Maria Mandel Dunsche, Vice President, Head of Marketing, AT&T AdWorks
As our mobile devices become more powerful, and we become more tied to them, the ability to serve effective cross-screen advertising has never been better. When I talk about cross-screen advertising, I always go back to the word relevant. The type of ad format, the messaging, when and where the creative is served to the consumer can be more relevant than ever before. There’s a lot of potential here, but lots of confusion as well! Here are 5 ways to help you do cross-screen advertising the right way.
Right Targeting
You have the opportunity to reach millions of people through cross-screen advertising. It would be a shame if many of those people aren’t in your target audience, right? Select the right targeting attributes upfront and make sure you know who you want to reach before the campaign starts, vs. scrambling to pivot halfway through.
Look-alike modeling: the fool’s gold of cross-screen advertising. A lookalike model could have similar attributes (age 25-54, HHI $75K+, for example), but there’s nothing more effective than matching to the same consumer across platforms. Creative sequencing (serving an ad on TV, then building on that creative messaging across platforms) works if the same group of people sees both executions.
Right Message on the Right Screen
It was a simpler time when an advertiser could come up with one Big Idea for TV, and then figure out how to repurpose that creative for digital, mobile, social, etc. Now, all the different pieces need to work together from the start. TV continues to be a highly effective tool for branding, reach and awareness. Mobile can do the legwork with location-based advertising to drive consumers into your stores. There is tremendous opportunity to deliver relevant, interesting advertising to consumers. And don’t discount the fact that timing is everything. Giving a consumer incentive to visit your store right now is powerful.
Right Scale
However you’re choosing to define cross-screen and utilize it for your business, the scale needs to be there. Pick the platforms that you know are going to reach your target audience efficiently and effectively. Also, make sure those platforms are transparent about their scale and that those guaranteed impressions aren’t bloated or misleading. If you’re not achieving the right scale by integrating your campaign to achieve your goals, vs. planning them separately, then you should reconsider your approach.
Right Measurement
You want to know how each slice of your marketing pie is working. Measuring results across the marketing funnel is getting easier to accomplish with cross-screen advertising. With cross-screen you’re better able to measure through the marketing funnel from brand awareness through actual sales and measure what each platform is contributing and the impact of combining platforms together.
Right Privacy Approach
Everything up to this point is null and void if you’re not being diligent about consumer privacy. None of us are in business without our customers, and part of the way we build that trust and loyalty is through a top-notch privacy approach. We can and should do this in a few ways: having clear, thorough privacy policies; using aggregated or anonymized data, ensuring no personally identifiable information (PII) is ever revealed; matching data lists in secure safe-havens, and providing customers the choice to opt-out of receiving relevant advertising.
About the Author
Maria Mandel Dunsche is currently Vice President, Head of Marketing at AT&T AdWorks. She has over 20 years of brand marketing and agency experience.