“When we explained the Microsoft Advertising opportunity to Refinitiv they were immediately excited,” recounted Aaron Stegvilas, Account Manager at TMI. “When we told them that they could target specific industries and job titles based on the LinkedIn data they were eager to try it.”
“Explaining the intricacies of specific digital marketing tactics to internal stakeholders can be a challenge,” explained Josh. “But the Microsoft Audience Network was easy for everyone to wrap their head around. Our sales teams were especially excited about the possibilities of leveraging LinkedIn data across new channels to improve our targeting.”
The Microsoft Audience Network had the additional benefit of being flexible to meet Refinitiv’s needs for both acquisition campaigns and high-level brand awareness campaigns. When the company was acquired in 2019 by the London Stock Exchange Group, TMI needed a platform that could get the message out broadly to the industry.
“The reach of the platform really helped meet that need,” said Alistair, “but then when it came to targeting the niche audiences we wanted to sell specialised products to, we were so impressed with the granularity of options available. We could also scale the campaigns quickly so it didn’t matter whether the product was a short or long buy cycle, we could tailor the campaign to meet the objectives.”
Although Refinitiv also advertise on the Google Display Network (GDN) they opted not to use the Google Import functionality but decided to create brand new campaigns for MSAN. “We import our campaigns daily for Search,” explained Aaron, “but for these campaigns we were creating bespoke ad copy that fit the audiences we wanted to target, audiences we couldn’t reach on Google, so it made sense to take our time and build the campaigns from scratch. MSAN also gave us more flexibility with using subtext in the ads so we wanted to create the best campaign we could using the available functionality.”
LinkedIn Profile targeting data allowed TMI to target potential customers based on the job function, industry, or company that they worked for. This unique opportunity gave Refinitiv the ability to create customised content which spoke to the benefits of its niche products safe in the knowledge that it would not alienate an audience the ad wasn’t intended for.
“The brand safety aspect was also really important for the client,” recalled Alistair. “The premium placements and brand safe environment of MSAN was a huge plus.”