Campaign Summary

Tosla, an electronic money transfer platform, wanted to increase brand affinity among generation Y and Z consumers. Despite this segment not yet being paying customers, the company moved to internalize its brand in the mind of its next consumers by leveraging marketing tactics often reserved for gaming apps.

Strategy

Objective and Context:

Tosla is an electronic money transfer platform in Turkey that enables money transfer 24/7 for free and makes shopping easier with a prepaid card linked to the customer's Tosla account. The company is a subsidiary of Akbank, one of the biggest banks in Turkey.

Tosla's objective was to build brand awareness using performance marketing tactics to acquire new, highly active users via digital media and gain market share among e-money platforms. Moreover, it wanted to acquire users who were more susceptible to registering for the app, with registration rates from organic channels being only around 25 percent. Thus, the company created the "Rising of New Generation T" campaign, with the intent of driving 250,000 new registrations, and one million installs of its app, independent of offline advertising.

Target Audience:

Tosla's target were gamers within the generations Y and Z segment. The audience's behaviors on digital platforms were a challenge for the company. Generations Y and Z are rather blind to ads because they are always bombarded by them. They are the generation that knows better than any other segment the difference between sincere and fake ads.

Creative Strategy:

Conveying both the functional and emotional benefits was one of the company's creative objectives. Considering this, Tosla tried to increase the ad's relevance by leveraging Facebook's Playable Ads format, the ideal creative type for targeting an audience already interested in playing games. On Twitch and Youtube, the company ran personalized programmatic ads communicating a 10 percent E-pin discount on video games the target was watching. Moreover, Tosla work with social media advertising company Smartly to automate bidding, budget, targeting, and creatives, which helped automate elements of the campaign.

Execution

Overall Campaign Execution:

Tosla's overall campaign budget was $500,000. The media plan budget was 100 percent allocated to new media that was aligned with the target's digital consumption habits, such as Facebook, Google, Twitch, Tiktok, and mobile gaming apps. The use of artificial intelligence combined with marketing automation tool Smartly.io was another key element that enabled the brand to adapt an automated approach to its campaign.

Mobile Execution:

Tosla's mobile strategy was based on two pillars: emotional and functional benefits. The company followed four steps to execute its plan.

1. Observation: Tosla conducted a digital footprint analysis on its target for one week on Facebook and Google Ads. It concluded that engagement rates were the highest between the hours of 08:00-12:00 and 18:00-24:00. In response, the company used Smartly's marketing automation tools to decrease bids of its ads in these hours making for a more efficient campaign.
2. Teaching: The company ran personalized programmatic ads on video games the target was watching on Twitch and Youtube. Its goal was to teach the target about the E-pin discount and invite them to take action and install the Tosla app.
3. Practice: Tosla's campaign leveraged Facebook's Playable Ads format. This format, which is widely used by gaming apps, enables people to try the app before installing it. After engaging with the ad, the user gets invited to install the app.
4. Fun: Tosla ran performance marketing ads on Tiktok and in gaming apps which are heavily used by the target for fun. This approach made them associate the brand with the idea of fun. The goal was to convey an emotional benefit to the users and augment the likeability of the app in their minds. As the emotional benefits increase, the loyalty level also increases.

Results (including context, evaluation, and market impact)

Tosla decreased its registration cost-per-action by 20 percent and increased its click-through rate by five times.

Thanks to its investment in digital media, in only three months it entered the trending lists of Google Play's finance category. As a result of this success, the company triggered an 11 percent uplift in organic installs.

Tosla also decreased its install costs to 50 cents. On Facebook and Google Ads, it obtained a brand lift of 8 percent and 5 percent, respectively. In only three months Tosla obtained one million installs and 250,000 registered new users.