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Series 1 : Episode 2 of The AdTech Forum
37 Plays1 year ago
Welcome to The AdTech Forum 🔥🚀
We’re back with Episode 2, of our 5-part video series covering
#creativeadtech, sponsored by Flashtalking by Mediaocean
In a dynamic rapid-fire discussion with Matt Yager, Performance Creative Lead, he shares amazing insights on the future of creative testing and advertising optimization.
Lean in, listen, and take note. Follow us on LI and let us know what resonated most from this episode of TheAdTechForum.com c/o AdTechGod of AdTechGod Slack Community & Jeremy Bloom of OhHello.io 🌞☕️
We’ll be back next Thursday February 8, with Episode 3, featuring Ally Schnitzer of PepsiCo
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Sponsorship
00:00:06
Speaker
Oh, hello and welcome to the second episode of the ad tech forum. This is our second episode of a five part series brought to you by, by flash talking by
Guest Introduction: Matt Yeager
00:00:17
Speaker
media ocean. We are so excited to have everybody here. We're so excited for our guest, Matt Yeager, who joins us from Uber. Matt leads performance creative across Uber. He previously worked at all state Quibi and attended the university of Missouri.
00:00:31
Speaker
He has worked in campaign management, at-tech product management, and now focuses primarily on creative production and optimization. So he has a great background. So Matt, thanks again for being here.
Trends in Creative Testing
00:00:42
Speaker
First question to you is, obviously, Uber is king of creative, and they've done a fantastic job. But being one of the best creative testers in the game, what big changes do you foresee in 2024? Yeah, thanks for the question.
00:00:59
Speaker
Really, for me, what I see coming is that historically, I feel like a lot of creative testing was about finding the best creative and really trying to kind of narrow down to that one winner. And over the last couple of years, really, it's been shifting this way. But I think I especially see it going more and more in this direction is that it's more about your kind of basket of creative and having a good mix of different assets that will require
00:01:27
Speaker
Different ad types like static video and then even within those, you know, different styles of video and static, whether that be illustration or more real photography or if it's showing your products versus showing use cases, all sorts of different messages and creative types.
00:01:46
Speaker
And I think testing will look more like, what is the proper mix? By adding this thing in, does performance improve? But it's less about trying to get to that zero sum absolute best creative, because these platforms, particularly in paid social and some of the other core marketing channels, I think that that's the direction they're moving.
Importance of Creative Diversity
00:02:06
Speaker
They're using the creative to find new audiences. And so the more diversity that you have in your creative mix, I feel like that is what's actually going to drive performance through creative.
00:02:16
Speaker
Awesome. You mentioned obviously the elements of creative and what you look for. You reference it as the basket of creative. But when we talk about the elements of creative in particular, what type of performance metrics are you looking for and what kind of impact do you typically want to see? Yeah, I think it's a great question and sometimes it's an art, sometimes it's a science. I think for me,
00:02:42
Speaker
It's this balance of like, you can get a lot of really good creative insights observationally, I think.
Balancing Insights with Structured Tests
00:02:49
Speaker
You can just kind of launch more creative and kind of see how these various platforms, Google, Facebook, TikTok, et cetera, respond, which ones kind of scale up, which ones rise to the top. It's not perfect measurement, but I do think it allows for very quick measurement. And I think you have to be careful not to set up
00:03:08
Speaker
Very complex structured tests on relatively minor changes to creative because a lot of those learnings are fleeting, at least, you know, in my view, and that might not be something that is super valuable long term. And so I think that your.
00:03:25
Speaker
you're able to look at metrics just basically scale spend. Did this asset rise up in that mix of creative? Did it have better conversion rates? Did it have better engagement rates, click rates, and was it driving conversions? I think you can learn a lot that way. If it's a more structural change, like what's the right number of assets for us to have or
00:03:48
Speaker
really turning in a totally different direction, that might actually justify more of an A-B test or even a lift test for incrementality. And again, I don't know that I have the perfect answer of exactly when you should and shouldn't do that, but I do think you have to kind of sometimes just rely on some of those platform metrics to get a pretty good gauge on if something is working or not, if that makes sense.
00:04:13
Speaker
No, it does. And I think that's really insightful. And you talk about when A-B testing is required and when it's not, but Uber is obviously a powerhouse in the industry and you guys have fantastic marketing initiatives to see the type of growth you've seen over the years that you've been around. But how much of a role does creative optimization play in your marketing strategy?
Creative Optimization at Uber
00:04:36
Speaker
Yeah, I have to say that I think you're starting to maybe see this more often than than maybe before, but I have great leadership that has invested in this. We have a team that I lead that this is all we do is is basically
00:04:51
Speaker
make new creative, learn what's working, whether it's observationally in a more formal split or lift study, and learn the things that seem to be moving the needle in these various platforms. I think the platforms themselves also are talking more and more about this. If you talk to Facebook or YouTube, any of these platforms, they're consistently saying that one of, if not the biggest lever for performance improvement
00:05:17
Speaker
is creative. And I think it's because their platforms have gotten so advanced at doing a lot of the targeting and a lot of the various things that maybe we used to test a lot in performance marketing a few years ago, they kind of have a pretty automated and really good way of doing that and taking some of that work off the plate of the performance marketer. And so therefore, the kind of remaining piece is this. And so not to say it's the only thing or the most important thing, but I do think that it's
00:05:46
Speaker
It's a pretty big part of how we think about performance marketing, and I think more and more companies are doing that because you really can see pretty big returns from making better creative and creative that is driving more conversions. You can see as big an impact from that as you can from major changes to audience or conversion windows, whatever else you might be testing.
00:06:12
Speaker
Love how you just brought up audience and also different platforms like YouTube and like Facebook where you can do a bunch of different kinds of multivariate A-B testing and get a sense of what's working, what's not working, whether there's automation, but also your testing and your teams are testing.
Data-Driven Personalization
00:06:31
Speaker
When you think about what you're doing at Uber, how do data and personalization play a role in creative? Yeah, it definitely plays a role in a few ways. I think
00:06:42
Speaker
There are definitely ways that these platforms are starting to empower marketers and particularly creative folks to be super personalized with ads. You can dynamically pull in elements about maybe
00:06:58
Speaker
referencing a user's location or in some cases even like basically calling out the person's name. I mean, I think there are some things that can do that. I haven't done as much experimenting with kind of that far extreme of what is possible probably, but I think it kind of varies by the business and stuff. I think at the very least what I have seen is that pulling in catalogs and being able to show relevant
00:07:23
Speaker
products or relevant information based on where a user is or some other characteristic about that user. It's an important part of the mix. I think going back to my first answer, I don't think you can necessarily only do those things. I think you also need to go out and make very
00:07:41
Speaker
user generated organic feeling video and you need to do some of those things too and that is a little harder to do in an automated and personalized way. But I also think about when I said about how these platforms are relying on creative to find these new audiences, I think
00:07:58
Speaker
having a good creative mix of diversity of assets, diversity of messages, in some ways that is personalization. Because I might not be making it specifically for Jeremy, but I'm making it for people like you. And they are actually very good at getting that one in front of you, but maybe getting the different one in front of me. But if I only give them one thing, everyone gets the same. And so I think that that is how we think about it, is just making sure that we have a mix. And so while we do use some of the very automated products like
00:08:26
Speaker
catalog feed-based ads, we do do some of that. I think that the most important way to be personalized with your creative mix is just to have a wide variety of assets in the platforms at all times and to be consistently refreshing it so that as one audience might start to exhaust, you inject some new life into the campaign.
Emerging Trends in Creative Styles
00:08:47
Speaker
Nice. Matt, as we're in Q1, towards the beginning of Q1,
00:08:53
Speaker
What are some major predictions that you have when it comes to creative for 2024? Yeah, I think, um, you never know. I think a lot of times the platform, the platforms, and I would say like how people interact with these platforms in their normal lives, a lot of times drives this. And what I mean by that is, um, obviously a couple of years ago, you know, I wouldn't have probably thought that
00:09:21
Speaker
there'd be such a focus on kind of influencer style like kind of user generated feeling ads like we've actually seen and i'm talking with friends in the industry i think this is a common theme that sometimes the ads that almost look a little grainy or like look a little bit lower
00:09:38
Speaker
resolution and lower quality are actually in some cases working really well for us and getting more comfortable with doing that. I think that would be my prediction is that wherever you kind of see your own TikTok feed, your own Instagram feed, whatever that looks like, like get ready to see ads looking more and more like what your friends are posting because I think that seems to be what is really moving the needle on those platforms is the more you can make your content engaging and actually interesting, more informative, less like salesy,
00:10:09
Speaker
I think that, again, you want a mix of everything. You can still have your catalog feed-based sales ads, but I think that ads that look like that, I think brands are now starting to figure out how to do that well. I think you're going to see more and more people pushing the envelope and leaning into trends and being really creative with how they tell their story to still drive sales, but do it in a way that feels pretty organic to these platforms.
00:10:35
Speaker
We know you don't have a crystal ball, but that was a fantastic answer. So you foresee authenticity and just scrappiness, less polished creative. I think that's right.
00:10:47
Speaker
Yeah, this was so good. We really appreciate you being here. Thank you for being one of our guests for the ad tech forum.
Conclusion and Sign-off
00:10:55
Speaker
We genuinely want to thank our sponsors Flash Talking by Media Ocean for putting together this fantastic concept of creative. Matt, thank you. We look forward to seeing everybody next week on behalf of ATG and myself, Jeremy Bloom. Thanks, Matt. Thanks, everybody, for watching. Take care. Thank you.