2018 was a year of AR shopping experiences and AI-powered everything, creating excitement about new technologies and how they could be applied to advertising. It was also the year of brand safety nightmares and thorough data privacy laws, both of which brands need to manage in their mobile advertising mix.
So, what should you be doing in 2019? The new year doesn’t have to be as complicated if you keep a few core ideas in mind. LoopMe has rounded up five important things to consider when crafting your mobile video campaigns in the new year.
1. Measure what matters
The aim of every single advertising campaign will be to drive sales, increase visits to a store or make the target audience engage with the brand in a certain way. So why are you still measuring and optimizing campaigns to clickthrough rates?
As Mobile Marketing Association CEO Greg Stuart recently said: ”Much of marketing measurement is completely out of touch with business growth. While CTR is the most used KPI for brands our studies show that in many cases it has zero correlation to sales.”
Make sure you measure the metrics that really matter and optimize campaigns accordingly.
2. Make sure the ad formats align with your goals
There’s a time and place for every type of mobile ad, but each has its rewards and its risks. That’s why you want to align them with your brand goals.
If your aim is to make everyone in America aware of your new product, consider non-skippable ads. People will see your message. But be aware these can prove unpopular with audiences.
If your KPI is an action, ensure you’re reaching a highly engaged audience. Skippable ads can be effective at weeding out users that will not engage. Ensure you understand the different benchmarks for each type of ad unit.
Across all H1 2018 campaigns LoopMe ran with PurchaseLoop, rich media units drove 4.7X uplift in brand metrics on average, versus video (1.8X uplift) and video and rich media (1.9X uplift).
However, results differ across verticals. A leading CPG brand looked to understand the effectiveness of different formats and found both rich media and video units increased purchase-intent by 50 percent, while the rich media unit achieved double the intent of the embedded video unit. Consider running more than one format to see which works best for your campaign.
3. Ensure your campaign will deliver your goals
Too many mobile advertisers are creating disconnects between their campaigns and their goals. Simply put, they’re optimizing results to the wrong KPIs. For example, if the goal of your communications strategy is purchase intent, make sure your optimization criteria are not linked to whether or not a user is aware of a product. Instead, ask if they will purchase the product in the next seven days.
This includes your execution of calls-to-action. Don’t prompt users to leave the ad and visit a website if the goal is engagement with an interactive ad. And don’t have too many CTAs—given too many choices, users won’t click on anything. Ensure your advertising efforts fit with your overall strategy and your campaign will achieve your brand goals.
4. Scale up with artificial intelligence
Brand safety and user data were covered extensively in 2018, and it is important to keep them top of mind as you look ahead to the new year. But don’t let them cloud your mind.
One of the biggest benefits of AI is that it can make campaign decisions for you. At LoopMe, our AI is able to build target audiences based on GDP- compliant data held in our DMP, identifying factors and traits that predict certain behaviors. It can identify users looking to buy a certain product or visit a store, or users looking to change cable providers, for instance.
Once a profile is created, AI can find and target users with similar profiles, widening the reach of a campaign all on its own and creating even more uplift. It also opens up the possibility of using custom creative or messaging per segment. Comprehensive brand safety measures including verification from IAS, DoubleVerify and other third parties, Tag certification against fraud, pre-bid blocking technology and human verification ensure brand-safe campaigns.
AI can take out a lot of the legwork—and guesswork—out of your mobile video advertising campaigns if you let it.
5. Don’t let poor creative break your campaign
On the surface, it may seem like a creative execution with 90 percent view-through rate and a 2 percent CTR is successful. However, if your overall brand goal is to drive sales, and your campaign drives no incremental revenues, then the creative isn’t effective.
It’s vital for creative to be optimized for mobile. It needs to be engaging and have a clear brand message. If you want to measure brand awareness but your brand’s logo is nowhere to be found until the end of your ad, brand recall is going to be low. A simple solution would be to place branding at the top of your ad so it’s visible throughout.
By making sure your desired outcome is top of mind throughout the entire process, from the creative to delivery to measurement, you will achieve your brand goals.
As you finish up your planning for the next year, start getting your ad strategies aligned with your overall goals. Remember, mobile-first video needs to be aligned with real-world outcomes. Those are the KPIs you’ll want to keep in focus as you build out your optimization efforts.
