Our long-standing client, a global manufacturer of intelligent security systems AJAX, asked us to to increase brand awareness in Italy. Even though AJAX sells its products in more than 100 countries, the Italian market was still a new venture.

One of AJAX’s competitive advantages is its mobile app, which makes it easy to control the security system. Since more than 95% of conversions came from it, so we decided to draw attention to the app first and foremost and thus increase demand for the brand’s products.

We set up the following goals to accomplish:

Former football player Andriy Shevchenko became the brand ambassador, and we started exploring the new market.

1. The market research

The goal of the campaign was quite typical, but there was a nuance that made it much more challenging. Neither the client nor we had any experience with the Italian market before, so we did not know what to expect from the target audience. Thus, we faced the challenges of defining key queries, sites, cost of placement, and other key indicators. So, our first step was “reconnaissance”: identifying the target audience, the potential for reach, and the resources needed.

To analyze our target audience we used such common tools as DV360, Google Ads, Facebook and open-source audience data research, provided by the Italian National Institute of Statistics (a public agency). The client’s data also came in handy – their experience in other countries helped to define the audience as men aged 25-45 who are interested in technology.

By the way, we have the manual on how to share access to a Meta ad account.

We already had experience in promoting AJAX in Ukraine, and based on it, we developed 23 possible targeting for the new market. We conducted test campaigns and identified 8 most promising interests:

1. Security systems – a “warm” audience – folks already looking for the client’s product.
2. Travel and travel apps – people who often leave their homes and look for ways to secure it during their absence.
3. Entrepreneurs and well-off individuals that use various business apps – folks who own homes and other properties that needed protection.
4. Tax and finance professionals – as in the previous point, these individuals keep track of their money, so they can afford the client’s products and have a place to use them.
5. Audiences of YouTube tech channels – they are attracted to the innovative and engineering aspects of AJAX products.
6. Sports and sports apps users – sports fans would easily recognize the iconic sports figure who also happened to be our brand ambassador – Andriy Shevchenko, who played for Milan for seven years.
7. Consumers of certain sporting goods. Like the previous group, this segment may be interested in the main character of the advertisement. 
8. Users of certain mass-market brands. There are a number of brands that are popular among AJAX customers, so we looked for potential customers who like the same brands.

Thus, we targeted those who need to protect their property and have the financial means to install and maintain an intelligent security system. Based on our previous experience and research, we also targeted those who were likely to be interested in our client products. We built our entire strategy around the segments listed above.

2. Building analytics

Analyzing display campaigns is an important process, especially when it comes to a complex product with a large conversion window. Few people would order an expensive product from an unfamiliar manufacturer right after watching a video. But we didn’t count on it. It was important to build a system that would track the delayed reaction of our audience. And here, we used the author’s method of Comprehensive Analysis of brand awareness advertising. It allowed us to track three main performance metrics. 

1. Post-click – a user watched the video and immediately went to the landing page. This is the simplest indicator available in any ad account, so anyone can evaluate it.
2. Post-view – postponed actions after viewing. After watching a video, a potential customer did not click on it, but later thinks: “Maybe I should install an alarm?” He/she finds our client’s website, and at that point, we can already link this conversion to the ad viewing before, thanks to Google Campaign Manager.
3. Cross-device – actions after viewing on another device. The situation here is similar to Post-view, but is a bit more complicated. Let’s say a potential customer saw our ad on a computer in the evening but started Googling it in the morning on the way to work from his phone. How to connect this session with the ad? Here, Google Campaign Manager comes in handy as well, as it allows you to combine user actions on different devices.

It may seem like we’re counting crumbs and no one, except marketers, are looking for an advertisement that has been seen some time ago. But post-view and cross-device conversions made about 70-80% of website visits after an ad. And more than 90% prefer to make a purchase later and from other devices.

We had a similar case when we created advanced measurement of ad campaign’s impact for our client Bodo. This method helped us understand how effective Bodo’s ad campaigns really are.

3. Optimization and insights of the Italian market 

As mentioned above, we decided to use the Comprehensive Analysis tool as it provided us with the opportunity to continuously monitor and fine-tune our efforts. Based on the findings, we further segmented the target audiences by the device type and ad format they viewed. Such segmentation instantly allowed us to identify the segments that failed to perform to our expectations, so we immediately turned them [the segments] off.

Some segments immediately showed their potential in test campaigns, others we decided to turn off

As you can see, mobile targeting worked the best. Among the segments by interest, travelers and those interested in tech channels most often visited the client website.

When it comes to registration conversions, remarketing campaigns have worked best here. This shows how important remarketing is even for a new product on the market.

Insight. According to Youtube, 25% of all ad impressions in Italy take place on SmartTV channels. In comparison, only 21% of the platform’s commercials are watched on computers. We tested this reported pattern and discovered an additional twist. We found that, on average, a SmartTV viewer watched the entire ad more often than other types of viewers. We think it happens because an average SmartTV viewer is less likely to keep a remote control handy [and unwilling to get up and look for it]. We believe this curious phenomenon positively affected on our campaign because it made more SmartTV viewers watch the entire ad.

But SmartTV didn’t track conversions well because it couldn’t identify cross-device conversions. Any future Italian campaigns should consider this.

We also determined the effective frequency of impressions. This is an important issue for media planning and strategy building. Using Comprehensive Analysis, we have determined that the most effective contact area is 10-14 times a month. Interestingly, these findings do not match our experience with regard to the Ukrainian market, where only 3-5 contacts with a user are enough due to high brand awareness.

A curious fact – viewers from Central and South Italy had a better response to our ads and clicked on them more often than residents of the northern regions. This finding does not match the seemingly logical hypothesis that viewers from Italy’s wealthier northern regions are more likely to be interested in security systems.

Campaign results and findings

1. We tested 23 potential audiences by interest and identified the eight most effective targeting methods that we used in our branding campaign.
2. We used the Comprehensive Analysis of Brand Awareness Advertising method to examine the campaign results in detail and optimize them in time. Thanks to it, we tracked the delayed interactions of users with the brand: visits to the client’s website after viewing ads and transitions to the site from other devices.
3. An interesting insight was the love of Italians for Smart TV. This placement method has shown good results, so we will continue to use it.
4. The effective frequency in the new market for AJAX is more than 10 to build brand awareness.

Overall, brand traffic from Italy grew by 4% in the first month. And during the second month, it increased by another 24%. So, the campaign really grabbed the attention of the target audience and helped users remember the brand.

Here is what our client had to say about our effort:

“Thanks to the campaign we ran with newage. we have increased the company’s visibility. As a result of the campaign, the brand traffic numbers have gone up 24%. We were able to reach the most interested users in those categories where competition is dormant.  Between working with local store installers and taking advantage of the high season, we succeeded in building a good media pressure with a distinct and recognizable character”.

Stas Gorlenko, head of internet marketing at Ajax Systems.