Everywhere consumers turn, they are bombarded with ads. So how can you possibly work past the ad fatigue and banner blindness to reach new customers? Below are some tips and tricks to keep people engaged despite today’s glut of information.
User-generated content engages customers
User-generated content (UGC) such as unboxing videos and customer reviews make your banner and video ads personal. That personal touch lends an authenticity to your ads that today’s customers find extremely compelling.
Let’s face it: The advertising market has gotten a bad rap over the last decade. Customers have become savvy to manipulation through lighting, special effects and trick photography. A 2013 survey found that 76% of consumers think ads are either very or somewhat exaggerated. In 2015, further research revealed only 4% of customers trusted the marketing industry. In fact, survey respondents put more faith in lawyers and government officials.
Instead of watching professional ads, customers want to hear about the product they’re going to buy or the hotel they’re going to visit from a real person. Hence the rising trend in user-generated content.
Gone are the days of waiting passively for user reviews to pop up on YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Amazon and Facebook. Platforms such as Billo bring e-commerce brands and content creators together to get the job done almost instantly. On Billo, you can describe the unboxing, product review, tutorial or testimonial you want, and content creators apply to complete the tasks for you. All you have to do is select the creator you want to collaborate with and send your product. Product in hand, the creators design and upload a video you can post anywhere on social media.
Add These Trends to Your Marketing Plan
Video ad sequencing tells a story
Thirty-second ads were designed for television watchers. They are the dinosaurs of online video marketing. Today’s online content viewers are autonomous and have notoriously short attention spans. They surf seamlessly between feeds, channels and devices, refusing to stay in any one place for too long.
Thankfully, video ad sequencing revamps outdated half-minute commercials by breaking them into shorter spots that tell stories to customers over a period of time. These sequences can make your ads more memorable than traditional all-in-one 30-second ads.
For example, the Tease, Amplify, Echo sequence starts with a short video to spark curiosity in your customers through rising action or conflict. It then moves to a longer video with more information to deepen engagement. It ends with a shorter video that reminds your viewers of the story and urges them to act. This sequence outperformed 30-second ads in every way, improving brand awareness by 115%, ad recall by 86% and purchase intent by 134%.
The Mini-Series is another video sequence popular with online advertisers. It breaks your ad into separate videos that introduce a conflict, present a climax and resolve a story. This sequencing increases brand awareness by 101%, ad recall by 107% and purchase intent by 134% over longer 30-second spots.
The direct shot is a sequence that drives home your key point with four to six videos from different angles. This sequence is proven to boost brand awareness by 106%, ad recall by 95%, and purchase intent by 132% over 30-second spots.
New technology is making video ad sequencing more and more manageable. For example, Google is testing automated software called “Bumper Machine” that will cut your 90-second videos into six-second bumper ads, which you can then easily edit and use as online spots. Take advantage of tools like this to save time and generate ideas when experimenting with video ad sequencing.
Dynamic remarketing shows relevant content
Dynamic remarketing displays uniquely relevant ads based on the products/services people view on your website. There’s nothing new about remarketing in the sphere of online advertising. Dynamic remarketing, however, puts a new spin on this classic technique.
If you’ve been in the online advertising sphere for any time at all, you’ve heard about retargeting. It’s been around since the stone age of online advertising. Traditional remarketing allows you to reconnect with customers who visited your online stores by inserting your content into their Google ads at a later date. These customers were interested in your products; retargeting gives them another chance to complete a purchase.
So what is the difference between traditional remarketing and dynamic remarketing? Remarketing targets your past visitors with static ads, but dynamic remarketing custom generates new ads for each customer based on previous interactions with your website. Dynamic remarketing not only targets customers who have visited your website, it targets them with the exact products they found most engaging.
Ad fatigue and banner blindness are real, but you can meet the challenge with engaging ads that target customers personally. User-generated content, video ad sequencing, and dynamic retargeting are just three examples of how we are still reaching consumers despite banner blindness.
