Introduction

When people are confronted with a broken car window their first reflex is often to go to the Carglass website and start registering their case. However, we saw that funnels are often abandoned, even though people have damaged windshields.

This is unfortunate for Carglass because people seem to lose the urgency over time and only have their damage repaired at their garage when they go for maintenance. Carglass was losing business because of this. As a result, we needed to remind them to complete their purchase. But how? By providing them a relevant message through a media channel. But how did we decide on what is “relevant”? Carglass decided to bundle forces with both Semetis and AdSomeNoise.

The project

First a datalayer was implemented. A datalayer is a JavaScript object that centralizes all data about a visit, and makes it available for other platforms to use. In our case, our first step was to send it to Google Analytics in order to collect data on do conduct analysis on:

• Car brands that represented the highest volumes
• How car brands impacted conversion rated
• How insurance policies and owner types (e:g leasing) impacted conversion rates.

This showed that the first steps of the funnel already contained significant info we required in order to steer revenue. This was great news as this meant we could start personalizing our messages early on (on more users – upper funnel = larger volumes). We started by making a difference based on high-level damage types (repair vs replace) and included the most popular (personal + fleet) car brands in Belgium (based on our own website/business data). As we quickly ran into a significant number of banners and we wanted to be able to A/B test CTA’s we needed an automated banner creation solution. Therefore we used a data feed that matched the users data signal left behind in the feed in order to automatically compile custom HTML5 banners. Based on what the user selected in the funnel, they would be remarketed (if they didn’t complete booking) with a specific scenario based on their info. Either a replace / repair would be shown while the car’s dashboard would showcase their particular car. Moreover, ad copy would refer to their car brand as well. This campaign worked so well, that we kept improving it. We have integrated a third-party weather & location API that adds another variable to the mix. If users entered the funnel and are being retargeted AND it will start freezing within 5 days, an additional “freeze” layer will be added to the banner. This indicates the urgency to book their appointment and get the window fixed.

Results & Impact

Our ROI sky-rocketed thanks to this data driven approach. For every euro invested, Carglass received 290 euro’s back. Compared to the latest static/generic remarketing campaign, we achieved an increase in ROI of 4X ! 

This is a significant case that is regarded as the first of its kind as it combines not only a data-driven media approach, but also a data-driven creative approach with the client playing an active role in the project. A new era has dawned, and it’s data-driven.

This case got published on Think With Google, check it out here. 

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The global Doritos slogan is ‘For the Bold’, this because it focuses on a very young target group (16-24-year-olds). However, in Belgium the brand did not have strong connotations with boldness, so we had to install the ‘For the Bold’ concept by creating a push brand awareness campaign with limited budget/resources in the first phase. Based on research on this target audience and our limited resources, we decided this should be a 100% digitally focused campaign, more specifically leveraging social & content with a series of funny short videos while creating an environment for it to become viral on YouTube/Skynet & Facebook.

In the second phase, we challenged three celebrity Belgian influencers via the ‘What do you dare’ campaign. Doritos proposed two challenges: Would you dare skydiving blindfolded or would you rather dare to go zip-lining backwards instead? The influencers created a teaser video to explain the Doritos ‘For the Bold’ campaign and they described the two challenges. They asked their followers to vote on their favorite challenge on the Doritos Facebook page. This ensured brand engagement with the target audience. Subsequently the influencer had to accept the winning challenge together with a winning follower that voted. Finally, the influencer created a bold video of the challenge execution and promoted it on various social media channels => a smart way of creating quality content with a limited budget.

Via those collaborations we created epic and engaging content to attract the attention of our very young target group. This was a 100% digital campaign that showed great results in terms of awareness and engagement, >400K video views on YouTube (3.3 M impressions) & >500K views on Facebook (1M Reach, 2.1K post likes & 520 comments + >41K influencer video views & 487 comments). In terms of brand lift, the campaign produced a 63.7% in ad recall NL & 58.6% in ad recall FR.

The media choice and combination between influencers and digital proved to be right in terms of dynamism, engagement and most importantly results.

This report highlights some of the biggest search trends impacting the industry in 2017. The trends revealed deliver influential insights for advertisers to respond and adapt their strategies accordingly. In a nutshell, smartphone usage is still transforming our world. Technology is growing at an exceptionally quick rate changing the customer experience continuously.

Search Engine Advertising

Shopping ads 2.0 a welcome shift for advertisers

Within the retail industry, shopping advertisement is one of the key areas where mobile has had a significant impact. Shopping ads were already extremely hot for retailers in 2016, but it skyrocketed in 2017. Among the findings in Merkle's Digital Marketing Report, shopping ads accounted 52% of retail search ad clicks. Actually, the ad format has been around for a while. Google rolled it out to all US advertisers in 2011, three years later the feature became available in Belgium. The spending on Shopping rose by 23% year on year in Q1 2017, compared to 12% for text ads. Two main drivers are accountable for this meteoric rise. First and non-surprisingly, the growing impression volume on mobile. Secondly and more particularly, the growth was largely driven by non-brand queries.

Google upped the shopping game in July of 2017 when revealing the brand-new ad format: Showcase Shopping ads. These ads offer a more immersive ad experience. A click on the ad does not send searchers to a landing page but instead expands to show off a catalog of relevant products. This enriches both the search engine results page and gives retailers more options when it comes down to creative messaging. The objective of this format is to answer broad category queries with showcase cards, which PLA could not. With showcase ads each slot highlights a different retailer, allowing advertisers to communicate on other differentiators than price to seal the deal. Important note is that the large card format has an impact on the visibility of others, as fewer ads are shown. It is thus expected that the fight for the limited number of visible placements will be harder in the months to come.

More accurately link the online & offline worlds

Jorg Snoeck estimated that from all 80.000 shops in Belgium only 50.000 will remain. With 30.000 stores shutting down on the mid-long term, shopping appears to have moved from traditional brick-and-mortar retail to e-commerce. Notwithstanding, digital-first brands are starting to open up their physical stores. So, perhaps things aren’t changing as drastically? It becomes obvious that both channels, brick-and-mortar and e-commerce, should come together to create a seamless omnichannel experience. To understand the journey from online to offline, it has been historically difficult to measure the impact of digital media on local spending. Many companies have been working on the problem, including Google, who introduced store visits tracking two years ago. AdWords teamed up with Google Maps to estimate store visit conversion by looking at phone location. Simply being near a store doesn’t automatically count as a visit, there are additional considerations like time to filter out fast passants and people who work there for example. The challenges this measurement system encounters are predominantly scale and location precision. Therefore Google has started experimenting with beacons to augment store visit accuracy and improve its algorithm.

Google maps part of the ad inventory unlocking next level of local advertising

The fact that Google is investing to improve the technology behind the algorithm is not coming by surprise. In the “mobile first” era, consumers conducting searches with hyperlocal intent is growing 50% faster than mobile searches overall. To stay on top, advertisers’ hyperlocal marketing efforts will soar in 2018. As such, it is getting much more serious about ads on Maps. Adapting to this trend, Google is bringing what it calls more “branded and customized experiences” for marketers to Google Maps. Advertisers will be able to position branded pins along their target audiences routes. We are likely to see an evolution in terms of ad formats for marketers to include promotions and discounts to encourage store visits over time.

Search Engine Optimization

As little clicks as possible with featured snippets

When going back to the basics, Google’s number-one mission is to answer users’ queries in as little clicks as possible. As such, it is a common-sense assumption that SERP features significantly reduce the overall number of clicks for organic search results. A study conducted by onthemaps.com uncovered some interesting insights worth sharing. When which SERP feature appears is linked to the intent the search query implies. The intent was categorized into three types:

1. Informational: find specific information
2. Navigational: show intent to navigate a specific site
3. Transactional: queries that imply a transaction

Featured snippets and Related Questions appear the most for informational search queries. The search results for navigational queries on the other hand are dominated by Site Links and Knowledge Panels. Thirdly transactional queries are mostly answered by Site Links and Ads. As hypothesized, organic clicks drop by 19% when there featured snippets pop-up and by 11% when related questions are shown. Sitelinks on the other hand do not steal away traffic form the organic results. This is expected since their purpose is not to answer a question but to take users to another page. Overall the SERP features appearing for top-of-funnel queries can significantly cut into your site traffic if you are not featured in one. As such advertisers should aim at appearing in highly coveted features as they can result in a welcome boost.

The end of words: Emoji taking over

Have you ever tried to type the “Statue of Liberty” emoji into your Google search bar? Yes, simply inserting an emoji allows you to find what you are looking for and be redirected to a brand’s website. Emoji search is the next generation of hashtags and it is becoming more popular. Smileys and ideograms are ingrained in our communication. But are they here to stay and should brands invest in them? A MojiLaLa study examined the adoption rate of emoji usage among smartphone users in the U.S. The outcome? 86% of smartphone owners use emojis regularly, that number jumps to 96% among those 18 to 34 years old. No signs are seen that this would slow down. In the past several travel websites, Twitter, Instagram, Google, YouTube, WhatsApp have added the capability to search using emojis to their platform. However, search engines are still in a deep learning pathway to interpret a single emoji. Context matters to deliver relevant results consistently. Still, the technology is evolving rapidly, and search results from emoji will soon become more refined. In the meantime several advertisers have started setting up experiments with emoji search.

The end of words: Voice taking over

In 2016, 20% of all mobile searches on Google were done by speaking. According to ComScore’s predictions, this rate will jump to 50% by 2020. Knowing that 60% of all searches are conducted on a mobile device, voice search is no longer distant future. There are characteristic differences between text search and voice search. First off all voice searches are predominantly mobile, longer, contain more words and are rather sentences whereas text search are mostly just several keywords. In addition voice search queries are in particular questions (Who?, What?, How?). Following the trend that mobile and local  are strongly interlinked, voices searches are mainly locally oriented.

Does the arrival of voice search mean the end of typing? No, to a great extend voices searches are added on top of all the rest. Just like emoji search, the accuracy of the voice platforms is evolving fast. Google for example has read more than 3.000 books to train itself in understanding conversations.

This report highlights some of the biggest search trends impacting the industry today. The trends revealed deliver influential insights for advertisers to respond and adapt their strategies accordingly. In a nutshell, smartphone usage is still transforming our world. Technology is growing at an exceptionally quick rate changing the customer experience continuously.

One thing we noticed in putting this list together is that mobile and offline integration kept popping up, repeatedly. However, these trends are not only about technology, it’s about bringing together the power of technology with a strategy that embraces the change. As we round the bend to 2018, we get a sense of what’s ahead.

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