Overview
In an ABM world, marketers expect precision from their ad campaigns and a personalized touch to help grab the attention of their intended audience. One of the best ways to do this is to add in dynamic Site Customization.
Thinking through your ad customization strategy and executing to your team's standards can pay off through showcasing your brand’s sophistication and relevance. Here are best practices that will make your next campaign standout and help you avoid the pitfalls common to customized ads.
- Choose customization that makes sense for your campaign
- Use customization on the final frame
- Make the customization stand out
- Think about word-wrap
- Think about the CTA experience
Best Practices
Choose customization that makes sense for your campaign
“Customization” can mean a lot of things for a dynamic ad, and choosing the right type for your strategy is key. Examples of customization can be a company’s name inserted dynamically into an ad when a target account gets served the ad. Or it could be an industry name that’s inserted, or a zip code, or even a custom attribute on which your team decides. Here are some things to consider when deciding on your customization approach.
By Company Name
Company name usually stands out the best and causes people to take notice of an ad. Use it to reach out to your brand initiates or to make a strong, initial impact to a potential new account.
By Industry or Vertical
Industry or vertical has a slightly softer feel. It gets the point across that the ad is personalized without seeming too aggressive.
Multi-touch
You can use a multi-touch campaign approach where you can use more than one customization in the same campaign, such as industry and company name. For example, you could start with a 1st touch campaign using industry and a general message as these targeted accounts become familiar with your brand. Then you could follow this up with a 2nd touch campaign using company name and have a more explicit message or offer on your products, fine-tuned to the specific prospect. This lets the account know you’re talking to them directly, that you know their purchasing intent, and you’ve got the offering they need.
Use customization on the final frame
Some web pages can be very busy, almost guaranteeing that your ad initiates without the intended audience looking at it. This can result in the opening frame in an animated banner being missed and the viewer only seeing perhaps some movement and then the final frame. For this reason, we recommend putting the customization at least in the final message for the greatest impact. Of course, it will be even more impactful if you customize all frames when possible. This way there is no mistaking these ads are intended to be relevant to them.
Make the customization stand out
Customization can be one of the best ways to give your ad campaign something special and potentially double your audience engagement, so it's important to make it stand out visually. This can be achieved by simply adding a contrasting color to the customization to draw attention to it on a busy web page.
Think about word-wrap
When you use dynamic site customization, the character length of the text you are personalizing will change depending on who is looking at the ad. For example, company name values can vary quite a bit in length. Some longer names might cause text to unintentionally overlap and obscure important elements such as your logo, the CTA, or a background image. To ensure your ad layout will work for longer text, use placeholder text such as “{A Long Company Name Goes Here}.”
Think about the CTA Experience
These best practices apply to any type of ad campaign.
Be specific
Don’t just go with the old standards like “Learn More” if what you really want your targeted audience to do is watch a video or you have a free eBook to offer. Of course, there is nothing wrong with “Learn More” if you’re doing an awareness campaign and you just want to bring the uninitiated to your site. But if you have a specific action you want them to take, we recommend using fun, engaging, even unexpected CTA verbiage.
Avoid using the word “Download” in your CTA
Security issues are ever-present in people’s minds these days and the word “download” suggests that by clicking the ad a file might download immediately to the viewer's system. This might dissuade viewers from clicking your CTA. We recommend using a different action verb. For example, “Get the eBook” instead of “Download the eBook.”
Make ads a companion to the landing page
Think about the user experience of going from your customized ad, clicking the CTA, and reaching the landing page. Your ad campaign is the teaser to get your targeted audience to your landing page and to take a specific action there. If they are confused about where they were led or are turned off by inconsistent design, you’re likely to lose their online engagement for the foreseeable future.