Challenge:

• Flathead Beacon did not have any technical resources for creating online display ads, as online advertising was regarded as an addition to print advertising.
• Flathead Beacon wanted a solution that offered easy and efficient way to create and edit online ads in order to offer implement advertiser self-service for its long-time clients.
• The newspaper was manually entering statistics such as impressions and click-thru’s into a spreadsheet each month, consuming scarce resources and time and adding delays to the crucial campaign reporting process.

Solution:

• By adopting Impact Engine’s online display advertising solution and being able to create, publish and edit online display ads, Flathead Beacon concentrated on making the Web as strong as the print.
• The Flathead Beacon sales team leveraged Impact Engine’s extensive library of ad creative to generate personalized spec ads for each client prior to sales calls and by purposely entering minor mistakes, the sales team wanted to showcase its clients the ease of editing ads within the Impact Engine system.
• The Impact Engine advertiser self-service option enabled clients such as real estate agents to update their own content in real time - without ever having to republish their ads.
• In addition to providing the newspaper with real-time metrics within the system, Impact Engine also enabled Flathead Beacon to download customized metrics reports for each of its advertisers.

Results:

• Impact Engine empowered Flathead Beacon to start producing spec ads without the need for additional hiring or training.
• Showing personalized spec ads during one-on-one meetings with advertisers improved client relationships and offering advertiser self-service increased client satisfaction.
• Being able to access real-time metrics and generate downloadable customized reports for its clients dramatically decreased the time and resources needed for each client’s ad optimization and metrics reporting.

“Creating ads using Impact Engine has helped our sales process for web display ads tremendously. We create spec ads for our clients easily and have shown them how easy it is to make changes to their own ads with a few keystrokes. We love the ease and our clients love the flash ads available at a reasonable cost.” Kristen Hamilton Business Manager, Flathead Beacon