It’s a fact of business life that when the economy tanks, budgets get slashed. Paul Sinkinson, Managing Director Australia at Analytic Partners, explains why advertisers must consistently execute effective campaigns, especially when resources are at a premium.
Running an advertising campaign is a bit like building a house. It’s full of different elements the builder needs to make work in harmony - while ensuring it also has street appeal.
Building a house and running an advertising campaign have something else in common too - they’re not usually done on the cheap.
And as is abundantly clear at present, advertising budgets are under immense pressure. So it’s imperative these campaigns reach their target audience in the most efficient way possible.
Helping businesses achieve this goal is one of our top priorities at Analytic Partners. That’s why we recently teamed up with Meta. We wanted to see if we could gain additional insights to drive opportunities from the work that we’ve done historically - and explore if there was a way for our clients to get a better return.
To do this, we drew upon Australian Marketing Mix Modelling (MMM) research that measured the social spend of 53 brands, in conjunction with contextual aggregate campaign data from Meta1, looking purely at how to make the social spend work harder.
The resulting study was an analysis of the key factors that drive ROI across social channels, particularly the effectiveness of visual factors (content, imagery, length and messaging) and executional factors (placements, reach, frequency and objectives).
It also stack ranked these elements, giving advertisers a vital insight into what to prioritise in the quest for incremental improvement.
Building on rock, not sand
Think of the executional elements of an advertising campaign as its foundation. If that foundation is weak, the whole structure crumbles.
And, as we observed from our MMM study, frequency is one of the most important factors to get right when building your foundation. Yes, it can be frustrating being served the same ad too many times, but on the flipside, a campaign has to catch people’s attention.
Ultimately, we found any campaign with less than a weekly frequency of 1 would underperform, while those with a frequency over 3 were liable to decay.
The next step is to utilise additional placements - the different places your ad is shown, such as Facebook Feed or Instagram Stories - as it’s a proven way to drive improved ROI.
Although a campaign may have a consistent weekly frequency, by increasing placements, you’ll invariably reach more people, and keep your costs down. We found that the sweet spot for campaigns is around eight or more placements, as this is 3x more effective than a campaign with between one and three placements.
Of course, we can’t talk about effective executional elements without mentioning video here. In short, video views tend to be more effective at eliciting a consumer response, but can attract higher costs, so a balance needs to be struck.
Executional factors may sound like the boxes you have to tick to get your campaign up and running, but get them wrong, and you’ll be building on a bed of sand.
Give the people what they want
If executional factors are the housing foundation of your campaign, visual factors are the head-turning decor that makes prospective buyers sit up and take notice. There are a number of fundamentals to get right here - and understanding your audience is at the centre of them all.
We know today’s consumer is rushed and always on-the-go. So getting your message across concisely and demonstrating value for money will make your ad creative much more effective.
Advertisers need to make the most of the seconds at the start of their ads or run the risk of viewers tuning out or scrolling past. Visual brand links, including the logo and product, should appear in the first two seconds of an ad. In fact, a prominent logo has been shown to drive an astonishing 5x return on investment. My advice: get your logo and product out there early and often.
The value proposition is also crucial - with rising inflation and a looming recession, purse strings are tightening. Our study showed ad creative that highlights a promotional message will perform close to 3x better than an ad that doesn’t - that’s a helluva big difference.
So your creative needs to illustrate, clearly, how a product will help the consumer, and why it’s important that they make the purchase now.
Consumers are also scrolling in a sound-off environment. A good rule of thumb is to inform with the sound off (through captions) and engage with the sound on. Sound can provide additional information, but always ensure the viewer will understand your product and brand if they’re watching on mute.
Ad creative also should never, ever, be dull. People want to be entertained and inspired. We’ve found that ads that focus on the product with lifestyle elements are more effective than simply a product-focused story or a lifestyle-focused story. This is a chance to play into key cultural moments, like major sports events or celebrations.
These aspects may sound obvious, but they are overlooked more often than you’d think - and that hurts the effectiveness of an ad.
Yes, it can be tough to juggle the many moving parts of a campaign, but there are ways to ensure every channel is doing its best work for you. Adhering to the executional and visual best practices above is, in my opinion, an absolute no-brainer if you want to get ahead.
Source: All statistics: Collective Analytic Partners Marketing Mix Modelling studies, 2019 onwards
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