Posts Tagged ‘optimization’

Familiar and effective move TV budgets online

Thursday, November 4th, 2010
Image conveying data

Mixpo technology uses campaign data to optimize automatically on the best performing ad*

How do you break down the barriers that stop advertisers from extending their TV advertising online? Make it familiar. Make it effective.

Familiar Build on what’s familiar by incorporating many of the techniques, such as dayparting and ad sequencing, that advertisers are already accustomed to using in the TV world.

Effective Advertisers new to online are unlikely to know how to take full advantage of the dynamic nature of online advertising and the ease with which performance can be tracked and measured. Building automatic optimization into the process of running live online campaigns not only delivers the best results. It also educates advertisers about the creative and calls to action that are most effective online.

Auto optimization defined

Auto optimization means randomly rotating different versions of an ad through the same Player. After a specified number of impressions, the platform automatically stops running all versions except the best performer.

Advertisers have control over various aspects of the auto optimization process, including:

  • The number of versions to rotate.
  • The creative and calls to action in each version.
  • The number of impressions after which auto optimization occurs.
  • The metric on which performance is judged (for example, view rate, clickthrough rate, or percent viewed).

Auto optimization applied

To illustrate how auto optimization works, here are three different examples of the process in action.

Retailer: Optimize on view rate

A workout equipment retailer promoting a semi-annual sale wants to move as much merchandise as possible by attracting people into the store. The retailer comes up with a couple of different StartFrames (the image viewers see before they play a video ad) to determine which attracts the most views.

  • Version 1 describes the sale this way: Semi-annual Sale! All inventory discounted.
  • Version 2 describes the sale this way: Merchandise must move! First come, first served!

After the two versions rotate through the same Player for 75,000 impressions, Version 2 has the highest view rate. The platform automatically stops running Version 1.

Auto dealer: Optimize on clickthrough rate

An auto dealer wants to generate more local leads and get more car buyers into the show room. The dealer wants to test two different calls to action:

  • Version 1: Sign up for a test drive!
  • Version 2: Schedule a test drive today!

After the two versions rotate through the same Player for 100,000 impressions, Version 1 has the highest clickthrough rate. The platform automatically stops running Version 2.

Political campaign: Optimize on percent viewed

To garner votes as the election nears, a political campaign wants voters to view as much of the candidate’s message as possible. The campaign develops two versions of a video ad that approach the candidate’s platform in different ways.

  • Version 1 presents the message by attacking the candidate’s opponent.
  • Version 2 ignores the opposition and focuses on the candidate’s five-point program for change.

After the two versions rotate through the same Player for 50,000 impressions, Version 2 has the highest percent viewed. The platform automatically stops running Version 1.

More Information

New to Mixpo? Explore our website today to learn more about dynamic video advertising.

Read a MediaPost article about Mixpo tools that move TV ad budgets online.

Mixpo customer? Learn more now about optimization by signing in to your account, opening the Client Resources home page, and then searching for “auto optimize.”

*Photo taken by bionicteaching.

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Posted in Agencies, New features, Product features, Publishers, TV and Xspots | No Comments »

Three easy ways to boost ad performance

Monday, July 12th, 2010

Your online video ad is running on quality sites that target the right audience. But the ad just isn’t getting much response. What’s the problem? How can you fix it? And what’s a good strategy for creating ads that perform better in the future?

These are the questions Harry Gold raises in a recent ClickZ article.

You can have the best media plan in the world, says Gold. The success of your ad, however, rests ultimately on how well the creative answers a couple of key consumer questions:

  • How are you going to help me?
  • What do you have for me right now?

“Basically,” says Gold, “people are looking for the benefits and offers in your ads.” His advice? “…Make sure you have an arsenal of benefits and offers to test in your campaigns and use this as the basis for your creative testing.”

Great advice, as far as it goes. Unfortunately, for you, the advertiser, it leaves a lot of questions unanswered. Does each benefit and offer in the arsenal require its own unique creative? How can you test different versions cost effectively? How can you easily monitor performance and turn it into information you can carry into the design of future ads?

Building on Gold’s advice about testing benefits and offers, here are 3 quick, easy, and concrete steps you can follow to boost the performance of your online video ads.

Step 1. Develop benefit and offer lists

Interactive offers in video ad

Interactive offers in video ad

Before you run a campaign, take Gold’s advice and do some brainstorming. Develop 2 lists. One list includes what Gold calls “the ways that your product really helps your target audience.” The other includes “offers you can make and fulfill right on the spot.”

For example, an auto dealer might list “zero percent APR financing” as a benefit and “sign up for a test drive” as an offer.

Winnow and sift the lists until you have a manageable collection of the most attractive benefits and offers.

Tip As you brainstorm, don’t let pre-conceived ideas about what’s possible limit the offers you come up with. Online video ads can include printable coupons, surveys, forms, links to more in-depth video content, and much more. In addition, you can target different audiences with benefits and offers that update on-the-fly based on a viewer’s geographic location.

Step 2. Create a unique ad for each compelling benefit-offer combination

On the face of it, this step sounds prohibitively expensive. But if you run your campaign through a dynamic video ad platform, it’s a quick, cost-effective process.

Here’s how it works:

  • Upload a 15- or 30-second TV spot to create the master ad. This master forms the basis for each unique version.
  • Make copies of the master. Creating copies is as simple as pressing a Copy button.
  • Make each version unique by layering interactive benefit and offer overlays on top of the underlying video.

Step 3: Set up ad rotation and auto-optimization

Auto optimize to improve ROI

Auto optimize to improve ROI

The only way to really learn which benefits and offers customers respond to is by giving these customers the chance to respond. In a video ad platform that is truly dynamic, you can integrate performance testing into the process of running a campaign.

By rotating different versions of a video ad through the same Player, you discover which version results in the best view rate, clickthrough rate, or percent of video viewed.

After a specified number of impressions, the platform automatically eliminates poor performers and optimizes on the best performing version.

As Gold points out, running ads on the right properties aimed at the right audience gets you only so far. It’s delivering the right benefits and offers that makes the audience respond.

More information

Learn more today about using a dynamic video ad platform to boost your video ad performance.

Mixpo customer discovering auto optimization for the first time? Visit the Client Resources home page now and search for “copy,” “overlays,” and “auto optimize.”

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Posted in Agencies, Product features, Publishers, TV and Xspots | No Comments »

Getting data rich just got even easier

Thursday, July 1st, 2010

Late in his senatorial campaign, Scott Brown ran an Xspot in the Boston Herald. This Xspot, which had an active view rate of 3.20 percent and delivered a total 267 hours of Brown’s message, is credited with helping Brown come from behind to win the election.

To increase holiday donations, the Salvation Army rotated 3 Xspots and 1 rich media ad without video in the same banner ad space on Comcast Online. While all of the ads helped raise dollars, performance data showed the power of compelling true-story video content. The Xspot engagement rates outperformed the rich media ad rate by 38 to 1.

These success stories show the key role that accurate and detailed performance data plays in online video ad campaigns. Advertisers rely on the data not only to measure the success of completed campaigns but also to optimize campaigns while they’re running and run better campaigns in the future.

Through its Dashboard and Advanced Analytics, the Mixpo platform has always provided a wealth of performance data. Now, a new Reports wizard makes that data easier than ever to access.

Custom reports list

Click to see a larger custom reports list

A user-friendly interface guides you through the process of setting up and scheduling fully customizable Xspot and placement reports that you and other recipients receive automatically in email.

For example, you can schedule a weekly report organized by Xspot that includes:

  • All of the Xspots in your Group.
  • All of the available performance, click, and interaction data.

Or, you can generate a one-time report organized by placement domain that includes:

  • Two Xspots in a specific advertiser’s account.
  • All of the placement domains where the Xspots are running.
  • Only engagement rate, views, view rate, clicks, and click rate data.

Coming soon: The addition of conversion tracking and geotargeting to the Reports wizard.

More information

Read more success stories now.

Mixpo customer? Learn more about the new Reports wizard. Sign into your account today, open the redesigned Client Resources home page, and search for custom reports.

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Posted in Agencies, Measurement and metrics, Product features, Publishers, TV and Xspots | No Comments »

Measure to optimize AND discover

Wednesday, May 5th, 2010
Video ad views and clicks by geographic location

Video ad views and clicks by geographic location

In a thought-provoking article in the New York Times Magazine, Gary Wolf examines how technology has made it feasible for people to measure and evaluate their most basic habits.

For example, enthusiasts that Wolf describes as “trackers” are measuring how much they sleep, exercise, and eat, how productive they are, where they’re located, and even how their moods, alertness, and spiritual well-being fluctuate.

Wolf acknowledges that “technical people are often painfully aware how much of human behavior is a mystery. People do things for unfathomable reasons.” And yet, he points out, trackers believe that they can gain self-understanding, not just by interrogating inner worlds through talking and writing, but also by using numbers. “They are constructing,” Wolf says, “a quantified self.”

In a similar way, advertisers construct quantifiable campaigns. People buy things for what may, in fact, be “unfathomable reasons.” But, as Stephen DiMarco points out, in Campaign Attribution Isn’t A Zero-Sum Game, advertisers rely on data to refine campaign strategies and maximize each dollar they spend.

In the process of tracking his work hours, Gary Wolf learned, much to his chagrin, that the amount of uninterrupted time he was able to muster in a given work day totalled about 3 hours. Once he got over the humiliation, he realized his measurement experiment had turned him into a “mean-spirited, small-minded boss” who was making an unnecessary concession to a worthless stereotype. “Does anyone believe” Wolf asks, “that long hours at a desk are a vocational ideal?”

Like other trackers, Wolf discovered that the true value of a tracking system is as a source of critical perspective, not on one’s performance per se but rather on the assumptions about what it is important to track.

“Self-tracking,” Wolf concludes, “is not really a tool of optimization but of discovery.”

In arguing for an integrated approach to measuring the effectiveness of advertising campaigns, DiMarco makes a similar point. He advises against falling in love with 1 or 2 specific metrics and for going beyond ad server and site data to include direct marketing emails, organic search, and even consumer panels.

“Experimentation” says DiMarco, “is key to lasting success. Attribution isn’t a zero-sum game; it’s your best way to learn more and earn more.”

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Posted in Agencies, Measurement and metrics, Publishers | No Comments »

Optimization made easy

Tuesday, April 20th, 2010

Way back in 2006, long before the Google acquisition, DoubleClick published a whitepaper called Best Practices for Optimizing Web Advertising Effectiveness.

The motivation for the paper was that, while online advertising was becoming mainstream, many advertisers were still not using proven strategies to improve ad effectiveness.

The first proven strategy the report lists for increasing online advertising effectiveness is setting clear campaign objectives and building optimization into the campaign process.

“Plan for campaigns to improve iteratively as you learn,” the report recommends, and adjust based on which ad creatives best achieve the defined objectives.

Four years later, online advertising is a good deal more mainstream. And, yet, probably because it’s perceived as difficult and expensive, many advertisers are still not building iterative optimization into their online advertising campaigns.

Designed to help video advertising campaigns succeed, the Mixpo platform removes barriers to optimization by allowing you to quickly and easily copy Xspots.

Copy Xspot window

Click Copy, name the versions, and you're done

After you click OK in the Copy this Xspot window, the new Xspot versions are immediately ready for editing. For example, you might experiment with different:

  • Starting images so you can test which image drives the most views.
  • Call to action language, so you can test which language drives the most viewers to your website.
  • Overlay actions, so you can test whether a lead capture form or an in-video printable coupon drives the most interactions.

Once the versions the advertiser wants to test are in place, you can rotate them through the same Player. After a specified number of impressions, the platform automatically drops the low performers.

More information

Mixpo account holders: Find instructions for copying Xspots and settings up auto-optimization by visiting the Client Resources page, and then searching for copy and auto-optimize.

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