ering the Art and Science of Creative Analytics //

In an AI-driven and privacy-first environment, traditional strategies for optimizing ad campaigns are quickly becoming obsolete. We are moving away from the world of demographic segments and towards dynamic testing, or modeling as the data-savvy community calls it.

Modeling shows that creative data is the best way to increase customer response rates, not media. Most media planners are surprised by this because creative data isn’t usually seen as a key variable.

The media plan is largely designed to make sure that creative content reaches the correct audience at the appropriate time. The media planner will also eliminate the versions of creative content that have the lowest response rates.

Creative execution is the key optimization lever in the new analytics landscape. When the most valuable insights are derived from the optimal combination of message and audience, and the timing, then we must work to find new ways to adapt the creative messaging in order to maximize brand performance and sales.

Media agencies have a narrow focus on their channels.

The chasm that exists between the media agencies and the creatives on the main European and U.S. market stems from the split of the media departments from the creative ad agency in the 90s.

This transformation has severely stifled the collaboration of creative teams, and they are frustrated at the lack of data that can explain the impact their efforts. The media has always provided minimal insight into the role played by creative performance. In recent years, not much has changed to help us better understand which creative elements are most effective and why.

This oversimplification results in campaign insights that are often misleading, or even incorrect. In some cases, a publisher’s display ad placement is no longer performing as well and this has been attributed either to a poor audience targeting strategy or an ineffective bid strategy. The truth was that they had used the same creative for more than six months, and it simply did not resonate.

A video creative test was also deemed ineffective because of low completion rates. The real reason is that the test was not configured correctly within the platform and was targeted at the wrong audience.

Dig deep: Marketing Analytics: What is it and why should marketers care

Realizing the full potential of creative assets

A deeper understanding of how creative work interacts with its media environment allows for the improvement and enhancement of advertising, since the real causes of success are identified.

Creative analytics does this by integrating data from both the audience and the creative, so they can be analyzed and measured together rather than separately. Creative and audience combinations give us a deeper understanding of engagement and sales. This gives us the insight needed to create a testing roadmap that is more actionable.

AI can help us scale these tests, and spot patterns that planners cannot. By automating reports and assessing the resonance of different creative elements with certain audience segments, we can gain comprehensive insights into campaign performance across all channels. Findings can span across product portfolios, markets and advertising assets.

Imagine the waste that occurs when teams in similar European markets sell identical products under families of brands, and plan their campaigns separately. Data-driven approaches empower creatives to have greater control and enable them to refine, elevate, and understand their work.

Dig deep: Why the most powerful marketing tool is testing

How does it actually work?

Structure your marketing campaigns to generate both creative and audience insights. The foundational requirements are:

• Create separate line items for every audience/creative combination.
• A robust governance structure is essential to accurately define the audience that will be targeted by a particular creative.

Manual reporting is reduced by implementing the correct technical infrastructure. The analysts can now focus their time on future testing.

Planners should, for example, validate which creative variant is most effective with a highly-valued audience segment before running an extensive test. It is important to carefully set up tests that isolate the performance of various formats and determine which engagement metrics are best for further creative personalization.

The most important thing is to have a framework that is clearly defined between the client, the media agency, and the creative agency. This will allow them to use the datasets they control in order make informed decisions about audience and creative activations. True creative analytics are impossible without close collaboration between the three groups during the entire campaign lifecycle.

Brands can use a test-and learn approach to fully understand how creative messaging impacts target audiences. These insights should be delivered via a bespoke platform, developed collaboratively with creative and delivery teams to ensure precise campaign reporting.

These steps allow marketing and creative teams to make quick, informed decisions. By analyzing the interaction between creative elements, audience targeting and campaign optimization, marketers gain actionable insight.

Case study: Demonstrating creative analytics

We have worked with leading brands in a variety of markets to help them use their existing tech stacks to gain deeper insight into their campaigns. This has led to creative enhancements, and outstanding results.

We’re working with a global leader within the healthcare industry to transform their precision-marketing program using creative analytics. This collaboration resulted in the development of a cloud reporting solution powered with Google’s AI toolset.

The solution simplifies campaign reporting, and gives real-time insight into creative insight. The solution combines marketing data with visualizations and specific audiences of creatives that are running in their business intelligence software. It allows creative, media, and marketing teams make collaborative, informed decisions about digital strategy and planning.

This tool provided a number of insights, including the use of personalized messages. We wanted to determine the incremental performance boost of creative targeting personalized while taking into account the costs associated with producing multiple variants worldwide.

We could:

• Demonstrate that personalized assets are more efficient.
• When is the best time to implement this tactic? Consider the digital strategy and the spending volume of the market.

The results

We saw that in one market, combining personalized audiences with creatives resulted in a 640% increase in performance, compared to an 11% cost increase. This was a great validation of our digital strategy for the client and their approach.

The measurement program, as a whole, has provided the client with valuable insights and bridged the gap between creative and media. It allows for efficient learning across markets by sharing failures and successes, enabling teams adopt strategies that produce optimal results.

Dashboards provide global insight into the adoption of precision marketing, creative effectiveness and other performance metrics, while significantly reducing reporting time for agencies.

This company is on track to become a media marketing and analytics hub as it expands its platform capabilities through the integration of more markets and data. Creative analytics is the key.

Deeper collaboration for deeper insights

Creative analytics has the potential to revolutionize the success of digital marketing campaigns. We can shift from a narrowly channel-focused approach to precise audience targeting, and resonated messages as brands embrace this transformative strategy.

Creative analytics bridges between artistic vision and data driven decisions. Let’s embrace both the art and science behind digital marketing.

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