Month: December 2021

Advertising on Reddit to Reach Niche Audiences

Posted on by Coegi

Reddit is not always the first platform that comes to mind when advertisers are thinking about paid social, but it should not be overlooked. Reddit is a fast growing platform that allows advertisers to reach a very niche audience at a reasonably low cost. The Reddit platform does have some downfalls though, such as a less advanced reporting platform as compared to competitors. Here, we discuss the benefits and challenges of advertising on Reddit and some helpful tips to create a successful campaign.

What Is Reddit And Who Uses The Platform?

Reddit is a network of communities where people can dive into their interests, hobbies and passions. It is a discussion-focused platform and is often referred to as “the first page of the Internet.”

There are 52 million daily active users, which represents a 44% increase from October 2019. The platform sees 430 million monthly active users.

  • The vast majority of Reddit users are in the United States. 221.98 million users are in the United States, followed by Australia with 17.55 million users and India with 13.57 million users.
  • Two-thirds of Reddit users identify as male.
  • Reddit is most popular among the 25 to 29 year old age group. 64% of Reddit users are between the ages of 18-29.
  • The majority of Reddit users have a college degree or some college education.

Benefits Of Advertising On Reddit

  • Reddit ads can reach very niche audiences. There is a community for anything you can think of on Reddit. Ex: If you are selling liquor, you may consider targeting the r/cocktails or r/Bartenders communities.
  • Because Reddit has such a large number of users, CPMs are more efficient than some other social platforms.
  • Audience targeting is not only based on interests like other platforms, but also based on communities, also known as subreddits. These communities are often made up of very engaged users, so it is important to learn about the communities you are targeting and tailor your creatives to these communities.

Challenges Of Advertising On Reddit

The Reddit platform reporting capabilities are not as advanced as some of its competitors. It offers basic metrics, but does not go into as much detail as some of the other platforms, specifically with regards to engagement.

For example, users upvote and downvote on Reddit to express their approval or disapproval on a post, but this data is not available to view on the Reddit dashboard unless you are an admin. This would be important information for hands-on keyboard execution partners to have.

The Reddit dashboard only displays six months of data, so you are unable to see spend and performance for campaigns longer than 6 months ago. Because of this, we recommend Reddit campaigns run for less than 6 months.

Best Practices For Advertising On Reddit

  • Utilize community targeting and interest targeting in each ad set. When testing interest targeting vs. community targeting, we have found that community targeting tends to perform more efficiently when it comes to CTR than interest targeting, but combining interest targeting and community targeting in one ad set outperformed both.
  • Conduct research on the communities you would like to target. Look to see if these communities have many active members and what they discuss. Use this information to tailor your creatives to these users’ interests.
  • Use creative that feels authentic to your audience. Users of Reddit appreciate advertisers to meet them where they are.
  • Utilize both placement options (conversations and feed) at the ad set level in order to diversify where your ad will be seen.

Reddit is an excellent platform for reaching niche audiences at a relatively low cost. The platform is not as sophisticated as some of the others, but the ad performance on Reddit speaks for itself. If you are looking for a new platform for paid social, do some research on subreddits that your target audience may identify with and give Reddit ads a try.

Snapchat Swipe-Up Ads for Retargeting Teens

Posted on by Coegi

The Brief

Coegi developed a social strategy for a higher education client using Snapchat swipe-up ads to target potential students. Despite tactical challenges of targeting restrictions, this social campaign resulted in benchmark-breaking performance.

Highlights

1.88%
Peak Swipe-Up Rate

0.91%
Avg. Swipe-Up Rate

6,345
Total Swipe-Ups

Challenge

For colleges and universities, advertising to potential students can be a tactical challenge. Most social media platforms allow targeting of individuals under the age of 18, but some severely limit advertisers’ ability to retarget to this key demographic. Potential students spend their time across several platforms. So determining where to most efficiently invest marketing dollars for this age range is not always clear.

With these challenges, higher education advertisers often pivot to target parents instead. While this can be effective, our client wanted to reach the students directly. 

Solution

After completing a strategic review of our options, we determined that Snapchat was the best option for two reasons. First, the platform allows advertisers to retarget the under 18 demographic, removing that tactical hurdle. Secondly, the target audience for our higher education clients are highly active on Snapchat. Beating out TikTok and Instagram, 35% of teens say Snapchat is their favorite social media app. With 87.3 million US monthly users, almost 30% of total internet users and 69% of teens and young adults, Snapchat quickly became the clear choice for this consideration campaign.

Snapchat swipe-up rates were the primary KPI. The benchmark for success was a swipe-up rate of 0.5%. With a budget of $3,300, the campaign generated 6,345 swipe ups, for an average rate of .91%. At its peak, the campaign generated a remarkable 1.88% swipe up rate. 

Part of this success was due to our use of lookalike audiences. This allowed us to scale and reach a broader audience and achieve a swipe-up rate of 1.05%, once again outperforming the 0.5% benchmark. 

Takeaways for Snapchat Swipe-Up Ad Success

An analysis of these high-performing campaigns leads us to believe that a significant portion of the success is attributable to the tactical strategy. The ads were being served to the right audience, at the right place, with the right technical execution. Both campaigns had different approaches to their creative design. This leads us to believe the visuals contributed less to performance than tactical execution. We hypothesize that with optimized creative strategy, similar campaigns would see even greater success.

To get started with Snapchat campaign optimizations, we recommend the following: 

  1. Focus on strong, front-loaded storytelling to hook the attention of the viewer. 
  2. Keep videos short. Snapchat recommends 0:03-0:05 seconds long. 
  3. Place your branding, offer and CTA in the first few seconds to ensure it is seen.
  4. Catch viewers’ attention with movement at the beginning of the video. 

 

Using Non-Media Data for Agile Tourism Marketing

Posted on by Coegi

The Brief

Coegi collaborated with sister agencies, RADaR Analytics and True Media, to create a proprietary tool that allowed our tourism client to shift marketing dollars in real-time based on COVID-19 infection rates and consumer reception to travel. This offered our client a unique data set to inform marketing decisions – maximizing their dollars and promoting safe travel.

Highlights

124MM
Impressions

3%
Lift in New Website Visitors

20%
Lift in Time Spent on Site

Challenge

COVID-19 had a substantial impact on the travel and tourism industry, including one of Coegi’s tourism marketing clients. Spring and summer, historically their largest promotional period, came to a rapid halt as COVID-19 rapidly spread in 2020.

The tourism client’s ongoing objective is to support the travel and tourism industry throughout the state. However, as a government-funded organization, they also had to avoid promoting unsafe travel that could contribute to the spread of COVID-19. As a result, they tasked our team with developing a targeting strategy that continued to grow the industry in a responsible and innovative way.

Solution

We collaborated to create a proprietary tool that responded in real-time to both the COVID-19 pandemic and consumer interest in travel to allow for effective decision making and dynamic campaign adjustments. The end result was the COVID-19 Scoring Model. This model crossed weekly CDC level data regarding COVID-19 (case levels, 7 day rolling averages, death rates) with real-time interest indicators (Google trends data, website activity, on-site conversions). This gave each county in the state a score from 1-4 that indicated the level of opportunity in each market. 

Using this tool, we had a unique data set to inform decisions regarding geotargeting, messaging, and frequency to ensure the strategy aligned with likelihood of travel as well as safety. Coegi and our traditional media sister agency, True Media, collaborated to automate information collection and efficiently apply it to our digital media buys.

We were able to continue our omnichannel approach and expand awareness against a general traveler audience, as well as passion audiences based on preferred activities in the state. We also placed location data on top of our persona targeting in lower-funnel campaigns to ensure we were not reaching users who were strictly isolating.

Despite these challenges, we were able to drive strong results for our clients in the second half of 2020, fluidly shifting audience, geographic, and messaging strategy as data became available. Our campaigns cumulatively delivered over 124 million impressions, 61% above initial projections. We were also able to achieve a 3% increase in new website visitors and a 20% increase in time spent on site. 

Nine Easy Ways to Stay Up to Date on Social Media Trends

Posted on by Coegi

Social media is an ever-growing and evolving landscape with new platforms launching and new features being released on a frequent basis. Being able to reach your target audience on the right platform with the right feature or placement is crucial. It may feel overwhelming to try to keep up with the continually changing social media advertising trends without committing significant time – these nine tips will help you stay up to speed without sacrificing too much time.

Spend Time on Social Media Every Day

Try to set aside 10 minutes every day to scroll through your brand’s social media feeds. This is a great way to see what people are talking about, what’s trending today, and what changes are happening.

Social media tips to use your time efficiently:

  • Customize your feeds so that you can easily see relevant and trending content/topics.
  • Save articles to read for later so you can revisit when you have more time.  
  • Ask your team to also spend 10 minutes a day on social media and then share interesting findings regularly.
  • Familiarize yourself with new social platforms in order to understand new consumer trends

Use SEO to Find Places Where Your Business Could Fill a Market Gap

Use tools like SEMrush, Keyword Hero, Screaming Frog, or SEOquake to see what your customers are searching for in your industry and vertical, analyzing their behaviors at various stages in the funnel, and understanding nuances between various types of consumers.  Using keyword and search research will not only help you stay on top of trends, but can also help guide your brand’s content creation and create best practices.

Utilize Customer Feedback

Solicit customer feedback via surveys and customer interactions on your business’s social media pages. Surveys and feedback will help you to better understand your audience, their needs, and their interests, allowing your team to provide even better customer support and service. Additionally, feedback from your customers and social media followers helps you identify what type of content resonates with/performs best. 

Ideas of questions to ask:

  • What’s one feature/product/service you’d like us to start offering?
  • What [BRAND/COMPANY] product can you not live without?
  • What kind of [BRAND/COMPANY] content would you like to learn about?
  • What’s your struggle with _________?

Of course, once you receive feedback, you need to apply it

  • Your customers have the best pulse on your products and services and may think of things you didn’t. Listen to their suggestions of how to improve current offerings, things they’d like to see, or new ideas.
  • Don’t ignore negative feedback. Negative feedback is an opportunity to understand pain points, make improvements, and improve customer service.
  • Incorporate feedback into your product roadmap.
  • Thank your customers who provide positive feedback. These people will become positive advocates for your brand.

Keep an Eye on What Your Competitors Are Doing

Set aside 10 minutes a week to look at what your competitors are posting and promoting. Ensure you derive inspiration regarding emerging trends in your industry, or even some of your personal favorite brands, but are not copying content. Share your unique POV and showcase the expertise of your brand.

Subscribe to Trade Journals, Publications, Newsletters and Magazines

Schedule time on your calendar weekly to read through your subscriptions to keep on top of the latest trends and changes.

Some good publications that frequently share the latest and greatest on social trends include:

Join LinkedIn Groups

LinkedIn Groups are a great way to network with other business owners and social media enthusiasts. You’ll be able to ask questions of your peers to learn from their experiences and discover new social media sites/trends. Some great groups to join include “Social media Marketing Group by Connect365.io”, “Digital Marketing: Social Media, Search, Mobile, & more”, and “Digital Marketing.”

Attend Conferences Monthly or Quarterly (whether in-person or virtual!) 

Get the most up-to-date and relevant information about social media trends and advice from industry experts. Conferences are a great way to network and interface with other professionals in the social media industry who have different backgrounds.

Stay Current with Twitter and TikTok Trends

Twitter and TikTok function differently in terms of the type of content and algorithms than the other social media platforms. Here are some tips to help stay on top of what’s trending in both platforms:

Twitter

  • Create a stream on Twitter with hashtags such as #socialmediamarketing, #smchat, or #TwitterTip to help understand what to expect in the coming weeks.
  • Follow social media marketing influencers on Twitter and LinkedIn (sometimes discovered through hashtags!) and spend time reading their content.

TikTok

  • The “For You” page is a great place to start to see trendy and viral videos but this should not be the only place to look for trends.
  •  Hashtags help people find relevant content (think #mentalhealth, #prank, or #taylorswift). The most-used hashtags in video captions are the best place to see what is trending on TikTok. Many users will often use hashtags relevant to their niche in addition to one or two trending hashtags to help boost their content organically.
  • Keep an eye on challenges on the platform. Users are actively creating and engaging in challenges, which can create new trends. Many challenges include lip-syncing, dancing, or skits.
  • Observe what influencers on Tik Tok are posting. Influencers and celebrity posts on the platform will be popular in addition to clueing you in to what is trending.

Commit to Learning

The world of social media is always growing and changing. By spending time daily or weekly on social media platforms and news, you’ll be able to have a firm grasp on trends and changes. 

Staying on top of social media trends can be a daunting task. Using these 10 tips can help you use your time efficiently and stay in the know.

 

Further reading:

How to Moderate Trolls on Facebook Ads

Posted on by Emma Beverlin

Trolling is the act of leaving frequent, offensive/negative comments on social media posts. This can be done by a single person (troll) or a group of people (trolls). Having moderate trolls on social media can be uncomfortable. Here are a few strategies to help eliminate trolls on your Facebook page. 

Utilize Facebook Filters

  • Community Standards –  Facebook automatically conducts moderation on the Facebook platform as a whole. In order to use Facebook, users agree to the Community Standards. These standards ban things like nudity, hate speech, excessive violence, and fake profiles. 
  • Profanity Filter – Any page admin can implement the Profanity Filter setting on Facebook. When using this filter, admins have the option to set the filter to either “medium” or “strong.” The difference between the two settings is the allowable offensiveness of the profanity. Facebook determines this criteria.  
  • Keyword Blocking – Facebook allows admins to block up to 1,000 keywords from appearing on their pages. This setting is not case sensitive and will block variations of the specified keywords from appearing as well. 
  • User Banning –  In the case of an individual or small group of trolls, it could make sense to simply ban the offending users from the Facebook page. The banned user(s) will still be able to share content from the page, but they will not be able to comment, like, or post on the page. The banned users are also blocked from sending messages to the page’s inbox.

Additional Considerations

While each of the aforementioned Facebook settings can be incredibly useful, those filters are typically preventative. When actively dealing with trolling, consider the following recommendations: 

  • Responding to the Troll – In general, it is best practice to respond to comments on your posts. The same applies when it is a troll commenting. If possible, address the frustration or concern of the commenter and provide a solution. This could be through encouraging the user to reach out via personal message or phone call. Other users generally react positively to a brand being responsive and helpful by commenting back. Alternatively, ignoring the troll can give credence to the troll’s complaints and even encourage other trolls to comment. 
  • Deleting Comments– If responding to the user’s comment is unsuccessful or if the user’s comment leaves no room for a solution, it is possible to delete comments from your posts. This should not be the first course of action as it can lead to frustration from the commenting user. Deleting a comment can provoke the troll to leave another, more offensive, comment. It is also important to consider the fact all comments (negative or positive) play into an ad’s engagement rate. A higher engagement rate leads to better performance. 
  • Resetting Ads– If there is one ad causing the trolling, it is possible to reset the ad. This is not ideal as every time an ad is reset, all of the data and learnings associated with the ad reset as well. After resetting an ad more than once, it is worth considering sunsetting the ad in question and replacing it with a new ad. Resetting an ad is an extremely manual process and is not something you can do for all live ads frequently. 

Ultimately, having a troll target your page be a nuisance. However, there are multiple strategies and resources to help stop a troll. Inconvenient as it may be, appropriately responding and reacting to a troll can be a positive reflection of your business.

Measure What Matters

Posted on by Coegi

One of my long-standing mantras at Coegi is ‘Measure What Matters’.

So when the ANA released a report entitled ‘Media KPIs That Matter’, I was more than a little intrigued.  What the report found won’t surprise too many of us that work in performance marketing: most brands focus on KPIs that don’t really align with their business objectives.  

So why is this?  For starters, there is a lot of pressure for digital campaigns to be ‘data driven’.  I bet if the ANA asked if their members organizations are data driven, 100% would say yes.  The challenge is that there is too much data for the decision makers to truly understand. For marketing veterans that came from creative or PR backgrounds (that weren’t exposed to digital media buying earlier in their careers), it is challenging to grade the effectiveness of an omni-channel digital marketing.   Thus, they lean on the stats they feel most comfortable with: CPM, CPC and CTR.  Website traffic, reach and completion rates.  What we have longed referred to at Coegi as vanity metrics. To be fair, media efficiency should be a factor, but far less than many brands think. As my friends at The Trade Desk say, you can’t report on CTR on an earnings call.  

But what about ROAS?

Isn’t that the magic metric we should all be optimizing to anyways?  It should be in theory, but in practice, it all depends on attribution.  Is 100% of the conversion credit going to the last touch or last impression?  There are very few digital programs that are even attempting multi-touch attribution, and those that try are stymied by walled gardens that don’t share a unified measurement framework.  ROAS numbers are only as accurate as the data you use to analyze it, and too often there is more noise than signal in last-touch attribution.  Recent changes to app tracking on Apple phones and the impending elimination of third-party cookies on Google Chrome make attribution all the more challenging.

So what about the agencies?  Isn’t it their job to advise their clients as to the metrics they should be measuring?   Certainly many performance strategists are pushing to move towards more meaningful measurement, but it often involves a lot more institutional buy-in at the brand that you would expect.  Advocating an advanced measurement framework at the end of a proposal just isn’t going to cut it.  Often, you not only have to educate the marketing team, but the C-suite, product and sales teams as well.  

Creating a path to measure what matters

So what is the path forward for marketers trying to determine their media KPIs?  From my perspective, there is no singular KPI that defines success for any digital marketing campaign.  Instead, we should build custom measurement frameworks across multiple KPIs, that incorporate not just media efficiency metrics, but also engagement, brand lift, transactional data, and ROAS analysis, to get a better understanding of your digital program as a whole. Furthermore, it can be worthwhile to revisit the more academic and statistical forms of analysis, such as media mix modeling, matched market tests, and regression analysis, to get to the heart of success. 

Recommended reading:

Driving Marketing Results for Cryptocurrency Brands

Posted on by Coegi

The Brief

A cryptocurrency brand challenged Coegi and our partner, Wachsman, a communications-based strategy consultancy, to drive segmented audiences to register for an online event. Primary KPIs were event site visitations, measured on-site clicks, and ticket purchases. The main challenge was to identify and capitalize on the appropriate social media platforms to align with the brand’s niche audience segments.

Highlights

4,720
Site Views

.96%
Click Through Rate

757,279
Impressions

Challenge

Emerging fintech brands, especially those in the crypto space, face unique challenges not commonly found in the traditional finance sector. There are ever-changing societal, economical, and psychographic trends along with advertising regulations. Fintechs can often struggle with not only identifying and garnering the interest of niche customer segments, but also in harnessing the power of digital advertising.

Solution

Due to digital advertising restrictions set on crypto brands by a variety of social media platforms, Coegi and Wachsman were not immediately able to leverage the platform most widely used by the brand’s audience. Through internal research and creative strategy, we were able to narrow down to Facebook and Instagram – with Reddit as an added opportunity for topic-based targeting. With Facebook and Instagram, we leveraged interest targeting, retargeting, and look-a-like audiences. Each targeted ad was backed up by months of research and brand exercises completed by the Wachsman team, and supported by Coegi.

The campaign performed above average, concluding with 4,720 site views and a .96% CTR, compared to our .3% industry benchmark. In addition to strong social media ad engagement, the target audience proved further interest in the brand. The site experienced 191 on-site action clicks. 183 of those clicks were attributed to the “Get Tickets” button denoted on the social media ads. This was achieved while maintaining an average CPM of under $4 and CPC under $3.

During the campaign, the addition of a website retargeting and look-a-like audience improved the overall performance. We drove a CTR 41% above the campaign average and the highest on-site conversion rate at .028%.

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Growing Omnichannel Retail Solutions for a Wine Brand

Posted on by Coegi

The Brief

Coegi helped a wine brand grow both its online and in-store sales by executing an omnichannel digital campaign. Leveraging strategic micro-targeting, paid social media, and grocery delivery app relationships, the campaign achieved impressive ROAS, along with increased purchases and store visits to retailers in the wine brand’s distribution network.

Highlights

5X
Return on Ad Spend

4,500
Direct to Consumer Purchases

9,700
Store Visits

Challenge

A “healthier-for-you” wine brand came to Coegi to expand its omnichannel retail presence. In 2020, they were facing the challenging effects of COVID-19 on shopping behaviors, as well as growing consumer demand for online alcohol sales. Our client needed to provide a convenient way for consumers to shop online while still growing brick-and-mortar sales.

Solution

Coegi helped our wine client create an omnichannel retail solution using digital media.

First, we leaned heavily into Facebook to support online sales using a social commerce ad along with a dynamic retargeting catalog ad. Throughout 2020, these two campaigns alone drove over 4,500 DTC purchases with an exceptional average ROAS of 6.76x. 

We also built a precise shopper marketing campaign on Facebook using co-branded retail carousels to target major DMAs on a national scale. The click-through URL showed consumers a list of nearby stores. We then deployed a foot traffic lift study, which attributed nearly 9,700 store visits to these campaigns.  

To build on this success, we partnered with grocery delivery providers, Drizly and Instacart. With Drizly, we ran a co-branded Facebook campaign to increase awareness of the brand’s availability on this platform. This allowed us to track delivery purchases attributed to the campaign to understand short-term ROI. Instacart in-platform ads were also a major success. In the final months of the year, the team saw an average ROAS of 5.9x with nearly $83,000 in attributable sales. 

Together, these campaigns increased overall brand equity while also driving an increase in omnichannel sales revenue. 

How to Increase QSR Market Share and Awareness

Posted on by Coegi

The Brief

A QSR client was faced with uncertainty as the pandemic hit the United States in March 2020. Coegi was tasked with coming up with a flexible media strategy to address the new dynamic.

Highlights

32%
Increase in Delivery App Purchases

$5MM
Incremental Attributed Sales

Challenge

Most of this QSR’s franchised-owned stores had a 50%+ decrease in traffic and sales in the second half of March 2020. With a limited challenger brand budget, we needed to boost market share while addressing the shift in consumer behavior.

 

Solution

We focused specifically on growing market share among loyal customers. Initially, we drove them to make delivery purchases and later to in-store. To do this, we leveraged existing first-party data that was tied to point-of-sale. 

The outcome was a proprietary scoring model, dubbed “The Crave Score.”  This custom scorecard analyzed brand lift attributes, visitation, and point of sale data to dynamically align budget allocation and creative strategy. It also allowed us to segment based on store visit frequency and share of wallet.

For high share of wallet customers who hadn’t visited recently, we focused on high frequency with ads promoting top-selling sandwiches. We focused spend on areas with high pre-COVID brand recognition, knowing that consumers would be more selective during this time.  

Then, as stimulus checks were distributed, we applied lookalike modeling against the strongest customer segments to identify high potential new consumers. 

These were the key results: 

  • 32% increase in delivery app purchases in 6 key markets.
  • $5MM in incremental attributed sales in the Q2 post-COVID period
  • Positive press write ups in Bloomberg and Restaurant Business

The Power of Creative in Building Brand Awareness

Posted on by Coegi

The Brief

Coegi partnered with a powerhouse creative agency to launch a full-funnel digital campaign, building brand awareness as well as sales for a high-growth wine brand.

Highlights

10.6%
Lift in Standard Ad Recall

1.8%
Lift in Unaided Brand Awareness

1.4%
Lift in Purchase Intent / Consideration

Challenge

The brand tasked the team to produce a campaign that was not only effective in building brand awareness and emotional connection in a very cluttered, complicated category, but also drove trial and consideration across a broader set of consumers. 

Solution

The team executed a performance branding study on Facebook to evaluate brand lift as well as conversion lift for key website events. By comparing control and exposed audiences, incrementality was able to be evaluated. This blended approach allowed for valuable insights into multiple stages of the consumer journey, from brand awareness to purchase intent. 

The study showed positive lift across brand categories, surpassing CPG benchmarks. Ad recall was particularly pronounced, signaling that the creative was successful in driving memorability and that the selected audience resonated with the messaging approach.

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