Have you ever tried counting how many banners you see daily while browsing the mobile web? 50? 100? 1000? Of course, it depends on the duration, still, the answer in most cases would be… A LOT. And how much of them do you remember the next day? Five? Two? Or even none as usually, they look pretty much the same. Such banners have nice colors, lovely backgrounds, great statements but lack the main thing – something. That “something” is what attracts users and encourages them to interact with the brand. But only a few have that. It’s no surprise that many companies use a data engineering consultancy service to see how well their banners are actually doing and what could improve them. So what to do if you are responsible for one of those brands whose creatives are losing the battle to get user’s attention?
TRENDS IN THE DIGITAL MARKETING
When it comes to digital marketing, recent technologies allow us to do fascinating things. This is why so many businesses are trying to create fantastic Websites to capture the imagination of their audiences. However, to launch the campaign that sticks in consumers’ minds, you need to come up with the idea first and then, of course, to understand how to produce it. This requires expertise from an excellent digital marketing agency.
Based on requests we get from the largest clients – Asian and African agencies as well as brands like Coca-Cola Africa, Unilever, Samsung, Robi Axiata and many others – we see that rich media and dynamic banners is the thing that could solve issues our clients face. Since the beginning of 2017 we have launched a dozen campaigns like that on our marketing platform, Eskimi DSP. Results are promising and prove that people are willing to interact with the brand if it is presented in an engaging way. Consumers perform required action like swiping, scratching or shaking the device to get what was promised. It does not matter weather it is discount code, the name of new drink or real time score of the cricket game – it is interesting and it is new so they click it.
DYNAMIC BANNERS VS RICH MEDIA:
WHAT TO CHOOSE?
Even though both rich media and dynamic banners are innovative ways to reach existing and potential consumers, they are not exactly the same thing. Main differences lay in the development technology as well as the scale of the audience that could be reached with one or another solution.
To put it simple, the technology behind dynamic banners collect real time data via API integration and broadcast it to live creatives. It can be current weather in Dhaka, live scores of Bangladesh cricket matches or the name of TV show that is live now on a certain channel. Based on given criteria, other elements are also changing – if it is morning and raining, users see one picture and message, if it is sunny afternoon – banner reacts to that. This intrigues consumers so they are likely to click on such creative and discover more. That is why, even though such campaigns mostly focus on visibility and the reach as their KPIs, they also have CTR of 1.5% and above!
Another great thing about dynamic banners is that they could be easily adopted to both smart and feature phones, apps and sites as well as international and local inventory and different banner sizes. 300×250, 300×50, 320×50 and 320×480 are main creatives Eskimi always asks clients to provide for ensuring satisfying performance in terms of impressions and clicks. So while the 320×480 – mobile interstitial – is relatively big one and could compass engaging elements, remaining ones lack such capability. Our technology allows to convert dynamic banners into formats that are acceptable on all inventory mentioned before, that is why almost all the Internet users could be reached with dynamic creatives. For now in Eskimi DSP such number is 45 million unique users from Bangladesh only which is the highest possible reach any platform currently has in the market (to compare – 23 million unique users in Facebook, 37 million unique users in Google Display Net-work).
Banners that fly into the screen, rotate, can be scratched, are shakable etc belong to the rich me-dia club. Even though they are available only on smartphones and have some inventory limitations compared to dynamic banners, these are creatives that give the biggest WOW effect as well as the highest engagement rate. Why? Because to see what happens user needs to take the action. We all are like Alice in Wonderland in this case – if it is written “Shake me” we will definitely do that. Such campaigns work really well for mobile operators to promote data plans, smartphone manufacturers or any brand that wants to reach smart and curious people who are the main part of the Internet.
Decision to choose dynamic banners or rich media depends on factors like campaign duration, budget, expected number of users reached and many more. However, it should be clear now, that if the brands wants to get users attention, marketing campaign should be creative, smart and engaging. Otherwise the battle would be lost.
-Agne Svetnickaite, ESKIMI
Head of Business Development for Asia
