Malaysian Media Awards Winners Showcase





2022 | |

Smart Bid: Maximizing ROI-driven digital channels and new media to accelerate business performance

Advertiser: McDonald’s Malaysia
Brand: McDelivery
Creative Agency: C27
Credits: Gabb Agapito - OMD, Business Director Krishnaprasanth Ramalingam - OMD, Associate Director - Performance Christina Yap - OMD, Manager - Performance Camille Wong - OMD, Performance Specialist Darren Tan - OMD, Manager - Media Buying / Planning Nurin Jeffry - OMD, Planner - Media Buying / Planning

Objective & Challenge
With footfalls to our restaurants affected due to COVID Restrictions around the country, we needed to Maximize Online Delivery Revenue from paid Ads while increasing return on ad spends (ROAS). Our goal is to deliver 100% growth in 2021 for the total McDelivery business, and in the long run to be Malaysian’s top of mind when they think about food delivery. We recognize that the right online channel investment is certainly an important part of the media mix for McDonald’s. Previous studies on ROMS (Return on Marketing Spends) revealed that Search delivers at least 3 ROI & Video delivers at least 4 ROI for McDelivery. Consistently we have been maximizing the online delivery revenue across all Google-owned and operated inventories (YouTube, Display, Search, Discover, Gmail, and Maps) while focusing on return on Ad spending as well Our challenges: Continue to drive online delivery to mitigate the impact of the pandemic restrictions Further, maximize existing and new channels to drive performance

Insight & Strategy
Aiming to further accelerate the McDelivery business, the strategy is to deploy proven platforms that drive ROI, alongside testing new media channel which optimize thru conversion. Staying true to our overall strategic proposition of Deliver to Delight, we elevated McDelivery from the convenience of delivery to delivering the McDonald’s experience anytime and anywhere. We translated it to media thru the following approaches: Deploying the proven digital platforms that drive conversions. With machine learning, we are able to identify audiences with a high propensity to convert anytime and anywhere. Applying messaging which assures relevancy to capture attention when the intent is there

Execution
We worked with the Google team to create a goal-based campaign type that allows us to access all of the Google-owned & operated inventory from a single campaign. Performance Max was tested in Malaysia for the first time by McDelivery, and this helped us to further drive performance based on specified conversion goals, delivering more conversions and value by optimizing performance in real-time and across channels using Smart Bidding. Aside from those, we applied a few optimizations and best practices: 1. Combined Google’s automation technologies across bidding, budget optimization, audiences, creatives, and attribution; all empowered by specific ROAS objective 2. Real-time understanding of consumer intents and preferences paired with the input using audience signals, Performance Max has tapped into new users which wasn’t reached before 3. Data-driven attribution across channels optimizes for the most incremental touchpoints that drive customers to conversion. 4. Provided the right messages to our customers by maintaining Excellent Ad strength for all the uploaded ads. Refreshing the Ads on monthly basis to maintain the creative excellence. 5. Constant optimization to maintain a high score (<90%) so that the McDelivery campaign can perform at its fullest potential. 6. Improved the ad performance by activating ad extensions relevant to McDelivery. Extensions such as site links, callouts, structured snippets, and images have been added to the ad copies. 7. Executed deep keyword scrubbing monthly, removal of non-performing and redundant keywords and checking new search terms on a regular basis at the keyword level and adding new relevant keywords as necessary. 8. Efficiently achieved goal by leveraging audience signals such as all visitors (tag/GA based audience), recent converters, cart abandoners and McDelivery customer list

Effectiveness
With the optimizations done in 2021, results in terms of driving the business were impressive! We have increased our revenue from online orders by 148% YoY (Jan’21-Aug-21), with Return on Ad Spends of 4.36 for January to August 2021 versus 3.76 for January to August 2020, which would be significant 16% growth YOY! On the other hand, ad strength for McDelivery is in a great state with 80% of the ads rated as excellent and above. Having a good opti score of above 90% for our campaign is an indication of relevancy, thus driving quality traffic to McDelivery! More importantly with the testing of Performance Max, McDelivery found a new way to drive the business online and make it part of the regular always on.