Abstract: During August 2013, CDC’s National Environmental Public Health Tracking Program launched the We Track, You Act! online advertising campaign using three platforms: Facebook, Google AdWords, and Advertising.com. Because of the highly customizable nature of online ads, limited information is available about the exact methods and efficacy of campaigns. This makes it difficult to determine the relative success of similar online advertising campaigns. In sharing our experience, CDC’s Tracking Program seeks to give others a touchstone by which to compare their campaigns and to provide lessons learned in developing and implementing an online campaign.
The goal of the online ads was to drive visitors to CDC’s We Track, You Act! webpage. The webpage summarizes how data, information, and resources on the National Environmental Public Health Tracking Network (Tracking Network) can be used by different audiences, including public health leaders, healthcare professionals, and parents.
CDC targeted the online ads to two main audience groups informed by previous research. The ad platforms used characteristics of the audiences, such as age, occupation, and interests to determine ad placement. Each ad platform uses different ad formats from text-only to thumbnail-sized images and banner-sized graphics. CDC designed different ads to meet the requirements for each platform.
Data collected from the three ad platforms show that the ads were seen nearly 23 million times and clicked on more than 12,000 times. While all platforms directed viewers to the We Track, You Act! webpage, Google AdWords had the greatest return on investment.
Lessons learned from this campaign will inform future online advertisements by CDC’s Tracking Program. In addition, CDC will use the outcomes from the We Track. You Act! campaign as a baseline with which to compare future campaigns.
No comments:
Post a Comment