Campaigns: How To Evaluate Their Success

Some sources state that among the most successful ad campaigns were Just do it by Nike and Real Beauty by Dove. They both had a different impact: Nike campaign gave a tremendous boost in sales, while the power of the Dove ad was a strong social message about self-esteem. So, the question of success might seem ambiguous. Still, we must have objective indicators: otherwise, how to measure the impact of advertising and learn from mistakes?

Success begins with the right ad type

There exists a variety of digital ad types: display, video, native, rich media, social media, search, and so on. Eskimi ensures your campaign succeeds in banner or video ad formats.

The selected type has to match the objective. Banners are more suitable for increasing awareness and give a very brief introduction to the brand/product/service. Native ads are based on flexible components inserted into different layouts, depending on the type of device the ad is served. They usually give a more detailed description of a product and have a call to action. Video ads are excellent to inform, educate, and can evoke a variety of emotions. Another advantage of videos is interactivity: a user can stop them, make them louder, click on them. Users trust video ads: apparently, they are five times more effective than static media ads. The variety of video ads is endless: rewarded, in-stream, native, in-banner, and many more. For increased interaction and the highest engagement, Eskimi DSP also offers rich media ads that draw in the user and invite him to listen, watch, click, play, or take other action.

Mutual collaboration is essential

A client must come with a specific brief that indicates the campaign KPI, duration, budget, landing page, duration, target audience, what type of ad is planned, and shares all the information which is important for the campaign. Eskimi DSP AdOps team is highly competent, but it is crucial to check the viewpoints of both sides. When a client does not express his expectations clearly, misunderstandings might happen: professionals do what they consider the most appropriate, but that may be unacceptable (for example, too expensive) to a client. So, contracting is essential for a successful campaign that meets the expectations of both sides.

Eskimi DSP strives for success by working together with the clients and keeping them informed. Sure, a client can check the situation on his own: logging in to the DSP account allows monitoring how the campaign is going. AdOps team is always ready to answer any questions raised. During the campaign, the team shares reports and informs the client if something has to be renewed (banners, target audience, etc.).

Campaign optimization: The key to the happy end

Campaign optimization is the highway to meeting the objectives. Besides other advantages over outdoor ads, digital advertising contains the capability to measure: AdOps managers see the exact numbers of impressions, clicks, and many other metrics. And these parameters are optimized.

When launching a campaign, a daily monitor is a must. Careful monitoring of the trends of impressions, views, clicks, reach, CPC (Cost Per Click), CTR (Click-Through Rate), CPM (Cost Per Mille), and other relevant metrics is critical to reaching the campaign goals. Also, that‘s important to check if the budget is not exceeded: are the daily budgets spent precisely? Doesn‘t CPM exceed the client‘s set price? If something doesn’t work, AdOps can optimize the campaign, change the parameters, stop the ads, recommend the client to update the content or campaign strategy, and, with all these adjustments, reach the campaign goals.

Still, it happens that metrics exceed the expectations (like delivering more impressions than planned for the same budget) or, sadly, do not meet them. Sometimes the reason can be seasonality: some products are not that visible in summer, but their ads will work way better before Christmas. The change of circumstances also impacts success. For example, Eskimi DSP advertised an online course for youth. During quarantine, the ad worked pretty well and attracted the traffic. Then, the ad ran again in September, and the success was way lower: the quarantine was over, people got back to work or studies, spent less time on the internet, and the online course wasn’t that relevant.

In the digital world, seasonality always exists, users’ behavior changes, competition in the market grows—many factors affect campaign performance. So only with optimization and collaboration with a client, the campaign will be successfully managed.

Measuring the success

The objective success of a campaign is measured in nothing but numbers. According to the campaign objective (brand awareness, traffic, or other), AdOps managers evaluate the report numbers.

In a brand awareness campaign, the ad has to reach a certain number of impressions: one of the criteria of such a campaign is the number of people who saw the ad. For a video ad, one-eighth of the length is already counted as one view and viewed full video is counted as a completed view. In a traffic campaign, relevant metrics are clicks, CPC, CTR. For example, a good CTR is considered above 1%—high CTR means that you‘ve targeted the right people. Also, the quality of traffic is monitored: what is the bounce rate, average visit duration, pages/visit, and so on.

Still, there are plenty of other significant parameters. When being evaluated, the campaign is analyzed from multiple angles. For example:

· What is the price of the impression?
· How many impressions were viewable?
· What percentage of users click on the banners/videos?
· What creative size is the most engaging?
· What content works better?
· What ad type works best?
· Are the banners engaging and suit the target audience?
· Is the target audience chosen right?
· What sites/apps are the ads shown in?
… and way more.

Besides the objective data, the Eskimi DSP team also has its own ‘parameters of success’. Every month, each member of the AdOps team shares a story on one successful campaign. And this practice shows that success can have different meanings for a client and a professional. The success may revolve around launching a new rich media format or another new solution and its performance. The success can also be overcoming the challenges: maybe a client set an unusual target audience that was hard to reach? Finally, learning and encountering unexplored fields can also turn into success.