How excited were we when Simpli.fi made some ads with our ad builder? Answer: very!
Us. Excited.
Here are two of the ads they made (the 728×90 has been scaled down to fit our blog…sorry if the images appear a little distorted):
We were curious as to exactly what “element-level display advertising” meant, and Simpli.fi was kind enough to give us a quick run-down. We thought the concept was worth sharing.
In case you’ve forgotten why targeting is important…
Canned Banners handles display ad creative, but targeting is extremely important as well. Even with the best ads ever made, a poorly-targeted campaign will fall flat, and good targeting can help inform the creative process so that successive iterations of display ads do a better and better job of connecting with prospects.
Consider a few basic questions and how the answers might affect the design of your ads: is a given viewer young or old? Rich or poor? Male or female? Between those 6 ultra-basic attributes, there are already 8 separate “archetypes” you need to think about when creating and testing ads. Now imagine that you’re a company like Procter & Gamble, with thousands of products and tens (hundreds?) of millions of customers. How do you stay on top of the targeting challenge?
Element-level targeting
Simpli.fi specializes in “element-level” targeting, which basically treats every member of your audience as a unique prospect with unique attributes. This might seem like an obvious approach, but it’s not the way most ad campaigns are run.
Consider a hypothetical search retargeting campaign for a major retailer. The retailer might easily target 100,000+ keywords across various product categories and brands. To manage this much data, advertisers often create audience segments like this one for Prada handbags:
Obviously this approach has value. The campaign manager will have insight into the behavior of Prada handbag buyers as a group, as well as the ability to fine-tune the performance of the Prada handbag segment against other segments such as “prada shoes,” or “skinny jeans.”
Simpli.fi, however, takes this a step further with element-level targeting. In this case, an “element” would be a keyword. And when you gain insight into specific keyword performance, you get a clearer picture of what’s really going on in the audience segment:
In this case, you could further optimize the campaign by targeting the three higher-performing keywords more aggressively, while dialing back the investment in the under-performing keywords.
You can read more about Simpli.fi’s pitch on their website. They offer element-level targeting across several different marketing channels, not just search retargeting. And of course, when you need 100,000 ads to target 100,000 “elements,” you’ll know who to come to.
How to use customer data in dynamic ad campaigns
This is a guest post by Tim Nichols, Principal Media Director at Exact Drive, where he helps launch and manage both traditional and dynamic display ad campaigns on behalf of clients in the travel, retail, and political industries, and more.
Generating ads in real time is the future of display advertising. So-called “dynamic ads” can access the most recent and relevant data to generate ads on-the-fly that are custom-tailored to the viewer. The result is higher engagement rates, fewer wasted impressions, clearer campaign data, and improved ROI.
Unfortunately, the technology and techniques behind dynamic display ads are poorly understood outside a relatively small number of companies at the heart of the online ad ecosystem.
This post will describe:
Ground rules
1. Be careful of data overload
There’s a ton of data to deal with here, so realize it will take patience and testing to get your creatives and campaign dialed in and optimized. In addition to all of the actual customer data to manage (e.g., age, income, gender, geo-location, retargeting segment, etc.), you have creative data (e.g., size, layout, look, feel, color, animation, etc.) and media buying data (e.g., which websites to target, banner location, media costs, time of day performance, etc.). Before you build anything, understand the client’s goals and work backwards from there. Make smart decisions about which data is actually going to help the campaign meet (and hopefully exceed) its goals and contribute to a positive ROI.
2. Set expectations with the client
With so many data points in the mix, it’s going to take some time to get it right. So it’s important to set proper expectations with the client ahead of time. The end result will most likely be very positive; just don’t pull your hair out during the process because your client is expecting magic results within the first 24 hours of the campaign’s launch. Lots of flexibility and data can be exciting, useful, and rewarding, but at the same time it can be overwhelming, stressful, and cumbersome. Make a strategic plan ahead of time and set proper expectations and timelines for the client.
Tapping the potential of dynamic ads
Make every impression count; tailor every ad to the customer. Every customer is unique, so why show everyone the same ad? Dynamic display ads match prospects’ interests and needs with your client’s products and services. Customers are targeted in real time with individually-tailored offers. This results in being able to show ad creatives that are relevant and effective.
By properly combining customer data points with a dynamic ad creation solution, you can bring your clients’ campaigns to life with offers, messages, and products that are always fresh and relevant. Don’t limit your campaign with “one-size-fits-all” ads, because you aren’t trying to sell sweatpants at a mall. Well, maybe you are selling sweatpants, in which case, dynamic ad creative that shows each viewer the specific size, color, and style of sweatpants they’re looking for will probably help you sell more sweatpants.
Sample use cases
The exact customer data points and the ways that customer data are combined with media tactics will be different for every campaign. These are just a few ideas to get you started.
Travel and leisure
Automatically promote the latest offers, pricing, and availability without having to manually design, create, and upload new sets of ads. This helps you avoid displaying an ad for a sold-out trip, which can be frustrating for the customer and decrease their confidence in your service.
Real estate
Automatically show potential home buyers nearby listings, descriptions, and photos. You will avoid showing a generic creative of a house for rent outside the customer’s location, which is less enticing and relevant to the customer.
Daily deals
Channel the right deals to the right customers with geographic and demographic targeting. There’s no reason to waste budget on displaying ads to customers outside your company’s geographic reach.
E-commerce
Retarget lost site visitors with the precise products and categories they previously browsed, showing current pricing and availability. This is much more engaging than showing a customer a generic ad for your e-commerce website versus a creative displaying the last four products the customer browsed.