Category: Blogs

3 Reasons to Use Podcast Advertising

Posted on by Lindsey King

Podcasts have been around for nearly 20 years, but only recently have gained mass appeal among both audiences and advertisers. With growing audiences, loyal listeners, new targeting advances and reporting options, there has never been a better time to explore podcast advertising.

“The growth of podcasting has brought a massive opportunity for advertisers to reach highly engaged, niche audiences.” – Arica McKinnon, Vice President, Client Consulting at Nielsen.

Not sure if podcast advertising is the right tactic for you and your brand’s bottom line? Here are three reasons that may change your mind.

Reason #1: The audiences are there…and growing

An estimated 120 million Americans listened to podcasts in 2021, with a projected growth to 160 million listeners in 2023. Despite a short flatline in listenership in 2020 due to shortened or non-existant commutes (a highly-popular listening time for the avid podcaster), podcast engagement increased notably this year with no signs of slowing down. Furthermore, according to a survey done by NCS Solutions, 88% of current podcast listeners maintained or increased their listening time over the past year. This increase can be attributed to several factors. Those factors include the return of commuting, increased WOM, new shows for niche audiences, and an influx of influencers developing their own shows to flesh out revenue streams and reach their audiences in a new way.

With this growth trajectory, it is no surprise that advertisers are increasing investment in this lucrative channel. According to IAB, podcast ad revenue in the US increased by 19% in 2020 and is predicted to exceed $3B by 2023. This indicates brands are seeing success with podcast advertisinag. As follows, competition for reaching these audiences will continue to build over time. Jumping into the pool of opportunity now will allow you to expand your reach and effectiveness.

Reason #2: More options and flexibility

Podcasts have held the attention of highly-engaged, niche audiences for years. Historically, the only option for brands to advertise in this space was to purchase expensive, inflexible and hard-to-measure direct buys. In recent years, however, the growing popularity of podcasts has created a demand for an updated, more flexible and measurable system for reaching these audiences.

The industry recognized this opportunity and began developing alternative ways to monetize it. The result? A programmatic option called dynamic ad insertion (DAI) has now entered the market, making it easier and more affordable to incorporate this tactic into your media mix.

This biddable technology allows for new audience targeting options, including listening habits, geographic region and weather conditions. Due to the nature of podcasting, there are somewhat limited options for targeted demographics. However, as the technology continues to develop, there will likely be more options on the horizon. Don’t let these limits keep you from investigating this tactic as a viable option.

Reason #3: Listeners are ad-friendly

Not only are the audiences growing, they are receptive and responsive to the ads they hear while listening. A recent study on podcast “super listeners” discovered that 48% of listeners pay more attention to podcast ads than any other media and that 71% of those surveyed say they never, rarely, or only sometimes skip the ads they hear while listening. The study also found 54% of respondents are more likely to purchase a product after hearing an ad for it on a podcast, up from 46% in 2019.

There are a few surface-level reasons for this acceptance. Firstly, most podcasting platforms are free to use and audiences understand they trade the ad for the content. Then, there is the fact that most listeners tune in while doing other activities – driving, cleaning, walking, etc. Their hands are not typically free during these activities so they are more likely to listen through the ad. This is unlike many other ad formats that are easy to scroll by or tap the skip button.

The primary reason audiences are receptive and responsive to podcast advertising, however, is trust and authenticity. Listeners often feel like the host is directly speaking to them. Before the introduction of DAIs, hosts read all podcast ads. Because podcasts tend to attract highly engaged, niche audiences, the hosts became their own breed of influencer. They make trusted recommendations to their highly connected listeners. This has set the stage for advertising to natively work its way into the expected user experience. Host-read spots are still the most highly trusted advertising spot in podcasting, but they have conditioned podcast listeners in general to be more receptive to advertising.

Recommendations

With the growing audience sizes, ad-friendly listener behavior and advancing technology options, reaching your ideal audience in the podcast space has become easier than ever. However, the unique channel constraints may require different strategies than what is successful for your brand on other channels. Here are a few recommendations:

  1. Be creative with your targeting strategy. With limited out-of-box options for DAI placements, hyper-targeting will likely lead to overly expensive and minimal scale results. Instead, research the audiences that are already listening to podcasts and find a happy medium between niche and broad. What podcasts would your target audience be listening to and engaging with? Use interest and affinity-based audience insights to inform your targeting strategy.
  2. Consider the user experience when creating ad content. Like with all advertising mediums, your ad will perform better if it blends into the user experience. Podcast listeners are used to more conversational experience, so ads that are organic, informal and relatable perform best.
  3. Experiment with programmatic and traditional direct-buy placements. A podcast whose audience perfectly aligns with your target may be worth the direct ad buy. But also experiment with more flexible DAI purchases to find the most successful shows and targeting combinations for your brand.
  4. Stay on top of technology developments. Be comfortable in these platforms so you can take advantage of the high value podcast audiences before your competitors.

Further Reading:

Data Storytelling: How to Act on Analytics

Posted on by Jacob Amann

Data storytelling transforms brands. Take an inside look at how Coegi crafts stories with actionable recommendations for our clients by finding the human element in the numbers.

As marketers, we now have access to vast amounts of data. There’s been a major influx of analyst jobs in the last several years as a result.

But are we telling compelling stories with that data and adjusting our strategies based on the insights? If not, what’s the point?

The true value in data lies in how we use key insights to take informed actions for businesses. In other words, with data storytelling.

4 Steps to Set up Data Storytelling in Your Analytics Practice

Gather: Set up a measurement framework to capture metrics that matter most

First, set performance KPIs that ladder up to your business goals. For more information on how to do this, feel free to reference our Marketing Measurement Playbook. Then, prepare a learning agenda to determine the types of information you are looking to understand from your campaign.

Are there hypotheses you want to validate? Assumptions you want to challenge? Audience learnings you want to gather? Use the agenda to help answer these questions.

Learn: Capture and visualize data to pull key insights

Once the campaign is running, you begin to gather data: this is your “what.” Now, it’s up to you and your media partners to uncover the “why.” Look at the underlying narrative running through your data to build a meaningful story arc.

A great way to do this is by visualizing the data in a way. This method of data storytelling allows you to easily identify trends and understand performance relative to goals. Consider layering campaign data with third party data to see a holistic picture and identify outliers or interesting correlations. Look at the data from a macro lens. This helps weave the micro data points into a cohesive story makes sense to both marketers and external team members like the sales team or the executive suite.

We often talk about blending art and science in our marketing strategies – that same concept applies to data analytics. When communicating results to internal stakeholders, qualitative information with direction from quantitative data often speaks volumes for executives. But only if you tell the right story. You want to layer in context, feeling and understanding – the human emotion and behavior will amplify the data you’ve collected. Knowing the audience and tailoring your story to their point of view will help ensure the information resonates.

Brent Dykes, author of ‘Effective Data Storytelling’, says “Your data may hold tremendous amounts of potential value, but not an ounce of value can be created unless insights are uncovered and translated into actions or business outcomes”. This leads us into the next step: application.

Apply: Transform insights into actionable strategies, and repeat.

Data storytelling provides an opportunity to connect the dots between various media spend across channels and show how they work together to reach your customer when and where it mattered. If done right, it will also show areas that didn’t succeed. Those failures can guide new messaging or creative on particular channels, or the adjustment of certain tactics and spend reallocation. Additionally, it should highlight any gaps between customer touch points and eventual conversion or retention. Lay out clear, actionable steps based on analytic insights to transform your digital marketing strategy.

Refine and Repeat

Marketers create an infinite cycle of improvement through this data feedback loop. The digital ecosystem is constantly in flux. New platforms, privacy laws, consumer behavior and more, creating twists and turns in the media landscape. This process is never perfect. But, by using performance marketing data to tell your brand story, you can ensure it is always evolving and being refined. This practice minimizes media waste and allows marketers to make more informed decisions and craft winning strategies.

“Numbers have an important story to tell. They rely on you to give them a clear and convincing voice.” – Stephen Few

If you need help finding the story in your data, Coegi is here to help. Set up a discovery call with our team to explore opportunities for your brand.

Why Short-Form Video is Critical for Your Brand’s Success

Posted on by Coegi

 

Short-form video marketing is becoming increasingly important for brands to reach consumers. Online video consumption has been growing steadily year over year. In fact, the average person spends over 100 minutes per day watching online videos.

Short-form videos are what consumers want to watch – whether on TikTok, Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts, or Snapchat Spotlight. The social media giants know this and have shifted their algorithms to prioritize users who utilize these features.

Keep in mind – each social media platform has different placement options and nuances. One video asset copied and pasted on every channel will likely be ineffective.

Find Your Hook

Whether you’re using display video or paid social media, short-form video increasingly wins the day. One study found that attention spans last an average of eight seconds, so getting your brand and message across in an “elevator pitch” increasingly is becoming the norm. 73% of people want to see “entertaining” videos on social media so your content needs to hook consumers immediately.

Gain Authentic Engagement with User-Generated Video Content

Consumers are exposed to over 5,000 ads daily. User-generated content has become crucial to break through the noisy digital landscape. One study found that 75% of consumers don’t accept advertisements as truth, but that 70% do trust other consumer’s opinions. Utilizing user-generated video content for organic or paid social media will help your brand become authentic and approachable to consumers.

GoPro does a great job of using video as a part of their marketing strategy. They use each social media platform for a different purpose, catering to the audience by placement. GoPro shares UGC photos and videos on Instagram, tutorials on YouTube, product announcements on Twitter, and connects with users on Facebook.

Short-Form Video Drives Full Funnel Results

Video is more than an awareness tactic for paid social media efforts. It is crucial to include video at all stages of the marketing funnel. Animoto surveyed 580 consumers, 93% of which said video is helpful when purchasing a product while 71% have purchased a product or service after watching a brand’s video on social media.

One study shows six-second awareness ads are just as effective as a 15-second video for a mid-funnel strategy. Another study found that 25% of TikTok users purchase or research a product after watching TikTok and 92% of users take action, e.g. liking/commenting, sharing, following, or purchasing. Video is now a full-funnel play and a necessary investment to build ROI.

View our Video Marketing Trends and Best Practices here for more tips!

How to Make Brand-Agency Relationships Last

Posted on by Coegi

Account Strategy Director, Danielle Wesolowski, discusses how to improve brand-agency relationships by putting client needs first through a strategy centered on togetherness and collaboration.

Brands, have you ever felt the frustration of receiving a media plan or creative from an agency that was completely different from what you had envisioned?

Agencies, have you ever hung up a client call feeling completely blind-sided about the direction and expectations for your campaign?

Misalignment between brand and agency teams can quickly build into frustration. How can we avoid the missteps that build tension between agency and brand teams and minimize the resulting efficiency losses? The work must start within teams. Then you can develop clear brand-agency collaboration to support strong marketing strategies and positive working relationships.

Coegi has an internal framework surrounding everything we do called the Coegi Way. There are four pillars: attitude, approach, service and culture. Looking through this lens, let’s explore how to build successful brand-agency relationships.

Attitude: The Sky’s the Limit

When initiating a new brand-agency partnership, or just a new campaign, start your process with an open mind. Take time to collaboratively brainstorm with each other – considering out of the box options. Sometimes we become so process-oriented we lose sight of the opportunities in front of us.

Add regular brainstorms into your process to audit competition, evaluate future opportunities, and find new ways to leverage existing capabilities. The goal is to “put yourself in a position with clarity of mind to execute at high levels of efficiency, innovation, and real creativity”.  Delight your client by reimagining possibilities for their brand.

Thought starters for impactful brainstorming: 

  • What are those things we would do if we could just remove the barriers?
  • What’s keeping us from incredible innovation, real creativity, and surpassing client expectations–or our own expectations?

Approach: Empower and Align Teams

Approach your collaborative marketing strategy like a chess board: assess the field of play and then implement your strategy. Both brands and agencies must enable their teams to do great work. To enable means giving people the power to take action, but also giving strength and confidence.

While strong teams value individual contributors, they must work together cohesively as a unit to win. Each person on your team should be providing the same experience to the client no matter who they talk to. If a different answer is given depending on who you ask – the team needs to be realigned. The same goes for in-house marketing teams and executives. If the CMO approves a campaign but the CEO enters the conversation and last minute vetoes key creatives or channels, this can cause major issues. Internal teams must be empowered to make decisions while understanding overall goals before they can effectively work with external partners.

Service: Understand the Client’s Needs

Agencies build lasting and trusting relationships with brands when they demonstrate a strong understanding of the client’s needs and provide tactical plans to act on those needs and deliver impactful solutions. The expectation we set for account team members at Coegi is, 

“An individual should be able to demonstrate a full understanding of their clients’ business needs and translate this knowledge into an actionable cadence of strategic and tactical plans leveraging the strengths of integrated digital communication channels to deliver consistent, differentiated and valued customer experiences.” 

This is crucial because 30% of marketing professionals surveyed believe not understanding their brand completely is the top barrier to successful brand-agency relationships, according to eMarketer.

We often take client requests and run with them. This is especially true in performance media, where campaign activation is agile and ever-evolving. When possible, facilitate more discussions before the tactical phase. Really understand client goals first and define the best way to reach those together. For example, when a client gives you a specific target audience, talk through the justification for that audience. Also, explore other potential options, and ensure their plan is optimized to reach their goals and aligned with your capabilities.

Culture: Meet Clients Where They are Comfortable

Translate your culture as an agency or team to your client. Find ways to connect with brand teams to allow both cultures to play off each other. Open the right communication channels to make your client comfortable whether it be group Zooms, 1:1 calls, or short emails.

Keith Schwartz, CEO of Bounteous, quotes, “It’s really about forming a partnership where you can leverage the best of both organizations. Mature business leaders understand that having a partner with knowledge capital about their industry creates a lot of value.”

A MediaCause article issues a warning, “ if you don’t establish a partner relationship from the start, you’ll more than likely forever be treated as a vendor.”

Never underestimate the importance of relationship building to gain trust with your client. Go beyond that vendor relationship to become a true partner. Give them space to talk candidly about problems, ideas, and goals. Provide honest feedback to each other. You can gain so much more from the client if you create these open communication opportunities.

To sum everything up, my advice is simply this: slow down and focus on collaboration.

3 Questions to Start Improving Your Brand-Agency Relationships:

  1. Where do you find the biggest challenges in understanding client needs?
  2. What are the biggest barriers to developing strong and trustworthy client relationships?
  3. What would you like to do differently to enhance those relationships?

If you’re interested in exploring a partnership with Coegi, contact us today to schedule a discovery call.

3 Tips for Better Performing Video Content

Posted on by Lindsey King

The Top 3 Benefits of Video Advertising

Are you capitalizing on the benefits of video advertising?

Programmatic video advertising is growing rapidly. Many growth brands are seeing the benefits of incorporating this highly engaging medium in their marketing mix.

However, there are still those who are unwilling to make the upfront investment to create these assets, fearing it requires too much money and too much time. That’s understandable, especially for brands operating with a very lean marketing budget.

Coegi’s Director of Marketing, Elise Stieferman, shares three reasons why your brand should avoid leaving video out of the marketing strategy:

The Opportunity Cost of Not Using Video Ads

To summarize that video, there are three reasons why brands are missing out if they aren’t leaning into video advertising.

#1 Video Drives Incremental Sales

It may not seem blatantly obvious, but brands are actually losing out on sales if they aren’t investing in video. Historically, video has been seen as an upper funnel tactic. It’s all about awareness and gaining brand rapport. This can be true, especially for a longer form video where you’re telling a story. But videos are also very integral to building consideration before purchasing a product. Sometimes, it even leads to the end conversion.

This is especially true of short form videos. I know a lot of people are afraid of six-second videos not being effective. However, that’s the way digital is going these days. Obviously, there’s a lot of things trying to grab consumers attention, especially on social media. So brands have to quickly explain the value of the product and compel action. 

Video advertising is a more personal way to connect with the consumers. It’s more impactful in a lot of ways than a display ad. Those are simply static banners, whereas video is compelling you to stop, pay attention and consider the next steps 

#2 Video Improves the Customer Lifetime Journey

The second thing brands should consider is the customer lifetime journey. Video can build greater affinity. This is especially true for people who already know your brand. It’s easy to pivot to other brands with a similar offering, especially if it’s lower cost. But if you use video to build connection and affinity, it will be positive for your brand.

Another thing to consider is how you can use video to educate the consumer. Think about creating useful how-to videos. Help them visually see the value in investing in your brand. Then, there’s the excitement around generating new leads for your brand using video. 

But there’s also the consideration of building repeat purchasers. For example, serving videos that highlight different products to upsell or compliment their existing purchases. There’s no better way to do that than this very highly engaging medium.

#3 Video Increases Brand Recognition

Lastly, video can generate buzz around your brand. Of course, people appreciate reading reviews online. But when you think about platforms like TikTok and YouTube, video is really what’s capturing attention. It’s a very shareable medium. If you want to go viral and create a moment for your brand, video is the way to go. 

Video can seem expensive. But it doesn’t have to be high production quality. It can be user-generated content that comes from your iPhone that’s six seconds long and that even feels more authentic on social platforms. 

The longer we wait to dip our toes into the water, the further behind we’re going to be for our brands. Now is the time to invest in video and understand you are going to get that return. It may be a longer journey before you see that investment come back, but it ultimately will feed into your bottom line.

Now that we know the benefits of using video, let’s explore how to maximize the impact of your video ads.

How to Create Better Performing Video Advertisements

“Humans are incredibly visual and powerful, moving images help us find meaning…video helps capture and contextualize the world around us.”

– Dan Patterson, Digital Platform Manager for ABC News Radio

Digital video consumption is on the rise and forecasted to reach $12.66B by 2024. How are marketers adapting to changing consumer trends and creating better performing video content?

Recent studies show that the increased ad spend towards digital is a worthy investment as video is the #1 preferred content form to see from brands on social media. Additionally, video has major down funnel implications. 71% of consumers report purchasing a product or service after watching a brand’s video.

Compiling a quick video and using it across all channels, however, is not a strategy that drives results for businesses. Consider where and how long you have your audiences’ attention. This will help you avoid wasting the resources and budget you have dedicated to high performing video content. Your videos must also be intentional, authentic, and targeted to resonate with your audience.

3 Tips to Improve Your Video Marketing Content:

#1 Remember time is money

With the recent popularity of short-form video formats like TikTok and Instagram Stories, conversions are now outperforming longer-form video. Brands have mere seconds to capture their audiences’ ever-shortening attention. According to a report by Analytic Partners, this shift has translated into much higher ROI for 6-second videos (127%) than it does 30-second videos (58%).

 

Long-format videos certainly have their place, but when designing ad campaigns, make sure your content catches attention immediately and keeps your audience captivated throughout. Shortening viewing times also mean you need to make sure your product and brand both appear within the first few seconds. Otherwise, the user will likely scroll away before they understand your offering.

#2 Meet your audiences where they are

Not all video viewing experiences are the same, especially when you consider the difference between desktop and mobile viewing.  Penthera reports that 74% of consumers are watching video content on their mobile device or tablet, where the standard horizontal video appears much smaller and allows other content to be displayed along with it. With multiple items competing for attention, the viewer may decide to continue on to the next item instead of consuming the entirety of your ad. To combat this, consider framing your videos vertically so the video fills the screen. This makes your ad easier for viewers to see and focus on.

92% of consumers now watch video on mobile with sound off. So designing ads to be seen and understood without audio has become crucial. This could be telling your story entirely through visual elements or adding closed captioning to the final product. According to a report from Verizon Media and Publicis Media, “when captions are available, 37% of viewers said they are encouraged to turn the sound on.” These videos seem more interesting, and 29% said that even with the sound off, they were better able to understand the video because of the captioning. With that in mind, incorporating captions can be an easy way to boost video campaign ROI without increasing your budget.

#3 Be a story-teller, not a movie director

The single most impactful component of video performance is the creative. An Analytic Partners study found, 70% of the potential ROI comes from the creative itself.” This does not mean, however, that you “push out Oscar Award-winning video content for every commercial or video,” as our Account Strategy Director, Maggie Gotszling, said when asked about her recommendation for better performing video. There are baseline levels of quality to aim for: decent resolution, good lighting and audio. But, the key for video performance is to capture the viewer’s attention with visual interest and a strategically designed story.

In a recent publication, The Lab outlines several principles to consider while strategically designing your video content. There were three on their list we think are especially impactful for improving marketing ROI:

  1. Be short and succinct
  2. Flip the standard storytelling arc
  3. Build visual interest with eye-catching graphics.

Short and succinct messaging serves two purposes. First, making sure the viewer has a chance to consume the message fully before they scroll. Second, ensuring your messaging is clear and memorable, leaving no room for confusion. If the video has too much fluff, complexity, or goes on too long, you risk losing their attention.

When you shorten the message, also consider rearranging the story arc so the most engaging piece comes first. Historical story arcs take their time. First they establishing key elements and players. Then they build to an energetic conflict and eventually resolve the issue at the end.

To grab and keep attention with video ads, however, you’ll want to flip the script. Start the story with the high energy moment and conclude shortly after. This will “slow the scroll” of your viewer and hold their attention more effectively. If your video needs to be on the longer side, add multiple twists and turns throughout to sustain interest.

Another way to grab viewers attention is to add visual interest with eye-catching graphics and fast-moving edits. Our eyes naturally follow things that move quickly, so adding this will also contribute to scroll-slowing. When you combine these cuts with the shorter message and flipped story arc, you will have done the bulk of the needed work to hook your audience and lay the foundation for conversion.

Key Takeaways: 

  • Time is money: Get to the core of your message and display your branding/offering as soon as you can.  If you opt for a longer video, design the messaging strategically (see Takeaway #3).
  • Meet your audience where they are: Design the frame and video contents for mobile viewing. Crop the frame vertically, rely on visual storytelling and/or include closed captioning.
  • Be a story-teller, not a movie director: Reach basic technical quality standards then focus your efforts on crafting an effective story arc. Start with a bang and include surprising twists and turns.

Recommended Reading:

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Brand vs Performance Marketing

Posted on by Coegi

As marketers, we often preach about setting separate KPIs for campaigns in different funnel stages. We are comparing brand vs performance marketing depending on campaign goals. While this is needed, we must understand the synergies between the two to fully optimize campaigns.

At Coegi, we define ourselves as performance marketing practitioners. Does this mean we ignore branding and top funnel efforts? Of course not. We believe that all marketing efforts can ladder up to business goals.

What’s the Difference Between Brand vs Performance Marketing?

A Forbes article explains, “Brand marketing encourages customers to raise their hands. Performance marketing makes it as easy as possible for a customer to get your product into their hand after they raise it.” Branded campaigns are structured to build brand affinity, recall, values, and other emotion-based results.

Performance marketing, conversely, is all about the numbers. Finding ways to build efficiencies and grow total results. These measurement-focused campaigns are built to drive conversions, leads, purchases, and purposeful clicks. All while lowering the cost per action based on channel, audience, and creative learnings.

How To Hold Brand Campaigns Accountable

Marketers that have historically leaned on traditional channels are shifting to digital platforms to have a more targeted approach. However, brand campaign dollars are generally not held accountable like performance dollars. Yet, there is an increasing demand from CFOs and CEOs for those quantifiable results and clear ROI.

A marketer’s job is to showcase the value of upper funnel marketing on long and short term business results. For example, a McKinsey study reported, “With a clearer understanding of consumer preferences and behavior at the early stages of their buying journey, companies report marketing efficiency gains of up to 30% and incremental top-line growth of up to 10% without increasing the marketing budget.”

Measuring Branding Campaign Results

How can you start to measure brand campaigns? Identify business objectives towards awareness that indicate a positive sentiment towards or engagement with your product. Ask the right questions, determine the right methodology, and understand what actions are truly driving interest in your brand.

Taking Full-Funnel Full-Circle

A MarketingProfs article explained this by saying, “brand-driven insight is your truth—the WHY behind all that you do. The performance marketing is your plan put into action—the HOW and WHAT of manifesting that truth.” By understanding this full customer journey, brands can make audiences feel understood. This is accomplished through using data-driven insights to build meaningful messaging on the channels where they are most present and receptive. Ultimately, this builds trust while optimizing budgets simply by being relevant to your core audience. This sets the stage for lower funnel campaigns and creates a more seamless path to conversion.

Coegi built a full-funnel marketing campaign to increase emotional brand connection and drive product trials for  a CPG client. We executed a performance branding study on Facebook to evaluate brand lift and conversion lift for key website events. This blended approach allowed for valuable insights into multiple stages of the consumer journey, from awareness to purchase intent. The results surpassed various CPG benchmarks and highlighted the importance of creating synergies between creative execution and operational strategy. It also placed more accountability on the incrementality of our branding efforts.

Key Takeaways

  • Treat all marketing campaigns as performance-based
  • Hold brand campaigns accountable with custom measurement frameworks that then inform business outcomes
  • Pull insights from bottom funnel campaigns to inform top funnel campaigns (and vice versa)

For more, read Boost Customer Lifetime Value with Awareness Marketing.

Balancing the Art and Science of Advertising

Posted on by Coegi

 

Advertising may elicit thoughts of uniquely designed print ads and Super Bowl commercials; the output of creative minds with the ability to persuade consumer decisions. For some people, advertising seems to be a strictly artistic discipline when all one sees is the final creative product. In truth, the art and science of advertising must blend together in order to maximize marketing campaign results. 

“The solution to capturing consumers comes down to a sophisticated blend of art and science.”

– Paul Robson, President International at Adobe

On one end of the spectrum we have science, the known and the unknown, for the analytical and curious minds looking to uncover unique insights and trends. At the other end lies art, a subjective and ever-changing expression of unique thoughts and imagination in which there is truly never a right or wrong. There are a variety of perspectives on what the core of advertising is, when realistically both science and art’s synergy are central to achieving sustainable, successful strategy and activation. 

Why you need both art and science to build a brand

With art highly visible and science working behind the scenes, both pillars are critical to build the brand foundation. Our President, Sean Cotton, recently said that data is best used as a guide to craft engaging campaigns inspired by the numbers, keeping creative at the forefront while ensuring it is impactful with analytics. Sometimes this synergy is simple when you are working with a full-service agency. But, it is often more effective to work with separate creative and performance media agencies. As long as both sides communicate and prioritize business outcomes, the brand is set up for success.

How to optimize creative with data insights

At Coegi, we are the science fueling the art. We dig deeper into the what’s, why’s, and how’s of digital media through robust data analysis and industry research. The basis for our campaigns is research and analysis of our brands’ audiences. Then, we rely on machine learning and human intuition to optimize.

However, when it comes to strategy, it all really starts with the measurement framework.  This ensures we can understand if the research and thinking we put into action is actually impacting the brand’s bottom line. As a result, this process is not completely devoid of art. In fact, around 75% of an ad’s impact can be attributed to quality creative.

However, great creative pieces need data-driven insights to be delivered effectively. Our teams have to get creative with how and where we reach audiences to make the greatest impact. By doing so, we can better deliver solutions that make the art work harder, thus building up ROI. In essence, our strategy is our art.

Collaboration is key to success

At the end of the day, effective collaboration is at the core of the art and science of performance advertising. Communication and transparency between departments and our partners offers balance, allowing for seamless work processes and better results for clients. When this is done well, the lines between art and science begin to blur – proving that advertising isn’t black and white. It’s the molding of colors as the science and art of an agency work together to create a balanced composition paving the way for brand growth.

“The purpose of marketing is to influence the behaviors of others to bring them closer to your brand, organization, product, or service. The best way to achieve it is to strike a balance between the hard data and evidence that support the best path to take, and the human appeal and creative approach necessary to solidify its impact.”

– Eminent SEO CEO, Jenny Stradling

 

 

The Do’s and Don’ts of TikTok Advertising

Posted on by Coegi

As new social media platforms roll into our day to day lives, it is important to understand their marketing powers and which audiences fit best with your brand. TikTok is the newest social media platform that has really captured the attention of individuals globally. Tiktok advertising popularity has accelerated within the past couple of years. Brands want the opportunity to present their brand on a platform.

The TikTok opportunity

TikTok has reached a total lifetime user spending of $2.5B globally, has about 1 billion monthly active users since February 2021, and an engagement rate of 18% – higher than any other social platform.  It provides a huge opportunity for brands to not only introduce their brand but drive incremental conversions.

We know TikTok for its authentic, personalized, funny, and relatable content. Many brands use this tactic to show their brand’s personality and connect with their customers on a more personal level. True, Millennials and their younger peers in Generation Z are tired of ads. In fact, many of them use ad blockers when they browse.

But since engagement on TikTok is so high, advertisers can promote consumer advocacy rather than pure marketing strategy. This way, “you build brand awareness with an audience that talks about you because they’re genuinely impressed.” Many brands are focusing on reaching younger demographics on TikTok. However, 53% are aged 30+ – leaving a large reach for brands not going for the typical Gen-Z audience. 

How to create successful TikTok advertising campaigns

TikTok is a place for authenticity and personality – differentiating from a majority of social platforms in which highly-produced and staged ads perform better. Brands should strive to make their advertising blend in on TikTok. Create a seamless user experience and minimize viewing disruption. The ad should not look like a typical ad seen on other platforms because it will be not resonate. However, if it uses trending audio, popular dances, or tells a funny story,  it is more likely to gain attention.

Here are some topics to utilize while creating ads for TikTok:

  1. Get comfortable with comedy – Find a way to show the personality of your brand through relatable funny content. This could be of your product/service or of your company culture. 
  2. Show how your brand can be a #lifehack – Your brand’s main goal is to make people’s lives easier, more efficient, and/or more enjoyable.  Find that #lifehack your brand offers, and present it to your audiences in a quick video story. Overall, this hashtag has 78.6B views – allowing for a huge increase in reach for your brand.
  3. Bust a move – People love to show off their dance moves on TikTok. Use dance to keep up with trends and utilize popular audio at the same time. One example of a powerful brand deal was the partnership of Charli D’Amelio and P&G #distancedance at the beginning of the pandemic, which generated over 8B views.
  4. Utilize trending audio – Audio is a necessity on TikTok for a high performing ad. 88% of TikTok users said that sound is essential to the TikTok experience, and ads with sound-on are 2.2x better at increasing brand awareness. Brands can amplify their voice by creating an original audio clip or utilizing existing trending audio. E.L.F. Cosmetics commissioned a song for their TikTok campaign “Eyes Lips Face” and collaborated with influencers to aid in the promotion. The #eyeslipsface hashtag has been used in over 9.4B videos created by TikTok users.
  5. Find Your Niche – TikTok’s powerful algorithm, which is based on videos users watched, liked or shared, allows users to be served content that is extremely relevant to them. Understanding and reaching niches on TikTok is a great way to get your content in front of high potential audiences. 
  6. Don’t Shy Away from Activism – TikTok is a very popular platform for spreading awareness on social issues.  According to Reach3Insights, nearly 77% of TikTok users say that the app has helped them learn more about social justice and politics. As an advertiser, it is important to be sensitive to the social issues on the platform. 

TikTok is a great platform to show your brand in a new authentic light. Create genuine ads that blend in with content users are already viewing. Because of this, it is important that advertisers remain up-to-date on the latest TikTok trends so they can advertise in a way that does not seem invasive or out of place.

Take some time to scroll through the For You Page. Find the niche audiences you are looking for. Then create ads that fit the trends.  As previously mentioned, when creating a TikTok ad, look out for trends in comedy, life hacks, dancing, social justice or audio – depending on your audience. A little effort to understand your audience’s interests can go a long way on TikTok. Finally, always keep in mind that authenticity and personality are key. 

Written By: Julia Read, Sr Social Media Specialist and Rachel Vibbert, Data Architect

Why Walled Gardens Will (and Won’t) Be More Critical in the Future

Posted on by Coegi

 

As we explore the world of cookieless digital advertising, marketers will be focusing much of their attention on walled gardens with valuable first-party data. However, even walled gardens have issues we will need to navigate through in order to achieve business goals which are tangible to the financial guardians of brands.

Most analysts predict that walled gardens (in particular Google) will be the safest place to conduct audience targeted buys in 2024.  Even while Google’s DSP allows marketers to buy a lot of inventory, it is currently more limited in audio, connected TV and DOOH inventory.  These are channels where context is probably more important than the precision of the audience and where there is likely going to be a need to diversify to other advertising platforms to achieve a successful omni-channel strategy.

Using Facebook User Data

Facebook does have robust behavioral data from signed-in users; however, iOS 15 makes it more challenging to perform audience-based buys and to attribute conversions.  Some of our early campaigns showed a 15x increase in CPA within the platform, but nearly no impact on actual sales.  This means that conversion data on the Facebook platform was (and is) solely directional for most advertisers. While good for the business, this might be more challenging for marketers trying to prove their marketing is “working.”

Should You Trust the Algorithm?

The big ad tech players, and thus some agencies, will likely advise brands to ‘trust the algorithm’ even more than they have in the past, as Google, Facebook and Amazon don’t give specialists a lot of control over or insights about many aspects of their buying decisions.  Facebook in particular makes it challenging to control frequency, and DV360’s lookalike modeling is very opaque.  Against a lack of accurate measurement across each walled garden, brands and their agencies need to develop more holistic, advanced measurement frameworks.

How Will Cookie Deprecation Affect CPMs?

While scale is impacted slightly outside of Google Chrome and Android apps, there are still ample opportunities to bid for inventory in these environments.  However, with fewer buying platforms to conduct audience-based buys and fewer impressions to scale against, CPMs will likely increase, in particular on video.  This might put pressure on agencies to ‘keep the costs down’, which in turn may increase traffic from bots and fraudulent inventory.  Brands need to expect an increase in CPMs while not incentivizing a decrease in inventory quality.

A Walled Garden SWOT Analysis

Strengths – Google, Facebook, Amazon and Apple each have huge first-party data sets.  And not just in volume of users, they have robust metadata around each profile as well, from account information, purchase history and behavior.  Even if ID-based solutions grow in count, it’s possible we may not be able to append significant amounts of secondary data to each profile to be scalable for marketers.

Weaknesses – You will undoubtedly need adjustments in terms of attribution and measurement.  Even today, if you were to believe the metrics from each platform, nearly all of your automated marketing channels would have +ROI for the same purchase. Paid search, Facebook conversion ads and programmatic retargeting can’t all have a CPA of $10. They can’t produce 10,000 sales when you only sold 3,000 products. This is because each is taking credit for any time a user touches their ad. Because the walled gardens don’t share a common user profile, multi-touch attribution can be disjointed and inconsistent. It’s safe to say the methods of achieving measurement will have to change.

Opportunities – Lean into zero-, first- and second-party data in walled garden platforms, and rely less on retargeting. This allows for stronger prospecting and less reliance on audiences that were likely to “convert” anyway and, therefore, inflate marketing metrics.

Threats – Because many marketers and brands will be leaning into walled gardens, there will likely be an increase in advertising costs on these platforms. Budgets will need to increase to achieve the same scale as before.

So what does this mean?

At present, our suggestion is to lean into walled gardens for precise audience targeting. But, begin measuring success of your advertising program at a higher level.  Some examples of this include matched market tests, media mix modeling, and control vs. exposed methodologies.

Yes, this will make it more challenging to know which 50% of your marketing spend is effective. But, it’s the best solution with the reduction of transparency in algorithmic data and therefore less understanding of success from a conversion data standpoint.

This will also force marketers to start looking at the data as a whole. It’s time to get away from optimizing towards last-click and last-touch metrics. They have provided misleading signals for years.

Regarding measurement changes, advertising campaigns need to be set-up to reach business goals rather than just media metric KPIs.  To achieve this, individual channels and tactics will need to identify leading indicators to optimize toward.  Engagement rates, reach, completion rate, and measures of media effectiveness like CPM/CPC should become more of a focus rather than CPAs.

Check out our 5 Step Guide to Measuring Marketing ROI to get started:

Download Coegi’s Measurement Guide

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