With media optimization a game of diminishing returns, advertisers turn the screws on creative quality online

Media optimization is increasingly a game of diminishing returns for online advertisers.

No matter how well they set up campaigns, smart targeting, algorithm hacks and analytics are struggling to mitigate the shortcomings of lackluster ads in the way they once did. Think about how often advertisers cite the creative as the reason an online ad performed well versus the targeting. Once largely considered an afterthought, the ads themselves are becoming as much a priority as the placement of them for some online advertisers — many of whom are testing new ways to work creative assets harder.

Take Johnson & Johnson, for example.

The advertiser is working with ad tech firm Vidmob to analyse the creative behind its ads. Doing so should give its marketers a clearer picture of what parts of the ad, from the colors used to whether it features humans, incite the best responses from people, said Ander Lopez Ochoa, head of digital, media and e-commerce marketing at Johnson & Johnson. Based on those learnings, his team can use the platform to produce new, optimized versions of the ad via its network of creators who have access to additional insights.

That’s not to say this will cause swathes of creative ads to be nixed on the fly. This is more about tweaking certain elements of those ads, which in many ways is a lot trickier. For years, marketers have talked up the need to be armed with a high volume of creative concepts and iterations so that they’re able to tailor their messaging for audience personalization, for A/B testing and optimization. In reality, though, most of them haven’t been able to perform the creative chicanery needed to pull this off. Not only does it require marketers to think about the production process differently it also calls for more collaborative ways of working especially between media and creative teams, be they in-house or at agencies. Having the right tech is just the start.

“No matter how good you get at optimizing your media performance, if your creative is not fit for purpose then it’s not going to work as well — we reached that point of diminishing returns,” said Ochoa. Even more so in markets where online ad spending is either close to, or already accounts for, he whole media budget. “It raises the need to have these sorts of solutions.”

Still, a lot needs to be done before the benefits of optimizing creative assets in this way can be realized.

First, Ochoa and his team had to pour three years’ worth of first-party campaign data into the platform to give it a good baseline from which to provide future recommendations. On Facebook, for example, this might include whether or not to show the brand logo at the start of a video as well as the right length of it, said Ochoa. Some of those insights will come to include regional nuances between the various brands under the Johnson & Johnson umbrella and how well those differences are received …read more

Source:: Digiday