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By Fernando Teixeira, Adobe's head of advertising for Latin America
How many times have you been to an event or read an article by a marketer raving about a company's incredible marketing and media performance, while remembering the terrible experience you had with that brand? Insistent calls, the banner that chases you on the internet, the video that covers the entire story – scenes from practically a horror movie. Film, no: a series of daily episodes that totally go against the proposal to captivate and retain customers and make them promoters of the brands.
As a matter of fact, the situations above illustrate the status quo: marketers often work so focused on performance that they forget about non-performance. They celebrate a click-through rate (CTR) of 1% without thinking that it could mean that 99% of people don't care about their message. That's right: consumers who don't care! They definitely don't want to see her or watch her. In this vein, advertisers often buy cheap media and spend the least on production to bring down the cost of acquisition (CPA) without realizing that, in fact, they are spending to deliver irrelevant experiences to many people.
That “non-CPA” or “non-CTR” cost may not count, but rest assured: the bill comes. Every non-relevant, non-personalized, intrusive brand experience makes it harder (and more expensive!) to convert non-consumers. More than that, the rebound effect is immediate: with this type of negative experience that insists on chasing you, the consumer will start to hate the brand.
The demand level of today's consumers is different. The batten is up there. Digital native companies like Amazon, Facebook, Airbnb, Uber and so many others offer such a good and consistent experience over time that they end up becoming the “new normal” in reference standard.
We live in an era of accumulated experiences. All positive brand impacts, in millisecond interactions, count. Negative experiences too. When we deal specifically with digital advertising, this is even more pronounced, because – as consumers – we accept less and less the interruption of advertising. In response, we turn to pop-up blockers and pay for services to have no advertisements. It's not that advertising has become a villain, but that it is simply irrelevant to a huge audience impacted by the campaign.
To solve this challenge, advertising needs technology. This marriage is essential to deliver personalized messages, person to person, in the right context, at the right time, on the best site, at the best cost to the brand. Today, thanks to the automation of advertising, this can be done at scale and at low cost. Automation for marketing, artificial intelligence and machine learning are the technological elements that enable this synergy between digital advertising and consumers. It is these resources that help marketing deliver what people want, when they want it, culminating in the delivery of good experiences and greater business opportunities. Good for consumers, good for brands.
The starting point for the perfect development of the experience with digital advertising is the knowledge that brands have of their consumers, their audiences, and how they behave in the online environment. Only after that the media is activated. Data-driven media buying is like this: it grows as knowledge is acquired, not as the budget is negotiated.
The message people receive must be personalized, one by one. After the click, life goes on on the website and in the apps. In these environments, the consumer must be received with the same message that he saw in the media. One site must turn into thousands of sites, one for each audience, leading them all the way to conversion. All this contributes to the design of a virtuous cycle for the brand: more public knowledge, new experiences, campaigns, interactions and – we got there – performance/conversion.
To deliver this marketing without disruption, area managers need to understand technology. They must learn about systems, platforms and data. The new marketing must go through APIs and integrations. It is a surgical marketing, thought out in the details, reaching more or less people until finding its optimal point – the point of the best experience for the consumer and performance for the brand.
As this doesn't always mean buying more placement, often the media sellers' incentives may not align with the advertiser's. That's why brands must be protagonists, demand transparency in the chain and structure themselves with people and platforms. Outsourcing the entire marketing operation can mean letting the chain's incentives dominate, each in its own way. The result is a proliferation of the status quo: blindly celebrating 1%'s performance, while wasting brand money on a message that doesn't matter.
As a matter of fact, the situations above illustrate the status quo: marketers often work so focused on performance that they forget about non-performance. They celebrate a click-through rate (CTR) of 1% without thinking that it could mean that 99% of people don't care about their message. That's right: consumers who don't care! They definitely don't want to see her or watch her. In this vein, advertisers often buy cheap media and spend the least on production to bring down the cost of acquisition (CPA) without realizing that, in fact, they are spending to deliver irrelevant experiences to many people.
That “non-CPA” or “non-CTR” cost may not count, but rest assured: the bill comes. Every non-relevant, non-personalized, intrusive brand experience makes it harder (and more expensive!) to convert non-consumers. More than that, the rebound effect is immediate: with this type of negative experience that insists on chasing you, the consumer will start to hate the brand.
The demand level of today's consumers is different. The batten is up there. Digital native companies like Amazon, Facebook, Airbnb, Uber and so many others offer such a good and consistent experience over time that they end up becoming the “new normal” in reference standard.
We live in an era of accumulated experiences. All positive brand impacts, in millisecond interactions, count. Negative experiences too. When we deal specifically with digital advertising, this is even more pronounced, because – as consumers – we accept less and less the interruption of advertising. In response, we turn to pop-up blockers and pay for services to have no advertisements. It's not that advertising has become a villain, but that it is simply irrelevant to a huge audience impacted by the campaign.
To solve this challenge, advertising needs technology. This marriage is essential to deliver personalized messages, person to person, in the right context, at the right time, on the best site, at the best cost to the brand. Today, thanks to the automation of advertising, this can be done at scale and at low cost. Automation for marketing, artificial intelligence and machine learning are the technological elements that enable this synergy between digital advertising and consumers. It is these resources that help marketing deliver what people want, when they want it, culminating in the delivery of good experiences and greater business opportunities. Good for consumers, good for brands.
The starting point for the perfect development of the experience with digital advertising is the knowledge that brands have of their consumers, their audiences, and how they behave in the online environment. Only after that the media is activated. Data-driven media buying is like this: it grows as knowledge is acquired, not as the budget is negotiated.
The message people receive must be personalized, one by one. After the click, life goes on on the website and in the apps. In these environments, the consumer must be received with the same message that he saw in the media. One site must turn into thousands of sites, one for each audience, leading them all the way to conversion. All this contributes to the design of a virtuous cycle for the brand: more public knowledge, new experiences, campaigns, interactions and – we got there – performance/conversion.
To deliver this marketing without disruption, area managers need to understand technology. They must learn about systems, platforms and data. The new marketing must go through APIs and integrations. It is a surgical marketing, thought out in the details, reaching more or less people until finding its optimal point – the point of the best experience for the consumer and performance for the brand.
As this doesn't always mean buying more placement, often the media sellers' incentives may not align with the advertiser's. That's why brands must be protagonists, demand transparency in the chain and structure themselves with people and platforms. Outsourcing the entire marketing operation can mean letting the chain's incentives dominate, each in its own way. The result is a proliferation of the status quo: blindly celebrating 1%'s performance, while wasting brand money on a message that doesn't matter.
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