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Resolution Media exec sees opportunity with log-in to improve mobile video tracking

SAN FRANCISCO ? A Resolution Media executive at the ad:tech San Francisco 2014 conference dished on why digital log-ins will be key in helping brands and agencies justify mobile video ad spend.

Executives from Resolution Media, Brand Networks and Civolution discussed the role of synchronized, cross-screen campaigns during the ?Selling Sweaters in Summer: Dos and Don?ts of Contextually Relevant Advertising? session. Despite the growth in mobile video, tracking the medium?s impact remains to be a challenge because traditional Web cookies are not available on smartphones and tablets.

?From a digital standpoint, I think now what you see with the growing popularity of things like data management platforms focused more on user ID than cookies, we?re going to get into a world where we can better understand consumer behavior across those digital touch points, even if they?re on mobile,? said George Manas, director of social strategy at Resolution Media.

?I don?t know if we?ve necessarily solved for TV just yet, but as TV itself becomes much more of a digital log-in experience, we?re going to start and have more tangible trackers to better put that chain of events together so that we can understand the value that each touch point plays,? he said.

Synching up TV
The session explained how Omnicom?s Resolution Media worked with Brand Networks and Civolution on a social video ad campaign for a big film studio for a movie launch.

The agency used real-time TV signals based on when and where the film studio?s TV ads were running. Then the data was plugged into Facebook Exchange so that after a TV ad ran, ads on Facebook promoting the film popped up.

Additionally, TV ads from competing film studios on TV triggered the social ads.

The Facebook ads came on within a few seconds after airing on TV and ran for five minutes. 

Control groups were then set up to compare the performance of the social ads at other times of the day versus right after the TV spot.

The ads than ran immediately after a TV commercial generated a 60 percent increase in click-through rate, and a 35 percent lift in CTR in targeting the competitors? trailers.

The idea is that the film studio was able to respond to a bigger TV buy in real-time when consumers are on their smartphones and tablets. 

The campaign included both right-hand rail ads and newsfeed placements, but the right-hand ads were not as effective. Eventually, all of the right-hand rail ads were turned off because it is not as interruptive and fits into a native piece of content.

Afterwards, a follow-up campaign for another film release looked at the performance of the ad by time after it ran on TV. During the hour that the TV ad ran, there was a 6 percent Facebook action rate, which measures all engagement with a piece of content.

Two and three hours after the TV ad ran, the engagement rate dipped to 5.4 percent.

Building up second-screen chops
Both Twitter and Facebook have been pushing their own second-screen ad targeting formats in the past year.

According to Rob Leathern, chief product officer at Brand Networks, Twitter Cards have the potential to be particularly useful for direct response marketers who want to collect email addresses.

?Even brands can be more direct response-oriented in what they?re doing just because the marketplace is competitive,? Mr. Leathern said.

?Don?t put all your eggs in one social media basket,? he said. ?Even still, it probably makes sense for you to gather email addresses aside from just followers or fans with those platforms.?

Final Take
Lauren Johnson is associate reporter on Mobile Marketer, New York