3 "Cs" for Building Successful Display Creative

What are the three "Cs" to keep in mind for building a successful display campaign? Focus on clarity, connection, and change.

Creative optimization is key to driving performance from programmatic display campaigns. It’s crucial for creative agencies and designers to work closely with programmatic optimizers in order to produce improved ads based on campaign performance data.

There are three Cs to prioritize when building ads for programmatic campaigns:

1. Clarify

The first C of creative is to focus on a clear message. Display is a push marketing tactic and is used to introduce new potential customers to the advertiser’s brand, products, and services. It’s easy for advertisers to build creative based on what they know about their industry and products, but as viewers are being pushed a message rather than actively seeking it out, advertisers must be completely clear in who they are and what they want the viewer to do.

Clear messages like “Our product does XYZ, and is important to you for reasons 123” inform the ad viewer what you want them to do, why they want to do it, and how they go about it. Clear messaging is the best way to capture viewers’ attention and get them engaging with new products and services.

Check out this example of clarity in creative from John Lewis. They created a calendar to introduce a new product each day of the month and gave a specific offer each day. Their message was completely clear, and users knew exactly what actions to take on the website. No doubt they sold more orange floor lamps than ever!

2. Connect

Telling a story and emotionally connecting audiences is the best way for advertisers to achieve brand awareness and recall, which is why the second C of creative is to use ads to connect with the audience.

Using programmatic, Burberry ran this Burberry Kisses campaign to connect their audiences with those they love, building both a fondness for their brand and a connection to their target users.

Advertisers must think of unique ways to connect to their target audience, and using creative within programmatic display campaigns is a fantastic way to get these ads out to the masses and test different messages for performance.

3. Change

We are living in a dynamic environment, and ads must be adapted and changed based on a number of metrics starting with campaign performance. The final C of creative is the most important and is all about being dynamic and changing creative.

Using A/B testing and audience segmentation within programmatic campaigns should be the key driver of creative optimization and change. Optimization teams should be feeding back performance data and new audience information to guide these changes.

Creative also needs to be changed based on seasonality, industry trends, and updated messaging. Consumers expect to have updated information within all content including advertising, and advertisers need to adhere to this expectation.

All advertisers should be running with dynamic creative in order to update ads in real-time. They can be linked to product or news feeds for quick adaptation and always relevant messaging.

Understanding the three “Cs” of creative and adhering to the suggestions above is the best way to achieve improved performance from programmatic display campaigns.

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