Connected TV Advertising | The Comprehensive Guide

Ready to get started with connected TV advertising?

To many brand advertisers, television is the ultimate brand-building and storytelling medium. The TV is the largest screen in the house that rightly commands the lion’s share of the advertising budget.

Programmatic TV buying is beginning to take hold and will become a dominant buying procedure in the not so distant future.

Why Connected TV?

A key differentiator of CTV is in its use of audience data, allowing for addressability that can’t be replicated by linear TV.  Advertisers can use can first and third-party data, lookalike modeling and retargeting to connect with consumers across tactics and at every step in their journey.

This is possible because of cross-device mapping. This allows a user’s audience profile from other devices to integrate with their connected TV.

Unlock Coegi’s comprehensive guide to automated buying strategies for the new era of connected TV advertising.

The CTV/OTT advertising market is rapidly growing and ever-evolving as more and more consumers move to streaming services. Many marketers have questions such as: 

  • What is programmatic TV buying? 
  • What are the best buying tactics for CTV advertising? 
  • What are the emerging trends for the future of CTV/OTT advertising? 
  • How to determine your ideal TV advertising strategy? 

In this guide, we answer these key questions and more to enable digital marketers and media buyers to tap into the lucrative Connected TV opportunity. 

Download the guide

5 Marketing Tactics to Drive Travel Bookings

The travel marketing industry is rebounding as stir-crazy leisure travelers, vacationing families and business travelers are eager to explore new places and experiences. How can travel and tourism brands ensure they are incorporated in those travel plans? 

Here are 5 ways to drive travel bookings:

1) Show Up In The Research Phase

The purchase funnel for travel brands is shrinking as travelers are shortening the trip planning process. 

Speed and agility is crucial for travel brands to ensure they appear as a top option for their relevant audiences during the research and discovery process. Optimize digital discovery and drive travel bookings by doing the following: 

  1. Optimize paid search presence to show up for relevant, high value queries
  2. Activate audience search retargeting on display and social to stay stop of mind as the customer moves from research to the planning and booking phases
  3. Work to gain quality reviews on owned websites and travel sites

2) Segment Customers To Provide Personalized Offers

Carefully segment your existing customer list and use AI to inform personalized messaging to each group. Understand their unique motivations and deliver the offer most likely to resonate with them. 81% of consumers say personalized experiences are very important when vetting travel and hospitality brands. 

So, consider who you are talking to. Are they solo travelers seeking adventure? Or young families seeking a cost effective, kid-friendly trip? Or are they foodies looking for luxury and avant garde dining experiences?  

Once a trip is completed, the customer journey should not end. This will leave you constantly scrambling to find new audiences to fill your funnel rather than cultivating brand loyalty. Instead, explore how you can entice past travelers with a new trip or experience based on their past interest. 

3) Adjust Creatives And Channel Placements To Reflect Your Target Audience

It’s important that you don’t create a one-size-fits-all approach when marketing to future travelers. Consider demographic attributes such as age and lifestage to choose the most impactful channels to reach them on when making travel plans. 

Key stats and trends shaping the travel and tourism industry today

Not accounting for differences in media consumption and sources of authority will inevitably cost your brand dollars. Instead, carefully tailor your campaigns to reach audience segments on the channels they are most active on and deliver the style of content they trust and are already seeking out. 

4) Look Beyond Standard Media Metrics To Gauge Success

How can you measure the results of these campaigns and make sure your carefully tailored campaigns are driving the desired results? Simple media metrics, like impressions and clicks, often do not tell the whole story. For travel brands, incorporating advanced measurement studies such as foot traffic lift can provide a clear view of how marketing tactics impacted incremental increases in visitors. 

5) Use Non-Media Data To Understand The Travel Climate

In a 2020 report, Google analysts stated that traditional data and analytics for travel patterns “do not account for more immediate upper funnel demand drivers, such as the progression of COVID-19, government travel sanctions, and dynamic flight availability.” Using more advanced, macro-level data can help brands gauge the travel climate from an industry-wide perspective. 

Coegi worked with a tourism client to create a proprietary data solution to track Covid-19 and consumer interest in travel using CDC data and real-time interest indicators. We used this tool to score geographies based on the safety and likelihood of travel within each region. This allowed for real-time insights to inform media buys and campaign flighting strategy and media planning. 

For more strategic tips to drive travel bookings, view our complete Travel and Tourism Marketing Guide

Make Smarter Marketing Decisions with Media Mix Modeling

Every brand wants to pre-optimize their campaigns for success right out of the gate, with parameters in place to quickly attribute success to specific channels, audiences, and creatives. However, as we look toward a future without the simple attribution offered by cookies, we need to get back to our statistical roots of traditional media strategies, those without the easy button involved. That’s why marketers should lean further into the value that’s offered with media mix modeling.

What Is Media Mix Modeling?

At a high level, media mix modeling is a way to define optimal budget allocation for media channels by looking at previous campaign performance. It requires analyzing sales-related data and media metrics (Coegi’s data and technology team recommends 2-3 years worth) to make predictions and strategy optimizations that will, in theory, improve future campaign performance

Is Media Mix Modeling Superior to Attribution Models?

In short, these models should be considered and analyzed alongside each other, as they both offer valuable insights from unique perspectives.

  • Attribution gives you quick, real-time information about how specific media parameters are impacting your business goals. This information is useful when making mid-flight optimizations and short-term reporting.
  • Media mix modeling zooms out to give a bird’s-eye view of how all the pieces are working together to affect long-term strategy and performance. Each model informs the other, but tells different stories. 

How Can Marketers Build Strategies from Modeling Learnings?

It is crucial to fully understand the data you’re analyzing, not just the standard media metrics from campaign reports. What are all of the factors that may have contributed to performance fluctuations?

  • Creative?
  • Messaging?
  • Audience strategy?
  • Seasonality?

Knowing the context surrounding the numbers will give you a strong foundation to build future strategies upon. Using that context as the framework, determine what story the data points are telling you. The numbers don’t lie, but they don’t always tell the whole story. By asking the right questions, and maintaining a test and learn mentality, you will ensure strategic decisions are based on multiple factors rather than just one KPI.

How Do You Know Your Media Mix Model Is Working?

A media mix model makes predictions, but it’s not a crystal ball. Just because Facebook historically performed well does not mean it will continue to do so forever. That said, it is important to develop a continuous learning agenda to design your models.

Test your assumptions based on historical performance. For example, what will happen if you increase the budget for programmatic channels? Do overall business results change? The only way to know is to strategically make the budget adjustment and measure incremental results. From there, you can make more informed decisions about your channel strategy and budget allocation. 

Priming Your Media Mix Model For Success:

  • Keep business goals at the center of your strategy 
  • Gather quality, historical data to measure actionable results 
  • Understand the contextual factors impacting your data results 
  • Consider the sales cycle when designing tests – a longer cycle needs more time between strategic adjustments
  • Share strategic details and learnings across teams. Seemingly trivial aspects to you may impact how a model is built. 
  • Data can be easily manipulated to tell an inaccurate story. Think critically and apply business acumen to make sure you have sound methodology. 

Further Reading:

Drive Travel Consideration by Leveraging Local Collaborations

The Brief

A travel and tourism client proposed a collaboration with a local chef to boost traveler consideration for their location. Using a cross-channel social media strategy, our teams saw strong results across Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest with below benchmark CPAs for this co-branded campaign.

 

Highlights

126
Tour Guide Downloads


800K
Instagram Post Engagements


2.47%
Facebook CTR

Challenge

Our travel and tourism client tasked Coegi with executing a co-branded, mid-funnel campaign to boost website traffic as well as increase awareness. We were given high quality ‘how-to’ video creative from the popular chef. By presenting this to targeted audiences in mid-funnel campaigns, we were able to drive travel consideration among key audience groups.

Solution

We used a multi-channel paid social media strategy to target each platform’s specific audiences. Pinterest encapsulated the ‘foodie’ audience, while Facebook and Instagram’s goal was to drive the large travel audience to their site. Both platforms included look-a-like and retargeting segments to reach engaged users. Success was based on key website actions such as landing page views and post engagement.

This multifaceted strategy provided strong results. The Instagram and Facebook campaign achieved a CPLPV of $0.67 that came in well below our benchmark of $1.83. In addition, we also saw a 2.47% CTR, well above the 0.90% benchmark. The Pinterest campaign, despite having a smaller percentage of the budget, generated nearly 1.7MM impressions with a post engagement rate of 1.27% including 1,365 pin saves.

Key Learnings

  • Well-curated and professional creative catches eyes. This pushed our audience down the funnel quicker than most – generating 126 Tour Guide Downloads.
  • By partnering with an authentic, trusted figure such as a local chef or celebrity, travel brands can boost their image and drive audience engagement. 
  • Using “how-to” style Pinterest posts have a higher likelihood of being saved. This ultimately drives site traffic and brand awareness.

3 Ways to Prevent Ad Fraud

Ad fraud is an essential, but often overlooked, part of the advertising campaign building process. At times, marketers focus so heavily on optimizing for a specific conversion that they fail to analyze the quality of media they are purchasing. The absence of protective inventory selection can lower the quality of placement and negatively impact performance.

“Without paying close attention to the digital environment, the journey to achieving extensive reach and rapidly building awareness can have a lasting negative impact on perception and category growth.”

Sean Cotton, President of Coegi 

How Can Ad Fraud Affect Campaign Performance?

Failing to put proper safety parameters in place creates vulnerability to online bots. This can project false conversions or views that skew performance data and cause media waste. Implementing a comprehensive quality assurance process is critical for minimizing fraud risk and creating results for your brand. 

3 Steps To Prevent Ad Fraud

1) Utilize Historical Data 

Leverage historical campaign data to identify domains with historical ad fraud issues. Also negatively target sites that have been deemed non-brand safe. Continually update this block list with low quality sites using tools such as MOAT to ensure you’re taking preventative measures. 

2) Apply Pre And Post-Bid Brand Safety Filters

Use bid exclusions for brand safety and suspicious activity filtering. Technology partners, such as IAS and HUMAN, provide bid verifications that block IP addresses that are known to be infected with malware and have bot activity.

3) Ensure You’re Compliant With Data Privacy Laws

While data privacy compliance is primarily in the hands of publishers, Coegi takes precautions and uses best practices to meet GDPR, CCPA, and PIPEDA compliance. Coegi has forged meaningful partnerships with a number of custom data providers in order to best accommodate our client’s needs, reach the right audience and keep ahead of industry trends.

By executing these strategies, brands can be confident their campaigns are safe from ad fraud and bid on the most effective ad placements. Ad fraud prevention is a top priority at Coegi and a focal point for every campaign build, which results in 80%+ average viewability and less than 1% ad fraud. This leads to better media performance and business results for our clients. 

Marketing in the Metaverse: Three Things to Know

If you’re reading recent marketing articles, or even watching the Super Bowl, then you are certainly familiar with the “metaverse.” But, do you understand what it means?

If the answer is no, don’t worry – you aren’t alone. The metaverse can be confusing. It isn’t tangible and it isn’t just one thing. It’s a collection of technologies, identities, philosophies, and experiences that all level up into a digital sphere, which in some way imitates real life. And consumers, especially digital natives, are quick to adopt AR/VR, social communities, and more. 

What Should Brands Do To Market To Their Target Audiences In The Metaverse?

  • Make digital experiences accessible and seamless
  • Select metaverse-related trends that are best suited for your customers and your brand
  • Drive innovation that’s focused on business outcomes

Making Digital Experiences Accessible And Seamless

There’s a reason why metaversal experiences are catching on: consumers are attracted to immersive environments. This is especially true when it comes to testing products, planning trips, and getting to know brands. Brands need to consider this as they explore their roadmap of digital development. Invest in ways to make your websites, social instances, and overall digital presence attractive for customers and drive affinity through positive virtual interactions. 

Selecting Metaverse Trends That Are Best Suited For Marketing To Your Customers

Brands are chasing after an impossible dream if they try to dive all at once into every new trend within the digital universe. Throwing everything at the wall just to see what sticks is expensive, time consuming, and likely to confuse the consumer rather than drive them to your brand. Instead, it’s important to have a deeper understanding of your customer and identify what will actually increase brand value and improve customer loyalty. Maybe you don’t need a purchasable NFT or gamified shopping experience. It’s important to not be distracted by the novelty and instead focus on creating the best solutions for your brand and its customers. 

Driving Innovation That’s Focused On Business Outcomes

Many brands are knee jerk reacting to what’s capturing headlines and straying away from an overarching media strategy. But, testing innovative ideas without the end business goal in mind, or simply out of fear of missing out, does not result in greater brand affinity or revenue. Innovation must be grounded in doing something new that will fulfill a need of the consumer in a way that either excites or delights them. That’s what builds word of mouth and keeps them coming back for more.

The metaverse is going to grow and evolve as emerging digital technologies gain traction and improve through AI. Marketers need to stay up to date with these changes, while not losing sight of their business goals. Before diving head first into the latest metaverse marketing tactic, evaluate:

  • Are your current metaversal experiences optimized? 
  • Will adopting this tactic benefit your customer?
  • Will these time and monetary investments improve your business’s bottom line?

For more insights, view our webinar on-demand: The Metaverse, Crypto, & NFTs: What Marketers Need to Know.

The Metaverse, Crypto and NFTs: How Marketers Can Prepare

Confused as to why The Metaverse, Crypto, and NFTs are dominating the marketing conversation? You are not alone – many marketers are struggling to define these topics and understand their impact on their brands and overarching marketing strategy.

While the future implications are uncertain, all brands should start paying attention now. These trends are no longer reserved for only high tech brands as the metaverse is entering the day-to-day consumer experience. Like early investors in crypto who are seeing massive payouts today, first-adopters of these new technologies into their advertising strategies are likely to have a major advantage over brands that do not.

View The Metaverse, Crypto and NFTs: Webinar on-Demand:

Coegi and our guests from Wachsman and Pop Marketer explore the impact of these changes and ways your brand can be on the forefront of these emerging trends.

Reaching the Next Generation of Farmers

Reaching the next generation of farmers is an increasing concern in agriculture marketing. As those in the world of ag are well aware, the average age of farmers is far higher than most industries, creating concerns about the future of global production. In North America, reports indicate the average age of all farmers to be between 57 and 60, with even the newcomers to the field largely over the age of 45. However, the latest USDA census shed light on a positive trend: over a quarter of new producers were below the age of 35. 

Encouragingly, younger generations are indicating an interest in careers in agriculture. The fastest growing age range for new farmers overlaps with older Millennials and, due to demand from the younger Gen Z population, public universities have steadily increased their offerings related to agriculture, food sciences and sustainability for the past 3 years

New Opportunities For Agriculture Marketers

For agriculture marketers, this presents a fresh audience who are engaging with emerging technologies, agribusiness resources, and the modernized tools needed to shape the future of their farms. Brands who adapt their marketing strategies to reach these digitally native individuals can establish significant value for the future of their brands. 

Creating content to reach the next generation of farmers is an exciting opportunity for marketers, but don’t assume everyone in this age group is reachable with a one-size-fits-all media strategy. Though they may be united as the next generation of farmers, the current batch of “under 35s” span two generations: Millennials and Gen Z. Despite being close-ish in age, Millennials and the college-aged Gen Zs use media very differently. Agriculture marketing strategies must reflect these differences using personalized, curated approaches to reach their maximum potential.

Speaking To Millennial Farmers

 You may still picture Millennials as young adults, but they now range from being in their late twenties to early forties. So when you picture a Millennial interested in ag, you should be picturing the Millennial Farmer,” Zach Johnson, a 37-year old father of three who manages 2,600 acres and a popular YouTube account documenting farm life. Johnson and his fellow 30-somethings make up a group we would personify as the ‘Established Young Farmer’. 

They are an ideal group to reach with branded articles, invitations to industry events or webinars, and specific product and service promotions related to their farms. Though not as seasoned as their farming mentors, the Established Young Farmer is just that, established, so marketers can openly use detailed language and concrete examples of the benefits of their offerings without worrying about losing them. This audience is ideal for any advertiser wanting to highlight their offerings related to new technologies, developments in livestock medicine or crop treatments, farm finances, and farm management tools. 

Millennials have spent their entire lives adapting to new technology and are the highest educated generation to date. Many of these farmers are managing aspects of their operations that previous generations may have relied upon a business partner to handle. Additionally, this audience’s unique position of being new to the industry without being new to adulthood allows marketers the chance to speak to decision makers who are open to testing new brands and emerging technologies. 

Shift To Digital To Reach Millennial Farmers

Like their older counterparts, these Established Young Farmers are reachable via terrestrial media, but the most cost-efficient path to engagement will be tapping into the digital environments this generation is native to. They’re still active users of Facebook, but are also heavier users of newer channels like streaming audio and streaming video. Don’t forget, this is the generation who almost unanimously “cut the cord” in the 2010s, so connected TV is a better avenue to reach them than cable. There was a noted exception to this trend in rural areas as the financial barrier to dependable high-speed internet access played a key role in CTV use, but this is a decreasing concern in the 2020s as the pandemic accelerated this need.

In summary, the Millennial Established Young Farmers have a few years of experience under their belts, are open to new ideas for their farms, and are reachable with cost-efficient digital media. There’s little reason to not include them in your current marketing strategies to form a long-term relationship with the immediate next generation. For brands looking further into the future of farming, let’s discuss the Emerging Agriculturalists of Generation Z. 

Speaking To The Agriculture-Interested Gen Z

With the new farmers entering the ag workforce in their 30s and 40s, it’s not surprising to currently see little representation of Gen Z in the field. This generation spans individuals born from the late 90s through 2010, and currently owns the youth and young adult cohort of 18-24 year-olds.  Over half of Gen Zs with farm backgrounds plan to one day take over their family operations, while over 70% of Gen X farmers expect their Gen Z children to take over. 

While it’s true many Gen Zs will not enter the ag workforce whatsoever, it’s also important to consider the disciplines of study within Agtech, Biotech, and Climatology that were not available to previous generations. Knowing this group’s entryway to a career in agriculture may not be the farm, we’re calling this audience the ‘Emerging Agriculturalists’. 

The Emerging Agriculturalists are still deciding their futures after graduation. They’re in an ideal life stage to receive educational content and connect with industry professionals at events or online. Many are interested in tech-forward content and hearing professional testimonials or blogs to help them conceptualize the real world implications of emerging technologies. Interestingly, this generation has a more favorable opinion of GMOs and are less likely to sustain from animal agriculture compared to Millennials, so they may be a more receptive audience for thought leadership in these areas. 

Use Social And Video To Reach Gen Z Agriculturalists

Another key differentiator between Millennials and Gen Z’s is their social media habits. Despite its best efforts, Facebook is viewed by this group as a “Boomer social network made for old people.”  However, marketers can still take advantage of Meta’s broad reach to find Gen Z on Instagram, where they are more active.

 Video content on traditional channels, such as linear TV, may not reach Gen Z at all – they are primarily “cord-nevers,” and have spent their formative years with vertical video on social platforms like Snapchat and now, TikTok. YouTube and CTV are still viable channels for repurposing more traditional content, but marketers should embrace this generation’s preference for more authentic, influencer-style placements. Look to the hashtags #farmlife and content creators like @MommyFarmer for inspiration.  

One thing is true for both of these generations of future farmers: the digital landscape allows for many cost-efficient opportunities to serve them tailored messaging for a personal touch. Connect with a Coegi strategist to develop a curated plan to reach the next generation of farmers. 

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