Currently, the marketplace is becoming a crowded playground filled with top brands competing for attention. Companies need to use a tool that can provide them with an edge and today that edge is ‘Interactive Ads’.

An interactive advertisement is exactly what it says on the tin, it is an opportunity for consumers to not just watch but click, swipe and interact with the brands marketing material.

In my previous blog posts I have demonstrated how interactive ads are becoming the go-to-tool for consumer engagement and how interactive ads can be implemented successfully to increase consumer engagement, which leads me to…. Creating a guide on how interactive ads can be tracked and monitored to reveal digital marketing success or failure.

Key argument

According to Novinson (2017) the issue with interactive ads is that it is difficult to measure the channels success, engagement figures and return on investment (ROI). With social media platforms embedding a variety of tools to monitor consumer engagement, Novinson’s (2017) critique is about to be challenged to reveal whether the target markets adores the ad or despises them!

Click any of the names below to get an indication of top brands investing in interactive ads:

Volkswagen              Audi                Dominos                   Reebok

 

 

  

 

Tips and tricks on how to companies can monitor engagement signaling success or failure:

Firstly lets choose a recent example of BMW involving a celebrity endorsement (Gigi Hadid) to promote their vehicle in an interactive ad.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nlB3Zsr-heE

 

BMW effectively investing in a celebrity endorsement will enable the company to identify and monitor interaction by simply clicking on the individuals sponsored post or typing in ‘BMW Gigi Hadid’. This will enable the company to gain an insight of consumer feedback, indicating if the interactive ad was a success or not.

A simple search on Twitter displayed the following:

Screenshot 1 presents a ‘proud’ consumer congratulating the celebrity for completing an Interactive Ad with BMW. By the consumer tweeting, her followers with the same interests would pick up on the interaction and most likely watch the ad, generating more views and engagement.

 

 

 

Screenshot 2 below by Carlos encourages his followers to view the ad and receives an additional two Retweets which spreads the ad further to more potential viewers.

 

 

Screenshot 3 communicates her tweet with Chinese, which illustrates that her followers could be of Asian descent, resulting in BMW targeting a wider demographic. These simple engagements on Twitter demonstrate positive engagements ending with the ad achieving marketing objectives!

 

 

Another tool on Twitter that disputes Novinson’s (2017) critique is the impression tool. Twitter has embedded the instrument to each user and tweet, establishing an easy feature for companies to use for measuring their digital marketing reach. With the combination of using the Twitter Search Bar and the impressions tool, companies can directly see the engagement figures they are acquiring on consumers.

 

Facebook can also be used to track/monitor ad success:

 

 

The number of responses it gets for each post is quite astonishing compared to other brands I’ve looked at, it probably averages around 50,000 ‘likes’ and it’s not uncommon for posts to exceed 100,000. The ‘Likes’, ‘Comment’ and ‘Share’ function on Facebook is another example of social media platforms implementing features for brands to track consumer engagement and feedback!

Here’s an example of a poorly executed interactive advertisement created by Burger King…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4lNerrV8wuw

 

YouTube is another platform companies could utilise to review performance of their digital marketing ad. YouTube also has similar metrics to determine campaign feedback against the Interactive Ads. The quantity of ‘Thumbs Up’, ‘Thumbs Down’, ‘Shares’ and ‘Comments’ are all functions businesses can review to gain an insight of the public’s perception on the content. The amount of views is also an indicator signaling if the marketing campaign is a viral hit or not!

Critical analysis

Customer satisfaction and service quality have been conceptualized as two of the most fundamental constructs. At a corporate level, this is evidenced by the continued reliance of companies on satisfaction metrics to assess customer responses to their products and digital marketing campaigns in the belief that high levels of satisfaction may lead to increased customer loyalty, intention to purchase, word-of-mouth recommendation, profit, market share, and return on investment.

Figure 1: A Conceptual Framework for the Process of Engagement, Bowden (2009)

This model of engagement proposes a generalised process of consumer engagement. The purpose of the consumer engagement applied to digital marketing is to provide management within marketing a service theory that demonstrates the necessity of moving beyond merely satisfying customers to engaging customer segments at a deeper, relationally based level.

Ultimately Novinson’s (2017) critique of interactive ads has been counteracted as the social media platforms have introduced measurement tools and relating to Bowden (2009) consumer engagement model, sales after interactive ads can be applied to the framework as it represents the result of both positive and negative feedback provided by consumers, illustrating success or failure from the digital marketing campaign.

 

References:

Bowden, J. L. H. (2009). The process of customer engagement: a conceptual framework. Journal of Marketing Theory and Practice, 17(1), 63–74.

Bowden, Jana, and David Corkindale (2005), “Identifying the Initial Target Consumer for Innovations: An Integrative Approach,”Marketing Intelligence & Planning, 23 (6), 562–573.

Busacca, Bruno, and Giovanna Padula (2005), “Understanding the Relationship Between Attribute Performance and Over-all Satisfaction,” Marketing Intelligence & Planning, 23 (6), 543–561

Moorey-Denham. (2004). Interactive ads more effective at building awareness. [online] Available at: https://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/interactive-ads-effective-building-awareness/199184 [Accessed 17 Mar. 2018].

Novinson, E. (2017). Advantages & Disadvantages of Interactive Marketing. [online] Bizfluent. Available at: https://bizfluent.com/info-8165647-advantages-disadvantages-interactive-marketing.html [Accessed 27 Mar. 2018].

Smart Insights. (2017). Digital marketing strategy: How to structure a plan? | Smart Insights. [online] Available at: https://www.smartinsights.com/digital-marketing-strategy/ [Accessed 17 Mar. 2018].

The Drum. (2017). BMW plans to use more customer engagement metrics to steer content drive. [online] Available at: http://www.thedrum.com/news/2015/11/16/bmw-plans-use-more-customer-engagement-metrics-steer-content-drive [Accessed 27 Mar. 2018].

Video Increases website Conversions Brand Engagement ROI NYC. [online] Available at: http://17production.com/services/video-increases-engagement-website-conversions/ [Accessed 14 Mar. 2018].