Problem: Current Limitations in Paid Media Destination Configuration at the Action Level

Pega Customer Decision Hub (CDH) offers a powerful suite of capabilities for orchestrating personalized customer engagements across various channels, including paid media. By leveraging next-best-action decisioning, organizations can deliver the right message, at the right time, through the preferred channel, ultimately aiming for a 1:1 customer engagement vision. The integration with paid advertising platforms like Google Ads, Meta, and LinkedIn through Paid Media Manager allows extending these personalized decisions to reach customers and prospects on these critical digital channels.

However, a there is a limitation and opportunities exist in the current configuration of paid media destinations within Pega CDH. Paid destinations are primarily configured at the schedule level or the real-time container level. This means that when setting up outbound schedules or real-time containers for Next-Best-Action delivery, the configured paid destinations apply broadly to all eligible Actions within the associated business issue and group.

This broad configuration leads to a few challenges and inefficiencies. Consider a scenario where, an organization has two sets of Sales Actions within the same business issue and group: one set specifically designed for SME customers and the other for personal customers. While it is desirable to target personal customer Actions only on Meta, SME Actions only on LinkedIn, and both types of Actions on Google Ads, the current system lacks a direct mechanism to enforce these granular targeting rules at the Action level.

The consequence of this limitation is that when a primary schedule is configured with Google Ads, Meta, and LinkedIn as paid destinations, audiences for all eligible Actions, regardless of their intended customer segment or platform suitability, are created and potentially updated on all three platforms. For instance, Actions specifically crafted for personal customers will still lead to the creation of audiences on LinkedIn, even though these audiences will never be utilized for LinkedIn advertising campaigns. Similarly, SME-specific Actions will result in unused audiences on Meta.

This indiscriminate creation of audiences on unintended platforms introduces fewer drawbacks:

• Increased Complexity and Management Overhead: Marketing teams have to manage and potentially monitor a larger number of audiences across different ad platforms, some of which are irrelevant for specific Action types. This adds unnecessary complexity to campaign management.
• Potential for Wasted Resources: While the cost of creating an audience might be minimal, maintaining and potentially synchronizing these unused audiences could consume system resources and contribute to overall inefficiency.
• Lack of Precision in Targeting Strategy: The inability to directly associate Actions with specific paid destinations hinders the implementation of a precise and focused paid media strategy. It forces a more generalized approach where platform-specific nuances and audience characteristics might not be optimally leveraged for each Action type.
• Limited Flexibility for Platform-Specific Action Design: When designing Actions, marketers might be constrained by the knowledge that their audiences will be broadly created across all configured platforms, potentially discouraging the creation of highly tailored, platform-specific ad creatives or messaging.

The core question arising from this scenario is: Can we introduce an option within Pega CDH, specifically at the Action level, to configure the desired paid media destinations? This would empower marketers with finer-grained control over where their Action audiences are built and activated, leading to a more efficient and targeted paid media strategy.

Possible Solution: Implementing Action-Level Paid Media Destination Configuration

To address the identified limitations, we propose enhancing Pega CDH to allow the configuration of paid media destinations directly at the Action level within the Next-Best-Action Designer. This enhancement could be implemented through the introduction of a dedicated section or field within the Action definition interface, enabling users to specify one or more target paid media platforms for that particular Action.

Here's a potential approach to implementing this feature:

• Action configuration screen with Destination Selection: This section will provide a list of the configured paid media destinations (e.g., Google Ads, Meta, LinkedIn). Pega CDH Users could then select the specific ads platform where audiences for this Action should be created and updated. Multi-select functionality would be essential to accommodate scenarios where an Action needs to be targeted on multiple platforms (e.g., both personal and SME Actions on Google Ads).
• Inheritance and Overriding: Consideration could be given to allowing Actions to inherit the paid media destinations configured at a higher level (e.g., business group or issue) by default, with the option to override these inherited settings at the Action level for more specific targeting requirements.
• Backend Logic for Audience Synchronization: The Paid Media Manager's backend processes would need to be updated to respect these Action-level destination configurations. When an Action is eligible for a customer, the system would only create or update the corresponding audience on the paid media platforms specified within that Action's configuration.
• Impact on Schedules and Real-Time Containers: The existing schedule and real-time container configurations for paid media would still serve as the overarching framework for triggering audience synchronization. However, the Action-level settings would act as a filter, determining which Actions contribute to audience creation on which specific platforms within that schedule or container.

Detailed Use Case Examples with the Proposed Solution:

Applying this proposed solution would yield the following benefits:

1. Personal Customer Actions Targeting Meta Only: When configuring Actions designed for personal customers, the user would select "Meta" as the sole paid media destination in the Action's "Paid Media Destinations" section. Consequently, audiences for these Actions would only be created and updated on the Meta Ads platform, avoiding unnecessary audience creation on LinkedIn and potentially streamlining management on Google Ads if these Actions are not intended for that platform.
2. SME Customer Actions Targeting LinkedIn Only: Similarly, for Actions targeted at SME customers, the user would select "LinkedIn" as the only paid media destination. This would ensure that audiences for these Actions are exclusively managed on the LinkedIn Ads platform, preventing the creation of irrelevant audiences on Meta and optimizing resource usage on other platforms.
3. Both SME and Personal Customer Actions Targeting Google Ads: For Actions intended to reach both personal and SME customers (or a broader audience segment) through Google Ads, the user would select "Google Ads" in the "Paid Media Destinations" section of those specific Actions. This ensures that only these designated Actions contribute to audience building on Google Ads, while other platform-specific Actions do not clutter the Google Ads audience management interface with unused segments.

Benefits of Implementing Action-Level Paid Media Destination Control:

Implementing this enhancement would provide significant advantages for organizations utilizing Pega CDH and Paid Media Manager:

• Enhanced Targeting Precision: Marketers gain precise control over where their Action audiences are activated, ensuring that platform-specific Actions are only deployed on the most relevant advertising channels.
• Reduced Wasted Ad Spend and Increased ROI: By preventing the creation and potential management of unused audiences, organizations can optimize their resource allocation and potentially improve their return on ad spend.
• Simplified Audience Management: Marketing teams can focus their efforts on managing relevant audiences on each ad platform, leading to a cleaner and more efficient campaign management process.
• Improved Campaign Performance: By aligning the right Actions with the right platforms and audiences, organizations can expect to see improved engagement rates and conversion metrics on their paid advertising campaigns.
• Greater Flexibility in Action Design: Marketers are empowered to create highly tailored, platform-specific ad creatives and messaging without the concern of generating irrelevant audiences on other channels.
• Streamlined Reporting and Analysis: Focusing on relevant audiences per platform simplifies reporting and analysis of paid media performance, providing clearer insights into the effectiveness of individual Actions on their intended channels.
• Better Alignment with Privacy Considerations: By having more granular control over audience creation, organizations can potentially better align with platform-specific privacy guidelines and user preferences.

Conclusion:

The current limitation in configuring paid media destinations at the schedule or real-time container level in Pega CDH introduces inefficiencies and hinders the implementation of highly targeted paid media strategies. By introducing the capability to configure paid media destinations directly at the Action level, Pega CDH can empower marketers with finer-grained control, leading to enhanced targeting precision, reduced wasted ad spend, simplified audience management, and ultimately, improved campaign performance.

We believe that this enhancement would significantly improve the Paid Media Manager functionality within Pega CDH and provide greater value to organizations seeking to orchestrate truly personalized and efficient customer engagements across all channels. We encourage the Pega product development team and the wider Pega community to consider this ideation and provide feedback on its feasibility and potential implementation approaches.