Digital Channel Integration from bigmouthmedia

8/4/2019 Digital Channel Integration from bigmouthmedia

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An LBi/bigmouthmedia White Paper

June 2011

When 1+1 is more than 2.

Blending:Digital

ChannelIntegration


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Adam Russsell

Media Account Director, LBi

A lot o agencies want to saeguard their own patch. From mypoint o view, I have always believed in doing what is right orthe client. The vital thing is that the client always has a clearpicture o everything.


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LBi/bigmouthmedia

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Specialists, clients and a twist in the integration story

The steady emergence o individual digital channels into

powerul marketing tools owes itsel in each case to the

specialists who have mastered them, rened them and stretched

their possibilities.

Over the years, experts in SEO, PPC, display, aliate marketing

and, more recently, social media, have rightly lobbied marketers

to treat theirs as a complex discipline that requires single-

minded attention and its own budget. As a result, many clients

retain a variety o digital agencies to manage dierent aspects o

their online marketing.

When agencies work closely together and strategy and data areshared, such an arrangement can work. But amid an increasing

awareness o the inter-dependence o these channels, brands

are looking aresh at their agency relationships as they attempt

to nd a clear overview o their digital activity.

Since long beore the dawn o digital, integration has been a

cyclical trend in media circles, where networks have grown and

diversied and marketing directors have consolidated specialist

accounts within a single group. Ater a period, the reverse trend

kicks in and the specialists rise again.

A version o the integration trend is beginning to take place in

digital, but with a twist that suggests it may be a one-way move.

Part One:

Executivesummary

BLENDING: DIGITAL CHANNEL INTEGRATION

When 1+1 is More Than 2

Case study

The online legal client

SEO, PPC and display

Story Working closely with SEO to identiy core terms -

initially targeting with PPC as SEO rankings improved, then

reducing the PPC ocus, then moving onto another set o

terms.

Benefts o blending The ability to react across the

channels to any shiting results to make sure value was

maximised. Also budget exibility: when the SEO/link-

building work produced particularly strong results, budgetwould be re-allocated to display.

The eect o PPC and display on SEO was that long-term

strategies were kept sae in the knowledge that other

channels could react quickly where SEO could not. Those

channels could capitalise in an agile manner on a sudden

increase in will-writing, leaving the SEO team to ocus on

getting good content up ast.

Results 42% increase in top 10 positions or keywords

targeted during link-building campaign in 5 months and a

86% increase in organic trac in the same period.


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When 1+1 is More Than 2LBi/bigmouthmedia

The new realities

1. Consumers dont operate on a channel-by-channel basis

Advances in tracking technology, combined with old-ashioned

common sense, have unlocked vast reserves o data to

demonstrate that consumers dont search the web in straight

lines, and no digital channel works in isolation.

Users ree-roaming digital habits slice through digital

disciplines, and the last click may bear only a proportion o

the credit or a sale. Digital behaviour is evolving rapidly, and

marketing approaches need to evolve too.

2. Clients need to see what all this digital marketing is

adding up toWise brands want a complete picture o their digital channels

and the way they inuence each other, the better to understand

how a customer thinks and acts on the way to a purchase. As

they nd their way around the digital landscape with increasing

assurance, they are investigating ways they can maximise

synergies between digital channels.

They also want greater transparency and co-operation at an

agency level. 80% o marketing directors eel digital agencies

are too ragmented and specialised, and they want a digital

agency that can provide a ull set o digital services (source:

GyroHSR).

3. Agencies are evolving - some more than othersConsolidation in the marketplace has, in a rare ew cases, put

market-leading specialists inside larger companies that also

house cutting-edge practitioners in other digital disciplines.

At the same time, many more companies have bolted on or

contracted out expertise in additional digital channels to

provide an impression o an integrated service.

The integration o numerous skill sets is a hard trick or agencies

to master, either organically or by acquisition, and only a handul

can be said to have succeeded.

Equally, where an agency ocuses on a single digital discipline,

its vested interest is oten in saeguarding revenue and

ghting or its assigned channel, rather than making the

best possible broader media decisions or a clients business.

1+1= more than 2

Integration o some or all o a brands interconnected digitalchannels under the watchul eye o a unied set o specialists

is the likely next move or many marketers. Plenty o others,

particularly in cutting-edge digital marketing sectors such as

retail and travel, have already made that step.

The twist is that digital, unlike ofine channels, is a single

medium whose marketing disciplines beneted rom a siloed

approach while they were taking their baby steps. In its maturing

state, digital marketing is better served by a orm o blending

that unites teams o specialists.

Just as it ever has, every channel needs real expertise. Experience

and deep-seated knowledge o individual disciplines remain vital

or the blending approach to work. Clients need to beware obolted-on specialisms, and o digital agencies that are good, but

not necessarily great, in a range o areas.

Case study

The international retailer

SEO, PPC and aliate marketing

StoryA successul PPC relationship grew to include SEO and

aliates.

Challenges The retailer had concerns about running discount

codes via the aliate channel and the perceived negative eect

this might have on the brand.

The SEO operation, meanwhile, lacked metadata and had

experienced problems with their developers. Another challengewas generic vs. brand exposure, as most trac to the site came

rom brand searches rather than generic keywords.

Benefts o blending British, German and French SEO and

aliate campaigns, sharing data and managed rom a single

location, complemented each other well. Knowledge and

insights were shared across the continent. Tests showed

running tactical discount code and oers worked; the client

embraced that cultural shit and now sees aliate marketing as

a key channel to deliver incremental sales.

Results The retailer is starting to rank or non-brand terms.

Compounded PPC/SEO exposure o those keywords increased

generic perormance.


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Dee Miller

Head o SEO, bigmouthmedia

Small clients are able to win larger amounts o territory thanbigger guys, because they can move aster. The underdog willalways win out, depending on how they are structured. Insearch, you can do that so easily i you have the right attitude


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LBi/bigmouthmedia

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How it works, what it means

The increasing inter-relationship o channels is a relection

o the growth o digital. Organic search, paid search

and social have become ar more signiicant and inter-

dependent as they have matured. Even older channels such

as display are in the process o joining the others in a new,

more automated mode driven by demand-side platorms

and ad exchanges.

Paid search and SEO have always been known to link very

closely together. But in the past two years, as reporting and

analytics have made giant strides, the market has come to

realise that the entire digital mix can oten work as one.

Campaigns that run in one channel invariably impact on

one or more o the others. In some cases, channels cant

even be divided. A paid search agency might easily run ads

on the Google Display Network, using a strategy that mixes

conventional search, a content campaign based on multiple

words and ad placement using data rom the other two.

Equally, as social blossoms as a marketing platorm, its

eects have become inextricable rom those o SEO, not

least as Google is increasingly eeding social data into

search. Where the two activities are not run rom a single

account, they are almost guaranteed to trip over each

other.

All in all, single-channel digital campaigns that do not take

account o other channels at the planning or execution

stages create intererence, wastage, double-accounting

and missed opportunities.

Defnition The consolidation o a clients ull set o digital channels

within a single account held by a single agency, or the sake o maxi-

mum synergy and optimum eectiveness.

Part Two:Digitalchannelintegration ablended aproach

Case study

The nancial client

Online PR, SEO and PPC

Story The client opted or channel integration to increase

agility, eciency and overall campaign knowledge.

Challenges: Maintaining cost eectiveness o the clients

online direct response activity whilst growing volumes.

Benets o blending: A holistic, exible media plan allows

uid movement o budget between channels, depending

on perormance.

Solution Channels were optimised holistically, movingbeyond the last click wins worldview to adapt to the

interactions that exist between channels. Optimisation

was broadened to take into account ofine conversion

processes, maximising cost-eective customers, rather

than cost-eective leads.

Results Conversions in the rst year more than doubled,

up by 104%. Growth continued the ollowing year with

conversions increasing a urther 60% YOY and cost-per-

conversion alling by 28%. Since then the campaign has

seen sustained cost-eectiveness, with an increase in paid

search and display leads o 16% YOY.




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Main challenges and benefts

Business can reap many benets by amalgamating digital

eorts and budgets and going with a single provider. But

that provider needs to be the right one, able to demonstrate:

Capability - specialism and expertise in every one o the

digital channels, including strategy, design, creative and

media

Scale - the ability to deploy at the requested level, across

the requested channels, internationally i necessary

Perormance - the willingness to be judged by results

When executed properly, with precision, scale and accountability,

digital channel integration as a truly blended exercise is a

holistic discipline, not a one-size-ts-all routine. While there are

certain rules o thumb, such as the inter-dependence o SEO and

social, SEO and PPC or search and display, no single solution ts

any two clients, and there is no template.

However, there is a reliable set o advantages to an integrated

approach. Done right, blending can oer:

Coherent management o internet marketing and the

ability to nd and maximise synergies between channels

Speed o reaction - brands can react more quickly whenone agency holds all the keys

Efective asset coordination - landing pages, inographics

and other content can be shared between channel campaigns

Reduced technology redundancy - whereas

independe ntly-managed channels will oten each employ a

dierent technology package and use only one aspect o it

Consolidated analytics and reporting - clients can view all

channel data on a single dashboard

The opportunity or agencies to be budget-agnostic,

without the temptation to overstate the success o a

channel - or make a case or an under-perorming one -

simply to saeguard ees

Does size matter?

In Malcolm Gladwells 2009 New Yorker article, How David BeatsGoliath, the American thinker and writer explains, with the aid

o several sporting and military examples, how underdogs that

acknowledge their weaknesses and adopt an unconventional

strategy are a good bet to beat their larger rivals.

Blending is not simply a question o intelligently leveraging scale

on behal o big brands. The value o the method applies equally,

and perhaps even more so, to those with smaller budgets and

less market presence. By championing an intelligent, bespoke,

broad-based digital strategy, a genuinely integrated digital

agency can help a smaller client pick its battles and win them.

The increased reaction speed and clearer communication lines

provided by digital channel integration allow marketers to respondto opportunities and challenges in real time and well ahead o the

wider market. And where a smaller client cant aord to be active in

several channels at once, it needs an agency that oers experience

o all o them and sound advice on which one to pick.

Case study

The publisher

Social media, SEO and PPC

Story The client sought to maximise the number o

unique visitors and page views or the available budget.

Challenges Focusing consultancy hours on spotting the

biggest opportunities or quick-win trending topics and

marathon long-term beneits.

Beneits o blending A mix o always-on, low-CPC,

strategic keywords and one-o, seasonal, tacticalkeywords, ocused on increasing brand awareness.

Bidding and positional strategies aimed to optimise

the search real estate.

Results Over a 12-month period, a strong overall

strategy as well as careul campaign optimisation and

tactical adjustments led to unique visitor increases o

between 37% and 155% on ive dierent publications,

all owing to search. For one particular publication, non-

brand search visits increased by 172% (compared with

50% or brand). The cost per unique visitor rom

the search channel declined or all publications over

that period.


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Chris Lewis

Group Account Director, bigmouthmedia

In terms o consolidation o channels, ultimately there has tobe a beneft to doing it, and it has to be something more thanthe act that it is easier calling a single account manager. Tomy mind, thats not good enough.


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The data point

I a client can centralise its data in one location, de-dupe and

analyse it, it allows the brand to see the relative value o its

channels and look at its marketing rom the point o view o

its business objectives. That in turn leads to more inormed

decisions, greater eciencies and economies o scale.

their accounts. Provided data, strategic thinking and post-

campaign analytics are shared between agencies, who in

turn work closely together on a daily basis, without the

intrusion o inter-agency politics, digital channel integration

is possible by other means.

But thats easier said than done

While most digital specialists pride themselves on their

ability to cooperate, the reality is that a single client services

team and account management team has a unique ability to

identiy eective strategic and budgetary shits.

At a nuts-and-bolts level, meanwhile, the problem o running

channels separately is oten one o technology. An agency

might change a landing page or a URL or its own reasons andail to communicate it across to its ellow supplier, tripping

up another channels campaign in the process.

The duplication question

Channels that are run side by side dont need to attack the

same targets and can do many things to avoid doing so. I

one agency is running all digital channels, the duplication

problem wont immediately go away, but it is certainly a lot

easier to get a handle on.

The analytics issue

Realistically, channels all have dierent cost structures and are

hard to compare: SEO is managed on an hourly rate, aliate

is rewarded based on perormance, paid search is billed as apercentage o spend. Whether these channels are integrated or

not, the job o merging and comparing data is not an easy one,

but it gets a lot harder when the data is scattered across several

organisations.

Why isnt everybody already blending digital channels?

Maybe they dont want to

Many clients continue to exercise their right to organise their

digital channels in silos. Some will have good reasons or

doing so, such as strong long-term relationships with several

suppliers, or the desire or a variety o perspectives. For these

and other legacy reasons, most pitches are still conducted

on a channel-by-channel basis, which is why integration

tends to take place only when an agency with multi-channel

abilities has proved itsel in one channel irst.

Maybe they can achieve the same eects on their own

Intelligent clients may be getting something close to the very

best out o their digital channels without ormally integrating

Case study

The B2B player

Display and creative

StoryA UK and US recruitment drive.

Challenges Reducing acquisition cost, rening the

campaign in one country or roll-out in the other.

Benefts o blending An integrated display campaign,

launched and rened in the UK, then rolled out to the US.

Results Through optimisation o sites, placements and

creative messages, the client achieved a reduction o 30%

in acquisition cost or its UK campaign in month two. The

lessons were carried over to a new campaign in the US

where the rst month o activity delivered results 20%

more ecient than the UK in month one.

Case study

The international telco

Display and PPC across US, EU and UAE

Story A new international product launch.

Challenges: Managing display and search without

cannibalisation and while maximising the value o both.

Benefts o blending Two campaigns each ran search and

display over a three-month period.

Results Budgets increased 175% or the second campaign

based on strong perormance. Overall CTRs improved by

250%.


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The LBi and bigmouthmedia approach

Blending is central to LBi and bigmouthmedia. It allows the

agencies to take ideas rom strategy and concept to launch and

evaluation as quickly and eectively as possible regardless o

the specics o the business challenge.

Market-leading specialist teams ocus on SEO, PPC, display,

aliate marketing, social, analytics and a ull spread o digital

disciplines. A cross-digital team blends those units, giving a

single point o contact to clients who want one. Those who

preer to talk to the groups on the ground can do that too.

From its own experience, LBi and bigmouthmedia identiy

numerous examples o digital channel integration strategies

that have helped to realise key business and marketing goals.

A household name in travel, having merged its PPC and SEO

activity, was able to consolidate its content and keywords.

Creating a tiered structure o routes, it directed SEO and PPC

searches or a given destination to the same landing pages. That

approach resulted in dramatically improved organic rankings

across numerous routes, as well as a reduction in campaign

costs and an increase in revenue and conversions.

A major nancial client, likewise, developed a standard SEO

strategy into a exible online PR, SEO and PPC plan, allowing

easy transer o budget between channels, depending on

their success. Optimising these channels, adapting to their

interactions and actoring in ofine processes resulted inconsistent year-on-year rises in conversions against a all in

conversion costs.


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I dont think you should appoint an agency to do any pieceo digital work or you unless they are an expert in that singlepiece o digital work. I you have two digital channels tomanage, the best case is an agency that is good at both. I youcant fnd that, you need to fnd two agencies.

Andrew Girdwood

Media Innovations Director, bigmouthmedia


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LBi/bigmouthmedia

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The move towards blending digital channels is a dierent

debate to the time-honoured specialist vs. network

argument that has pinged back and orth or years. The

consolidation o digital isnt a matter o agency empire-

building, but the maturation o digital habits and channels

and the need to manage inter-related channels with a single

strategy.

Brands and agencies are all attempting to answer the

ultimate question o what makes consumers act. Digital

collectively represents a single window through which to

contemplate that question. To regard the space in terms

o individual channels is to decline the opportunity to

build a true picture, given that those channels overlap and

interweave at every turn.

Ease o communication, both between clients and agencies

and among specialists, plays an important role in the case

or blending. So do economic arguments around the sharing

o technology and content, and the vital issue o data hovers

over the entire piece.

But the key measure must be eectiveness, and the great

majority o evidence points to the basic truth that digital

channels operate ar better when synchronised. It is in this

position o power, with their digital marketing working

as one, that clients can maximise returns, reduce costs,

minimise wasted time, eort and investment and it their

marketing to their business goals.

Thats a heady collection o potential achievements.

Some single providers can oer the ull range o specialist

disciplines and guarantee each will be managed with equal

insight and experience. Many will oer them in the heat o a

pitch and all short. Those that genuinely it the bill will be

able to demonstrate:

Capability

Scale

Performance

The debate also needs to take in the question o uture-proong.

The online landscape o tomorrow will only vaguely resemble

todays digital space, as the web blurs into television and mobile,

each o which will oer oshoots o the established online

channels as well as new tools o their own.

Brands simply cant aord to operate channel-by-channel and

also space-by-space. That is why they will need at their disposal

a small army o specialists who know how to march in step.

Part Three:

Conclusions




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LBi/bigmouthmedia

0845 130 0022 ino@bigmout hmedia.com @bigmouthmedia

0207 063 6465 [email protected] @LBiLondon

THANKS



This document is copyright o LBi and bigmouthmedia. We are very happy (and fattered, actually) or you to quote or

reproduce the content (with a link please, i online) as long as you source it to LBi and/or bigmouthmedia and you dont

reproduce it or any commercial purposes.


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Digital Channel Integration from bigmouthmedia

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