Making It Matter: Best practices for optimizing campaign measurement and performance

Shannon Lee

VP, Creative and Engagement

When StudioNorth Creative Director Shannon Lee isn’t inspiring her team to create unique and memorable engagements between brands and their customers, you might find her taking in some Mozart at the Lyric Opera, cooking a Korean dinner, or just chilling at home with her husband, three children and 95-lb Golden Retriever.

PART 2:

3 ways to optimize your creative for campaign performance

If optimizing campaign performance starts with looking at your analytics and seeing where your challenges lie in the customer experience journey, what are the next steps? You’ve identified the tactic you want to modify (and, of course, A/B tested), but where do you start making changes? Below you’ll find three ways we’ve helped clients with evaluating campaigns in progress.

#1

Stop being safe

We’re exposed to thousands of impressions every day across multiple devices and out in the world, more than at any time in history. Too often, marketers go with similar “safe” options that result in a sea of sameness. Your goal is to get a reaction. You can’t be safe and expect to get noticed.

Skip the stock images. Everyone in your category is pulling from the same stock pool. Consider custom graphics or, if you must use stock, do something interesting with it — add textures, cut out backgrounds, use interesting crops. You can also consider a metaphorical approach that connects to an emotional benefit rather than a literal, concrete representation. Try this with a campaign element: If you swapped out the logo, would it work for your competitor?
Adding motion to static ads can make a huge difference. One client we worked with switched from static to carousel ads and saw a 300% increase in clicks. It doesn’t have to be much — text moving in, images appearing, simple animations — but adding motion can help your ads get attention.
A clever or witty headline can go a long way toward a reader staying on your page instead of scrolling on by. With so much clutter in the marketplace (so much of which, frankly, isn’t all that interesting), you can stand out by simply being interesting. Be fun. Be different. Be surprising.
If you’re placing ads, consider the context where those ads will appear. Is it a crowded and noisy experience overall? Is it mostly white space and text? Get creative with the design of your ad to contrast or complement the environment in which it will be living.

#2

Check your experience

Your integrated campaign should stand out, but it should also live up to its name and be integrated. It should feel like one seamless experience from touchpoint to touchpoint — consistent but not repetitive, with each element building on the previous and driving to the next. For example, check your call-to-action buttons — the language as well as the destination. Do they clearly drive to the expected experience with a promise of value? Does the destination visually align with the driver?

One of the best ways to evaluate a campaign’s cohesiveness is to print out each element and pin them all up on a wall in sequence. With everything in view at once, you’ll be able to spot breaks in the flow or inconsistencies in design that could create a fragmented experience.

#3

Connect human to human

No matter what product or service you’re selling, it’s a person reacting to your campaign. Too often, campaigns begin talking about products and solutions without addressing the underlying needs the solution is supposed to address.

Take a step back and ask if your campaign is aligned to help your audience succeed in the critical moments of their day-to-day lives — not yours. Talking about features too quickly can get you clicks that don’t lead to click-throughs. According to the Harvard Business Review, an emotionally connected customer is worth twice as much as a highly satisfied customer.¹ Connect with the emotions that make people buy.

¹https://hbr.org/2016/08/an-emotional-connection-matters-more-than-customer-satisfaction

You can’t connect to an audience you don’t know

All these decisions and explorations should be guided by your understanding of the audience you’re trying to reach and the worlds they inhabit. Understanding what drives their decisions in the moments that matter should inform your design and content decisions at every touchpoint when optimizing campaign performance.

If you’d like to learn more about how creative innovation can energize your campaigns or see some examples of how we’ve helped clients bring their campaigns to life, use the quick form below to contact us. We’ll get right back to you!

Don’t miss our other installments of Making It Matter

Close 3 gaps to boost your campaign performance

In PART 1 of Making It Matter, Senior Director of Digital Marketing Tim Grant discusses three common analytics obstacles that can hinder campaign performance and offers suggestions for optimizing things along the way.

3 ways to ensure your offer drives results

In PART 3 of Making It Matter, Executive Director of Account Strategy Eric Meerschaert shares his views on three ways to ensure the value of your offer aligns with customer needs.