Pop quiz: Your recent display campaign, which you ran across display and social has an average CTR of 0.7%. Amazing, right? Should we increase the budget and keep it on?
If you’ve answered a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’ instantly, then this article will be of immense help to you.
The right answer to the quiz above is “Can I see all the data?”
Understanding Campaign Data: It’s More Than Just CTR
Because analyzing the campaign data correctly will yield observations and questions such as:
- “Which creatives performed the best/worst? (The orange ones with the quirky messaging performed 3x better than the others)”
- “Ads that were placed on the top right of sites performed amazingly well”
- “Hmmm, looks like although we got a lot of traffic from site A, none converted. But the lower amount of traffic from site B had excellent conversions. ”
- “What segments and 1st/3rd party data was used to drive ROAS?”
- “Was contextual data overlaid to improve segment/campaign performance?”
And many, many more.
Look Beyond CTR, Dig Deeper
To get your digital campaigns performing like they could, analysis and optimization are not just valuable—they’re essential.
Effective campaign analysis and optimization – done every single day – not only improves campaign performance but also ensures that marketing budgets are spent wisely.
For instance, we ran a Connected TV campaign for a pizza chain targeting NFL fans. Sounds simple enough. But we wouldn’t have achieved the results we got (3K game day orders) if we hadn’t drilled down into details such as figuring out where the target audience was spending the most time (answer: game analysis videos and articles) and understanding that users were tending to pick up their cell phones during ad breaks which opened up multi-screen optimization for us.
Understanding what’s working and what’s not is the absolute centerpiece of effective digital advertising. Trends, performance metrics, user behavior, segments and the right expertise can provide incredible insights into audience preferences.
This data-driven approach allows for a deeper understanding of campaign effectiveness and helps pinpoint where performance can be squeezed out of seemingly benign variables..
By adjusting targeting parameters, ad creatives, bidding strategies and placements based on analysis and continuous testing, advertisers can ensure their campaigns are more effective and efficient.
Analysis + Optimization = Campaign Success
So the next time your digital marketing team or agency gives you campaign performance reports, ask them questions about segments, data, behavior, optimization and insights.
They may not be happy about your newfound digital advertising superpower, but your marketing budgets and business outcomes will thank you.
