Launch and Learn – Driving Campaign Success with In-Flight Optimization

Dec 01

JonathanMobile Advertising , , , , No Comments

As advertisers devote an increasing share of their media budgets to mobile advertising, experimental campaigns are morphing into sustained efforts.  Even those brands just getting started in the channel will have heard the success stories and won’t be satisfied with ‘seeing what happens’.

Results matter and maximizing ROI or driving toward pre-defined, tangible goals places increased pressure on effective campaign management and optimization. Clear and measureable campaign objectives are the essential starting point. Acknowledging mobile as a powerful direct response channel and building in conversion points will improve targeting efforts.

However, simply setting up your campaign and letting it run its course denies the opportunity to leverage the rich data set that mobile advertising generates. Device, time, content, creative, destination and conversion metrics are among the points across which a campaign can be evaluated. Knowing how to interpret and translate that data into in-flight campaign optimization can mean the difference between a successful campaign and a failure.

Let’s get some assumptions out of the way:

  1. You’ve done your homework and have a good sense of which devices your target audiences are likely to be using (or you’re casting a wide net across mobile users).
  2. You have a mobile-friendly post-click destination. If you’re driving to a wired web destination go back to the drawing board.
  3. You have access to media and conversion performance data in the shape of publisher/network reporting and post click tracking using Google Analytics or a mobile analytics service.
  4. You’re a savvy enough planner – or work with one – so your media buy is leveraging properties with good content affinity to your message and your audience.
  5. You’re working with a publisher/network that will let you adjust campaign targeting in-flight.  (I’ve yet to work with one that won’t; it’s in their best interest.)

At the very least you’ll be seeing the top-line reach and response stats – impressions, clicks, and click through rates (CTRs). These are helpful in providing a baseline for measuring your optimization efforts.  Content, geographic, time and device-specific reporting are the next level of mineable data.

The second baseline measure will be conversions. If you’ve managed to get consumers to click on your ad, don’t simply direct them to a flat landing page. Instead, have some response or engagement points to take advantage of the click. With that in place, you’ll be able to generate conversion rates or engagement levels.

Now that you have your campaign set up and you’re collecting performance data, here’s a list of questions you need to ask yourself to identify opportunities that will enable performance improvement via ongoing optimization:

Media Metrics

  1. What are you CTRs by creative unit? Run multiple calls to action or creative treatments and adjust weight according to performance.
  2. What are you CTRs by time? Focus on day parting to deliver more impressions when your message has the greatest currency.
  3. What are you CTRs by device? Device metrics go a long way towards validating audience profile assumptions and ensuring relevant offers, content and design strategies.
  4. Which content or context (e.g. location) dimensions are performing best? Cross-reference those results with creative, time and device CTRs.
  5. Are your mobile search keyword groups fully exploiting aligned location or urgency searches? Search is a low cost, high conversion channel when deployed sensibly and managed properly.

Conversion Metrics

  1. What content is generating the most views on your landing pages? Remember, mobile content consumption will likely follow a different pattern from web browsing.
  2. Are there choke points in your conversion funnel? With multi-page interactions (e.g. registrations), you may notice drop off at certain points. Streamline the process to minimize friction and maximize familiar behaviour triggers.
  3. What are the conversion comparisons between different devices? Could your content or design strategy be adjusted to take advantage of device browser or feature capabilities?
  4. How do your conversions compare across geographies? What happens when you layer on device data to that metric? How about time of day metrics? Tweak your media to follow those patterns.
  5. If you’re attributing revenue to your conversions, are some sources more profitable than others? How are different offers translating to conversion rates?

While some of these might seem obvious and different conversion points (e.g. landing pages, downloads, coupons, commerce, etc.) have unique dimensions to address, the fulcrum for mobile advertising success is the effective use of the added data layers that mobile devices, context and design/content strategies offer.

Be Smart. Tip the scales in your favour by acting on in-campaign reporting.

NOTE: This post appears as part of Mobile Marketer’s Classic Guide to Mobile Advertising 2010 package. You can get the full guide here.

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Mobile + The New Direct White paper

Nov 10

JonathanDirect, Mobile , , , , No Comments

At Digital Cement, we’re focused on digital direct marketing. As part of articulating our POV on how specific digital channels can be used in effect customer acquisition efforts, I wrote a white paper on mobile as a direct marketing channel.

Here’s the intro to give you a flavour for the paper’s scope and focus:

Your customers are moving targets. You work hard to get their attention – at home, at work, shopping, going to the movies and out at other public place and events.  The challenge is that it’s hard to know where they are at any given time and whether they’re receptive to what you have to offer.

So imagine if these elusive customers would not only share their locations with you, but also grant you permission to deliver what they need or want when it’s most useful and relevant to them.

Solving customer problems and inspiring customer action anywhere and anytime, but especially at times when your customers need it most, is the promise of mobile marketing. It is also the power of mobile as a direct marketing channel.

Outlined below is a foundation for successfully using mobile in your direct marketing mix. It begins by appreciating three mobile attributes that have shaped customer expectations. Then, it outlines how you can use what you know about your customers to give them a reason and a way to take your brand with them.

This is not a paper for marketers waiting to be convinced that mobile has arrived.

This is a paper for marketers who know that customers would rather lose their wallet than their phone.

I go on to cover:

  1. Mobile’s Triple Play – Connectivity, Context and Relevance
  2. Understanding Customer Habits and Preferences
  3. Building Mobile Destinations
  4. Giving Customers a Reason to Visit
  5. Driving Customers to your Destinations
  6. Understanding Customer Activity

The paper is a survey of these subjects rather than an exhaustive treatise.  It’s meant to provide thought starters for deploying mobile marketing programs in a way that sets the foundation for sustainable growth and verifiable success framed by a customer-centric approach.

You can find the paper here.

Hope you find it interesting and useful. Feedback, as always, is welcome.

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