Programmatic can target the right audience at the right moment across all addressable channels. However, creative plays a leading role in creating a relevant and personalised message.
Just targeting the right audience is ineffective if an uninspiring and irrelevant message is delivered. In fact, at its worst, it can switch audiences off and cause them to install ad blockers.
Programmatic advertising inevitably requires the input of captivating creative to achieve successful consumer engagement. Increasingly this requires personalisation through dynamic creative.
Dynamic Creative (DC)
Using data points that establish the most appropriate combination of the elements in the creative (i.e. background image, offer and text), Dynamic Creative makes it possible to serve tailored and meaningful messages.
The use of dynamic creative allows retailers to tailor ads based on individual tastes and interests, enabling shoppers to see relevant products and special offers. Additionally, it allows for the quick creation of a multitude of variations of display ads, to which high-volume retail campaigns are suited.
Retailers must leverage the data that feeds the power of Dynamic Creative
Retailers are sitting on a gold mine of data that is perfect for dynamic creative optimisation, including first-party data and third-party data sources. Insights can be gained from instore and online purchase activity, and measurement data from tracking offers such as discount codes etc.
Combining these data sets retailers can gain a comprehensive profile of their customers, including things such as:
- demographics
- online behaviours
- transactional insights (e.g. information on unique likes, device types, location, the day of the week, weather and time of day).
This enables retailers to build real-time continuously updating models of what their perfect customer looks like, driving increased relevance and impact of their ad creative.
Use the customer journey data to optimise performance
To assess the true impact of dynamic creative deployment in retail, its necessary to understand the metrics which deliver a return on investment. The same data sources that inform the creation of dynamic ads also need to be mined to understand how various elements of the campaign are performing.
Dynamic Creative Optimisation, (DCO) is automated and efficient, eliminating the manpower and time required to create multiple singular creatives. An ad’s image, product, text or calls-to-action can be dynamically changed to deliver relevant messages to an individual. When implemented well, DCO can deliver on average a 60% uplift in performance.
What to keep in mind when using DCO
- Too many parameters – Retailers needs to be conscious not to create too many variations of creative elements without testing their effectiveness. Brands need to accurately establish what works and what doesn’t by initially using a set number of elements to gain statistically meaningful results i.e. ad size, target location, target gender.
- Too much focus on remarketing – While offering the last product seen can persuade customers to buy products, dynamic creative goes beyond single conversions. In fact, DCO can be used across the sales funnel — for everything from loyalty programs, upselling, through to new-customer acquisition and awareness campaigns.
- Ignoring experience – There is still a place for retailers to utilise their knowledge of their own products, goals, and audiences. Dynamic Creative should be adapted to facilitate these human insights.
- Forgetting the user experience – It is critical to keep in mind the customers’ experience. Advertisers need to deliver a personalized and relevant message while not overstepping on the customers right to their privacy. In that way, things such as ad frequency management and running across multiple channels can help create an impactful message across various touchpoints that doesn’t feel redundant or intrusive for the customer
The Benefits of Dynamic Creative
- Leads to higher engagement and ROI – serving automated personalised offerings to customers
- Improves conversion rate and loyalty – More relevant and personalised approach to your customers can boost sales and repeat purchases and increase brand favorability.
- Deliver maximum relevancy at scale – DCO enables advertisers to develop and leverage many unique ad creatives while ensuring ads are relevant to each user.