Mr. Asim Malik conducted a 3-Session Workshop on Performance and Digital Marketing from 29-31 May 2024 at the Lahore School of Economics - University of Colombo Summer Camp 2024. During the 3 sessions he elaborated on Performance Marketing, whether Digital Advertising was ATL or BTL, advantages of digital marketing, the Digital landscape of Pakistan, Brand Safety, abuse of social media, digital marketing strategies, definitions and operationalizations of key digital marketing metrics and KPIs, a ‘view’, MAU and DAU, recommended exposures, cohort overlaps, publishers and tracking displays of content, assets and the use of Keywords, types of audiences, and finally Attribution models and customer journeys. (All the abbreviations are explained below).
Asim noted at the beginning that Performance Marketing was based on conversion campaigns designed to drive sales and revenue. This was located within the Digital landscape which has changed in part and largely due to the ubiquitous presence and usage of the smart phone, as illustrated by the term ‘Nomophobia’ (anxiety and fear of being detached from mobile phone connectivity). In fact, our world is now moving forward to ‘Digital First Approach’.
What is Digital Advertising? It is catching the ‘right audiences’ at the ‘right time’. Is it ATL (Above the Line) or BTL (Below the Line)? Asim thought it could be both depending on its scale, as exemplified by Google blast vs. niche marketing, both under digital marketing and advertising.
Advantages of Digital Marketing: What are the advantages of Digital Marketing and Advertising? You know who you are showing your Ads to. There is active communication, as your viewers at whom you target your Ads can interact with you (target right audience), leaving comments, sharing your posts etc. (Both people and the brand can communicate back). The content is more relevant to your target audience. You can modify your content easily. The costs are lower. The content is always there, as opposed to an Ad run on CNN after which it is gone unless you locate it on YouTube. You can track and optimize your customer’s journey. And it easier to measure your ROI.
Pakistan’s Digital landscape: We have a population of some 250 million, of whom 129 million have access to the internet (more than 50%), there are 191 million with cellular subscription (both smart and Nokia), some 126 million are users of 3G and 4G, some 72 million use YouTube and some 42 million use Facebook (9 million in Sri Lanka). Some 16 million use Instagram and some 48 million use TikTok (at one time known as the Facebook of the poor). Some 20.4 million use Snapchat whose usage is rising in Pakistan. Some 11 million use LinkedIn and some 4 million use Twitter.
Some brands are hesitant to advertise on TikTok because of the concept of ‘Brand Safety’. Why? You do not know which content can come up before your content appears. Also, there was manual cheating of algorithms going on. To take an example, 30 people can sit in a room and tweet for 3 hours non-stop and a trend can be created. Asim also advised all not to give access to their stories to everybody as digital content would continue to exist in the digital space.
Digital marketing strategy would depend on your objectives. What do you want? Do you want Awareness, Consideration, Engagement, Conversion, Advocacy and Loyalty? This is the marketing funnel. If you are a new brand, it may not make sense to go directly for sales: you need to create Awareness. If you need to bring the ‘lapsers’ back to the fold you will need different strategies. You need to know the demographics (geographical location, age, sex, religion, marital status, income) but also the need-states of the consumers (functional, emotional and contextual). You can draw three overlapping circles: Audience at the top, Content at the left, and Inventory (where you want the Ad to appear) on the right.
A segment should be sizeable in the digital world. If it is small, you will get a hard time finding it in the digital space. Also, not all users are online on daily basis, and you will have to chase audiences. And you have to ensure that ‘cohort overlap’ is less than 50%, and if not, you should remove one segment. All of this will be done on Meta.
Digital Marketing Metrics and KPIs: Importantly, Asim introduced key digital marketing metrics and emphasized their operationalizations. Impressions are the number of times your Ad was displayed or shown and equal (Cost/CPM)*1000. Reach was number of unique users your Ad was shown to. Frequency was no of times a user sees an AD. Clicks are the no of clicks your Ad receives. CTR or the Clickthrough Rate is Total Clicks/Total Impressions (expressed as %). CPC or cost-per-click is Amount Spent/Total Clicks. CPM or cost-per-mille is Cost per thousand Impressions or (total campaign spend/no of impressions) *1000 (Note: in French, ‘mille’ is 1000. In French it is pronounced as ‘meel’ not ‘mili’).
CPV is cost per view or (total cost of video/total no of views). For definition of ‘View’ see below). VTR is View Through Rate or the number of completed views of a skippable ad over the number of impressions (Total completed views/Total impressions). CPA is Cost per Acquisition (or Action) or (Total Ad Spend/ no of new customers or leads). CPI is cost per install or ad spend/no of new app installs). Engagement is no of interactions made with your Ad. It can be Likes + Comments + Shares. Some may add Clicks to it as well.
DAU refers to the daily active users of your content. It details how many people visit and interact with one of those platforms every 24 hours. MAU stands for your monthly active users. It follows the same concept, except it keeps track of all your visitors during a month.
What constitutes a ‘View’? On YouTube, when someone sees 30 seconds of a video or less, if the video is shorter than 30 seconds. On Facebook, when someone sees the first three seconds of a video of any length. On Instagram, when someone sees the first three seconds of a video of any length. (From internet: On TikTok, view counts are super simple: the very second your video starts to play visualizations are added. It doesn’t matter how long people continue watching after that or whether their screen is displaying it fully.) ThruPlays is a metric in development, which will count the number of times a video is played to completion or at least 15 seconds.
What is the recommended no of exposures per week (or the frequency of the Ad)? Repetition is important to build habits: One study suggests that 90 days are needed to build the neural pathways to develop a habit. Many experts think that 1.5 to 2 exposures per week are needed. You may need more exposures, and not less, as you go down the marketing funnel from awareness to conversion because it harder to get the people ove down the funnel.
Publishing and Tracking: You can reach a publisher either directly by calling him or meeting with him, or through Google Ads which will allow you and help you to run your Ads on all the listed publishers. But can you know where your Ads have appeared? Yes, you can do it by using tracking. There are some tracking parameters which are included in the payment and for some you have to pay extra. Thus, if the CPM is $0.50, the total CPM may increase to $0.60.
Types of Media, SEO and Keywords: Paid media is when the brands pay for media, such as display Ads, pay per click (PPC), paid influencers. Owned media is where the brands develop their own property, such as their website, mobile applications, and SEO. Earned media is where the brands trigger audiences to advocate them, such as likes, comments, shares, reviews, blogs, ratings etc.
SEO is the process of improving your website or webpage to increase its visibility in Google, Microsoft Bing, and other search engines via natural or unpaid or organic or algorithmic search results whenever people search for products you sell, services you provide or information on topics in which you have expertise.
Keywords can be branded (e.g. Pepsi, Coca-Cola), generic (soda, CSD, soft drinks) or competition based. You bid for your own KW as you would want consumers to buy Samsung from your Samsung website.
Attribution Models: Attribution modelling, also known as channel attribution modelling, is the process of assigning credit to various marketing channels or touchpoints that have contributed to a user's conversion or action (known as an event) on a mobile app. It involves analysing data about user behavior such as app installs, clicks, and impressions, and then tracking the source of that behavior back to specific marketing efforts.
A conversion attribution model helps mobile marketers understand which marketing campaigns or tactics were most effective in driving user engagement, retention, and revenue.
First-click attribution, also known as a first-touch attribution model, awards credit to the first point of contact a user has with a campaign. This single-touch attribution model assumes that the first touchpoint played the most important role in influencing the user's decision to convert.
Last-click attribution, also known as a last-interaction attribution model or a last-touch attribution model, awards credit to the final point of contact a user has with a campaign. This single-touch attribution model assumes that the last touchpoint had the most significant impact on the user's decision to convert.
The multi-touch attribution model assigns varying weights to different traffic sources for an advertising interaction, leading to multiple channels benefitting when a user interacts with a campaign (modified with the help of the internet).
Customer Journey: In the end Asim reminded all to keep the customer journey in mind. From Reach to Clicks only 56% might remain. Then the customer lands on page (another drop), then Add to car, and finally a few will purchase. It is important to keep improving the customer experience across this journey.
The sessions were very well-received and there were a lot of questions.
This note is based on minutes taken during the sessions and effort has been made to verify the definitions and operationalizations by matching them with content on the internet.