Relevance major key to ad campaign ROI
Details
Michelle Clancy
| 29 December 2018

Relevance is emerging as the top engagement factor for advertising campaigns, according to a consumer survey from A&T’s Xandr advertising unit.


“Relevance is the key. Precision-targeting messages directly to the consumers to whom they are personally relevant can reduce the waste of ads going to consumers who instinctively tune them out,” the Xandr report noted. “It can create elevated, impactful advertising experiences, and in so doing, help to overcome the industry’s defining challenge.”

More than half of the consumers in the survey (57%), said that in general, ads are not relevant to them and they therefore don’t pay attention. Another 66% of consumers said that they wish advertisements were more relevant to them and to their lifestyle.

In an interview, one consumer told researchers that “if an ad is showing something that I’m really interested in, then I don’t mind seeing it. But if it has no use to me, then I mind.”

The survey also found that 72% of consumers said they like discovering new products through ads; in fact, 79% said that “it’s a great feeling” when a brand helps them find a product they didn’t know they wanted. Another three-quarters (76%) said that they like when ads tell them something relevant that they didn’t know.

Beyond relevance, eliciting emotion is also an important tool for engagement. A full 71% of consumers said they like when ads make them feel something and 70% said they like when advertising goes beyond selling a product.

“Through the emotional chords they strike, ads can instill the sense that the company behind them has integrity, credibility and authenticity,” the report said. “If an ad gives consumers the right feeling about the advertiser, they are far more likely to want to align themselves with it by buying a product or service. However, customer relationships cannot be built only on a general sense of authenticity. The ad must be relevant to the individual consumer. It must be perceived as authentic to them personally.”

Consumers who had positive experiences with ads were more likely to share them on social media (17%), investigate the brand further (35%), recommend it to friends and family (29%), and ultimately make purchases (27%).

These insights are important to brands as they cast about for the right approach in a rapidly shifting video ecosystem; 67% of advertisers polled in the survey said that, “with consumers now viewing content across devices, audience focused advertising is the ideal solution.”

In the survey, 46% of advertisers said that they were often frustrated with poor ROI; and, 44% said “My current media-buying and planning infrastructure is dated and not up to the task of effectively operating in the new media landscape.”

However, 76% said “media providers/platforms that offer advanced targeting techniques, delivering the right ad to the right consumer are key in creating a better user ad experience.” And, 71% said they believe that using advanced targeting techniques would improve advertising ROI.

“We are now at a tipping point, with the majority of the industry looking to enter the next stage of media distribution,” according to the report.