What Is Big Data Analytics & What’s The Obsession With It?

Big Data Big Hype?

Well no, because we create 2.5 quintillion bytes of data every single day. And the last 3 years have potentially witnessed the maximum surge in data. New devices, sensors, new technologies stand responsible for this data explosion.

There are over 300 million smartphone users in India alone. Now imagine the data spurted out from all the smart devices, the cloud and other databases? Such variety of data arrive in increasing volumes and with a high velocity given our consumption of digital services. This gives rise to big data. And since it takes data to make confident and productive decisions, it goes without saying that marketers feel slightly overwhelmed. What’s more is that traditional data processing applications fail to process and justly assess such mounting data sets. This makes data-driven marketing go awry.

Bring In The Facts: Analytics

Plus points of data-driven advertising include the ability to reach the most convertible customers right when they’re in need of goods/services. It’s easy said, than done that to achieve this all marketers need to do is gather the data points from across channels that customers frequent and convert it into actionable information. 

Let’s say you’re a business in a B2C situation and you’re looking at driving sales with audience insights. And let’s assume you’re aware of the multiple channels (screens, devices, website and more) that your target audience frequent. So how do you gather the data? Where do you store it? What do you make of it?

Analytics answers the above questions and more that directly power your marketing instincts. For example, in our previous blog we talk about controlling and optimizing data under one roof while still directing you to the coordinates of your future buyers.

Of course, with the reach of technology today, it’s possible to analyze your data and get answers from it almost right away. You can train an in-house resource to do the job or partner with specialist companies to educate you about individual customer needs. With big data analytics, you’ll realize that it is possible to look past the horizons of insight.

UDM: How Data Under One Roof Can Help Marketers See The Future

User data is constantly sprouting in every corner of the web and mobile universe, with every passing second. We see ad tech companies, brands, ad networks and exchanges and every middleman scampering about in an attempt to collect that knowledge from each of its sources. But in this hunt for extracting valuable information from oceans of data every day, there lies a big gap between connecting nameless/faceless digits provided by Data Management Platforms (DMPs) to the more tangible, yet minuscule number of known IDs that come in through Customer Data Platforms (CDPs).

That’s the challenge that we at BPRISE have worked to solve.

Not Just DMP, But Holistic Data Management

When advertisers buy media across a vast range of different sites and through various middlemen, including DSPs, ad networks and exchanges, DMPs typically tie all that activity and subsequent audience data together in one, centralized location. This is used to help optimize future media buys and improve target practice when a client wants to reach a certain filtered demographic. But what the DMPs provide is only 3rd party information that’s ripe for the taking for you and your competitors going after the same customer(s). They don’t provide you with unique identifiers and definite readings of your prospective buyers. You need to knock on a CDP’s door for that.

Or you could just ring our doorbell instead, to cover both sides of the spectrum. We at BPRISE have devised our own system that marries the expansive reach and global access of DMPs with the precision and pointed knowledge of CDPs. We call it UDMP-Unified Data Management Platform. Since we trace your customers even when they travel outside of your website/app framework onto other 3rd party territories, with our UDMP, we are able to connect this first-hand CDP data with information from 3rd party apps and websites (information that has already been analysed by DMPs). This is a more durable and privacy-led connector between known and unknown ID types. So, everything from transaction data, demographic data, and virtually infinite amounts of behavioural data all churn away under our UDMP warehouse.

Thanks to UDMP behaving as a superset of data from DMPs and CDPs, we are able to provide a consolidated view of your customers’ interests and better predict future behaviours, consumer paths and motivations. Since we bridge the gap between DMPs and CDPs and manage the relationship between the ‘general’ mass of data points and known facts about uniquely identified consumer profiles, we have the power to enrich email lists and retargeting campaigns with anonymous DMP attributes to drive performance in known channels.

UDMP. More Juice, Less Faff.

By building this UDMP we can help our clients to better understand customer information and do it with major operational efficiency. Every data point is enriched and made sense of in a way that ensures minimal waste of key information and full use of the cost that went into acquiring that data.

UDM provides you with a data-set of your actual audience which can be activated across an entire life cycle: acquisition, engagement, conversion, and retention. There aren’t restrictions on the types of data you can collect, the segmentation is real-time, and it is channel agnostic to ensure the seamless flow of data. This flexibility arms brands and advertisers with an ability to really explore more possibilities and methods to engage with their user bases.

Controlling such vast amounts and types of data all under one roof also allows us to come to more accurate conclusions, at a faster rate. This in turn feeds into optimisation campaigns and switching strategies to capitalise on emerging trends. By unifying the DMP and CDP universes, at BPRISE we constantly refine lookalike models and present our clients with not just the 411 about their existing customers, but also point them to the coordinates of their future buyers and patrons as well.

So, we’re saying, instead of employing the services of multiple middlemen entities to gather information about the same target audience, give us a call. With our Unified Data Management Platform, we warehouse all the data pouring in from numerous locations and hand it to you in a way that makes sense. If you believe that Data is the new currency, then know that UDMP functions as a big bank. Start your account with us today!

Data To Solve The “Customer Profile” Jigsaw

Delusions Courtesy Multiple Data Platforms

Before we talk about data, let’s talk about all the technology vendors who promise to provide a “360-degree view of customers”. Players in this segment include CDP, DMP and CRM software providers. Which one’s really fit for you?

Would you deploy an array of such software platforms to identify a channel you’d rather invest in to drive sales, promote your brand or generate leads? Even if you do, it does not clearly pick and show you all of your customer’s interactions with your brand’s campaign across sites and ad platforms.

Driving Sales But Not Customer Engagement?

Although there isn’t a direct link between a sale and a campaign, having your point-of-sale and digital identifiers synced can get you answers with some level of certainty. Digital identifiers include cookies and mobile advertising IDs. If you have a sale done at your store, wouldn’t you want to match it with the digital campaign that influenced the customer to make the purchase?

Some tech partners can help you achieve this by studying the change in foot traffic at your stores. Oftentimes, GPS lat/long data points, WiFi connections, and the data from Bluetooth beacons are measured to attribute sales.

So you have enterprise software vendors and a good number of tech partners but would you claim that you put all this data and the customer’s proximity to your stores to good use?

Disparate Systems Equal Data Silos

Companies resort to matching customer details with hashed email IDs to attribute sales but no one’s sure of its accuracy. Why? Because, conditions apply. You must identify the user across sites and apps. The user must opt in to share his/her location. Your store’s information about still being in business must be mapped across cities. That’s a lot of data and there’s still plenty of sources that house customer information, like:

  • Customer Relationship Management Software
  • Data Management Platforms
  • Customer Data Platforms
  • Transaction Data
  • Customer Forms or other databases

How do you finish the customer jigsaw with pieces of information from all the above sources? Or can you already tell that these sources have a superset that can potentially cure all your data hiccups? Here’s an article if you’re interested in reading a little more about how to use your data efficiently.

Watch this space for the next blog wherein our founder introduces a new concept to have all your data requirements catered to from one place.

 

Purchase Digital Ads Using Software

Fundamentally what programmatic advertising means is, using software to purchase digital ad spots. Programmatic can be defined as the use of software-driven technology to automate the whole ad buying process or even automate parts of it. It is also sometimes called advertising done programmatically or programmatic buying or just programmatic.

#1 Promise Of Programmatic Advertising

Efficiency & simplicity: Because “programmatic” automates the ad buying and selling process with the help of software and technology they achieve better scale and speed than humans possibly can.

#2 Promise Of Programmatic Advertising

Precision & relevancy: Because “programmatic” makes it possible for advertisers to incorporate large amounts of data, they’re able to serve users with ads that are more likely relevant based on users’ behavioral, demographic, psychographic data and purchase intents.

Traditionally online ads, like print and TV, were directly bought by sales persons, who negotiated on terms such as target audience, placements, the number of impressions and price after which both parties signed an insertion order. Direct sales or deals like these are still prevalent but now technology can be used to simplify or automate the process.

Wait, Where Does The Data Come From?

Programmatic comes with the ability to couple data with automation and this makes it possible to target audiences based on their behaviours, demographics, interests and other individual characteristics. Not only do you get to focus on where to place your ad with programmatic, but also on who sees your ad.

Programmatic technology equips advertisers to target segments of audience who are most likely to be interested in what they’re selling. When your system spots a cookie or mobile identifier that matches the targeting criteria you’ve set as an advertiser, you can bid for ad impressions automatically in real time.

The Role Of Data In Digital Advertising

You already know that publishers and social networks learn about keywords searched, types of content consumed and profile information of users with the help of cookies and identifiers. It is commonly practiced across the digital (ad) spectrum.

Wonder where advertisers get data from? If you’re an advertiser, you probably have your own first-party data that may include sales transaction data, CRM data, customer names, emails, types of products purchased, recent purchasers, and average order value.

Data aggregators are companies that become a third-party data source. Such companies often have demographic data points of users that are of value to advertisers. They have information like credit score, household income and purchase behaviour of users.

Plug in a programmatic platform and advertisers can target audiences using a number of data sources at the time an impression becomes available. Let’s say the cookie or other identifier matches your targeting criteria, then the ad buying system (a trading desk or demand side platform) will automatically bid on the impression.

Breaking down Programmatic Buying

Real-Time Bidding (RTB)

RTB is the use of technology in bidding for ad impressions in real time. Such auction-based buying happens on open ad exchanges or in private marketplaces. Any buying platform can bid in open ad exchanges for inventory that have been put up for auction, by numerous sites (publishers). 

Private marketplaces (PMP) are invitation-only RTB arenas in which one or a handful of publishers (“premium publishers”) make their inventory or audiences available to a certain number of buyers.

Programmatic Direct

When ad inventory is sold to buyers directly by the publisher’s sales-force without an auction it is called programmatic direct. Although human intervention may not be required in programmatic direct deals, it is more manual than RTB. Programmatic guaranteed deals can be made for reserved inventory at a set price. Unreserved inventory are sold at fixed rates i.e. buyers are given access to blocks of inventory at a set price. However, in both cases the ads are served and managed programmatically i.e. with the help of software.

Digital advertising will always be prone to change. But if you are willing to evolve with adtech, you’ll discover how efficiently technology can bring you results.

Buy Ad Impressions In Real Time From Publisher Sites

If you read our blogs often, you’re already somewhat familiar with the words DSP (demand-side platform) and programmatic advertising. Just to refresh your memory a DSP is the software platform that advertisers (or marketers of various organizations) use to buy ad inventory and impressions from a range of publisher sites based on the kind of audience that the publisher has. And programmatic ad buying or advertising means using a piece of software to purchase digital advertising. This sort of makes your DSP a programmatic software. Using a machine to buy ads is programmatic as opposed to traditional processes that would involve RFPs, human negotiations and manual insertion orders.

Real-time bidding is when you purchase ads through real-time auctions, but the programmatic software also allows you (as an advertiser) to buy a guaranteed number of ad impressions from specific publisher sites in advance. Buying in such a way is called “programmatic direct.” In short RTB is a type of programmatic buying.

Most B2C brands want to win the attention of customers and potential customers and there’s a price to be paid every time an ad is shown to a specific user. Advertisers bid using an automated platform (think DSP!) for an ad space on a specific website or an app. The auction takes place in milliseconds. The higher you bid, the better are your chances of winning the auction and having your ad displayed to your target audience.

How does RTB work?

  1. User visits a (publisher) website that has ad spaces.
  2. Publisher sends a message to the supply side platform (an SSP is a publisher facing platform) informing that they have an impression/ad space available.
  3. SSP then examines customer information (location, internet search history, age, gender etc) available and sends it to the ad exchange.
  4. Ad exchange conveys this information to the DSP and the auction/bid begins.
  5. DSP bids on the available ad space based on the parameters set by the advertiser.
  6. Highest bidder wins and has ad displayed to the user.

What are its advantages?

  • Advertisers can bid for what they need:

Place bids only on inventories that best suit your campaign. This helps minimize the wastage of media spend on impressions that are not from your desired audience. Moreover the bidding process ensures that each impression can be bought based on the parameters set by the advertiser within the DSP.

  • Publishers get the maximum prices for every impression:

While DSPs bid for on behalf of the advertiser for an impression most useful to him/her, publishers also have the impressions sold at maximum prices based on the real time market demand. Ad Exchanges that facilitate the real time transaction enables publishers to reach out to lot more advertisers. This in turn ensures that publishers sell to the highest bidder.

Who does RTB benefit?

Advertisers – Target and bid more effectively based on the behavioural ground of the customer, which means no more wasted impressions.
Publishers – Gain maximum revenue because advertisers bid for max impression value.
Agencies – Spend efficiently, better control campaigns and achieve targeted results for clients.

Watch out for our next blog where we talk about the mechanism that automates media buying and ad placement in digital space – Programmatic Buying. 

Our Product: The Smart-Marketing Platform

The Arrival

Our platform named “BPRISE Manager Platform” will be used by marketers and media buyers. 

The Solution For Media Buyers

BPRISE Manager Platform is an integral part of the BPRISE marketing solution. The platform makes it possible for you (as a marketer) to serve ads on mobile, web, social media, email and SMS using one simple platform. Rather than being campaign centric like regular DSPs, BPRISE Manager Platform campaigns are target or audience centric. This marketing automation tool is equipped with different supply sources across mobile and web applications, social media and exchanges. Ad-formats supported include banner, interstitial, native, video to name a few. Not just that, through BPRISE Manager Platform, you can also SMS and email your target groups at optimal hours, for example when they’re at your stores or branches. This intelligent marketing tool lets you connect with direct suppliers if you wish to do so. Complementing this, the ability to block and handle fraud, bots ensures that your advertising spend is put to good use.

The Real-Time Everything

At BPRISE, we’re of the opinion that monitoring and optimizing campaigns need to happen in real-time. We root for real-time campaign optimization for the target audience to enable the media buyers or advertisers make course corrections as and when needed rather than realize at the end of the campaign that expected results were not achieved. BPRISE Manager Platform insights provide visualizations of both campaign analysis as well as data analysis in real-time. An easy to use interface and workflow makes a perfect example of how this self-serve platform will create a paradigm shift in the way advertising works. We are now available for agencies, brands and all types of advertisers across verticals be it the Auto, Hospitality, Retail Banking, FMCGs and others. For more information, do not hesitate to connect with us. 

Basics Of A Demand Side Platform (DSP)

“If you’re not putting out relevant content in relevant places, you don’t exist.”

-Gary Vanerchuk

Ever observe how you end up having ads stalk you? Say for example, you check an item on Flipkart but you don’t make the purchase only to have the  ad follow you almost everywhere you go online. They pop up on Facebook, Instagram, certain other websites that you visit and even emails.

This form of intelligent marketing can only be made possible if the advertiser really knows you – as a  consumer. Which is exactly why despite the rain of digital ads online, there are very few smart ones that grab your attention. That’s the customer’s viewpoint. Let’s take a look at the marketer and advertisers’ points of view.

They sit behind computer screens launching marketing campaigns, chasing marketing KPIs, measuring ad performances, reporting and performing a million other bits. With the dawn of all things “smart” and technology platforms to make lives easier, one could say that advertising on different channels can be accomplished pretty much effortlessly. Speaking of making lives easier in the world of advertising, traditional direct buying processes are taking a seat back given the birth of new buying methods on platforms that better connect media buyers and sellers. For example, programmatic advertising automates the process of buying and selling of online advertisements. One of the primary buying tool/platform facilitating programmatic buying is a DSP.

It stands for a Demand-Side Platform. Simply put, it’s an automated buying platform used by advertisers (aka media buyers) and marketing agencies to purchase digital ad inventory from the media owners (aka publishers). A DSP will have basic targeting functionalities like start date and end date, geo targeting, budget pacing, frequency capping, day parting, device targeting and contextual targeting.

DSP allows advertisers to buy impressions from a range of publisher sites that have the specific kind of audience which is of interest to the advertiser. The medium through which publishers make ad impressions available for buyers (advertisers) is a marketplace called an ad exchange. A DSP is used to manage multiple ad exchange accounts by the buyer. Not just that, they also act as a central hub for handling every data that one can bring in to help with the RTB (real-time bidding) valuation which is very crucial to successful ad exchange management. DSP automates bidding on deals that close at lighting speed, using sensible parameters which are set by the advertiser to control their budget and optimize spend. Decision-making is also automated by demand-side platform with the help of algorithms to ensure if deals are even worth bidding on in the first place. This gives advertisers a transparent view of websites running their ads to ensure they’re brand appropriate.

Is your demand-side platform really working for you?

Advertisers must ask themselves what exactly a DSP helps them accomplish. A strong DSP consists of efficiency and performance, both of which are important in determining the success of your marketing campaigns. It is also important to understand that all DSPs are designed and developed with different capabilities. You as an advertiser must first determine the campaign needs (reach, targeting and cost) and if the solution your’re looking for aligns with what a DSP can deliver.

With the evolution of programmatic buying, the growth of demand-side platform is anticipated to go hand in hand as it introduces advanced targeting tools, providing options to target behaviourally, geographically, and even options to retarget. Advertisers can generate value and increase return on investments (ROI) based on how well they understand the real consumer needs of the target group. Your DSP is a means of presenting your brand and its offerings to potential customers in the form of ads, marketing messages and emails, but having a layer of intelligence to guide you will only fasten your reach to your most convertible customers at actual moments of (purchase) intent.

“Hey! We haven’t seen you for a while on our website, come and check out what we have prepared for you.” Such mailers are not unusual. Whether your’re a retailer or a bank you would at some point consider sending out mailers. If you’re an e-commerce company, how are you reaching your potential customers? Oftentimes, you combine internal data to guide your real-time bidding (RTB) approach. E-commerce giants also often target frequent shoppers with various promotional offers and discounts designed specifically for them. This also helps in maintaining your brand image among the existing customers. Banner ads displayed with the help of RTB have the potential of replacing e-mail, gift cards, discount coupons and even newsletters? What do you think, let us know in the comments below.

Stay tuned for our next blog, where we talk about Real-Time Bidding and how advertisers and publishers make it a win-win.

WILL ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE TAKE THE LOAD OFF MARKETERS?

Did you know the telephone was a first of its kind virtual reality technology? It took us five decades to adopt it as a commodity we use daily. It took a little less time to adopt radios and televisions. But we swiftly embraced the PC and mobile phone in less than ten years. And now, can you imagine your life without a cell phone? I don’t even want to begin answering that.

From Chatbots to Cortana and Siri, today, we interact with machines in ways that were once the exclusive territory of humans. What’s next and how is it going to affect our future as marketers?

Artificial Intelligence? From virtual assistants to image-recognition apps to self-driving cars, which was once fictional has now become a reality. Internet and mobile phones have brought in depths when it comes to targeting an audience. Likewise, AI will change a person’s interaction with information, technology, brands and services.

 

Why do Digital Marketers need Artificial Intelligence?

Because it brings with it convenience. Marketers depend on tools that automate their work and reduce the overall manual effort. With big data sets examined, segmented and filtered, AI can predict human behaviour to impressive extents. This implies how specific targeting can get while offering individualization and personalization for an end user. Artificial intelligence in digital marketing is all about the ‘segment of one’ and how products and services are marketed to an individual or to a smaller group with more specific interests and goals in mind. Example being Netflix or e-commerce recommendations. Netflix isn’t merely considering what movies a person has watched, it also analyses how many times you have watched it, fast-forwarded it or rewound it. All these behaviours are accessed over millions of other users to come up with the best recommendations. Hence with the help of AI, marketers get the time to innovate and grow their brand, rather than worry about how to automate emails for millions of users at a time.

Artificial Intelligence is improving and evolving in ways that it will be able to select the right message and design for the right individual over the right channel. This will simulate a two-way conversation in real-time. AI will customize content that will allow users to give instant feedback, ask questions about product and services. It’ll be time to say goodbye to plastic and irrelevant ads!

AI in advertising influences how a user engages with your ad and saves brands’ significant advertising spends. This not on works in favour of the firms placing the ads and the sites hosting them but also the user viewing the site. Firms can aim to earn more revenue through fewer ad placements, media owners can trim the number of ads based on its relevance to the user. It not only improves the onsite experience for users but will also increase the likelihood of people engaging with the ads they see.

Cloud giants like Amazon, Microsoft and Salesforce also bow down to the power of AI. Proof being, they are all a part of a $27 million Series C investment in Tact.ai, a start-up that has been trying to change the way sales people interact with information in CRM systems using voice also helping reduce the conflict involved in adding and retrieving information from the database, making life easier for the sales people as they easily get the information they need. Hence more potential sales, and all that through a virtual assistant? Fabulous!

 

Is AI a one-man army?

Algorithms are like an engine, which means you still need someone to turn the ignition on. Creative minds (humans) are still very much needed to plan, design and run the marketing campaigns because they are the ones feeding the AI system with all the new information required for them in the first place. AI is basically under “supervised learning” by human, they cannot mimic the way a human learns & thinks naturally. AI can only do what it is “programmed” to do, unlike humans it is unable to make split-second judgements based on a gut feeling.

There isn’t any doubt that virtual assistants are transforming the sales process by answering the questions and providing the information to the customer. But what if a customer isn’t responding positively to the service, the strategy will backfire. It’s difficult to narrow down humans and our likeness towards things. A human support is required as a backup because a computer program or piece of software is only helpful as the information it’s given.

AI promises to help sales and marketers with the most mundane, time-consuming and logic-driven tasks. This means more time on you to focus your effort on subjective matters. Artificial Intelligence will and is driving exceptional experiences.

To quote Noam Chomsky: “Thinking is a human feature. Will AI someday really think? That’s like asking if submarines swim. If you call it swimming then robots will think, yes.”

How Does Location-Based Marketing Benefit Marketers?

DREAMS! From the dearth of the dire straits to the grandeur of the greatest Mahals (Palaces)! It is the one true common denominator of Humans that goes beyond the discrimination on Religion, Race, Sex and even Wealth! Every wo/man has a dream! A Dream to establish their presence and perhaps achieve the impossible!

Well, it’s this dream that every Brand wants to tap into. Achieve an emotional connect with the Target Audience, appeal to that emotion with the best of communication and once the ‘Share of Mind’ and the ‘Share of Heart’ are obtained, eventually tap into the ‘Share of WALLET’!

Sounds simple, right? Well, most of the brands go wrong at the very first step – Identifying the right TARGET AUDIENCE! All the Communication can go to waste if the right audience is not mapped. Here’s an inside joke at marketing agencies –

‘In the traditional medium of advertising; half of the marketing communication doesn’t reach the right audience. The Irony is no one knows which half!’

Well, with advances in technology, achieving the right target audience is getting refined every day. One such advances is the user’s ‘Real Time Location Data’.

All the advertising of any brand boils down to just one thing – Relevance
How relevant is the advertisement to the end user. Location data adds another level of filter to the existing filters of TG. Deriving Location Intelligence from the Location Data is of utmost importance. Following are the few insights that can help brands map the data to refine their target audience –

  1. Offline-Online Behavior Mapping 
    1. Better understanding the user’s 
    2. For standalone stores, location data can be further used to map the purchase behavior
      For example – A McDonald’s can map a customer’s purchase pattern from the CRM to the time spent at the outlet. After analyzing the patterns, a highly personalized messaged can be sent to the customer thereby increasing the chances of conversion.
      So, the next time the customer drops in the vicinity, a personalized invite can be shared through push notifications thereby increasing his LTV
    3. Furthermore, the brand gains an exact mapping of the ‘Bang’ for the ‘Buck’ solving the perennial question of mapping Marketing expenses to the Revenues generated
  2. Promotions
    1. Every brand offers some promotions to their customers in some point in time. For any event promotion, the likelihood of a customer in the vicinity to visit/convert for any tactical event/promotion increases manifolds 
  3. Competitive insights
    1. In today’s world where the brand loyalty is a metrics of Price, having insight of a customer’s behavior is an added incentive for a brand to push its communications
    2. Well, obtaining the sales data of a neighboring McDonald’s store might not be ethically feasible for a Burger King but to get the location data of the customer and after mapping the behavioral patterns, it takes very little marketing for Burger King to tip the tides in their favor

Well, a few cautions to keep in mind while accessing the location data of a user. As we increase the relevance of ads by tapping into a user’s location, it always borders on the thin line separating the ‘Wow’ from the ‘Creepy’. With the roll-out of GDPR law in EU, it is crucial to inform the customer about the data s/he has shared with the brand.

Though the technology advancements are happening every day & more and more access to end user’s data is available, Zero spillage, the bounces and all other deterrent factors will still remain a distant dream!
Or Will It?

What Does Sequential Retargeting Mean For Advertisers

At BPRISE, we employ sophisticated programmatic advertising to best achieve positive brand recall and customer engagement for our clients. This doesn’t just mean stocking up on the knowledge and technology required to ensure hyper-personalised marketing on web and mobile. If anybody wants to get Sequential Retargeting right, then the first thing they need to do is have a sense of humour about it!

Funny Side Up

Sequential Re-targeting is a lot like delivering a joke. There is “The Set-Up”, where you familiarise your viewers with the basics and fundamentals of your products and services. This is what sets the tone for what’s to follow and gives the target audience an idea of whether they want to know more or not. “The Set-Up” is the proverbial stage of the early rounds of communication that get served to people online.

Next of course, comes “The Punchline”. This is the clinching moment in the user journey where a customer is convinced enough about the brand’s story and its offerings to finally crack a smile and make a purchase. Pow!

But this stand-up routine in digital advertising need not be a linear process. There may be people joining in on the fun while you’re in the middle of your ad campaign or product launch, or there are even those who leave right at the start without giving you a patient ear. How do you then make sure that everybody gets your marketing messages loud and clear? From the beginning, through the middle and all the way till the end? The answer is Sequential Re-targeting.

The “sequence” here doesn’t mean holding different group tours for people who visit you in batches and hear the same old sales speech. Regardless of what stage your product launch is in, the sequential re-targeting campaign starts, adjusts and evolves for every user at their time and place of engagement with your brand.

Automated Bucketing

“The Set-Up” takes time and skill. As mentioned above, the delivery and nature of sequential re-targeting typically changes for every distinct, new customer taking a seat amongst the audience. All first timers aren’t subject to the same “generic retargeting” and aren’t slumped into one single broad bucket. At BPRISE, our programmatic engine seamlessly segments the continuous influx of new visitors. This is not just based on demographics and location parameters, but also depends on the source of traffic, dates of user activities and expressed behaviours.

We are able to track users across the web’s many media platforms and segregate the hot leads from the cold ones. Through a funnel for delivery into BPRISE’s Premium Ad Network, Facebook ads on third party apps or websites, SMS and even email, we are able to mix notifications and track the chain of events to your target audience with computerized precision.

Old Wine, New Bottle. Cheers!

So, you’ve delivered the set-up and your audience isn’t anywhere close to hearing that punchline. And if you’re only building a name for your brand then there are other hiccups like being the first in customers’ minds while addressing their concerns about price, doubts, credibility and product quality.

What do you do? Go for what stand-up comedians refer to as a “Callback”. A comedian routinely tells a joke with a specific punchline and then, later in the show, tells a different joke with the same punchline. This gets a bigger laugh the second time around. Similarly, we help rectify the set-up and deliver freshness for the hard-to-impress crowd, till they are better positioned in the sequence to hear the same punchline.

We devised a callback for a car brand that found itself in that very pickle. The retargeting was broken down into small sequences like this:

Addressing Problem Number 1. Campaign ‘A’:

1st March: SMS campaign

3rd March: Email Campaign

5th March: Campaign on Facebook and Ad Networks

Addressing Problem Number 2. Campaign ‘B’:

15th March: Switch to a new campaign on Facebook and stop visibility on Ad Networks (only for customers who have been through Campaign ‘A’)

Addressing Problem Number 1 in a different way. Campaign ‘A2’:

20th March:New SMS campaign and Facebook Activation to users who didn’t convert from the first batch

Addressing Problem Number 3 for customers who are technically ahead in the sequence. Campaign ‘C’:

Look for customer re-engagement.

20th March: New SMS Campaign

20th March: New Email Campaign etc.

Everybody needs to be nudged differently. So, we made sure that the next time the customers logged onto the internet, the car brand was able to pick up from where each of them left off, just like old friends!

Now this can get complicated:

500 car showrooms X An average of 10 footfalls a day = A single day’s batch of data.

But with automated bucketing and tracking that we do at BPRISE, we easily spot and report which segment of which batch of prospects isn’t still laughing along and why. We understand the cycles, which sources offer easier conversions, their bounce rates and re-visiting patterns. This allows us to efficiently figure out where a shift in the marketing strategy needs to be carried out. The system lets us know if the marketing creative needs re-work, or if the retargeting should happen on a different platform or if the rhythm of the campaign frequency needs retouch. Once we spot a conversion though, that needle in the haystack is then promptly pulled out of the funnel to avoid wasting ad spends.

Speaking of which, I feel that the measurement of success in digital marketing shouldn’t be restricted to a metric like return on ad spend (ROAS) alone. Every sequential strategy should also be judged based on whether the engagement rates on ads improve, whether the returning visitors increase, and if the click through rates reflect precision targeting or not. The goal in sequential re-targeting is to serve smart and relevant ad experiences to guide prospects through their customer journey.

Programmatic advertisers typically chart out a funnel diagram as the trend, but I disagree. “Funneling” of layers of data and user journeys need not taper down to a small percentage of acquisitions. The user journeys under Sequential Re-targeting campaigns tend to look more like tributaries of many big rivers branching out into loops over time. All these users, however, are individually pursued to reach the logical conclusion delta of converted sales. That’s the trick.

If you have questions about sequential retargeting, leave a comment and I’d be happy to help!