Tuesday, July 16, 2019

A Guide to Instagram Video Ads and How To Create Them

As digital marketers, we often feel overwhelmed with the amount of options we have in front of us — Instagram video ads being one of them. It can be confusing, that’s why it’s important to understand each medium in order to pick the one having the greatest chance of profitability.

There are currently more than 2 million advertisers on the platform. 60% of users say they discovered new products on Instagram, and there has been an 80% increase in time spent watching videos on Instagram.

Instagram’s advertising platform has grown aggressively in the past few years. When I started advertising back in 2015, it was one of the best platforms to advertise on in terms of returns.

Funny enough, very few advertisers were using Instagram because they were afraid of the new. I had built a watch store and pulled more than $1 million in revenue in less than four months from Instagram advertising alone.

The platform has really changed throughout the years for the better. Product tagging, boost posts, stories with links — all these changes made the platform one of the most competitive on the market.

One thing we’ve seen growing on Instagram are video ads. They have given us very strong results in the past few months.

Without further ado, let’s dive in the Instagram world.

Video Ad Formats and How They Work

1. In-feed video ads

Those ads show up in the feed, the place where everyone lands when they open Instagram and waste two hours scrolling.

You have to understand people’s mindset when they are scrolling — they just like watching. They rarely engage or even click, because it would demand too much effort for them. Your ad better be good.

In-feed Instagram video ads are really good for brand awareness. Combine them with re-targeting video views ads, and they will drive you some sexy results.

With that in mind, make sure you create content that gives value, captivates and entertains. Anything promotional will make people stop watching your ad. You want to captivate the user’s attention. In fact, I usually recommend that people mimic movie trailers for their advertising.

Sizes and specs:

Vertical Video

Resolution: 600 x 750
Aspect ratio: 4:5
Max size & length: 4 GB/60 seconds

Landscape Video

Resolution: 600 x 315
Aspect ratio: 1:91:1
Max size & length: 4 GB/60 seconds

Square Video

Resolution: 600 x 600
Aspect Ratio: 1:1
Max size & length: 4 GB/60 seconds

2. Instagram Stories

Instagram Stories are fairly new. One thing we’ve seen across many of our clients is that they bring some really awesome results. They appear between the other stories that over 400 million users view everyday.

Above is a visual of the difference between an Instagram feed ad and Instagram Stories ad. Take a peek.

These ads have one of the highest CTR and lowest CPC rate we’ve seen on any social media ads. They work amazingly well for apps.

These videos last 15 seconds, and people need to swipe up in order to click. Make sure you take that in consideration in your CTA.

Remember, be catchy and keep it to essentials. 15 seconds can really fly by.

Remember, also, that the demographic on Instagram is between 18–29, and that they prefer spending on experiences over products. We’ll go deeper into this subject in another article, but keep in mind that it’s not about the benefits of the product. Rather, it is the emotions you make people feel that matter.

Size & Specs

Resolution: 600 X 1067
Aspect ratio: 9:16
Max size & length: 4 GB/ 15 seconds

3. Instagram Canva ads

The awesome thing about Instagram Canva video ads is they are super immersive and allow for a lot of creativity. They also open your website while staying on Instagram, which improves conversion rates by a ton. Just keep in mind, they show up as Instagram Stories ads.

I recommend using a main image and three cards behind in order to display more images and videos. If you run an ecommerce, you can even create a catalog of products and let people click through in order to purchase.

Size and specs

Resolution: 600 x 600
Aspect ratio: 1:1
Max size & length: 4 GB/60 seconds

4. Instagram Carousel ads

You can use two to ten images or videos per ad, which leaves tons of room for creativity. You can create stories, product catalogs, or any other idea your mind sparks. There’s not much more to say except go and try them out.

Sizes & specs:

Resolution: 600 x 600 or 1080 x 1080
Aspect ratio: 1:1
Max size & length: 4 GB/60 seconds

5. Instagram TV (IGTV)

IGTV is really new, only seven to eight months old at this point. It allows you to upload videos longer than an hour on Instagram. Be careful, though. Don’t make long videos if your audience connects with shorter videos.

Inside your IGTV, you really want to create content that shows behind the scenes, informative content and inspirational stories. We recommend having something periodic, like “Monday Content Day,” or whatever would fit your brand.

One brand killing it with IGTV is Netflix, by showing interviews and promo videos. I recommend checking them out.

Sizes & specs:

Aspect ratio: 4:5 to 9:16
Big account max size & length: 650 MB under 10 minutes or 3.6 GB up to 60 minutes
Small account max size & length: 15 seconds to 10 minutes

How to create your IGTV:

Click on the IGTV Icon

2. Tap the Settings Icon to your right

3. Click “Create Channel”

4. Click “next, next, next” and at sometime, “create channel”.

OK, enough of the setups, how do you actually make the ads?

How To Create Solid Video Ads

1. Put yourself in their shoes

First impressions. The first few seconds of your video count much like first impressions in real life. If people don’t like the beginning of your video, they can just keep scrolling, and that’s exactly what they’ll do. Remember, if people don’t watch the beginning of your video, they won’t see the rest.
Brand awareness. Show your brand in the first few seconds to make people know who you are, and so they can see your logo. This will enable more people to know who you are before they keep scrolling.
Show them something cool. Give something to your customer that they will benefit from so that they leave the video with a positive experience and a big ass smile. This will help your brand reputation and, thus, your sales.
Choose why. You need to know exactly what is the purpose of that video. Is it brand awareness, to sell a product, or to gather video views to re-target? This is essential in order to create the best videos.

2. Goal orientation

Thumbnails. Your thumbnail is what captivates people and entices them to watch your video. Again, if they don’t stop, they won’t watch. Be careful to keep it relevant, otherwise people won’t keep watching your video.
Captions. A lot of people watch your videos in public places and don’t have the sound on. Having captions is a must to captivate and connect with your audience.
CTA. Set up a clear Call-To-Action, otherwise you’ll just have people confused about the next step. You’ll miss a lot of opportunities for building relationships with customers, and you’ll cry at home.
Have a sense of humor. Most people have bad days. They go on social media to lighten up. Don’t bring them more problems. Consider cracking some jokes.

3. Test until you find what works

Visualize it on mobile. Always remember that people view Instagram on mobile. If you want to know how your video looks, check it out on mobile, not on desktop.
Keep it short & simple. Even if IGTV allows long videos, Instagram was built for short videos. Lucky for me, Facebook has decided to back me up on this in research they did somewhat recently.
Maintain a balance between water and fire. You want to find a balance between quality and something filmed by a potato, a balance between two unicorns flying and boring powerpoint slides. Too much of anything is not enough — except for food.
Test multiple videos. Remember, you’ll never know what converts best unless you test it. We recommend testing new, small changes in your video and tracking the result by trusting the data to draw solid conclusions.

Here’s What Matters In the End

Remember, videos are fun to make, but they are here on this earth to convert customers. Don’t be salesy, create value, and track to see which video gives you the most of what you want for the best price.

Here are cool Instagram video examples from Hubspot if you need some inspiration. I recommend that you find out how your competitors are advertising; this will give you a good idea of what’s working well.

Let us know what your experience has been with Instagram video ads, and if you have any tips to others.

Wednesday, July 10, 2019

How Connected Devices Are Reshaping Consumer Behavior in 2019 [Infographic]

Open Up the Aperture to Go From Customer Experience to Human Experience

By Megan Fath, Innovation Program Leader

How well are you really seeing your customer? Is it time to open the lens, let in more light and look again?

Until recently, many companies have taken a very shallow perspective, focusing on the moment of transaction and delivering a customer experience that’s targeted, fleeting, and often forgettable.

Today, surprisingly through the use of digital technology, companies recognize the need to connect with customers on a deeper level to earn their trust and loyalty. Adding greater depth of field to their view of the customer reveals a simple truth: We are humans, first and foremost. We are busy, caring, generous, unpredictable and we have needs, expectations and desires that influence our behavior.

This realization should spark organizations to shift their focus from customer experience to human experience.

Customer experience starts with the premise that an organization’s actions matter. Human experience starts with the premise that an individual is even more important outside of their interactions with your brand. Their beliefs, values, feelings and ambitions form the foundation of who they are and what they want from the organizations they choose to engage with. Human experience encompasses an organization’s workforce and its partners as well.

In the past, digital interactions took place on our devices; companies typically lost sight of the human experiences that were happening around it. But pulling back reveals that customers are raising families, building careers, starting businesses, expanding their horizons. They want to be healthier, better parents, good managers and well-informed citizens.

Understanding how your brand relates to that holistic picture is critical to developing lasting relationships. Whether developing products, designing applications, planning user interfaces or delivering services, you need to remember that there’s so much more to people than meets the eye.

Zoom out
Looking at your customers with a wider-angle lens can help you understand where you fit in. If you see them only as buyers of your product or users of your digital tools—instead of humans with aspirations and complex emotions—you’re missing out on opportunities to make genuine, sustaining connections.

How can your organization begin to relate to these larger needs and values? Embrace your customers as people and work to provide experiences that create meaningful connections, foster loyalty and generate value. Here are six ways to deliver a more human experience:

Appreciate their values. Consider the values that attract a customer to you and how the experience you offer supports their needs. For a banking customer who craves financial security, it could mean thinking beyond traditional products or card features. For a patient who values health and well-being, it could mean providing behavioral nudges, acknowledging small wins and offering nutritional coaching or fitness classes.

Be genuine at every step. Delivering a human experience goes far beyond a single transaction. Brands must involve the entire organization from product design to marketing to customer service to deliver experiences that are consistent, authentic and reliable.

Tailor to their needs. Somewhat paradoxically, artificial intelligence and automation provides insights that enable brands to be more human and relevant. Predictive analytics guide human agents to make relevant suggestions based on previous buying history or preferences. AI delivers security alerts to banking customers when usual activity occurs.

Deliver meaningful personal touches. Keep in mind that digital doesn’t have to be impersonal; delivering the right message to the right customer at the right time strengthens your brand. Cut down on noise by winnowing down and personalizing content so that it is relevant to the user and send it to their preferred device. Sometimes a truly compelling experience actually contains fewer, more resonant moments. We have recently worked on a few projects where we decreased the number of touches but amplified the personalization in a few key moments.

Combine the human touch with digital platforms. Brands are finding innovative ways to combine digital applications and cognitive technologies with human interactions, successfully developing relationships and trust in the process.

Reexamine your customer engagement metrics. One of the first ways to start looking at customers beyond users and transactions is to reevaluate current measurement tools. Designing a more human experience is difficult if success relies only on KPIs comprised of resolution time, churns and number of pages visited.

Opening the aperture to take a deeper view of your customer enables a better understanding of who they are and how you can transform a customer experience into a human experience. You’ll have insights to help you craft stories and experiences that will connect. Seeing those who use your product as human beings and understanding what drives and motivates them helps you engage in a meaningful way. And that’s a human experience that will help build loyalty, trust and lasting value.

Friday, July 5, 2019

The psychology of a personalized customer experience

Everyone’s chasing a personalized customer experience — but do customers care about it as much as brands?

It seems like every company is chasing personalization. In fact, almost 70% of brands surveyed in a recent Everstring report called it a “top priority.”

It could be easy to write personalization off as a shiny object, if not for the financial returns.

In their 2019 Personalization Development Study, Monetate outlined the ROI of personalized marketing:

Personalized marketing drives growth: 93% of companies with an “advanced personalization strategy” saw revenue growth. Only 45.4% of companies without a personalization strategy saw equivalent growth.
The higher the investment, the better the returns: Companies with ROI of 2x or more said personalization made up at least 20% of their marketing budget.
Personalization drives long-term customer value: Brands that had the highest personalization ROI (3x or more) focused on loyalty as their top KPI. Companies with lower ROI targeted short term measures like average order value.

It’s clear there’s evidence supporting personalization. It compels customers to act, and they’re actively asking for more. In a recent study, Infosys found that 31% of customers wish their experiences were “far more” personalized.

But why?

The answer lies in a psychological principle known as the Cocktail Party Effect.

What is the Cocktail Party Effect?

The Cocktail Party Effect was discovered in the 1950s by a British Cognitive scientist named Colin Cherry.

Cherry wanted to understand what people focus on and why. After researching the dynamics of a noisy room, he discovered something interesting. Our brain separates overlapping conversations into different auditory streams. It can then decide to ignore information that isn’t relevant.

How do our brains decide what information to pay attention to?

The Cocktail Party Effect states that people focus on information relevant to them. According to a study published in the journal Brain Research, a key trigger for “tuning in” is when people hear their name.

Given the research, it makes sense that brands start personalization efforts with a customer’s name.

But the Cocktail Party Effect shows if we go deeper, relevant content can drive incredible results.

What is “true personalization”?

Personalization isn’t about getting your customer’s first name right then spamming them with impersonal ads. As Seth Godin says:

“[Personalization] is a chance to differentiate at a human scale, to use behavior as the most important clue about what people want and more important, what they need.”

True personalization is deeply understanding your customer’s journey. Once you know what they need, you can serve them the right message at the right time, and drive business results.

How to apply the Cocktail Party Effect to your customer experience

1. Get specific about your customer’s world

In a recent study, Accenture found the personalization tactics that have a direct effect on buying behavior:

Know my name: 56% of customers would rather buy from a retailer that recognizes them by name.
Know my past: 65% of customers prefer to buy from a retailer who “knows their purchase history.”
Know what I want: 58% of customers prefer to buy from a retailer that recommends options based on their past purchases.

Here’s an example of the Cocktail Party Effect in action:

In this email from jewelry brand Monica Vinader, the brand uses customer data in a smart way.

They’ve not only customized Kim’s name in the email (“Made for You Kim”). They’ve also used images of “K” monogrammed jewelry, and shown a necklace based on Kim’s past purchases.

2. Personalize your marketing’s visuals, copy, and message

In their 2018 Ecommerce Quarterly Report, Monetate discovered that just three pages of personalized content can double conversion rates.

Monetate also found that the value of personalization compounds with each experience.

As you can see from the data below, true personalization does more than increase purchases. It gets people to add items to their cart more often and drives down cart abandonment rates.

Source: Monate 2018 Ecommerce Quarterly Report

3. Go deeper with data — and be transparent

Your ability to personalize effectively is directly tied to the state of your brand’s data.

And if the data is there, but it isn’t in shape, getting to the right insights might mean digging a little deeper. Further research could take the form of progressive profiling, marketing automation, or just asking your customers if the marketing they’re getting is right for them.

Another example of the Cocktail Party Effect in action:

EasyJet, a British low-cost airline, made a company milestone relevant for their customers.

Instead of making their 20th anniversary about the brand, EasyJet focused on the consumer. They transformed people’s data into a celebration of their travels with EasyJet:

The bottom line

Personalization might be a top priority for brands, but most haven’t achieved their ambitions.

And that’s a problem because, according to Gartner, the stakes are high. In a recent survey, they discovered brands are at risk of losing 38% of their customers because of poor personalization.

There’s no magic button you can press to become immediately personalized. It’s a tough process that requires marketers to work closely with IT, operations, and digital teams.

But at the end of the day, the potential for revenue generation is huge. The science supports it, and customers are asking for it.

So instead of asking if you should focus on personalization, the better question is, “How can we prioritize it?”

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