Mobile phones and the Internet have propelled the digital wave and connected billions of people. Companies across geographies and industries agree that digital is the next battle field and are gearing up their entire strategy towards digital first. As a result, for the first time in history, digital ad spends have outgrown all other channels and are expected to reach 50% of the overall advertising sales by 20201.
According to a McKinsey2 report on digital marketing, a global consumer-products company saw a 25% year-over-year rise in digital marketing content spend. Online search engines and social media companies assist our clients to reach out to millions of potential customers, at a substantial cost. However, the senior management at the companies is closely monitoring the investment made on digital ad spends, as the return on such investments is not very high yet. First, digital ad spends are getting costlier as more companies are bidding for online ads space through digital channels like social media and search engines. Second, there are significant number of leads who drop out at various stages of the online journey. Without access to personal data, companies struggle to understand why the drop outs happen and fail to take corrective steps to improve customers' digital experience.
How is PwC solving the problem?
We mapped the problems across a digital lifecycle and looked into the critical question that companies are trying to find answers for.
Digital lead lifecycle, issues and critical queries
PwC’s Lead Enricher and Cost Optimiser (LECO) solution is an artificial intelligence (AI) platform that significantly reduces digital marketing costs and increases sales through smart lead allocation and assisted conversion. It is a robust engine driven by machine learning algorithms and holistic data models that enables spend optimisation and improves experience of the digital leads. The solution holistically resolves the problems a digital marketer would face across the digital lead lifecycle:
Components of PwC's Lead Enricher and Cost Optimiser solution
The first part of the solution (called “Scorer”) scores and categorises the lead using its digital footprint data (e.g. clickstream data). Then the model (called “Traveler”) nudges the digital lead to convert through a personalised online journey in real time. Also, the lead exchange model (called “Xchanger”) identifies the leads who would prefer non-digital channels for assistance and automatically directs them to a telecaller or branches. The final part of the solution (called “Optimiser”) does real-time online budget optimisation for digital marketing channels, thus saving the company significant costs.
The solution has real-time dashboards where the senior management can monitor key cost and conversion metrics and take necessary actions.
PwC’s Lead Enricher and Cost Optimiser solution is applicable to all businesses that have a digital marketing presence not just for online sales, but also for branding and customer awareness.
The PwC impact
Our solution is operational and has been implemented across two life insurance companies in India. One of them is a traditional agency based company, where our solution has increased the lead conversion by 80% within a quarter. In another digital-first life insurance company, our solution has reduced the digital ad spends by a whopping 30% in four months.
What’s in it for you?
If you have a digital business and plan to acquire your customers primarily through digital business, we can help you do that at a lower cost and with higher efficiency.
Sources:
1Sherman, E. (2017) Magna Global Advertising Forecasts, Magna Global. Retrieved from https://www.magnaglobal.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/MAGNA-Global-Forecast_Winter-Update_Final.pdf (last accessed on 25 June 2018)
2Edelman, D. and Heller, J. (2015) How digital marketing organisations can transform business, McKinsey. Retrieved from https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/marketing-and-sales/our-insights/how-digital-marketing-operations-can-transform-business (last accessed on 25 June 2018)
