SINGAPORE – CtrlShift, an audience-focused marketing solutions company, has launched its global suite of managed end-to-end solutions, r3 (r-cube).
The suite of managed solutions applies deep insights based on complex data to deliver smarter and highly targeted digital campaigns for brands across multiple channels. r3 – relevance, response, results – uses data, technology, and human expertise to help marketers better plan and run their digital brand campaigns to deliver the right ads to the right audience on the right channels. Brand marketers simply need to provide a brief of their desired campaign outcomes, and using r3, CtrlShift strategises and executes a multi-channel campaign to deliver the desired results.
The integrated solution suite ensures high-impact campaigns are delivered with effective reach, through a dynamic process of enriching audience segments throughout the campaign, on a continuous cycle. It also offers brands a single view across all digital channels, allowing marketers to easily oversee, assess and manage different elements of their digital campaigns.
Deepika Nikhilender, CEO of CtrlShift, said: “Too many marketers think that programmatic is simply about cutting costs, but it has now evolved to be more data-driven and technologically advanced. r3 marries this evolution of programmatic and in-depth audience data, so that marketers are able to strategise, implement and measure digital campaigns that drive business goals.”
A departure from the conventional linear approach of simply setting parameters at the start of a campaign and delivering the outcomes, r3uses a cycle approach to provide higher precision across the different facets of the campaign – channels, audiences and budget allocations. Artificial intelligence (AI) is used to analyse campaign data and learning from the past seven years, like a ‘feedback’ system, to recommend improvements to campaign strategies. These recommendations are generated throughout the campaign, allowing continuous adjustments, giving marketers the best bang for their buck.
Case study (news release continues below the case study)
An auto insurance company leveraged the audience enhancement capabilities of r3 to enrich its audience segments using third-party data, with the objective of achieving more precisely targeted campaigns, more cost-efficiently. Using r3, the cost per lead was 25% lower. Through its proprietary trading platform, CtrlShift first analysed audience performance using first-party data, which revealed that audiences with an affinity for real estate were particularly responsive. This audience segment was unexpected, as the company never thought of targeting people interested in real estate. Data insights were used to further determine the best third-party audience segments with real estate components. Specific audience segments were proposed by an AI recommender system, based on learnings drawn from segment performance on campaigns run over the last seven years. This eliminated the inefficient process of trial and error. An aggregated view of the campaign’s performance across all channels also facilitated selection and in-depth analysis of the most responsive audience. This enabled the creation of new and more targeted segments which were applied to the campaign in the next round of optimisation. The implementation culminated in more efficient and sharper audience retargeting using third-party data, while achieving a cost per lead that was 25% lower than a campaign that used only first-party data. |
Traditionally, different agencies or teams are responsible for different campaign components across multiple channels – social media, search, online display, mobile and in-app. This often results in isolated planning, as well as fragmented measurement and reporting. CtrlShift addresses this problem by using its proprietary software that unifies data from different channels, presenting a common basis for comparison. This allows brands to have a single view, and fairly measure engagement statistics and audience activity across multiple channels.
Insights generated by r3 are also beyond basic impressions of ‘clicks’ and ‘views’. They include gender, browsing behaviour, intent and affinities. The reports comprehensively measure the performance and effectiveness of each digital campaign, empowering marketers to strategise the next steps for their campaigns.
Silvia Siow, Regional Lead, Strategic Planning at CtrlShift, said: “By harnessing the AI capabilities of our proprietary trading platform, r3 is able to offer insights that raise the industry standard in campaign management and reporting. This ensures a more precise and optimal campaign that marketers need to be accountable for.”
Besides precision in targeting, ad fraud, viewability (ensuring ads are actually viewed) and brand safety are also concerns often faced by marketers when running digital campaigns. r3 mitigates these issues through active ad fraud detection, website verification and viewability checks. Ad fraud detection is conducted before and during the campaign to ensure ads are not placed on sites with bot clicks or ad layering. r3 incorporates technologies which verify websites using brand limits to eliminate any sites not aligned to the brand identity (gambling, pornographic, religious, political websites). Viewability standards (targets) are set at the start of campaigns and viewability metrics are reviewed throughout to ensure standards are adequate and adhered to; confirming that the ads are being viewed by the intended target audience. These features ensure campaigns are run in a trusted and safe ecosystem.
“When implementing a digital campaign, marketers often need to navigate a complex network of channels and specialised technology solutions such as data providers, data management platforms, demand-side platforms, exchanges, creative delivery systems as well as analytics and verification tools, while being mindful of their brands’ digital safety and security. r3 integrates all the necessary technology and human expertise into a single solution that is free from such confusion, empowering marketers to roll out impactful campaigns,” said Silvia Siow.
Asia-Pacific (APAC) currently accounts for 22% of global programmatic spend (Programmatic 2016), making it the second largest programmatic region; this is expected to leap to 49% by 2020. As the twinning of programmatic and audience data continues to yield successful and cost-effective results, marketers will realise how solutions like r3 can effectively empower and prepare marketers for the future of programmatic and digital campaigns.
