They’re Just Not That Into You

The following is republished with the permission of the Association of National Advertisers. Find this and similar articles on ANA Newsstand.

By Patrick Meehan

Personalization has been around for the better part of 20 years, and the superior performance it provides is well documented. However, social distancing measures imposed on most of the world in 2020 as a result of the coronavirus pandemic have already deeply affected advertising strategies. In fact, Innovid’s recently released “Global Video Benchmarks Report 2020” confirms a new era of personalization has already begun. The data shows an acceleration of consumer impressions shifting away from desktops and laptops to connected TV (CTV). As a result, marketers need to expand beyond traditional display formats to create targeted, valuable omnichannel experiences with an emphasis on CTV.

The good news for marketers is that those who embrace advanced creative will be well rewarded, with 91 percent of consumers in a 2018 Accenture Interactive study stating that they are more likely to shop with brands that recognize, remember, and provide relevant offers.

No wonder, as Innovid’s report finds nearly half of advertisers leveraged advanced ad formats globally last year, achieving engagement rates that were 335 percent higher than standard preroll ads.

After sifting through hundreds of billions of impressions from more than 600 advertisers, Innovid has found that personalization in omnichannel campaigns anchored in CTV not only delivers superior performance, it has also gone mainstream among marketers. Still, there are best practices to be followed for brands looking to scale, deploy, and measure personalized CTV ads effectively.

Interactive Ads on CTV Provide the Best of Two Worlds

The long-held belief in the industry is that TV, CTV, and digital video would eventually converge as the adoption of streaming devices grew and cord-cutting and cord-stacking behavior accelerated. This trend has matured faster than originally anticipated. According to the Innovid report, there was a 105 percent increase in CTV interactive impressions in 2019. Additionally, engagement rates on these ad units were 3.4 percent, significantly outshining even mobile devices (1.9 percent).

If advertisers approach TV ad buys with a digital mindset, they will be able to make their dollars work harder by earning an average of 83 incremental seconds of time beyond preroll and driving offline performance. Marketers should consider testing strategies that personalize, deliver, and measure performance across all channels and devices with CTV at the center.

Small, Simple Tests Can Produce Big Results

Personalization is not an “all or nothing” strategy. In fact, according to Innovid, campaigns that contained only a modest portion of advanced ad units generated a 40 percent higher click-through rate. The video-completion rate increased by 10 percent across both standard and advanced ad formats, compared to campaigns with only standard preroll units.

Marketers should start by thinking of how to incorporate a few dynamic elements into their creative assets, keeping in mind that there is an array of advanced creative formats and targeting methods that can be tested. Formats include overlays, expanded canvases, TV-to-mobile, and more. Marketers need to be fully versed in the ad types available to them and the variety of ways they can be used. In terms of targeting, the most common strategies are geotargeting, which enables the modification of messaging based on location, and sequential messaging, which uses a series of ads to tell a story.

There are many factors that should come into play when considering what type of promotions lend themselves to business needs. For example, quick-service restaurants have historically opted to drive traffic to locations but can easily pivot to driving traffic to delivery in today’s landscape. As such, a combination of TV-to-mobile ads with geotargeting may work better than other ad-format targeting combinations. In contrast, financial services may require more education and therefore leverage in-line video with sequential messaging. Other options include applying user interests, searches, or keywords from publishers, or optimizing based on weather and device.

Building a Framework for Effective Results

To set a foundation for success, advertisers must consider specific elements as these strategies are constructed. Personalization is not a silver bullet, and marketers must first determine whether they have the expertise, technology, support, and speed required to ensure the best outcome.

Marketers should carefully review their budgets, ability to scale, media mix, KPIs, creative assets, and data sources. They should ask tough questions about how many creative versions are necessary, whether personalizing to audience or interest makes sense, when to expect a high volume of adjustments, how often product inventory changes, and the desired context of the ad, to name some key points of consideration.

Planning for the Long Term

Once operational conditions have been evaluated, and a framework has been established, other factors should be kept in mind as advertisers prepare to launch campaigns.

First, they should remain focused. Marketers should ensure that there are clear KPIs and a test plan in place. Brands with precise campaign objectives and creative that is clear in its messaging are more effective in driving clicks and engagement rates than those that are not. Viewers must easily understand the offer, the subject matter, and the call to action.

Second, organization is key. Marketers need to establish naming conventions and standards for creative assets, and define what data is needed. This will ease the process of analyzing performance down the road. Marketers should consider what creative rules should be developed to modify text in both best- and worst-case scenarios.

Third, marketers will have to create and scale the activation plan. Brands should be careful to double check that external data sources are not limited by bandwidth and mirror web service, whenever possible. At the point when the campaign is ready to scale, nuances for specific regions such as language and time of day should be taken into account. Fortunately, these dynamic triggers do not require third-party integrations, making them more accessible for global organizations.

About Author: Patrick Meehan is the VP of global omnichannel solutions at Innovid, a partner in the ANA Thought Leadership Program. You can email Innovid at an*****@in*****.com.