“So air beebee what?” — my mom.
That’s my mom reaction when i told her about the Airbnb options that we could book for our holiday accommodations this year. When i explained her that Airbnb allows us to rent someone’s else’s place for a time period, she was losing her mind. Why can’t we just stay at the hotel?!
Since i’m an Airbnb believer, i listed to her all the benefits we get by staying there: cheaper price than hotels, great locations, feels like local, and we can cook. Well, by the end of the day, she just followed along because i paid the bill anyway. This, however, got me thinking about what i do for a living.
As a digital marketer, how could i get my mom to use Airbnb or any other digital product with Real Time Bidding (RTB)?
“The other underserved behemoth market is seniors. Their total purchasing power is staggering and dramatically exceeds that of their younger cohorts who are , absurdly , the focus of most marketing efforts.” — Tom Peters in The Excellence Dividend: Meeting the Tech Tide with Work That Wows and Jobs That Last.
Persona
My mom will have her 60th birthday next year ( Boomers alert! ). I could say that she is living her life, #pensionlife. She is very active at her church. And when she is not busy praising the Lord with her communities, she goes online. She watches a lot of Youtube videos and puts in enormous time on Facebook Newsfeed. She also reads a lot of news on the web and is up-to-date on the latest gossips of celebrities.
Even though she spends a lot of time online, the rest of her life remains offline. She does not use online banking — she goes to the bank regularly to print her saving books. She does not use any online travel booking service — she visits the travel agent office. She does not use food delivery app — she calls the restaurant directly.
However, i am seeing a shift. A lot of her church buddies recommended her to use the app for car / taxi service. Instead of having to go through the hassle of contacting the customer service to book a taxi, she just needs to do one or two clicks on the app. Then, bam, the taxi is here. She is so fascinated by the idea — she uses the app and talks about it all the time now.
This shows that my mom is much more apt to rely on a referral, like most of other boomers. And what i found particularly interesting is that baby boomers are also 19% more likely to share content than any other generation.
This could be my golden key: Mom, i’m gonna get ya!
Experiment Design:
Objective
Running Real-Time-Bidding (RTB) campaign to increase the numbers of transactions from baby boomers which can be measured by the value of RTB conversions of the campaign.
The total value of RTB conversions consists of the numbers of baby boomers users from RTB, the numbers of % transactions through RTB & referral, and price of transaction.
Therefore the equation would be:
Total Value of RTB Conversions: (# baby boomers that converted from RTB )*(% baby boomers transactions from RTB & referral)*(price of transaction)
Key Results
- Increase the numbers of baby boomers users using RTB by 20%
- Increase the percentage of transactions through RTB & referral by 40%
- Price of transaction ( this is constant )
The percentage here is only an assumption, but improving 1 by 20% and 2 by 40% will improve the total value of RTB conversions. (68% increase!)
Hypothesis
If the experiment is successful, I predict that we will improve total value of RTB conversions monthly by 68% due to the 20% increase in the numbers of baby boomers prospects from RTB, 30% increase in the % transactions through RTB & referral, and price of transaction stays constant.
So here’s what i’d do to run the campaign:
Campaign Execution
Who is it for : Tech savvy baby boomers
What is it for : Get more conversions from tech savvy baby boomers who will turn into the advocates for the products
Campaign Period : 1–6 months
I would deep dive into only one channel and 2 strategies for now. If it has a demand, I can go deep dive into other strategies on the next writing.
Strategy : Interest Travel
What it’s for : Prospecting, target completely new user who has not used Airbnb.
Who is it for : all age 50+ and above that shows interest in Travel
Campaign setting : Demographic Targeting all Gender above 50+, with detailed targeting of Travel Interests, and exclude those who has already registered on Airbnb.
Creative messaging :
Sample Video Content:
- Airbnb amazing review from fellow boomers. Since boomers are more apt to referral, watching the review from someone on their generation might boost the performance. Localisation is important! So if you are targeting those who live in Germany, make sure you got some real German dudes on the spotlight.
- Funny hotel fails clip. Message: Avoid hotel fails, use Airbnb. Funny video is always what got us hooked to the internet, including baby boomers. Having light and funny clips might catch their attention and prompt them to go to the next step, which is checking out landing page and signing up.
Sample Slideshow — as the name suggests, this is a lightweight video on FB that contains compilation of a few pictures with messaging. You can create this one easily on FB Ads Manager.
- Interesting Travel Hacks e.g: Roll your clothes for more space, Add some dryer sheets to your suitcase, last but not least book Airbnb instead of hotel. Baby boomers like to learn and get new knowledge on the internet. Some educational slideshow like travel hacks might lead them on the site. Just make sure that you put a really nice picture, and not more than 20% of text on each of them
Sample Single Ad / 3 Ad — This is a simple ad you often see on the news feed. Just one or 3 static images, with call to action.
- Very straightforward, sweet, & short messaging e.g: The problem that the baby boomer is facing with hotels, and what Airbnb can do to solve it
Strategy : Retargeting those who visit landing page but have not registered yet
What it’s for : Get users who have shown interests, but have not yet taken any actions.
Who is it for : Baby boomers who visits the site previously but have not converted yet.
Campaign setting : Demographic Targeting all Gender above 50+, create a new custom audience of the website traffic — you can create multiple audiences based on the customer journey (landing page, registration page), and exclude those who has already registered on Airbnb.
Creative messaging :
Sample Video Content:
- Tips and tutorial on how to use Airbnb: Show them how to navigate on the site easily.
- Introducing Airbnb plus: since Airbnb is used to with hotels, showing them Airbnb plus could attract their attention for a hotel alternative. Like renting a villa
Sample Slideshow:
- List all the benefits of using Airbnb
- Show them the website features that could make their live easier.
Sample Single Ad / 3 Ad:
- Benefits on using Airbnb
- Introducing Airbnb plus
Optimizations
Once you have enough data after the campaign has been running for 3–5 days, you can optimize the campaign. You can start by cutting out what did not work and leverage those that works. For example, if you see a particularly bad performance on Sunday midnight, you might want to turn off targeting during the hours of 00.00–04.00 on Sunday. When you cut, make sure you see if this section has delivered enough impressions for you to judge if it works or not.
Also another thing to note on the strategy is we need to do a lot of A/B Testing on the creative. What works for one targeting, might not work for others. And in digital advertising, the attention span is so low and the chance for ad wearout is high, so we need to test some varieties of ad to see which one works better and replace old ads which are not performing strong anymore.
Learning
This campaign could be successful or it could turn into a failure, but the goal of the experiment is to learn. Learn of what worked & what didn’t, and how we could use these insights and results from the campaign to further improve our product and future strategies.
Results
From this campaign we might be able to reach 20% increase in numbers of baby boomers users, but we might only be able to increase the % of transactions from baby boomers 10% lower than expected. It’s due to….
Analysis
Did we get the result that we want? Y/N
What worked?
What did not work?
What could be improved?
Key Take Outs
- Trust and familiarity are important for baby boomers. Therefore, they have longer consideration time.
- A lot of conversions came from entertainment sections, we might want to target entertainment interests for the next campaign.
- The general ad did not perform very well, personalized and relevant ad would be the key to get their attention.
- Etc.
Next Steps
- Play around with the creative messaging and content
- Do more of what worked and remove what didn’t
- Analyse, iterate & refine, then start again
Seeing an ad on Facebook will not definitely turn my mom into an Airbnb believer, but if she sees 3 of her friends are sharing the same products… Now we got her curiosity: what is this product that all of my friends use?
I could already imagine a scenario of what would happen:
She would click on the referral link and check out the page. She would reach out to her friends to find out about their experience on Airbnb. She would then forward the referral link to me and asked me to set up her account.
A week later, she would then call me to inform that she is going to go on vacation with her church friends and she’s renting a nice house near the beach on Airbnb. Then she would go on Facebook to post her vacation photos. She’d see this ad from Airbnb that she could get an extra credit if she shares her Airbnb referrals. She then click on the ad, go to the referral landing page, and click the share to Facebook button on the page.
Her friends see my mom’s referral on Facebook and ask her about the experience. They would then call their kids to set up the Airbnb account. And so on and so forth.
And this is the story of how i use Real Time Bidding (RTB) to get my mom to use Airbnb.