Advertiser Renewals: How to Address Campaigns That Didn’t Meet Goals

Targeting Was Off

Ad targeting should align with the customer’s ideal customer profile. Depending on your advertising platform, you have many targeting options. Some platforms also provide insights on whether it’s too broad or too narrow.

Even if you built an audience to match the campaign, there can still be misalignment. The business may not realize that its customer base has evolved or may have misconceptions about the attributes that make a good one.

You can still save the renewal if this was a root cause of poor performance. It’s time to ask more questions about who they want to reach and why. You can provide advice about different targeting segments and come up with a new plan that corrects the mistargeting.

Creative Didn’t Align with the Audience or Offer

Creative plays a huge role in ad performance. The look, feel and words should paint a picture that makes sense to the audience. When there’s a disconnect here, campaigns can flounder.

Creative takes cues from targeting and audience building, so if that was an issue, the creative falls flat, as well.

Other creative mistakes may be related to bad design, low-quality imagery or video or ads being too “busy,” which distracts viewers.

You likely will have noticed glaring errors in their creative submission, but now’s the time to analyze it further. Check out these tips on digital creative best practices for context.

With digital campaign reporting, you’ll also know which creative performed the best. Knowing this and discussing it with advertisers can be a great way to improve moving forward.

The Campaign Lacked a Dedicated Landing Page

Another reason an advertiser renewal may be in jeopardy because of poor campaign ROI is the lack of a landing page for the ad. If the CTR (click-through rates) were average or above, but conversions were minimal, the landing page could be the culprit.

If users click an ad and land on a home page or something generic, they may immediately bounce. They had an expectation they’d go to a web page with specifics about the offer or product. Pages that tie directly to campaigns can immediately improve results. You can help advertisers with these tips in our post on landing pages.

Ad Frequency Was Too Low

Ad frequency describes the number of times someone could see an ad during its run. Finding the balance between too low and too high can be tricky.

According to data, five to seven encounters are enough to drive recall. However, that number can vary depending on the audience and offer. The longer the campaign, the higher the frequency needs to be. Campaigns running multiple months are typically top-funnel ads, so it’s all about awareness.

Your advertising technology can support finding the right frequency by providing you with estimates at the proposal stage.

How will you know if the ad had too low frequency? Clues from impressions, where the ad was served and clicks help decipher this. A leading reason ads don’t have sufficient frequency is that the budget was too low.

Outside Forces Impacted Performance

Changing consumer behaviors and economics can sink a campaign regardless of how targeted and optimized it was. Sudden downturns or emerging preferences could mean the ads just didn’t resonate.

If this is the case, the conversation returns to goals and strategy. Another option may be to focus on more brand awareness or evergreen messaging.