Thursday 3 August 2017

Digital Media: Getting the Basics Right

Your MC&C ContactJosh Rammell Digital Strategistjosh@mcand.co.uk

Why is it important?Digital moves at a fast pace, every month there is a new channel, feature, integration or creative evolution to consider. It is our job to make sure the chang-es that fit our client’s business objectives are tested and worked into overall media strategy. However, it is also our job to make sure that anything we implement can be tracked for ef-fectiveness, integrated to fit with an organisa-tion’s technology stack and measured against other digital and offline media in an impartial way.

How can it be used to deliver growth?While the basics may not always be the most exciting area of media to focus on, without it growth will be hard to verify at best and at worst campaigns will fail completely due to lack of set up and infrastruc-

ture. To make sure that digital campaigns de-liver growth, it is worth analysing how cam-paigns are set up and linked with the rest of marketing infrastructure.Some key areas to be evaluating are: 1. Adserving is done through 3rd Par-ties such as DoubleClick Campaign Manager, Flashtalking or Adobe Media Optimiser. This ensures results are ver-ified and no one sup-plier is at risk of over/underinflating their re-sults through ‘marking

their own homework’

2. Tracking and tagging should be done pre-launch of media and audited by those with knowledge of the website and tagging. Management tools such as Google Tag Man-ager or Ensighten can help streamline this. Be wary to only have nec-essary tags on site to stop any site load issues

3. Connect an-alytics platforms such as Google Analytics or Adobe Analytics to allow

for tracking across web-site and app. URL exten-sions can be appended to allow for integration of paid media into the analytics platforms

4. Creative is checked for errors such as click tags and iframe load issues that can stop them being accepted by media partners or work in live environments

5. Brand safety and viewability stand-ards are set with all partners and tracked through impartial sourc-

es such as Moat or Integral Ad Science.6. Social cam-paigns that have op-portunities for people to comment are linked to organisation’s in-ternal social teams so they can be on top of feedback from the beginning and brand voice is maintained

The above should fit into an overall frame-work to deliver and op-timise campaigns that run effectively and give the potential for credi-ble, sustainable growth.

Vol.1 Edition 3mcand.co.uk

NEWS FROM THE GROWTH AGENCY

Innovation InsightSnapchat self-serve Ad manager launch

Simon’s StatsGDPR: One year and counting...Page 3 Page 3

THE MC&C GAZETTEIdentifying opportunities, unpack issues and discover how we drive sustainable and profitable growth for our clients. This month we get back to basics with digital media, discuss the importance of UX, investigate the power of data manage-ment and find out why data is the new crude oil. We round off with our monthly stats, innovation insight and agency news.

Bringing together relevant news and views from the performance world.

The Importance of User Experience in a Digital World

Your MC&C Contact Amelia BurdonDigital Executiveamelia@mcand.co.uk

What is it?There are a number of different definitions, however generally it’s understood that user experience design (UX) is a way to improve customer satisfaction and loyalty through the utility, ease of use, and pleasure provided in the interaction with a prod-uct. Although not a new concept, it is still incred-ibly important for both

brands and agencies to consider its impact when marketing a product. In fact, as technology and the internet continue

to embed themselves into our lives through a growing number of screens and interfaces, arguably its importance

Your MC&C Contact Christian TaylorProgrammatic Leadchristian@mcand.co.uk

Why is data manage-ment important?Your customer data is a powerful resource for driving growth. 1st party data is unique to your brand and provides the opportunity to increase customer engagement, life-time value and pro-vide insights for new customer acquisition. The importance of data has grown exponential-ly in digital advertising and programmatic mar-keting. The analysis and activation of 1st party

data in digital media is now common practice across most verticals and has been facilitated by an increasing volume of companies now able to match customer data to an online identity.

For example, we have seen the effective acti-vation of 1st party data to increase pay-up from trial to subscription as much as 3% for a sub-scription service client.Unifying data from dif-ferent sources (online and offline) can gen-erate a holistic under-standing of existing and potential audiences across CRM, Search, Display, and Analytics.

Implementing data management to create growthThe process of Data management can be broken down into four steps: collection, organ-isation, activation and

analysis. These process-es are normally utilised in conjunction with a Data Management Platform (DMP), the technology that unifies data sets. The decision to invest in such a technolo-gy can generate long term growth but con-siderations of data vol-ume, resource, media investment budget and the existing technology stack must be assessed before undertaking such a commitment. MC&C employs a DMP as part of the agency trade desk, Click Chilli, which enables our clients to collect, organise and activate data for pro-grammatic campaigns.

If a DMP is beyond the realms of investment for an advertiser they can activate 1st Party Data through the likes of Face-book, Twitter, Pinterest and Amazon through a simple and anony-

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mous matching process.

Activating data in these isolated channels can prove the value of data management and provide an interim solution before invest-ing in technology and resource. Not only can these channels provide

a platform for activa-tion but also insights into your existing customers to find potential new au-diences for acquisition.When activating 1st party data It is also im-portant to consider the impact of upcoming data regulations for its use in digital channels.

Data Management: Unlocking The Power of Your Customer Data

is only going to increase.

Why is it important?In a world where con-sumers with limited attention spans face an almost unlimited number of choices, competing on quality and price is no longer enough for brands.

Every time a user navi-gates away from a site or app in frustration – be-cause of complex forms, broken links, or confusing navigation – it becomes more and more likely they won’t return. Stef-fan Aquarone of eCon-sultancy, describes ease of use as “the single most powerful way to beat the competition.” Companies such as Air-bnb, Monzo and Uber offering best-in-class UX are a testament to this,

having grown rapidly in the past few years. Forrester Research re-ports that a positive experience increases customers’ willingness to pay by 14.4% and re-duces their likeliness to switch brands by 15.8%.

How can it be used to deliver growth?By implementing strat-egies that take UX into consideration, agen-cies can improve how brands engage with their customers and how those customers interact with the brand.

Products and services that provide a good user experience will sat-isfy customers, increase their brand loyalty and ultimately sell better, delivering sustainable growth for a business.

Thursday 3 August 2017 The MC&C Gazette

Thursday 3 August 2017 The MC&C Gazette

Culture3

Your MC&C ContactSimon FosterMD, MUSEPart of the MC&CGroupsimonf@mcand.co.uk

On the 25th of May 2018, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) will become law.

This regulation will re-define the use of per-sonal data with much stricter rules making ‘implied consent’ ob-solete and giving users

access to their person-al data. Fines of up to €20m or 4% of annual turnover (whichever is greater) mean fail-ure to comply could prove extremely costly.

To put this in context, had the GDPR been in place when Tesco had its bank hacked in November 2016, it has been suggest-ed that the fine could have been £1.9 billion.

A study of 700 European companies conduct-

ed by IDC Research found that a quarter were completely un-aware of GDPR, while 52% were uncertain about the implications for their organisation.

Even amongst those aware of the upcom-ing changes, organi-sations are clearly wor-ried about successfully meeting the criteria. In a study by Veritas Technol-ogies, 32% stated that their current tech stack was unable to effective-ly manage their data.

Earlier this month Snap-chat (Snap Inc) be-came the latest social platform to introduce its self-serve Ad Manager for brands of all sizes. This news quickly follows the extortionate opening share price at $24.48 for a market cap of $28.33 billion back in March, and the recent drop in valuation after the latest quarterly results showed that Snap Inc had an adjusted EBIT-DA of $188,243 million.

In the current circum-stances, a new self-serve Ad platform that encourages advertis-ers to spend less on Facebook and Insta-gram, and more on Snapchat, couldn’t come quick enough! Advertisers will no doubt - if they haven’t already - quickly cre-ate new campaigns on the platform. The reasons are obvious; Snapchat offers a unique environment, unlike any other plat-form, to engage with a younger audience. Digital creativity can be difficult when there are parameters on word limits, image size, or the fact that ads can be text only.

Snapchat offers the opportunity to cre-ate unique native ads that can if done cor-rectly, offer unparal-

leled engagement.

As a performance agency, we under-stand the unique rela-tionship between cre-ative and placement and create advertis-ing strategies that not only reach the right audience at the right time in the right place but with a message that will result in a de-sired outcome or goal.

As a result, we are very much looking forward to combining the crea-tivity the platform will un-

Meanwhile, 21% said that they were con-cerned about potential layoffs caused by finan-cial penalties incurred by non-compliance.The Information Com-missioner’s Office (ICO) also revealed that 2016/2017 was a record year for data protection breaches, fines for un-lawful activities and nui-sance marketing cases.

MC&C are forming a GDPR working party to gather industry views on how GDPR will affect

Innovation InsightSnapchat finally launches UK self-serve Ad Manager

Simon’s Stats

Your MC&C Contact David McDermottDirector of Digitaldavidm@mcand.co.uk

DRTV. We will then feed these views back to the ICO via the DMA. If you would like to be included in this working party please get in contact by 11th August 2017.

“GDPR: One year and counting”

doubtedly provide, with the targeting options we expect to push inno-vation and growth for our clients continually. Whether this turns into brand engage-ment, or even sales, is still to be determined. However, if the goals of a campaign are looking to drive aware-ness, website visits, video views, or even app installs towards a younger audience bias, Snapchat will be the perfect environment for brands to engage.

Furthermore, due to the unique environment that Snapchat pro-vides, bespoke cam-paigns can be created for the audience which you are targeting, thus providing a richer na-tive experience and higher engagement.

The digital team at MC&C will be con-tinually reviewing the options Snapchat pro-vides with our brands business objectives to offer unique creative solutions to reach this in-demand audience.

Your MC&C Contact Ben FosterDigital Client Directorbenf@mcand.co.uk

As marketeers we crave information about our cus-tomers and potential cus-tomers to produce and optimise the most effec-tive campaigns possible.

Before the digital rev-olution obtaining this data was highly time consuming and often important decisions were made extrapolat-ing non robust trends from small data sets.

However, the challenge evolved from one of data scarcity to one of resource and exper-tise as suddenly we had more data than we could process and analyse.

For example IBM predict that by 2020 the digital

sphere will be 40x big-ger than it is current-ly with the equivalent of Google launching every day and over 1m new devices becoming connected every hour. This scenario has creat-ed new departments of data scientists chal-lenged with finding the hidden gems of insight lost in a sea of data. Just as many organi-sations were adapting to this new world the challenge has changed again, with new data legislation designed to protect individuals both in the collection and use of personal and behavioural data. So how do we avoid slipping back into a challenge of data scar-city? Taking an in depth look at the leading technology companies, such as Uber, provides the best opportunity for future gazing. Despite having logged in data they have built a model on knowing a few things about a lot of people rather than a lot about

a few people. This data can then be combined with other data sources to create a comprehen-sive view without the challenge of data col-lection and permissions. Those at the bleeding edge of the technology sector are using minimal amounts of their own data to stitch togeth-er the vast and accu-rate data points from the big three (Face-book, Google & Am-azon), and overlaying AI based on emotional recency. IBM Watson

It’s Crude But Data Is The New Oil

Your MC&C Contact Stuart LonerganJunior Analyststuartl@mcand.co.uk

MC&C introduced a Charity Days scheme: the opportunity for every employee to spend a day each year assisting at a charity of their choice. To take advantage of this opportunity, in April this year I spent the day with SHP at two of their hostels in Islington & Camden.

track over 525 different marketing KPIs, but has determined that the core metric is NPS (net promoter score) and all other marketing goals are influenced by it. Consumers no longer have the same loyalty to brands as only 5 years ago, this has been re-placed with emotional connections to brands which are much more volatile. This means that maintaining standards of product, proposition and user experience is

more important than ever. In the marketing world, Byron Sharps mes-sage of building brand affinity also remains as pivotal as ever, it’s just the comms planning to deliver that goal that has evolved. So to deliv-er growth look beyond just purely short term ROI based KPIs. Start look-ing at engagement, sentiment and consid-eration scores as long term goals which both the MC&C digital team and MUSE can help you monitor and model.

SHP have been provid-ing accommodation and support services to some of the most vul-nerable people in Lon-don since 1975, current-ly supporting around 7,000 clients a year.

Their clients are battling, amongst other things, mental ill health, home-lessness, drug and alco-hol addiction, offending and family breakdown. 60% of these clients fall into the category of ‘multiple needs,’ ex-

periencing several of the aforementioned issues simultaneously.

A key tool in recov-ery and development is SHP’s Opportuni-ties Programme. This programme focuses on ‘life skills develop-ment, employability and the building of so-cial networks’ through a breadth of activities ranging from yoga to IT.

Under this banner, I spent the day with Ari-

Thursday 20 July 2017 The MC&C Gazette

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ana of the Green Spark initiative, helping with weeding, clearing of beds and vegetable planting in the hostel gardens. I was fortu-nate enough to spend the afternoon with a cli-ent who was incredibly warm and frank about her experiences and the positive impact that SHP had had on her life.The day was enjoya-ble and humbling, and something I would rec-ommend to anyone who has the opportunity.

News from the MC&C Team