The following post is authored by Steve Krol at Advanse.
Mobile has brought digital to complete ubiquity. Growth in the industry has never been hotter, and there is as much excitement about technology today as there was in the mid and late 90’s. And with all that, growth digital advertising has still not reached its peak in potential or market share. By some reports, the population consumes 40% of its media in digital form, but digital only gets 25-30% of media ad dollars.
These market trends are leading companies to innovate in ad tech to make digital advertising easier to execute and more effective. In turn, this is bringing new advertisers into digital for the first time, or companies that have just dipped their toe into digital to raise their investment.
With technology comes great possibility, and new opportunities for marketers. We are getting closer to that ideal concept of one-to-one marketing. While there is some work ahead, no matter what happens with technology, solid advertising best practices will always be the foundation. Here are the three most critical components to digital advertising success that we see.
Component #1 Ads with Clean, Creative, and Simple Copy
The first component of your digital ad campaign is your ad, and having a good ad is key. I know that sounds like asking what makes for good art, but successful ads all have something in common. The biggest mistake we see with digital ad design is when marketers confuse digital ads for something else. A digital ad is not a mini print ad and it is not a really short TV commercial. For digital ads, clean design, concise copy, and a call-to-action really go a long way. If you use animation, use it with a purpose (like getting a consumer to notice your ad on a page) and end the animation with a complete message. What we mean is, assume that the user has not seen the whole animation. In that case, your message at the end of the animation needs to be a complete ad that can stand on its own without the animation.
Your best performing ads will be when you have these three elements working together. For example, direct response ads should include a button and call-to-action that asks the user to Buy Now, Learn More, or Shop Now. If your goal is to get someone to take an action, like buy a product, then explicitly ask them to do that. The presence of an explicit call to action in a button can get you 25-100% improvement in click rates. There is a lot of time and thoughtful energy put into ad design, and covering these basic concepts in ad design will set you up for success.
Component #2 Connected Landing Page Experiences
You have your clean, simple, concise ad and you are getting good results, but where does the user go next? Landing pages, especially mobile campaigns, need to be tailored to the specific ad campaign. Your web site on a mobile phone is not the best experience.
We call them connected pages because the message on the landing page should be a continuance of the message in the ad with more information or the ability to complete the call to action. A connected landing page has three parts, it is the right format for the channel (mobile vs. desktop), your ad copy properly represents what to expect on the landing page, and the content of the page(s) are designed to support the ad campaign. In other words, sending them to a home page or some product category page is not optimal. The consumer should not have to work to figure out what they are suppose to do next to respond to your ad.
Here is an example of what we mean by copy that sets the right expectation. If you offer a product with a trial period but ask for a credit card, calls to action like Try it Now and Sign Up Free will get you a higher CTR. But 30-Day Free Trial and Join Today will get you a better conversion rate. These calls to action, while on the surface are subtly different, set a better expectation for the consumer of what to expect when they get to your landing page. The first two examples give the impression of an immediate experience or no-strings-attached experience, while the latter examples explain that there is an evaluation period or a process to complete on the other side of the ad.
With connected landing pages, we have seen an improvement in conversions by 30-40%. In mobile, it can be even greater just by having landing pages that are optimized for a mobile experience.
Component #3 Understand what you are measuring
Unfortunately, tracking digital performance can be a little trickier than it should be. But if you apply a similar thought process as your ad design, it can be made much simpler. This is where we connect the three components by having your ad design and landing pages support your measurement. If you want to track sales or conversions, your landing pages will need a conversion pixel. This will tell you which ad resulted in the desired action. It also gives you a more complete picture of performance, as the pixel will also tell you about Post-view conversions. Post-view means a user saw your ad, did not click on it, and later came back to purchase a product for example.
The way your ad copy can support your tracking goals is through the call to action. If you want to sell something, a specific call to action is required. Without it, your direct response ad will look like a branding ad and you will have lower response rates.
When it comes to mobile, utilizing click-to-call is really important for direct response success. Because of its convenience, it enjoys click rates higher than the web click rates. But having a system that can tell you which mobile ads generated which calls will be important for your tracking and measurement.
Banners ads are not dead, despite what some prognostications have been forecasting since 1999. In fact, it is one of the biggest battlegrounds in the technology market. As the shift to digital continues, chances are you will be executing mobile and web ad campaigns soon or expanding your investment if you haven’t already done so. Understanding the complete process from ad, to landing page, to conversion, and how they influence each other will set you up for digital success.
About Advanse
Advanse helps advertisers maximize ad performance through data-driven messaging. Learn more at advanse.ads.com