Category: Blogs

Marketing to Gen Z: Authenticity Over Perfection

Posted on by Samantha Schmidt

Born into the digital era, Gen Z is the first generation to be fully immersed in a world of smartphones, social media, and constant internet access. Because of this, they have higher expectations from brands when it comes to digital advertising. This cohort makes up 27% of the U.S. population, and will soon become the largest group of consumers with significant buying power (Insider Intelligence). 

Brands marketing to Gen Z should prioritize meeting their media preferences, directly communicating to them without abandoning key channels for existing customers. In this article, we will discuss the values of Gen Z and how to best align your marketing strategy with those values. 

Authenticity Matters, Not Perfection

In a crowded media landscape, brands often compete for consumer attention with flashy creatives and mass media placements. With a “best foot forward” mentality, brands can get caught up in trying to show consumers the perfected image of their offerings. However, Gen Z consumers often ignore this type of content because it’s not relatable or different. They care heavily about a genuine showcasing of a brand’s values and offerings. They want to understand why the product matters, not just why they should buy it.

How can you achieve this?

Be Realistic

When using paid, over-glamoured models, Gen Z does not feel a connection with the brand. Gen Z wants to see a representation of themselves in the people showcased in advertisements, choosing brands that feel personable. Make sure your creative feels authentic to get the best attraction from the Gen Z audience. This is especially important considering this generation is the most ethnically diverse in the U.S., and they are passionate about diversity, equity, and inclusion. 

Make A Stand

Gen Z consumers hold companies to a high standard for corporate social responsibility. These socially responsible individuals go out of their way to support companies that stand for social issues they value. Use marketing to showcase how your brand makes a positive impact on society. Position your brand so that when Gen Z consumers purchase they not only get a useful product but also support the causes or social views they find most meaningful. 

Show Transparency

Gen Z wants to feel involved with its chosen brands and understand how they operate. Be honest with consumers about your practices, and tell a story about why you do what you do. This will inform your audience about your ethical standards and build trust. A lack of transparency can damage a brand’s reputation. In fact, 22% of Gen Zs reported that a lack of transparency reduces their opinion of brands and products, which is more than any other generation. 

Being genuine with Gen Z audiences should be a primary concern when it comes to delivering a marketing message. This authentic approach can be executed by being realistic with your audience, making a stand for a social cause, and showing transparency in brand practices.

How to Reach Gen Z on Social Media

If you want to effectively reach Gen Z consumers, social media is the place to be. Social platforms are a key part of their daily routines. 

On average, Gen Z spends about 8 hours a day online. And 90% of Gen Z are spending a minimum of one hour per day on social media – primarily on YouTube, TikTok and Instagram. These platforms are all dominated by user-generated short-form videos, which speaks to the need for brands to focus on creativity and authenticity in their content.

Sourced from E-Marketer

And they’re not just looking for entertainment on social media anymore. 50% of Gen Z make social commerce purchases (along with 51% of Millennials). Social media is a place to authentically reach Gen Z where they are spending time, but it’s also a tool to drive sales conversions.

Here are three tactics to win over Gen-Z consumers on social media:

#1 Short-Form Video

Gen Z spends less time watching TV than any other generation. They’re consuming digital video content on social media platforms instead. In particular, short-form videos have taken off in popularity over the past few years, especially among the Gen Z audiences. 

These 6-30 second videos are great for quick recognition. They require less attention span and quickly convey a message. One can argue that TikTok is the reason for the explosion of short-form video, as the platform continues to rise to the top of popularity rankings. As such, social media apps are redesigning their algorithms to prioritize this content. 

Short-form videos also tend to gain more Gen Z audience engagement, with the average engagement rate at 50%. This level is considerably higher than other generations. With storytelling potential, attention-grabbing power, and virality, short-form video is a must-have tool to drive full-funnel results in nearly all Gen Z marketing campaigns. 

#2 Influencer Marketing

What do Gen Zs want from brands? Honest, relatable, and compelling content. 

Where do Gen Zs spend their time? On social media. 

Influencers offer the best of both worlds – authentic content across various social media platforms. This makes influencer marketing a no-brainer tactic to reach Gen-Z consumers. 

Successful creators have spent time building trust and confidence with consumers, which brings meaning to their name as they hold a high “influence.” According to a GWI Report, “Gen Z puts more stock in the opinions and recommendations of influencers than past generations, and that’s heavily shaping how they approach media in general.” Micro-influencers, with smaller but more dedicated followers, are a great way to gain trust and narrow in on niche Gen-Z segments that best match your brand.

Read more of our best influencer marketing tips here.

#3 High Impact, Interactive Content

Interactive content is growing in popularity among younger audiences, which can boost awareness and engagement with your brand. Users want to engage with content, whether that’s a swipe, tap, click, vote, or like. 

Instagram is known to have highly interactive content such as polls, carousels, quizzes, questions, prompts, and more. TikTok also recently introduced interactive add-ons that allow paid media content to further engage audiences with ad posts. Immersive content such as 3D, AR/VR, and the development of the metaverse introduce innovative ways to reach audiences in a “phygital” way. Interactive content allows your brand to be present with Gen Z as they shift deeper into digital connections and worlds. 

How Coegi Can Help

As a digital marketing agency, Coegi is well equipped to assist you in marketing needs to reach your Gen Z consumers. We ensure each campaign is carefully researched based on data-driven tools to strategically activate across TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, and many other platforms. Reach out if you are looking for a partner to effectively execute and optimize your campaigns to grow your brand.

How to Build an Effective Digital Marketing Strategy

Posted on by Madeline Martodam

What do the metaverse, Web 3.0 and the cookieless future have in common? They demonstrate the need for agility to build an effective digital marketing strategy. Three years ago, these topics wouldn’t have even crossed our minds. Now they’re in our inboxes on a daily basis.

Now we’re learning the implications they’ll have and adapting our routines to ensure our marketing strategies seamlessly integrate into the changing landscape. By clearly defining the business goals aligned to our strategy, digital marketers can make informed decisions faster than ever before, allowing for real-time adjustments. 

Let’s dive deeper into how you can build an effective marketing strategy with these four key steps. 

Define

Start by outlining your high level business objective. Is it to increase sales by 2X this year? Expand into four new markets? Or increase brand awareness among a new audience group? 

Whatever it may be, clearly establish that overarching goal with all key stakeholders. Then, define marketing’s specific role in supporting that goal. 

  • What are the marketing objectives that level up to the desired business result?
    • All departments in the organization should have a shared vision. Define marketing’s specific role in reaching success. 
  • How will you optimize your marketing efforts towards this goal?
    • If it’s brand awareness, set that expectation from the beginning and maintain focus. This will prevent you from getting sidetracked and optimizing towards tactics that do not ladder up to your primary goal.  
  • What are the key signals you will track to define short-term and long-term success?
    • Decide which KPIs will most accurately indicate your progress. We often choose a cost-based metric paired with an effectiveness metric for each key channel, to make sure we are prioritizing quality for our clients. 

Align

Before you proceed with any advertising campaign, it’s important to check for alignment within your marketing and across the organization. 

  • Does your creative messaging and channel selection align with your target audience?
    • Conduct audience research to understand the places where your audience is most active and receptive to advertising. One of the tools we use at Coegi is Resonate, an AI-powered consumer insights platform which allows us to identify and target audiences on the channels, platforms and sites they over index for. 
  • Do your marketing/media KPIs align with your overall business goals?
    • Ensure all campaign tactics and KPIs support your previously defined marketing objectives and business goals. Be strategic when selecting your target metrics and make sure you are measuring what matters for your brand. 
  • Is your advertising consistent with your brand values and aesthetics?
    • Regularly audit your content for consistency and alignment. Live out your brand values and maintain a cohesive identity across the board. This will establish a positive user experience and strong brand message. 

Activate

Now you understand where to reach your audience. You have impactful creative assets, and are armed with a strong understanding of how you will measure success. It’s time to put your plan into motion. 

  • Define what brand safety means to your organization.
    • Outline the content and topics you are and are not comfortable with your brand being near. Use these to set targeting parameters that ensure your ads are only shown in brand-safe environments.
  • Set guardrails for quality assurance.
    • Maintain updated blacklists and use bid exclusions for brand safety and suspicious activity filtering.
  • Use AI for efficient media buying.
    • Algorithms and machine learning can help personalize ads with dynamic creative optimizations, expand your targeting pool with lookalike audiences, and automate the media buying process. 

Assess & Optimize

Once a campaign is live, your job is not done. You must continuously assess the media mix and channel tactics to see where you can improve. 

  • Understand that what worked last year may not necessarily work this year. 
    • The digital landscape is constantly changing, whether it be due to data privacy laws, emerging platforms, or changing consumer preferences. Be agile and avoid complacency. 
  • Stay curious and open minded.
    • Don’t be afraid to be an early adopter of a new trend – if it makes sense for your brand. 
  • Continuously improve through experimentation.
    • Inform future strategy by testing and learning which messaging and creative imagery resonates with your audience. Place trust in your media experts, and the process, allowing time to try new things and test hypotheses. 

My final words of advice for fellow digital marketers are – be patient. Data trends don’t happen overnight, and neither do results. But by being intentional and strategic at every stage of your marketing process, your brand will be ready to weather whatever trends the industry has coming its way. 

For more insights on how to build an effective digital marketing strategy, contact Coegi today.

Why Digital Out Of Home Advertising Will Gain New Life in a Cookieless Future

Posted on by Coegi

Digital out of home (DOOH) advertising came into fashion for marketers back in 2017-2018. Coegi was an early adopter of the channel, understanding its potential in driving mass scale with greater flexibility than traditional billboard activations. 

In its infancy, the targeting capabilities were limited to demographic visitation propensities and locations such as gas stations and taxis. This meant that it was primarily relevant for brands targeting metropolitan areas. Now, as more locations have adopted digital screens, digital out of home has become a valuable tactic for a wide variety of brands. 

The pandemic’s stay at home orders brought DOOH ad spending to an abrupt halt. But, now that consumers are gaining confidence in traveling again, digital out of home needs to make its way back into marketing plans.

How can marketers create sophisticated digital out of home strategies? Hear perspectives from Coegi’s Director of Operations, Julia Wold, and our tech partner Vistar’s Director of Client Service, Jared Reiner. 

#1 Choose Your Locations Wisely

Julia: How should brands select which DOOH advertising locations they target?

Many marketers are seeking out ways to add new tactics into their media plans as they prepare for the deprecation of the third-party cookie. DOOH has become one of the key tactics brands have turned to, capitalizing on a population that is more hungry than ever for outside experiences. Marketers should leverage venue locations in the same way you would leverage publisher specific partnerships, in a contextual manner that best resonates with key audiences. 

With Vistar’s vendor transparency, you are able to not only see the venue type and location, but also the media partner for an additional layer of brand safety. And, unlike traditional out of home, you aren’t limited to an always-on strategy. Instead, you can daypart, reaching consumers at the time that is most relevant for your messaging. 

For instance, consider reaching business professionals with placements at transit stations, office lobbies, skyways and Ubers at peak commute times. If you are messaging to families, consider waiting room screens, movie theaters, malls and recreational centers. We executed a college game night promotion for our NBA client with a presence in gyms, bars and transit hubs at the colleges and universities near the stadium.

Jared: How has Vistar expanded upon their location targeting since 2020?

There are a variety of ways to take advantage of location targeting in digital out-of-home. The Vistar platform has best-in-market POI data from Foursquare built in for seamless activation of proximity-based targeting. We have also on-boarded over 4,700 location-based audiences that are now available, including full taxonomies from Factual and Epsilon.

#2 Implement Post-Exposure Mobile Retargeting

Jared: What success have you seen from brands incorporating mobile retargeting on OOH buys?

OOH is one of the most trustworthy formats of media. It has been around for over 100 years! But what some people aren’t aware of is how well OOH interacts with other media channels. With mobile, we have the unique ability to capture audiences that were exposed to an OOH campaign and then continue the conversation on a channel where they can interact with trackable engagements. 

Brand marketers have seen great success in using high-impact OOH to convey messaging that resonates emotionally with consumers, followed by retargeting on mobile with a specific call-to-action. For example, advocacy campaigns seeking donations, universities encouraging students to request a brochure or schedule a tour, or brands promoting a discounted offer.

Julia: What’s the benefit of incorporating mobile retargeting on OOH buys? 

Mobile retargeting is an amazing way to re-engage with consumers who saw your original messaging. It’s also an efficient way to extend your media buy across new inventory opportunities on the device that 90% of the population spends an average of 4.5 hours per day on. 

For one of our tourism clients, we promoted digital out of home messages about an upcoming summer golf tournament in areas with an abundance of golf courses. Not only were we able to re-message users after they left the event, but we were also able to retarget that same audience the following Fall to remind them of late season golfing opportunities. This audience was the most highly engaged across the campaign and drove the highest conversion rate of golf trip guide downloads.

#3 Incorporate Advanced Measurement Studies

Julia: Why are advanced measurement studies important for DOOH buys?

Out of home, as with other forms of more traditional media, for a long time lacked a solid measurement foundation. Even if you could roughly estimate reach and frequency, it was harder to justify ROI to key stakeholders. Digital out of home takes the guesswork out of proving effectiveness with in-platform advanced measurement solutions like foot traffic, brand lift and sales lift. For a large tech client, Coegi leveraged a brand lift survey in tandem with DOOH delivery. We measured a 4% increase in brand consideration and a 7% increase in purchase intent. Without this study, these significant gains would have gone unnoticed. 

Jared: What advanced measurement studies are available through Vistar?

Vistar’s advanced technology allows us to capture OOH exposure which enables a wide array of attribution studies. For CPG and automotive clients, we partner with IRI and IHS, respectively, to provide sales lift. For clients with brick and mortar locations, we deploy foot traffic studies to understand an attributable number of store visits. 

An exciting new offering focused on online performance is our partnership with MIRA, which allows us to connect real-world exposure to OOH with online conversions. Finally, many advertisers choose to run brand studies. These are excellent not only for measuring the impact of your messaging and media strategy on consumer awareness and intent, but also asking research questions to learn more about your audience, your competitor’s status, creative impact and more!

#4 Test Dynamic Creative Messaging

Julia: What success has Coegi seen from dynamic creative messaging?

While dynamic creative just launched at scale in the Vistar platform in April 2022, Coegi has been using dynamic creative on other programmatic platforms for some time. The flexibility can’t be beat. You are able to reach the right audience at the right time, with a message curated up to the minute. This capability on out of home media will allow us to scale data driven messaging to every available screen, anywhere in the world.

Jared: How does Vistar envision dynamic creatives impacting the effectiveness of  DOOH advertising?

We just released our universal dynamic creative solution for DOOH and believe this will be a game changer for the industry. By unlocking the power of dynamic, we can deliver messaging that changes within a person’s environment in real time to be more relevant. This will create better conversations between brands and consumers leading to significant investment in the space.

Finally, what are some best practices that marketers should consider when activating a digital out of home campaign?

Jared:

Programmatic DOOH advertising unlocks the ability to take the targeting and messaging techniques we have developed in the digital space and apply them to the oldest format of media. It’s critical to consider both the media strategy (what time should your ads show? In what contexts? With which audience segment?), as well as your creative strategy (does this creative match the physical world context where it will be shown? Is my brand name visible if someone is just quickly passing by during a video?) Taking the time to curate the right audience, then having simple, relevant messaging goes a long way in the OOH space.

Julia:

Forecast, forecast, forecast. Venue availability and inventory is constantly changing, and with demand fluctuations, so can anticipated CPMs. In order to make sure your DOOH advertising plan is solid, take these steps. 

  • Create a plan prior to launch. This is especially important in smaller geographic footprints and less densely populated areas.
  • Develop assets in all sizes dictated by the DSP’s media plan to ensure proper scale at the most efficient cost. The plans will always tell you the available impression percentage by spec size.
  • Lastly, understand the format and scale that your message will be delivered in. Clear font and simplicity of the message is key when you consider you only have 3-6 seconds to make an impact. 

 

Interested in exploring digital out of home from your brand? View our comprehensive digital out of home primer here to learn more!

How to Drive D2C Sales with Digital Marketing

Posted on by Maggie Gotszling

Brands of all sizes are exploring how to drive CPG product sales through a D2C model. This is no surprise as US D2C sales will surpass $197B, with a rapid trajectory in 2024. While this only accounts for 2.6% of all retail sales, brands cannot ignore this emerging growth channel.

D2C models offer immense value for brands beyond just profitable sales due to the opportunity to collect consumer data and establish brand loyalty. 

However, with convenience as a leading factor driving purchase decisions, how can you steer your audience away from mass retailers as the default and generate interest in your direct-to-consumer site? The key is to add value with a seamless, personalized, and memorable shopping experience. 

In this article, you’ll learn how to create a successful D2C commerce experience by optimizing your omnichannel strategy at each stage of the purchase funnel.

Maximize The Shortened Purchase Funnel

How can you make sure the right individuals are finding your brand and, once they have, ensure they complete the purchase? 

Understand the purchase funnel is becoming shorter as information is available at our fingertips. Consumers can search for a product, read reviews, compare brands, and make an informed purchase in a matter of minutes. Take Carvana for example – they transformed the lengthy process of purchasing a new car into a quick, digital transaction. 

Knowing this, marketers need to create compact omnichannel marketing campaigns that align with the user journey and product life cycle. A well-tailored digital media strategy accounting for each stage of the consumer journey is paramount to driving D2C sales. Let’s explore how to accomplish this for your brand. 

Create Brand Awareness And Product Consideration

We start at awareness – testing and amplifying messaging within well-researched prospecting audiences. Then, by activating a flexible, omni-channel approach, we can learn who our best audience is. We’ll also learn what channels we can reach them on and what messaging resonates best with them.   

An important part of establishing awareness for D2C brands is using SEO and PPC to show up in product search. Combine PPC search ads with organic SEO to optimize your efforts. Once you’ve reached users in the discovery phase, deploy smart retargeting to stay top of mind until purchase. 

Move Seamlessly From Consideration To Sales Conversion

As a consumer nears purchase, machine learning and algorithms need to get to work. Use AI to predict and serve the right messaging at the right time. Also, use technology like dynamic creative optimization to tailor messaging to complement previous touchpoints (e.g. add to cart or don’t forget the items in your cart for abandoners). 

At Coegi, we bring together over 20 technology integrations, alongside certified experts on all digital platforms, to deploy advanced retargeting focused on recency and frequency analysis. As a result, we are able to deliver more efficient results, creating greater ROI for brands. 

Establish D2C Brand Loyalty

To build loyalty, find ways to delight users with unexpected incentives, promotions, or gifts. Utilize the first party data collected from their initial purchase to re-message in a personalized fashion. Email marketing is a strong tactic to keep that ongoing pulse without fatiguing your customers with ads. But, serving ads for complementary items to previous purchases can be effective with sufficient buffer time post-purchase. 

Ironically, if you hyper-focus on selling, you’ll miss out on sales opportunities. Instead of constantly pushing for purchases, also explore ways to create conversations through your marketing. Engage with your audience and establish a brand community. This authentic relationship is what creates loyalists who will continue to support your brand for years to come. 

To learn more about how to create a successful omnichannel digital marketing strategy, view our CPG Digital Marketing Playbook here. 

Social Media Marketing for Food and Beverage Brands

Posted on by Julia Read

Food and drink is inherently social, whether you are sitting around a dinner table, sharing a recipe with a friend, or meeting a date for cocktails. Social media marketing for food and beverage brands allows you to lean into this element even further. It has proven to be a highly successful tool for driving viral food trends (think avocado toast, macaroons, shaken espressos, etc.). 

But you don’t have to go viral to see the benefits of social media. Food and beverage brands can drive results by identifying and targeting their core audience on their preferred platforms with highly ‘craveable’ content, using tactics like influencers and shoppable ads to showcase their products. 

Understanding Your Core Food/Bev Audience

The first step to finding your audience is to understand who organically engages with your brand. What specific niches are they involved in and how can you share your content with them? Audience research will lead you to a deeper understanding of your likely brand advocates and loyalists. Once a clear audience is defined, creating ads and messaging becomes intuitive.  

Search for the answers to these three questions in your audience research process: 

  1. Who is your core demographic? 

Identify basic demographics such as age, gender, education, geographical location and socioeconomic status. These variables will give you concrete indicators on your key audience profiles – what life stage they are in, what they could be interested in, and more. Age, for example, gives you tips on what kind of content they will likely resonate with. Younger ages tend to enjoy emotional posts (funny or tear-jerking), such as the recent Gushers TikTok campaign. In comparison, older audiences tend to prefer informative, trustworthy content, such as this Clinique campaign. 

      2. What does your audience value? 

Are they more likely sharing food to present an image of prestige or luxury, or to share a special family recipe? These internal motivations should inform the ad creation process. Creating messaging that resonates with your audience’s core motivators and/or beliefs make them more inclined to click or convert.

      3. Where is your audience active online?

The medium in which your ads run is critical to the success of food and beverage digital marketing campaigns. This ensures each dollar you spend is going towards a platform where your audience actually spends time. Use platform data as well as third party data research platforms to identify your audiences’ media consumption habits. 

Identifying Social Media Influencers

Once your target audience is defined, you can make them come to life by creating personas. Or better yet, finding an influencer online that matches your brand’s beliefs, values and aesthetic. Brands that have a strong image and story can easily find influencers that complement their mission. 

Food and beverage social media marketing is primed for influencer partnerships. There are endless YouTube cooking channels, food review websites, and food bloggers across all social media platforms. The creators have a huge impact on consumer purchase decisions. In fact, 49% of consumers depend on influencer decisions. This virtual word of mouth is extremely influential in the consumer journey. 

Adding influencers into your strategy can also drive conversions, not just awareness. This is particularly helpful for food and beverage brands with an ecommerce presence. Use affiliate links and coupon codes to link POS data back to influencer campaigns in addition to awareness metrics, such as reach and engagement.

Creating Compelling Content

Food and beverage brands have a unique opportunity to engage audiences with user-generated marketing content on social media. People are eager to share recipes or new food explorations online, which is a win-win for brand and consumer. Brands are able to capitalize on authentic content that builds trust, while consumers are fulfilled by interaction and admiration. 

Beyond UGC, there are many ways brands can create compelling content on each unique platform. For example, how-to/recipe videos, Instagram Ready Images, and short form videos are all popular ad variations. Keep your audience learnings in mind and tailor your content to each unique social platform to resonate with consumers. 

Measuring Food and Bev Social Media Marketing Success

To measure the impact of advertising you can first look at granular, platform-level data. These metrics show campaign-level data, such as video completions, ad clicks, and site visits. Additionally, brands can utilize tactics like coupon/QR codes, flash sales, and hashtag challenges to track media’s success in driving immediate conversions and online buzz. 

However, the majority of food/bev sales still happen in-store, so it is important that brands keep themselves top of mind during that experience. Also, brands need a method of tracing media’s impact on in-store sales. Whether in a grocery store or a restaurant, brands can utilize CRM connections to track offline data or offer coupon codes/QR codes that translate both in-person or online. 

To better understand marketing’s impact, consider advanced measurement studies. These are surveys that can measure the incremental lift in metrics such as foot traffic and in-store sales due to marketing campaigns. 

Eating and drinking is, and has always been, social. Food and beverage brands should lean into this and explore the vast opportunities social media platforms offer to create and build community. Get creative with your media execution to stand out from competitors and drive sales. 

Recommended Reading

The CPG Digital Marketing Playbook

Make Smarter Marketing Decisions with Media Mix Modeling

Posted on by Lindsey King

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:

3 Ways to Prevent Ad Fraud

Posted on by Hannah Huedepohl

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

Posted on by Elise Stieferman

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

Posted on by Coegi

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

Posted on by Savannah Westbrock

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. 

Let's work together

We’re passionate about the power of strategy, content, technology and creativity to reach your most valuable audiences. Sound like a match? Reach out to get started.

Coegi Partners

/ Contact - usa

Tell us about your project

Are you interested in gaining the latest marketing insights through Coegi’s newsletter, The Loop?
This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Coegi Partners
Skip to content