Data is Gold

Advertising is driven by data-informed decision making and insights— becoming more and more targeted and effective as more data is aggregated and captured through advancements in technology and media channels. In the past, there were fewer sources and methods to access higher quality data sources. National census data and other behavioral research through focus groups were the standard, and now it is so much more. Every key stroke, web search, social media like, scroll, and many more digital actions generate data that we can use to better understand a target audience. When you ingest it into a data lake/aggregator and look at it at face value, it is just a bunch of rows, columns, and strings of text, but how does that help agencies and businesses tell a story?

Storytelling Makes Data Shine

The value in data is telling a clear story to whomever your audience may be. Every client wants to understand how successful their media channels are, and if the planned strategy is yielding results. There are many ways to deliver data, here are two examples of using the same data to inform clients of their current success at driving online purchases for their brand.

Client Example: A local athleisure brand wants to generate orders for their products. They use a full funnel media mix with campaigns in Social, Search, and Programmatic media channels.

• Just Stating the Facts:  In many cases, data can be presented as factual information, with no real narrative to be inferred. This does not paint a clear picture of how performance is trending holistically since it is just a regurgitation of numbers.
  • Example: March had 650 total orders. March had ten more orders than February with the growth in orders coming from Meta. Meta campaigns generated 500 purchases, Google Search campaigns had 150, and Programmatic Display generated 2 million impressions. 
• Develop a Narrative: Piecing together the value of all media channels, and how they support each other to reach performance goals, is the key to delivering a clear picture of current success to a client.
  • Example: The full funnel media approach through social, search, and programmatic media has yielded improved results for your business month over month. As we know, orders are the main KPI. There were 6500 orders attributed to our converting channels. Meta generated the most purchases with 5000, and Google had 1500. Meta’s improvement from 4000 to 5000 orders month over month is due to the addition of new video creative assets in Meta. These ads saw better user engagement, driving them to convert at a higher rate this month. The video assets featured consumers interacting with the product, with a crisp product shot at the end showcasing the full experience. These new assets showcase the product and its impact on a consumer more so than the static assets, which showcased a logo with a still image of the product. Programmatic display has done a great job at delivering top of funnel awareness, and informing our target audience about product/brand capabilities made evident through the 2 million served impressions. The update in social assets highlighted the monthly improvement in orders generated

How Does the Story End?

Delivering a powerful story and narrative about media performance is paramount to a client’s success. Advertising is how you connect brands and products to the people, and how you inform them matters. Everyone is selling something, and clients want to know if they are successfully doing so. An advertiser needs to deliver their results through a well-written story. When the story is clear, informative, and concise, this allows clients to have full confidence in the agencies running their media. This leads them to fully understand their place in a consumer’s mind and where they stand in their industry. Everyone wants a success story and it starts with advertising.