As television, Internet, and other forms of media continue to converge, advertisers and media executives are striving to find the most effective ways to reach desired customer segments with the right messaging at the right time to generate optimal conversion rates.
Thanks to the capabilities and strengths of advanced analytics, media minds no longer have to rely on mass marketing and advertising approaches in the hopes of potentially engaging and converting just a fraction of the intended target audience.
Customer data, including information that customers share in online surveys, contact center interactions, transactions, and social media channels, can be mined by media marketers to identify the customers they’re trying to reach and the type of messaging that’s most likely to resonate with them and lead to conversion.
Customer data can also be used to determine customers’ channel preferences as well as the times of day and locations where they are most amenable to targeted ads.
The use of data analysis to mine customer and prospect information more effectively and fine-tune advertising targeting can generate impressive results.
Online advertising that leverages purchaser data nearly triples the ROI for those campaigns, according to a study conducted by Nielsen Catalina Solutions. “The marketer’s ability to precisely reach the desired consumer segment in the right media enabled by shopper-based analytics is changing the way advertisers plan and buy media,” says Mike Nazzaro, CEO of Nielsen Catalina Solutions.
The use of advanced analytics is also helping to guide media marketers to smarter actions during the full lifecycle of an advertising campaign.
In order to leverage the value that data offers, media marketers and advertising agencies need to capitalize on analytics to make sense of information before, during, and after a campaign has run its course, as Omar Tawakol points out in a recent post for Business Insider.
Too often in the past marketers and “Mad Men” have focused on analyzing data about the performances of campaigns or data about target audiences but not both, says Tawakol.
Analytics can also help marketers and advertisers determine the types of customers who respond to specific ads; the common characteristics that are shared among the consumers who have converted; as well as the differences between the people who simply view ads and those that become paying customers.
One company that has achieved success through effective data analysis techniques is Appleton Estate Rum USA.
The maker of rum and its agency, The Archer Group, have successfully used Facebook ads and a sweepstakes to drive brand awareness and increase fan engagement by more than 100%. Appleton Estate’s “Be a Better Host” Facebook sweepstakes ran for four weeks. The sweepstakes highlighted football-themed creative content and prizes that were updated weekly to help encourage fan interaction.
Each week, 14 ad variants were used for different audience segments. Meanwhile, ad performance was analyzed and optimized daily to take advantage of top performing ads. The program was highly successful for Appleton Estate – 6,700 sweepstakes entrants participated, leading to an increase in more than 20,000 new Facebook fans for the company and a 40% increase in subscribers to the company’s e-newsletter.
