Editorial Articles

Sometimes advertising hits consumers at the right time. But most times it doesn’t


Think about a married man with two small children. He lives in an urban area and is in the market for a new car with excellent fuel economy. If he sits down to check his email tonight and sees a banner ad for the Ford C-Max, then the advertising is spot on. It was money well spent by Ford because he's the perfect candidate for that vehicle.

But what if instead of a C-Max ad, our urban-dwelling dad sees one for the Land Rover Discovery 4 instead? It’s a fine four-door, seven-passenger, sport–utility vehicle, and would probably be an excellent vehicle for him under other circumstances. But it just won’t do for now, will it?

It doesn’t make sense for an auto-manufacturer to spend money advertising to people who aren’t in their target demographic. But much like traditional broadcast advertising, most online ads display to a broad audience. Ads for new super-absorbent nappies pop up in front of 60-year-old empty-nesters. People who love to play tennis see ads for golf clubs. It is an incredibly inefficient use of marketing dollars.

Luckily, there is a better way: intent-targeted display advertising.

Ring up more sales
Advanced targeting helps an advertiser quickly and effectively build their customer base by analysing behavioral data to identify a consumer’s intent to buy and present them with relevant advertising. It’s like having a guide who takes you directly to where the fish are biting. Fish in the right place, and you’re naturally going to net more results.

By helping a top 20 retailer fish in the right spot, Channel Intelligence (CI) increased their customer acquisition more than 347 per cent over previous campaigns. That’s what can happen when you start presenting the right message and the right offer to the right person at the right time.

To execute a successful campaign in this new world of targeted advertising, you need to deliver a personalised ad experience on the fly. Your agency or service provider must have a display ad platform that can perform real-time audience segmentation and targeting, dynamically customise ads by product and promotion, and then display a relevant ad to the consumer at the right time.

Bring customers back
Unfortunately, customers don’t always buy at first glance. It’s not unusual for online shoppers to browse around a retailer’s site, drop several items in the cart and then leave without ever making a purchase.

Cart abandonment is one of the biggest challenges for online marketers. It is maddening to know consumers are interested in your products, spending time on your site, even adding items to the cart – but simply not pulling out that credit card to consummate the deal.

What retailers need is a powerful solution that allows them to not only target consumers with personalised ads, but also follow up by retargeting the ones who got away. Intent-based retargeting proved to be a huge boon for many successful retailers in Q4 of 2010. CI reported that a top jewellery retailer in the US increased return on ad spend by 300 to 500 percent with retargeting. 

The key with retargeting is analysing a consumer’s behavior to determine intent over time. If a retailer knows a potential customer is interested in purchasing a specific model of laptop computer versus learning about laptops in general, then the ad platform can serve a dynamically rendered ad speaking to that particular need.

Ad personalisation can take on different flavours depending on the situation. Cart abandonment retargeting is effective for closing sales with consumers who left a retailer’s site after carting an item. In that case, the shopper might later see an ad for 20 per cent off their total purchase at that retailer. While another user who browsed the site but never carted anything sees an ad for free shipping on orders more than £75.

Shop for the right solution
When selecting a service provider for your targeted display advertising campaign, pay particular attention to the analytics they provide. The data is particularly important because many companies provide nothing more than basic metrics such as impressions, clicks and conversions. Therefore most campaigns operate based on best-guess scenarios. To be truly effective, you need rich analytics and complete transparency. The ideal solution will provide deep insight into consumer behavior, including those who do not click on display ads. The more you know, the more you can grow your ROI.

Providing the best possible consumer experience means ads have to be highly targeted. Not all firms have the technology required to get your message in front of the right audience. And even when a consumer falls within the target audience, not all ads are personalised. So you need to perform the due diligence and make sure your partner knows how to communicate with consumers and create a better ad experience based on their online behavior.

The most important advice is to find a firm offering a complete display advertising platform that includes tracking, profiling, audience segmentation, dynamic ad serving to personalize the content, full analytics and campaign management, and top-notch creative services. Many current offerings contain fragmented solutions strung together in an effort to support the goals of advertisers.

To avoid fragmented technologies and incremental costs, you should select a service provider with an integrated display advertising platform.

John Terry, Marketing Communications Manager, Channel Intelligence
www.channelintelligence.com