The Importance of Google Ads Quality Score

September 16, 2019/in Advertising Agency, Articles, Directors /by Nicole Wagner

When running a PPC (pay per click) campaign, you’ll want to make sure your ad’s content is of high quality. You’re investing in these ads, after all. The last thing you want is to pay for clicks if those clicks aren’t converting because of poor ad copy, poor landing pages, or poor use of keywords. It’s one of the reasons why you should pay attention to the Google Ads quality score. However, Google Ads quality score doesn’t just give you an idea of the quality of your ad, it can also affect the performance of your ad, which is why you’ll want to track your quality score and improve it if possible.

What is Google Ads Quality Score?

The Google Ads quality score is a rating that’s given to PPC ads based on a number of different factors. These factors include how relevant your keywords are to their ad group, how relevant your landing pages are to the ads they’re linked from, the quality of those landing pages, the relevance of your ad’s copy, your click-through-rate, and the historical performance of your AdWords account. Google doesn’t divulge how much weight each factor holds in the calculation of its quality score; however, the click-through-rate is the most important factor. This is because a high click-through-rate indicates that your ad must be relevant to users.

Why You Should Improve Your Google Ads Quality Score

Besides rating the quality of your PPC ads (and therefore giving you an idea of whether you need to improve your ads or not), the quality score of your ads will actually play an important part in how they perform. Higher quality scores directly correlate with lower your cost per conversion and your cost per click. This is because not only does a high-quality ad perform better in general, but Google rewards ads with high quality scores with lower costs and higher ad rankings.

Similar Article: How Your Web Page Speed Effects Your SEO and Adwords Performance

3 Ways To Improve Your Quality Score

The following are three ways that you can improve your Google Ads quality score:

Do your keyword research – You not only need to make sure that the keywords you choose are relevant to your ads, but that they are competitive as well. Look for long-tail keywords in particular and make sure that you divide your keywords into organized groups that can be more successfully tied to your individual ad campaigns. In addition to looking for high-quality keywords, you should also keep a list of negative keywords to avoid.
Test your ad copy – In addition to writing quality copy that’s free of errors, you should test out copy that’s more targeted to individual ad groups. The more effective your ad copy is, the more click-throughs you’ll obtain, which contributes to a higher quality score.
Optimize your landing pages – Landing pages should connect directly with your ad groups, meaning that they need to be relevant to the copy of your ads. Generic landing pages can confuse visitors and hurt your conversion rate. Not only should the offer remain exactly the same as it was on the ad copy, but you should be using the same keywords as well.

PPC campaigns can be a very effective part of your online marketing strategy; however, their success depends on their quality, which is why you should pay attention to your Google Ads quality score and make every effort to improve it. Improving your Google Ads quality score not only improves the general quality of your ads, it will put you in a better position to succeed as a result of being rewarded with higher ad rankings.

Understanding the Difference Between Earned Media vs. Paid Media And Embracing The PESO Model

September 12, 2019/in Advertising Agency, Articles, Directors, Marketing Strategy, Media /by Nicole Wagner

When it comes to digital marketing, there are four main types of media. The first, owned media, is relatively obvious. Owned media refers to the media that you own, such as your website, your blog, or your social media pages. Then there’s paid media, which often comes to mind first. However, you could argue that earned media is just as important. The following is a breakdown of earned media vs paid media as well as the importance of following the PESO model, which implements all forms of media for a more balanced digital marketing strategy.

Earned Media vs Paid Media

Paid media consists of the marketing elements that you pay for. Traditionally, paid media consisted of things like TV commercials and magazine ads. However, these days, they also include PPC (per-per-click) ads, social media ads, and display ads. To get the most out of your paid media, you have to plan your marketing strategy carefully and make sure that you’re targeting the right audience. However, paid media can be quite effective at helping to increase brand exposure and web traffic.

Earned media is essentially a form of marketing that you do not pay for and do not own. Customers and brand advocates generate earned media. In a way, it’s like a digital form of “word-of-mouth.” Earned media can include having reviews written by customers as well as professional product review sites or having news stories published about your company. Any kind of publicity that you didn’t pay for is earned media. Earned media is an excellent way to increase brand recognition even though you don’t have direct control over it; however, earned media is also free.

What Is The PESO Model?

Earned media and paid media are not the only types of media you should be concerned with. Owned media, which includes marketing elements that you have direct ownership and full control over (such as your website and your business blog) as well as shared media, which is the media you earn through social media engagement (shares, likes, and comments), both play an important part in helping to grow your brand. The mistake many businesses make is to focus more on one type of media than the other.

Similar Article: Using The Right Media Mix During Each Stage Of The Buyer’s Journeys

Gini Dietrich stressed the importance of integrating all four forms of media with her PESO (paid, earned, shared, owned) model. By implementing the PESO model, you integrate all four forms of media to strengthen your ability to attract leads and convert customers. For example, the use of paid media and shared media can help draw the attention of prospects. Earned media helps to establish the credibility of your brand so that those prospects trust you. Owned media, such as eBooks or whitepapers, help showcase the value of your brand.

While knowing the difference between earned media vs. paid media is important, it’s also important that you don’t value paid media over earned media or vice versa. They, along with shared media and owned media, play an important part in helping to grow your brand. Finding the right balance can take some time, but as long as you keep the PESO model in mind as you create your marketing strategy, you’ll end up having a more balanced and effective marketing campaign.

5 Simple Facebook Advertising Strategies

August 28, 2019/in Advertising Agency, Articles, Directors /by Nicole Wagner

Facebook has an enormous user base that’s only continuing to grow every month. As of the first quarter of 2019, Facebook boasted 2.37 billion active monthly users — up 55 million from the previous quarter. Additionally, roughly 1.56 billion users are logging into Facebook on a daily basis. These are numbers that no marketer can ignore, which is why you should be using Facebook Ads. However, just because Facebook has a big audience doesn’t mean that you’ll reach your target audience. It’s why you need to put some time into crafting an effective Facebook advertising strategy. The following are five Facebook advertising strategies that will help you reach your target audience:

1. Target Life Events

Depending on what your business is, you can target users based on major life events. Users commonly share big life events, such as if they bought a new house, got engaged, had a new baby, moved to a new city, or got a new job. Facebook is well aware of this, which is why it offers advertisers a Life Events parameter. You can select what life event you’re targeting and the date range from that event that the event will remain relevant. For example, if you’re a moving company, you might want to target users who have just closed on a new home within a three-month range. If you’re a jeweler, you may want to target newly engaged users within a year of their engagement.

2. Target Custom Audiences

Another unique feature that you can use on Facebook is the ability to target Custom Audiences. The feature works by uploading who you want to target, such as a customer phone list, an email list, or even your Facebook followers list. You can then specifically target these audiences. Doing this can be an excellent way to increase your lifetime customer value and to boost brand loyalty. You can also choose to specifically exclude the list you upload if your goal is to target completely new leads. facebook advertising strategy

3. Use Geo-Targeting

As you can imagine, targeting all of Facebook’s 2.37 billion monthly users is a ridiculous idea. This is especially true if you’re running a local business that provides a local service. This means that targeting an audience in a different country or even a different state is going to be a waste of time. Geo-targeting allows you to target users who are located within the vicinity of your physical location or the locations that you serve.

4. Retarget Engaged Users

Retargeting users who have engaged with your brand via Facebook in some way can be effective for a number of reasons. First of all, they’re aware of your brand. Secondly, they’ve shown interest through interaction. For example, if you ran a Facebook video ad campaign, then you can retarget users that watched the video all the way through with an additional call-to-action.

Similar Article: How Much To Advertise on Instagram And Why It ‘s Worth The Cost

5. Take Advantage Of Look Alike-Audiences

Lookalike Audiences lets you mirror your Custom Audience list or Facebook following. By doing this, you’ll target a completely new audience that has a lot in common with your current leads and customers. You’ll be able to expand past your reach while still targeting users with specific profiles.

These are five ways you can implement a Facebook advertising strategy that will allow you to effectively target your audience. Just keep in mind that these strategies work best if you’ve already done the basics. This means developing your buyer personas, understanding who your target audience actually is, and establishing the main goals of your Facebook ad campaign.

What is an Ad Exchange and How Does it Work?

August 14, 2019/in Advertising Agency, Articles, Directors /by Nicole Wagner

Before ad exchanges began popping up, the only way for marketers to purchase ad space online was directly through publishers. This process was not very cost-effective. It was also time-consuming. As new ways to purchase advertising space online have popped up, including programmatic ads and RTB (real-time bidding) ads, so have ad exchanges. Ad exchanges have made it much easier to buy ad space that’s both more effective and more efficient. But what is an ad exchange, exactly?

What is an Ad Exchange?

An ad exchange is an online marketplace for ad space that functions as an auction. Publishers (such as website owners) make their digital advertising space available. Then, advertising agencies and marketers then purchase this ad space through the ad exchange. It’s worth noting that ad exchanges are autonomous, meaning that they aren’t on the side of either the buyers or the sellers.

While ad exchanges are simple for publishers and advertisers to use, the way they actually function can be a bit complex. When a publisher lists ad space on an ad exchange, they provide details that include the page location, audience, topics, and URL. When somebody visits the publisher’s website or mobile app, data about that user is collected. That user data is transferred to the ad exchange. The ad exchange then sends a bid request to DSPs and ad networks. Each DSP inspects the bid request and the parameters of the advertiser to decide of the impression will be relevant to the advertiser. If it is, the maximum bid amount will be sent back to the ad exchange along with the location of the advertising copy to be placed in the ad space.

The ad exchange will review all the bids, eliminating bids from advertisers that don’t meet the publisher’s requirements. The impression will then go to the highest bidder. Their copy will then be displayed on the publisher’s website in front of the user that’s visiting the website. As complicated as this process may appear to be, it takes milliseconds for it to occur.

What Are Marketing Qualified Leads And Why Do They Matter?

The Benefits of Using an Ad Exchange

The use of an ad exchange provides benefits to both publishers and advertisers. The following are a few of the advantages publishers have when using an ad exchange:

Establish the minimum CPMs (cost per mile, which refers to the cost per thousand impressions) for their inventory units.
Filter and block ads that have sensitive content or that are ads for competitors.
Choose the ad format and style, thereby defining what types of ads can appear on their webpage.
Choose where the ads will be displayed on their webpages.
Customize combinations of fonts, colors, and corner style. They can then apply these combinations to multiple display ads at a time.

Ad exchanges don’t just benefit the publishers. They also benefit advertisers who are buying ad space in the following ways:

Choose targeting options, behavioral profiling, price settings, and bidding capabilities.
Blacklist certain audiences.
Blacklist certain publishers.
Place limits on the number of times the same ad appears to the same user.
Retarget across multiple ad exchanges.

Ad exchanges are incredibly effective because they provide advertisers with a lot of control over where their ads will be seen, who will see them, and how much they are paying for those impressions. They also help you save a significant amount of time finding ad space in general. As such, ad exchanges are well worth looking into.

Does Targeted Advertising Work?

August 6, 2019/in Advertising Agency, Articles, Directors /by Dan Gartlan

Back before the Internet, it was difficult to escape ads. If you were watching TV, then you had no choice but to watch the commercials. However, because users have more control over what they view online, advertisements are easy to ignore. As a result, marketers are using targeted advertising to expose their ads to users who are more likely to show interest in their products or services. This reduces the chances that someone will ignore the ads.

How Does Targeted Advertising Work?

In order to target an audience that might be interested in a product or service being advertised, advertisers will use data collected on the user. This data can include demographic information as well as behavioral data. For example, if a person views a certain product on a website, their browser will submit this piece of data to third-party advertising networks. That information will be stored in a browser cookie, which is a snippet of code that shows sites that the person has viewed. When the person visits a different website that has the same advertising network, ads for the product the person viewed on the first site may show up. For example, if a person was checking out a new sofa on a furniture website and then visits a social media platform, like Facebook, they might find an ad for the sofa they were just looking at show up on their feed. This is a result of targeted advertising.

Like this article? Here’s another: 5 Tips To Improve Your Advertising Approach

Types of Targeted Advertising

There are several types of targeted advertising. The following are a few common examples:

Social media advertising – Many social media platforms will place advertisements in your feed or on the side of your pages. They have access to a lot of demographic information about its users that can help target different people.
Behavioral advertising – Many sites will use past purchasing decisions to advertise to their visitors. For example, Amazon often recommends different products based on the purchasing behaviors of its customers.
Search engine advertising – Search engine ads, such as Google AdWords, target users based on their search engine queries to match the keywords they use with those used by their ads.

How To Use Targeted Advertising Effectively

While targeted advertising can be incredibly effective in helping you find an audience that has a need for the products or services you’re advertising, it does have one drawback: some people may be put off by the ad if it looks like you’re using personal information about them in order to target your ad. This can come off as an invasion of privacy, after all. Keeping that in mind, the following are a few tips on how to use targeted advertising:

Be transparent – Make sure that you let visitors know that you’re collecting data and how you are using that data. The more transparent you are, the less your audience will feel like you’re spying on them.
Create control – Although you’ll want to use the visitor data on your site to target your ads, you should provide users with a sense of control by implementing security features, such as SSL certificates, firewalls, DoS, and more. This lowers the chances of someone stealing user information and it helps protect visitors.
Don’t use sensitive information – You don’t need to use every bit of information you collect to target your ads. For example, you should avoid using information such as health conditions, race, relationship statuses, and sexual orientation to target ads.
Targeted advertising can be an incredibly effective way to market your products and services. This is because it helps you identify audiences that will find your ads relevant. This makes your marketing campaign much more cost-effective as a result.

Why You Should Consider Using YouTube Videos For Senior Living Marketing

September 24, 2018/in Advertising Agency, Articles, Blog, Digital Media, Directors, Senior Living Marketing, Video Marketing /by Nicole Wagner

When it comes to choosing what platforms to leverage in order to reach senior living audiences, you may have skipped over YouTube assuming that this particular platform is aimed at younger audiences. However, this is actually not true. You may want to give YouTube another look as it turns out YouTube videos are an excellent way to reach older audiences. The following are just a few of the reasons why you should incorporate YouTube videos into your senior living content marketing strategy:

1. Seniors Use YouTube Frequently

The idea that YouTube is for younger generations is a misconception that simply isn’t true. In fact, YouTube is the number one video platform of choice for the Baby Boomer generation. According to YouTube’s Trends Dashboard, more than 60 million Baby Boomers over the age of 55 view content on YouTube every month. In fact, four times as many Baby Boomers visit YouTube than people under the age of 18. This means that creating YouTube videos is actually an excellent way to reach your target demographics.

2. Seniors Are Social

By 2013, there were already 39 million people 65 and older that were using Facebook, Twitter, and Skype. At the time, this made them the fastest growing age demographic for these social channels. Considering the fact that there are more senior citizens than ever, incorporating social into your content marketing strategy is a must–and YouTube is a social platform. When you create YouTube videos, you can post them to Facebook, after all. Seniors can then comment, like, and share your YouTube videos, helping to increase brand awareness amongst their social circles, which are likely to be filled with family members as well as friends in the senior citizen age range.

3. Seniors Prefer Visual Storytelling

The best way to reach senior citizens is through the use of visual storytelling (according to multiple studies on the subject). There’s no more effective way to tell a story in a visual manner than through video. For example, you could use video to tell the story of a resident and their journey to find a home at your senior living facility. By making a resident the main character in your video, you would make your content more relatable to your audience.

4. YouTube Videos Allow Pre-Roll Ads

Pre-roll ads have become quite common on YouTube videos. They are the 5 to 30-second spots that run before the video and that usually can’t be skipped until 5 seconds in. While they can be a real annoyance for a lot of viewers, they can actually be very effective if they are relevant to your video content. This is especially true if you already have video content available on your site.

4 Senior Living Video Marketing Ideas That Will Improve Engagement

You can create effective pre-roll ads by cutting short 15 or 30-second spots out of existing video testimonials or video tours of your senior living facility. This way, when someone watches one of your YouTube videos (especially those that are instructional or informative and not promotional), your pre-roll ads will showcase your senior living facility so that they know who you are.

5. YouTube Videos Can Drive Traffic

YouTube isn’t just a platform to host videos. It can be used to help drive viewers to your website for more information. Curate your YouTube page so that you have a lot of YouTube videos audiences can go through, but make sure that it’s obvious that it’s your senior living facility’s page and include a link from your YouTube channel to your website. You should also add links to your video descriptions and clickable links embedded within the videos themselves towards the end. Doing so can help drive a significant amount of traffic to your website.

YouTube videos can be extremely effective at reaching a senior living audience, which is why you should incorporate YouTube into your content marketing strategy. It’s also worth mentioning that YouTube is owned by Google, which means that properly optimized YouTube videos can help to boost your SEO as well, thereby increasing your page rankings and helping to drive more organic traffic to your YouTube channel as well as your main website.

Senior Living Advertising Ideas That Avoid Stereotyping

September 6, 2018/in Advertising Agency, Articles, Blog, Directors, Senior Living Marketing /by Nicole Wagner

One of the main reasons why marketing a senior living community is so challenging is because it’s easy to fall into the trap of advertising to seniors in a stereotypical way. In fact, a recent survey of 400 seniors aged 70 or over revealed that 60 percent of respondents felt that most advertisements used stereotypes to represent seniors. Keeping that in mind, the following are a few advertising ideas to help you avoid senior living stereotypes:

Don’t Be Pushy Or Preachy

A lot of ads that target seniors tend to be on the condescending side. You’ll want to try and position yourself as an authority on the subject, but you won’t want to do so in a way that you’re telling your audience you know better than they do. This will come off as pushy or preachy, which is a tone you should avoid. Be factual and informative in an honest and respectful manner.

Focus On The Individual, Not The Demographic

One of the biggest offenses in senior stereotyping is to use actors that fit the general demographic of your audience and have them do something mundane, like smiling while they drink a glass of wine and stare out into the distance. How is your audience supposed to relate to an image like this? On the other hand, you also don’t want to depict a senior struggling to live on their own, such as someone being helped into bed because they are too feeble to function by themselves.

Instead of trying to represent an entire demographic by the extreme ends of the spectrum, focus on the individual. What does your target audience actually want and need out of a senior living community? Highlight purposeful activities, such as actively participating in the world and continuing to pursue their passions.

Check out this article for tips on how to market senior living communities

Show Don’t Tell

Having someone speaking to the audience about the benefits of moving into your living community is a tired trope. It’s something that most seniors expect from a pamphlet. Showing is much more effective than telling. A great example of a senior living community that did this focused on showing the day-to-day lives of its residents as they dined, exercised, played pool, painted, and more — all without any dialogue whatsoever. Like they always say, an image is worth a thousand words.

Entertain Your Audience

It seems like many advertisers forget that seniors still like to be entertained and that they have a great sense of humor. You don’t need to be deadly serious when marketing towards seniors. Try to entertain them and appeal to their sense of humor — you’ll find that they’ll be much more engaged as a result.

Many senior living communities fail to market to a senior audience effectively because they fall into the trap of using advertising ideas that rely on senior stereotypes. Seniors recognize these stereotypes and do not appreciate them, which means that you will have difficulty generating interest in your community. Use these advertising ideas to help avoid stereotyping seniors in your marketing efforts.

What Every Creative Advertising Agency Needs To Know To Endure The Digital Transformation

August 22, 2018/in Advertising Agency, Articles, Blog, Directors /by Terry Becker

Let’s face it: the transformations that are taking place in the digital world have altered the definition of being a creative. Understanding the impact these changes have on creatives and figuring out how to navigate them can be an overwhelming task. Here is what every creative advertising agency needs to know in order to endure the digital transformation today:

Big Ideas Can Arise From Anyone Or Anywhere

Everyone from creative technologists to consultants are constantly challenging themselves to think of new ways to stay innovative in the rapidly changing digital world. Because of this, we have to recognize that people all around us, regardless of title or industry, are pitching ideas that could be the next big thing. To avoid missing out on those big ideas, I encourage you to keep your door and your mind open when conversing with co-workers.

Learn Through Collaboration

Technology alone is no longer the single center of digital transformation—it’s people. I learn new things, and processes in the digital scape, by discussing projects and goals with others. Can you remember a time you were working with someone and they showed you something new in a program you have been using for years? It’s easy to think that because you have been around a technology, you are familiar with every aspect of it, but you might be surprised by what you learn from the people around you. Acknowledging the wide range of abilities our fellow creative partners possess can inspire us to go further and elevate what we are capable of.

Make Learning A Constant

If you are seeking to improve your craft and entice your clients, continue to expand your field of knowledge and gain perspective on the world around you. There are several different ways to do this. For example, I have an Alexa in my home and I like to develop skills for it, as well as listen to podcasts and audio books in the car. Learning can feel like a chore, so do it where you are most comfortable and really dial in to how you learn best. For me, it’s audio and visual.

You should even Consider using down time to learn. Yeah, we all like to recoup during less busier times, but why not take advantage of your free time to bolster your skills? Remember when you used to love to create? It could have been when you were a kid coloring in a coloring book, or when you were in college creating projects where you had all the authority and made all the creative decisions. Think of digital the same way.

Read our article: 4 Questions To Ask Yourself When Looking For Creative Marketing Solutions

Work Backwards If You Have To

Discover what else you can learn from a familiar program or subject by working backwards. I recently re-upped certification by Google in Analytics and filled in some of the holes in my knowledge base. I use Google Analytics just about every day, but never knew all the things it could do. Just because you do something all the time OR because you are supposed to be a professional, doesn’t mean you can’t keep working on your skills.

Inspiring People

With creativity finding new platforms for expression, our renewed focus on humanity has played the most important role in digital transformation. Having a variety of options that work to improve our lives has never been easier due to the merging of creativity, data, and technology. Although mixing all of those elements into a stew of color, light and imagination can certainly hurt our heads, it is all worth it when something incredible arises from it that inspires people.

We Are Currently In The Second (And Maybe Third) Chapter Of Digital Innovation

Major companies like Amazon, Kickstarter, Uber, and Netflix have altered what we thought was possible in today’s world. Thanks to their innovation, we have become accustomed to a life of convenience and have higher everyday expectations. Advertising agencies play a massive role in inspiring people, so the way we use technology matters significantly for the next chapter of digital innovation.

How Data Driven Creative Is Shifting The Advertising Industry

August 15, 2018/in Advertising Agency, Articles, Blog, Directors /by Mark Beebe

It wasn’t that long ago that businesses had limited data to use for their creative. Marketing campaigns were often built using subjective creative instinct and little else. However, now that advertisers have access to significant amounts of data, including personal customer information as well as audience behaviors, creative decisions are being informed by their data. The use of data allows businesses to make much better use of their resources, thereby making your data driven creative efforts more successful as well as more cost-efficient. The following are just a few ways that advertising agencies use data driven creative tactics to influence your marketing campaign for the better.

1. Develop More Accurate Buyer Personas

Arguably the most important facet of any marketing strategy that you implement is the audience you’re targeting. If you’re targeting the wrong audience, your efforts will fail. This is why developing buyer personas is so important — and the most effective way to do this is through the use of customer data. You can use the data you have from previous customers as well as data from the leads you’ve captured in order to identify exactly who your audience is, which will help inform the creation of your buyer personas.

For example, you can track the behavior of your customers by viewing what pages they visited and what actions they took before making a purchase. Information like what they’ve purchased and when they purchased it will be very helpful in being able to reach your audience as well. Many businesses will also create post-sale surveys for customers to fill out that provides valuable information as well. Additionally, you can gather information from your email opt-in forms as well as from your social media followers.

Want more information on Buyer Personas? Click here.

2. Locate Where Your Audience Is

Knowing who your audience is won’t help much if you don’t know where they are. There are countless social media platforms on which you can target your marketing campaigns. If you choose a social channel on which your target audience isn’t present, your campaign will fall on deaf ears. Figuring out what platforms your audience uses is the first step towards reaching them, and your data can help you pinpoint where they are. For example, you can look at the social media data of similar companies to determine where they have the biggest reach, or you can add social share buttons to your content and then identify which platforms your content is being shared on most.

You can also set up business pages on several social platforms and link to them in your email campaigns and on your website. You can then track which pages receive the most follows, which will tell you which social channels you should focus your marketing efforts on.

3. Personalize Your Ads

The amount of data that you have at your fingertips should allow you to personalize the experiences of your customers, especially once you’ve created your buyer personas. For example, retargeting customers using PPC (pay per click) ads highlighting items that they added to their cart but didn’t end up purchasing can be a very effective way to close a missed sale opportunity. Personalized experiences in general, whether it’s personalized CTAs (calls-to-action) or personalized emails, have a big impact. A recent study even revealed that consumers are twice as likely to click through ads for brands they were unfamiliar with if it was tailored to their preference.

4. Create More Relevant Content

By using your buyer personas and by collecting and analyzing how your visitors engage with the content you produce, you can fine tune your content strategy to better target your audience. By tracking several metrics, including time spent on a page, engagement with the content (comments, social shares, likes, etc.), click-throughs, bounce rate, lead captures, and more, you can identify what content performs at the highest rate. You can then craft new content that’s aligned with what type of content performs well. For example, if you noticed that short-form content in list form performs well but long-form content without bullets or numbers does not, then you should have a pretty good idea of what future content should look like.

These are just a few ways that data driven creative can work and why it’s changing the way the advertising industry operates. Using the significant amount of data that you have access to in order to drive your creative marketing decisions will make it easier to successfully identify who your target audience is and how to reach them in a cost-efficient manner.

How Creativity and Data Driven Marketing Help Develop Marketing Campaigns

August 9, 2018/in Advertising Agency, Articles, Blog, Directors, Marketing Strategy /by Mark Beebe

Not long ago, businesses simply didn’t have that much information to leverage when it came to crafting marketing campaigns. They could only draw conclusions about their audience from in-store information — as in, information on who bought what. Mostly, they just advertised to the audience that their products or services were initially intended for. A lot of their marketing effort came from the instincts of their advertising agency’s creative team. These days, advertising agencies have access to a wealth of data, which has led to data driven marketing. However, knowing how to use that data properly is important as well. It’s the agencies that merge data and creative to form the foundation of their marketing campaigns that tend to be the most successful.

What is Digital Storytelling? Read here.

How Data Driven Marketing Can Support Creativity

Although it’s difficult to argue that data hasn’t been hugely beneficial in terms of identifying who your audience is and how to reach them, a lot of people within the industry are scared that the use of data is restricting creativity. They believe that the increased use of data and automation is going to reduce innovation in marketing campaigns. There’s certainly some truth to this – but only if your marketing agency isn’t using your data properly. You don’t want your creative decisions to be solely based on numbers, after all.

However, you also don’t want to use your data as an afterthought either. For example, maybe you’ve produced both long-form and short-form blog content. Using analytics, you’ve found that your long-form content is performing better. You won’t want to try to take your short-form content and extend it so that it’s longer as this kind of strategy is akin to trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. Instead, you should keep this data in mind for future campaigns.

Data driven marketing is about creating a balance between the data you have and your creative. Take video content creation as an example. Video has become one of the most effective forms of content in the past few years as it’s become easier and cheaper to produce as well as easier for consumers to watch. According to recent stats, Facebook users are more likely to engage with your video if it draws them in within 1.7 seconds. When creating video content for Facebook, you’ll want to keep this in mind. It might seem restricting at first — but limitations are often what helps to drive creative solutions. Instead of looking at data as something that restricts the creativity of your marketing campaigns, look at it as a way to drive innovation.

While some critics fear that an over-reliance on data could ultimately hinder creative efforts, in reality, the use of data can help inform creative efforts to bolster the effectiveness of a marketing campaign. In this day and age, advertising agencies who do not leverage data to their advantage in order to influence the direction of their creative marketing decisions will quickly fall behind the competition.