Objective

Western Union wanted to include real-time foreign exchange (FX) rates in their ad creatives to make their ads impactful and relevant to their audience

across diverse international markets. To ensure accuracy, this would require them to constantly update creative assets manually with the most current exchange rates, paired with corresponding promotional messaging. Rapid FX rate changes and the need for immediate creative adjustments was impossible to do without significantly increasing the operational workload of the team at Western Union. They needed a partner that could help automate the process with accuracy.

Solution

Smartly empowered Western Union to revolutionize their advertising efforts by implementing sophisticated automation strategies, enabling them to achieve scale and efficiency while eliminating the need for manual work. This transformation was primarily driven by the strategic application of two key Smartly features.

Smartly’s Image Templates provided Western Union with the ability to create highly consistent, branded visual assets across a multitude of campaigns and diverse geographic markets. This feature allowed for the dynamic generation of localized visuals, ensuring that each ad resonated with its target audience. By leveraging templates, Western Union delivered over 4,300 unique creative updates seamlessly across their campaigns. This volume of dynamic content was instrumental in maintaining campaign freshness and relevance, directly contributing to enhanced engagement and performance.This approach enabled them to maintain a strong brand identity while simultaneously delivering highly personalized and effective ads, drastically reducing manual design efforts and accelerating campaign deployment.

A key component of Western Union's strategy was the communication of up-to-the-minute foreign exchange (FX) rates. Smartly's Automated Feeds proved instrumental in this regard, allowing Western Union to dynamically pull real-time FX rates and seamlessly integrate them into their ad creatives across campaigns, so every ad consistently displayed the most current and accurate exchange rates. This automation eliminated the need for manual updates, preventing errors, ensuring accuracy, and allowing for instant adjustments to reflect market fluctuations, significantly enhancing the relevance and timeliness of their advertising and directly impacting user engagement and performance.

Together, the strategic implementation of these two key Smartly solutions led to a significant improvement in campaign efficiency, demonstrated by a 4.74% lower Cost Per Result (CPR) compared to Western Union's historical account average. This reduction in CPR signifies a more cost-effective allocation of advertising spend, yielding greater returns on investment and optimizing the overall performance of their digital marketing efforts.