What You Should Know About Marketing Attribution

Say you have a brand-new website launched and it’s doing extremely well. And how exactly do you determine the success of a website? Number of visitors for starters; no rocket science here. And what’s bringing them over to your website? Whatever’s drawing them in, includes your content, your search engine optimization (SEO) tactics, your social media works.

Granted that your marketing and sales levers work just fine, but what about getting a view of your buyer’s actual journey? You best have an answer to this question; especially if you sell. How about knowing all the marketing touchpoints that an end user interacted with before making that precious move thereby becoming a buyer to you?

What Is Marketing Attribution?

Marketing attribution can be defined as the science that determines the media which drives purchases and your predefined marketing goals. If you work in marketing, you’ll know just why “attribution” is a big deal. The credit or value (as a marketer or advertiser) that you assign to specific marketing touchpoints is basically what “marketing attribution” is. Marketing attribution helps take the guess work out of “what works in marketing”, nice and clean.

And when you allocate credit to conversions or engagement activities, you bridge the gap between the marketing data and the sales data. There you go, now you’ve also made the sales guys’ lives so much easier (or so you may believe).

Whether or not you care to admit, attributing a sale and/or the success of your marketing initiative, is an enterprise-wide affair. And a truly delicate one at that. Casting some light on the types of attribution models out there…

Marketing Attribution Models FYI

Single Source Attribution:

This model clearly credits just one source/touchpoint that led to the final conversion/engagement.

First-touch Attribution:

The first channel that the lead (end user) engaged with, is credited in this model. However, such practice alters the perceived effectiveness of the other channels that the lead engaged with after the first channel.

E.g. Attributing lead generation to a downloaded white paper etc.

Last-touch Attribution:

Attributes the final conversion to the last channel that the lead (end user) engaged with, missing out on how the user interacted with the other valuable marketing channels prior to the last channel.

E.g. Attributing the sale to an ad, discarding the buyer’s previous visits to your website and/or physical store.

Multi Source Attribution / Multi-Touch Attribution (MTA):

Attributes every channel or touchpoint that the buyer interacted with, right from any ads shown to him/her, to social media posts, to newsletters. Although this model credits every source, it fails to accurately measure the actual portion of contribution by individual sources. Naming 6 of the MTA models in practice today…

Linear:

Gives equal revenue credit and weight to all the touchpoints involved. It’s the simplest MTA model as you can already tell.

Time Decay:

When the sales cycle becomes lengthy (say, in case of B2Bs), this model gives credit to the more recent marketing touchpoints and not the initial touchpoints as they did not influence the closure.

U-Shaped:

Credit in this model is divided majorly between 2 touchpoints – the first and the lead creation. About 40% credit goes to the first touchpoint and the lead creation touchpoint each and the remaining 20% is divided equally among those in between.

W-Shaped:

Thirty percent of the revenue credit is given to the first touchpoint, the opportunity creation and the lead creation each. The remaining 10% is shared by the middle touches.

Full Path:

Follows the same approach as the W-Shaped model, but also credits the final close. This model credits all the touchpoints, right from the early stage marketing initiatives to the sales team’s post-opportunity efforts; bulk credit is given to the critical touchpoints and the touches in between are assigned lower weights.

Custom:

You do you! That’s what this model is, and it gives you the liberty to assign your own attribution weights. That way you can determine weighting percentages for yourselves (your business) based on buyer behaviour, marketing channels, industry and so on.

Weighted Multi Source Attribution:

Credit in this model is assigned to every single interaction in the sales cycle and especially attributes weight to the touchpoints that did all the heavy lifting. Although this model maps the buyer’s journey well, it is difficult to apply given its practical complications. The weighted multi source attribution model assigns revenue percentages (credit) for specific customers to an array of touchpoints as defined by the company’s chosen multi touch attribution (MTA) model.

Take The Guess Work Out

Everyone talks revenue and sales, but seldom do you make changes to your existing system to capture conversion and measure attribution in one go (and in real-time). Accepting that business does not and cannot work on guesses or vague signboards could save you big. I recently had a marketing head of a moderately large hotel chain confess that they could not identify leads courtesy their marketing efforts. It is challenging to keep up with the advancement in digital, marketing approaches, unification of marketing and analytics platforms for it’s all happening right now – real-time. You cannot see it, just like the streak of time, but you most definitely can feel it.

And if you feel like you should better understand your customers and what influences them, you’d better invest in martech. It is not too late since you could cope up as far as you did, you most definitely can keep up. Find yourself just the right adtech partner who does it all – omnichannel marketing, performance tracking, analytics, attribution and up your game to match the customers’ evolving digital behaviour. Bear in mind that, while you tailor attribution models best suited for your line of business, ensure that you keep the user data collected, integrated with your DMPs, DSP and/or marketing tools. The attribution math, together with strong analytics and personalized creatives is what will get your foot right in.

Here’s to winning human hearts with humanized (or personalized) marketing! May the data be ever in your favour and may your attribution gauging models propel your future advertising and marketing initiatives lucratively.

The 101 on Programmatic Advertising

Here’s a go to guide for knowing all about the “new black” in the ad market. Programmatic ad spends grew from $5bn in 2012 to $39bn in 2016, at an average rate of 71% a year, according to Zenith’s programmatic marketing forecast. How did you not notice?

Let’s Start At The Very Beginning

Programmatic advertising is an automated mechanism that uses computer algorithms to purchase ad inventory. This modern, digitized media buying and selling does away with the traditional agency-network set-up, manual bidding and human optimization. It’s the idea and now, a wide-spread practice, that the processes involved in media marketing and negotiation such as inventory selection, data reporting, budget optimization, the back and forth of paperwork and testing of creative inventory; all of this is handled through an automated system.

This is achieved through a sophisticated and efficient assimilation of data, software and technology. Everything from behavioural and intent-based targeting, to real time bidding (RTB) and exchange-based buying of inventory can be credited to programmatic buying.

In English Please!

All you need to input is a range of creatives, your budget and targeting filters as an advertiser. Programmatic Advertising takes over from there. It makes scientific, data-backed decisions about which ad property to display, on whose website, at what price and when. Microwaved popcorn much?

You have two options:

“Direct Buying” takes place against a fixed payment in advance for a specific ad inventory. The objective here, is simply to exhaust a set budget by providing the requisite number of impressions on the selected ad property of a specific publisher.

“Real Time Bidding”, or RTB is an auction-based price system for buying and selling ad impressions across sites, on a real time basis. It literally takes milliseconds to launch ad campaigns, sitting at a desk, with a front row seat at the bid wars for inventories across multiple publishers’ sites.

We all know what DSP and SSP means by this point. But the truly powerful acronym of the bunch is a DMP, aka Data Management Platform. The information of what’s being sold and bought at what price, is stored here and is presented in a simple manner, displaying how consumers behave across the wider internet. So now, you can predict outcomes, understand audiences and break down media silos at the click of a mouse.

The Good News

With Programmatic Buying, you witness the actual price of ads move before your very eyes, minus mark-ups and agency fees. If you spot that a certain ad creative isn’t working on a segment or site, you have the power to immediately switch strategies then and there, in real time. No more waiting for your agency to respond with a monthly campaign report, while those ad impressions burn away; and no more feeling unsure about your return on investment. Have fun with highly personalised messages and refined funnelling processes. The transparency and quickness of it all helps hit the bull’s eye over and over again, across any device or channel. You save time, money, energy and nerves!

The Bad News

Woah Woah Woah. Don’t fire your media agency just yet though! There are a few downsides to programmatic advertising. Since your ads follow the user’s wild travels across the world wide web, you run the risk of displaying ads on questionable destinations. Behavioural and Contextual targeting can be tricky that way, so rein in visibility by blacklisting or whitelisting sites or categories.

But how is this hyper targeting possible in the first place? Programmatic ads rely on cookies to track activities across devices. So, the moment netizens observe computer hygiene and clinically cleanse their system of cookies, all that data is lost and it’s back to square one. Big dogs like Facebook and Google are immune to an extent, because they track movement across devices through login status, but the rest, as they say, is browser history! Isn’t that how the cookie crumbles?

Another devilish hazard is ad fraud. Domain spoofing experts and bots hike up costs and dupe advertisers with cunning flair. This raises obvious questions on the quality of inventory in programmatic buying. There is an entire article dedicated to that problem alone. Read it here to know how you can keep guard.

So Now What?

In advertising, knowing more about your audiences and being able to access and read data that uncovers insights are crucial. There is no doubt that leveraging technology to drive stronger results from highly relevant, targeted campaigns is a boon. Unanimous adoption of programmatic advertising across multi-channels is fast becoming a reality. Legal updates and private partnerships to curb the above challenges are in the pipeline as well.

As an ad-tech entrepreneur, I advise all brand owners and advertisers to hop on board the Programmatic band-wagon right away. The earlier and faster you join the game, the savvier you’ll be at bidding the best price for the right ad. Sold?

Changes In Facebook’s News Feed Algorithm; Must You Panic?

If I were to get downright real with you, I’d say advertising with a “spray and pray” approach is not really ideal. You do not like ads on your social media pages that are drab and/or generic, basically irrelevant to you; I do not like them either. If advertisers/agencies want to get my attention today, it can be achieved by means of authentic conversations with solutions or product recommendations (read ads) that are truly relevant to me right now. Another approach which may be donned by the brands/agencies that are tempted to do so are controversial and/or polarizing content to win a glance from netizens. All said and done, I for one am down with Facebook’s News Feed algorithm update.

Tactics like clickbait and engagement bait are put to practice by certain groups or agencies; clickbait is any content that attracts and encourages visitors like you and me to click on a link to a specific web page (think of headlines like “You Will Not Believe How The Deliveryman Reacted To The Barking Dog” or “He Put Garlic In His Shoe And What Happens Next Is Shocking” et al.) and an engagement bait goads people into liking, sharing or commenting on their posts (think of headlines like “Like This If You Are An Aries” or “Share With 20 Friends For A Chance To Win The New Convertible” or “Comment Below Your Favourite Food Item” or “Help Us Find The Missing Child” et al.).

To address users’ feedback on clickbait, Facebook made an update to News Feed ranking to reduce clickbait headlines. With this update, people will see fewer clickbait stories and instead more of the stories that they want to see higher up in their News Feeds like those from family and friends. It must have been quite a relief for those that fell for clickbait when Facebook finally took care of that.

The massively used social network Facebook wants to get back to being a “social” network and are now tackling engagement bait (hallelujah!) on their News Feed. They are set to demote individual posts from people and pages that use engagement bait. Any post that goes against their News Feed value – authenticity – will get demoted. The teams at Facebook have reviewed and categorized countless posts to inform a machine learning model to detect different kinds of engagement bait. They claim that posts that use such a tactic will be shown less in News Feed.

Pages that use engagement bait to gain reach in News Feed need to watch out. Facebook will roll out page-level demotion that systematically and repeatedly use the above tactic. It would be wise of advertisers and publishers to adapt and avoid using engagement bait in their posts by accident.

It must also be noted that the days of reaching the right audience the organic way has dwindled and if you’re a brand and you want to reach the most potential customers, you got to pay! The ad rates on Facebook have risen by 35% in the last quarter alone and although John Hedgeman, VP of Product Management at Facebook claims that advertising on the social network will be “unaffected” considering the algorithm update, agencies disagree.

In addition to paying for genuine reach, agencies/brands/publishers will have to work their way with authentic content into the digital eyes of people to withstand the competition against treasured moments with family and friends.

After some major reading online and from my little understanding since working at this humble ad tech startup, I’ve got the following to say to agencies, advertisers, brands and publishers:

  • Concentrate more on the quality of the content that fortifies the key brand messages than the number of posts on your Facebook page.
  • Advertise on Facebook for raising awareness and for promotions.
  • Stop using engagement bait like “Like for Yes and Angry for No” on your posts as this will not promise reach anymore.
  • Rely not on Facebook posts with links to your blogs etc. for traction.
  • Deliver more live videos as opposed to pre-recorded ones; Facebook said that live videos have nearly six times the interactions of non-live ones.
  • Set up groups to educate people interested in your offers (products/services) as opposed to randomly bombarding people with irrelevant, generic content.
  • Speak about subjects that are growing and remember that social CRM is key!

In a nutshell, it isn’t the end of the world no matter these algorithm changes in News Feed; you needn’t panic. Instead, up the relevance of the content you display to your audience, tap into technologies like VR for enriching the user experience, make your content more human, cut the generalization, build on personalization and I can say you’ll be thumbs-upped by me for sure!

Quick Overview Of The GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation)

What Does GDPR Stand For?

It stands for General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR hereon).

What Does GDPR Mean Or Do?

It replaces the Data Protection Directive 95/46/EC by the European Union. The GDPR was designed to make the data privacy laws across EU member states uniform, to protect the personal data of every citizen in the EU, mainly to give citizens a control over who gets access to their personal data and to rework* organizations’ approaches with regard to data privacy.

The GDPR aims to protect EU citizens from data and privacy breaches and also gives them back the right over their personal data. All organizations serving the EU citizens must comply with this mandatory directive. It means that companies will have to change* the way they handle their clients’ information like names, photos, email IDs, bank details, social media posts, medical information, or IP addresses which constitute their “personal data”.

A few definitions taken directly from the Regulation

Personal Data definition

‘personal data’ means any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person (‘data subject’); an identifiable natural person is one who can be identified, directly or indirectly, in particular by reference to an identifier such as a name, an identification number, location data, an online identifier or to one or more factors specific to the physical, physiological, genetic, mental, economic, cultural or social identity of that natural person;

Processing definition

‘processing’ means any operation or set of operations which is performed on personal data or on sets of personal data, whether or not by automated means, such as collection, recording, organisation, structuring, storage, adaptation or alteration, retrieval, consultation, use, disclosure by transmission, dissemination or otherwise making available, alignment or combination, restriction, erasure or destruction;

Restriction Of Processing definition

‘restriction of processing’ means the marking of stored personal data with the aim of limiting their processing in the future;

Profiling definition

‘profiling’ means any form of automated processing of personal data consisting of the use of personal data to evaluate certain personal aspects relating to a natural person, in particular to analyse or predict aspects concerning that natural person’s performance at work, economic situation, health, personal preferences, interests, reliability, behaviour, location or movements;

Pseudonymisation definition

‘pseudonymisation’ means the processing of personal data in such a manner that the personal data can no longer be attributed to a specific data subject without the use of additional information, provided that such additional information is kept separately and is subject to technical and organisational measures to ensure that the personal data are not attributed to an identified or identifiable natural person;

Filing System definition

‘filing system’ means any structured set of personal data which are accessible according to specific criteria, whether centralised, decentralised or dispersed on a functional or geographical basis;

Controller definition

‘controller’ means the natural or legal person, public authority, agency or other body which, alone or jointly with others, determines the purposes and means of the processing of personal data; where the purposes and means of such processing are determined by Union or Member State law, the controller or the specific criteria for its nomination may be provided for by Union or Member State law;

Processor definition

processor’ means a natural or legal person, public authority, agency or other body which processes personal data on behalf of the controller; (9)

Recipient definition

‘recipient’ means a natural or legal person, public authority, agency or another body, to which the personal data are disclosed, whether a third party or not. However, public authorities which may receive personal data in the
framework of a particular inquiry in accordance with Union or Member State law shall not be regarded as recipients; the processing of those data by those public authorities shall be in compliance with the applicable data protection rules according to the purposes of the processing;

Third Party definition

‘third party’ means a natural or legal person, public authority, agency or body other than the data subject, controller, processor and persons who, under the direct authority of the controller or processor, are authorised to process personal data;

Consent definition

‘consent’ of the data subject means any freely given, specific, informed and unambiguous indication of the data subject’s wishes by which he or she, by a statement or by a clear affirmative action, signifies agreement to the processing of personal data relating to him or her;

Personal Data Breach definition

‘personal data breach’ means a breach of security leading to the accidental or unlawful destruction, loss, alteration, unauthorised disclosure of, or access to, personal data transmitted, stored or otherwise processed;

Genetic Data definition

‘genetic data’ means personal data relating to the inherited or acquired genetic characteristics of a natural person which give unique information about the physiology or the health of that natural person and which result, in particular, from an analysis of a biological sample from the natural person in question;

Biometric Data definition

‘biometric data’ means personal data resulting from specific technical processing relating to the physical, physiological or behavioural characteristics of a natural person, which allow or confirm the unique identification of that natural person, such as facial images or dactyloscopic data;

Data Concerning Health definition

‘data concerning health’ means personal data related to the physical or mental health of a natural person, including the provision of health care services, which reveal information about his or her health status;

Main Establishment definition

‘main establishment’ means:

(a)as regards a controller with establishments in more than one Member State, the place of its central administration in the Union, unless the decisions on the purposes and means of the processing of personal data are taken in another establishment of the controller in the Union and the latter establishment has the power to have such decisions implemented, in which case the establishment having taken such decisions is to be considered to be the main establishment;

(b)as regards a processor with establishments in more than one Member State, the place of its central administration in the Union, or, if the processor has no central administration in the Union, the establishment of the processor in the Union where the main processing activities in the context of the activities of an establishment of the processor take place to the extent that the processor is subject to specific obligations under this Regulation;

Representative definition

‘representative’ means a natural or legal person established in the Union who, designated by the controller or processor in writing pursuant to Article 27, represents the controller or processor with regard to their respective obligations under this Regulation;

Enterprise definition

‘enterprise’ means a natural or legal person engaged in an economic activity, irrespective of its legal form, including partnerships or associations regularly engaged in an economic activity;

Group Of Undertakings definition

‘group of undertakings’ means a controlling undertaking and its controlled undertakings;

Binding Corporate Rules definition

‘binding corporate rules’ means personal data protection policies which are adhered to by a controller or processor established on the territory of a Member State for transfers or a set of transfers of personal data to a controller or processor in one or more third countries within a group of undertakings, or group of enterprises engaged in a joint economic activity;

Supervisory Authority definition

‘supervisory authority’ means an independent public authority which is established by a Member State pursuant to Article 51;

Supervisory Authority Concerned definition

‘supervisory authority concerned’ means a supervisory authority which is concerned by the processing of personal data because: (a) the controller or processor is established on the territory of the Member State of that supervisory authority; (b) data subjects residing in the Member State of that supervisory authority are substantially affected or likely to be substantially affected by the processing; or (c) a complaint has been lodged with that supervisory authority;

Cross-Border Processing definition

‘cross-border processing’ means either: (a) processing of personal data which takes place in the context of the activities of establishments in more than one Member State of a controller or processor in the Union where the controller or processor is established in more than one Member State; or (b) processing of personal data which takes place in the context of the activities of a single establishment of a controller or processor in the Union but which substantially affects or is likely to substantially affect data subjects in more than one Member State.

Relevant and Reasoned Objection definition

‘relevant and reasoned objection’ means an objection to a draft decision as to whether there is an infringement of this Regulation, or whether envisaged action in relation to the controller or processor complies with this Regulation, which clearly demonstrates the significance of the risks posed by the draft decision as regards the fundamental rights and freedoms of data subjects and, where applicable, the free flow of personal data within the Union;

Information Society Service definition

‘information society service’ means a service as defined in point (b) of Article 1(1) of Directive (EU) 2015/1535 of the European Parliament and of the Council (1);

International Organisation definition

‘international organisation’ means an organisation and its subordinate bodies governed by public international law, or any other body which is set up by, or on the basis of, an agreement between two or more countries.

When Does The GDPR Come Into Force?

GDPR will come into force on the 20th day post its publication in the Official Journal of the European Union.

The GPPR will take effect on May 25, 2018 after the two year transition since its approval and adoption by the European Union Parliament on April 14, 2016.

Whom Does The GDPR Affect?

Any company serving the EU citizens must comply with the GDPR directives. Whether an EU company or a non-EU company that deals with “controlling” or “processing” data of the EU data subjects must adhere to the implications of the GDPR. So if you’re based here in India and conducting any of the aforementioned with the personal data of the concerned natural persons; beware.

What If You Fail To Adhere To GDPR? or What Are The Penalties?

Organizations that do not comply with the GDPR directives by May 25th, 2018, could face penalties and be fined up to €20 million ($24 million) or 4% of global annual revenue, whichever is greater.

*What Measures Must Advertisers & Publishers Take?

An upside to the programmatic world in the GDPR era will be the trust factor between customers and brands; this is solely because customers will get to choose whom to share their personal data with, in promise of specific services. Advertisers and publishers have always had their way, because customers could only choose to “opt-out” of receiving specific ad notifications etc. But with the GDPR in place next year, ads targeting EU citizens will have to first get their consent i.e. wait for the target audience to “opt-in” for receiving various notifications/deals from the advertisers or publishers. 

How Does GDPR Affect Ad-Tech Companies?

Ad tech companies and other organizations like email service providers, CRM partners, eCommerce systems, circulation fulfillment companies must comply with the way they  gather, process, store and protect EU citizens’ personal data. First and foremost step will be to make sure the advertisers or publishers are GDPR compliant. It is  critical that the ad tech companies to explain to their respective customers, how their data will be tracked and the benefits that they will avail upon doing so and lastly they must also be informed that they can chose to have their “personal data” deleted from databases as well. This is the “right to be forgotten rule”. Should a user wish to have his/her personal data erased from the database, it must be granted.

What Are The Rights Of The EU Citizens (i.e. “data subjects”) Once GDPR Comes To Effect?

Breach Notification

In case of a breach, the controller must without undue delay inform the supervisory authority about the personal data breach in less than 72 hours after having become aware of it unless the breach is not likely to result in a risk to the rights and freedoms of natural persons (i.e. data subjects).

Right to Access

Data subjects can obtain confirmation from the data controller if their personal data is being processed, if so, where is it being processed and for what purpose.

Right to be Forgotten/Data Erasure

Data subjects can have the data controlled erase his/her personal data, stop any further dissemination of data and even cease third parties from processing the data.

Data Portability

Data subjects can receive personal data concerning them which they have provided to the controller in a structured, commonly used, machine-readable and interoperable format. Where it is technically feasible, the data subject should have the right to transmit personal data from one controller to another.

Privacy by Design

By default data protection must be included right from the onset of the designing of systems, rather than an addition later.

References: –

ec.europa.eu/justice/data-protection/reform/files/regulation_oj_en.pdf

Life Of A Marketer

Who cares about “ad effectiveness” at 08:30 AM? Ah, my bad. What marketer hits the office at 08:30 AM, anyway? Of course, considering the innumerable tasks that a marketer oversees (sometimes, overlooks), performs (or preempts), the 24-hours-in-a-day-thing does not really work for them.

As someone who works in the Marketing Department primarily, I can tell that no marketer ever has “enough time” on them. All the pre-planned schedule goes for a giant toss and what’s more is that the coin lands on its edge more often than all of us care to admit. You may wonder what’s a marketer onto, that consumes all of their sane time. And if you’re a marketer, then this can be your “constructive read” (sic).

A day in the life of a marketer (let’s call her Jane!) concerns the working on the following…

Scene 1: Digital Marketing 

Jane-the-marketer, works her way through multiple creatives, multiple platforms, multiple log-ins, multiple campaign goals, multiple reports, multiple vendors on a regular basis. Although she’s a dedicated marketer, she finds it humanly impossible to smoothly transition between all the aforementioned “multiples“. Now, if her employer (i.e. the advertiser or brand or retailer) is kind enough to split her work by adding new members to marketing, it will mean that the size of the marketing team goes up, in turn increasing the firm’s ad spends. Does having a bulky team deal with multiple platforms and countless vendors ensure that the advertised products meet the respective real-time needs of its target audience?

You and I both know that one-ad-does-not-fit-all. We also know that quantity does not guarantee quality. It is the quality and appropriate fitting of an ad to a situation in the real-life of its target audience that counts. And it most definitely is not the mammoth-sized-ness of the marketing team that counts.

What if we could resolve these issues, for Jane (and marketers like her!) in one shot? How much of an ease would it be on brands (i.e. advertisers/retailers) if they could keep their marketing budgets from skyrocketing and still reach the right customers precisely when they’re in need of a solution/product? How does a relevant, ad-for-a-human sound like? 

Scene 2: Analysis

So, marketer Jane, successfully runs ad campaigns across the web and mobile apps and has received reams of data capturing the performance and reach of her ads. She consults a number of third-party vendors to analyze the data and tell her what all the numbers and graphs of data, means simply. A thorough analysis is possible only when marketers have all the information about their target audience’s preferences as consumers. Although Jane divides her time between consulting with various vendors and gathering insights from distinct sources, she’s still deficient of her target audiences’ offline preferences as consumers. What this means is that customers often walk into stores near them and grab what they really need, for a price. There are times, they hop into branded shops or retail stores more than once just to get product-related information. Is Jane even aware of this practice? Let’s say Mary visited A Shoe Shop a couple of times. She spent a considerable amount of time at the heels section but walked out of the shop each time without buying anything. This offline consumer behavior of Mary is invaluable to Jane. Because if Jane was aware of Mary’s offline behavior as a consumer, she could target Mary with an ad of a footwear right when she’d walked out of the Shoe Shop without having made a purchase? Hence relying solely on users’ online data sounds like one is building a lopsided launchpad for the advertising campaigns to take off from.

Wouldn’t it also benefit if you could understand what happens across web, app and stores? What a winner of a deal if the marketer’s ad platform could serve as a one-stop-solution to all of the ad campaign needs? What if the marketer could enjoy the luxury of not having to consult a multitude of vendors for campaign results and customer insights? What if the analysis helped marketers with target lookalike customers? And what if the marketing platform was automated so well that it understood brands’ customers as well a human marketer could?

Scene 3: Targeting & Retargeting

Targeting Prospects

Jane markets products/solutions to prospects as ads over the web, mobile phones and even apps. But given Jane’s limited knowledge of her prospects’ offline consumer behaviour, her ads do not completely resolve their real-life, real-time problems. This results in the ads becoming somewhat irrelevant to her target audience and thus gives way to unimpressive CTRs. Targeting without insights is like driving without the headlights on.

Wouldn’t marketers be able to provide genuinely useful solutions/product recommendations to potential customers in the form of ads had they been aware of the customers’ real-time needs? Imagine all the gains (for the marketer, for the advertiser/retailer and for the customer) when an ad is truly apt for a customer and solves one of their immediate problems?

Retargeting Potentials

Marketer Jane finds that numerous visitors have looked up her brand’s products online but have left without buying anything. Abandoned carts are one of her main concerns as a brand marketer. And she offers discounted product recommendations to her customers in order to win them back. However, customers could have skipped buying the product online given a number of reasons. The product could have been too pricey for them, they could have been browsing just like that, they couldn’t have found what they’re looking for or maybe they wanted to check the same products at a brick and mortar store. Insights that are derived exclusively from an individual’s online activities will never constitute genuine “customer insights“. A customer’s activities are not limited to their online conduct alone and the sooner marketers tap into customers’ offline preferences and consumer needs as well, the better!  It is quite the combination of online and offline customer data that constitute true customer insights. 

What would make it absolutely easy for marketers to join the dots with customers’ online and offline behaviour and figure out their precise needs? What if all the abandoned carts would suddenly overflow with products of happy patrons?

Scene 4: Conversion

Marketer Jane hits the bull’s eye with her marketing campaign for she sees immediate hike in sales. Let’s say Jane’s ad convinced Mark to buy her brand’s shoes. But does this mean that Jane’s done for the day? Forget the tens of documents she’s got to edit and release! A successful sale or a conversion calls for brands to build on the patron’s interests as a consumer. Brands partially achieve this with the help of loyalty and membership cards; but this practice does not capture all of the user’s online and offline consumer traits. Building a profile with the help of web analytics and proximity-based analytics for every patron will not only help marketers retarget them with relevant content but also help them establish a database of lookalike customers. A lookalike customer is anyone who resembles one or a group of the marketer’s paying patrons. They’re basically prospects that marketers can target on. Also, lookalike customers are external to the database of customers that the advertiser/retailer already has.

Once analytics helps marketers with valuable insights about existing customers, targeting lookalike customers becomes easier. Marketers can target lookalike customers with fitting ads based on the success of their previous ad campaigns.

Insights from Mark’s conversion will help marketers up-sell and cross-sell effectively. Targeting a lookalike customer therefore (say Joe) will not constitute a shot in the dark because Jane has historic data to substantiate the possibility of Joe (who is a lot like Mark as a consumer) converting!

What if marketers could target lookalike customers as soon as their inventory gets restocked? Nothing like the ability to up-sell and cross-sell relevant products to patrons; how do marketers achieve all this?

Having a simple but powerful ad platform that not only optimizes marketers’ reach with ads that are truly relevant to the brand’s customers, right when they’re in need is quite the evolution in marketing. This evolution will not only bring down the firm’s marketing expenses but also allow the brand to have an efficient, slim marketing team. Which is why, marketers, rather advertisers/retailers that are quick to adopt the same could save considerably. Predictive analytics ad platforms like the one BPRISE offers, gathers information and learns user behavior.

If marketer Jane, were to use BPRISE’S programmatic platform, she’d be able to accomplish everything right from marketing, to targeting, to analytics, to sales, to retargeting, to conversion, to up-selling/cross-selling and looking for lookalike customers, all using a single dashboard. This unified ad platform cuts the need for marketers like her to jump between platforms and wait on countless vendors saving the marketers’ time   and money immensely!  If you’re a brand that’s looking for answers to the above questions, get in touch with BPRISE asap. Oh, also if you’re the marketer who’s concerned about ad effectiveness at 08:30 AM, we’ll definitely be worth your time!

 

Communications Marketing: Getting Personal The Right Way

Give that a thought for a moment. It’s not about ‘Marketing’ communication, but more about how different ‘Communications’ are marketed. As a consumer, the only brands that catch my eye in an inbox full of promotional newsletters, are ones that masterfully hit the nail on the head. And as an Ad-Tech entrepreneur, how I help brands strike that hot iron is by practicing personalization, the right way.

May I?

Permissions Marketing is crucial, because, from the customer’s point of view, the line between personal and private information is very thin. When you leave it to consumers to decide if their geo-location, browsing behaviour and profile details can be accessed to keep them informed about upgrades, discounts and exclusive invites, you’re telling them that you respect their privacy and discretion. That kind of etiquette goes a long way to impress upon people that you can afford to not-be-desperate and that perhaps they might stand to lose by staying un-informed of some good deals. Since the user was explicitly asked to grant access and permission, chances are, the next time he/she spots your ad or email, they will recall the brand in good light.

Asking for permission also makes more economic sense than asking for forgiveness. The rising “Unsubscribe” figures and “Report This Ad” actions on Google indicate a disgruntled customer base, misinformed marketing policy and hence, loss of revenue. A filtered database of users who are genuinely interested in receiving communication helps contain your ad dollars and improves conversions naturally. Try not to look at every customer as an opportunity cost. Instead, weigh the risks of losing immediate prospects to pesky advertising in the short run, so that you can gain a steady, loyal following with time.

Permission Marketing

Quit Being Trigger Happy

There is more to personalized communication than just addressing a prospect by their name, gender and last purchase. It is more about going deeper to deliver individual specific messaging that may not form a part of your monthly carpet bombing strategy. A good rule to ensure you don’t repeat your re-targeting practice is to imagine that you have only 1 shot at rekindling the user’s interest. Do you have enough information to know if your offer can’t be refused or do you think it’s best to wait another week? Perhaps the customer abandoned the shopping cart to wait for his salary that would afford him the luxury? Or maybe a list of consumer testimonials that highly recommend the product/experience would be more convincing than reminding the user about the big bucks he forgot to charge to his credit card?

Why waste 3 rounds of remarketing? Sometimes, reminders that are frequent and mass marketed may rub consumers the wrong way instead of showing that you care. Identify value in every communication and allot touch points that will make the best impact. Build a schedule that caps the number of ads displayed and spreads out across the full customer journey. This will allow you time to study and customize your communication with an offer that is truly relevant.

Make Profit With ‘Give & Take’

Companies typically employ result oriented strategies to their advertising, like broadcasting newsletters on Wednesdays because of high open rates. However, with such mass marketing tactics, rarely do companies share the value of that advertising with the consumer.

A good example is Pepsi partnering with fitness app brands to reward users who completed a certain level of exercise with a FREE bottle of Pepsi’s Propel Zero Enhanced Water.
What a great way to pair a brand’s agenda with a surprising gratification in real time! The customer or website visitor is already familiar with your brand and services. Personalized communication is your turn to reflect that recognition back onto the consumer. Know which network, publication or brand to partner with and try to understand when is a good time to tap customers navigating the web on the shoulder.

I believe that Personalized Communications Marketing is not just about collecting information from registers, mobile towers and cookies to hyper segment user profiles into numerous buckets that look like Russian nesting dolls! It is about delivering thoughtful service and information with a sensibility and sensitivity that make the end users see repeated value; all because you made them feel special and known.

I understand that all this can be achieved only with a centralised data system and a team of professionals trained to study and spot such opportunities. That is exactly what we at BPRISE have built. We aim to go beyond the usual geo-location, purchase patterns and web history data points, to really read people’s minds! Talk to us!

4 Easy Ways To Monetize Your Mobile App

BPRISE blog_monetize mobile app

I’m active on Tinder* and I’ll admit that I sort of like the ads that come in between all my left swipes (what can I say, I’m shallow, #JudgeMeNot). And more often than I care to admit, I’ve felt the wicked desire to click on the ad to own those high-tops. This is not the only time I’ve had to hold onto my horses though. Surfing the web is like studying while window-shopping. I never get to read an article fully because I’m already opening another article with a catchy title. Right click, open in new tab – we’ve all been there… Don’t you dare be opening a tab on me right now!

It’s either that or the completely ingenious ad strips and videos that somehow bring before me the things I’ve been looking for of late. As a consumer of various goods today and a user of one too many applications, I understand that my “data” is spread all over. I also understand that there are brands “analyzing” such data and deriving “customer insights” from it. I personally have nothing against this because it comes back to me in the form of the most appropriate ads and product suggestions. Who doesn’t like those funky shoe ads anyway?

BPRISE blog_cybersecurity

Another cause of my relief or faith that my data will not be misused by brands/companies are the digital privacy laws out there. This brings me to the data privacy law by the European Union called General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). The GDPR has some stringent laws in place which will affect how companies big or small, collect and process their customers’ data. Even if your company is not based in the EU, should you have customers in Europe, you are bound by the law. So, if you are a retailer, a publisher, an advertiser or a tech company that collects and analyzes data of individuals across the globe – be mindful of digital privacy laws and adhere to the same.

App users today don’t really fret about data unless of course, they feel an invasion. And with digitally aware netizens growing in numbers (almost 500 million mobile internet users in India!)  the way data is used and processed is under scrutiny. Analytics has crept into all things digital and I’m positive the retailers, publishers, and advertisers are making the most of it.  This is weird but also in a way cool because now I don’t have to go fishing for products online. I do not have to make the time to exclusively surf the web for shopping. With analytics empowering in-app ads, I may as well be booking a flight ticket and be offered a brand-new luggage to go with me. Because, what I’ve been wanting to buy (for example, the luggage), is now offered to me at a discounted price. Another example of adverts winning my attention is when I’m on one of those apps that hide your IP and stuff (again #JudgeMeNot) and see these wonderfully worded ads that speak directly to me!

All of this is very telling of how well a brand probably knows me. It is appealing because I do need what’s shown (in the ads) and it is the fastest way to shop. Ads are a fine way for the app owners to make money although the elite users may very well be able to get their hands on ad-free versions.

Apps are built for generating revenue and here are some more ways you can do that if you’re an app owner, developer or marketer…

  1. Newsletter signups & subscriptions – Allowing users to sign up for newsletters is also a way to get users to engage more deeply with your brand. Getting them to subscribe to unlock all the features of your app helps you monetize the same. For example, consider Tinder Plus and Gold – the difference between the two is the single swipe feature called “Likes You” in the Gold version. And it is about time I tell you that “*The product and company names are trademarks of its respective owners. Use of them does not imply any affiliation with or endorsement by them.”
  2. In-app purchases – Coolest option for free apps to monetize. Purchases for one-time-use, such as options for users to buy game credit or service adds are examples of consumable and non-consumable in-app purchases, respectively. Beef up your apps with upgrades while giving more to your app users. This way you not only monetize your app, you’re also giving the end user quality services that they’ll be willing to pay for.
  3. Partnerships – Tie up with brands that have a similar customer base by integrating their offering into your app. You not only win the referral fee from the partner but also engage your users better with the integrated offering. Of course, finding the right partner is critical, but need I say that explicitly? I mean I’m on Tinder swiping away photographs of men on their wedding days. IK.
  4. Advertisements – This is the most common way to monetize your app and most profitable. If you have a robust user base for your app, then with the help of analytics and insights serve the most fitting ads for each user. Subtle details like the placement of ads, retargeting users and accessing programmatic demands lead to maximizing your revenue through app advertising.  

If you’re an app owner and you’d like to show ads of relevant products/services to your users, then connect with BPRISE and earn more from your in-app ads. And if you’re anything like Tinder, I’d love to help you up your ad game! After all, girl’s gotta shop good stuff no matter the app!