Guest comment: Reach Vs. Targeting and Engagement

The digital media marketplace has matured quickly over the past few years. When we launched our brand-focused sales house w00t!media in 2005, we did so with first-hand knowledge that the sector’s main calling card to advertisers was accountability and ROI.

After the first dotcom bubble burst, the medium rapidly rebuilt itself as an effective vehicle for direct response-focused clients. In previous roles, we found travel and financial clients in particular generating success by combining search, affiliate and network/portal display campaigns. Tracking technology was enabling clients to monitor both post-click and post-impression activity, and report aggregated ROI results which were consistently more effective in comparison to offline activity. 

Where search and affiliate campaigns worked on the basis of targeted clicks and purchases, display activity was largely based on the principle of high volume/low cost banner campaigns.  These tended to be purchased via (usually blind) networks or portals.  In these instances, banner campaigns were rarely profile targeted but instead optimized to click through rates (CTR) or cost per acquisition (CPA) by the sales point - depending on the reporting access granted by the client.

Recent technology and marketplace developments such as the rise of ad-exchange and auction platforms – along with the increasing consolidation of major networks - is improving both the efficiency and scale with which advertisers can buy mass reach, standard ad format campaigns. Combined with a mix of behavioural, contextual and demographic profiling, granular targeting is also easier than ever.

While direct response-focused clients continue to streamline a winning formula, clients looking to use the web for brand building campaigns must have different priorities – otherwise, despite the impressive creative talents being put to use across the main IAB ad-formats, you run the risk of becoming just another piece of wallpaper trying to scream ‘click me’. 

And, in our opinion, ads that appear automatically over content aren’t the answer. While you might get decent click-through, you have to ask how the other 95% of users feel about your brand interrupting their experience.

For brand campaigns, the real value is getting your message in front of the right audience, with a view to influencing them and their peers. It can’t be sufficient to scatter creative across a myriad of sites on the basis it will be optimized based on a user action. 

You might do this by seeding videos or games virally. Branded self-contained content on major social networks can also prove successful. However, if you want to genuinely engage users in their trusted environments, rather than interrupt them, profile targeting and message tailoring suddenly become much more important. 

Above all, it really comes down to the fundamentals of marketing.  Define your target audience.  Find the best vehicles to reach them.  Then communicate to them effectively.

w00t!media is focused on helping advertisers truly engage niche audiences across the sites they love.  What has been so exciting for us is not just the positive reception we have received for the sites we represent but, more tellingly, that advertisers are increasingly looking to their digital and media agencies to deliver ‘beyond banner’ activity. 

While sponsorships and site re-skins can deliver impact, embedding your brand colours and logo through a site only takes you so far. We’ve found the most successful campaigns usually take the form of an integrated, engaging piece of creative that blurs the lines between content and advertising, without being clandestine.

In other words, making ad-funded content for users to play with, read or use, specifically geared to the niche audience you are targeting. Over the past twelve months we’ve made everything from a cartoon mini-series to lifestyle guides for living in London - all received overwhelmingly positive responses.

More importantly, when introduced in association with an affinity brand, any positive association users have with this new content should also transfer on an emotional level to their relationship with the advertiser. When advertisers commission well-received content across these sites, we have seen forum threads congratulating the brand for taking the time to support these websites and effectively thanking them for their patronage. Surely the ultimate response from a consumer.

Positive feedback of this nature from key web audiences can be incredibly valuable for advertisers as they investigate and implement strategies aimed at improving their brand image. What it means for sales houses however, is that creative talent and resource is becoming more important. A noticeable development in this process has been the external creative agency becoming sidelined. Content creation on a specific site will invariably utilise the site’s creative resources as the driving force behind the production. The reason being, ultimately, that the website will be in a better position to understand what their users will like or dislike.

So, with crystal ball in hand, we can see the digital media landscape shifting as advertisers and their agencies look to work directly with publishers and sales houses that deliver bespoke, integrated brand campaigns that genuinely engage key target audiences. 

While technology is the current driving force behind the growth of banner advertising, when you want to work ‘beyond the banner’ and genuinely engage your audience, it’s the ideas that are becoming important again.

By

Dan McDevitt

w00t!media director

www.w00tmedia.net