Problem

Clients were looking for a way to identify target markets for products they wanted to introduce to market and then advertise directly to potential buyers while staying with specific budgets.

 

Solution

The development of this feature was approached in a very agile manner. I first worked to understand the service our internal teams were providing to our customers. By understanding these needs, I was able to conceptualize and develop an internal tool, called Rainmaker. Once the tool was deemed successful for our internal teams, I then began to conceptualize what type of service we could then provide to our clients to reduce the amount of resources being invested by our teams as well as allow ZEFR to scale.  This led to development of BrandID Choice formerly known as ZEFR Media (and in its startup stages Spotlight) which allows users to make use of information discovered within BrandID to create and serve targeted advertisements against specified audiences. The Spotlight interface will support our two main user, which will be both the Brand Manager and Ad Agency.

From this task, I also identified that in order to create a holistic offering for users, we would also need to create an Audience System. This Audience System would:

  • Automatically create a retargeting list for each current Spotlight classification within Spotlight
  • Automatically update and refresh the retargeting lists as new content and classification appear
  • Allow account services to manually indicated (1) when a new retargeting list needs to be created and (2) confirm when it is created

 

Major Features of the Audience System

  • Targeting lists for each individual video in owned and controlled channels
    • The 14k+ videos in owned ZEFR channels are automatically given individual retargeting lists
    • All new videos uploaded to a ZEFR owned or controlled channel are automatically given their own retargeting list
    • The retargeting lists are titled using the video's video ID and the membership duration of the retargeting list
    • Three retargeting lists should be created for each video ID: 30 days, 180 days, 540 days
  • Grouping videos into spotlight combinations
    • For given criteria, Spotlight exports a list of specific video ID's which match criteria within the entire ZEFR network.
    • Retargeting feature of Spotlight will automatically determine which video ID's in the campaign have retargeting
  • Manual override for time sensitive uploads
    • For trailers and other time sensitive uploads, it will be important that a retargeting list be created as soon as the video is uploaded so from the moment of upload viewers are being retargeted
    • Uploaders on the production team should be able to submit the URL of a recently uploaded video and a retargeting list is created immediately

 

Other Major Features of Spotlight

  • Advanced Targeting → Targeting features that allow users to obtain the most reach and engagements from the video campaign.
    • Increase reach of video campaigns with smart target expansion
    • Re-target existing audiences
    • Hyper-target videos related to your brand, products and campaign objectives
  • Media Optimization → Calculates variables in real-time to continually optimize video campaigns
    • Based on budget, users can automate the spend on campaigns based simply on performance helping to minimize spend on low performing targets.
    • A/B testing of various creatives for optimal performance
  • Creative Optimization → Ensure the creative is always relevant for the audience being targeted
    • Multivariate testing to ensure highest performance possible
    • Test creatives in real-time against different audiences

 

Result

  • Prior to completion of the Spotlight tool, average spend with ZEFR on advertising campaigns was $5,000 but after completion of the tool which gave users control of their entire campaign, average spend per campaign increased to $15,00 as the tool allow ZEFR to expand services to advertising agencies and brand managers.
  • Centralization of campaign management process for all internal processes which resulted in quicker optimization reviews and higher customer satisfaction.
  • Display CTR improved dramatically with the development of Spotlight outperforming YouTube benchmarks by 30%.

 

Screenshots

Want to say hello?