| Course | MT357 Digital Marketing Platforms and Strategy |
|---|---|
| Unit | Unit 1 |
| Paper type | Digital marketing discussion post |
| Length | About 440 words, 2 pages double-spaced |
| Format | APA 7 discussion post |
| School | Purdue University Global |
| Program | BS in Business Administration |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for MT357 Unit 1
Forty-Seven Ads for a Lens I Already Owned: An MT357 Unit 1 Discussion Post on Retargeting That Outlived the Purchase
MT357 · Unit 1 Discussion Board Post
Posted by [Student Name]
The shop and the writer's tally are composite; the retargeting research cited is real.
Initial Post
I kept a note on my phone. Between the morning after my order confirmation and three weeks later, I saw 47 display and social ads for the exact lens I had bought: 19 in one social app, 11 in another and 17 across three news sites. My claim is simple: the retailer's retargeting kept spending money on someone who had already done the thing the ads were asking for.
The course text explains how this happens. Retargeting builds an audience from people who visited a product page, and a well-run campaign also builds an exclusion list from people who completed a purchase (Chaffey & Ellis-Chadwick, 2022). If the purchase event never reaches the ad account, the system cannot tell a buyer from a browser. In my case, the ads started the morning after the order, which suggests the exclusion either did not exist or did not update. Lambrecht and Tucker (2013) found that even well-targeted retargeting works differently depending on how far along a shopper is; ads showing a specific product can be less effective than general ones for people who have not yet settled on what they want. For someone who has already bought, no version helps.
Every one of those 47 ads was a small payment to persuade a person who had already said yes.
Now the uncomfortable part. I work for a composite Boise shop that buys, grades and resells used cameras and lenses. We retarget people who start a trade-in quote on our website, to bring back those who leave before finishing. But we have no exclusion for sellers who finished the quote and shipped their gear. A photographer who sent us a lens last week may still be seeing ads asking them to sell it. I am raising this with our owner this week.
Has anyone else found their own employer doing the thing they noticed as a customer?
Reply to Andre
Andre, your point about a hotel that kept emailing you to book a room you had already reserved fits the same pattern, only by email instead of ads. I wonder whether the hotel's booking system and its email system are run by different vendors. At our shop, the quote tool and the ad account were set up a year apart by different people, which may be exactly why they never learned to talk to each other.
References
Chaffey, D., & Ellis-Chadwick, F. (2022). Digital marketing: Strategy, implementation and practice (8th ed.). Pearson.
Lambrecht, A., & Tucker, C. (2013). When does retargeting work? Information specificity in online advertising. Journal of Marketing Research, 50(5), 561-576. https://doi.org/10.1509/jmr.11.0503
What the MT357 Unit 1 assignment asks for
Unit 1 usually asks students to describe a digital marketing practice they noticed as a consumer and explain it using the reading. The strongest posts treat the experience as evidence: a count, dates and channels rather than a complaint. The explanation should use a specific concept from the course, such as audience lists or exclusions, and the claim should fit in one sentence. Instructors value posts that then turn the same lens on the student's own workplace or a business they know. A question at the end should invite classmates to do the same. A reply should engage a classmate's example and add a likely cause they did not mention. Two short sources are typically enough, provided the post applies them to the case rather than restating them.
How this MT357 Unit 1 example is built
The sample's opening paragraph reports the tally by app and site and states the claim that the retailer kept paying to persuade a buyer. The second paragraph explains exclusion lists from Chaffey and Ellis-Chadwick and adds Lambrecht and Tucker on how retargeting effects depend on how far along a shopper is, under the highlighted line that every ad was a payment to persuade someone who had already said yes. The third paragraph moves to the writer's employer and its missing exclusion for completed trade-ins, noting the owner will hear about it that week. A question asks classmates whether their employers do the same. The reply to Andre suggests the hotel's booking and email systems never shared data, as the shop's systems did not.
Where the points sit in the MT357 Unit 1 rubric
Opening posts in MT357 tend to earn credit for concrete evidence, a correct explanation from the reading and a link to a real business. A post built on general irritation with ads reads as opinion. Graders reward counts, dates and channels that make the observation usable. The explanation should name the mechanism, such as an exclusion list, rather than blaming algorithms in general. Turning the analysis on the student's own employer shows application. End by asking peers to audit their own employers the same way. Replies earn more when they suggest a specific cause. Course text and research appear in APA 7. Posts that describe the experience without explaining why it happened tend to receive lower marks.
Common MT357 Unit 1 mistakes, and how to avoid them
Unit 1 posts often describe an irritating ad experience without explaining the cause. Another common gap is blaming the algorithm, which explains nothing a marketer could fix. Some students never connect the example to a business they know. Replies frequently agree without adding anything. Before writing, keep a short log of a digital marketing experience over a few days, counting messages or ads, and note dates and channels. Then find the concept in the reading that explains it. If you can name what the business failed to connect, you have both the explanation and the lesson for your own workplace.
Get an MT357 Unit 1 example written to your instructions
Describe the ad that kept following you, or the case your Unit 1 prompt names, and say whether you work somewhere that runs retargeting. With your section's rubric, that is enough for a custom post and reply built on your own example rather than a stock one. The first is free and returns in 24-48h. The paper above is an original model document written by our desk, not a submitted student paper and not an official Purdue University Global document.
More MT357 papers and BS in Business Administration samples
- MT357 Unit 2: Objective and Audience Brief
- MT357 Unit 3: Channel Selection Rationale
- MT357 Unit 4: Owned Asset Audit
- MT357 Unit 5: Content Calendar
- MT357 Unit 6: Seminar Reflection
- MT357 Unit 7: Paid Media Plan
- MT357 Unit 8: Customer Path Map
- MT357 Unit 9: Measurement Framework
- MT357 Unit 10: Digital Strategy Plan
- MT355 Unit 1: Published Statistic Critique Post
- MT340 Unit 1: Task Conflict Discussion Post
- MT330 Unit 1: Market Entry Barrier Discussion Post
- MT314 Unit 1: Social Venture Discussion Post
MT357 Unit 1 questions, answered
Can I use an ad I personally saw as the Unit 1 example?
Usually. An ad you saw yourself can be dated and counted, which gives the post evidence a stock example lacks. Keep screenshots so the details stay accurate, avoid naming private individuals, and hedge anything about the advertiser's settings, since you are inferring those from outside. Tie the example to a course reading so it reads as analysis rather than a grievance.
Should the post explain how retargeting works technically?
Only as far as the argument needs. A few sentences on how an audience list is built from site visits and cleared by a purchase are usually enough. Graders are looking for the link between mechanism and business objective, not a platform tutorial, and detail about specific settings dates quickly because ad tools change their options often.
What makes a Unit 1 reply worth credit?
A reply that adds a question or a consequence the original post missed. Asking what the advertiser should have shown the customer after the sale, or what the wasted impressions cost, moves the thread forward. Agreement alone rarely earns much, and a reply longer than the post it answers tends to crowd the thread rather than extend it.
Where can I find a free MT357 Unit 1 sample paper?
The full MT357 Unit 1 post is on this page, counting forty-seven wasted retargeting ads and auditing a camera shop's own retargeting.
What blind spot does the MT357 Unit 1 sample find at the writer's shop?
Its trade-in retargeting has no exclusion for sellers who already completed a quote and shipped their gear.