About A+E Networks
A+E Networks is a global content company with a portfolio of media brands including A&E, The HISTORY Channel, and Lifetime. The content runs across linear TV, web, app, and more recently, OTT platforms like Amazon Fire TV, Samsung TV, and Roku. A+E Networks is using Branch’s full product suite – Journeys, Universal Ads, and Universal Email. This case study is focused on ad campaigns on Amazon Fire TV.
Challenge
A+E Networks wanted to enhance their capabilities to track ad spend and downstream events across OTT. Downstream events enable them to optimize campaigns mid-flight and determine overall success. Luckily, Branch was there to help.
Solution
A+E Networks worked with Branch to implement the Branch Amazon Fire SDK into A&E, The HISTORY Channel, and Lifetime Amazon Fire apps. In conjunction with Branch’s Amazon Ad Partner solution, A+E Networks was able to gain visibility and better track their campaign downstream events. Horizon Media then launched the campaigns for A+E Networks on Amazon Fire TV and reviewed the campaigns while they were live to optimize on key KPIs and creative. This allowed them to assist A+E Networks in the overall success of its campaigns.
OTT Attribution Support results
A+E and Horizon Media focused their efforts on performance and optimization. To analyze the campaign performance, they used two KPIs that focused on video engagement and video viewership, a key feature of their mobile apps and business model:
- Cost per performance to measure the change in spend against the count of videos viewed
- Cost per optimization to measure the change in spend against a set number of videos viewed
With Branch and Horizon Media, A+E reduced the cost per performance by 78% and the cost per optimization by 76% over six weeks.
“When we identified an attribution gap, Branch was interested in hearing about our challenge and was proactive in solving the problem. Implementing Branch tracking allowed us to measure and optimize results.”
Jen Taylor, VP Director of Digital Audience Development
A+E
Other use cases
In addition to OTT ad attribution support, A+E also utilizes Branch’s Universal Ads, Journeys, and Universal Email products to acquire, retain, and measure user engagement across all devices.
For paid marketing on Facebook, Google, Apple Search Ads, and other affiliate partners, A+E implemented Branch Universal Ads. By using Branch, A+E can measure their campaign performance effectively and optimize channel prioritization to maximize ROI.
A+E Networks utilizes custom Journeys banners on individual show and episode pages to optimize the web-to-app user experience with deferred deep linking on the mobile site. In the example below, a user is served with a custom Journeys banner when they land on The Curse of Oak Island page. Since the user doesn’t yet have the app installed, they are taken to the App Store to install the app. Because Journeys are powered by deferred deep linking, the context of this user’s click is preserved through install, and they are seamlessly routed to the same landing page in the app that they were viewing on the web. With Journeys, A+E can customize each banner specific to each page and A/B test new designs, colors, templates, formats, and CTA — without any engineering support.
Customized Journeys banner deep linking the user into the app.
A+E Networks also uses Branch Universal Email to seamlessly route new and existing users from email to the app. When a user clicks on a link in an email, they are deep linked into the app if they are an existing user. If the user doesn’t have the app downloaded, A+E deep links them to the mobile site where they display custom Journeys banners on all show and episode landing pages. With Universal Ads, Email, and Journeys, A+E Networks can track the overall down-funnel events driven by their campaigns. Beyond just clicks and opens, A+E has a clear picture of app installs and engagement driven by their campaigns broken out by desktop, mobile web, and app.
