By Ulf Vanselius and Joakim Ebstein
In the last post we discussed that AI already today has many uses we might not think about. Some functions can, rightly used, improve the effect of digital marketing with 100’s of percent. Don’t miss our breakfast seminar on September 7 when Joakim Ebstein, Head of Digital Marketing at Pyramid will give you some hot tips to improve your digital campaigns.
Google is the keyword in this reasoning. We are all googling every day and are getting so used of getting very accurate responses so we barely consider looking at page 2 or 3 of the search results. But did you know that your response is tailored for you based on what Google consider is the most relevant response – based on your search and browsing history, location, computer settings and many more parameters. AI in short.
Programmatic campaigns using Google Display and YouTube benefits from the same logic. Here some recommendations of how to make digital campaigns more effective.
- Let the system work
Even if the campaign is not manually optimized, the relative result will improve over time when Google through its intelligence learns the target group’s behavior. So if possible, let campaigns run over a longer period, at least two months if possible and you will see a gradual improvement of result.
- Focus the campaign on the right purpose
Google has a number of basic settings that instructs the system to eg “maximize clicks” or “maximize conversions”. Through this settings Google will in real time prioritize to show the ads to persons with a higher probability to do this. So consider what is your key strategy: To drive awareness/traffic or to create conversions. Many times a campaign can benefit from using both – starting with awareness and then changing to conversions. - Define the right media for your ads
The next step is to decide where Google should show your ads since you don’t want them to show up on gaming sites and similar where kids even get rewards if they click on the ad. If you are a B2B company, we often recommend to select channels with B2B and News topics. Mobile is also important to evaluate. Quite often mobile generates a lot of clicks, but with doubtful quality. One strategy could then be to only work with the larger ad formats so no one clicks by mistake. - Follow-up and optimize
A strong recommendation is to follow-up all campaigns closely: Daily to start with to see that all works, then moving over to 2 week intervals and finally making summaries every month. It can seem a lot of work, but if you can improve the effect by 100% it’s well worth the effort. Below is one campaign example where we started with an awareness focus and then changed over to focus on conversions. The conversion rate increased from a few percent to over 20 percent.
- Demand results from your agency
A few tips how you can make your relation with your agency more effective- Never pay for impressions. Always pay for clicks, but demand quality traffic according to your strategy
- Ask for regular summary meetings where the effect of your campaign is compared with the official benchmarks
- Evaluate A/B testing and discuss if you should continue with all options of banners or films
- The meetings should always include pro-active recommendations of how to improve the result. Change strategy? Adjust channels? Move budget?
This is only a few of the possibilities. Register for our breakfast seminar on September 7 to get useful insights and many more examples of how to make your digital campaigns more effective. Register today here!
