Sector:
Pharma
Task:
Data Collection Form Banner Ads
Project Highlights:
- A healthcare marketing company wanted to team up with Assemble on behalf of two Pharma brands to create rich media banner ads that would utilize a form to collect user data.
- The brands each required a distinct version of the banner ad. One prompted users to fill out in order to subscribe to a product trial, while the other would allow them to receive additional information.
- Assemble was tasked with creating the expandable banners that would embed the client’s form into the creative and also provide a Thank You message to confirm the form was submitted properly.
The Approach:
Assemble developers are no novices to creating rich media banner ads, but embedding data collection and storage capabilities was uncharted territory — for any production team. “A few months ago, we wouldn’t have thought we could fulfill this request because we had never seen a form work this way,” Andres Moraga, Sr. Web Developer at Assemble, explained. “You typically don’t have forms in rich media because of both technical and policy limitations.”
One of those limitations became obvious when the team first attempted a simple form intended for websites. Due to its nature, once the form was submitted, the whole page would refresh instead of securing the data and sending a confirmation.
Other limitations came with storing the data in general. “App servers do not store personal information,” Franchesca Reyes, Assemble Project Manager, shared. “So for example, if the ad placement is Google, the data won’t be saved here automatically. It requires a certain level of expertise on how various platforms connect, and then finding the right way to get this done without breaching the regulations.”
So how did they do that? They avoided these apps all together. “The client provided us with various HTML snippets from their Salesforce account that we would put into the banner form to test the different responses,” Ricardo Chamberlain, Sr. Project Manager at Assemble, explained. “If it was submitted successfully, we were shown a confirmation, and if it wasn’t, we got an error message.”
“After a number of trial and errors, the client was able to generate a usable code sample from their Salesforce account and provide an API to connect to it in order to store the information here,” Fabian Miranda, Sr. Web Developer, added. “By doing so, Google wasn’t responsible for managing any of the information once it was submitted, and the client had all the data right in their Salesforce database.”
The Big Wins:
With both policy and functionality working against them, you could say the biggest feat was simply launching these all-new types of banner ads successfully. But for Assemble, the real win was the collective team effort that made it possible. “Problem-solving is what we love to do,” Andres explained, and having a client that was just as committed to the work, we were able to keep running through trial and errors to figure out a workaround. We would communicate the technical errors we faced in each attempt, and they would help us solve them until we found the one that worked.”
“Between the client’s coding knowledge, our production expertise, and Fran’s understanding of the policies on trafficking these ads,” Ricardo added, “we had multiple teams offering their own unique expertise to put us in the best position to pull this off.”
But the behind the scenes effort and launch itself are only as valuable as the success of the banners themselves. And these ads were worthy of the effort. “The fact that Pharma banners are typically very straightforward in their style,” Franchesca explained, “incorporating these forms created an entirely different look and feel than what you’d usually expect to see. The successful execution of these ads really speaks volumes because we were able to help our clients do something that would help them stand out in all new ways.”
A Key Takeaway:
The perks of problem-solving in this project didn’t just help this client achieve their goals, it’s also paving the way for brand new banner capabilities for all Assemble clients. “We knew Google and most ad servers are very reluctant to save customer information,” Fabian shared. “But the results from this project gave us valuable insight on how to create ads that allow clients to collect and store data moving forward. As long as we don’t involve Google or other ad servers in the collection process, we can continue to implement these types of banners for our clients.
“In this scenario, our client had Salesforce, but in the future, if we have a client who doesn’t, we could even create web services that allow our clients to store this kind of data on their own databases. We’re excited about the new doors this opens for all of our clients.”
