The Experts Weigh in On Programmatic and Performance in the Year Ahead

It comes as no surprise, that more brands are turning to Performance Marketing, and to vendors who can provide the technology to facilitate Performance.

Performance Marketing is on the up and up, year after year. In a recent article on MarTech Today, columnist Jim Yu discussed Performance as an imperative for CMOs worldwide.

At the heart of his discussion, he urges that performance-led platforms should be at the core of the marketing stack. As Yu puts it, “The CMO’s performance imperative demands that they can clearly demonstrate how every element of their spend is bringing about meaningful returns, lest they fall prey to the very real risk of budget-slashing.”

Performance is the overarching concern for marketers everywhere, to justify maintenance and growth of their budgets.

So it comes as no surprise, that more brands are turning to Performance Marketing, and to vendors who can provide the technology to facilitate Performance but not sacrifice scale. But where will Performance lead marketers?

We sat down with ClearPier’s Ad Ops and Client Services team to get a better understanding of the future of Performance Marketing in the year to come. Here’s what ClearPier’s Demand Optimization Manager, Terry Kalambalikis, and Digital Analyst, Albert Ng, had to say about performance marketing.

Terry Kalambalikis Demand Optimization Manager, ClearPier
Albert Ng Digital Analyst, ClearPier

1. What can we expect for Performance Marketing in the year ahead?

Albert Ng, Digital Analyst:

I believe Programmatic buying will be the base of all digital performance marketing in the future. It’s the only way to move forward with accountable marketing.

The automation of programmatic buying will evolve and be extended towards optimization and contextual/behavioural learnings, in which as a result provide insight and recommendations to accelerate the process of taking the appropriate actions for a better performance

CTR will no longer be true measurement for performance. Instead, it would be primarily be measured through attribution.

Brands and Marketers will begin to realize that attributions requires them start applying processes to verify the data they are running on. Along with quality inventory, marketers will make the attributions part of a broader plan in order to create a solid foundation of data to run the most effective marketing campaigns.

 

2. What marketing trend or buzzword are you totally over?

Albert Ng, Digital Analyst:

“Engagement.” Honestly, this is probably THE most overused word amongst marketers. It is not an actual measurement of performance, it is a fluff word used to generalize any results of performance. It’s also not specific enough and so doesn’t provide enough insight. Scroll depth, for example, is a strong measurement because it indicates how deeply engaged your visitors are with your content.

Engagement alone will include accidental clicks which can skew your results. Engagement over time, on the other hand, is a more specific metric that actually tells you something: your visitor’s propensity to return after their first visit. Engagement, isn’t enough, you need to expand the metric to get real insights.

 

Terry Kalambalikis, Demand Optimization Manager:

“Millennial” – What is a Millennial? How do you really define an entire generation with varying interests, hobbies and issues? What really makes them different than anyone else aside from the year they were born?

I mean, you get 29 year olds who may like Hockey, Politics, Movies, Videogames etc., but you also get 50 year olds who can and do like the exact same things just as you get 17 year olds who may be interested in the exact same things. They consume the same content as anyone else, and aren’t the only ones using smartphones or social media.

So how does one market to Millennials? I think this word is over used by pretty much everyone and is just a lazy way to define a group that doesn’t really exist.

 

3. What do you think the biggest challenge advertisers and brands will now face?

Albert Ng, Digital Analyst:

With so much content being created daily digitally, it becomes difficult to be able to authenticate or verify any third party sources that are being run by the advertisers. Brand safety is going to be the top concern, globally which means only vendors who can guarantee it – or at least has brand safety as a top priority – will win.

Terry Kalambalikis, Demand Optimization Manager:

Not necessarily a new challenge, but I would say Ad Fraud.

There’s no fool-proof way to combat fraud, and no third party actually provides a solution that prevents it. You can monitor it, and possibly action on it once you identify the problem, and use various wrappers that may look out for suspicious traffic and monitor for bots, but in the end, it won’t stop the fraud from happening, and would require media buyers and marketers to actively monitor reports and react on the fly, which is not only a massive, time consuming task, but a task that is likely almost impossible.

Those that enable fraud always find new ways to get ahead of marketers and exploit the system, just the same as how those who create malware and viruses are almost always ahead anti-virus programs, so the fight against ad fraud will be something that will continue to be a problem through 2017, and likely grow into a larger problem as more and more spend is pushed into the digital ad space.

Want to learn more? Connect with our team at sales@clearpier.com


How to Choose the Right Marketing Attribution Model

Your Quick Guide to 8 Different Attribution Models

You’ve planned the best campaign you can. You’re going to do a great job executing. But how do you plan on measuring your success?

You’ve got to make sure you’ve chosen the right attribution model, of course. What’s attribution modeling? An attribution model is a set of rules that defines how you credit each conversion or sale at specific consumer touchpoints along the sales funnel.

How do you choose the right marketing attribution model that’s right for you?

Below you’ll find a quick guide to 8 different acquisition attribution models. Keep on reading and discover which attribution model is right for your campaigns.

1. Last Interaction or Last Click Model

last_click_clearpier_attribution_model

The Last Interaction or Last Click Attribution model is a standard in most web analytics. In this model, all credit is assigned to the last event – whether is a click or any other type of interaction a customer had – just before conversion.

Historically, almost all conversions were attributed to the last click and Direct channel (traffic comprised mainly of visitors proactively seeking you out by entering your URL manually). The Last Click model is simple, and for that reason highly appealing. Its easy to track and doesn’t demand advanced technological assistance.

But, assigning all credit to only one channel is an oversimplification of the performance measurement and customer journey. Considering brands run marketing initiatives across multiple channels, single channel attribution fails to take all other traffic generation channels into consideration. For example, visitors may have been driven to your site and converted as a result of social media or by referral.

Last Click gives too much credit to the final event just before conversion, which may not necessarily be the final trigger for conversion. It ultimately undervalues all previous visitor interactions and decisions that pushes a visitor along the decision process towards conversion.

Finally, Last Click neglects to consider the impact of mobile. After all customers are now doing research on mobile well before they convert whether on desktop or mobile. Failure to credit other channels ultimately limit our ability as marketers to optimize each channel’s performance.

So now a day new technologies are quickly making Last Interaction or Last Click attribution modeling obsolete.

2. Last Non-Direct Click Model

last_non-direct_click_clearpier_attribution_model

The Last Non-Direct Click Attribution model ignores all direct traffic and gives 100% credit of the conversion to the last channel the customer clicked through before converting. This can be any channel from email to social.

Last Non-Direct Click is a bit more useful than Last-Touch in that it has the potential to correctly give credit to the channel that drove the final conversion, while eliminating the need to deal with ‘Direct’ data which is often a catch-all for all traffic that isn’t properly filtered or tagged.

However, a big downfall of this model is that it completely undervalues Direct traffic, wherein a customer must remember your URL to visit your site and then convert, which in turn undervalues your branding efforts.

If a customer just received a well worded email campaign that prompted them to make a purchase, or they just got a promo code they’re now willing to use, why would any marketer want to give credit to the campaign they interacted with just before this one when it was this one that in fact prompted conversion? You wouldn’t, so most marketers have moved away from this model as well.

3. First Click Attribution Model

first_click_clearpier_attribution_modelFirst Click or First Interaction attribution model assigns all credit to the first marketing event before conversion – it is the very opposite of the Last Click attribution model.

Again, its another attractive model because its so easy to use. And it does make sense, to an extent: you should definitely value the first customer interaction highly because without it, moving the customer along the decision making journey towards conversion is literally impossible.

But the First Click model doesn’t provide any actionable insight for marketers looking to optimize or measure their efforts. With Last Click attribution, at least we have some confidence in why and how that campaign triggered a conversion. First Click fails to show any data about the decision-making journey and gives too much credit to a single ad click.

4. Last Marketing Channel Touch Attribution

last_marketing_channel_attribution_model_clearpier

Last Marketing Channel Touch Attribution is channel specific. In other words, in this model, marketers would attribute the last known touch point specific to a channel to a conversion. For example, if you run Search you would use the Last AdWords Touch model. For Facebook, you would use the Last Facebook Touch and so forth.

But you can probably see the problem inherent with this model already: its incredibly biased towards its respective channels. You can easily overvalue the impact of each channel. If a visitor clicked a Search ad one day and then clicked a Facebook ad later in the week and then converted, each model will claim 100% credit for that conversion.

Rather than considering the model separately for each channel, aggregate them into a single report. This will give you a more holistic understanding of the multi-channel touchpoints that lead to a conversion.

The downside with this attribution model, however, is that you will see double or triple counted conversions which adds to your work load to further parse the conversion data.

5. Linear Attribution Model

linear_attribution_model_clearpier

The Linear Attribution model gives each touchpoint along the conversion funnel, for example search, social, retargeting, direct, and email, equal credit for the final conversion.

This model is an improvement on all those we’ve discussed up to this point because it allows for credit to be applied to every single touchpoint along the buyer journey. It’s a simplified multi-touch attribution model.

That’s great! So what’s the problem now, you ask? Disproportionate weighting.

The Linear Attribution model fails to take into consideration the impact of all the other touch points which may have provided more value, and played a bigger role in triggering a conversion.

6. Time Decay Attribution

time_decay_attribution_model_clearpier

In the Time Decay attribution model, whichever touchpoint closest to the time when the sale or conversion took place receives the highest credit for the conversion. It functions under the assumption that the closer the interaction or click is to a conversion, the greater the impact that interaction had on the conversion.

The argument makes sense. And at least this is a multi-channel/multi-touch channel that also captures the data involved in the long decision making process.

One of its drawbacks, however, is that it may undervalue the heavy lifting that was done by marketing efforts higher up in the funnel which is always located farthest a way from the conversion point.

7. Position Based Attribution

position_based_attribution_model_clearpier

Typically, in the Position Based attribution model, the first interaction and the final interaction in the decision making journey before a conversion is given 40% credit for the conversion, respectively. The remaining 20% is distributed evenly between the other channels along the funnel, but such weighting can and should be adjusted.

The position Based model is a stronger attribution model that takes multiple touchpoints, and multiple channels into consideration. It credits two of the most important customer touchpoints: the first click or interaction (that which introduced the you to the customer) and the final interaction before conversion.

8. Algorithms Based (Custom) Attribution

algorithms-based-attribution-model-clearpier

Algorithms or Custom built attribution models assigns credit for the conversion to each touchpoint based on its effectiveness.

This model requires advanced statistically modeling and continued optimization, based on your audience behaviour.  It is in fact your existing customer data that will provide the foundations upon which to build your Algorithms attribution model, and understanding of which channel and which step in the decision making journey has the biggest impact on conversion.

The Algorithms attribution model is the most data-driven and provides the most comprehensive customer insight so marketers can identify non-traditional opportunities.

So what’s the final takeaway?

By today’s standards, we should all be steering clear of the First (only) or Last Interaction (only) attribution model. Choosing the right method for you will depend on your marketing needs and the required complexity of your marketing mix.

If it all seems too complicated, not to worry. Start with the simpler Time Decay and Position Based models, although again, avoid First and Last Click. To make attribution modeling of all your marketing campaigns accurate, all your campaigns must also be properly tagged and easily identified so you can give credit to where credit is due.

And finally, don’t just rely on conversion based attribution modeling. Consider other factors, including your CPA, not just conversions. How much does it cost you per acquisition per channel? Is the cost disproportionate to the value of the channel?

Taking all of your marketing efforts into consideration holistically will ultimately help you optimize for stronger campaigns, better targeting by channel and buying behaviour, and reduced spend for maximum performance.

Want to learn more? Connect with our team at sales@clearpier.com


[Infographic] What Exactly is Performance Marketing?

More brands are opting in to Performance Marketing.

When I first started in the digital advertising industry, one of the terms thrown around a lot – besides all of the other programmatic hullabaloo – was “Performance.”

My immediate thought was, well shouldn’t all advertising be performance based? Don’t you want to be able to accurately measure your campaigns?

We’ve created this infographic to clarify precisely what is Performance Marketing. Keep reading!

what-exactly-is-perfromance-marketing-clearpier

Want to achieve stronger performing campaigns? Connect with our team at sales@clearpier.com


A/B Testing 101: A Crash Course on Optimization

Without A/B testing -without experimentation- you have no concrete data to drive real growth.

What is A/B Testing and how does it work?

A/B tests are experiments in which two versions of something are compared against each other to see which performs better.

You can A/B test almost anything. Whether it’s an ad, a banner, a button, a landing page, a website, or an app –  it can be A/B tested.

When audiences visit your site or app, they are randomly split so that a percentage of users are shown version A, while others are shown version B. Statistical analysis will reveal which version gets the best results.

Image source: Visual Website Optimizer
Image source: Visual Website Optimizer

The A/B method lets you test very specific changes to your website, then collect and analyse the data so that the impact of the changes can be measured and lead to data-driven optimization.

The changes can be as simple as a headline (colour, wording) or as extensive as a complete redesign of the page. Then, half of your traffic is shown the original version, while the second half is shown the modified version to see which one gets the results you’re looking for – revenue, signups, downloads – whatever you’re trying to do with your website.

Why Should You A/B Test?

A/B testing may sound simple but the insight gained can lead to significant measurable improvement of the user experience and performance. When it comes to making guesses or assumptions about human behaviour – specifically, how people will interact with your site or app, the results are often unexpected and can only be uncovered through actually testing.

After testing one variable at a time – the cumulative effect of winning changes leads to tremendous boost towards your desired outcome or goals – such as conversion rates.

In addition, the overall spend on marketing can actually be decreased as the elements of the user interface become as efficient and effective as possible – especially when it comes to getting new customers. A/B testing also proves useful to help product developers and designers to optimize other goals such as user engagement, and in-product user experience – to name a few.

Here’s another example of why you should A/B test (for more examples, go to www.behave.org)  – the Citizens Bank experiment:

Should your call to action stress urgency or important information? 

Key Performance Indicator (KPI): Unique Open Rate (unique opens/net delivered)

Traffic Source: Existing banking customers. Traffic to site split 50/50 between version A and version B.

Goal: to determine which emotional language subject line will convert better – informative or urgent.

Difference between versions:

Version A: Urgent email subject line: “Act now – get help with selling or buying a home” 
Version B: Informational email subject line : “Important information about selling or buying a home”

a-b-test-citizens-banka-b-test-citizens-bank-b

 

Which version do you think won?

The Winner: VERSION B!

Compared to version A – the informational copy increased open rates 49.2%, at 99% confidence.

Why? Perhaps because urgency in subject lines is a widely used marketing tactic – one that has lost its effectiveness due to overuse. This particular tactic is an old trick – marketers are simply trying to trigger our impulsive instincts and motivate us to purchase or engage in some other call to action.

(Source for Citizens Bank example: BEHAVEhttps://www.behave.org/case-study/call-action-stress-urgency-important-information/)

Here’s another example from Highrise, a CRM software company:

Highrise’s Headline & Subheadline Test:

high-rise-a-b-testHighrise tested different headline and sub headline combinations to see how it affected their sign-ups. The test showed that the variation telling visitors that the sign-up is quick produced a 30% increase in clicks. It was also the only variation with an exclamation mark.

These examples show how A/B testing little changes can lead to big wins. So, what’s the process?

The A/B Testing Process

  1. Collect data: First, you must analyze and gain insight into where the bottlenecks are – such as pages with low conversion rates or high drop off rates and other user metrics such as page views, time on site, impressions, clicks, CPCs, and many more. Here are four tools to help gain this insight:

This information will help to set specific and measurable goals.

  1. Identify Goals: Figure out what metrics you will use to determine whether (or not) the changes get better results than the original version. Goals can be anything from website visit duration, email campaign signups, viewability of ads – the possibilities are vast and it is important to explore several possibilities before getting too focused as you risk missing the best possible solution. A helpful tip to start off: visit your website and jot down all the actions visitors can perform to create a list of possibilities.

While narrowing down to goals remember that less is more – keep focused and reduce choices so that you’ll get the most accurate results from testing. A straightforward goal example could be to simply optimizing engagement through a 20% increase in email list signups.

  1. Generate Hypothesis: Now that you know exactly what you want to improve, you can begin hypothesizing about what changes you think would make the biggest impact and then test. If your goal was to get more people to sign up for an email list or form – you could try something as simple as removing a few fields to make the process as painless as possible for the user to encourage more signups. We all know that attention span is short and that no one likes filling out lengthy forms (at least initially while to payoff is unclear). Or, what if your original call to action wasn’t as motivational as expected and your goal is to increase the response rate? For example, you want people to donate, so you might hypothesis that changing the wording from your current call-to-action “contribute” to “please donate” would be more engaging and direct.
  1. Generate Variations: Here’s where the A/B testing software comes in, which allows you to actually make the desired changes to your website or app and have the ability to see exactly what it will look like (especially helpful when changing colours or moving elements around) . A/B testing software resources include:
  • Optimizely optimizely.com (free trail for 30 days, affordable and easiest to get started, real-time support, multi-functional)
  • Visual Website Optimizer vwo.com (free trail for 30 days, feature rich, includes idea generation tools)
  • Unbounce unbounce.com (focuses solely on landing pages, offers 80+ pre-designed landing page templates)
  • KISSmetrics kissmetrics.com (premium, starting at $150 per month with full year commitment, offers advanced abilities, loads of data)
  1. Conduct Experiments: Let the testing begin! This is the part where visitors will be randomly sent to either the original version or the modified version to test which performs better. The way users interact with each version is monitored and compared to determine how the changes impacted the experience.
  1. Analyze Results and draw conclusions: You’re A/B testing tool will organize the data for you so you can see how your test version did compared to the original. Hopefully your test result support your hypothesis, but if not then there is still more hypothesising and experimenting fun to be had!

Conclusion

Every business, website, campaign, app, is different and A/B testing shows that common marketing wisdom often doesn’t apply. The advantages of improving conversion rates by A/B testing are well worth the relatively low investment of time and money.

See below for more surprising A/B testing discoveries that will make you want to test everything!

http://blog.granify.com/6-shocking-ab-test-wins-that-increase-conversion/

https://blog.kissmetrics.com/ab-tests-shocking-discoveries/

http://unbounce.com/a-b-testing/shocking-results/

Want to learn more? Connect with our team at sales@clearpier.com


4 Ways to Optimize Your Holiday Campaigns for Maximum ROI

From segmenting your data to using a CMP; consider the following.

Put away the pumpkin spice lattes, it’s nearly time to switch over to the egg nog. Every good marketer has at this point fully planned and scheduled their holiday marketing strategies. Campaigns are just about ready to launch. But of course, there is always room for improvements.

Before you launch those campaigns, consider the following 4 ways to optimize your performance campaigns for this holiday season.

  1. Target creatives according to segmented audience data

If you combine the power of compelling creatives with insightful audience data, you can target your audience more precisely and with relevancy. Consumers are much more inclined to engage with ads that are relevant to their needs. The more interruptive the ad, the more likely they’ll put the blinders on.

Let’s take the Amanda Foundation’s fantastic campaign which is a prime example of how useful segmented audience data can be for targeting.

Each of the advertiser’s creatives uses a shelter animal to promote adoptions. But the messaging is uniquely tailored to the audience based on known browsing behaviour/interests, and demographic data.

So if the viewer is a known foodie who loves trying new restaurants, delivering them creative number three would be perfect to inspire engagement.

digtial_pawprint
Image via CWMead
  1. Consider using a Creative Management Platform

Creative management platforms (CMPs) are powerful design tools for the programmatic marketer. CMPs are less technical than Dynamic Creative Optimization tools (DCOs) but also allows designers to make large ad sets as well as small changes to individual creatives. CMPs often have pre-set creative templates that cuts down on design time and makes duplication and customization simple.

It’s a scalable creative production environment where you can create and iterate on only the best performers.

holiday_promo
Image via makethunder.com
  1. Remember the importance of “Micro Moments” on mobile

According to Google, 76% of people who conduct a local search on their smartphone visit a business within 24 hours and 28% of those searches results in a purchase. A lot of research is in the pre-sale buyer journey and this will spike as we head into the holiday season.

Google’s series on “I-Want-to-Buy Moments” examined one shopper’s micro-moments (by way of searches, clicks and website visits) over the course of one month to understand how much and how digital research played a role in her purchasing decisions.

The study shows that there are over 1000 digital touch points over a single month leading up to the consumer’s purchase.

micro-moments-1

Google also shows us the breakdown of her mobile versus desktop search paths:

micro-moments2So how can marketers win in these ‘micro-moments’?

Be there and be useful. Considering how much research goes into a consumer’s journey now a days, retargeting your ads is a good way to re-engage consumers with buying intent. Remember, although a lot consumers do their research on mobile, buying still happens mainly on desktop. Even upon checkout, marketers can reintroduce promotions, deals, and suggested products for upselling.

  1. Rotate your ads – or run dynamic creatives

Static banner ads are alright, if they’re well targeted. But banner blindness is indeed a real problem. Keep your visitors curious by rotating fresh creatives in to replace stale ones.

You can up your performance by employing dynamic html5 creatives as well. Why show case only one product, when you can highlight multiple? This is where using a CMP comes in particularly useful as these platforms are often equipped with dynamic creative templates where you simply have to plug in your raw assets.

Best Buy does a really good job at this. Get more out of your ad placement and do more to entice with fresh creatives.

bestbuy

So if you’re not already doing these four things to optimize your campaigns, now is the perfect time to start before the holiday mayhem begins.

Want to learn more? Connect with our team at sales@clearpier.com.


Why are Brand Marketers Turning to Performance?

The bottom line for brands is that Performance provides true, measurable KPIs where ROI tracking wasn’t possible before.

Last Thursday, AdExchanger published an article about how one brand is shifting attention to Performance.

Namely, Reebok is beginning to explore how Performance can help them garner more measurable results in their US marketing strategy. David Oksman, Reebok’s Head of US Marketing, stated that Performance is increasingly entering Reebok’s brand equation, largely because of its ability to map audiences through their sales funnel.

Tracking audiences and understanding how deep they are in the sales funnel and moving them through your CRM not only allows for potential retargeting and more precise messaging, but also helps close the ‘leaky’ funnel one might have with content or brand engagement alone.

Indeed, on Performance Oksman stated “we make sure that we’ve got objectives and KPIs set up not just at the top of the funnel, but across the entire consumer purchase funnel, in order to maximize content.” He added, “The content [Reebok is] creating as well as the dollars we’re spending on media are really just about finding the right efficiencies in order to maximize reach. The balance of content creation and media investment is something we’re thinking hard about.”

Brands are beginning to demand more attributable results and accountability from their campaigns. And with that demand, more forms of media – paid content, ads, and TV – are becoming measurable beyond just engagement.

With such pivotal news we asked Debrani Ghosh, Programmatic Client Services Director at ClearPier, what her thoughts were on the growing shift.

What are your thoughts about brands shifting gears towards Performance?

The bottom line for brand advertisers is that Performance provides true, measurable KPIs where ROI tracking wasn’t possible before. But it’s effecting more than just our ad strategies.

Performance is also changing the client-vendor relationship in many ways as well. We’re seeing brands demand more from their campaigns and they’re doing so by putting vendors in the spotlight to be the main ROI drivers.

And as a result, vendors have to step up their game across data and insights capabilities, technology, client services and education to stay competitive.

Is shifting to Performance a smart move?

Absolutely. What’s the point in spending your ad dollars without measurable KPI objectives? Performance coupled with data encourages results and helps reduce waste compared to traditional methods.

For example when brands work with ClearPier on a Performance basis, we’re able to identify your potential consumers beyond site demographics, down to the page level with first-party data layering. So the result is you don’t have to spend time or money in the prospecting stages to gather more info. It’s also a controlled environment because of our direct relationships with each publisher, so beyond Performance, clients are also assured brand safety.

Does the future of all marketing belong to performance?

E-commerce trends indicates that an estimated $34 Billion will be spent online by Canadians alone this year. Worldwide, retail e-commerce sales will reach $1.9 Trillion this year. The rise in e-consumption will dictate changes in marketing budgets globally as well.

Total Retail Sales Worldwide, 2015-2020 (trillions and % change) via eMarketer.com.

And if brands are demanding more results, you can bet that they’ll also be shifting more of their marketing dollars towards Performance.

Want to learn more? Connect with our team at sales@clearpier.com


How Performance and Data Cuts Through Noise to Reach Millennials

Millennials expect more value, less disruptive user experiences from ads.

For advertisers, building brand awareness is essential to your quest for undying brand loyalty which, we hope, turns into never ending sales. You want to cut through the noise, connect with your audience, and get them engaged.

But the fact of the matter is that traditional “spray and pray” marketing just don’t work anymore. We know it’s expensive, often wasteful, and can potentially have the exact opposite effect of what you want for your brand. If your ads are being ignored by consumers, they might as well be invisible.

Traditional “Spray and Pray” Marketing Doesn’t Work on Millennials

Take the Millennial consumer. Born between 1980 and 2000, they are the biggest generation in U.S. history (92 million). According to Neilsen, they’re also the most trusting when it comes to advertising. Last year, the United States Census Bureau reported that Millennials now outnumber Baby Boomers, representing more than a quarter of the U.S.’s population. To top it off, their makeup is more diverse. Millennials are the driving force of change for the global economy, yet Business Insider reports that advertisers are failing to reach them.

*Infographic via Goldman Sachs
*Infographic via Goldman Sachs

The reasons aren’t exactly shocking. Daniel Newman, Principal Analyst and Founding Partner at Futurum, discussed in an article on Forbes stating that “millennials don’t want to be talked at.” As one of the most tech savvy audiences out there today, “they are used to having control over the information in their day to day lives, and their interactions with brands online is no different. They want to control their messaging,” Newman explains.

Performance and Data is the Secret Formula

This is where Performance marketing and most importantly data is essential for cutting through the noise to actually engage Millennials.

Real-time audience profile data layered over campaigns enables advertisers to target dynamically, based on purchaser intent and behaviour. Performance strategy enables advertisers to run campaigns based only on successful actions so ROI is actually measurable, down to the click.

Millennials expect more value and better, less disruptive user experiences from ads.

“Layering data enables the exploration and prospecting window to be shortened. What that means is conversion data can be collected at early stages in the campaign so your focus can be shifted from identifying the audience to actually driving performance.”

debrani_ghosh

Debrani Ghosh / Programmatic Client Services Director
ClearPier

Debrani Ghosh, Programmatic Client Services Director at ClearPier, tells us that “from a performance stand point, layering data enables the exploration and prospecting window to be shortened. What that means is conversion data can be collected at early stages in the campaign so your focus can be shifted from identifying the audience to actually driving performance.” Read: drive results equals drive more sales.

Ghosh, who has over a decade of media buying experience in the programmatic space working at independent trade desks and DSPs, also added that when applying data, we should also look beyond generic data like age and demo. Instead, create consumer profiles based on behavioral and contextual intent for more precise targeting.

Megan Sun, Director of Publisher Relations at ClearPier, explains, “A good example is when you know a user is conscious about organic, locally grown, ethical food choices and is in market for a car. Do you think they’re more likely to purchase a gas guzzler vehicle or an electric economy car? Looking at your data and using it to your advantage in campaign would make the user happier because you can deliver relevant ads, while boosting results in campaign performance.”

Relevance is Key to Engagement

If Millennials are pre-occupied with authenticity and controlling the information they receive, then advertisers should make it their top priority to personalize their ad targeting down to the creative level.

millennials-1

Sun also adds, “With growing budgets for online media versus traditional methods like print and radio, online advertising is being cluttered with irrelevant ads to the user. While big custom executions hit the user on endemic sites, targeting users based on their behavior increases ROI for advertisers. The practice of driving performance by layering data is beneficial to audiences because, ultimately, it produces more relevant ads that add to the user’s experience, even when they’re visiting non-endemic sites.”

Combining Data with Performance strategy means trackable results, less ad spend waste for advertisers, and superior audience targeting. In other words, advertisers need to get on the Data train to drive Performance. Show your ads to consumers only when they want to see it so you’re brand doesn’t get ignored. Then sit back, and watch the results roll in.

Want to learn how First-Party Data and Performance can drive your sales? Connect with our team at sales@clearpier.com


Closing the Mobile Gap with Performance

Mobile advertising spend continues to grow, but it is still punching well below its weight.

A year ago the IAB published their definitive 2015 report on advertising expenditures and usage trends in the US market across all media channels. The report clearly demonstrated the huge $25 Billion gap that exists between time spent on mobile devices, and mobile media’s share of total advertising budgets in the USA.

What’s the mobile gap?

Talking specifically to the Canadian market, IAB projected that mobile media ad expenditures will increase by up to 55% in 2016 to reach a total of $3.21 Billion for the year. Over the same period, total Canadian media expenditures were projected to grow at only 3% over 2015.

With print and radio losing significant ground, and TV and digital growth relatively flat, we’re now seeing the dynamic presence of Mobile in our media landscape. However fast forward to 2016 and time spent on mobile devices is now approaching 3.4 hours daily. Mobile time spent is exceeding time spent watching TV by 65%, while equaling Digital time spent. Despite the data, the mobile media gap is still not closing fast enough.

So why does mobile remain an under-valued and under-utilized vehicle for Canadian advertisers?

Is it our national risk aversion and lack of knowledge regarding mobile that emphasizes a need to follow rather than lead? Or is it inertia and shortsightedness in our strategic and media agencies that’s effecting our ability to adapt? In agencies where annual TV buys and even some long-term digital commitments already in place, longstanding pre-established profitable pricing schedules may be what reigns. Change, even towards improvement, can therefore be a challenge.

If 75% of Canadians own smartphones, and people are checking their phones more than 150 times per day as reported by Business Insider, then it is time for advertisers to embrace the mobile opportunity. To reach broader, more engaged audiences, media buyers needs to tailor their messages on the devices that surround every facet of their lives.

For decades, savvy marketers have understood the need to move customers progressively along the Marketing Continuum from Awareness on-wards towards Loyalty. In our newly evolved digital world this now must embrace ENGAGEMENT/RE-ENGAGEMENT as the ultimate destination to replace that somewhat intangible Loyalty factor.

road_to_loyalty-copyRe-examining the Funnel

Applying this as an overarching strategy to media planning, dictates a deeper examination of the Funnel Theory:

funnel_theory

This approach clearly presents significant opportunities for Digital Media to impact programming success at each level of the funnel and specifically to drive the Re-Engagement process via targeted mobile marketing initiatives. Placing real value on Engagement remains an inconsistent practice despite all the conversation on how to get consumers engaged. However, quality time-spent by a qualified target customer interacting with your brand should be considered an invaluable metric and as indicator of on-going customer retention.

Adapting to the Mobile Challenge

Consistent technical development of the major publishers and content producers in the digital and mobile space has resulted in an ever richer data pool behind consumer demographics and usage trends. For successful advertisers, selecting media sources with advanced data profiling and aggregation resources is key to optimizing your media investments. Selecting vendors with access to first-party data, for example, can present significant incremental marketing efficiencies. Via the application of contextual and projected ‘look-alike’ profiling as well as real-time optimization of creative executions, targeting the right audience at the right time can now also happen at the right mobile-moment.

It’s time for educated marketers to challenge their media planners, whether on-staff or at an agency partner, to build integrated campaigns that use digital and mobile media to amplify the impact and effectiveness of the ad dollars spent. As our digital landscape continues to evolve, planners need to demand performance KPIs that build your brands.


kevin_astle_round_largeKEVIN ASTLE
is President of ClearPier’s Blyk Mobile division. A veteran marketer with long-standing industry experience across the Digital/Social/Mobile space.

Want to learn more? Connect with our team at sales@clearpier.com


Is Branding Versus Performance an Outdated Notion?

Advertisers are shifting towards a blended approach, combining the strengths of one with the other.

What is the difference between performance and brand marketing? If you’re like me and have been working in the adtech/agency world, you know that performance and brand-based marketing teams approach advertising differently. Skill sets vary as well with agency folk generally deemed more creative, whereas performance marketers are seen as analytics focused.

The Brand Tradition

Branding has always been a high-cost but poorly measured tradition. There is no denying the persuasive powers that creative campaigns have over consumers, but at what cost?

Take for example Dove’s “Campaign for Real Beauty” launched by Unilever in 2004. The campaign tackled two goals: sell more Dove soap and change the way we as a society think of beauty. The campaign has been cited repeatedly as groundbreaking and bold. More than ten years after it originally ran, we still remember it.

Dove _ClearPier_Performance

Dove’s campaign has become an iconic part of a cultural shift in the way we think of beauty and self-love. Jennifer Bremmer, Unilever Marketing Director, has stated that in a survey conducted ten years post-campaign, three times as many women felt they were responsible for their own definition of beauty than the 23% the global survey in 2004 found (AdAge).

Dove’s sales increased from $2.5 billion to $4 billion during the campaign’s run.

So we know that brand campaigns work since overall sales increase or decrease indicates a campaign’s level of success. But brand campaigns are still notoriously difficult to track on a more granular level and therefore optimize.

And while this is one example of a successful brand campaign that drove sales, Unilever reportedly allocated over $8 billion in 2014 alone to its global advertising budget. That’s a lot of money. A lot of which has traditionally gone towards TV, of which the results are nearly impossible to track. Just because a lot of people saw that $8 million “America is Beautiful” Coca-Cola spot that ran during the 2014 Super Bowl, doesn’t mean everyone went out and immediately bought a Coke.

The Performance Path

When it comes to performance marketing, tracking is an essential part of all executions. Compared to brand campaigns, which are more about building relationships with consumers, direct response is all about making the immediate sale.

High-performance campaigns where clear goals are set and ROI easily measured are valuable to marketers trying to squeeze more out of their ad budgets.

sales-funnel-digital_clearpier

The amount and quality of data and programmatic technologies available to performance marketers that enable them to target “the right ad at the right person, at the right time and place,” across screens are invaluable.

Performance goes beyond broad demographics, it relies on audience behavior, contextual data for precise targeting, and the ability to optimize and iterate efficiently across channels.

And while historically branding and performance have functioned separately, times are changing.

The Need for a Blended Approach

Unilever may have an $8.3 billion ad budget (2014), but nearly a quarter (24%) of its global spend goes towards digital (Business Insider). More recently, the company has worked on cutting ad spend by using a “zero-based budgeting” model that forces brand managers to “start from scratch to justify marketing and other outlays,” before more budget is assigned (AdAge). Sounds a lot like testing from a performance standpoint, no? In any case, the same approach is being executed for other brands including Heinz and Kraft.

Nike and its diverse array of athletic-wear lend itself to both brand and performance marketing.

jordans       jordans-2

nike-jordan-clearpier nike-search

Advertisers are shifting towards a blended approach, combining the strengths of one with the other to maximize reach, engagement, and measurable results. With consumers engaging with media across so many different devices and channels, often simultaneously, we can no longer treat branding and performance separately.  They are two sides of the same coin.

A blended performance and branded approach, where technology enables superior targeting and strong creatives, helps cut through to audience resulting in better user experiences.

Ultimately, this will help advertisers overcome the threat of ad blocking that has become so prevalent in 2016. Delivering simultaneously relevant and entertaining ads for display and mobile is only the beginning. Once we acknowledge that the division between performance and brand advertising is an outdated way of thinking, we’ll be able to see new opportunities in video in the ongoing digital evolution.

Want to learn more? Connect with our team at sales@clearpier.com