In the age of digitally advanced hyperactive experiences, it gets bamboozling for consumers to discern between reality and fiction. Most of the time, going with their gut feelings–which are deeply influenced by the heightened external stimuli–they opt for brands with which they could establish a strong sense of familiarity; a strong bond.

In the background of these brands, companies vying for enhanced customer loyalty and consumer bonding get overwhelmed with an avalanche of digital data pouring in from all the digital touch points from where consumers establish their first contact with the brand. This initial contact is crucial, as it initiates what could become a fruitful relationship formed for a long-term customer lifecycle, where companies wishing to better serve their brand loyal customers in the future form their brand strategies.

As vital as these relationships are, the most significant brand strategist, R Interactives – a digital growth solutions company, is strengthening the shared bond between the brand and the consumer. Founder Rahul Gadekar expresses that experiences are shaped through our learnings. And learnings stem from powerful visuals and interactions with people and their lives. He adds, “We shape those interactive experiences between the brand and the consumer.”

Shaping Interactive Experiences

R Interactives is a digital growth solutions company primarily focused on dynamic creative optimization, performance marketing, programmatic advertising, marketing fundraising campaign and digital advisory services. The firm uses data intelligence to understand consumer behaviour and design bespoke communication pieces, the ones that lead to decisive actions, resulting in higher Return on Investment (ROI) and Brand Engagement.

Rahul says, “We have deep expertise in online customer behaviour, customer engagement, data-driven marketing and customer acquisition.” R Interactives also partners with media buying and creative agencies to support their clients with digital marketing programs. “We have been in the business for the last four years and have worked with brands in the UK, the US, Australia, Norway, Costa Rica and India,” shares Rahul.

Digital Media’s Visionary Leader

A Stanford LEAD Alumnus, Rahul is a Digital Marketing professional with 13+ years of experience with diverse roles in the Digital Media arena. With his proven capability in tackling issues for User Acquisition, Search Behaviour, Performance Marketing, Analytics, Dynamic Creative Optimization and Programmatic Advertising, Rahul has worked with global brands, helping them define strategies to achieve higher ROI and Engagement through dynamic creatives. Further, he has effectively handled budgets of more than $120 million. Last year (2021), Rahul spearheaded the performance marketing team for a Bay Area real estate fundraiser campaign of $100mn, which got oversubscribed. Currently, he is leading an acquisition team for a Crypto fundraiser campaign of $100mn (till Dec 2022).

Rahul also managed brands from different verticals, including Travel (Evolve Back Resorts, GoAir, etc.), Television (Big Boss, IPL Hotstar, etc.), Films (Fast & Furious 8), Hospitality, Real Estate, E-Commerce, Hair Care etc. Rahul has designed Digital Communication Course and has been a visiting faculty for key institutes of Symbiosis. Furthermore, he trained 5     000+ Digital Marketers from Stanford, IMBR, Mitsubishi, SKF, Thermax, Saint Gobain, Accenture, Wipro etc.

Creative Optimum of Dynamism

Speaking about their palette of services, Rahul says that these digital marketing services include

Dynamic Creative Optimization: The storytelling approach can be best utilized through dynamic creatives where a user is served personalized communication based on his interests, purchase history, gender, age, location, and many other data determinants. A brand can devise a product journey where the brand connects with a user at varied digital touchpoints based on data intelligence. “Our AdTech platform is specifically built to customize communication based on real-time data, which helps in increasing higher engagement      ,” reveals Rahul.

Programmatic Advertising: Programming communication pieces to give maximum ROI through automated media buying and real-time communication derived through analysing online user behaviour. The process has transparency to provide complete data insights, which helps reduce optimization costs.

Social Media Marketing: Social Media has given a new face to this generation, one which is in sync with now and laps onto any trend with aplomb. Influencers define the share of brand voice whilst user engagement grants you a go-ahead on your content strategy. Rahul explains, “Social interactions are what we strive for, and our social analytics can vouch for it. Our content marketing efforts are aligned to the brand needs, allowing a comprehensive and strategic approach towards enhancing your social footprint.”

Amazon Marketing Services: Dynamism, astute strategic capabilities and sound aesthetics are the core to marketplace advertising performance. Rahul says that their channel expertise allows for assiduous creation and management of product descriptions, ad creatives, inventory finetunes, media spending and performance efficacy. Sponsored Product Ads, Sponsored Brand Ads or Product Display Ads, R Interactives’ marketplace maturity helps you achieve desired results over a prolonged period, making for a happy marketing story!

Data Science: Data science helps businesses provide sustainable solutions to key business problems by analysing their own data. Data science analyses impact the creation of your business strategy, which helps in chalking out steps for the further prosperity of the business. From Customer Segments, Business Spending, and Marketing Decisions to Campaign effectiveness, data science can gauge the success of each of these and more.

Conversion Rate Optimization: Rahul says, “If your web traffic is magnanimous yet your conversions are low, we know the fix. With Conversion Rate Optimisation, we can dynamically optimize your site, its interaction points, CTAs, and creatives. Through A/B testing, we showcase varied iterations of your brand page with the same proposition to every repeat user. Using custom performance analysis tools like Heat maps and scroll maps, traffic intent analysis, competitor, and pricing research, we study and gauge performance insights dynamically, which are then used to optimize pages, with the end goal of delivering optimal leads/signups.”

The Interactive Transformers

Further elaborating on the immersive benefits offered by R Interactives, Rahul elaborates, “We employ a very coherent and cohesive approach to cause consumer-brand interactions. Here are a few of the top reasons we must INTERACT!”

In-House AdTech Platform: According to Rahul, their in-house AdTech platform uses Data Intelligence to identify and profile consumers, which helps them carve personalised experiences for each user.

Worked with Global Brands: Rahul shares, “We have worked with global brands including Sony TV, Colors TV, ZEE TV, Evolve Back Resorts,SKYN, EFD Induction, Flipkart,      , Obopay, Piaggio etc.”

Managed $50 Mn+ Budgets: The team has managed more than $50Mn of budget for different industry verticals, including Travel, Hospitality, Hair Care, Real Estate, Television Media, Films etc.

Strategic Thinkers: With market and consumer insights, the team R Interactives derive communication highlights that shall turn into a potential customer and business-friendly idea that generates higher ROI and Brand engagement.

Building Creative Experiences: Innovation and Experimentation is the key to serving the digital audience, the Millennials, most often. “Our design masters ensure that the design thought and its relative arts trigger genuine emotions, rake conversations and shape audience interactions,” says Rahul.

Storytelling Artists: As per Rahul, their resident video production team has time and again weaved intricate and consumer connect-driven stories, which resulted in higher brand recall. Their work includes India’s Got Talent Season 3 and 4, Filmfare Awards, Kaun Banega Crorepati-5, Boogie Woogie and so on.

Evaluating Insights to Counter Challenges

Thus, according to Rahul, their data-driven in-house technology, deep understanding of digital execution, and experience executing campaigns with more than $120mn budgets are the significant USPs impacting their brand image very positively.

Rahul also shares that initially, their challenge was to build confidence with the advertisers. “As we were new, not many brands were      open to engaging immediately,” he recollects. So Rahul and his team proposed a lean startup model to evaluate different hypotheses based on industry insights, consumer insights and business insights to achieve clients’ objectives, and clients accepted it warm-heartedly.

Being an experienced leader and sharing his opinion on how technology is transforming the industry and what future advancements are expected, Rahul feels that technology is the key driver for their business. And due to the increase in internet penetration and data consumption, the industry is to grow exponentially. Many brands are now going forward with the digital-first approach and want to build their digital presence very strongly to engage and acquire customers. Dynamic creative optimization and Personalization are the upcoming trends which will further get more effective through AI and ML.

Discovering Digital Wisdom

His advice to the aspirants willing to venture into the field of digital marketing domain is akin to a discoverer’s mindset. He says, “Have a mindset of discovering things because most of the time, things don’t go the way you plan, so keep discovering. Keep learning and building your products and solutions based on your customers’ needs; the trends change, so adapt to them quickly and make changes. And the most important one is integrity, make sure whatever you do you have a high intent of doing it with high integrity and genuine curiosity, rest leave it to the power of nature.”

While envisioning scaling brand R Interactives operations and offerings in the future, Rahul reveals, “We plan to penetrate the US and Dubai markets extensively by offering productive digital services which can drive value to their business.”