• by Catherine Spurway-Hepler , August 3, 2012

Even in today’s advanced digital age, advertisers and marketers continue to grapple with the ever-evolving digital ecosystem and how best to deliver effective ads. There still appears to be significant confusion around the full scale of opportunities available from creative to targeting to measurement.

IAB has introduced a new digital media sales certification program to promote a better understanding of digital ad practices. Along with other offerings from Laredo and Upstream Groups, it will help bridge the knowledge gap.

These efforts, however, are primarily aimed at media and technology sellers and agencies. Here are five simple guiding principles that allow brands to deliver more effective digital advertising:

First, any strong marketing campaign always leads with the brand’s consumers. Understanding who they are – and often there are multiple audiences with different profiles – where they are, how to reach them, and what devices they interact with are critical to creating a solid campaign.

Second, an effective campaign will feature creative that speaks directly to your audience. Even though your media targeting and delivery can be spot on, if you don’t deliver a compelling, relevant and action-inspiring creative – you’ve lost. Creative is where digital really shines. It can bring innovative concepts, interactive conversations, deeper engagement and conversion to the table.

For the best result, focus your creative on what action the user should take. If the campaign objective is to sell shoes, then give the user a direct line to view and buy shoes within the ad.

Third, ad delivery is as important as creative and audience, and can potentially make or break a consumer’s experience. It’s imperative for brands to consider what device, publisher and medium they are delivering their campaigns across in order to better optimize the overall user experience.

For example, consider online campaigns that are repurposed for mobile devices. The screens are smaller than those of PCs, mobile users are generally on the go. According to the 2011 MyBuys 4th annual e-tailing group consumer insights survey, 72% of consumers said they wanted an integrated marketing approach that was consistent across mobile, social, TV, etc. While consistency is key, relaying the message in the context of the device or medium is critical.

Fourth, optimization is critical to any campaign. From optimizing your media buy to optimizing your creative in real time, the process of leveraging data to refine and inform your marketing determines effectiveness. One solution to consider is dynamic creative optimization. It allows you to put the right message in front of the right consumer at the right time. DCO lets marketers tailor a campaign’s message and creative to a specific consumer, so that everything is focused around key objectives.  

Fifth, achieving the best performance is key. By evaluating your campaign analytics and performance metrics across audience, creative, delivery and optimization individually and as a whole, marketers will discover their own campaign story and the levers that drive success. Evaluating campaign performance across these pillars allows advertisers to adapt and optimize campaigns in line with usage trends, device and consumer behavior.