HKUST Business Review

Coordinating Search Ads with TV ads Our analyses demonstrate that when search ads are coordinated with relevant TV ads, click-through rates on those digital ads increase. Moreover, we found that the reason for this trend is that the people who search for a brand’s keywords immediately after a TV ad for it airs tend to be more loyal to that brand, in turn making them more likely to click on an ad for it. That said, it is important to note that this effect is short-lived. While consumers are more likely to click on search ads immediately after a related TV ad airs, click-through rates return to normal just a few minutes later. This underscores the importance of automated, real-time coordination between TV and search ads. To implement this strategy effectively, marketers can use tools to detect TV ad content such as promotions, new products and services, or campaigns, and then automatically allocate more budget to search keywords featured in those ads. Rather than evenly distributing search ad budgets throughout the day, advertisers can allocate more budget during specific TV moments, helping them increase the return on investment of their search advertising spend. Brands have begun experimenting with different forms of moment marketing. Of course, TV moment marketing is just one ingredient in the mix of modern digital advertising. Marketers can also optimize outcomes by using consistent language and visuals across channels, by tailoring ads to different audience segments rather than relying on generic messaging, and by analyzing extensive online consumer browsing data to infer individual searchers’ purchase intent (e.g., whether a given user has already purchased the brand’s product or service). Leveraging More Tactics to Boost Results These tactics can then be paired with TV moment marketing to further boost results: For example, advertisers can personalize search ad copy to better align with the needs of different searchers triggered by the same TV moment, allowing them to upsell to existing customers but promote new client deals to new prospects. Similarly, if a brand finds that its consumers exhibit different responses to TV ads depending on the time of day, whether they’re searching on desktop or mobile, or the type of content they’re searching for, advertisers can adjust their strategies accordingly. While our dataset was limited to a single industry, our research suggests that similar effects would likely apply in a wide range of contexts. Indeed, brands in industries as diverse as finance, retail, and travel have begun experimenting with different forms of moment marketing, indicating that our results likely hold beyond the narrow context of the U.S.-based pizza ads that we were able to study. As such, if you’re looking to optimize your ad spending, our data suggests that TV moment marketing is a cost-effective strategy to help any brand engage (and convert) its customers. This article draws on the research paper titled "Frontiers: Moment Marketing: Measuring Dynamics in Cross-Channel Ad Effectiveness," authored by Liu Jia and Shawndra Hill. Liu Jia is an associate professor of marketing at HKUST, with focus on quantitative marketing, which combines marketing theories with quantitative methods. C M Y CM MY CY CMY K Insight 14 HKUST Business Review