The importance of synchronising media planning with the creative team

Effective creative and media targeting is crucial in a world where 'intoxication' is a palpable reality. Given that people receive between 3,000 and 6,000 advertising impacts per day through social media and retain only about 18 of these, it is essential to stand out from the crowd.

Combining highly creative content with a well thought out media strategy is the key to standing out. Creativity attracts and retains attention, while good media selection ensures that this creative content effectively reaches those most likely to act on it. This synergy between creative and media is essential to break the cycle of infoxication and ensure that messages are not only delivered, but also internalised and act as catalysts for purchasing decisions.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

• Challenges of not synchronising both teams in Paid Media campaigns
• Benefits of synchronising both teams in Paid Media campaigns
• Recommendations for strategies to synchronise both teams
• Measuring the success of synchronisation between the two teams

Challenges of not synchronising both teams in Paid Media campaigns

When service & product and creative teams are not in sync on Paid Media campaigns, a number of challenges can arise that hinder the success of marketing strategies. These challenges include:

• Message fragmentation: Without proper synchronisation, advertising messages can become fragmented across various Paid Media channels, such as social media ads, paid search, display, etc. This can lead to an inconsistent user experience and decrease campaign effectiveness.

• Budget waste: Lack of alignment between media planning and creative can result in inefficient allocation of Paid Media budget. For example, if ads are not designed specifically for the channel and target audience, money can be wasted on impressions or clicks that do not generate conversions.

• Low relevance: If ads are not aligned with the media strategy, they are likely to be irrelevant to the target audience. This can lead to a lower click-through rate (CTR), a lower quality score and a higher cost-per-click (CPC), which negatively affects campaign performance.

• Difficulty to optimise: Lack of synchronisation between media planning and creative can make it difficult to optimise the campaign in real time. Without a clear understanding of how the creative message resonates across different channels, it is more difficult to make adjustments and improvements to maximise the return on advertising spend.

• Audience fragmentation and omni-channel: Without synchronisation there can be a lack of understanding of who users are and how they interact across different channels, leading to inconsistent and less effective messaging to reach specific audiences across multiple platforms.

• Effective performance measurement (impact and attribution): Lack of coordination makes it difficult to accurately attribute campaign results, making it difficult to identify which aspects of the campaign are generating impact and how to improve overall performance.

• Content saturation: Lack of alignment between teams can lead to an overload of irrelevant or repetitive content, contributing to market saturation and reduced effectiveness of advertising efforts.

• Advertising fatigue and decreased attention: Lack of synchronisation can result in inconsistent or uninteresting messages, which can lead to decreased audience attention and increased ad fatigue.

•  Privacy, cookie-less regulations and transparency: Lack of alignment can make it difficult to adapt to ever-changing regulations and to implement ethical and transparent practices in the handling of user data.

• Ad-blockers and ad resistance: Without a coherent strategy, users may be more inclined to use ad-blockers and show resistance to advertising, which negatively affects the viewability and effectiveness of ads.

• Changes in consumer behaviour: Changes in consumer habits and preferences can be difficult to address if teams are not aligned in understanding and adapting to these changes.

• Changing algorithms and platform formats: Constant updates to algorithms and formats across digital platforms can require a quick and coordinated response to optimise viewability and campaign performance.

• Inflation and media costs: Lack of optimisation and coordination can lead to an increase in media costs without a commensurate increase in results, which negatively affects ROI.

• Loss of coverage in offline media (especially TV): Lack of coordination between teams can result in a loss of coverage in traditional media such as TV, which can affect the ability to reach certain audiences and extend the reach of the campaign.

Benefits of synchronising both teams in Paid Media campaigns

On the other hand, coordination between the media planning and creative teams brings a number of tangible benefits that contribute to the success of campaigns:

• Consistency of messages across channels: By synchronising media planning with the creative team, consistency in advertising messages across all Paid Media channels is ensured. This strengthens brand identity and increases the likelihood that the audience will recognise and respond positively to the campaign.
• Better advertising performance: An integrated strategy between media planning and creative can lead to better advertising performance at Paid Media. Ads designed specifically for each channel and audience are more likely to generate interest, engagement and conversions.
• Efficient budget optimisation: By aligning creative with media strategy, opportunities can be identified to maximise advertising ROI. This includes allocating budget to the channels that generate the best results and optimising creative to improve ad performance.
• Increased relevance and engagement: When ads are aligned with the media strategy, they are more relevant to the target audience. This can result in higher click-through rates, increased website engagement and, ultimately, higher conversion of leads into customers.

Recommendations for strategies to synchronise the two teams

To overcome the challenges associated with misalignment in Paid Media campaigns, it is critical to implement effective strategies that promote synchronisation between media planning and creative teams. Here are the Adsmurai team's key recommendations:

• Impactful creative: It is crucial to develop visual content and messaging that stands out in the digital environment, capturing the audience's attention in an effective and memorable way from the very first moment. This involves thinking outside the box and looking for innovative ways to communicate the brand message.

• Adaptability and continuous evolution: Keeping up with the latest trends and technologies is essential to adapt quickly to an ever-changing digital environment. Establishing partnerships with leading platforms such as Meta, TikTok, Pinterest and Google can provide privileged access to new features and beta testing opportunities to ensure constant campaign innovation.

• Meaningful metrics: It is critical to focus on delivering tangible and meaningful results that allow campaigns to be continually analysed and optimised. Implementing regular A/B testing and using detailed data analysis will help refine communication strategies and ensure optimal impact on brand and customer objectives.

• Personalisation: Use detailed data to deeply understand each audience and personalise each interaction in a way that resonates positively with the brand, objectives and customers. This involves segmenting the target audience into more specific groups and tailoring the creative message accordingly to create stronger and more effective connections with the audience.

• Strategic approach: Rather than simply reaching more people, it is crucial to target the right people in the most effective way possible. This involves careful planning and segmentation of target audiences to maximise the impact and results of campaigns.

Synchronisation between the media planning team and the creative team is essential to the success of Paid Media campaigns. By overcoming the challenges of misalignment and leveraging the tangible benefits of working with both teams in harmony, brands can maximise the impact of their marketing strategies and deliver exceptional experiences to their target audience.

Measuring the success of synchronisation between the two teams

Measuring the success of synchronisation between the media planning team and the creative team is critical to assessing campaign performance and the effectiveness of cross-team collaboration. Below are some key metrics and analysis tools that can be used for this purpose:

1. Message consistency: Assessing message consistency across all Paid Media channels is crucial to determine whether the synchronisation between the creative and media planning team has been effective. Content monitoring and analysis tools can be used to analyse message consistency across different platforms and advertising formats.

2. Audience impact: Measuring audience impact is critical to understanding how campaigns are resonating with users. This can include metrics such as reach, frequency, engagement and time spent on the website. Web analytics and social media tools can provide detailed information on audience behaviour and the effectiveness of campaigns in terms of generating interactions and conversions.

3. Advertising performance: Evaluating advertising performance in terms of clicks, conversions and return on investment (ROI) is critical to determining the success of campaigns. Digital advertising analytics tools can be used to track and measure ad performance across different platforms and audience segments.

4. Team feedback: Getting feedback from the creative and media planning team is important to assess the effectiveness of cross-team collaboration. Regular follow-up meetings can be held to discuss campaign performance, identify areas for improvement and share key learnings.

5. Attribution analysis: Use attribution models to understand how different channels and tactics contribute to campaign results. This can help to more accurately assign credit to each team and optimise media spend based on the impact generated.

By using these key metrics and analysis tools, brands can effectively evaluate the success of the synchronisation between the media planning team and the creative team on Paid Media campaigns. This allows them to identify areas for improvement, optimise campaign performance and maximise return on advertising spend.