Category: Campaign Optimization

4 Reasons Why Your Brand Needs Dynamic Creative Optimization

Posted on by Elise Stieferman

Gone are the days where brands can get by with subpar or generic advertising content and yield positive return. Consumers are savvy – they expect brands to tailor their messages and offers to their target audiences, and failure to do so can quickly have a negative impact on both brand perception and sales. 

The challenge for many marketers is that doing content “right” can be a massive undertaking, both in terms of human and financial resources. Fortunately, there are tools available that combine creativity with machine learning and artificial intelligence to simplify the creative production process. This is most commonly known as dynamic creative optimization, or DCO. As stated in this source from Amazon, “…DCO technology rapidly builds multiple iterations of an ad using the same base creative, while tailoring parts of the ad based on audiences, context, and past performance.” While there are native tools in platforms like Amazon and Meta that make dynamic creatives widely accessible without a great deal of investment in new base creatives or technologies; however, there are other third-party tools that also facilitate this capability in non-walled garden environments to allow for the full-range of benefits. 

Here are the top four reasons why your brand should consider tapping into the power of dynamic creative optimization (DCO):

#1: DCO offers a lot of efficiency

I think most marketers understand that having high quality content to support advertising is all but mandatory to achieve ideal marketing results. But the reality is that what is “ideal” is not always realistic, especially with smaller marketing teams and diminishing budgets. DCO helps make content best practices more feasible, by using technology to reduce man hours needed to produce content, increasing the speed at which new content iterations can be created, and avoiding having to start from scratch to test new creative ideas. Speaking of tests…

#2: Dynamic creative optimization provides a great platform for ongoing testing

Have three good creative ideas and are struggling to determine which one is the “best?” Or do you have a primary concept that you’re aligned on, but are unsure which version of the copy will drive the best response? Dynamic creative optimization allows you to try multiple versions and use the data to evaluate the best creative rather than gut intuition or time consuming focus groups. Furthermore, this technology enables your team to make small changes along the way based on the results, allowing for streamlined application of these data-driven learnings. 

#3: DCO provides greater flexibility to adapt to shifting platform technology

It’s no surprise to any marketer who has worked in digital that online platforms, especially social platforms, love to make changes. Surprise! You can now have 50% more words on your ad description. Surprise! Our algorithm is now going to put preference toward our newly announced placements because we just know users will love it. Surprise! Our ad policies have changed and the creative you’ve run for the last three months now goes against our community rules. You name it, marketers have experienced it. Dynamic creatives can help marketers pivot with greater agility, adapting creative sizing, orientation and even message to better meet platform specifications. Pair this with the power that generative AI can bring to creative production and you can move more easily with the speed of your business needs and rapidly moving industry norms. 

#4: Dynamic creative optimization allows for increased relevancy and personalization

This is arguably the most important use case for dynamic creatives. Consumers are inundated with ads on a near constant basis – so having your brand stand out in its advertising is no small task. However, you most certainly don’t want to stand out for the wrong reasons – with content that is self-serving, irrelevant, or just downright bad. Dynamic creative optimization ties creatives more closely to data, both in terms of activation and placements as well as with post-impression analysis, helping marketers have a greater likelihood of reaching the right person with the right message in the right environment and informing adjustments in creative strategy based on performance metrics. 

To continue optimizing your approach to creative content, check out:

5 Ways to Refresh Your Digital Marketing Strategy

Posted on by Jennifer Burleson

Looking to breathe new life into your marketing strategy? It’s easy to feel stuck using the same messaging or the same tactics over and over. But, there are subtle ways to reinvigorate your advertising without reinventing the wheel. 

Here are five easy ways you can refresh your digital marketing strategy and approach to better reach your audience and optimize campaign performance. 

Step 1: Adjust Your Audience Targeting

Digital media strategists need to place audiences at the cornerstone of their planning. As campaigns perform, evaluate if you are reaching your target audience in the most efficient ways. 

Continually review your target audiences through a combination of research, performance analysis, and product/service feedback to understand who your best customers are. Once this is established, your digital media agency or in-house operations team can build on these learnings by activating relevant first, second, and third party data sets available across platforms to reach their audiences on channels where they are known to engage and are available to target.

Note: Be vigilant about staying ahead of shifting policies and privacy laws that impact platform targeting capabilities. This will become more prevalent as cookies diminish. 

Step 2: Keep Your Creative Fresh

Everyday, consumers are bombarded with ads across every digital platform. To help break through the clutter, update creatives every three to six months and carefully monitor frequency. If your audience is constantly seeing the same creative, ad fatigue is likely to set in and even negatively impact your reach. By rotating in new creatives, you can keep engaging content in front of your target audience.

If you’re not using video ads, incorporating this medium is a perfect way to invigorate your advertising. 

Why? Because videos are: 

  • Attention-grabbing – the motion and sound of videos captures attention driving higher engagement 
  • Engaging – videos convey more information and drive higher engagement than static images
  • Versatile – video creative can be adapted for use across various channels such as YouTube, Connected TV, and social media 
  • Shareable – users are more likely to share entertaining or interesting videos on social media giving your brand greater exposure 

Step 3: Authenticate And Test Your Messaging

Make sure the message you are sharing is relatable to your audience. This doesn’t mean you have to constantly be coming up with new ad copy and creatives. Instead, use a test and learn strategy. You can use AI optimizations  to find the best combinations of existing creative and messaging for your core audience groups. 

A/B testing various creatives and headlines also allows you to utilize your top best performing ads to guide future collateral, bringing informed ideas to each marketing touchpoint. 

Step 4: Audit And Optimize Your Website User Experience

If you are sharing a different message in your advertising than on your website, you will quickly lose user interest or, at minimum, confuse your customers. Analyze your messaging as well as your customer’s journey. Make sure ads have cohesive messaging that aligns with the corresponding website landing pages. This not only allows for a positive user experience, it also helps with relevancy score to help martech platforms prioritize your ads. 

Additionally, with the ever-increasing number of users on mobile, prioritize design, targeting and optimizations for a mobile-first environment. Creating this seamless user experience will help guide your audience down the funnel towards conversion. You can use Google Analytics or other web analytics platforms to understand website behaviors and make adjustments based on where consumers are abandoning their journey with your brand

Step 5: Be Bold And Adopt Relevant, Emerging Channels Early

Set aside a portion of your budget for testing new channels and platforms. Run test campaigns to see your audience activity and engagement on new platforms. Once you find the top performing channels and tactics, you can meet your audience where they are most active. You can also keep an edge on your competitors by being a first-mover with new trends. 

Some emerging advertising channels to consider testing include:

  • Influencer marketing
  • Emerging social platforms: TikTok, Twitch, Reddit, Clubhouse, etc..
  • Podcast advertising
  • Digital-out-of-home
  • Connected TV/OTT advertising

This can also be as simple as testing a new ad format in a platform already included in your media mix. 

In the fast paced world of digital advertising, marketers cannot afford to be complacent. Always keep an eye on your marketing strategy and how it aligns with your company goals. Not all strategies need a full overhaul to stay competitive. Making a few small adjustments can make a big difference in staying relevant in the advertising space. Use these five steps to analyze, update and refresh your digital marketing strategy on an ongoing basis. 

To stay up to date with the latest marketing strategies and trends, subscribe to our bimonthly newsletter, The Loop.

Recommended Reading

How to Build an Effective Digital Marketing Strategy

3 Key Steps To Maximizing Your Marketing Campaign’s Success

Posted on by Elise Stieferman

When developing a robust marketing campaign strategy, there are many different components to consider to drive success. For example, who is your target audience? Where do they spend their time? What do they care about? When are they most engaged?

The common denominator of all those questions is the consumer. Without understanding the persona you are reaching, your marketing strategy will fail to meet goals and expectations. The best way to ensure your campaign reaches the identified goals and KPIs is to take an audience-first approach. Place the consumer at the center of the strategy then base your campaign choices on those individuals.

Finding your ideal audience

Sometimes it is challenging to know who the “ideal audience” is. It often involves a lot of considerations such as customer lifetime value and advocacy. However, while often a substantial time investment, it is the most critical step in having a successful marketing campaign strategy. Here are some tips to better understanding your current customers and prospective consumers:

  • Analyze your first party data: What makes your core customers similar and how can you use those learnings to find new prospects, and looking at historical quantitative and qualitative data to understand who your “best” customers are to-date
  • Review Google Analytics data to reveal key insights: By looking at data cuts such as demographics, interests, and geos, your brand can gain some insight. Find out who your current customer is and ways you can use targeting them.
  • Place a pixel on your site: This let’s you go a step further than Google Analytics and understand where your audience is highly indexing in terms of behaviors, interests, and demographics
  • Use audience research tools: By using panel-based research, you can better understand consumer thoughts, opinions, and decisions that are driving behaviors

Maximizing campaign success through placements

Identifying the right media channels should be a balance of your business objectives and the audience scale on each platform.If the goal is to truly get in front of as many people as possible, billboards may be best investment.However, if you need a more targeted approach with cost-efficiency metrics to optimize against, understand creative performance that is moving the needle, and gain insight into your top performing audiences, digital is likely the way to go.

Now, whether you choose video, social, display, or search depends on your goals. However, having a full-funnel strategy is almost always the ideal way to guide the consumer journey.

Cutting through the clutter with the ideal message

Consumers are confronted with thousands of ads a day, which makes it easy for them to ignore. So how do brands make an impact? For many, the answer is personalization. Personalization can mean a lot of different things. And, it can be done effectively without feeling invasive. Personalization can include aligning copy and messaging to:

  • Your audience’s interests
  • The time of the day for the consumer
  • The location of the consumer
  • The consumer’s stage of life
  • The consumer’s demographics
  • Where the consumer is in their journey with the brand

It’s also important to consider what is distinctive and relevant. Distinct brand assets are consistent sensory & semantic cues (i.e. colors, logos, taglines, jingles, etc.) that makes it easier for consumers to identify your brand and recall the selling points associated with it. Yet, understanding the most impactful components of a creative requires analysis. This can involve A/B testing various messages, imagery, and CTAs. It can even be conducting a panel-based survey to hear first-hand from consumers. Brand growth occurs when marketers leverage their distinctive brand assets effectively to build mental availability with the consumer.

Determining marketing campaign success

Evaluating whether your marketing campaign was a success depends on your definition. Coegi always aligns the campaign measurement strategy to business goals; however, how granular the measurement insights are dependent on client expectations. If the goal was awareness, some brands feel satisfied by hitting an ideal reach and frequency. Thus, using media metrics will be sufficient. However, if a brand wants to show an incremental life in unaided brand awareness, that will require an advanced measurement strategy.

At the end of the day, remember is to prioritize the data that matters most to your business. Don’t get distracted by vanity metrics that do not answer the question of whether you achieved your company goals.

 

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