Rebelling

An Introduction To RTB And Programmatic Ads

Posted on September 12, 2017 by ittisa-admin

Initially, the process of online advertising was pretty direct wherein an advertiser or an agency representing that advertiser, would buy ad space from the publishers on a website. With time, as the network grew, these publishers created several web pages, with several ad spaces that unfortunately went unsold. Every visitor who visited these web pages was shown the same ad with no measure for distinction. It did not matter if the ad was served to meet the visitor’s purpose or interest- it was simply shown regardless. This became increasingly irritating for viewers and led to the establishment of a more valuable and cost effective approach to advertising. This is where RTB or Real Time Bidding and Programmatic Ads come into play.

What is Real Time Bidding?

In simple terms, Real Time Bidding or RTB as the process is more commonly known is the action of buying or selling an ad space via an auction. This auction takes place in milliseconds i.e. the time it takes for a webpage to load. Advertisers or agencies on behalf of advertisers compete for an impression or ad space with the help of automated bids. The highest bid naturally wins the auction and that particular ad is then displayed immediately on the webpage.

How does RTB work?

Various parties are involved in the RTB process such as the publisher, the supply side platform (SSP), the ad exchange, the demand side platform (DSP) and the advertiser or agency. The process begins with the publisher (website/ webpage) sending a message to the SSP that they have an impression (also called ad space) available. The SSP then analyses user information such as location, web search history, age, gender and any other information available and sends it to the ad exchange. The ad exchange then transmits this information to the DSP and the auction begins. The DSPs bid on the available ad space based on what that space is worth to them. The DSP decides how much a space is worth on the basis of parameters set by the advertiser. The highest bid is sent back to the publisher and that ad is displayed to the viewer.

How does RTB Ads work

http://clearcode.cc/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/rtb.png

What is Programmatic Ad Buying?

In simple terms, programmatic is an automated process of media buying and ad placements on the Internet. It is known to be highly efficient and cost effective because it removes the chances of human errors and inconsistency. Programmatic advertising/buying uses modern intelligence technologies to analyse the behaviour of the audience. In this method, advertisers have increased control to define user metrics like demographics, geography etc so that they can reach the right audience at the right time. RTB is a type of programmatic ad buying.

What is Programmatic Ads

How does Programmatic Ad Buying Work?

It includes SSPs, DSPs and DMPs (Data Management Platforms). DSPs facilitate ad buying and help you bid to reach the right target audience. DMPs collect and analyse user cookie data and SSPs are responsible for selling ad inventory.

Benefits for Advertisers:

Benefit for Publisher:

If you’re looking for a more efficient way to promote your brand digitally, look no further. At Ittisa, we have a qualified team proficient with running ads that bring you the best ROI. Drop us a message, and we’ll be sure to connect with you.

Posted under: Digital Marketing

Introduction of WhatsApp For Business

Posted on September 8, 2017 by ittisa-admin

Attaining a verified account on various social media platforms has been a major goal for businesses to establish communication of trust with customers, and now these businesses have one more channel to use. Following the footsteps of Facebook and Instagram, Whatsapp has now come up with its own green badge to mark verified accounts and influential personalities. Over the last few years, WhatsApp has made its mark and become the default messaging app used by majority Indians, with over 200 million users in the country. Soaring with success due to its huge popularity in India, it is taking a step forward by foraying into business. The reason for their entry into a more commercial form of communication is that they want to explore newer ways by which companies that connect and communicate with their customers.

verified whatsapp for business

Source: Twitter

WhatsApp’s first collaboration in India is with BookMyShow, India’s largest online ticketing platform. When a customer books ticket via the BookMyShow app, a confirmation which was traditionally sent to the customer via SMS will now be sent via WhatsApp. Apart from BookMyShow, startups like Ola and OYO Rooms and some airline companies, are also expected to follow suit.

bookmyshow whatsapp business

Source: BGR.in

What does a verified business account mean on WhatsApp?

Simply put, a business account- if verified by WhatsApp will have a green badge next to its name. If a user already has the business number saved as a contact on their phone, the business will appear under that name. If the user does not have the number saved, the business will appear with the name they have chosen for themselves. It will also inform its users when they start talking to a business account with yellow messages inside the chat that cannot be deleted. This has been done to protect users/ customers from fraudulent numbers claiming to be some business or the other.

business verification

Source: pixr8.com

How does this feature benefit businesses?

1. The biggest advantage WhatsApp has is its very simple UI/UX, that makes using it a piece of cake for all age groups. Neither customers nor business operators have to learn anything new to make use of this feature.

2. It is an easy, cost-effective and quick way to communicate with customers. People may not always be available or feel comfortable having a telephonic conversation, but a personal message is simple, easy and gets the message across.

3. Customer care should get a lot more efficient with WhatsApp coming into the picture, compared to any other medium. For any matter of concern, customers will find it more feasible to resolve queries/ make complaints via a message, instead of typing out an elaborate email or calling up the helpline numbers. However, a business with a lot of customers may find it difficult to handle all queries via WhatsApp, initially. This is where Digital CRM tools which were so long concentrating only on social media channels will have a major role to play.

4. WhatsApp can qualify as a great marketing tool for promotional purposes. Since there will be fewer/ no restrictions on the format, brands can be extremely innovative and creative in their approach. Also the chances of a customer receiving it and viewing it will be very high. It’s a great way for direct communication, provided that the business does not spam their customers with an excessive number of messages.

whatsApp and amazon

Source: Midday

WhatsApp for Business is at present in its initial stage and available for a small number of businesses, but with big names like BookMyShow implementing the new feature, no doubt the messaging app is gearing up for a major role in e-commerce and business. WhatsApp is also said to have an approval on integrating payments within the app, and is in talks with several banks to carry out the same.

To learn about how you can get your business to benefit from WhatsApp for Business drop us a message, and we’ll be sure to call you back!

Posted under: WhatsApp

Facebook Advertising Features Which Should Not Be Missed

Posted on September 6, 2017 by ittisa-admin

The omnipresent social media platform, Facebook, has gradually evolved to become one of the best channels to reach out to an audience and promote your business.

With 1.8 billion users (the number keeps increasing day by day), this is nothing but a massive opportunity to advertise your business, no matter how big or small it is. But before that, make sure you are aware of these advertising features and how it can benefit your business:

Lead ads is the simplest way to run lead generation campaigns on Facebook and Instagram. Through Lead ads, people show their interest in a product or service by filling out a form in the ad, with their details (pre-existing on Facebook) and allow a business to follow up with them.

Lead ads can be used to collect sign-ups for newsletters, price estimates, follow-up calls and business information, making them a great way to identify potential customers and share relevant information with them in the future.

According to Facebook, with Lead Ads, cost-per-like (CPL) can drop by 4x.

nespresso taiwan Facebook marketing

Understanding what you spend on an advert versus what you get is quite possibly the most important part of running any advertising campaign. However, to do this successfully, you need to understand how Facebook measures ad conversions, or else you may lose both money and sales.

Google Analytics has up to 7 models but Facebook keeps it simple by using one model: The Last-Touch Attribution Model.

There are two things that govern the Last-Touch Attribution Model:

 

Khaadi facebook page khadi Facebook marketing success

A lookalike audience is a targeting method where Facebook generates an audience of users who are similar in some way to your current customers or audience.

This audience can be based on an email list, segments of your Facebook Pixel or any conversion goals that you have set up. Facebook matches the audience with Facebook profiles and finds similarities in demographics, interests or behaviours. It then uses these finding to generate a list of similar Facebook users that you can target in your campaigns.

goibibo facebook campaign

At some point in time, a friend might have told you about the top she found online that followed her all around the internet. “It is so weird. I saw them on Facebook thrice in the last two weeks so I was compelled to order it. It must’ve been fate,” she may have said.

Remarketing works by following the same leads around the web with related offers. When a user visits your website, a code is placed on the page that the user visits, and the user is cookied. This triggers the ads to follow that cookied user around the web, whether on a social media site or on various websites across the internet. 

According to Facebook, remarketing ads get 3X the engagement than regular Facebook ads!

facebook remarketing

Facebook Split Testing: Testing Multiple Creatives for an advert

facebook split test

Split Testing is another form of A/B Testing that allows advertisers to create multiple creatives for an ad set and test them against each other to see what strategies produce the best results.

For example, Split Testing allows advertisers to easily test the same ad on two different sets of audience to see which audience selection responds better. Or, to test two delivery optimizations, such as conversions or link clicks, to determine which yields the better result. Advertisers use Split Testing to interpret how changes in different variables might yield a better outcome.

Facebook Website Conversion campaigns help to increase business on your website. Whether you need page visits, sales or any other action, website conversion adverts attract people to go the website, to just view or do any transaction.

Website conversion adverts work along with the Facebook pixel on your website, so that you can reach website visitors who are most likely to take desired actions. This enables the business to grow sales and increase traffic.

Facebook Advertising Features

When defining a new audience or adding a new campaign, Facebook gives you the following targeting options:

Facebook Advertising Behaviour Targeting

 

Under Behavioural Targeting, there are various options such as Digital Activities, Seasonal Behaviour, Travel, Purchase Behaviour, etc.

Behaviour Targeting targets a specific group and then places a relevant ad which enables:

The brilliance of Facebook adverts lies in its ability to target audience with laser-like precision, thus saving on money but increasing sales.

Facebook breaks down your ad preferences into several categories: Business and Industry, Education, Family and Relationships, Fitness and Wellness, Food and Drink, Hobbies and Activities, Lifestyle and Culture, News and Entertainment, People etc.

When you add or remove interests, Facebook recommends a set of audience based on the interests available in the page. This ensures the ad is not shown to an irrelevant audience and focuses on finding new fans, engaging with a wider pool of Facebook users, recruiting brand evangelists and increasing conversion rates. However, one of the biggest benefits that is still being discovered by many advertisers is how precise interest targeting can complement a brands’ native advertising strategies.

Facebook interest targeting

In Custom Audience, you create a set of audience out of your existing customers. In addition, you can also target ads to the audience you’ve created on Facebook, Instagram, and Audience Network. To do so, you have to upload, copy and paste or import your hashed customer list, and then Facebook will use the hashed data from it to match the people on your list to the people on Facebook. Thus the advert is shown only to the set of audiences that the advertiser wants. This reduces the cost of advertising drastically and increases ROI and engagement.  

Facebook ads that include customer reviews blend in with other news feed stories and are better received by people browsing Facebook. This ensures a trust in the brand and thus an increase in sales can be expected.

facebook custom audience

 

Facebook ads that include customer reviews blend in with other news feed stories and are better received by people browsing Facebook. This ensures a trust in the brand and thus an increase in sales can be expected.

facebook testimonials

 

facebook Carousel Ads

The combination of storytelling and visual content is what you get in Carousel Ads. In this format, Facebook allows you to show up to 10 images or/and videos, headlines for each image and video, links and a Call to Action – all of this in a single ad unit.

The carousel ads can be used for:

Facebook Carousel ads are a great way to highlight the uniqueness of your brand, showcase your creativity and to boost engagement metrics.

facebook messenger ads

In this new feature, Facebook allows you to show ads to users who have left you a message in your Facebook page, within a time frame.

The Cost per Acquisition (CPA) is almost 60-80% less when compared to a news feed ad. At present, Messenger Ads may not be as feasible as other ad units, as it can be sent only to users who have messaged your page. However, it is a great feature that you can try out and add to your marketing mix.

Over 100 million hours of video are watched every day on Facebook.

One of the best ways to grab attention of viewers – video ads that are inspirational, memorable or amusing can remind people of your product when they go out to buy a product. Video ads are relatively cheaper too, which means that you do not have to spend too much to get a lot of visibility.  

If you think that your audience will not be interested in long videos, consider using Facebook GIF ads for this purpose. They are short, engaging, but equally dynamic.

With new updates being introduced almost everyday, Facebook is making sure that all advertisers who use this medium succeed in what they wish to achieve. Ittisa has an efficient and dedicated team, to help you use these advertising features in a way that is best suited for your brand. Leave us a message and we’ll get back to you shortly.

Posted under: Social Media

The Adwords Features You Shouldn’t Ignore In 2017

Posted on September 1, 2017 by ittisa-admin

Google is notoriously good at releasing updates and bettering their already excellent products. 2016 saw some great features for AdWords and 2017 is thankfully, no different. AdWords has a bunch of new features that will help brands and agencies run better and more profitable campaigns. Read on to know the top 10 features you shouldn’t miss!

1. Find people similar to your best customers

Google Adwords’ Remarketing lists for search ads (RLSA) can help brands re-connect with people who have visited the website previously, and while this is great, it is more important to continuously build a network of new customers. For this, Google came up with similar audiences. Now similar audiences for Search and Shopping along with Customer Match for Shopping can help brands use their own data to reach the right customer with the right message. With Customer Match for Shopping, brands can connect with high-value email list subscribers, resulting in a higher click through and conversion rate with these shoppers.

2. Expanded Text Ads

Expanded Text Ads are twice as big as current text ads. The new ads include a longer description of 80 characters and thus can maximize a brand’s presence and performance on mobile search results. These ads show up on all devices and the text wraps itself according to the device automatically.

Expanded Text Ads

3. Responsive Ads

Responsive ads have the feature of automatically adjusting their size, appearance, and format to fit just about any available ad space. They have a dynamic look and feel based on the hosting website or app. This helps advertisements attract more clicks due to naturally better aesthetics.

Responsive adwords ads

4. Google Maps Local Search Ads

The new Google Maps ads target users who are currently active. For example, a restaurant business can target customers currently shopping or dining or planning to do so. This multiplies the business of the commodity and is best used on a mobile device. A promoted pin appears as a sponsored pin in the results section.

Google maps local search ads

5. Device Oriented Bids

Now advertisers can pay customised bids depending on the device they are using to target the customer. The feature has been introduced so as to enable brands to segregate their desktop, mobile and tablet traffic. It lets advertisers split the traffic, and in addition create bidding campaigns for specific devices. These bids are highly useful when an advertiser wants to plan a campaign only for a particular device.

6. Cross Device Remarketing

Cross-device remarketing for Google Display Network and DoubleClick Bid Manager helps an advertiser target the same ads to the same users as they move between their devices.

Adverts are remarketed across Google Display Network (Website, Apps etc.) and the advertiser has full control of deciding the frequency of advertisements displayed to the same user across devices.

7. Enhanced Cost Per Click (ECPC)

ECPC is a new bid strategy that adjusts the cost-per-click (CPC) to help brands maximize conversions. In this strategy, the manual bid is raised when it seems more likely to lead to a sale or other conversion on a website, and similarly the bid is lowered in situations that seem less likely to lead to a conversion. Thus, ECPC can help brands get higher conversions at a highly optimised CPC.

Note: ECPC for text ads is available on the Search Network and the Display Network, but not for app installs campaigns. For Shopping ads, ECPC works only on Google Search.

8. Site Links

Ad Sitelinks is a new feature in AdWords that offers brands the facility to mention links to pages beyond the destination landing page in an ad.

add site links in adwords

Sitelinks let the customer focus on a specific page and thus decrease bounce rates. It also leads to higher link visibility, which leads to more traffic and an increased Click Through Rate (CTR). The ads look more relevant and legitimate with keywords shown in Bold. Sitelinks help in improving the Quality Score and allow advertisers to send a user to multiple landing pages.

9. Search Impression Share/ Search Lost Impression Share

Impression share is one of the simplest metrics that measures how often ads actually show up compared to when they should show up. Brands might bid on a keyword (in AdWords) but Google doesn’t always serve up that ad. Impression share is the number of impressions the ad has received divided by the estimated number of impressions it was eligible to receive. Eligibility is based on current ads’ targeting settings, bids, approval statuses and Quality Scores. Impression Share data can be seen at the campaign, ad group and keyword levels.      

One can easily determine the total number of available impressions in the marketplace through successful campaigns and thus for the campaigns not working, Impression Share can be used to find the answers to the actual room for growth.                             

10. Ad Rotation

If there are multiple ads within an ad group, the ads will rotate because no more than one ad from a single account can show at a time. Ad rotation works on both the Search Network and the Display Network. There are different ad rotation settings to specify how often ads in an ad group will be displayed relative to one another. These are:

1. Optimize for Clicks (Default) – Here, ads that are expected to perform better are displayed more often i.e ads that are expected to attract more clicks are displayed more often.

2. Optimize for Conversions – Here, ads with higher conversion rates are displayed more often. For eg: Purchase and Sign up ads with high conversion rates

3. Rotate Evenly, Rotate Indefinitely – Here, ads are rotated evenly but for an indefinite period of time.

In Ad Rotation, brands can design particular ads based on the Date/Day. Eg. bid during weekends or a particular time of day based on the user behaviour. This helps in seasonal targeting of sale ads.

Keeping a check on recent AdWords developments and release of new features is important for brands and the agencies that work for them. This is because, newer features are the results of important campaign learnings that help brands put forth better campaigns with higher ROI. Drop us a message to learn about our strategies and campaigns and how we keep on top of things.

Posted under: Google Ads