Dive Brief:
- Acxiom's LiveRamp is introducing a new feature today for its IdentityLink platform that lets marketers target audiences in search channels in coordination with display efforts, and early tester Finish Line is seeing positive results by combining the tool with Google Customer Match, according to a press release made available to Marketing Dive.
- The IdentityLink solution helped Finish Line simplify the execution of its campaigns and also resulted in improved clickthrough rates (CTRs) and a sales bump, according to Lora Loesch, director of digital finance and paid marketing at the athletic apparel retailer.
- In early testing, LiveRamp customers saw a CTR increase of 2% to 3%, on average, and an almost 70% increase in return on ad spend, the company said. The press release added marketers pairing the new feature with Google Customer Match were able to match more of their customer relationship management (CRM) database with search campaigns.
Dive Insight:
As brands with a strong brick-and-mortar presence like Finish Line continue to weather the "retail apocalypse," improving digital marketing strategies might be key to luring in new customers and bolstering sales both in-store and online. Better tying together search marketing with customer relationship data could vastly improve audience targeting on the individual level in that regard, as LiveRamp's new solution shows.
"We focus on specific audiences in our display and social advertising, so applying this people-based approach to paid search was a natural progression," Finish Line's Loesch said in a statement.
While marketers are always interested in the latest marketing tactics, there's still tremendous value in older digital channels like email and paid search. As the LiveRamp announcement proves, even entrenched digital tactics like search engine marketing (SEM) can get a boost from leveraging new technology.
The key new capability that search audience targeting brings to marketers is not having to choose between contextually relevant search ads or highly targeted display ads. LiveRamp's people-based search aims to eliminate that trade-off, Jeff Smith, CMO, LiveRamp, said in the release.