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This article by Brand Networks VP of Marketing, Kyle Psaty expands on ideas originally presented on MediaPost.

Industry professionals at brands like The Home Depot and McDonald’s talk about omnichannel marketing as the end goal for all modern marketing strategies. At the same time, there’s a lot of confusion about what “omnichannel” marketing really means and how it’s used in practice.

I’ve seen marketers attempt to execute true “omnichannel” strategies for some time, but it’s clear to me that the omnichannel vision remains loosely defined and largely unattainable (for now, at least).

Before turning omnichannel marketing into reality, there are three major obstacles that marketers need to overcome:

Structure & Process

A big challenge for marketing teams is transparency. Most are functionally oriented and continue to operate in silos. Social teams gain insights from Facebook or Twitter, and use that data to inform future campaigns on those platforms. Meanwhile, the email team is looking at metrics provided by its ESP to improve performance, and the display team is reviewing its own dashboard to determine its next ad buy. Teams share topline insights and post-campaign takeaways—but in many cases, that’s where the sharing stops.

Omnichannel marketing teams need more than weekly check-ins to share actionable insights. In order to orient campaigns around individual consumers and more granular targeting segments, all facets of your marketing strategy have to be integrated. Each and every team under the marketing umbrella needs to be in constant contact, sharing insights, and maybe even audience segments from the DMP or CDP as they go.

Budget Fluidity

Similarly, the strategic and flexible use of marketing dollars is a structural roadblock with steep consequences. Once a specific team is allocated a specific budget, that number often doesn’t fluctuate — regardless of current events or changes in consumer behavior. Once you allocate $100 million to TV advertising, there’s no going back.

Brands need the flexibility to shift their budget between channels and strategies at the drop of a dime. Without this financial fluidity, teams will continue to face an uphill battle to truly implement an omnichannel strategy.

DataWizardry

Another challenge for marketers in their omnichannel efforts is determining how to use data without being creepy. Brands have access to more data than ever, but how to effectively gather, analyze, and use it (for good instead of evil) remains a struggle.

Customer data is often spread out across various spreadsheets and programs. Without a centralized place to house this data, how can a display campaign adjust based on insights gleaned from Facebook? How can personalized Instagram ads shift based on activity happening on Pinterest? Even further, a true omnichannel strategy means every touchpoint with a customer is highly personalized. This requires that data be compiled and analyzed from all active campaigns holistically. This is extremely challenging to pull off, and has yet to be mastered by any major brand to date.

A Challenge Within Reach

Though an omnichannel reality may not be possible today, it isn’t a lost cause.

One way that brands are making moves to overcome these challenges is with so-called centers of excellence within marketing departments. This team of marketers focuses on gathering data and sharing insights and audiences across the department. This practice is just taking off, and it’s a good starting point for overcoming current roadblocks limiting omnichannel capabilities.

Over the years, the marketing industry has taken dozens of twists and turns, and each challenge has been bested, one way or another. As long as we recognize the roadblocks in front of us, and accept that the mecca of customer experience is still ahead, I have high hopes for an omnichannel future.

In the ever-evolving world of marketing and advertising, there is one thing that remains consistent: the need for strong digital communication strategies. Engaging audiences and providing a rich storytelling experience while driving overall performance is crucial to a great campaign. And now more than ever, campaigns need to be designed to do this across mobile, tablet, and desktop devices.

Brand Networks Creative, a team formerly from Tapad, has always been passionate about delivering strategies to meet that need, and I’m extremely proud of the team’s recent recognition by the 24th Annual Communicator Awards. We took home an Award of Distinction for Marketing Effectiveness for our recent work with Acura. With entries received from across the U.S. and around the world, the Communicator Awards is one of the largest and most competitive awards program honoring creative excellence for communications and marketing professionals.

So how did we achieve this prestigious recognition?

The premise behind the Acura campaign was two-fold: create a visually compelling storytelling experience and cohesive, cross-device strategy that would engage audiences looking to buy a new car, and raise awareness of Acura’s 2018 TLX model.

A person’s journey to purchase a new car can include as many as 900 digital interactions over a three-month period. As many as 70% of those interactions occur on a mobile device, with 35% of conversions happening on a different device from where they began.

With this knowledge, we leveraged Acura’s original creative assets to generate a suite of engaging ad units tailored for every device, each of which contained a strong call to action.

For mobile and tablet devices, these units included:

–Brand Networks’ proprietary Orientation Responsive Video Plus, which allows full-screen video playback in both vertical and standard formats to dynamically match the orientation of the viewer’s device.

–The Cube, a high-performing, yet cost-effective 4-sided interactive display banner.

–Vertical Video Units, which allow the viewer to watch an ad in a hand-held state on mobile and tablet, driving high Video Completion Rates.

For desktop, we created Expandable Banners with 4 action-packed videos, which included an interactive 360º view, allowing potential buyers to virtually explore the features of the TLX. We also created a car dealership locator, which dynamically populated directions to the user’s closest dealership based on their location.

The campaign was a huge success, with a traffic rate of .24%, which was nearly double the benchmark set by Acura. The custom video and vertical video units also outperformed standard pre-roll CTR benchmarks by 400%.

These are the types of results that can be achieved through a cohesive cross-device strategy. Our team at Brand Networks is committed to creating strategic marketing campaigns, and we are excited to continue helping brands effectively deliver their message across all devices.

My sincere congratulations to the team for this achievement. You all do outstanding work!  and I look forward to many more future success stories!

This article by Brand Networks CEO Dave Fall expands on ideas originally presented on MarTech Advisor.

The role of the media buyer – and the ways in which artificial intelligence (AI) can help evolve that role – is always top of mind with our team at Brand Networks. In fact, that was a large motivator behind launching Iris by Brand Networks earlier this year, which brings intelligent automation to media buying on social.  

I’m a big believer in the power of AI, and recently contributed an article to MarTech Advisor around this topic, entitled “The Benefits of Giving Your Media Buyers a Break.” In the article, I discussed how I believe AI will impact our industry moving forward and my vision for what is possible down the road. And while I’m excited for what the future holds, I also know significant advancements are already being made.  

As AI becomes more and more integrated into the role of the social advertising media buyer, there are five key aspects of the job that are already being impacted in a positive way:

Ad waste minimized: Media buyers can put thousands of dollars into campaigns, only to find that just a fraction of that money was used to place ads in front of an interested and engaged audience. This is referred to as “ad waste,” and the best way to avoid it is by optimizing campaigns several times a day. Done manually, optimization is a time-consuming task with plenty of room for error. But with the help of AI, this process can happen automatically, dozens of times a day, cutting down significantly on wasted ad dollars.

Pacing monitored and controlled: Pacing ad spend effectively is yet another tedious undertaking that’s crucial to the success of an ad campaign. Keeping tabs on how quickly you’re spending money, whether its $5K or $100K, requires constant attention. AI can help here as well. By keeping tabs on how fast your ad dollars are spent, AI has shown to reduce the risk of overspend by 50 percent, and provide a 14 percent better chance of spending earmarked budget in full.

Time saved: With AI at their disposal, media buyers are able to focus more time on strategy, and think critically about how best to achieve business goals. Rather than spend their days concentrating on rote calculations and campaign maintenance, they can address higher-level questions, such as, “How can we get users to interact with our product?” or, “Are we targeting the right audience?” With more time on their hands, media buyers have the bandwidth to move the needle for brands in a way that’s more impactful.

Control improved: Social advertisers have long maintained a tight grip on campaign settings like bids, budgets, campaign start and end dates, and targeting specifications. But these low-level performance controls don’t offer great control over things like a campaign’s overall investment strategy. For example, should the budget be applied to achieve a single objective, say, video views, or multiple goals, like video views and website conversions? AI can be given complex instructions about topics like this and execute flawlessly.

Learning curve reduced: Media buyers tend to specialize in delivering campaigns on a specific channel, say, Facebook or Snapchat. The differences between each ecosystem are not insignificant. However, AI effectively lowers the learning curve by accounting for subtle differences in the way delivery or bidding systems function. AI reduces the need for users to understand every nuance on each channel by creating a smarter user interface. This, in turn, reduces what’s required to master each channel independently.  

Our team at Brand Networks is passionate about continuing to find solutions to make the role of the media buyer more strategic and the work more streamlined, and we’re continuing to make advancements. Over time, I believe the daily challenges and limitations that media buyers face will diminish, and the role of the media buyer will be elevated from where it is today. As I noted in MarTech Advisor, “as more brands start to recognize the value in using AI to make media buyers’ jobs more strategic and enjoyable, their advertising goals will become easier to hit and performance will be stronger than ever.”

So, you’re looking for a managed media services team to run your social advertising campaigns?

I could offer an easy answer and tell you to look for a team whose cumulative experience exceeds a specific number of years. That’s imperative for success, but you already know that. So, I’m not going to do that. Instead, I’m going to talk about five intangibles that set the Brand Networks Paid Social Activation team apart from the rest.

For us, success is always in the future. The next insight. The newest best practice. Sometimes, it’s even in the transition from managed media services to insourced licensing by a brand’s in-house team. That’s because Brand Networks offers the very best software and services in social advertising. We don’t have to care whether you want managed or self-service. We have the luxury of focusing solely on your success in social.

We won’t rest on our laurels, satisfied with what we’ve accomplished in the past—that’s a promise.

The 5 Intangibles: How the Brand Networks Paid Social Activation Team Sets Itself Apart  

We know our industry: We’re all social advertising experts—don’t you have to be to keep up with the ever-changing ecosystem? The industry is changing daily, whether it’s software updates, new ad types, new targeting capabilities, or new advertising inventory. It’s crucial that our team stays current on all innovation to ensure we provide strategic recommendations, share knowledge with clients, and execute as effectively as possible. Understanding how our industry works plays a pivotal role in how we succeed; thankfully, our leaders know how important this is and is and invest in it, and our teams are curious and passionate about all of the intricacies in this exciting space.

Fun Fact: According to an eMarketer study, social advertising will account for approximately one-quarter of total digital ad spending by 2020.

We focus on the details: The Brand Networks social media services team may sport sweatshirts and baseball caps, but what we’re lacking in style, we make up for in the details. We have intensive and detailed internal processes that are uniform across accounts and offices. This operational maturity ensures that we provide the most accurate and efficient service possible. We have an extensive and reliable Quality Assurance process for all campaigns that must be both self-checked and checked by other media analysts. We’re also constantly performing internal retrospectives to make sure we are aware of nuances to help improve this system and the performance we deliver for our clients. Not only does this process-centric work happen prior to campaign launch, we’re constantly making optimizations so there’s room for improvement every day.

We’re fearless: One of our Corporate Values at Brand Networks is Tenacity, and our managed services teams bring that to life in our passion for presenting and testing new opportunities with clients. We never say no to a challenge and work closely with our partners in organizations like Facebook and Twitter, to make these opportunities happen. We don’t stick to the old, easy, routes when it comes to planning; we look to new targeting strategies and offer ideas, however unexpected they may seem. Not only do we recommend out-of-the-box approaches or new ad types, we recommend utilizing Brand Networks’ additive technology like Optimize Now and Open Signals to help our clients take their campaigns to the next level. We are far from fearful; we are bold.

Did you know? Optimize Now saves the average paid advertising team eight hours per week per person in manual calculations and optimizations.

We have access to knowledge: While we have offices around the country (and the world—shout out to Sydney!), we’re constantly knowledge-sharing across accounts, offices, and departments. It’s pertinent that we work as a team and enlist others who can work well in a team environment. Because a lot of what we do isn’t inherently intuitive, it’s imperative that our teams communicate effectively. This ensures new best practices spread like wildfire inside Brand Networks Paid Social Activation. We also work very closely with our partner representatives for all media channels in order to execute. Some of our job titles may just say “Media Analyst,” but we do so much more than this title can begin to explain—a major part of this job is forming strong relationships with our partner leads and internal departments so that we’re providing the most up-to-date information and strategies possible.  

We Care about Excellence: Everyone in our social managed services organization would tell you that this is not just a day job. Social advertising is always on, and our teams are always willing to help after our doors close for the night. This quality ties into the fact that our teams care about the work and dive deep into every campaign, every plan, and every report. We go above and beyond to ensure our clients are happy and that the services they’re receiving drive effective and efficient results. I can tell you personally that the majority of our Media Services teams made the decision to skip  Summer Friday’s last year (despite wanting to be outside) in order to make sure this level of service was preserved. Rain or shine, bad mood or good mood, our teams bend over backwards to deliver excellence.

The Proof Is in the Pudding: Success You Can See on Pinterest

Goal: With brand awareness and video advertising already key to a client ’s social advertising success, when Autoplay Video became available, the brand was eager to test it out. The retailer hoped that Pinterest Autoplay Video would create cost-efficiencies while improving overall performance.  

Strategy: Having run successful brand awareness (CPM) campaigns with Brand Networks on other platforms in the past, the brand was excited by the promise of Pinterest Autoplay Video. To see if the ad type would have a future in the retailer’s social advertising strategy, the Brand Networks Paid Social Activation team built an approach that would effectively demonstrate the impact video could have on its target audience.

Using product-centric and actionable Autoplay Videos, the latter helping drive an increase in view-through rate (VTR), the campaign leveraged a myriad of advanced targeting capabilities offered by Pinterest, including Engagement Audiences and Actalike Audiences.

Results: In total, the campaign generated a view-through rate (VTR) 21% greater than Brand Networks’ internal benchmarks. Moreover, the campaign drove a cost per view (CPV) 57% less than the industry benchmark.
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Don’t be fooled by the keg and kombucha on-tap, ping pong table in the lounge, or community scooter waiting in the corner. Truthfully, I’ve never worked with a better team, nor a more successful team. I’m proud to work in the Brand Networks Paid Social Activation organization. If you’re looking for a stellar managed services provider in social, take it from me—this is not just a team, it’s a family.

With the market for Artificial Intelligence (AI) on the rise and the increased proliferation of AI-powered tech being presented to Marketers and Advertisers, you may be asking yourself if Artificial Intelligence is right for you. In the world of Social Marketing and Advertising, AI has certainly arrived.

What pessimists fail to note is that AI isn’t new and the sky hasn’t fallen. If you’ve turned to digital advertising in the past, say, via a DSP, you’ve used AI. Sure, the future of AI-powered social ad tech is unclear in terms of the role it will ultimately play, but there’s no reason to fear it—thoughtfully-designed Artificial Intelligence isn’t built to replace you, it’s built to assist you and to complement your skillset.

AI-Powered Social Ad Tech: Your Biggest Enabler

According to Britannica, Artificial Intelligence is, “the ability of a digital computer or computer-controlled robot to perform tasks commonly associated with intelligent beings.” From that, you could concoct a number of doomsday scenarios. In the context of social advertising, AI is far from your enemy—it can and should be your biggest enabler.  

In its current state, AI-powered social ad tech is best suited to manage your social campaigns. Using technology like Optimize Now, Brand Networks’ proprietary optimization technology, AI can reduce the strain of repetitive and tactical work and increase the time you spend on higher order work that a machine cannot—think campaign strategy and creative insights extraction.

While some pundits claim there’s more smoke than fire surrounding AI, in the realm of the increasingly complex and unruly social ecosystem, AI should become your friend.

“Right Place, Right Time” Takes On a Whole New Meaning

Historically, consumers consumed—they flipped through periodicals, watched commercials, and listened to the radio. They were forced to receive whatever information you put in front of them and either believe it, or not. They couldn’t publicly question it or engage in discourse about it. Until recently, that worked; today, consumers are empowered. They’re fueled by a state of perpetual digital connection where US smartphone owners spend five hours per day. This has led to a feeling of empowerment and even entitlement among consumers. Now, instead of consuming whatever they’re fed, they’re asking for a completely new menu—and they’re used to getting what they want, when they want it.

Think about it:

– Spotify creates playlists based on your listening habits

– Amazon, the originator of auto-curated product recommendations, is now delivering via drone

– Google Maps populates the quickest way home

– Netflix suggests content based your viewing habits  

This trend has led to the modern consumer expecting smart connections that help make their lives easier. As the point of engagement and transaction continue to merge, the need for immediacy, personalization, and authenticity will become even more of a necessity.

Thankfully, Artificial Intelligence can help. In the context of social advertising, AI-powered technology can revolutionize your work day.

What You Can Expect From AI-Powered Social Ad Tech

There’s nothing wrong with admitting that managing the sophistication of today’s social ecosystem exceeds our cognitive capacity. This knowledge gap has led to the increased use of AI-powered systems, which are built to optimize problem sets quickly and efficiently without external interference. Said another way, AI-powered social ad tech will complement you and close the opportunity gap by optimizing the customer journey.

Let’s break it down into three benefits:

Efficiency: There’s no shame in admitting that computers process data faster than humans—we’re facing an unmanageable proliferation of information. Let AI take over the time-consuming processes of the past, and get valuable time back that you can spend researching, strategizing, or working on creative.

Smart Decisions: Limited access and insight into your data can prevent you from making the personalization decisions consumers expect. AI-powered social advertising solutions are built exclusively to consume large amounts of data from multiple channels and then analyze it. With those data, they can offer recommendations into creative, targeting, budget allocation, and more. As an end result, you’re creating a more meaningful experience for your customers.

Continuous performance improvements: Traditional marketing processes are discrete, time-bound, and hard to manage. Frankly, they can be arbitrary to your customers. AI-powered solutions operate continuously and learn as they go in relation to your inputs, like creative and targeting, as well as your goals and KPIs.  

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Artificial Intelligence is already impacting digital advertising. Its emergence in paid social, while steady, has proven to be one riddled with apprehension. But history has shown us that curiosity and courage are the hallmarks of great marketers and great marketing. Think about the first company to raise what’s become the modern billboard during the rise of American industry. Even the first advertisers on social were taking a degree of risk. Looking back, they’ve all been rewarded, to some degree. So dive into AI-powered social advertising technology—you’ll be leading the march of progress in the digital age.

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