In this blog post, Greer Hall of Gravis and Elizabeth Laird of Clermont Digital discuss best practices to ensure the winning combination of targeting and creative to hit ROI goals. They have worked on multiple client programs together and know how to grow a profitable digital campaign.

The success of any advertising campaign relies on the dual strength of the targeting and the creative. No matter the objective, ideal audience, or advertising platform this rule always applies. While this makes sense in theory, in practice ensuring these two tactics are holding hands and building the strength of the other is not always easy.

Ad Targeting of the Future

Intelligent ad targeting has always been important, but more so now with 3rd party cookies hanging in the balance. No longer can advertisers be lazy and let cookies run their targeting strategy. They also can no longer rely on dynamic ads to engage and convert their audience. A more thoughtful, bigger-lift approach will be needed. Contextual targeting and CRM targeting will replace the ad targeting of today and will require mindful segmentation and a deeper dive into the demographics, needs, and motivations of these segments. Most importantly, it will require advertisers to slow down and develop a thoughtful approach on messaging these segments. Serving ads containing the content we know a user engaged with on-site will no longer be an option. And let’s face it - those ads worked and were easy to produce. The idea of watching ROI slip away is a hard pill to swallow.

That said, there is time (not much!) to transition reliance away from this ad targeting type.  Testing out compliant intent audiences, contextual targeting, and CRM audiences have never been more critical. While segmenting properly and structuring the campaign are key, they only get you halfway there. Strong, non-3rd party cookie reliant creative is needed to ensure the ROIs your leadership demands.

What Makes for Strong Creative

Who hasn’t heard this memorable tagline: “There are some things money can’t buy, for everything else there’s Mastercard.” If we boil down what makes an Ad strong and memorable, we’ll discover that contrast is king. The best performing Ads use some form of contrast. Opposing colors might come to mind first, but contrast can be less obvious, too. There’s contrast in an enticing offer from a premium brand, like three months of free Spotify, or a surprising partnership between a well-known personality and an existing brand, like Ben Affleck and Dunkin. Contrast in advertising should be a blend between visuals, emotion and rationale and done expertly, the outcome is hard to resist. Viewers engage with strong Ads when brands present content that’s simultaneously emotional and rational. Consider a life insurance Ad that depicts images of family with parents taking care of small children, a voiceover explaining the importance of ensuring they’re safe (after you’re dead, of course) along with a reasonable monthly payment of $29 for a considerable death benefit of up to $250,000. Viewers buy into this concept because the insurance provider has convinced us it’s necessary—both emotionally and rationally. Brands that layer together different types of contrast to include visuals and color, theme or messaging, along with a time-bound offer will create ads that are irresistible to its audience. A perceptive marketer will include this direction to their agency or internal creative team, and in so doing, will raise the bar for what the design and writing teams create. The creative output will have multiple dimensions of interest and it will be immediately clear whether or not the Ad will resonate. Once this formula for contrast is understood, developing strong Ads becomes easier, faster and more performant. Mastercard’s tagline contrasts the intangible things in life like love, family, the precious nature of time, and opposes them with products, convenience and simplicity. It’s a perfect mix of emotion and logic while displaying experiences that resonate with audiences.

How To Marry These Two Concepts

Here is where things get a bit trickier. Ensuring both media buyer and creative designer are aligned is key. Siloing these functions is a sure fire way to ensure your campaign will bomb. It is up to the media buyer to not just share the ad sizes, specs, and formats, but to give context around the placement and digital environment in which the ads will feature. The targeting segmentation should not just be well known by the media buyer, but also the creative designer.  Any historical qualitative and quantitative data should be shared so the design team has the best chance of launching ads with their best foot forward. Additionally, the creative designer owes sharing their insights, historical successes, and out of the box ideas with the media buyer so they can fine tune ad placements to align.

The next steps are critical to the on-going health of the campaign: reaction, response, and iteration. This can be difficult without a strong partnership between media buyer and designer.  Both parties need to be open with data, not color it with their personal bias, and flexible in adjusting their respective strategy. Oftentimes a failed campaign turns into a blame game between media buyer and designer. In this case, not only does the current campaign fail, but the chance of a future success as well. Realizing this is a dual effort and shared result is incredibly important.

Finally, both media buyer and designer need to be looking at the holistic user experience.  Are the landing pages and user flows aligned with the targeting and creative?  If not, they need to be updated to ensure a seamless experience from ad impression to on-site conversion to all follow up communications. This not only helps build your brand post-conversion, but helps with retention and achieving the ultimate gold stand, brand advocacy.

Gravis and Clermont Digital have partnered on many high impact advertising campaigns across multiple industries, ad platforms, and campaign goals. Our ability to understand the other’s point of view, adjust and iterate, and deliver success to clients has been second to none. If you are looking to run a successful campaign or have questions about our approach, don’t hesitate to reach out.