Mr. Rubber, Meet Mr. Road: Mobile Marketing Yields a New Level of Media-Buying Accountability
Having a great ad isn’t good enough. You’ve got to get it in front of the right sets of eyes – what the industry calls impressions. That’s where your media buyer becomes a crucial part of the marketing process. This is the person who figures out which eyes matter most, how and where to reach them, and at the best price.
Media buyers have another job as well. They should be able to demonstrate how efficiently your money was spent in reaching the target audience. Thanks to digital technology, that kind of accountability can be provided with an unprecedented level of accuracy.
Recently, Zehnder worked with a tourism and hospitality client in building an innovative campaign that combines mobile technology with outdoor billboards to garner impressions and reach. Here’s how it works.
After identifying the target audience within the geographic area, we placed the client’s ads on strategically chosen digital billboards. But we also used the billboards’ latitude and longitude coordinates to identify mobile devices based on the movement of drivers as they passed by.
Moreover, the campaign allowed us to layer on demographic data like the mobile user’s age to ensure we reached the appropriate users. We were able to retarget those users later with ads in different locations while they browsed on their phones and other mobile devices.
It may sound a bit aggressive, but keep in mind that businesses – perhaps some of your competitors – already use this technology every day. It’s similar to walking down an aisle at the drugstore and seeing a coupon pop up on your phone for your favorite shampoo.
There are also limits on the data that’s accessed. The technology is “opt in,” meaning information is collected only from mobile users who’ve agreed to share application data. Even then, the data is aggregated. We can reach these people, but we don’t collect names or other personal information.
From a dollars-and-cents perspective, mobile marketing is hard to beat. It allows us to zero in on very specific audiences, reach them during touch points throughout the day and reduce the number of wasted impressions.
Clients also get the advantage of trackability, which offers a demonstrable measure of success for clients’ return on investment. For this particular project, we generate a post- campaign visitation report that counts the devices that physically visited the client’s location, providing insight into conversions associated with the campaign.
Mobile marketing is also easier and more affordable than you may think. Contact Zehnder to learn more about this exciting technology and how it can empower your business.
