Crafting Creative

Creatives are always concerned with the aesthetics of their work. Add the complication of measurable values for that campaign and you have an interesting challenge. While they may not be in charge of tracking the success of a campaign, creatives play a key role in the process. What are some questions creatives ask themselves before conceptualizing a campaign?

Before tracking anything, there needs to be a clear understanding of the campaign goals and KPIs. Increasing brand awareness might require vastly a different tactic than increasing sales. In addition to ironing out solid KPIs, it is important to have a realistic expectation of how trackable the campaign will be. We have a wizard’s eye into how a campaigns perform via click-thru rates and advertising heat maps. Digital advertisers are able to pinpoint the exact portion of an ad the audience is interacting with the most. It’s possible to tell exactly how many people clicked through to your website with digital. While print is far less trackable, it’s not obsolete. If your goal is to get more phone calls, a print ad with copy stating “Mention our ad for 25% off your first purchase” could be a metric of success that is tracked.

Like the example above, where the creative served plays a major role in the performance of a campaign, ads need to meet the audience where they are.  An ad for tequila might not perform as well served on a site for children’s toys as it would on a blog focused on craft cocktails. Ads should stand out in the crowd, but not feel out of place.

The goal of any successful campaign should be to make each viewer the hero of their own journey. An advertisement is a guide along the way. If the client’s goal is to get more interaction on LinkedIn, a user might reach that destination via multiple routes. Some may see an ad on social media while others might find their way via the client’s website. Each route needs to ultimately point to the end result.