Media planning and developing a strategy for launching advertising campaigns begins with a brief. This is a source of information about the business.
The quality of the brief depends, among other things, on how much the strategy and media plan will meet your goals and expectations.
Contextual advertising brief will help to highlight the goals and objectives, as well as bring in the team of professionals who will work on your project.
This is an important step that shouldn’t be skipped, even if you needed leads “yesterday.” In this article, we’ll tell you what the brief includes, what functions it performs, and how a marketer can fill out a contextual advertising brief to get a return on investment.
What does the contextual advertising brief include?
As a rule, the manager of an online advertising agency asks the marketer to fill out a short brief, which includes a number of questions about:
- The field of activity of the company;
- Goals and objectives of the project;
- Previously conducted marketing activities;
- Planned budget, etc.
This information is necessary for specialists to get acquainted with the specifics of business, to assess the feasibility of achieving KPIs and develop an effective strategy for launching contextual advertising. The task of the marketer, when filling out the brief to immerse future partners in the nuances and characteristics of the business.
Objectives of the brief
The main function of the brief is acquaintance. In fact, this is a reference point for future collaboration between the agency and marketer.
And for this cooperation to be long and successful in future, it is important for partners to get to know each other and determine how much their vision and approach coincide. Among the main tasks of the brief can be allocated:
- Structure the goals and objectives of the project;
- Introduce the experts in the contextual advertising;
- Allocate the basic information you need to run contextual advertising.
How does the marketer fill out the brief for contextual advertising?
A well-filled out brief will help to minimize misunderstandings between partners and increase the chance that the results of the advertising campaigns will meet the expectations of the marketer. It is important to fill out all of the fields that the brief includes in a detailed, step-by-step manner.
1. Provide general information about the company
Leave basic information about your company: name, occupation.
2. Leave your contact information
You can always be contacted (phone number, e-mail) so we can send the information you need. In addition, you may want to include contacts of other members of the marketing team who may be able to share useful information with specialists.
For example, if you have an in-house targeting specialist, he or she can provide data about the target audience based on advertising campaign statistics.
3. Share a link to your site
Also be sure to leave a link to your website. This way, experts can read the introductory information about your business and analyze the landing pages. This will give an understanding of how much of the resource is ready to run contextual advertising.
The conversion rate largely depends on the relevance and convenience of the page to which the user goes after clicking on ads, so it is important to make a preliminary assessment.
4. What brand, goods or services should be advertised?
Describe the service or product offered in as much detail as possible, including seasonality, directions, price segment, average check and repeat purchase frequency.
5. What are your competitive advantages?
Identify the competitive advantages of your business. Why should the customer buy from you? This could include your own sales promotions, a system of discounts and bonuses, loyalty cards for regular customers, etc.
The effectiveness of contextual advertising largely depends on the quality of the proposal. The information you provide will be used by specialists in future advertisements, so it is important to describe all the benefits in detail.
6. Who are your direct competitors?
Specify 3-4 sites of your competitors online, specialists will analyze competing resources (estimate the amount of traffic, advertising channels, etc.).
7. How is the purchase of the product/service made?
Describe the process of purchasing your product or service, step-by-step, starting at the top of the funnel “Need arises”. Specify the steps the user takes on your website to place an order. Talk about how long it takes for the customer to make a decision before purchasing.
For example, a t-shirt can be ordered in a few clicks because it’s an inexpensive and impulsive purchase, but a decision to buy a car can take months to mull over. This data has implications for tracking the effectiveness of contextual advertising.
8. Have you had experience running contextual advertising?
If you have run contextual advertising before, be sure to describe your experience. Which campaigns worked well and which ones did not bring results?
Ideally, in such a case, give your specialists access to your advertising room and let them analyze the prospects and growth areas of the campaigns that have already worked.
Also indicate whether there are existing advertising activities, this is important to consider when developing a strategy.
9. Which products or categories are your top priorities?
Specify the highest priority product/service categories for the business. This will help you optimally allocate your contextual advertising budget.
10. Who is your target audience?
It is important to provide experts with information about who your customers are and describe your target audience in detail, for this purpose specify:
- gender
- age
- marital status
- education level
- income level
- place of residence
- field of activity
- needs, fears and desires
- visited sites
It is advisable to make several portraits of your target audience.
11. What regions do you need to target?
Specify, in order of priority, which regions you need to include when displaying your ads.
12. What are the KPIs of the ad campaign?
Specify achievable and realistic goals for the advertising campaigns, it is important that they are digitized and measurable. For example, attract 20,000 traffic from contextual advertising and get 200 leads within the next year.
If you already have campaign statistics, your KPIs may look like this: increase CTR from 7% to 12% and increase conversion rate from 1% to 2% in half a year. Specialists compare your goals with your advertising budget and the results of previously launched campaigns, and then assess the feasibility of meeting KPIs.
13. What budget are you planning for contextual advertising?
Specify the budget you want to use for the advertising campaigns within a month. The specialists will predict the expected number of impressions, clicks, CTR, and cost per click. And based on these data will develop a media plan for your project.
14. What indicators in analytics do you rely on when evaluating the results of an advertising campaign?
The specialists in contextual advertising prepare reports on a weekly, monthly and quarterly basis. The results of advertising campaigns are discussed with the marketer. In order to “be on the same page,” it is important to focus on the same metrics. So indicate which metrics you are analyzing.
Conclusions
It is with the brief that strategy development and media planning begins. The main function of the brief is introductory. In fact, this is a reference point for future collaboration between the agency and the marketer.
And in order to have a long and successful cooperation in future, it is important for the partners to get to know each other and determine how much their vision and approach coincide.
The task of the marketer is to fill out the brief in as much detail as possible and to immerse future partners in the nuances and characteristics of the business. You should not miss this important stage, as it can lead to misunderstandings and disagreements in the future.
