In a perfect world, every piece of online content would immediately appeal to every individual it reached within its intended target group. However, the reality is that this is far easier said than done. Similarly, serving ads is a no different feat, and as much as we can try to extend both the parameters and variations in our campaigns, the limitations present themselves almost immediately.
The initial challenge lies in producing content that is appealing to the target audience. Copy, imagery and formatting has to be taken into consideration to ensure that your ad for home improvement isn’t being served with a picture of beach balls… or worse, to a teenage girl in a completely different region to your operations. Once finalised, the next step is getting this in front of your customer on the right channel and at the optimal time. This involves extensive work to set targeting parameters on time, location and audience without blowing the budget out of proportion.
A quick web search reveals multiple blog entries and videos created on the topic of “beating the algorithm” or “optimising your targeting”, all in the hopes of ensuring that online advertising is seen by the most eyes possible. These range from simple tips (i.e. timing publication) to the more complicated advice with questionable effectiveness.
Competing for attention in the crowd
With more people online than at any other time in history, there is an abundance of businesses competing for customers’ attention in the digital space. Statistics indicate that the average person spends approximately two hours and 25 minutes a day online – switching between social media, reading content and communicating with others. With a larger audience pool, there also comes the added challenge of scaling ad visibility through the noise, sometimes in hundreds of personalised formats.
Take the example of a client in the sports betting industry. With hundreds of events occurring simultaneously every weekend, there is a real challenge to serve ads for the audience. Normally such a task would require building, managing and monitoring hundreds of ads over an extended period, with just human effort alone,. For time-sensitive events that are over just as quickly as they begin, there is little value gained through such a labour-intensive approach when compared to actual productive time.
Robots to the rescue
By utilising Lighthouse8’s robot process automation technology, Kate to create over 48,000+ personalised ads across Facebook, Instagram and Google, the client was able to save hundreds of hours while allocating its media spend appropriately based on insights gained from monitoring campaign performance. Furthermore, as the events ended, Kate could be programmed to turn off irrelevant ads leading to less expenditure wastage.
In a short space of time, this resulted in an increase in both acquisition and conversion rates by 72% and 20% respectively while lowering media spend. Such an example demonstrates just one of many efficiencies created by the advancement of digital transformation technology, particularly in the application of machine learning.
By utilising data-driven advertising, specific ads for home security systems can be run targeting local communities where burglaries have been reported in previous months, or hotel ads tailored to people traveling to a concert in another city where your property has available rooms. Data-driven advertising can be specifically tailored to only run at local marinas all over the country only when the weather is good to reach people that are likely out with their boat to promote boat insurance.
Robots are the future of marketing. As business competition intensifies and brands look for better ways to reach their customers, Ligthouse8 and Kate provide the competitive edge that comes with technology to multiply your efforts.
Want to know more? Contact us today to learn how Kate can help transform your digital activity!
