How online display ads build brands for marketers today

Thursday, September 29, 2011

Last week, we shared examples of how direct response marketers are driving strong results with display advertising. But you’ve heard it before -- beyond driving immediate clicks and conversions, display builds brands. And as digital budgets accelerate, for an increasingly growing number of brands, display advertising has become an important part of their strategy. In fact, in the recently conducted Advertiser Intelligence Reports study, by Advertiser Perceptions, advertisers are planning on spending more digital display dollars in the next 12 months for brand goals than direct response.1

So this week, we’re turning our attention to pioneering brands who used display advertising as a critical component in their overall marketing mix to connect with their audience, engage them emotionally, and as a result, drive meaningful results. Let’s take a closer look.

Animal Planet attracted 1.6MM viewers for the season premiere of River Monsters, putting it in the #1 spot among its target audience, by running an integrated video and rich media campaign across YouTube, AdMob, and the Google Display Network. (read case study)

Volvo drove an 88% lift in purchase intent for its new S60 sedan by leveraging the YouTube homepage and masthead unit, interactive video ads on AdMob, and standard IAB ads on the Google Display Network. (read case study)

Sealy reinvented its Posturepedic brand using YouTube promoted video ads and in-stream video ads, which drove 46% of its website traffic during the first week of the campaign. (read case study)

At OMMA Global this week, we shared a simple framework for brand building that we developed after analyzing the campaigns of our most successful brand advertisers. These “better practices” focus on three key areas: connecting with the right consumer at the right moment, delivering an engaging message, and measuring the metrics that matter.

Connecting with the right consumer at the right moment. As consumers continue to access the internet more frequently throughout the day, from a multitude of devices, it’s increasingly important for brand marketers to create device-inclusive, rather than device-specific, campaigns. And by targeting a combination of audience and contextual signals, it’s now easier than ever to reach the right person, at the right time, on the right device through the Google Display Network or DoubleClick AdExchange.

Engaging them emotionally. The best display ads don’t just leverage sight, sound, and motion, but also harness display’s interactive capabilities that drive deep engagement with a brand. Our research shows that rich media ads drive significantly better brand performance than standard Flash ads--1.7X for brand awareness, 2.7X in purchase intent, and 5X increase in brand favorability.2 We also see that newer ad formats, like mobile display and in-stream video, are even more effective at moving consumers down the brand funnel. Lastly, we’ve seen masthead ads on the YouTube homepage garner an 11% interaction rate and drive a 4X lift in engagement compared to standard ads.3

Measuring more robustly. Looking beyond simple clicks and conversions, brand marketers use Campaign Insights to measure increased awareness and interest through the lift in search queries and website visits. Paired with Google Analytics and Multi-Channel Funnels, advertisers can see a complete picture of the chain of online and offline media that drives brand engagement. And to close the loop, many of our brands match geo-targeted display campaigns to offline sales to measure the true impact of a display ad campaign.

More and more studies show that brand marketers who focus on these three levers see the the greatest return on their display ad investment. With display’s ability to connect more precisely with your target consumer, engage more emotionally with interactive messages, and measure robust metrics along all parts of the purchase funnel, it’s no wonder that display builds brands.

Watch this space.
google.com/watchthisspace

(1) Advertiser Intelligence Reports (AIR) study, Advertiser Perceptions, August 2011
(2) The Brand Value of Video and Rich Media Ads, DoubleClick, September 2011
(3) YouTube Homepage Impact Study, Compete, December 2010

Posted by Brian Zeug, National Sales Director, Display and Video

Non-Brand Terms Drive More New Visitors to Your Site

Friday, September 09, 2011

A great guest piece from Dan Schock, Google Retail Team Director

Search as a means of driving sales has evolved in the past few years. As recently as three years ago, most retailers and brands still viewed their “Internet” plan as a means of driving e-commerce. The Internet was a distribution and sales channel measured by its ability to drive online revenues.

Then, as the Internet evolved into a broader media platform where consumers researched, watched videos and compared products/prices, and then often made their purchases in a physical store, many advanced companies began to include offline sales as an additional factor in measuring their overall Search ROI.

In 2011, the most forward-thinking retailers and brands have started looking at a new measurement to calculate the success of their online campaigns: new customer acquisition and the lifetime value of those new customers.

Think about your own search strategy: most likely you bid on as many of your brand terms as possible. And you should: here are customers that know you, who are raising their hands (via “queries”) and asking for information, then converting at a high ROI.

But what about “non-brand” terms: queries higher up the purchase funnel like “makeup”, “detergent” or "paper towels”? These shoppers are still browsing and researching but they’re not converting at the same rate as those searching for your brand terms, so you may either not be buying non-brand terms them or buying very few. Why? – Most likely because you’re hooked on those brand ROIs. Why pay a higher CPC for a lower conversion rate?

I’ll tell you why: because those non-brand terms drive a higher percentage of new customers to your site – and when you consider the lifetime value of those customers they will pay off! Here are people looking for products and services you offer, but did not think to type your brand into the search box. You are not (yet) part of their top consideration set. And look at the advertisers who are on that search results page: it’s your competition! You are not even putting yourself in the game.

So what do we recommend? Only you know your relative new customer acquisition costs and lifetime customer value payouts. Every retailer has different metrics, but here’s the general thinking: your brand terms ($.50 CPC) payout at an ROI of 10:1 while your non-brand terms ($1.00 CPC) payout at 5:1. But your non-brand terms bring in more new customers who will eventually payout. In year 2, they buy enough to amortize that initial ROI up to 8:1. Then in year 3 they’re loyal customers who are paying out at 10:1 (or higher). So that initial $1.00 CPC is now paying out – and that new customer you bought three years ago is now a lifetime customer (and you didn’t let the competition get them either).

So don’t relegate those non-brand terms to the “too low ROI” bin. Give them a chance. There is value in there beyond immediate ROI. All it takes is a little forward-thinking strategic discussion, some help from your quant team and the ability to see value beyond today’s sales report. Think about turning new customers into lifetime customers.