By Davor Vilusic – Programmatic & Media Operations Director, carsales.com.au
Technology continues to advance at breakneck speed and as marketers, we are experiencing firsthand the impact that this is having on our industry. As access to information, content and entertainment becomes faster and more convenient, it has naturally impacted how we go about life and how we consume media. Digital has been one of the channels that has organically benefited from this evolution in content consumption and, as a consequence, digital advertising expenditure, due to its promise to deliver superior accuracy, measurability and ROI.
In a previous article, we addressed the promise of accuracy and that as an industry, we’re far from utopia. However without accuracy, measurability is fundamentally flawed – it’s the old case of garbage in garbage out. Because of its promise, advertiser and buyer mentality has gravitated towards favoring more measurable and cost-efficient digital tactics that appear to be driving stronger return on investment – at least on paper.
When did cheaper is better become the key mantra and criteria for delivering business results?
Because of this demand, to attract greater share of wallet, major advertising platforms have responded to this demand in the form of objective-based advertising based on machine learning, optimization, delivery, and in some instances billing, that proved better results based on media metrics.
But are objective-based buying and measurement delivering stronger results on paper or restricting your business objectives and growth?
Is this level of analysis and decision making on media investment harnessing and reinforcing a spreadsheet warrior mentality?
To understand this, it’s important to look closer at how objective-based advertising is machine optimized and delivered. According to one major social media platform’s definition of optimization for its key video ads solution with the objective of generating video views; Optimisation ensures delivery of the ad to people likely to watch an entire video or 15 seconds of it – whichever happens first.
The same type of delivery function will occur depending on the objective of your choice; traffic, video view or conversion – the delivery will be prioritized based on the user behavior exhibited on the platform. If they are clickers or detail submitters or video watchers, your ad delivery will be prioritized to them first.
This approach has proven to work very well and will almost always outperform other tactics or buy types. However is it fair to assume that your target audience that don’t over index on desired actions, are either not potential qualified customers or legitimately part of your target audience?
Does this mode of delivery dismiss hours and hours of smarts that goes into defining your target audience?
Many of the them automatically syphoned away because they’re not inclined to click on ads or leave their details?
Yes, an objective-based buying and measurement approach sounds like it’s used by progressive advertisers. Yes, a beautiful spreadsheet that demonstrates your campaign delivered cost efficiencies on media metrics can stimulate your endorphins. But unless you’ve single handedly addressed and fixed some significant flaws that exist in our current ecosystem, you’re likely sitting in the spreadsheet warrior segment.
These days, audience-driven planning, buying and delivering might not be deemed as progressive. However it’s these hygiene elements — right audience, right environment, right level of impact, reach and frequency — that if successfully executed that can actually help your brand to achieve its business objectives.
You might not win awards, but it might just be the best starting point to move metal.