Keeping the audience engaged is perhaps one of the biggest challenges for marketers in the age of instant gratification. By leveraging available technologies, brands can easily not just reach more people but keep them as loyal partners.

This is just one of the highlights of a panel discussion hosted by adobo Magazine as part the Google Marketing Live (Philippines).

Like many in the technology industry, evolution is paramount to become not only relevant but also relatable to the target audience. When people think of Google ads, top of mind usually is YouTube ads because that is where most people are now. But Google has other marketing platforms such as Google Ads and Search.

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Digs Dimagiba, chief marketing officer of Metrobank and president of the Internet and Mobile Marketing Association of the Philippines (IMMAP), underscored how marketers need to evolve with these digital tools while also trusting their judgment.

Google Analytics

“The challenge is about learning and adapting quickly,” Dimagiba said. “Customers, particularly in the Philippines, are evolving faster than what we are used to. They will be adopting a lot of things and will be changing their behavior and therefore the challenge for us, digital marketers, is how to keep up with that.”

Tools like Google Analytics provides marketers with insights into the target market and marketing performance. However, Dimagiba said it will not replace the judgment of a marketer.

“(By educating yourself), your judgment will actually improve and you will be able to take better decisions, whether or not the data is absolutely perfect,” Dimagiba said.

Data privacy in the age of personalized ads is an utmost concern not only to consumers but also to brands and marketers. Is there a way for marketers to deliver personalized ads utilizing the right technology while still being compliant with government and global regulations on handling data?

Data privacy

Dimagiba said that to build trust, marketers need to see consumers as equal partners.

“The first principle was about partnerships,” he said. “Treat the customer as your partner and then look at what you do. Are you just product pushing or have you taken the time to talk to customers, especially about how you use their data: what kind of data do you collect and how you use them?”

Optimizing audiences with the right tools

“So much data is now available and within the databases of companies, the challenge for marketers now is to make use of this existing data “in a meaningful way for our business,” according to Crisela Cervantes, Head of Marketing Communications at Globe.

During its recent broadband campaign, Globe used Google’s Performance Max which allowed them to find more leads effectively and bring the cost per lead by 48%.

“Prior to this campaign, we relied heavily on existing targeting, which is more on interest and demographics. Using Performance Max, we found that we can really be more efficient if you leverage your first-party audience signals right,” she said. “The opportunities are endless when it comes to data-driven marketing.”

Personal care brand Dove embarked on a marketing campaign for its hair care line that uses the data that they already have about their market and activates it on a larger scale.

Through Google’s Code-optimized Designer Audiences (CODA), Dove was able to access insights and segmented data from Google that when combined with data the brand has was able to “unlock amazing results.” One of the biggest discoveries was the correlation between Dove buyers and those who buy air conditioners. This led Dove to target those searching for air conditioners to push their hair care products.

“We were able to get around 70% higher [numbers] on both brand equity and sales,” said Dennis Perez, Integrated Marketing and Commerce lead at Unilever Beauty and Wellbeing Southeast Asia. “Through CODA, we were able to reach double the size versus how we used to do broad-scale marketing. This shows that proper partnership is about understanding what data you have or what solutions you have. It’s all about combining data-driven marketing without sacrificing trust and privacy.”

Automation

Beyond using existing data, marketers also need to find a healthy mix of channels that will be able to reach their target audiences.

“The scale now has to be tipped to explore different channels such as YouTube as a way for us to do incremental reach,” said Cat de Leon-Vinuya, GM of media agency Spark Foundry.

With people consuming videos on multiple screens, video platforms such as YouTube bring in value when it comes to assisting TV campaigns as a mode of discovery, a means to educate or put out more information about the product.

For the variety of brands handled by Spark Foundry that are trying to tap into the 18-25 years old age group, YouTube has always considered a spot-on part of their marketing mix. By doing so, they are able to effectively extract 50% incremental reach.

Automation, machine learning, and data analytics are tools that enable brands and marketers to come up with the right campaign for the right audience. As Dimagiba emphasized how these tools can improve repeatable models before and amplify the kind of campaigns that proved to be effective and useful

“Today, automation allows you to have that kind of consistency in applying all of your repeatable models over time and over bigger audiences that are there,” he said. “I think the most important thing as well is that it frees you up, even more. It frees up your resources to work on improving the other things and again, automate them back.”