In an era that is technically ruled by the internet and digital, it might seem completely normal to hear about companies using the latest digital marketing tools in order to have a robust marketing strategy.
However, if we go back around 20 years, digital was kind of an alien concept for brands. The internet was an expensive business and there wasn’t enough awareness of its potential (sounds like Metaverse). Among many companies that were trying to find a way to use the internet to its full potential, one became a pioneer in what it decided to move forward.
InfoEdge’s Naukri.com began its digital journey in 2002. And performance marketing, a relatively unknown term at the time, played a significant role in the job aggregation portal’s growth. “At that time, the popular sites were Yahoo! and Yahoo! search engine. We then launched SEM (search engine marketing) in 2004 long before Google entered the market,” said Sumeet Singh, Group Marketing Director, Naukri.com.
Once the journey began, there was no turning back for Naukri.com.
As the years passed and people started to get a bit familiar with mobile apps, Naukri.com launched as an app on BlackBerry phones in 2008. “Business users were all on BlackBerry at that time. there,” Singh said.
It was also a time when the social networking site Facebook was just an emerging trend.
Naukri.com identified the potential of these platforms and also created a job application on Facebook. “At that time, Facebook was looking for partners in Asia. They chose two Indian partners, one of which was Naukri.com,” Singh explained.
Cut to today, Naukri.com continues to leverage digital platforms to their maximum potential. Singh added, “We were one of the first to create an Android app and an iOS app in the category. Many of our brand initiatives have moved online. »
Naukri.com operates in the white-collar employment space and thus caters to a large segment of the young population. In the current scenario, content consumption for this audience has largely shifted to online platforms. “When Jio came along, data became cheaper and therefore consumption increased,” Singh continued, explaining Naukri.com’s decision to focus more on online marketing.
Along with user penetration, the time spent on these platforms becomes equally crucial for the brand. “As usage and user numbers grow, our marketing strategy is digitally driven, even from a brand perspective,” she said.
Naukri.com has also focused its advertising strategies on digital, almost since YouTube’s inception. “We started YouTube ads a long time ago. Our first YouTube ad must have been when YouTube launched! Even when we created new TVCs for Naukri.com, we used to run them first on YouTube for about a week and then air them on TV,” Singh said.
This decision was also motivated by the idea that since the company was completely online, anyone who could use the portal effectively had to be an advanced computer user. “So it made perfect sense for us to go digital,” she added.
Over the years, it has moved from YouTube and Facebook to other social media platforms like Instagram and Twitter.
“We use Twitter more for job news and trends. We are sensitive to the use we have to make of each media. While performance marketing remains, our brand strategies have also gone completely digital,” Singh explained.
The platform is also streamlined and focused when it comes to providing advertising space. As a job portal, it only provides advertising space for people in the employment and education sector. Singh thinks user experience is very important and portal users are coming for jobs. “Most of our advertising space is used by companies to make their employer brand,” she adds.
However, everything comes with its own set of drawbacks, just like digital. Naukri.com also faces digital hurdles on a daily basis. For example, there is a huge discrepancy between tracked clicks and what publishers might see.
Singh also shares the need to be very careful when running CPM or cost per thousand impressions campaigns and to keep track of how ads are served.
“There are also other issues that can arise. When you implement tracking, sometimes around the funnel there can be missing data,” she adds.
Although these are hurdles that cannot really be overcome 100% at this stage, Naukri.com has taken steps to ensure some level of filtering. For example, it uses software to filter the click fraud rate to some extent.
From being the pioneer in leveraging digital marketing from birth, to targeting as wide a consumer base as possible, Naukri.com, one of India’s first digital companies, looks well positioned to make the leap to Web 3.0.
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