CouponDunia wanted an innovative marketing solution that would engage existing customers as well as reach new audiences. Traditional TV advertising offers reach, but the CouponDunia team realised that the interactive nature of video could engage its audience more effectively. Let's find out how this coupon aggregator reached and engaged their audience, and built some brand love along the way.
GOALS
Increase brand awareness amongst their target audience
Create an innovative digital campaign that stands out in a competitive market
APPROACH
Researched the target audience to determine the most popular YouTube channels by subscriber and inventory growth
Created 50 unique, hyper-targeted skippable ads that engaged viewers with humour and were relevant to the YouTube content they were about to watch
Used cards to enable visits directly from their videos
RESULTS
A 13% increase in visitors to the website over an eight-week period
32% of viewers watched the entire 30 second ad (nearly double the usual rate)
An 8% month-on-month rise in revenue
With 350 million internet users, digital marketing in India is fast becoming the most cost-effective way for businesses to reach audiences. CouponDunia, the country’s largest coupon platform, garners 5.2 million visits a month, has more than 7.5 million email subscribers, and counts over 2 million app downloads. The website lists coupons from more than 2,000 online brands, 5,000 restaurants, and 12,000 outlets across six Indian cities.
The digital audience is in control
Users are consuming digital video at an unprecedented rate. In India, YouTube saw an 80% growth in watch time from 2014 to 2015, of which 55% came from mobile. How this content is consumed has changed, too. Old concepts of prime time viewing are no longer relevant because consumers now have the ability to view what they want, when they want, and, most importantly, where they want.
CouponDunia knew that YouTube offered massive reach as well as the ability to target the right consumer. And with TrueView, YouTube’s skippable ads, the consumer decides whether to watch an ad. The task at hand for CouponDunia was to create innovative content that connected and engaged consumers.
What are Indian consumers watching?
The first step was to determine what CouponDunia’s target audience was watching. Looking at interests, location, gender, and age, the company discovered that its target audience was primarily males aged 18-35 with interests in technology, movies, songs, news, comedy, and politics. Based on these findings, it selected 50 Indian YouTube channels that were most watched by this target audience. With channels including MTV Roadies, AIB and Zee News, CouponDunia needed a strategy to convey a single message: Consumers can use multiple free coupons over a range of categories.
Make them laugh
To reach its audience in a meaningful way, CouponDunia realised its ads had to be relevant and fun. In a first for India, the five-year-old company decided to get creative by taking one ad and making 50 humorous variations of it. Each variation was related to the content that was about to be viewed while highlighting the benefits of CouponDunia. The two actors featured in the campaign, Errol and Jitendra, had an instant comic chemistry that was both engaging and fun.
“We didn’t want viewers to skip our videos. We didn’t feel that a one-size-fits-all TV approach would work online. We wanted to create and test content made specifically for YouTube by bringing in elements of the content about to be viewed, then subtly plugging in the brand without it seeming out of place. We were fully aware of both the user's trepidation at being disrupted in their private viewing time, so we wanted to create content that they would enjoy," said Sameer Parwani, CouponDunia CEO.
Purchase while engaged
With a relevant and targeted campaign that stood out from the crowd, CouponDunia further incentivised its audience with Google cards. By means of a click button that appeared on the ad, cards allowed users to go to the CouponDunia platform to redeem coupons. As a result, CouponDunia had a unique opportunity to convert viewers into potential customers.
Relevant and targeted ads boost completion rates, visits, and sales
Viewers loved the ads. CouponDunia’s completion rate grew significantly, from 18% to 32%. In the first month alone, the company’sads reached 10.3 million people with a 13% rise in visits to its website, while increased traffic and brand awareness resulted in an 8% month-on-month rise in revenue.
Compared to the company’s previous YouTube campaigns, the highly targeted, relevant ads drove a 37% increase in the number of viewers who visited CouponDunia’s site. On average, CouponDunia received 800-1200 click-throughs to its website per day from this YouTube campaign, a figure which doubled on weekends. And in terms of cards, CouponDunia’s ads received 25,000 click-throughs during the brief 6-week campaign-20% above the usual level.
Long-term targeted marketing plan
After seeing the growth in brand awareness and coupon redemptions, CouponDunia has decided that tailor-made ads paired with Google’s ads on YouTube will be part of its long-term marketing strategy. As Parwani commented, “By using targeted, relevant ads on YouTube, we’ve seen a proven increase in revenue. YouTube has always been our preferred partner and will continue to be so in the future.”
