Connected-Stories provides a number of default sequences already optimized and trained to yield the best performances for some specific verticals. These kind of sequences have already been used in different campaigns and do not need extra setup to get them up and running. It's really Plug and Play baby!
Of course even the default sequences can be further optimized with other data of any new campaign.
Below an example of a sequence containing four different stages in the consumer journey. This particular sequence is frequently used for launching entertainment content, products or services.
Reach your target audience with personalized messages across any channel in every single moment of the consumer journey by creating non-linear sequences of interactive content.
Awareness
This is the status all visitors fall the first time they are shown a story about the content (movies, tv shows, art exhibit, sport event, product, service) and they become aware of it.
Stories' Structure: Here the story may include a trailer of the event + various elements of engagement to increase user interaction and further understand its path towards conversion.
Engagement
Visitors that watched more than 25% of the video in the Awareness stage and haven’t performed any other action fall in the Engaged status.
Stories' Structure: The stories here include a different trailer and different elements of engagement. Elements of engagement can be targeted specifically to the event's storyline.
Consideration
Visitors that engaged with any of the previous units without clicking on the CTA and therefore converting fall in this status.
Stories' Structure: Now the Sequence can take many shapes according to the users' interaction in the previous units expressing interested in a particular theme vs another one. Each single CTA is customizable and so is the trailer.
Conversion
According to the objective of this campaign, users that reached the landing page are considered converted.
Stories' Structure: The objective of the units in this state are 2. 1) Remind the user to actually purchase movie tickets and go to the theater. 2) Share it with their friends to increase ROAS. The stories needs therefore to include certain elements of advocacy such as social sharing options.
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C-S workflow is defined into 4 stages: Plan, Create, Deliver, Live.
1) Plan: Define the Consumer Journey
Thanks to Connected Stories' Journey Designer visual tool, you can define all the stages of the consumer path and how to transition from one stage to another.
To see how to setup a sequence see the Journey Designer section.
2) Create: Build Your Stories
Collect, gather or create the needed assets for your campaign sequence as defined in step 1.
Upload these identified assets (videos, images, etc.) into the Connected-Stories media library and then start building the actual ad units that will be used for your story.
After uploading your creative assets, you can begin to build your stories: Connected-Stories offers a variety of ready-to-use templates to help you create the most dynamic and engaging stories for your target audience.
The story creation process is organized into four main steps:
Add a Campaign: The campaign houses all your interconnected ad units and this is the first piece needed to get started. In each Campaign you'll be able to add as many formats and stories you want;
Add Formats: Under a campaign, you can include as many formats as planned. Connected-Stories supports a wide variety of ad formats according to your needs (mobile, desktop, smart-L and split screen).
To see a complete list of the formats supported and how to set them up visit the Ad Formats section.
Add Stories: Stories are the individual ad units that are created within each ad format and that you connect into a sequence; these are what users will end up watching. According to the sequence setup, each story will serve a different purpose at each stage of the consumer journey. To make stories more dynamic and engaging, Connected-Stories offers a variety of widgets that can be added to them. It is possible to design a widget sequence based on user interactions and add as many widgets to a story as you see fit.
To see how to setup and edit a story visit the Stories section.
Storyboard: Just as the Journey Designer is to define the stories' sequence in the consumer journey, the storyboard is a tool that allows to design a sequence of widgets within a single story. Through the storyboard, you will be able to define how widgets behave within a story according to the users' interactions with it.
To learn more on how to use the Storyboard, visit the Storyboard section.
3) Deliver: Ad Export
C-S platform allows you to generate ad tags and deliver them to any ad server and/or exchange to easily traffic your new Connected-Stories campaign.
Once your creative is finalized and ready to be trafficked all that is left to do is export the tags.
Connected-Stories provides different exporting options for its units:
HTML5/JS Tag: These kinds of exports allow to traffic the stories in a dynamic way. Here you will be able to leverage all the magic of Connected-Stories in terms of both widgets and message sequencing;
JavaScript Tag: This ad tag provides a higher level of interaction on the ad unit such as an expandable unit;
VAST/VPAID Tags: These types of exports allow to deliver ad units for compliant Video Players and are only used for Preroll and Fullscreen video formats;
MRAID Tag: This type of tag allows to traffic Connected-Stories' interactive ads within any kind of mobile app;
Tracking Pixel and Click Command Tag: This type of tag allows to keep track of impressions and clicks for unsupported third party redirect.
To learn more about generating ad tags see the Ad Export section.
4) Live: Real-Time Optimization
Connected-Stories allows you to effortlessly analyze and optimize your strategy and creativities at any point in time during your campaign. We make data available to you the moment your campaign goes live, so that you can see which formats, stories and sequences are yielding the best results.
When your campaign goes online, the status in the "Campaigns" page will be set on "LIVE", while once that the campaign is over, the status will be changed in "EXPIRED".
To learn more visit the Real-Time Optimization section.