Beat the control: performance marketing

In 2023, what3words set out to establish benchmarks for paid advertising on social platforms, and then we developed a streamlined process for quickly ideating and iterating on creative concepts, continually trying to ‘beat the control’. Creative Studio and Growth team became one as we eyeballed the weekly CPI data and pushed our ideas to the max, working across 9 markets and in multiple languages.

When we found a successful concept, we’d iterate on it, switching out copy or scenarios, and rolling it out to other markets. One simple concept ‘Aerial to Streetview’ proved exceptionally impactful. We doubled down on its success, iterating on it across all our markets, decreasing our CPI by up to 64% in testing.

With the acquisition machine ticking over, we expanded to retargeting, testing ads that encouraged existing users to open the app and take an action e.g Save, Share, Navigate, and tracking the CPO and CPEA. We learnt a lot during this process about what drives our users to take actions.

Helping an entire company to communicate on brand

In a startup, everything happens fast and individuals have a greater degree of autonomy. Written communications hit the outside world every day – from presentation decks and developer docs to landing pages and job ads – and most of it isn’t seen by the copy team.

As the Senior Creative Lead, part of my role was to enable the entire company to become writers for what3words. Whether someone was in Business Development, HR or social media, I made sure they could communicate confidently in the what3words tone of voice, using the correct language.

I was involved in the development of what3words’ brand principles: relatable, reliable and spirited. They guided our copy, design and video practices, enabling us to ensure our work always lived up to our standards. I gave ‘what3words Uni’ talks to coach the company on applying these principles to their writing.

Using Notion, I distilled my (ahem) considerable years’ experience writing for what3words into an easy-access guide for the entire company. Useful for new joiners and old hands alike, highlights range from grab’n’go what3words explainer text to an inclusive language guide, which lays out our approach to writing about disabilities, race and ethnicity and why we always say ‘delivery driver’ instead of ‘delivery man’.

Building an advocate community

In mid-2019 we decided to try something new at what3words – launching an advocate community. We’d noticed more and more supporters emerging who really loved our technology and wanted it to succeed, so it was time to give them a space to get more involved.

While many brands have ‘supporter communities’, ‘champions’ and ‘advocates’, I wanted to name them something unique, that could only refer to what3words supporters. The Squares was a controversial choice, but one that quickly stuck and began to roll off tongues around the office. It has some nice elements to it – there are 57 trillion 3 metre squares covering the world, each with a unique what3words address. Naming our community members ‘Squares’ conjured up a visual of a network that also covers the world. And then there’s the British connotation of a square as a geeky person. Well, we are a geocoding technology after all, even if we are making location cool. We’ll reclaim ‘square’ and own it!

The first 500 squares received welcome packs in the post, with a booklet introducing them to the community, and giving them immediate things they could start doing to help the what3words mission. They also received an eye-catching leather luggage tag, and a membership card, which a handy prompt on the back to help them explain what3words clearly to others, using just one sentence.

We followed up with exclusive webinars, and even an in-person Squares event at our office in London (with Zoom for international Squares). Meeting everyday users of our tech was fascinating – everyone had a different use for it.

We even parked a Mercedes A-class outside, so Squares could demo what3words voice navigation for themselves!

With over nine thousand members to date, ranging from TV celebrities to emergency service staff, the Squares is a crucial part of building love and support for what3words around the world. We’re currently working on a refresh of the community, including a move of our online space from Slack to the Tribe platform, so watch this space.