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Facebook’s Advertising Adversely Affected

Shabbir Chunawalla

Facebook revenue declined sharply since its access to iPhone data has been restricted by Apple on account of change in its privacy rules. There is anti-trust scrutiny of Facebook around the world. There is a decline in the user base. Still Facebook attributed its likelihood to miss the target of $10 billion in ad revenues due to changes initiated by Apple Advertisers who find that their ads had become less effective. Even Google which also sells personalised ads on iPhones gets unfair advantage — allege Facebook. Facebook has to seek consent of the iPhone users for being tracked, but Googles search results and browser do not have to. Thus some ad budgets shift to Google for more effective targeting.

Google has already decided not to use iPhone users data where permission has to be sought. Google does not depend on third party data as Facebook does, since Google runs its own operating system Android and its own ad exchanges.

While doing Google search too, consumers leave behind valuable data which is enough to do effective advertising across Google-owned properties. That is an incentive to advertisers to prefer Google as the media.

Facebook finds it difficult to show whether the ads on its platform lead to sales and thus makes the platform less valuable. It lacks the conversion data. It makes real-time decision-making difficult.

Google banned cross-site tracking through its safari browser since 2017, and that was extended to third-party search engines. As an alternative it offers Duck Duck Go for search in Safari.

Facebook’s criticism of Apple and Google may attract more scrutiny from regulators.

Facebook alleges Google faces a different set of restrictions from Apple. It implies Apple is lenient towards Google since it uses Google as default search browser and Google pays Apple for this.

Effectiveness of Digital Advertising

Shabbir Chunawalla

The effectiveness of digital ads could be measured by the conversions these ads make. These conversions depend highly on the user experience.

Ad experience is a mix of a web-site’s layout, its behaviour, its content and ads it carries. Experience decides whether a user will come back to the web-site or not. A publisher has to plan the ad experience which generates ad revenue, and makes it comfortable for the user.

Decluttering provides better ad experience. There are annoying ads, e.g. ads that auto-play with sound, pop-up ads, ads that interrupt the reading etc. The NYT carries ads only in banners, and uses the power of native ads. These are more effective than display ads. They seamlessly integrate to the content.

There should be immersive user experience. The idea is to create highly viewable and performance-driven ads. These should flash across display, video and native. They should engage for more time and generate page views.

The Guardian puts several high-impact ads throughout its contents, thus leading to enhanced user engagement, and thus revenues. These ads are interactive.

Page-load time is a key factor — it is the time a web-site takes to load. A user switches to another web-site if the web-site is slow-loading. It leads to loss of ad revenue. It is observed that by improving page load time, the performance increases. The Washington Post uses native banner ads to have excellent page-load time.

A user continues to stay on the web-site. It can be assessed by a heat map. It assessed by a heat map. It shows how a user interacts with the different elements on the web-site. There should be layout optimisation depending on the time spent on a particular element.

The actual content of the ads too matters. The number of ads on a page also matters.

The relevance of the ads to matters.

Tighter Ad Tracking in Europe

Shabbir Chunawalla

Social media platforms such as Facebook and search engine giant Google will face tighter restrictions while tracking the users to target their advertising.

The European Parliament moved to favour rules that restrict platforms from using sensitive data, for example, race or religion for targeting purposes. Users must be given an option to opt out of tracking easily.

A committee of European lawmakers had set measures in December, 2021. These have been made stricter by the result of the vote in January, 2022. The rules will be implemented as early as January, 2023 as part of the Digital Services Act (a measure advanced by European Commission in 2020.)

There will be negotiations about the law with EU member states and the commission. The companies that violate the rules face fines.

Targeting in Digital

Shabbir Chunawalla

These days everything is user-first, user-compliant, and with user privacy as a priority. Thus in future, advertising will operate in cookie-less targeting. Besides, there is Apple’s app tracking transparency network. Still, there would be targeting but it will occur by finding new ways of identifying users at an aggregate level, without going at an individual usage level. There would be contextual targeting — targeting on the basis of context of the app or the website the user is on. It gives indications of user’s intent and preferences.

E-Mail Marketing

Shabbir Chunawalla

Santa distributing Christmas goodies has never become outdated. Similarly email marketing too holds its position provided we know how to use it. In fact, it is more effective than social media at acquiring new customers. Marketers send 3-5 emails a week , and there is greater enagagement with emails.

Globally, email marketing will grow to $22 billion by 2025. Across the world, there are 4 billion email users, and this number is growing.

We can maintain relationship with existing customers by keeping in touch, by keeping them in the loop. They can be updated by newsletters. Newsletters should be concise and crisp, inviting and appealing and must provoke the customers to action. They should be made mobile friendly.

Email marketing builds a rapport with the consumers. Emails are good for pitching. They can draw attention by giving alluring offers and freebies. Prospects can be converted into customers. However, all this is just nudging, and not high pressure. Aggressiveness may send you to the spam folder. Once you get attention, they can be subjected to targeted emailing.

Emails can be personalised. Customers addressed by first name feel good. You can segment the customers by their interests. An email campaign has to be creative, simple and consistent. Customers are given special offers on important days of their life, say birthday or anniversary day.

Email marketing has to be used innovatively to get the best results.

Screen Size for Advertising

Shabbir Chunawalla

In the 1970s, the primary media for advertising were print, radio, cinema and outdoor. Cinema ads were seen in Technicolor on a large screen, say of 500 sq. ft., with an effective sound system. It was a time to enjoy the visuals of Old Spice Surfing ad or Karen Lunel’s Waterfall ad for Liril. It was time to exploit the full impact of the big screen, where captive audience was in attendance.

TV appeared later in its rudinentary form — B & W 21-23 inches set. It reached the homes and bedrooms, and became the family medium. It did not have the booming sound of cinema. It cannot project the dramatic shots of waterfall. There could not be panoramic shots, especially on B&W sets. The characters have to communicate with the families on one-to-one basis. Thus ads with good dialogues were shown. We had Lalitaji’s ad for Surf detergent — Surf ki kharidari mein hai samajdari. This was the scenario in the 1980s. In the 1990s, the TV sets became bigger and better. The screen size expanded so as to accommodate panoramic shots. There were ads such as Fevicol bus.

By the 2000’s, there was computerisation everywhere. Laptops were used extensively, and video messages were delivered through them.YouTube videos became popular since 2005. Ads were to be adopted to computer – laptop screen. A laptop is a one-to-one medium, unlike TV which is a family medium. Thus laptop may need subtitling, since in offices the videos are played in law volume. The screen size had shrunk to 13 inches, but the viewer was just two feet away.

By 2015, India became the biggest consumer of video content on the cell phones. A TV ad may not be perfect for a laptop. And a laptop one may not suit a 5-inch cell phone screen. Should brands run one and the same ad across all these screen? Or should they curate for one medium, and let it play on others? Is it necessary to repurpose videos for each individual medium?

Video consumption in India has shifted primarily to cell phones. It means ads will be seen on 5-7 inch screens. The sound will be heard through weak mobile speakers or through headphones. There is going to be a less than one-feet distance at which the mobile phone will be held from the eyes. There will be passive viewing, as the consumer is likely to indulge in other activities while viewing.

Perhaps, it is time to go hyperclose on mobile screens, say ECU. Maybe, there should be the same language subtitling. Panoramic shots of the film era should be kept to the minimum. The whole technique of ad making for the mobile era has to be evolved. What worked in the past may not work now. Colours, characters, music, dialogues and editing — each element must change.

Brands have to think where they would like to optimise – TV, laptop, mobile or cinema.

Metaverse and Indian Advertising

Shabbir Chunawalla

In India, brands soon must formulate their metaverse strategy. Metaverse is an amalgam of the physical and digital. The implications of this must be understood. There are new opportunities. These days brands have web-sites, social media profiles and apps. Soon each brand will have a metaverse calling card.

Some brands have already created their own virtual world — Warner Bros, Gucci and Hyundai. Some sneak into this world by selling NFTs — Coca Cola, Crockpot and Anheuser-Busch. Some create AR-VR experiences — Nike, HBO, Sephora.

Indian brands so far are indifferent to the metaverse. India has a conducive environment — millions of gamers, mobile game downloads, a thriving film industry in Bollywood capable of producing Bollyverse, good repertoire of cooking recipes and so on. Its a whole new world waiting to be exploited.

Outdoor

Shabbir Chunawalla

There should be regular monitoring of outdoor advertising. There should be suitable rules for maintaining an aesthetic landscape. There should be well-defined and stringent application of these rules. Professional companies must be encouraged, rather than fly-by-night operators.

The formats of the future are Digital OOH and programmatic OOH (DOOH and pDOOH). Outdoors have symbiotic relationship with digital advertising. If OOH increased its efficiency, there is going to be good digital advertising. Outdoor, being in the public domain, helps in more clicks on the digital medium.

There will be greater penetration of outdoor in smaller markets.

There are many challenges. There is lack of unified system of measurement of the effectiveness of the outdoors. There is no specific formula to calculate the RoI. DOOH enables tracking, and thus gives hope.

OOH is changing, and works better than the conventional medium. There is increased traffic, visibility and personalisation. It makes the medium attractive. Content in digital outdoor can be monitored in real time.

Push Notifications

Shabbir Chunawalla

Push notifications can be made creatively to vest them with advertising value. Maybe, they are not worthy of replication, but sure they cannot be ignored. Zomato made use of online advertising popular among the new age companies. Dunzo too followed suit by creating tiny pop-ups appearing on the phone. Though these notifications make noise, they may not actually lead to sales. That does not deter the brands to make use of them.

While crafting these push notifications, they make use of behavioral insights, cultural cues and wordplay.

In 2016, there appeared context specific push notifications. They were found to be more effective than batch and blast notifications, or non-personalised messages.

On a marketing channel, push notification are more effective than the usual banners, panels and email ads. They enhance a brand’s voice. People expect this type of quirkiness from the company after a point. If they do just routinised messaging, the effectiveness is lost.

Messages rooted in behavioral psychology garner the attention of the people. They get mentions on social media.

Though effective there is a limit to the number of notifications that can be sent and the number of characters which make these notifications. Untimely notifications may irk the readers.

Though puns are popular, they should not overdo them.

Notifications are mini-billboards for a company. You can latch onto topical things. Even moment marketing works.

An onboard customer is chosen for life cycle communication.

Push notifications are segmented and specialised. They carry 15-20 characters in the title and 50-90 in the body. If there are images, you are restricted to 30-40 characters.

The metric used to assess the efficacy of notifications is CTR (clicks on the push button notifications). Another metric is the user’s actual transaction on the app. These metrics may not be completely scientific. But notifications do contribute to brand recall and recognition.

The basic aim of these notifications is commercial gain, and not entertainment.