Comparison sites are here to stay
Brief: What should a company do about comparison websites?
Challenge: How do sectors that are primarily price lead (insurance, telecoms, travel etc) embrace price comparison sites to their advantage? Companies find themselves being compared directly on price, customer service and other factors against their competitors. With consumers using comparison websites as a key element within their purchase cycle how can price lead markets use them to their advantage.
Proposal: Companies can integrate these comparison sites directly into their own shop fronts i.e. retail and website. As consumers are already with the companies retail properties it would be easier to explain the companies USP and objection handle while they are being compared against their competitors.
The advantages to a company:
- The brand perception would improve for the consumer and they would feel more empowered a good deal has been achieved for their personal needs.
- It is easier to convert consumers while they are within their properties.
- A deal can be negotiated with the chosen price comparison site on exclusivity.
The death of traditional DR accountability
Challenges: How to find the optimum media mix using traditional response rates and cost per acquisition metrics when the consumers journey is not single minded.
Historical: The traditional DR model uses performance metrics that determine the effectiveness of a campaign or publisher (cost per call, cost per action, cost per sale etc) which is based on:
- A customer responds using a unique telephone that is allocated to a media channel, publishers, format and execution.
- A customer click on a search or display advert that is tracked through to the performance metric usually a request, order or sale within a determine session.
Today: Consumers have multiple routes to respond to an advertisement or show an interest in a company. These routes include; telesales, online reviews, comparison sites, social media websites, a brands own website and retail outlets. Consumers having greater control and access routes to a brand result tracking the influence of a specific publisher or campaign problematic.
An answer:
Combine three solutions (that need to work together):
Solution 1: Use response metrics as an indicator that the publisher has the right audience (this could be an index rather than a cost per response) and plan holistically across total sales. Keep learnings based on a major changes to determine any potential performance gains on the bottom line.
Solution 2: The audience that is responding from the above can be targeted based on their profile, media consumption and the brands own response data as the indicator for the most responsive time of day, day of week and day of month.
Solution 3: To truly understand media and publisher performance is Econometrics. The potential to base media planning on econometrics will ensure decisions are based on historical confident factors however there is a strong requirement for learning’s to be timely and as real time as possible. An Econometrics system that feeds automatically off the brands response, sales data and success metrics that correlate the confident factors without human contact could ensure that any commercial gains are identified quickly. The learnings from this type of system would require an experienced planner/marketer to understand the true gains.
Utilising these solutions will ensure historical learnings, audience opportunities and the marketer/planners commercial insight can offer the best possible optimisation and ROI for brands.
The value of post impression for direct response campaigns
Brief:
Is the utilisation of post impression within Online Display campaigns a valid performance metric when benchmarking with other DR media channels?
Challenge:
The optimum media mix for cross media DR campaigns have multiple factors that must be considered such as; response rates, potential volume, conversion rate from visitors to customers and consumer journey. Online display campaigns typically utilise post impression as a performance metric for DR campaigns without the true understand if the creative (banner, skyscraper etc.) actually influenced the consumer to buy a product. The true problem lies when analysing cross media because channels such as TV, Outdoor, Press, Search etc.. are not typically valued with the same metric i.e. if some sees a TV advert and then 15 days later walks into a retail store to buy a product the sale is not attributed back but would be with online display.
Solution:
If a response of a consumer can be transparently attributed back to a media channels then this should be the performance metric i.e. response rate, click through rate, etc... This metric can provide an indication of how close the media placement is towards the point of purchase.
To get a true understand of the full media plan influence upon awareness and consideration then econometrics and path to purchase attribution models can be used.
An important note is that if awareness/consideration is an important element to the campaign then a brand campaign or a brand response campaign can be considered and these campaigns should have their own performance metrics i.e. consumer engagement, brand trackers etc...
Car Insurance Improving Life Time Value
Category: Finance
Market: Car Insurance
Brief:
Customers of a leading car insurer become significantly more profitable once in their 2nd year of cover without claiming due to the original acquisition costs. This became increasing more important to the insurer over the last couple of years as the churn rate significantly increased year of year.
Potential solution:
Analysis of customers could prove that the high churn customers were acquired from online channels especially price comparison sites. However, online price comparison sites tend to be the most efficient channel for acquisition for insurers. An interim solution would be to add a premium onto the policy when customers came through a certain channel, this helps offset the high churn rate and maintain volume from these channels however it is not a long term solution.
A longer term solution would be to devise a performance index that factored the acquisition costs and other desirable qualities the insurer required for a profitable book. These factored could include customers which were less likely to churn, default or claim on their insurance. The result was optimisation by media channel and publisher by a life time value index rather than purely acquisition.
How could this be possible:
- Allocate customers unique identifiers which detail the media channel and publisher that acquire the sale (unique refer tags online and unique telephone numbers offline)
- Customer data for interrogation
Interim solution:
- A premium added to the customers car insurance quotation should be a factor of the churn rate of the channel. The target premium would bring the channel back in line with the average 2nd year acquisition cost
2nd part of the solution
- Allocate customers back to the original media channel, publisher and investment
- The factors (cost per acquisition, churn rate etc) could be allocated a priority to determine the life time value index and ultimately maximised the profitability of the media mix.
- The business should migrate towards these desirable/profitable customers the media should be optimised on a regular basis
Gold DMA Award – Best direct response television or radio advertising
The lead planner for Zurich Financial Services new offering for the insurance market: "Zurich Connect". Responsibility included; the media strategy, audience segmentation, cross channel media recommendations and execution across 14 channels
OBJECTIVES: Achieve a sales target of 147,000. Lead the second-tier insurance players by end of 2009
CAMPAIGN SUMMARY: TV was the principle channel, a sustained online presence was required across display, affiliates, aggregators and search whilst radio extended the reach to commuters to maximise coverage in rapid time.
RESULTS: In launch month, calls and website visits doubled, with record sales (114% of plan) and Gross Written Premiums (112% of plan). Clicks are rising 235% and sales 400% month on month, with sales for July 198% ahead of plan.
Further information: WWW.DMAAWARDS.ORG.UK
Curriculum Vitae
PROFILE:
I am a highly experienced marketer currently working for the 3rd largest advertising agency in the world. I have extensive experience in planning, implementing and analysing marketing campaigns, across brand and direct response disciplines within a wide spectrum of industries.
During my managerial experience, I have developed extensive and invaluable experience of leading brand and direct response marketing campaigns across online, offline and social media.
I have a proven track record at achieving business objectives for multi-million pound advertising campaigns. Having the experience across traditional and new media I am at forefront of planning integrated campaigns across all media.
CORE COMPETENCIES:
- Devising consumer centric marketing strategies
- Leading online and offline marketing skills
- Strategic media planning
- Strong project and team management skills
- Budgetary management and control
- Strong problem solving skills
PERSONAL STATEMENT:
I am a strongly motivated individual with specialist marketing skills and a broad, but in-depth understanding of advertising with the ability, confidence and experience to apply across most sectors.
I have the management skills to lead a team from brief, strategy development, forecasting, implementation and review. My planning skills are consumer centric at the core with a successful record of interrogating customer data to develop actionable insights that have a material impact on business performance.
The experience to ensure opportunities are maximised to offer the greatest commercial gains possible and a proven track record of delivering return of investment for businesses no matter what restrictions the brand or sector may encounter.
The identification of opportunities to achieve objectives has resulted in an innovative approach to marketing with a commercial application. I strongly believe that my marketing excellence for delivering objectives ensures I am valuable asset to any team.
WORK EXPERIENCE:
01/07/07 – Current employment
ZenithOptimedia – Planning Director
3rd Largest advertising agency in the world
Responsibilities:
- Delivering effective media strategies that realise client objectives across all media
- Devising leading consumer centric, innovative & compelling advertising strategies
- Management and development of team of executives and graduates
- Project management of key stakeholders and media departments
Primary media planning and strategy:
| TV | Search | Outdoor |
| Radio | Door Drops | Display Advertising |
| Affiliate marketing | Email Marketing | SMS Marketing |
| Press | Inserts | Mobile |
Strategy and planning across the following brands:
| O2 - Telefónica (2009 - current) Budget exceeding £60 million pa Brand and DR campaigns across all media |
Zurich Insurance (2007 – 2009) Budget exceeding £22 million pa Brand and DR campaigns across all media |
| Open University (2007-2008) Budget £1 million pa Executed online display media |
Tiscali (2008 - 2009) Budget £16 million pa Brand and DR offline media |
| Butlins (2008-2009) Budget £6 million pa Brand and DR across all media |
Other brands include; Electrolux, AEG & Zanussi |
01/09/06 - 30/06/07
Creditplus Ltd – Marketing Manager
Finance specialists
Responsibilities:
- Development and implementation of the advertising strategy
- Manage and development of in house affiliate network
- Improve natural/organic listings (SEO) on search engines
- Manage team of freelance journalists and designers
Primary media skills:
| Pay Per Click | Search Engine Optimisation | Display Advertising |
| Affiliate marketing | Email Marketing | Press |
| Press | Inserts | Doordrops |
31/09/04 – 31/08/06
Artavia/Conrad Advertising – Account Manager
A leading full service advertising agency with seven UK offices and clients across all sectors.
Responsibilities and achievements:
- Designing, implementing, optimising and reviewing campaigns across media
- Managing creative from inception through to execution
- Achieving annual and monthly budget targets for the agency
- Developing new business through new and existing clients
Primary media skills:
| Pay Per Click | Search Engine Optimisation | Display Advertising |
| Affiliate marketing | Email Marketing | SMS Marketing |
| National & Regional Press | Out of Home | Design and Print (D&P) |
EDUCATION:
2000 – 2004 BSC (HONS) Upper 2:1 Business Communication Systems Bournemouth University.
Principle Subjects:
| Project Management | E-commerce | Database Design |
| Website Development | Human Computer Interaction | Business Information Systems |
1998 – 2000 Higher National Certificate in Media Studies at Stratford Upon Avon College. Graded: Merit
1996 – 1998 A levels at Chipping Camden School, Gloucestershire; IT, Drama & Music
1994 – 1996 6x GCSEs graded between A and C at Chipping Camden School, Gloucestershire. Including; English, Science and Maths
PERSONAL COMPUTER SKILLS: Photoshop, Cubase SX, Fireworks, CMS (Joomla), Word Press, HTML, PHP, Database development