As we have all seen, retargeting – the following around of the consumer on his or her journey around the Net, like a faithful puppy – has brought many new opportunities for advertisers. What has been criticised, when brands get heavily into programmatic ad buying, is the tendency for creativity to get sidelined and the techie side to predominate. We can do some amazingly clever things - and then we use them to deliver in a really dumb way.
Fortunately, the medium is developing (at an alarming rate) and there is a welcome trend among discerning advertisers and their agencies towards the use of premium data. Brands are able to incorporate their own 1st Party Data (their CRM files, especially) with prime 2nd Party Data (specific high-quality commercial inventory), rather than relying upon surplus 3rd Party Data stock that is widely available for auction. High quality information tends to lead to better executions.
And now, overlaying that capability, are the cross-platform possibilities that are increasingly open to advertisers to follow consumers down relevant channels. As social networks integrate (i.e. as Facebook, Twitter, Google and LinkedIn buy up potential challengers) this becomes more and more interesting.
Facing up to Video
The prime example is Facebook and its adopted network, Instagram (purchased in April 2012 and the quickest-growing social network in 2014, with 300 million monthly users – 14 million of which are in the UK). With one-fifth of all internet users viewing it, Instagram has to be a prime medium. It is young in demographic, but it is nearly 50/50 male/female and it is right for huge numbers of advertisers.
The Facebook powers-that-be clearly learned form the rocky ride they endured when they froze out a lot of business users overnight and lost a lot of goodwill. There have also been issues of insensitive advertising applications on peoples’ Facebook pages. So when they made the inevitable move to commercialise Instagram, they took it slow and steady, and aimed for sensitivity towards the feelings of the users. Now for the first time it is possible to construct a self-service campaign on Instagram. But there is a series of banned sectors and advertising topics, designed to keep the medium clean.
Crucially, it is also now possible (and encouraged) for you to obtain click-throughs for your Instagram pages, whether corporate pages or advertising pop-ups, and then use that captured viewer data to retarget those who are also Facebook users. Interestingly Facebook is shy about revealing what level of overlap there is between its 1.3 billion users and its offspring, but they are both mighty within their fields and their systems now allow seamless sharing of video material between users of either network.
Mercedes – first off the line
The first advertiser to partly integrate a Facebook/Instagram campaign was Mercedes, who used it in support of their 2014 launch of the GLA model. It wasn’t retargeting: but it helped to pave the way, and it demonstrated the joint advertising potential of these social networks.
Stage 1 was a stand-alone branding ad on Facebook and a more visual branding approach on Instagram. Side-by-side testing with a control group who did not see the ads showed a 54% increase in Mercedes website visits among ad viewers.
Stage 2 was to follow up the branding ads on both channels with a direct response ad. This resulted in a 580% leap in site visits.
When stripped out, the Instagram ads alone increased brand recall by 12%.
Fashionably Late Retargeting
The Mercedes campaign was impressive enough, but in early 2015 a U.S. fashion brand, Stuart Weizman, took things a stage further.
Using cinemagraphs (a hybrid of still graphs and video) they showed 22 to 40-year old women their video ad then a week later they retargeted them with a still product ad on Facebook, using a platform integration tool. So this way the sales lead is a warm one, but the woman in question is not being hounded immediately and thus made to feel uncomfortable.
This is the sort of capability that common platform ownership makes a lot easier to achieve. And very soon, you can expect Facebook’s armoury of targeting tools to be deployed though this channel, so that you can select for very specific demographics and personal interests.
The floodgates open (slowly)
Instagram’s new API, announced in June, allows ‘self service’ advertising for the first time with bidding for slots (and expect the cost to be high because of the very strong engagement levels that Instagram’s users have), new types of ad format and the aforementioned sharper targeting possibilities. This will be a steady roll out over the rest of 2015, first with “a select group of Facebook Marketing Partners and agencies”, and it is clear that no-one at Facebook wants to kill their potential golden goose. It is expected that September will see the UK introduction.
Each ad will fill the mobile screen, and users can hide and leave bad feedback on ads that they do not like, so advertisers will be on their mettle to provide content that is relevant and attractive, matching the native material that makes up the Instagram ecosystem, with its photos and 15 second video clips.
Until now it has not been possible to include calls to action but Instagram is testing new buttons with ‘Learn More’, 'Shop Now', 'Sign Up' and 'Install Now' messages, which (if sensitively used) will provide greater feedback and conversion possibilities.
Advertisers beware, though: Instagram loyalists cherish the fact that they choose the company that they keep on the network – it is not as random and widespread as Facebook membership. Ads that do not amaze or enchant will not easily be tolerated – hence the message above about creativity.
Agencies – originality and visual appeal are at the top of the agenda again. Who will be the first to win a new Cannes award for Instagram Innovation?
By Colm Hannon, founder and CEO of Hannon Digital.
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