it up in a pan—control more than 80% of their household’s undesignated spending money.  Combine this tidbit with 42% of moms who say they have bought clothes, shoes, or accessories online in the last month and a marketing opportunity can’t be far behind. The most glaring of the understated differences between women and moms seems to be moms’ emphasis on healthy living. 52% of online moms say they are always on the hunt for information about health and healthy lifestyle choices.

To really outline women’s online expectations would likely require a text as long as The Feminine Mystique; however, in the spirit of sisterhood, I’ll leave you with a few tips for marketers looking to target the female ilk:

• Entertainment, email and local content properties are some of the best places for engaging women online.
• Women are online with a purpose, so help them feel productive and provide opportunities for them to be the “hero”.
• Women are online connecting with a close social network, so provide them with opportunities to share special moments with the people they care about most.
• For women, the Internet is about function, but is also a destination for fun and entertainment. Give them both experiences for best use of content.
• Online shopping is a common thread, but women are savvy shoppers, so help them to be informed and thrifty.

— Stephanie Bilberry

Twenty years ago, busy intersections had steep, dangerous curbs onto the pavement. Today they boast gentle ramps that help those with impaired mobility move smoothly into the crosswalk. This is thanks in no small part to the Americans with Disabilities  Act (ADA), signed into law on July 26, 1990. And just as the ADA has helped make the physical world more accessible, Yahoo! is helping make the cyber world more accessible.

Enabling the physical, digital and advertising worlds
Some 650 million people around the globe live with disabilities. Enabling everyone to move smoothly online lets users, regardless of their abilities, get the information they need, when they want it. In fact, according to the National Organization on Disability, 48% of Americans with disabilities say that the Internet has significantly improved the quality of their lives.

And with the potentially vast scale of this audience, no one can afford to say, “You can’t do that.” The purchasing power of people with disabilities tops $1 trillion, including $220 million in discretionary income, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.

To demonstrate Yahoo!’s commitment to inclusion, we’re running a pair of display house ads on Yahoo! Travel: one on how to find the best sushi in your area and another for the new Hollywood summer movie, “Grown Ups.”

To learn more about the art and science of accessibility in online advertising, download our .pdf, “Making Ads Accessible.”

Getting the most for all
At Yahoo!, we’re proud to offer enhanced experiences, on our websites, as well as in our ads, to people of all abilities, taking on the complex challenges that help make our sites and services more accessible to everyone. It is part of the DNA in everything we build, including our homepage, Yahoo! Finance, Yahoo! Groups, Yahoo! Mail, Yahoo! Answers, Flickr, in ads and beyond.

To help celebrate this all-inclusive anniversary, yesterday we launched the Yahoo! Accessibility blog, which applauds the achievements of those with different abilities and shows how you can get involved and learn about the work Yahoo! is doing in the accessibility space.

For more, visit the Americans with Disabilities page at Yahoo! Events.

— Michael Mattis

Did you know that nearly as many Internet users respond to online display advertising by performing a search on a search engine (27 percent) as those who simply click on the ad itself (31 percent)? That’s just one of the data points included in the new white paper from Yahoo!, “Better Together:  Search and Display.”

Advertisers tend to separate their digital advertising into two flavors: they generally think of search advertising for performance marketing and turn to display for branding. It’s easy to see why most advertisers take this approach, since each channel plays a unique role in any given campaign.

But in practice, search advertising coupled with display advertising yields better results than when used independently. 

Download the paper here.

This statistical reality is one of the reasons Rich Ads in Search are so effective, too. Yahoo!’s innovative ad format allows advertisers to include video, custom search boxes, logos or images alongside a traditional text search ad, bringing together the virtues of both search and display.

— Chris Marlowe

Iain Tate, Global Interactive Executive Creative Director at Wieden + Kennedy, is the bright spark behind the campaign that transformed Procter & Gamble’s Old Spice from venerable shelf-filler into a buzzworthy icon.

That shouldn’t surprise anyone who heard Tait speak about advertising’s embrace of digital at the recent Yahoo! Provoke Summit.

He observed that those stuck with traditional thinking dislike the new reality in which “the best stuff wins,” but it’s now the public instead of “experts” determining what’s best. Furthermore, advertising professionals too often seek inspiration from looking at other ads. “That’s the last place you should be looking,” Tait says.

Success requires watching for what people actually do in real life with technology and with each other. And for those biding their time until things settle down? It’s never going to, Tait warns: “We just have to learn how to deal with it and thrive on it.”

In the final part of our series on getting started in online advertising, we look at analytics and optimization.  See part one, “Getting Started in Display,” part two, “Display Ads Go Viral.” And part three, “How to Buy Your First Display Ad.”

When a new display ad goes live on the Internet, it may seem like the end of a process that started with strategy, creative and buying. But in many ways when an ad goes live it’s just the beginning: analytic data comes and that starts the cycle all over again, as information is used to refine and optimize the marketing strategy, creative content, and buying plan.

What’s the data telling you?
For Adam Chandler, vice president of sales for PointRoll, a Web marketing firm specializing in rich media, all the steps of an online marketing campaign are interdependent. “There needs to be a continuous-feedback loop,” he says. “Online advertising allows you to get real-time information and then optimize your current spend based on what the data is telling you. Once you go live, it’s really just the beginning, because you’re now getting feedback from consumers on what they think of your brand.”

Analytic data includes length of time spent interacting with an ad, click-through rates, user demographic information, and whether users filled out a form or forwarded something to a friend.

Display ads get  smart
Increasingly, however, ads are able to optimize themselves. One of the latest innovations in online display advertising is dynamic ads. Yahoo!’s version is known as Smart Ads and uses demographic and clickstream data to target consumers with relevant ads. Pointroll has developed a product called adcontrol. (PointRoll is an official Yahoo! Smart Ads partner.)

Whereas previously marketers would create multiple versions of an ad and then test them extensively for response rates, dynamic ads optimize text, images, colors and other content in real time based on what combinations are getting the most attention from any given target audience.

Last year PointRoll used dynamic ads in a large campaign launched by the Ford Motor Company. To combat the sluggish auto sales that gripped the auto industry during the recession, Ford launched the Ford Advantage campaign. Its dynamic ads targeted consumers at the local level, with logos and links to their local dealers, and continually optimized to find the right colors, cars, ad copy and financial offer.

“By enabling multiple creative combinations via this one buy,” Chandler says, “Ford maximized its dollar value, and through this process were able to optimize based on what was working and what wasn’t, for the best engagement and return on investment. We were able to report some really high interaction and direct-response metrics.”

To learn more about Yahoo! Smart Ads and the innovative technology behind them, check out this video:

 And be sure to visit that Yahoo! Analytics blog.

— Christian Chensvold

Christian Chensvold is a New York-based writer covering business, lifestyle and culture. Visit his blog, Ivy-Style.com.

Right Media, right now
If you haven’t been following the Right Media Open conference in Chicago happening now on Twitter, you should be. It’s been pretty knock-down and drag-out, with the feathers flying, to use a couple hackneyed yet appropriate turns of phrase. Among the choice tweets from our intrepid reporter:

• DJakubowski asks why Google didn’t attend Search/Display panel. Do they want last click attribution model to continue?
• G Fulgoni says the interactive industry has not sold itself as a branding medium.
• McGrory—RM/Yahoo! extending supply side RTB beyond Yahoo! to publishers. Demand Media is in!
• Mike Brunick admits that agencies have not evolved as fast as they should. “A system managing efficiency is tablestakes.”

Social gets “searchy:” the urge to converge
Edelman Digital VP, Steve Rubel, quoted by Christopher Hosford in B2B, says that social is about to get “searchy.” We just love that term. The full quote: “Search is an intent-driven medium, where users seek out what they want. Social networking is where the content finds you through the lens of friends. Those two are separate, but I think we’ll see a real convergence here where search will get a lot more social and social will get a lot more ‘searchy.’” Searchy. We just like saying it.

Online video ads to explode
And by “explode” we don’t mean literally blow up, but grow really, really fast. According to an eMarketer report cited in AdWeek, the video ad market is expected to grow more than 48% this year alone. Four years from now, eMarketer expects the online video ad market to by worth $5.5 billion, up from $1.5 billion this year.

Old Spice, new life
The new buzz phrase is “heritage brands.” These are brands with a lot of history behind them, like Butterfinger and Quaker Oats, that have gone online for a little re-invigoration and re-invention. Old Spice, your father’s navy-themed under-arm fragrance, is among our favorites. They’ve done a brilliant TV, online and social media campaign in the last few years, lead by friend of Yahoo!, Iain Tait of Wieden + Kennedy. According to ClickZ, the campaign “ending” lead to 35.7 million views on YouTube alone. Not bad. Take that as a lesson creativity, agencies.

B2B built for social
Social media is often thought of as a B2C channel. That actually may be wrong, according to BNET Advertising’s British correspondent, Yann Gourvennec. Using social media, says Gourvennec, companies can build tight communities with their customer bases. She offers several tips on just how.

— Michael Mattis