Here are three (3) easy and practical tips to use within the creative of your rich media display ad campaign, all of which are backed up by real live past campaign metrics.
1. Use human faces: People for whatever reason love to click on other people’s faces. So play to this behavior. Somehow weave at least one human face into your unexpanded ad (e.g., what Pointroll calls the banner).
2. Use buttons: It’s amazing how many fancy-pants designer types look down on the use of buttons. News flash. They work and attract clicks. So use them when appropriate instead of just assuming users know to click on just the images.
As is visual demonstrated within these actual real data heat maps of clicks, peoples faces and buttons are what generates most of the clicks. Products produce far less less.
3. Keep intro animations sequences short: The data across all of the different ad sizes clearly supports that the clicks start coming the moment the intro animation sequence ends. At 14-15 seconds, the number of clicks peak and slowly tappers off. The opportunity here is to shift these curves to the left, so as to minimize the lose rate of users that abandon and do not click.
There is a marked inflection point within each of these charts at 15 seconds - the average publisher max allowed time for an animation sequence to occur within. So if you want more clicks, shorten the intro flash animation sequences!
Pointroll’s AdControl is a very powerful tool. So much so, that it becomes somewhat difficult to explain and talk about to others at times. However within the below interactive demo, this complexity issue is solved. Basically it allows business rules to be created that give advertisers more control of the content within their rich media ad unit.
A rule might be when a user fitting the profile of “Type 1″ comes in contact with a PaperBoy ad that is about to render, always make sure to show a background image of a tool shed, use a call to action that includes the copy “Roll over” and to display a bag of all purpose fertilizer. Or if you are a visual person, display this exact combination within the ad unit as follows:
Input: User Type1. Output: Tool shed background image + "Roll Over" call to action copy + "Vigoro Fertilizer" product
Pretty darn cool. The combinations are endless. However the real fun begins when one starts to bring in publisher supplied BT data such as gender, age and interest(s) of the user. Then these types of rules become very powerful once you layer in the auto optimization factors that the system (e.g., AdControl) offer so that the most successful (which can be custom configured) ad combinations receive the highest amount of impressions.
This is a very visual way of showing how different pieces of PaperBoy ad content such as the call to action copy, products or the background image can be tied to specific user types (or BT segments in some cases)
You’ve all seen it – the classic “Coexist” bumper sticker on a ex-Phish, now Widespread Panic fan’s car. This same win-win type scenario can absolutely apply to the world of digital advertising within the age old battle between direct response and branding type ads.
Direct response AND branding type ads can live in harmony with one another
Today in MediaPost, Jason Tafler the CEO of Pointroll wrote a cutting article about this exact subject of how adding direct response to rich media can help increase the overall value delivered. In it Mr. Tafler makes the point about:
“Many marketers struggle with creating cutting-edge ads that grab viewers’ attention and drive ROI in a meaningful way. Companies that are getting the most out of their ad buys are using new methods to deeply engage consumers with creative rich-media ads that also incorporate direct-response elements.
These do not have to be standalone strategies; each can play an important role in any comprehensive campaign. Depending on the marketer’s objectives, rich-media campaigns can include features such as data collection, lead generation, printable coupons, targeted product and pricing information, and ticket or product purchasing directly within banner ads, shortening the path to conversion. These capabilities not only provide marketers with more insight into their target audience, but increase consumer interaction time…
…Depending on the campaign, including a direct-response element increases response by 42%, with an additional 3% increase in brand time.”
Specifically to PaperBoy, a localized form of rich media that ShopLocal and Pointroll jointly produce, this has been a key message for years to potential and current advertisers. By using the initial 5 – 10 seconds of a rich media ad to handle advertiser’s messaging, branding and positioning. Then for those users that choose to interact based upon the branding part of the ad, pushing specific product & pricing, data collection (e.g., email addresses) and shopping list creation as the tools that allow an interested consumer to respond. Below is a visual example of this would play out in a rich media PaperBoy ad.
Branding Portion Of The Ad – The Unexpanded Banner
Within this non-user interacted PaperBoy ad state (e.g., the banner), there is branding, messaging and engaging animation sequences happening. So if a user does NOT choose to interact with the ad unit, there is still a great amount of branding value imparted upon the user.
The Direct Response Portion Of The Ad – The Expanded Panel
- Within this user interacted PaperBoy ad state (e.g., the expanded panel), there is a real focus on specific products being offered at specific prices at a specific store location with calls to action to go with it. This is all about getting a user to take a response of either adding the item to their in-store printable shopping list, buy the item online at retailer.com or going into a local store and buying the item offline.
The demographic and behavioral targeting (BT) enhanced PaperBoy ads that run under the Yahoo! white labeled product name of “Smart Ads” are finally certified. This means that there has been a detailed inspection of all the ad metrics, ad performance, ad serving, etc by the Yahoo! Smart Ads team and that Pointroll passed with flying colors. Nice work everyone at Pointroll and ShopLocal in passing this important external validation step.
Here is one interesting tidbit that helps validate why there is a need for dynamic generated and machine optimized rich media ads.
So if there are 300 weekly ad items live at any given point in time, and you needed to pick four specific products to include in a ad, there would be 300 + 299 + 298 + 297 possibilities (which is 1,195 options as each of the four outputs are calculated independently). This is why it is only possible to do this type of optimization via machine optimization and learning.
Here is a nice flashy demo that Yahoo! put together that overviews the SmartAds program
Hooray! ShopLocal and Pointroll are now official partners
The press pickup has been amazing with over 200+ sites running the story, so thank you to all. Here are some soundbites from a few more notable sources:
- ADOTAS: “As a member of Yahoo’s Smart Ads program, PointRoll will leverage Yahoo’s reach and targeting capabilities to provide even more customized, relevant, and scalable rich media campaigns. PointRoll will also leverage its ShopLocal retail advertising program in order to offer enhanced Smart Ads for retail advertisers.”
- ClickZ: “Rich media firm PointRoll will tap Yahoo’s ad-targeting technology to deliver those ads to the right audiences, according to PointRoll CEO Jason Tafler. PointRoll’s ShopLocal retail ads will also be part of the Smart Ads program.” – ClickZ
- WebProNews: “Smart Ads can be used in any vertical industry, but Yahoo says it has seen success within the retail industry, where many advertisers are looking for new ways to reach consumers. Testing Smart Ads with ShopLocal retail ad content has shown improved campaign performance for retail advertisers such as CVS and Kohl’s. These advertisers saw gains in click performance, conversion and overall return on investment.” -
And finally, here is a link to the official release and some generic info on the Yahoo! Smart Ad program overall.
Location is one of the few constants across all consumer focused industries. Most commerce still takes place in the physical world. This means dealer and store locations are the hub of this fiscal activity. However do to regional demand and taste differences, transportation costs, state regulations, etc., pricing does vary on many of these goods based upon geography.
The below auto campaign for Lexus is a great example of this. The lease offers shown below are unique to a group of dealers in Southern California. If you are from NYC, the lease offers that Lexus is offering will be different. It’s just how the game is played by companies with the required infrastructure that are capable of handling all of these pricing (and product) variations.
ShopLocal’s data localization technologies really excel at on-boarding, cleansing, normalizing, storing and making accessible 3rd party item and offer data. This localized content can come in many form, data formats and flavors. But at the core of all of this local data are dealers or stores. From that granular building block, all of the localization fun begins.
This is a story board that Team One in LA created for a localized Lexus rich media expanding leaderboard ad unit that ShopLocal helped power. All of the lease offer content within the ad is regionally based in much the same way retail print ads a versioned.
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