DIGITAL ADVERTISING SERVICES RFP
DIGITAL ADVERTISING SERVICES RFP
Date and Time of Closing: April 25, 2022 – 2:00 PM CST
PURPOSE
Red River College is soliciting Proposals for Digital Advertising Management Services.
Through this RFP, The College seeks to engage a vendor partner to provide digital media buying and digital advertising management services including:
• Account management / project management
• Media mix and channel strategy
• Text/Search ad copy development
• Paid social, display and Search media measurement
• Results analysis and reporting
• Marketing technology recommendations
• Training for staff and applied learning opportunities for students
The Vendor must clearly demonstrate their professional experience, expertise and capabilities at all levels of digital advertising, from strategy to implementation to optimization.
The term of the agreement is to be for a period of approximately 36 months, with an option in favour of the Purchaser to extend the agreement on the same terms and conditions for two (2) one (1) year option terms.
Due date for submitting a Proposal
April 25, 2022 – 2:00 PM CST
RFP Contact
For the purposes of this procurement process, the “RFP Contact” will be:
Lyle Dunlop, Strategic Sourcing Specialist
E-mail: ldunlop@rrc.ca
Procurement and Logistics
RRC Polytech
Transition
The Vendor will work with the College’s Marketing and Web Presence team prior to commencing the management of the College’s digital advertising efforts (as set forth below), in order to ensure an orderly transition of control to the successful Vendor.
Account Management
The Vendor is expected to identify a senior lead as the point-person for client communication and a small number of individuals for service requirement collaboration to allow for relationship-building with internal clientele, and a growing familiarity with the intuition’s brand and digital advertising related policies and practices. The senior lead will be responsible for the composition and performance of the vendor’s team with respect to quality of work, current platform accreditations, timeliness of delivery, ability to work within budget, and ability to deliver the communications objectives set out in the College’s campaign briefs. They will also be responsible to identify and work collaboratively on the College’s training needs, technology needs, annual review and schedule.
The Vendor may be asked to perform tasks including, but not limited to:
• Web site conversion mapping and pixel strategy – College GTM
• Search engine marketing (paid search)
• Paid social media, paid advertising on social media platforms, etc.
• Social media monitoring (related to digital ads and paid content)
• Online video distribution – OTT, CTV, pre roll
• Cross device media
• Governance
• Competitive insights/review
• Recommendation on content management system development/integration
• User experience recommendations
Digital Media Buying
The Vendor will engage in digital media buying and management activities on behalf of the College. While adopting and adhering to the College’s brand, brand personality and corresponding web presence protocols, the Vendor will act as digital media buyer and manager for online marketing and advertising avenues, including but not limited to:
• Display advertising
• Programmatic (display, video, radio, OTT, CTV, etc.)
• Search Engine Marketing (advertising)
• Social Media Marketing (advertising)
• Recommended experimental digital campaigns/products (research)
Communications Strategy
The Vendor will develop the digital communications strategy for the College across all digital target touchpoints and will provide a strategy development process that is staffed by a person(s) dedicated to strategy development. This person will also be responsible for keeping the College aware of consumer trends and technology developments that have potential impacts on the College’s digital communications. The digital communications plan will take into consideration, and work seamlessly with, other non-digital communications.
Ad Copy Development
The Vendor will be responsible to develop digital ad campaign strategies and related ad copy customized to appeal to the targeted audience based on specific popular keywords that are showing up in search.
Creative Asset Development
The Vendor will not be required or expected to produce/provide advertisement designs. Creative assets will be provided to spec by the College’s Marketing and Creative Services team, based on individual campaign requirements.
Media Planning
The Vendor will develop or manage the development of the digital media plan across paid, owned and earned media with budget/timeline/approval milestones throughout the process following the College’s campaign briefs. The Vendor will work collaboratively with the College to define pricing and brand safety guidelines.
Digital Media Management Best Practices
The Vendor will follow best practices to ensure the College’s accounts remain in good standing and strive for the highest Return on Investment (ROI) – including, but not limited to:
• Keyword intents: based on the campaign objectives, make recommendations and adjustments to custom keywords to improve Click-Through-Rates (CTR) reduce average Cost-Per-Click (CPC);
• Keyword optimization and quality score: move budget to those keywords best achieving agreed upon campaign performance metrics (e.g., quality score, form submissions, time-on-site, location page views, etc.);
• Keyword matching: target keyword list by using all keyword matching options including Broad Match, Modified Broad Match, Phrase Match, and Exact Match, etc.;
• Ad Groups: group the keywords in thematic clusters to be paired with ads written with relevance to that keyword group;
• Negative keyword exclusions: work to increase relevancy and quality of clicks;
• Geographic modifiers: improve quality scores and drive more leads by matching up campaigns based on consumer behavior and the targeted geographic areas;
• A/B Testing: assist in developing ad copy for use in A/B testing to determine mobile preferred ads, optimal clicks, and lowest CPC;
• Google ad extensions: in order to improve CTR, quality score and average CPC, employ all available (and applicable) Google ad extensions, such as:
o Location extensions: employ hyper-local ads featuring business locations, tied to Google Maps;
o Sitelink extensions: deep linking from ads to accommodate more specific searcher interests;
o Call extensions: phone number in the ad, allowing for call tracking and click-to-call functionality on mobile ads;
o Social Extensions and Seller Ratings: adding personal context through social endorsements such as Google+ reviews and ratings
Optimization and Analysis
The Vendor will work with the College’s representatives to:
• Ensure ROI-based optimization and deliver the highest quality Pay-Per-Click (PPC) traffic as well as ad rank and quality score, focusing budget and effort where return (based on performance metrics) is greatest.
• Manage ad conversions through Google Analytics and optimize website tracking and analytics for lead generation and other goals.
• Manage the College’s Google Tag Manager account and other pixel strategies, including implementation of triggers and event fires on multiple platforms (i.e., mapping paid conversions to platform conversions, aligning with custom conversions and lead events, etc.)
• Recommend and implement innovative ideas and best practices based on the latest opportunities and trends to improve conversions and help achieve the College’s brand goals.
Governance
The Vendor will provide digital file retention, asset management, accounting services, and contract management relevant to the College’s business. The Vendor will work with the College to define roles and responsibilities to create a decision-making policy and process for all tasks and deliver guidelines for online editorial, social media, SEM, accessibility and related design.
Reporting
The Vendor will collect data across all digital touchpoints to aggregate into reports that ensure all creative and media communications are working properly, contracts are being honoured, and problems/opportunities are followed up on. The Vendor will lead the creation of a tagging methodology for digital platforms/sites and deliver/manage all tags for the purposes of gathering performance information. The reports will be presented to the College on a periodic basis and shared with other stakeholders as requested.
MarTech Recommendations
The Vendor and the College will agree to a set of digital marketing technologies to be used within the relationship, which may include project management software. Capabilities, fees, staffing, training, usage, and benefits of each tool will be reviewed and agreed upon. The Vendor will conduct a review of the existing technologies, propose new additions, replacements, map connections between technologies to organize and integrate all digital touchpoints as required.
Training and Applied Learning
The Vendor will work with the College’s digital marketing team and offer training to ensure they understand the Vendor’s process, capabilities, technologies, consumer trends in general, digital marketing best practices, and benchmarks.
