Targeting Difficult to Find Consumers

Targeting Difficult to Find Consumers

 

The Challenge

A leading fashion retailer was looking to engage a very specific target:

• Hispanic Females
• Age 18 to 49
• Income below $40,000
• Spanish speaking dominate
• Living in a major metropolitan area within 12 zip codes

The Strategy

 

Use the PNS multi-layer Targeted Display program to reach the targeted consumer:

• Geographic targeting to isolate the desired zip codes
• Demographic targeting to identify Hispanic Females, age 18 to 49, with income of $40,000 or less
• Target web sites primarily with Spanish Content 
• Overlay behavioral targeting focusing on shopping interests
• Use Keywords and Phrases to dynamically insert ads into articles that contained content matching the Keywords Utilize Mobile Advertising

•Hispanics Lead as Web Users Who are Truly Mobile-First

A/B Testing

Two sets of creative were used:

• One set of creative was focused on branding with a special price on a fashion item
• The second creative promoted a Register to Win a Valentine’s Giveaway
• The campaign was launched with 50% of the impressions targeted to desktop, 50% targeted to mobile
• The creative message between the two platforms were identical

 

 

Results

 

The first objective was to out perform a national average CTR of 0.05% - 0.08%, then optimize weekly towards better results.

 

After the first week we learned:

• The Mobile response far outperformed Behavioral, Content and Keyword Targeting 
• Average CTR for the overall campaign was 0.40%
• Mobile 0.46%
• Keyword 0.16%
• Content  0.11%
• Behavioral  0.00%*
  

Creative  

Across both platforms the “Register to Win” creative performed well:

 

•Mobile   0.38% CTR

•Desktop    0.37% CTR

 

However, the Mobile platform (0.37%) clearly outperformed the desktop (0.12%)  with the branding creative

 

 Findings

 

The mobile results clearly validate the research showing the propensity of  Hispanics to use mobile access for the internet over desktop

• However, the creative using “Register to Win” resonated with all consumers
• The branding creative works best on the mobile device

The PNS Digital optimization reallocates impressions based on predetermined results. In this case CTR. While the initial plan was to allocate the impressions 50% / 50% between desktop and mobile, the short campaign timeline (7 days) required us to push impressions to the mobile platform due to superior CTRs. 

From a research prospective it would have been interesting to see if the results held up if we forced the 50% / 50% distribution plan. But campaigns are measured by results, not research!

More to follow as the campaign unfolds.

 



Customer Experience Is More Important Than Advertising.

Saw the infographic below and thought I would share...  Customer Experience Is More Important Than Advertising.   

·       Only 4% of customers trust advertising…

·       40% of people began purchasing from a competitive brand because of its reputation for great customer service

·       55% are willing to recommend a company due to outstanding service,  more so than product or price

·       85% would pay up to 25% more to ensure a superior customer experience

Top Reasons Why Customers Switch Brands

·       Interaction with a rude employee

·       Unexpected charge or fee

·       Poor quality of product or service

·       79% of customers told others about their bad experience

A full 85% of customers who had a bad customer service experience wanted to warn others about doing business with the company. 66% of customers wanted to discourage others from doing business with the company. 55% of customers wanted to vent their anger. But only 24% of customers actually tried to contact the company to get the issue resolved.

 

Study: 51% of U.S. web traffic fraudulent

Dive Brief: 

· Solve Media, a company that places ads in captchas, has reported that 51% of all U.S. web traffic was fraudulent in Q3. 

· That figure is an 8% increase from Q2 and the first time fraudulent traffic has hit more than 50%, according to Solve’s Quarterly Bot Traffic Market Advisory.

· Solve Media also reported an uptick in fraudulent traffic on mobile, going from 22% in Q2 to 27% in Q3.

Willie Sutton summed it the current fraudulent web traffic problem best.  50 years ago.  "Why do you rob banks?"  "Because that is where the money is..."   

I suppose that sentiment sums up a certain percentage of society.  However I am especially disappointed because digital fraud has made me line of work a little harder.  While the system is not fool proof, TV advertising, by and large, is “as advertised”.  On network TV you buy an ad on one of the four networks, receive a schedule and can flip the channel and see you ad running “as advertised”.

With digital marketing products like targeted display, it is a little more complicated.   You place your buy through a network or exchange and it is possible that your ad will run on one of hundreds of web sites, with no “schedule” that lets you know to tune in at 10:08 and see your ad.

You rely on a report that your vendor (agency, ad network, exchange) provides that shows X number of impressions ran, Y number of clicks, etc.

This is where transparency comes in.  To be fully transparent, this report would also include site/URL level reporting. 

Your behavioral network reported 100,000 impressions.

32,405 impressions ran on AAAA.com with 32 clicks

21,207 impressions ran on BBBB.com with 73 clicks, etc.

But many networks are not transparent.  They choose to only provide summary level detail, not site level.  This is where the Willie Sutton’s of the digital world play.   If you cannot access the URL where your ad runs, how do you know the site and the traffic is legitimate? 

Ad networks include sites on their list based on a variety of factors, like number of unique visitors, page views, demographics, etc. 

With today’s technology, it is easy enough to build a web site with little or no content, but with multiple ad placements, and then program a bot to pound away visiting the web site and driving up metrics and clicks.  There is little to no human traffic, it is all fabricated.  But you can run a report that documents 100,000 page views, 29,212 unique visitors, etc.

Some responsibility lies at the feet of the individuals running the networks.  Shouldn’t they vet each and every web site prior to adding them to the network?  That sounds good, but there are 644 million web sites operating today (and growing). 

Most vetting today is done by algorithms, not humans.  So while human intervention would help, it will not solve the problem.  (And for some, there is a disincentive to discover this truth.  If you are selling a 0.89% CTR, do you really want to know?)

The most powerful tool we have to ferret out these dummy sites and networks is sunlight.

Full discloser brings all the secrets out into the daylight for all to see.  There will still be sites that attempt to game the system, but the more access you, the advertiser, have to this list of sites, the better you can decide on whether or not the individual site is right for your campaign.

Many networks are offering full discloser and are being rewarded by the additional revenue advertisers are channeling their way.  The digital ecosystem is moving in the direction of full disclosure, but we (the marketers and advertisers) need to expedite the process by only placing our advertising dollars with the networks that report our campaigns in full sunlight.

“Aim at the sun, and you may not reach it; but your arrow will fly far higher than if aimed at an object on a level with yourself.”

            -- Joel Hawes

Pixalate Cracking Down On Click Fraud, Bot Traffic and Ad Viewability