For as long as digital advertising has been around we’ve been pitched it by numerous different outlets. Whilst the visuals generally look great and the numbers sound impressive, one question always makes media owners fall silent – “how will it work for direct response?”.
Making digital display advertising viable for DR advertisers has been a mission of ours over the years. We’ve investigated – and discounted – many, many models in that time. Our clients expect and need a certain level of attributable response to make their advertising activity a success and digital is no different. What works for a branding campaign simply does not translate when you need to drive response. Our clients focus on ROI and we are accountable for that. Developing a digital campaign that delivers has always been a challenge.
Why is it so hard to get digital advertising right for DR clients?
Firstly, we need to consider the pitfalls. Whilst packed with possibilities, the fact remains that digital advertising is a crowded channel. Secondly, it’s noisy with many messages competing for attention at the same time. It also lacks the trust factor, people are much less likely to trust advertising messages from online sources than any other media. Also, whilst digital may seem limitless, advertisers have a short window of opportunity to communicate. Messages need to be very carefully crafted and placed in order to grab attention. If you want consumers to take action, buying contextual display impressions on a CPT basis and running splintered campaigns on multiple platforms is never going to cut it.
Our digital advertising model is different
We have worked closely with the biggest and most trusted media brands for a very long time. It is our strong relationships that have enabled us to work with media owners to find a solution to the tricky problem of how to get digital advertising to work for DR advertisers.
In particular, News UK have been instrumental in allowing us to put forward proposals that actually work and deliver what our clients need. Like us, they understand how ineffective the current model is for some marketing objectives. With this in mind we worked together to develop a purpose-built content model (in the form of a native article) hosted by the publisher.
Using a well known and established brand means that right away you overcome the issue of lack of trustworthiness. The content itself is a collaborative effort between the client, AJ and News UK. We work together until we have material that works well for both the client and the publisher. This ensures that whilst the client gets their message across, it’s delivered in a way that is interesting to and valued by the readers. This type of advertising naturally demands – and holds – reader attention, helping to cut through other noise.
We put the user journey as a top priority. It was imperative that the article, creative and subsequent click through to the client’s site work together seamlessly. In addition to creating content that accurately represented the client and also sat well on the publisher site, we created a bespoke landing page to continue the momentum through to the client’s own website.
Pricing that works for everyone
The most important part of the proposal was achieving a pricing structure that works for both client and media owner. Our first job is working out what success looks like for each individual client. From there we negotiate a cost per acquisition. The CPA model means it’s equally as important to the publisher as the client for the activity to deliver. This vested interest in campaign success means clients can be confident the media owner is doing everything possible to provide those all important customers.
This is an approach unique to digital and is not available when using any other media. The end product is a 100% bespoke campaign, fairly priced according to results. At AJ we only recommend advertising activity that we think will work and we’re thrilled to be able to add this to our client offering.
If you’d like to know more about our online advertising services please click here for more information or contact us for a more in depth chat.