User Journey of a Challenging Recruitment Campaign – Media, Creative and Data

Introduction.

In this webinar, Josh Tumbridge (Crunch Digital Media), Noel Thomas (CA3), and Lety Kemp (Videmus) showed how to solve your biggest recruitment attraction challenges by bringing together three leading digital agencies specialising in media, creative, and data. The speakers aimed to showcase the value of working with dedicated experts in their field, and how you could benefit from utilising the relationship between creative, digital media, and data.

To demonstrate each agencies skills, the speakers talked through their case study for Expedia Group, where they used their proven digital marketing strategies to reach the right audience, in the right place, at the right time.

 

Part 1 – CA3.

Group were looking to recruit Japanese nationals who spoke fluent Japanese and English onto their internship programmes. This was a very particular audience to target. In the past, Expedia Group used to attend the Boston careers fair to try and recruit their target audience, but because this required travel and resources, it was turning out to be an expensive route for recruitment.

To begin, CA3 conducted three pieces of research:

1. A big data crunch to profile the target audience and the best way of reaching them.
2. Internal focus groups and surveys across Expedia Group’s Japanese offices.
3. External audience research by Catalyx. Speaking to over 100 Japanese students regarding how they search for a job.

After conducting this research, the results found were not hopeful. CA3 discovered that only 5% of the target audience knew that Expedia Group was a local employer, and 42% had no knowledge of Expedia Group.

Our research revealed that Japanese students were hesitant to apply for internships as they believed that interns did not do any valuable work. Students wanted to find roles where they could feel a sense of achievement, a work-life balance, and good training opportunities.

To begin solving this issue, CA3 targeted three different audiences. The first was Japanese students at international universities, the second was Tokyo based students, and the third was Japanese regional-based students. This campaign aimed to introduce Expedia Group to Japanese students and communicate that the business was willing to offer them what they wanted.

The bilingual, multi-channel campaign revolved around some simple questions:

• Can interns make a big impact?
• Can interns really transform travel?
• Can interns really have global influence?

This would then encourage potential applicants to seek the answer by clicking on the ad. All advertising was provided in Japanese and English. This bilingual messaging which was packed full of employee-generated content helped Expedia Group back up their biggest sells.

 

Part 2 – Crunch Digital Media.

Next, Josh talked through how Crunch Digital Media’s services enhanced Expedia Group’s campaign.

Josh explained how the biggest challenge in this campaign was finding that pull between a passive and active audience. To begin tackling this, Crunch used the connect, consider, convert method.

• Connect – begin to activate audiences by generating engaged audience pools that can be re-engaged further down the user journey.
• Consider – re-engage audiences and capture active searchers through paid search media.
• Convert – Retarget users with an urgency driven message to get your audience to take that final action.

Crunch aimed to create a seamless user journey through social media, using visual media and user-generated content. The different platforms used include:

• Facebook – This platform had a lot of opportunities to drive awareness through video content. Once Crunch had initially targeted the intended audience, we re-engaged using instant experience to extend the user journey through location targeting. Crunch then used Lead Generation forms to capture warm audiences’ details.

• Programmatic – By using clever, data-led programmatic ads, Crunch could target audiences down to the nearest postcode which allowed us to target potential applicants who were visiting careers fairs. When these users were travelling on the web, Crunch could place ads on whatever website or platforms they may be visiting.

• Twitter – This platform is where users tend to be the most active, so they generally consume a lot more information than other social media platforms, guaranteeing good click through rates.

• PPC – Crunch took a bespoke approach for maximum impact, including upping bids in key recruitment regions, focusing on job role specific searches, and weighting budgets towards key devices. They also upped bids in regional areas which is where you could find the core universities.

• LinkedIn – Crunch were aware that Expedia Group had a limited active audience that was aware of them, so they aimed to engage a passive audience. Through precise targeting at the bottom of the user journey, Crunch hyper-local targeted individuals who were actively searching for jobs with performance job board promotion.

 

Part 3 – Videmus.

In the third and final part of the webinar, Lety explained how Videmus helped Crunch and CA3 to optimise Expedia Group’s campaign using data.

The thought of utilising data does often sound intimidating. But, when you use data to your advantage, you can push the boundaries of campaign optimisation to ensure applications are coming in.

Videmus uses live data to guide every move. It is important that the data is live because data lives in multiple different media channels. In order to make fast, efficient decisions, you cannot collect data manually – the process needs to be automated.

To humanise the process for those of us who aren’t data experts, Lety used a handy Lego analogy:

• Data: Imagine data like a huge bucket of Lego pieces. To find the piece you may need to complete whatever you’re building, you would have to physically search through the entire bucket until you find the right one. This is a very time-consuming task, and the same goes for collecting data manually.

• Fast and Visual:  If your Lego is already set up, the pieces you want will be much easier to find – the same goes for data. When the process is automated, you have the option to concentrate on what you need without having to worry about how to get there. Because Videmus uses data in real-time, you won’t be slowed down by trying to find results.

Collecting data manually takes such a long time that by the time you were done and had written your report, the data would have changed, and you would be submitting out-of-date information.

The three strategies to implement when it comes to data are:

1. Pinpoint the channels you need to track
2. Automate the extraction of data and aggregate them (live).
3. Use data visualisation techniques to understand results faster.

 

The Results.

After the successful implementation of strategies from all three agencies, here were the results:

• Over 8 million impressions over three months helped raise the profile of Expedia Group as an employer, which was the goal.
• 1,118 applications with a cost of £32 per application.
• The number of capable, qualified candidates that applied was 17% (the global benchmark is 14%, so this was exceeded.)

With the help of Crunch, CA3, and Videmus, Expedia Group were able to fill all their positions in record time, proving the effectiveness of hiring experts in their areas.

 

Webinar Takeaways.

• Creating engaging user journeys via performance led Digital Media Buying.
• Using data to lead informed creative decisions making & digital media choices.
• How to react creatively to live data to inform recruitment campaigns & shape candidate messaging.
• How to visualise your message to target different audiences.
• How to use automation to get live data and power fast media decisions.