Last month for our Data-Driven Digital community webinar, we spoke about the importance of a data-driven dynamic Creative strategy with Sam Shennan, Managing Director at Incubeta. 70% of campaign performance is driven by creative, yet the majority of marketers are still using static banners with no personalisation or data insights.

Watch our webinar recap below, check out the slides and learn how JoyStick has rolled out data-driven campaigns with smart personalised creatives for global brands such as Google, Nike, HBO & Netflix to name only a few.

The Importance of a Data-Driven Dynamic Creative Strategy

Dynamic Creative Overview

Creative Maturity Model

A Siloed Approach

Even with the advancement in technology, most marketers today are still using static banners.

The Stats

What are the Benefits of Implementing a Dynamic Creative Strategy?

Data-Driven Personalisation

Reach different audience segments with different messages to achieve different objectives.

Increased ROI

Customised ads that are optimised can increase campaign performance significantly.

Rapidly Scale Creatives

In today’s multi-screen world with HTML5 rich media across all ad formats, we can target multiple audiences using relevant messages using the one template.

Save Time & Money

Creative development can cause campaign costs to skyrocket, leading to lower returns. DCO (dynamic creative optimisation) frees advertisers from traditional creative costs and limitations of static display.

Dynamic Creative Workflow

End-to-End Data-Driven Dynamic Creative Campaigns

1. Discovery/Strategy: Dynamic strategy and alignment
2. Build Audience & Map Conversion: Create target groups and define path to conversion
3. Design & Develop Campaign: Bring the creative execution to life
4. Delivery: Deliver the campaign
5. Analytics/Business Intelligence: Reporting insights, translate into actionable next steps

Preparing the Team

Gather the resources required to ensure you have the right teams to support the successful execution of the project. The following roles can represent one individual or multiple individuals within your organisation.

Creative Strategist

In charge of developing the end-to-end solution design, that will showcase how/what each data point will output in the creative to achieve the business goal.

Creative Producer

Managing the process and communication between all stakeholders, and ensures each step of the process is followed and delivered on time.

Feed Specialist

Verifies the feed requirements and implements any changes that are needed.

Media Consultant

Responsible for the media ideology that will activate that creative in the best possible way.

Technical Consultant

Responsible for the dynamic profile design that determines what the creative should show.

Developer

In charge of developing the ad variations using the snippet code provided from the profile setup.

Preparing the Data

There are many factors that go into making a sale: product placement, pricing, company reputation, etc. When it comes to data-driven creative, there’s one thing that is absolutely essential: the data feed.

Important factors that we look at:

• Is there a centralised place where data is stored?
• Are product titles consumer-friendly?
• Are descriptions informative enough?
• Are images optimised for all placements?
• Do all image links work?
• Do all products have images?
• Are feeds updated frequently enough?
• Are products categorised correctly?
• Are there unique indicators for segmentation (language, currencies, gender, etc.)?

Dynamic Creative Process

Defining the structure and workflow of the project.

6 Steps to Successfully Executing a Dynamic Creative Project

1. Project kickoff
2. Conceptualisation
3. Prepare
4. Production
5. Review and revise
6. Deliver

Step 1. Project Kickoff

The project is presented. Learn about the goals and what needs to be achieved. Collect and organise available assets.

TIP:

• Be as detailed as possible when defining objectives.
• Define the performance indicators in this session.
• Collect as many available assets as possible – brand guidelines, fonts, brand messaging, strategy, etc.
• Point of contact: Determine the main POC before starting the project.
• Agree on contact methods, especially for any urgent upcoming campaigns.
• Approval-sprints: Set a clear approval timeframe upfront as any delay will push back delivery time.
• Reverts: Determine reverts to keep a clear and dependable delivery roadmap.

Step 2. Conceptualisation

Build the Dynamic Creative Strategy. Use all insights to reach the right people at the right time with the right message!

TIP:

• The right data: Use your data to find out what your users want and how to best target them.
• The right message: Build messaging that is personalised, relevant and consistent.
• The right format: Know to which extent you can animate your ads to stand out without negatively impacting the message. Create the design concepts for all selected formats and know what they need to represent.
• The right offer: Use your data to use the most relevant offers for your audiences in all stages of the user journey.

Step 3. Prepare

Develop concept and layout for the project. Present ideas for approval.

TIP:

• Be visual: When presenting ideas to clients.
• Connect the dots: Showcase what they can expect will be dynamic and what will be static.
• Connect Media, Technology and Creative: Ensure that the concept can be successfully executed across all major pillars – map out the data flow, make the media connection and showcase what each creative option could represent.

Step 4. Production

This part is the bulk of the whole process. The concept goes into production.

TIP:

• Avoid lapsing back to concepting: Once production starts it is crucial that final approval has been granted. Making changes can impact delivery.
• Success in your preparation will ease production: At this point all elements are mapped out and approved. Start with the logic of the creative by building the profile in Google Studio and get the snippet code to the developers as quickly as possible.
• Avoid profile changes: Once the snippet is shared with developers, create a rule that locks this part of production and move forward. Your process should protect you to avoid mistakes here. It is extremely time-consuming if changes are made after a snippet has moved into the next phase.
• Choose two formats for animation approval: The next major approval-sprint takes place on animation approval. Choosing two formats can help save time and keeps the production cycle in its delivery momentum. Choose a square and vertical format to ensure your Law Partners approves the most relevant ad size to all possible variants.
• Final cut: On approval of the two main formats then only start the remaining cut downs.

Step 5. Review & Revise

The design comes together, gets reviewed, critiqued and refined.

TIP:

• Generate ‘Tearsheets’: Use the preview function in Google Studio, as the first quality assurance step.
• Reporting Dimensions: Define required reporting dimensions in Google Studio in this step.

Step 6. Deliver

Prepare for launch. Push creatives from Google Studio to Campaign Manager and assign creatives to the respective campaigns in Display & Video 360.

TIP:

• Before launch: Do a final quality assurance in DV360.

THANK YOU

Huge thank you to Sam Shennan for presenting. Want more content like this? Join our Data-Driven Digital community.

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