Category: Guide

Simple Strategies for Sustainable Marketing

Posted on by Coegi

The digital advertising community is facing a growing imperative to face our own carbon footprint. For decades, talks of the environmental impact of advertising have largely focused on tangible waste produced by old vinyl billboard wraps and extravagant PR mailers, much of which ends up in landfills. However, with recent estimations that a typical digital ad campaign emits around 5.4 tons of CO₂, the industry is stepping up to promote sustainability, develop best practices, and build greener technologies. With even more sustainability solutions expected on the horizon, it would be premature to overhaul your entire digital strategy. But if carbon-consciousness is one of your businesses objectives, here are five innovative approaches to think through now: 

Build Your Sustainability Roadmap

Sustainability transformation requires a holistic understanding of where your brand stands today. 

Before you make large changes, plan time to reflect on historical advertising practices, discuss which areas of sustainability you would like to prioritize as focal points, receive alignment across all relevant teams – ultimately determining what a transformation engine could look like at your company and what it would take to empower action and collaboration across teams and partners. 

Building this roadmap prior to tackling any specific changes will increase likelihood of long-term success. 

Choose a Trusted Measurement Partner

Take it from performance marketers: you have to plan your strategy with measurement in mind. 

Currently the best solutions for understanding your campaigns’ carbon emissions are outside of your performance platforms, so you’ll need to evaluate the sustainable ad tech landscape and determine the ideal partner to challenge and support your transformation. Organizations like Scope3 and Good-Loop have been vocal drivers of ad industry change; Good-Loop has partnered with IAS to enable the seamless tracking and viewing of end-to-end carbon emissions alongside other crucial metrics such as brand safety, fraud, and viewability. 

Ultimately, partnering with a reliable measurement provider, like some mentioned above, helps mitigate the risk of greenwashing and ensures your sustainability claims are backed by robust data.

Establish a Baseline and Set Benchmarks

Before establishing goals to minimize your carbon emissions, you must understand how your current approach measures out.

It’s become essential for you to answer this question: can we accurately gauge the impact of our efforts on reducing carbon emissions in a significant way?  To effectively address this question, you must possess a holistic view of the data points emitting carbon emissions throughout the entire lifespan of your digital ad campaigns. Gathering this information sooner rather than later will allow for the identification of necessary benchmarks to properly evaluate future sustainable marketing efforts and ensure progress is being made.  

Ensure Existing Tech is Minimizing Waste

Your commitment towards sustainability means having to consistently assess and enhance your technological framework and operational procedures to ensure movement towards the reduction of your carbon footprint across digital advertising. 

The good news? Cutting back on impression waste should lead to more cost-efficient performance. Aim for highly viewable impressions, whether through programmatic viewability minimums, programmatic guaranteed and private marketplace deals with these guarantees, or via environments that are naturally more likely to be seen and watched to completion, like Connected TV. 

A greener future represents the need for a collaborative effort between yourself and each stakeholder within your supply chain. 

Experiment with Attention and Engagement Metrics

By optimizing to look beyond what viewability and reach can offer, you can prioritize “attention time” for a more definitive view on who actually saw an ad. This will help you maximize your understanding of consumer engagement while also increasing ad quality. 

According to a study by WARC, successfully optimizing toward  “attention time” can have additional environmental benefits without putting your overall marketing results in jeopardy. This is achieved by eliminating between 20% to 25% of the highest carbon-emitting domains and by placing online ads in destinations where messaging and context align. 

In the end, this approach makes attention measurement a win-win for performance and sustainability. As the consumer demand for brands to address environmental concerns intensifies, our industry has the opportunity to enact meaningful strategies to make our efforts more sustainable. 

Moreover, in reevaluating the status quo with a strong roadmap ahead, marketers can contribute to building a future that creates value for brands and their audiences while minimizing the impression waste contributing to our collective carbon footprint. 

For hands-on guidance in crafting your brand’s marketing sustainability plan, reach out to a Coegi strategist and download the white paper to understand more about the key steps for building a sustainable marketing practice:

  1. Form a Holistically Supportive Transformation Engine
  2. Establish an Understanding of Your Baseline Emissions
  3. Choose the Right Measurement Partner
  4. Build Your Roadmap Toward Sustainable Transformation
  5. Ensure Your Existing Tech is Minimizing Waste
  6. Experiment with Attention and Engagement Metrics

The Practitioner’s Guide to Influencer Marketing

Posted on by Coegi

Influencer marketing campaigns pair the power of word-of-mouth with the efficiency, scalability and data-driven mentality of digital advertising.

In this guide, we share Coegi’s best insights to running more strategic and accountable influencer marketing campaigns.

You’ll learn the ins and outs of results-driven influencer marketing so you can feel confident adopting this high impact, authentic channel into your brand strategy. 

What You’ll Learn: 

  • Criteria for effective influencer marketing campaigns
  • Reasons why influencers are critical for modern marketing plans
  • Key benefits and challenges of influencer marketing 
  • How to determine if influencer marketing is right for your brand 
  • Step-by-step guide of how to launch an effective influencer campaign
  • Expert tips for successful campaigns and creator relationships 

Why use influencer marketing? 

Influencers can be your fast track to content authenticity, brand credibility and business results. 90% of consumers view micro-influencers as credible, believable and knowledgeable. The power they have on consumer behavior and buying decisions can’t be overstated. 

Here are the top 4 benefits of influencer marketing campaigns: 

  1. Credibility Building: Influencer marketing puts a face and personality to your brand – a key component to building audience affinity. Trusted creators can connect with followers on your behalf to improve engagement, retention, and loyalty. 
  1. Content Creation: Rather than spending additional production dollars to create branded images and videos, your creator partners make that collateral for you. The end result – native-looking social media content which, more often than not, outperforms obvious ads. 
  1. Authentic Reach: People are becoming more privy to ingenuine advertising. They place greater trust in relatable creators with close-knit communities who only engage with brands that match their personal values and preferences. 
  1. Social Selling: Influencer marketing can be much more than a brand-building tactic. Sponsored creator posts can drive measurable, incremental sales impact. Use tactics such as UTM links, point-of-sale integrations, whitelisting, and brand boosted influencer posts to optimize attributable sales. 

Download the full guide to learn how to harness these benefits and build high-performing influencer marketing campaigns for your brand. 

Need an agency partner to help craft and execute your influencer marketing strategy? Contact Coegi today for a discovery call. 

The Impact of Inflation on Advertising | Whitepaper

Posted on by Coegi

Businesses are facing a familiar problem: economic uncertainty. This time, the coalescing effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, record-low unemployment rate, and a newsworthy-high inflation rate have created a unique challenge for businesses and their marketing teams. What do we do when the population theoretically has money to spend, but the high cost of basic necessities makes them cautious to buy? 

In this whitepaper, Coegi researchers provide an overview of the recent North American economy as of Q1 2023 and the corresponding consumer behavior changes, acknowledging the current challenges and opportunities for businesses and marketers. 

Importantly, we acknowledge that each business’s target audience is made up of real, living people, and thus there is no one-size fits all approach to marketing during times of economic volatility.

However, using a data-driven approach to understanding outcomes of previous economic strife, we provide evidence-supported recommendations. In short: fully pausing your marketing communications rarely yields future dividends. 

Download Coegi’s whitepaper covering:

How brands should react to the inflation in 2023

  • The impact of inflation on consumer behavior
  • Finding the upside of marketing in a down economy
  • Pivoting with resilience: creating a future fueled by marketing efficiency

Key ways to recession-proof your marketing

The impact of inflation on advertising in key industries

  • CPG and retail
  • Financial services
  • Healthcare and pharma
  • Real estate and home buying

5 Step Guide to Successful Marketing Measurement

Posted on by Coegi

Marketing measurement is one of the greatest challenges for modern advertisers. In particular, brands have an uphill battle to face when proving full-funnel marketing ROI across a variety of digital and physical channels. We’re here to change that. 

Coegi takes a unique approach to marketing measurement and campaign learnings centered around reaching core business objectives. This is the focus of every digital media strategy and campaign we execute.

Learn How to Succeed in Marketing Measurement With Five Simple Steps: 

  1. Identify desired business outcomes
  2. Determining the key performance indicators to signal success
  3. Evaluating incrementality
  4. Creating a cycle of testing and learning
  5. Using data storytelling for better insights.  

Using these steps, you can ensure clear strategy and efficiencies in any marketing campaign. This is your guide to calculate and prove marketing ROI.  Apply these core principles and watch your business transform. Using this approach will allow you to track and communicate meaningful data, no matter how complex your channel strategy may be. 

How Can You Prove Marketing ROI? 

To prove marketing ROI, you need to focus on aligning quantifiable data points with your overarching business objective. This will look different for every brand, which is why we incorporate custom scorecard models for our clients at Coegi. 

By following the five steps outlined in this guide, you can produce clear, measurable results – in other words, return on investment. These steps are crucial to accurately and effectively measure success and progress within online marketing strategies for any brand. Our specialists at Coegi utilize these tactics daily, and optimize results for clients with consistency by consistently implementing this process. 

Download the Five Step Guide to Successful Marketing Measurement now to get started on your path towards clearly defined success. If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to contact us to set up a discovery call with our team. 

5 Steps to Successful Marketing Measurement 

Step 1: Identify Core Business Outcomes

Clearly established OKRs are the basis for a strong marketing plan. Without clear objectives, you run the risk of prioritizing metrics, tactics, and strategies that don’t translate to meaningful growth – wasting valuable time and dollars. So understand the core business goals at the company level, as defined by key stakeholders. This will be the centerpiece of your marketing decisions. 

From there, your team has a roadmap to clearly understand the organizational expectations of marketing. You can then build a strategic marketing plan to fulfill your role in meeting those bottom line goals.

Make your marketing goals universally known – within your team and with key stakeholders across the organization – to ensure everyone is enthusiastically rowing in the same direction.

Elise Stieferman – Director of Marketing, Coegi

Step 2: Determine the KPIs to Signal Success

Next, determine which metrics are indicators of making progress toward your core business objectives. These will be your key performance indicators or KPIs. 

Be cautious of using media efficiency metrics like CPMs and CPCs as your primary KPIs. They can be effective for evaluating campaign performance on an operational level. But, they often do not ladder up to business objectives. Incorporate metrics such as engagement, brand lift, transactional data, and ROAS analysis to gain better understanding. It can also be beneficial to explore more statistical forms of analysis, such as media mix modeling and matched market tests to get to the heart of success.

Step 3: Evaluate Incrementality

Determining which tactics are helping reach your KPIs isn’t always easy. Just because Facebook’s last click attribution reports show better metrics than other channels does not mean it is the leading driver of results. A purchase today could have been impacted by a connected TV ad served last week that was reinforced by an influencer on TikTok yesterday. 

With decreasing data availability with iOS 14 and impending cookie deprecation, attribution modeling is becoming increasingly difficult and problematic. Marketers should get back to the basics of marketing measurement, such as evaluating incrementality. 

Incrementality shows the influence your collective marketing channels had on the final conversion, no matter where it took place.

Step 4: Create a Test and Learn Cycle 

The goal is to create a cycle of continuous improvement for your marketing. You can do this by using a learning agenda that informs variable testing and optimization points. 

A learning agenda helps identify the key questions you can answer to determine which marketing components are driving the best outcomes. This could mean a better understanding of your target consumer or determining which tactics are most effective. So what could these questions look like?

  • Millennial Moms is an audience with untapped potential for our brand.
  • Our target consumer is more likely to convert on Facebook than Instagram.
  • Lead generation will be more cost efficient on TikTok than Snapchat. 
  • Running CTV and linear TV together will drive an increase in sales versus running only linear.

Whether or not your hypotheses turn out to be true, you will be more informed and your campaigns will become more data-driven and effective. 

Now you have meaningful measurement data – it’s time to connect the dots. 

Step 5: Use Data Storytelling for Better Insights

  • How did various channels work together? 
  • Which areas were most and least successful? 
  • What story is the data telling about your audiences, your creatives, and your selected channels?

Use these types of questions to identify the underlying narrative running through your data. To aid this process, visualize the data so you can easily pinpoint trends and understand performance relative to goals. This intel can guide new creative or adjustment of certain tactics and spend allocation to make your future campaigns even stronger. It should also highlight any gaps between customer touch points and eventual conversion or retention. 

Looking from a macro lens helps weave the micro data points into a cohesive story that makes sense to marketers as well as external teams. From there, you can lay out clear, actionable steps based on analytic insights to transform your digital marketing strategy.

Bonus Marketing Measurement Steps

#1 Tailor Reporting to Individual Stakeholders 

Create a reporting system so each decision-maker clearly understands the impact of marketing. Show ROI to your CFO. Show trends in marketing qualified leads and sales to your COO. Show percent change in new customers to your CEO. Knowing the audience and tailoring your story to their unique point of view will ensure the information resonates and your efforts are valued. 

#2 Move from Campaigns to Long-Term Transformation

This process fuels a data feedback loop, creating an infinite cycle of improvement. Over time, you’ll minimize media waste and make more intentional decisions. It’s never perfect, but by using meaningful data to tell your brand story, you can ensure it is always evolving. 

Contact Coegi for additional information on how to accurately measure your business objectives and see clear marketing results. 

Create an Omnichannel eCommerce Strategy | Complete How-To Guide

Posted on by Coegi

Create Your Ideal Omnichannel eCommerce Strategy

A successful ecommerce strategy requires an omnichannel presence. It is the new norm for shopping and will continue its upward trajectory. Brands are following suit, investing more than ever in ecommerce advertising.

What does this mean for ecommerce marketers? 

To build consumer relationships and establish brand loyalty, marketers must create a robust online presence that aligns with where their consumers are spending time online. It is critical to show up in multiple digital marketplaces, for product discovery as well as purchase. 

Today’s ecommerce model expands beyond traditional commerce channels. Brands can’t rely on just having a Shopify or Amazon storefront anymore. You can place your product in front of engaged users on social media through social commerce, influencer marketing, social search, and many other paid advertising placements. However, even social is just one piece of the puzzle.

To learn how to craft the optimal omnichannel ecommerce strategy for your brand, download the guide below:

Creating an eCommerce Ecosystem 

The digital world is far more crowded than any physical retail destination. eCommerce is multi-channel, bridging the gap between in-store and online experiences. Over 73% of consumers use multiple channels to make purchasing decisions. And because shoppers are multichannel, brands must be too. 

The eCommerce Ecosystem

eCommerce Statistics 

Understanding the eCommerce Consumer Perspective

The modern consumer is their own salesperson.  They are better informed, armed with reviews, and company and product information.  In fact, 97% of consumers check online reviews before buying a product to get additional insight.

What are today’s consumers looking for from ecommerce brands? 

eCommerce has skyrocketed in popularity. As this medium grows, consumer expectations and shopping behaviors are also changing. 

  • Greater flexibility from payment plans to product availability 
  • More personalized ad targeting and curated content 
  • Convenient and quick delivery options 
  • Continuously cultivated brand relationships 

Customer experience is the ultimate differentiator. Consumers seek quality experiences, with 36% rating experience as critical for them, just behind price and convenience. Positive, personalized brand experiences are what ultimately drive conversions. 

Build Your Connected eCommerce Strategy

eCommerce is social commerce, marketplaces, delivery providers, D2C, retail media, and more –  all wrapped into one connected commerce experience. Skai coined the term “connected commerce”, which simply refers to connecting all points of the customer commerce journey together. It’s important to also connect all digital media tactics with commerce channels to ensure they are synchronously supporting the customer journey to drive optimal return on investment. 

Key Takeaways for Successful eCommerce Marketing: 

You can achieve ecommerce success using three key components: 

  1. Messaging that resonates with and engages target audiences 
  2. A multichannel e-commerce experience with numerous retail touchpoints   
  3. Full-funnel marketing for each stage of the consumer journey 

Coegi can help set up a data-driven strategy to maximize your ecommerce success. Contact us today to learn more.

The Ultimate Guide to Financial Services Marketing

Posted on by Coegi

How Financial Institutions Can Adapt to a Digital-First Marketplace 

Consumers are making a substantial investment when they choose to work with your financial institution. Outside of the financial commitment itself, the decision of which company to work with also requires a significant amount of time and research. This is true whether selecting an institution for banking, loans, or retirement funds. 

To win over finance customers, you must build a robust, flexible strategy that establishes trust, provides an open line of communication on preferred platforms, and simplifies the finance decision-making journey. Keep reading for Coegi’s how-to guide on financial services marketing. 

In this guide you’ll learn how to: 

  • Capitalize on market opportunities 
  • Target and motivate financial consumers with personalized messaging
  • Create an effective omnichannel financial marketing strategy
  • Track, measure, and improve advertising performance 

A strong audience strategy backed by a robust understanding of their behaviors, motivations, preferences, and media consumption will drive reduced media waste by ensuring your ads are being shown in the ideal places and with an effective message.

-Maggie Gotszling, Account Strategy Director

Key Digital Channels for Financial Marketing 

During the COVID-19 pandemic, everyone – even late adopters – began exploring ways to  conduct finances online. We saw a surge in usage of online bill pay, Apple Wallet, Venmo/PayPal, digital check deposits, investment apps, and more. 

With this shift in behavior, the volume of physical banks is shrinking. From 2012-2021 there was a 16% decrease in US branches. On the other hand, there will be over 3.6B online banking users globally by 2024. 

Changes in digital adoption are prevalent among both financial professionals and consumers across age groups. As a result, 87% of financial marketers increased their digital marketing budget in 2022.

Use the following digital channels to focus your dollars on the most cost-efficient and effective channels that align with a digital-minded consumer.

Video

Finance brands are realizing the value of video in driving awareness through storytelling, which is important for major financial decisions. Consumers are shifting more and more to video content. In fact, around 84% of consumer internet traffic is on video content. So use quality video content to educate your audiences, show your brand personality, and bring your message to life.

YouTube 

YouTube is the preferred source of finance-related video content among Gen-Z. Additionally, one in three Millennials cited YouTube as their preferred source of investing and personal finance guidance.

Connected TV

Streaming TV received the highest investment of any digital channels by consumer banking and consumer finances brands in the past year, according to Pathmatics data. 

Why are finance marketers leaning so heavily into CTV? 

  • High-impact video content on the largest screen in households
  • Addressability with contextual and behavioral targeting
  • More flexibility and affordability versus traditional TV

Social Video

Short-form videos on social media platforms typically receive higher engagement and promote better brand recall. This is why video ads are expected to account for 35% of social media ad spend in 2023. Use quick, straightforward video content to efficiently convey your brand message.

Paid Search

Search engines drive nearly all website traffic and are the third most popular source for consumer financial education behind families and banks themselves. It’s critical to show up as a top-ranking site on Google. Pair effective keyword bidding with strong website SEO to ensure your brand is visible at key points in the consumer journey. 

Display

Display ads are a cost-effective option for building brand awareness. They can also drive consideration and lead generation through specific CTAs. We recommend using dynamic creative for personalized offers which drive measurable actions. 

Native display ads are especially useful for targeting finance buyers when they are reading contextually relevant content. It can position your brand as an additional resource to the topic they are reading about without being intrusive.

Paid Social

59% of financial marketers expect to increase their social media marketing budget in 2022.

Why? Four out of five financial marketers gain new leads through social media. 

Social media is useful in bringing your brand to life and building trust and authenticity with followers in an environment where they are active daily. It also goes a long way in driving new prospects and increasing customer lifetime value. 

High Performing Social Channels for Financial Marketing: 

LinkedIn

LinkedIn has millions of active professionals with detailed targeting capabilities for reaching a business-focused target audience. On LinkedIn, individuals are more likely to engage in business activities. You can also use tactics like job title targeting to ensure you are reaching the right individuals.

Facebook and Instagram

Instagram is the most highly invested-in social channel for consumer banking, followed closely by Facebook. Together, these channels make up nearly half of all digital consumer banking ad spend. Lead generation ads on both platforms offer a reliable way to collect first-party data in exchange for educational content. 

TikTok

No other social platform enables the potential virality or mass reach as quickly and easily as TikTok. Plus, there’s a huge niche on TikTok for financial content. Younger audiences looking to increase their financial literacy follow creators who post relatable and digestible finance content. There is a great opportunity for banks and finance brands to educate consumers and build awareness via influencer partnerships and paid advertising on TikTok. 

Twitter

Twitter is especially effective for targeting financially-minded individuals. 41% of users report that financial and business content on Twitter can impact their investment decisions. The platform has a very active crypto and fintech community. Members are consistently discussing the latest news and trends in the space. Align your brand with this content, trending hashtags or popular creators to capitalize on the opportunity Twitter offers. 

Reddit

Reddit often referred to as the “first page of the Internet,” is a discussion-based platform that allows advertisers to reach a very niche audience at a cost-efficient rate. It is most popular among the 18-34-year-old age group. This makes it a great option to reach younger generations with a financial interest. Look for relevant subreddits where your brand can show up as a helpful resource. 

Local Partnerships

Regional finance brands need to be active in their communities. Local partnerships are a great way to establish that presence and boost brand affinity. For example, a regional bank could sponsor a professional sports team or non-profit. Even for national brands, it’s important to identify the key regions where you have the greatest traction and find partnerships to help amplify your brand.

Content Marketing and Publisher Partnerships

Less human interaction with advisors and representatives means your online content has to work harder. Thought leadership content can humanize your brand and help guide your customers through their financial journey. Through publisher partnerships, brands can establish authority in particular industry niches.

Digital-First, Not Digital-Only, Engagements 

Despite the strengths of all these channels, digital tactics shouldn’t stand alone. Accounts opened in person have up to 10x higher balances after four months than those opened digitally. A positive physical onboarding is ideal to enhance customer lifetime value. 

PWC reports, “Most consumers do still want to work with real bankers along with technology — especially during initial acquisition and onboarding activities — as long as it’s on their own terms”. So explore ways to create immersive experiences that blend physical and digital worlds for both customer service and advertising. 

Creating an Omnichannel Financial Marketing Plan

Only 9% of customers say their bank offers an excellent digital customer experience. The top way you can improve the banking customer journey, according to BAI, is to improve the omnichannel experience. It’s easy to get absorbed in individual channels. However, this causes campaigns to turn from strategic to tactical quickly. 

Instead, leverage a consumer-focused approach that determines who your most valuable audiences are and how you can best reach them.

Forward-thinking finance brands have an exciting opportunity to leverage the digital marketplace to their advantage. With a digital-first approach, audience personalization, and strategic targeting, you can reach your highest potential buyers with maximum efficiency. 

As you continue to navigate these challenges, Coegi is here to guide you. Reach out to us at info@coegipartners.com for a strategy consultation to enhance your customers’ digital journey. 

The Countdown to Zero-Party Data

Posted on by Coegi

The Countdown to Zero-Party Data

If you’ve been paying attention to marketing news lately, you have no doubt seen the terms first-party, second-party, third-party, and zero-party data. These terms are critical in almost every targeting strategy conversation. 

With Google’s impending deprecation of third-party cookies, it is vital that you understand the differences between these data types. In this blog, you’ll learn how they can help or hurt your advertising strategies. Plus, we’ll outline how to collect and leverage each data source from third to zero-party data. 

Third-Party Data

What is Third-Party Data?

Third-party data is any information collected on consumers from an entity with no relationship to that consumer. In marketing, data aggregators commonly gather data from web browsers that are bundled and sold to advertisers. 

How to Collect Third-Party Data:

  • To collect third-party data, marketers purchase curated data packages from aggregators. This data is the primary target of data and privacy protection laws because it is usually collected and shared without the explicit consent of consumers. 

How to Use Third-Party Data:

  • How do you use this data? The short answer: due to changes in privacy laws/policies and the cookieless future, you should use third-party data sparingly. Additionally, this data collection can be inaccurate and lead to budget waste by serving ads to the wrong audiences.
  • Start shifting toward collecting more effective forms of consumer data, like first-, second-, and zero-party data, for your targeting needs.  

Second-Party Data

What is Second-Party Data?

Second-party data is consumer information collected directly by another organization that your brand has purchased or gained access to through partnerships. Unlike third-party data, the collecting organization has a direct relationship with the consumer. This leads to more accurate and actionable information. 

How to Collect Second-Party Data:

  • One of the more common forms of second-party data collection is through walled gardens, such as social media and retail media platforms. For example, social media account users on each platform are required to login prior to the use of the app. You may also gain access to this type of data through quality publisher partnerships. 
  • Like third-party data, you have to purchase or negotiate access to this data from the collection source. Coegi partners with providers like OwnerIQ, US Farm Data, and other reputable sources to ensure our clients have access to quality second-party data. 

How to Use Second-Party Data:

  • As mentioned above, you will likely use this kind of data while running ads on walled garden platforms or when activating direct partnerships with publishers. If you partner with a company to access this data, they will typically send anonymized email lists or require you to serve ads through them to gain access to their audiences. 
  • It is important to thoroughly vet any partnership in this space. Be sure you are in accordance with any privacy laws or policies put in place. 

First-Party Data

What is First-Party Data?

First-party data is information your brand collects directly from your audience. If you analyze it effectively, this will be one of the most important elements for digital advertising strategies in a cookieless future. 

How to Collect First-Party Data:

  • Place gated content on your website to collect emails and other information.
  • Generate email newsletter sign-ups in exchange for discount codes or special offers.
  • Store relevant information from customer purchases in your CRM platform for future segmentation and activation.

How to Use First-Party Data:

  • After collecting first-party data, you can use it to reach individuals who have already engaged in your brand through features like email-match targeting.
  • Develop modeled audiences to target people who have similar data points or behaviors to your existing customer base. Personalize advertising messages and other communications based on the most valuable and influential data points.

Zero-Party Data

What is Zero-Party Data? 

Coined by Forrester, zero-party data is collected when “a customer intentionally and proactively shares with a brand. It can include preference center data, purchase intentions, personal context, and how the individual wants the brand to recognize [them].” This data is technically a subcategory of first-party data. It is, however, worth giving this information its own terminology because it has the potential to go beyond first-party data snapshots and provide advanced profiles of your customer base. 

How to Collect Zero-Party Data:

  • Design and distribute short strategic surveys, quizzes, and polls for your audiences. 
  • Include interactive tools on your website that allow users to self-identify for a more personalized website experience.
  • Require free or subscription-based website account set-ups and logins to view the most valuable content to create a value exchange. 
  • Build product or service ratings into your website listings.

Tip: Motivate the customer by offering them something of value from your brand. For example, you could offer a discount or special access to an event in exchange for providing the data. 

How to Use Zero-Party Data:

  • Add zero-party data to your CRM and use it to curate customized communications and offers that build brand loyalty.
  • Act on user feedback to align your marketing strategy and customer touchpoints with the desires of your target audience.
  • Deliver custom suggestions to your users’ account home page based on information collected in their account set-up. 

Tip: Be conscientious about how often you are asking for this information and be sure to include variety between each ask. You don’t want to fatigue the customer and create a bad user experience. 

Bringing it All Together

The key distinction to make between each data type is the source.  As you move from third to zero-party data, you move closer to a more accurate understanding of your audience. These direct-from-the-source insights will help you make smarter strategy decisions and more effectively motivate your audience to convert. 

To learn more about how to use this data, read our Cookieless Targeting and Identity Solutions blog by Coegi’s Director of Innovation, Savannah Westbrock. 

The OTT/CTV Advertising Opportunity | Webinar

Posted on by Coegi

OTT/CTV advertising has officially met the reach of broadcast television. Streaming and connected TV devices exploded in 2020 as more consumers stayed home and cut the cord. In 2021, there were nearly 214 million connected television users, and that number is projected to increase to 230 million by 2025.

If streaming TV ads are new to you, you likely have many questions about the landscape. 

  • How are users consuming television today? 
  • Who is streaming versus watching cable? 
  • How do you address cross-device streaming? 
  • How do you measure and test connected TV ad performance? 

You’re not alone. These questions are top of mind for many marketers. CTV is constantly changing and capabilities evolve seemingly overnight. To clear up some of that uncertainty, we answer these and many more questions in this webinar. 

Coegi partners with leading industry experts from TheTradeDesk, Magnite, and iSpot.TV. In this webinar, the panelists clearly explain the immense opportunity available to advertisers in streaming TV. You’ll come away from this webinar with a much stronger understanding of the advertising opportunity on CTV and how to leverage it for maximum marketing ROI. 

In addition, you’ll learn: 

  • The latest trends in OTT/CTV advertising for brands and consumers
  • Ways to strategically incorporate premium CTV inventory into your campaigns
  • Recommendations on how to effectively measure CTV

For more resources, download our free CTV Advertising Guide.

Travel and Tourism Marketing: The Digital Guide

Posted on by Coegi

The travel and tourism marketing is rebounding as the industry surges above pre-pandemic levels.

Are you taking advantage of it?

This digital guide to travel marketing gives you everything you need to know before launching a campaign. 

How to Succeed at Travel and Tourism Marketing

Travel books and printed pamphlets are a thing of the past. Now, it’s time to lead with digital tactics.

Today’s travelers are finding inspiration for trips on digital channels. Younger travelers in particular are taking this a step further by shifting to mobile devices over desktop, looking to the brand’s website or Instagram to get a sense of what they can expect. 

To reach the modern traveler, brands need to create a seamless experience across digital channels from awareness to check out/visit.

You’ll also need to create a strategic, customized approach to target your optimal audience on the most impactful channels.

Your Guide to Success

Download this guide to learn how to:

  • Leverage the latest travel and tourism marketing trends
  • Create the optimal media mix for your brand with the most impactful channels
  • Implement cookieless solutions to reach your target audience
  • Measure the ROI from omnichannel travel marketing campaigns

Ready to take off?

View and download the guide below!

The Return of Travel and Tourism Marketing

After the tumultuous years of the pandemic, travel and tourism is finally experiencing a surge in demand. Travel digital marketing spend dipped 51% in 2021 but is now growing by 14.2% in 2022. An additional 12.1% increase is expected in 2023, according to eMarketer. 

Pathmatics Travel and Tourism Marketing Spend Data

What do travel and tourism marketers need to do to prepare for this opportunity?

Lead With Digital Tactics

Travel books and printed pamphlets are a thing of the past. Today’s travelers are finding inspiration for trips on digital channels. Younger travelers in particular are taking this a step further by shifting to mobile devices over desktop, looking to the brand’s website or Instagram to get a sense of what they can expect. 

As the saying goes, “not all who wander are lost.” Allow yourself to experiment, becoming smarter by letting continuous learning guide your marketing strategy. The best way to do that is to start with digital, where flexibility and agility allow for quick learnings and pivots.

Digital marketing is the perfect petri dish to test out tactics and creatives before making a major investment. For example, you can run a short-form video ad on social media and identify which creative is performing best. Then, use those creative learnings to inform a more premium CTV placement or Cable TV buy with an added layer of confidence.

Is your travel brand ready for a digital-first marketing strategy?

Here’s your digital housekeeping checklist to prime your digital travel and tourism marketing for success:

High Impact Travel and Tourism Marketing Channels 

When choosing travel marketing channels, consider these four aspects: 

  1. Budget: If budget is limited, maximize spend on fewer channels. If you have more dollars, consider diversifying, testing something new or incorporating premium placements. 
  2. Audience: Identify where your audience is most active and receptive to advertising. 
  3. Customer Journey: Understand how your customers behave, and shape your advertising around their decision making process. 
  4. Storytelling: Include highly visual channels that allow storytelling to tap into their emotions. 

To keep pace with digital-first users, prioritize your digital marketing efforts on these key digital channels: 

Facebook

  • According to Pathmatics data, Facebook is the leading social media channel for Travel/Tourism ad spend. Explore various ad formats to help lead your traveler down the funnel, such as Facebook Lead Ads. Tailor educational resources to unique audience groups to establish trust and consideration. 

Endemic Travel Sites

  • Travel blogs and sites are highly valuable for travel brands. 59% of families use travel websites to plan vacations. Another 13.5% of leisure travelers use travel blogs to plan trips. Use these sites establish brand awareness and trustworthiness among potential travelers. 

User-Generated Content 

  • UGC is used by 58.2% of travelers for planning leisure travel. Word of mouth is, and always will be, the most impactful form of marketing. Encourage customers to leave quality reviews on your site or other travel pages to boost your brand status. In addition, encourage users to create content FOR you. 

Paid Search

  • Speed and agility are crucial for travel brands. You need to appear as a top option for during the research and discovery process. Optimize a combination of branded, unbranded and competitive paid search terms. This will help you show up for relevant, high value queries.

Twitter

  • Twitter is especially effective for targeting luxury and business travelers on a platform where users are highly engaged, especially surrounding news and business. To expand your targeting pool, use the platform’s AI to find follower lookalikes from competitor brands.

Online Video 

  • While a picture is worth a thousand words, a video is priceless. Online video placements across YouTube and Display allow brands to tell a rich, visual story. YouTube offers various travel category targeting options such as Business Travel, Family Travel, and Frequent Travel. You can also layer these with geo targeting to narrow in on your core audience. 

Connected TV

  • Connected TV amplifies online video by placing it on the largest screen in the household. It’s one of the most impactful visual mediums travel brands can use, while offering more flexibility and addressability than linear TV. CTV ads are a great option to reach family travelers or promote kid-friendly destinations. 

Influencer

Instagram

  • Instagram is a go-to source of inspiration for Millennial and Gen-Z travelers. Travel brands can build community by interacting with users through various formats – reels, stories, and posts. Use post comments, story polls, and Q&As to start a conversation with interested travelers. Avoid being overly curated and don’t be afraid to use trending phrases, sounds or hashtags. 

Pinterest

  • Travel engagement on Pinterest is at an all time high with travel-related searches increasing by over 60%. Pinterest is primed for planning and purchasing, and can facilitate real bookings. This platform is a great place to hone in on ‘Travel’ and ‘Foodie’ audiences. 

TikTok

  • No other social platform enables the potential virality or mass reach as TikTok. Users spend an average of 52 minutes per day on the app, and 90% of TikTok users use the app multiple times daily. Although TikTok has a strong younger presence, 51% of users are now 30+. The app is growing in popularity amongst millennials with disposable income for travel. DisneyParks has over 4M followers on TikTok and Delta Airlines gained nearly 19.5M views in the initial 36 hours of their first TikTok campaign.

Retail Media

  • Activating first-party shopper audiences through retail media networks is a great way to reach travelers. For example, the Marriott Media Network uses search and reservation data to serve relevant ads to consumers.  

DOOH

  • Digital out of home spend is soaring as people are traveling again. Screens in airports, inflight video, taxi cabs, bus stations, billboards near attractions, and more can place your brand in front of traveling audiences. DOOH is a great tactic to educate users once they are at a destination. 

Local Partnerships

  • 78% of survey respondents want to support local small businesses when they travel. State and city tourism brands can leverage this trend by partnering with local artists, chefs or businesses. Thise partnerships can drive travel consideration and boost awareness for both parties. Consider unique creative options like how-to videos, downloadable guides, or co-branded social posts about the partnership. 

Ad Targeting for Travel and Tourism Audiences

It’s important that you don’t create a one-size-fits-all approach when marketing to future tourists. Consider who your existing traveler base is, and identify attributes to qualify other individuals in your prospecting audience. From there, tailor messaging to drive education and consideration. 

Are they solo travelers seeking adventure? Young families looking for a cost effective, kid-friendly trip? Foodies wanting luxurious and avant garde dining experiences? Create profiles to understand these individuals from a 360-degree perspective. Build as many personas as makes sense for your brand. 

Personalize Messaging 

Next, personalize your messaging to meet their unique motivations, behaviors and interests. Speak to each group differently and adjust visuals to resonate with their interests. If you’re looking to reach the adventure seeker, show fun activities like zip lining, hiking, concerts, etc. If you’re speaking to the budget-friendly family, showcase the value of the experiences you offer, without a major bill.

Reach Your Travelers Throughout Their Journey

To reach today’s consumers, brands need to create a seamless experience across digital channels from awareness to check out/visit. 

An omnichannel strategy is vital to keep a loyalty loop and encompass all phases of the customer journey. Use your marketing mix to show up at key moments in the consumer journey from planning to experiencing. ThinkWithGoogle identified four core micro-moments in the travel process: Dream, Plan, Book, and Experience. 

  • Dream – Spark inspiration and educate during the dreaming phase
  • Plan – Provide helpful information and build trust
  • Book – Offer a compelling value proposition and enable seamless transaction
  • Experience – Ensure the visit is positive and meets expectations. Follow up with post-visit marketing to keep customers engaged. Encourage reviews and social media posts during and after. 

Measuring Travel and Tourism Marketing Campaigns

Create a Data Terminal

It’s easy to get absorbed in the performance of individual channels. However, this causes campaigns to quickly turn from strategic to tactical. Instead, manage your advertising holistically within one dashboard. Doing so allows you to share and optimize performance trends and learnings across tactics. By looking at the data from a macro lens, you can identify important signals and weave a cohesive story. 

Check your unnecessary baggage 

Marketers need to ensure they are looking beyond vanity metrics to identify trends that signal success. It is especially important to synchronize data sets as we prepare for cookie deprecation. Instead of solely looking for direct attribution, explore a variety of business and media metrics over time. This will unveil unique learnings and better show the incremental impact of advertising.

Onboard advanced measurement 

When media metrics do not answer your business questions, layer advanced measurement tactics, on top of traditional media efficiency metrics. These data points will provide a more robust view of marketing’s impact on business goals. 

https://www.insiderintelligence.com/chart/241007/types-of-ad-measurement-andor-research-that-will-become-more-important-cookieless-world-according-us-marketers-agencies-sep-2020-of-respondents

For tourism brands, foot traffic lift is especially impactful in providing a clear view of how advertising drove incremental increases in visitors.

Refuel with continuous learning

When creating a marketing strategy, it’s critical to fuel ongoing campaign learnings to answer key questions and improve results for future initiatives. 

At Coegi, we combine a measurement strategy and a structured learning agenda. This ensures we are optimizing campaigns toward business goals while also continuously improving. 

Key Takeaways for Travel and Tourism Marketers 

  1. Lead with digital tactics to reach the growing audience of travelers 
  2. Lean into highly visual channels such as social media and online video
  3. Understand your unique audiences and tailor ads to their consumer journey across channels 
  4. Implement a comprehensive measurement strategy to see the impact of your campaigns

For more strategic insights and campaign activation, contact Coegi to set up a meeting with our travel marketing experts. 

The DOOH Primer – Digital Out of Home Advertising

Posted on by Coegi

Interested in DOOH advertising?

This primer gives you everything you need to know before launching a digital out of home advertising campaign. 

What Is Out Of Home Advertising? 

Out-of-home advertising (OOH) traces back thousands of years, with the earliest civilizations using it to publicize laws and treaties. The first large-format American poster originated in New York advertising the circus in 1851. 

OOH has since expanded to placements on park benches, transit, restaurants, and more. In 2005, the first digital billboards were installed and forever changed OOH advertising. 

What Is Digital Billboard Advertising? 

Digital out-of-home (DOOH) is a subset of the larger OOH category. This format provides an automated, targeted, dynamic and interactive way to reach on the go consumers in public places.

DOOH ad spend accounts for roughly a quarter of all US OOH spending. Growth can largely be attributed towards an increasingly mobile consumer, which in-turn increases the visibility of out-of-home media.

According to the OAAA, Americans now spend 70% of their time outside of the home, an increase of 50% over the past two decades.

Furthermore, consumers consume 60% of media via their smartphone or tablet on mobile web and apps. This lends to advertisers’ ability to connect with on-the-go audiences across touch points, including DOOH.

Download the full primer below to start leveraging this key advertising channel for your brand today. 

What You’ll Learn: 

  • How DOOH advertising is bought and then measured
  • When you should consider out of home advertising
  • Digital out of home content strategies and best practices
  • Available environments and ad inventory 
  • The major players in the industry

If you have any further questions, contact Coegi to learn more!

Digital Out of Home – A Brief History

Out-of-home advertising (OOH) can be traced back thousands of years to early civilizations. The first large-format American poster, measuring 50 square feet, originated in New York advertising the circus in 1851. By 1900, a standard billboard structure was established in America. 

With more products entering the market over the century, new and creative ways of reaching consumers became necessary. OOH expanded to park benches, transit, restaurants, etc. In 2005, the first digital billboards were installed, forever changing OOH advertising. 

What is Digital-Out-of-Home?

Digital out-of-home (DOOH) is a subset of the larger OOH category. DOOH markets to consumers when they are on the go in public places. Instead of interrupting a user’s online experience with an ad, it meets them in real life. Also, rather than traditional billboards, these placements can be dynamic and interactive.

The Growth of DOOH Advertising

Various eMarketer studies suggest DOOH ad dollars account for roughly a quarter of all OOH spending in the US. Growth is largely attributable to increasingly mobile consumers who are in turn increasing the visibility of OOH media. According to the OAAA, Americans now spend 70% of their time outside of the home. This is an increase of 50% over the past two decades. Plus, consumers consume 60% of media via their smartphone or tablet on mobile web and apps. This lends to advertisers’ ability to connect with on-the-go audiences across touchpoints, including DOOH.

How is DOOH Inventory Bought?

Direct – Sign individual IOs and contracts with OOH vendors to secure space upfront using specific parameters. Space is usually secured on a monthly, quarterly or annual basis.

Open Exchange – Purchase inventory at auction within seconds before the impression is served. The buyer gains control of when and where their ads will be shown. However, publishers reserve some inventory for direct buys. Advertisers can engage in private marketplace deals to secure more premium inventory through programmatic channels.

Private Marketplace – Secure priority access to premium inventory like airports and roadside billboards through private marketplace (PMP) deals. This offers greater control of creative messaging, ad timing and data usage, while still giving publishers higher yields. PMP inventory is typically higher in price than open-exchange inventory.

How to Measure DOOH Campaign Results?

As a one-to-many medium, multiple people can see an OOH ad at once. Nielsen and Geopath provide US industry standards for measuring impressions using variables such as speed data, traffic, on-site counts and audience distribution data. 

Geopath does the majority of roadside billboard measurement. Nielsen assigns each type of signage a multiplier based on average views per ad play. If using a DSP, advertisers can use 1×1 tracking pixels to track how many plays an ad receives.

High-Impact Use Cases for Digital-Out-of-Home Advertising 

DOOH for Lower-Funnel Campaign Objectives

Programmatic technologies allow for more targeting controls throughout the day. They allow a creative digital media buyer to control spend only when and where a user is most likely to convert.

Examples: 

  • A coffee brand only advertises before 2 pm.
  •  A food delivery app optimizes spend towards areas where drivers aren’t getting rides.
  • A pharmacy only serves to DMAs where allergy counts are high. 
  • A sports team pauses a campaign when tickets sell out.

DOOH for Targeting Niche B2B Audiences

Many B2B marketers view out-of-home as a mass-market medium, rarely leveraging it outside of industry events. However, with smart use of customer data, planners can confidently buy screens when their niche audience is most likely to see them.

Example: A trade group targeting architects want to geofence a four-day conference in Las Vegas. They can buy the DOOH signage within a radius of the conference and at the airport. Additionally, they can upload attendee data to continue the campaign after the conference to reinforce messaging.

DOOH for Testing Multiple Creative Messages

With static billboards, the same creative often is deployed for 6 or 12 months at a time. Programmatic creative is deployed with an ad server, allowing for more robust creative testing. By pairing this technology with an intelligent measurement strategy, brands can test messaging. Additionally, by porting other data points, creatives can be dynamic and change in real time.

Examples: 

  • A hospital shows current ER wait times
  • A sports team displays a countdown clock to tip-off
  • An auto shop displays weather conditions and alerts

How to Design a DOOH Advertisement

You should approach your DOOH content strategy differently than typical display or video campaigns. These placements truly reach people on the go, so you must capture the attention of onlookers immediately and leave them with a memorable message.

Consider these design elements for your DOOH assets: 

  • Loop or slot length (if applicable)
  • Physical display size
  • Resolution of display and aspect ratio
  • Whether or not sound is available
  • Motion types accepted
  • File type and maximum size accepted
  • Video codec type (if applicable)
  • Capabilities: linear, dynamic, data-driven, real-time optimization, etc
  • Content restrictions such as adult content, alcohol, violence, drugs, etc.

DOOH ad content should be relevant to both the brand and the display location. Also, make sure the brand name is present and viewable to drive awareness and make the brand connection with viewers. 

How to Access Digital Billboard Advertising? 

Contact Coegi to get a full list of venues available in your target geo and the accompanying creative specs. Creative opportunities differ by venue and can include static and animated ads, large format ad sizes, sound-off or sound-on creatives and more.

To achieve maximum scale, DOOH advertisers should send creatives that can scale across multiple venues. Your Coegi account team can advise on which venues are best for your audience and goals and provide creative requirements accordingly.

To see DOOH advertising in action, view our case study. 

You can also read our DOOH FAQ article with Vistar Media, one of our industry-leading technology partners. 

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