Say hello to modern creative.

Data informs everything. It’s the foundation of customer experience across every touchpoint, channel and interaction. And in today’s world, the experience you create is your brand. How can you make that experience even better? By using data to power personalized creative assets.

Called data-driven-creative (DDC, because we need another acronym in this business), these supercharged assets are just what they sound like: creative executions that can have almost infinite variations, configured on the fly based on various data points that illuminate the viewer’s immediate circumstances. That makes the ads much more relevant and impactful and likely to invoke a response. These viewer-aware assets also provide a new data stream on what is capturing consumers’ attention and why. This information can then be fed back to the advertiser to inform and enrich campaigns down the line.

So, not only are you getting better ROAS with personalized creative, you’re getting unique information on your audience that can be used to define entirely new segments, augment what you know about existing segments and make future campaigns even more relevant.

The type of data used for DDC is often less about demographics and more based on circumstantial cues like local weather, mood, location, time of day and other behavioral characteristics of the viewer. It is not part of your targeting efforts, but rather is applied after someone has already been selected to see an ad to ensure that the message is relevant and timely.

Why does all this matter so much?

For one, Nielsen attributes nearly 50% of sales lift to the creative elements in a campaign. Let that sink in. For years, advertisers have focused their use of data singularly on targeting the right people with a small set of ads. But everyone in a targeting bucket is not the same, and advertisers that try to treat them that way come off hollow. It’s not the targeting that elicits emotion or inspires someone to act. It’s the creative that does that. And creative that shapes itself to the viewer does that even better.

You get it. Data-driven creative is one tool that, thanks to recent advances in the technology behind dynamic content optimization (DCO), is more relevant and useful than ever.

But how do you execute on DDC in a way that will both seamlessly fit into your current strategy and not be so complicated to deliver that it’s too daunting to try? Keep scrolling…

Data informs everything. It’s the foundation of customer experience across every touchpoint, channel and interaction. And in today’s world, the experience you create is your brand. How can you make that experience even better? By using data to power personalized creative assets.

Called data-driven-creative (DDC, because we need another acronym in this business), these supercharged assets are just what they sound like: creative executions that can have almost infinite variations, configured on the fly based on various data points that illuminate the viewer’s immediate circumstances. That makes the ads much more relevant and impactful and likely to invoke a response. These viewer-aware assets also provide a new data stream on what is capturing consumers’ attention and why. This information can then be fed back to the advertiser to inform and enrich campaigns down the line.

So, not only are you getting better ROAS with personalized creative, you’re getting unique information on your audience that can be used to define entirely new segments, augment what you know about existing segments and make future campaigns even more relevant.

The type of data used for DDC is often less about demographics and more based on circumstantial cues like local weather, mood, location, time of day and other behavioral characteristics of the viewer. It is not part of your targeting efforts, but rather is applied after someone has already been selected to see an ad to ensure that the message is relevant and timely.

Why does all this matter so much?

For one, Nielsen attributes nearly 50% of sales lift to the creative elements in a campaign. Let that sink in. For years, advertisers have focused their use of data singularly on targeting the right people with a small set of ads. But everyone in a targeting bucket is not the same, and advertisers that try to treat them that way come off hollow. It’s not the targeting that elicits emotion or inspires someone to act. It’s the creative that does that. And creative that shapes itself to the viewer does that even better.

You get it. Data-driven creative is one tool that, thanks to recent advances in the technology behind dynamic content optimization (DCO), is more relevant and useful than ever.

But how do you execute on DDC in a way that will both seamlessly fit into your current strategy and not be so complicated to deliver that it’s too daunting to try? Keep scrolling…

Data-driven creative is a crucial aspect of any personalization strategy. And whether you’ve been around the block in the marketing world or are new to the business, you know that personalization is key to today’s customer experience.

But here’s the thing about personalization: Consumers don’t notice when it’s there but are highly sensitive to its absence. McKinsey refers to it as a “hygiene factor.” You might not notice that your partner brushes their teeth every morning, but you’d certainly notice if they didn’t.

Research from Adobe found that 38% of consumers regularly receive content from brands that isn’t personalized, and 22% find this to be a negative experience. If content is not contextually relevant, consumers are more likely to stop paying attention to content from the brand (26%) or worse yet, stop using the brand altogether (12%).

But when consumers do receive personalized content, 51% report they would be likely to make a purchase and 46% report they would be likely to recommend the brand to others. And, 84% of people surveyed by Salesforce said being treated like a person and not a number is key to winning their business.

Targeting someone based on static characteristics like age and gender isn’t enough to meet their need for real-time, highly relevant, personalized content. You need creative campaigns that speak directly to their needs and preferences.

This means going beyond having a small handful of ads targeted to broad demographic or psychographic groups.

Data leveraged for data-driven creative is granular, often contextual information reflecting real behaviors like cart abandonment, visit frequency, color affinity, time of day, and so on. And it’s activated after someone has already been chosen to have an ad served to them.

The second aspect of the data used in data-driven creative campaigns comes from what happens after someone sees and interacts with an ad or series of ads. For example, do they most frequently respond to discount offers? Is there a time of day when they are more likely to click? What types of images get them to take action? This data is then fed back in to create even more relevant creative the next time around.

All of this comes together to create a cycle of positive reinforcement where the ads get better and more relevant as the campaign progresses.

To make this happen seamlessly, you need a practice that allows you to ingest the data coming back from your campaigns and make sense of it. This means finding a partner with the right expertise and technology, and then working together to come up with a decisioning strategy that will provide the highest degree of personalization to drive results.

Data-driven creative is a crucial aspect of any personalization strategy. And whether you’ve been around the block in the marketing world or are new to the business, you know that personalization is key to today’s customer experience.

But here’s the thing about personalization: Consumers don’t notice when it’s there but are highly sensitive to its absence. McKinsey refers to it as a “hygiene factor.” You might not notice that your partner brushes their teeth every morning, but you’d certainly notice if they didn’t.

Research from Adobe found that 38% of consumers regularly receive content from brands that isn’t personalized, and 22% find this to be a negative experience. If content is not contextually relevant, consumers are more likely to stop paying attention to content from the brand (26%) or worse yet, stop using the brand altogether (12%).

But when consumers do receive personalized content, 51% report they would be likely to make a purchase and 46% report they would be likely to recommend the brand to others. And, 84% of people surveyed by Salesforce said being treated like a person and not a number is key to winning their business.

Targeting someone based on static characteristics like age and gender isn’t enough to meet their need for real-time, highly relevant, personalized content. You need creative campaigns that speak directly to their needs and preferences.

This means going beyond having a small handful of ads targeted to broad demographic or psychographic groups.

Data leveraged for data-driven creative is granular, often contextual information reflecting real behaviors like cart abandonment, visit frequency, color affinity, time of day, and so on. And it’s activated after someone has already been chosen to have an ad served to them.

The second aspect of the data used in data-driven creative campaigns comes from what happens after someone sees and interacts with an ad or series of ads. For example, do they most frequently respond to discount offers? Is there a time of day when they are more likely to click? What types of images get them to take action? This data is then fed back in to create even more relevant creative the next time around.

All of this comes together to create a cycle of positive reinforcement where the ads get better and more relevant as the campaign progresses.

To make this happen seamlessly, you need a practice that allows you to ingest the data coming back from your campaigns and make sense of it. This means finding a partner with the right expertise and technology, and then working together to come up with a decisioning strategy that will provide the highest degree of personalization to drive results.

Historically, data-driven creative has been difficult to execute because of issues with producing the infinite creative variations needed. At one time, the solution was in preexisting templates. But those didn’t always align with brands' aesthetic preferences and were many designers’ worst nightmares. Silos between website and media data and having enough agility to put the data into play also created roadblocks.

But new technological advances have nearly eliminated these challenges. Most importantly, modern DCO platforms have evolved to make creative production fast and simple. The magic is in intelligent systems that can see what is and isn’t working and why and then implement adjustments to campaigns across channels.

What does the new tech behind data-driven creative look like in action?

Let’s consider a shopper we’ll call Ellen. She’s a frequent reader of interior design sites and loves to find ways to spruce up her home. An online retailer of housewares, furniture and accessories serves her three ads over two days for outdoor chairs in different styles. The third impression lands on a warm evening and Ellen clicks through and buys the chair.

With this interaction, the brand’s CRM system can create a profile for her. From there, a DCO partner can augment that data with the information that she had rejected black and blue chairs before buying a red one. On top of that, the ad she clicked on had a free shipping message attached, indicating that she may respond to value-add messaging.

At the end of the day, the brand knows that Ellen likes red over blue and black, that she is an evening shopper and that when it’s warm they should focus on outdoor accessories. All of this can be used to serve her more relevant ads in the future and inform creative targeted to shoppers with similar characteristics.

A second key feature of DDC is using creative to enhance a brand’s existing data sets. This can be done simultaneously with creative personalization.

For example, a tier-one automaker running a national campaign for a new model might start out focusing on three product features—luxury, safety and technology—and identify target segments for each. After running the first 15% of the campaign, a DCO partner could use the interactions observed to determine that two more segments exist—luxury moms and safety nerds. From there, these two messages are blended into the creative and served to these new target segments while also being passed back into the automaker’s CDP so that it can identify members of the refined segments and use the information in other marketing and product efforts.

While there are a million examples like this that span use cases, industry sectors and campaign objectives, the moral of the story is that the technology powering data-driven creative has finally arrived and is ready to be put to use across all channels. And that it can be used both to inform creative and enhance the data for the next campaign.

Historically, data-driven creative has been difficult to execute because of issues with producing the infinite creative variations needed. At one time, the solution was in preexisting templates. But those didn’t always align with brands' aesthetic preferences and were many designers’ worst nightmares. Silos between website and media data and having enough agility to put the data into play also created roadblocks.

But new technological advances have nearly eliminated these challenges. Most importantly, modern DCO platforms have evolved to make creative production fast and simple. The magic is in intelligent systems that can see what is and isn’t working and why and then implement adjustments to campaigns across channels.

What does the new tech behind data-driven creative look like in action?

Let’s consider a shopper we’ll call Ellen. She’s a frequent reader of interior design sites and loves to find ways to spruce up her home. An online retailer of housewares, furniture and accessories serves her three ads over two days for outdoor chairs in different styles. The third impression lands on a warm evening and Ellen clicks through and buys the chair.

With this interaction, the brand’s CRM system can create a profile for her. From there, a DCO partner can augment that data with the information that she had rejected black and blue chairs before buying a red one. On top of that, the ad she clicked on had a free shipping message attached, indicating that she may respond to value-add messaging.

At the end of the day, the brand knows that Ellen likes red over blue and black, that she is an evening shopper and that when it’s warm they should focus on outdoor accessories. All of this can be used to serve her more relevant ads in the future and inform creative targeted to shoppers with similar characteristics.

A second key feature of DDC is using creative to enhance a brand’s existing data sets. This can be done simultaneously with creative personalization.

For example, a tier-one automaker running a national campaign for a new model might start out focusing on three product features—luxury, safety and technology—and identify target segments for each. After running the first 15% of the campaign, a DCO partner could use the interactions observed to determine that two more segments exist—luxury moms and safety nerds. From there, these two messages are blended into the creative and served to these new target segments while also being passed back into the automaker’s CDP so that it can identify members of the refined segments and use the information in other marketing and product efforts.

While there are a million examples like this that span use cases, industry sectors and campaign objectives, the moral of the story is that the technology powering data-driven creative has finally arrived and is ready to be put to use across all channels. And that it can be used both to inform creative and enhance the data for the next campaign.

Now that you know what data-driven creative is and its role in a relevant, high-quality customer experience, you’ll need to do a few things and answer some questions to get data-powered campaigns up and running.

What is your goal for data-driven creative?
Making sure that your data-driven creative is part of a pre-determined journey or set of objectives is crucial to overall success. Think about where in the funnel data-driven creative will come in and what you need it to accomplish.

What do you want to learn about your audience?
Part of the power of data-driven creative is identifying new segments, consumer preferences and more. Ask what you don’t know about your audience and specify what you want to learn about them.

Are you ready to let the data decide?
The biggest risk factor in the DCO world is the need for control. Many agencies steeped in matching messaging to targets have difficulty giving up control to the technology and over-manage the decisioning. This shackles the optimization part of DCO. Feeling comfortable may take some time, but the path to data-driven creative results is to take your hands off the wheel and let the tech do its thing. Once you see the value that comes back, that decision will be easier and easier.

What roadblocks could get in the way of successfully executing on data-driven creative?
It’s likely that you’re lacking some internal expertise or data. Finding a partner that has in-depth knowledge of how data-driven creative works and the technology to power it will be crucial.

Are you ready to shift to a test-and-learn mindset?
With data-driven creative and a DCO partner to power it, you’ll need to think of every ad impression as a tiny experiment. The key to experimentation is to be open to the learning and to not try to force outcomes. That would feel unnatural to the consumer and undermine the idea of personalization. Learning is crucial.

Now that you know what data-driven creative is and its role in a relevant, high-quality customer experience, you’ll need to do a few things and answer some questions to get data-powered campaigns up and running.

What is your goal for data-driven creative?
Making sure that your data-driven creative is part of a pre-determined journey or set of objectives is crucial to overall success. Think about where in the funnel data-driven creative will come in and what you need it to accomplish.

What do you want to learn about your audience?
Part of the power of data-driven creative is identifying new segments, consumer preferences and more. Ask what you don’t know about your audience and specify what you want to learn about them.

Are you ready to let the data decide?
The biggest risk factor in the DCO world is the need for control. Many agencies steeped in matching messaging to targets have difficulty giving up control to the technology and over-manage the decisioning. This shackles the optimization part of DCO. Feeling comfortable may take some time, but the path to data-driven creative results is to take your hands off the wheel and let the tech do its thing. Once you see the value that comes back, that decision will be easier and easier.

What roadblocks could get in the way of successfully executing on data-driven creative?
It’s likely that you’re lacking some internal expertise or data. Finding a partner that has in-depth knowledge of how data-driven creative works and the technology to power it will be crucial.

Are you ready to shift to a test-and-learn mindset?
With data-driven creative and a DCO partner to power it, you’ll need to think of every ad impression as a tiny experiment. The key to experimentation is to be open to the learning and to not try to force outcomes. That would feel unnatural to the consumer and undermine the idea of personalization. Learning is crucial.

Clinch is an AI-powered creative personalization platform that delivers consumer-tailored ad experiences across all channels, to drive online and in-store performance and sales. Clinch provides brands and agencies with an omnichannel creative solution that leverages data to automate, personalize and optimize display and video ad experiences at scale, across programmatic, social media, in-app, native and OTT/CTV.