Set up online brand campaigns and advertising materials correctly.

In times of Corona or the ongoing Ukrainian war, people are increasingly using the internet, as this channel reflects an up-to-date situation of events almost minute by minute. It may sound heartless, but especially in such difficult times it is particularly important to make use of the mass of traffic on the various platforms.

The set goal of a campaign plays a big role and the resulting channel-specific advertising materials. For example, is the goal of a campaign brand advertising or is the focus on selling product XY?

Most of the time, in the field of brand advertising, we try to convey brand values, which can be very different values such as trust, competence, reliability, innovation, etc. It is only brand advertising that strengthens the relationship between the consumer and the brand or product and forms the emotional part. On the other hand, sales advertising is responsible for motivating customers to buy.

In an ideal situation, an online brand campaign supports an online sales campaign by setting them up so that data generated from the brand campaign can be used for the sales funnel.

For a brand campaign, it is most important to create a high reach as well as an interaction with the brand values. For this purpose, media with strong reach such as online news sites and target group-specific online channels such as YouTube or Facebook are suitable.

For example, it makes no sense to advertise brands or sales advertising for a rollator on TikTok if the target group is between 16 and 24 years old.

Generally, people feel annoyed when they surf online by obvious online advertising and try to ignore it as much as possible. Therefore, it is particularly important here to prepare it channel-specifically and to create an interaction or added value if only possible. Advertising media such as banners do not always have to be boring and often static, but can invite to an interaction. The keyword here is for example gamification or the creation of microsites in half-page ads.

Banners are now quite unpopular with users, but they offer a high reach to convey certain brand values. To create higher interaction with the user, social media is now indispensable. However, the classic brand message should not be transported with glossy images here, as these are immediately identified as advertising.

Focus on providing value to the user and certain content contributions can bring the user closer to the brand values. For example, a brand that focuses on environmental protection can create posts related to the environment and nature, thus positioning itself as an environmentally conscious brand.

I have a product that is environmentally friendly, durable and of high quality compared to the competition, but it is also expensive and appeals to a specific target group rather than a wide mass. I only offer the product online and want to reach people who are environmentally conscious (target group Greenminds).

In order to generate a purchase at the end, it is particularly important to communicate the message and brand values in an easy way so that the quality of the data is as high as possible. Complicated messages or images that cannot be clearly assigned lead to confusion and result in unintended clicks and subsequent rejection.

For the area of brand advertising, the following advertising media can be used in the online area.

• Advertise with banners on various online media (preferably interactive)
• Video advertising materials tailored to the channel (please no 1:1 TV commercials)
• Amazon - the largest destination for product search. (Can be seen as both a brand and sales measure) 

• Static content advertising materials related to the environment and technology
• Channels such as Facebook, Instagram, still generate the largest and most cost-effective traffic
• Channels such as programmatic content placement or networks such as Outbrain are often more expensive, but generate higher quality traffic that enhances my retargeting group.
• Instagram Story Poll Ads that offer interaction with the brand
• Video content series with the goal of luring users to my content website or enabling channel-specific retargeting (here YouTube, Facebook, Instagram are strong traffic drivers).

These are also characterized by simple wording and build on the potential customer's buying pressure. Depending on which brands of advertising materials the user has interacted with, he receives an individual package of sales advertising materials.

It is important to optimize the individual advertising materials on a weekly basis for both the brand and the sales campaign. Advertising materials with poor performance should be questioned and, if necessary, turned off.

Especially after purchase, it is important to keep customers up to date with product updates. Brands must give customers the feeling that they have made the right choice in order to sell them one or two more products afterwards.

Digital campaigns like this must already be carefully considered by both the media and advertising agency at the time of the initial presentation of the advertising campaign, otherwise no optimal result can be achieved. Unfortunately, it is often the case that classic advertising is produced first and then online advertising materials are derived from it, resulting in poor performance of the campaign.

For this reason, digital agencies are springing up as they have acquired the knowledge for such campaign implementations.