Webby Awards - Best Growth Strategy
Furthermore, by organising the year into creative/distribution sprint windows and using an
ongoing test-and-learn approach, LDS was able to react to initial performance outcomes
and apply those learnings throughout the year, adjusting both the organic and paid
distribution strategies as well as the creative output.
PAID CAMPAIGN STRATEGY
LDS's paid media approach focused on maximising the overall performance of all content
formats while influencing homepage suggestions to ensure the content was organically
delivered to audiences as they opened up their YouTube homepage. This was achieved
through utilising an always-on in-feed campaign (with related video extension) to maximise
our content consideration (total watch time) and a Video action campaign to convert
viewers into subscribers.
Once a week, LDS incorporated full episodes into the always-on campaign, ensuring a fair
test of 10k views before assessing performance vs other content already in the campaign.
We compared performance across three key factors:
● Earned view rate, a custom percentage metric based on, once a user has viewed a
piece of content, how likely they are to go on and watch another piece of Dr Seuss
content within the next 7 days.
● Video Played to 75% completion, a platform metric that allows measurement of
how well the content retained viewers (LDS did not use 100% measurement due to
end card drop off); and
● View rate, which was used to assess the efficiency of thumbnails & ad copy.
This was then optimised weekly to prioritise the content with the highest performance
compared to LDS benchmarks for each metric and assessed monthly on a macro level,
ensuring we balanced all three factors.
On the Video Action campaign, LDS harnessed the discoverability of vertical Shorts
published organically on the YouTube channel as “ad creatives”, understanding that kids
may be using their parents' accounts, and parents would be browsing YouTube Shorts
looking to discover new channels for their kids to watch. Here, we used a similar data-led
approach, adding creative weekly and measuring both the conversion rate and cost per
conversion of each short, allowing each the time to test before making a judgement on
performance.
Throughout the year LDS then supercharged thematic content with paid promotion through
seasonal periods, such as Reading Month/Happy Birthday with Cat in the Hat,
Back-to-School Month, Hispanic Heritage Month, Halloween and the Christmas Holidays
with the Grinch. This enabled Dr. Seuss content to gain strong visibility during key periods,
whilst maintaining an always-on presence.
Considering the audience’s receptiveness to targeting, LDS split the target audience into ad
groups based on (1) high scale vs high intent and (2) behavioural vs contextual targeting.
Utilising LDS’s long-established data-led testing processes, LDS approached this on the
basis that parents co-viewing with their kids would be best served with contextual
advertising, whereas parents looking for seasonal content would fall into high-intent
custom search terms/interest segments. high-scale behavioural/affinities targeting
balanced the cost of this approach, ensuring that we maximised the budget during
seasonal periods overall.
