About RTLZWEI
Full of surprises, unconventional, optimistic, and up close: This is German television channel RTLZWEI. Here, the audience experiences life in all its facets.
RTLZWEI is “The Home of Reality,” offering documentaries, journalism, and docusoaps with fascinating people and captivating, life-changing stories. RTLZWEI News provides fresh coverage of the latest events. In addition, RTLZWEI provides the best entertainment with unique shows as well as premium series and feature films.
RTLZWEI meets its audience at eye level — at any time and on all relevant platforms and devices.
Challenge
Like many in the industry, RTLZWEI encountered challenges in navigating television’s dynamic landscape, including the fragmentation of linear TV and the rise of digital channels. To grow engagement and build stronger relationships with viewers, RTLZWEI has developed mobile apps for its flagship formats, including “Berlin – Tag & Nacht,” a daily reality soap, and “Love Island,” a popular summer dating show. The apps are a critical part of RTLZWEI’s growth strategy, providing users with access to exclusive content and real-time interactions like quizzes and voting.
Despite these efforts, RTLZWEI struggled to seamlessly direct viewers from TV and marketing channels to its mobile apps. This limitation hindered the company’s ability to capitalize on audience engagement and expand its app userbase, prompting it to look for a mobile linking partner. After surveying multiple vendors, RTLZWEI chose Branch to help it bridge the gap between channels and unlock the full potential of audience connectivity.
Solution
Deep link viewers into the app with Branch Quick Links
To funnel viewers from its various owned channels to the mobile apps, RTLZWEI implemented Branch Quick Links — deep links that direct users to specific content or pages within an app. This strategic solution enabled the company to link viewers to the app store or into the app from YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and even on-screen QR codes.
RTLZWEI used these Branch Quick Links to elevate real-time engagement for its hit show “Love Island.” The channel incentivized viewers to download the mobile app by displaying QR codes with interactive calls to action like “Save your favorite islander” or “Pick two islanders to go on a date.” The instantaneous nature of Branch Quick Links played a critical role during live broadcasts, transforming passive viewers into active participants by allowing them to take quizzes, respond to polls, and exert meaningful influence over the show.
Live engagement not only captivated the audience but also allowed RTLZWEI to gauge the success of its interactive features: the better the prompts and CTAs, the more app downloads. By seamlessly integrating TV content with mobile app, RTLZWEI created an immersive and engaging viewing experience for “Love Island” enthusiasts.
“Implementing Branch Quick Links revolutionized our approach to engaging viewers across multiple channels. They seamlessly guided our audience from TV screens to our mobile apps, creating a bridge between our content and our viewers’ fingertips. The interactive prompts and CTAs not only boosted app installs but also transformed passive viewers into active participants, significantly amplifying our engagement.”
Christoph Bock, Channel Lead
RTLZWEI
Measure ad campaign performance with Branch analytics
To evaluate the performance of its cross-channel ad campaigns, RTLZWEI incorporated Branch’s attribution and measurement solution. Before the premier of new shows, the company launched comprehensive campaigns across social media platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok. By integrating Branch Quick Links into these campaigns, RTLZWEI gained link-level insights into the effectiveness of each campaign element.
The Branch Dashboard provided a granular look at how well the ads resonated with audiences, providing insights into which platforms, content types, and strategies yielded the best results. This data-driven approach empowered RTLZWEI to optimize its ad spend and make informed decisions about promotional strategies.
“Branch’s analytics provided us with a bird’s-eye view of our ad campaigns’ performance like never before. From understanding which platforms resonated the most with our audience to dissecting the effectiveness of each campaign element, the insights we gained empowered us to make data-driven decisions that significantly improved our ROI. It’s not just about the numbers; it’s about the stories they tell and the strategies they shape.”
Christoph Bock, Channel Lead
RTLZWEI
Results
The implementation of Branch’s linking and measurement solutions has yielded remarkable results for RTLZWEI, including a significant impact on user engagement and overall campaign effectiveness. The introduction of Quick Links to seamlessly direct users from TV and other digital channels to, for example, the app of the flagship format “Berlin – Day & Night,” increased app installs by 20% in 2023. Employing Branch analytics for ad campaign measurement enabled RTLZWEI to refine its advertising strategies, increasing return on ad spend (ROAS).
Through its partnership with Branch, RTLZWEI not only overcame challenges in channel connectivity and app growth but also paved the way for a data-driven and innovative approach to audience engagement.
