Today’s shopper is looking for authenticity in the products they choose to invest in. If a person loses trust in a brand, they are quick to pivot to a different brand offering a similar product. Brands build trust through producing quality products, living by their value statements, hiring inclusively and more. But there’s more to the story.
Tag: Blogs
MediaPost – Why Your Brand Could Lose By Not Investing in Video
Programmatic video advertising is expected to grow an additional $10 billion over 2021’s monstrous growth in 2022, according to eMarketer. Many growth brands are seeing the benefits of incorporating this highly engaging medium in their marketing mix.
Twitter reports that users are 10x more likely to engage with a tweet including video, and LinkedIn similarly reports its users are 20x more likely to engage with a LinkedIn post with video embedded.
However, there are still those who are unwilling to make the upfront investment to create these assets, fearing it requires too much money and too much time. That’s understandable, especially for brands operating with a very lean marketing budget.
Read the article to learn three reasons why your brand should avoid leaving video out of the marketing strategy.
Healthcare Business Today – How to Reach the Next Generation of Healthcare Consumers
Healthcare marketing has undergone a major transformation as patients change their healthcare practices and preferences. In particular, younger healthcare consumers are changing the game through their desire to take an active role in decision-making for their health. A one-size-fits all approach with generic local TV buys is no longer sufficient to get new Gen-Z and Millennial patients to walk through your doors. Instead, it’s important to create an overarching strategy that resonates, and then tailor your messaging and marketing mix to subsets of consumers based on their values, motivations, and behaviors. Read the article to learn how to grow your reach with the younger consumer base.
Boost Customer Lifetime Value with Awareness Marketing
Brands, especially those in the ecommerce space, often feel tempted to skip over building awareness and consideration with their marketing efforts and jump straight to conversion-based advertising campaigns. However, brand awareness is a key marketing component to fill the sales funnel that should not be ignored. Keep reading to learn how to optimize awareness campaigns to establish customer lifetime value.
Start At The Beginning
If your core business goal is to drive sales, you still have to do the work to introduce your brand to new customers and convince them why your offering is worth their money.
Even on commerce channels like Amazon, Instacart or Shopify storefronts, you must establish baseline awareness before a consumer will be receptive to your product.
Forrester’s 2021 CPG Digital Go-To Market Review found, “35% of surveyed global CPG marketing decision-makers cite brand awareness as an important metric…brand metrics rank high because CPG/FMCG products are typically low consideration, making it critical for the brand to be top of mind in a category.” So before you begin investing all of your marketing dollars into ROAS focused tactics, put yourself in the consumers’ shoes and consider the information you would want from a brand to take the next steps.
Understand The Customer Journey
To understand how much of your efforts should be allocated across awareness vs consideration vs conversion tactics, look to the purchase journey for guidance.
- What is the average timespan from initial awareness to purchase?
- How many touchpoints are needed to reach the point of consideration?
- How much time does the average consumer spend in the consideration phase?
If your consumers move from consideration to conversion very quickly while in store or on digital retail platforms, the greatest chance to reach them is within the awareness phase. The media objective in this case is to ensure a consumer recognizes your brand when searching for products in your category.
If they spend longer in the consideration phase, you can nurture leads longer with educational content and community building. But it all comes down to understanding how your product or service fits in with their behaviors and routines.
Establish Awareness With An Omni-Channel Media Strategy
Ensure your awareness campaign has broad reach by strategically combining various digital and physical channels. If done right, this will also create a seamless user experience across channels, even with the fragmented media landscape.
How do you know which channel mix will reach your ideal audience?
- Leverage syndicated research to understand their media consumption habits
- Use channels whose userbases broadly match your target demographic
- Select channels where the typical user behavior aligns with the desired action
Use Branding Campaigns To Create Lifetime Value
Once you’ve established awareness, the value of brand campaigns does not end. Awareness marketing aids in fostering an ongoing relationship that we fondly refer to as the loyalty loop. It initially introduces your product to new users, but then continues to establish lifetime customer value after a purchase is made.
To establish this loyalty loop, develop a clear path for your customer. Put yourself in their shoes and understand the timing they need before making a repeat or complementary purchase.
- Is your product a one-time purchase that typically lasts a lifetime?
- Is your product a weekly or monthly staple that is consumed and repurchased?
- What products make sense to recommend based on previous purchases?
Don’t waste money promoting the same product a user has already purchased and is unlikely to purchase again for several years. Instead, remarket them with ads and experiences that reinforce their positive experience with the brand and keep them interested in future purchases. For example:
- Personalized ads and email marketing with recommended products
- Branding campaigns to reinforce brand loyalty and affinity
- Special discount codes and alerts about new product drops or sales
Set Clear Expectations With Measurement
We know advertising works, but success doesn’t typically happen over night. Instead, there is a gradual impact on business results that can be tied to marketing initiatives.. It can be especially difficult to see clear and instantaneous results from awareness campaigns. However, there are strategic ways to understand your progress and ensure you’re moving the needle.
Tracking Short Term Brand Awareness
The primary goal for short-term awareness campaigns is to reach the highest volume of unique users at an effective frequency. Our general understanding is that 2-12 exposures are needed to drive action, which varies depending on effectiveness of creative and the relevancy of the brand. Balance this exposure while being mindful of over saturation.
Metrics to track that indicate brand awareness results:
- Reach: The number of unique users reached, reported by channel and by campaign.
- Frequency: The amount of times a user is exposed to an ad, commonly reported as impressions/reach.
- CPM: The cost of serving ads.
Measuring Long Term Brand Awareness
When media metrics do not answer your business questions, the next step is to incorporate third party studies that show media impact on business results and consumers’ perceptions. These studies show the true incremental impact of awareness campaigns on business goals – whether in driving brand affinity, site traffic or sales.
These are not attribution tools, but rather studies that show correlation. The two most impactful studies for e-commerce based brands are:
- Brand Lift: Difference between control vs exposed survey responses
- Sales Lift: Post campaign analysis comparing media activity to sales data sets
Use both short and long term measurement tactics to craft a story using a mix of KPIs that show media efficiency and channel effectiveness in combination with monitoring sales overtime.
Key Takeaways
- Awareness must come first
- Let the consumer inform your strategy
- Build your brand to increase customer loyalty
- Establish a clear measurement plan to create accountability with branding campaigns
Using Facebook Lead Ads to Drive a Sales Pipeline
The Brief
Using Facebook Lead Ads to Drive a Sales Pipeline
Our client, Grit Moto Adventures, came to us with a unique opportunity to drive sign ups for an exclusive backcountry motorcycle tour. Their unique audience would be given the option to sign up for various tours in a wide time frame. Given the time commitment and niche experienced biker audience requirements, we set a goal of driving 320 leads using Facebook lead ads.
Highlights
707
Leads
$0.83
CPC
0.11%
Lead Conv Rate
Challenge
Due to the advanced level of riding experience needed to take part in Grit Moto Adventures tours, the target audience was niche. Interested individuals needed experience in off-road motorcycle riding, the lifestyle flexibility to travel throughout the week, and funds readily available to book a tour. Additionally, Grit Moto Adventures was a newly formed brand with little brand awareness at the time the campaign launched. Our strategy needed to include ways to build scale despite the targeting specificities, and take interested users from awareness to conversion as quickly as possible.
Solution
Our team navigated the audience restrictions by making custom third-party data segments with the largest US consumer panel, Resonate. This tool allowed us to develop and activate a scaled audience within our two primary audience personas: general Motorcycle Riders and Retired Riders with the income required for these trips. For media activation, we chose Facebook for its ability to scale, built-in lead generation functionality, and comprehensive interest targeting.
The resulting campaign drove an engagement rate of 4.54% with an impressive cost-per-click of $0.83. At the campaign’s conclusion, 707 Facebook lead ads were filled. This was a 200%+ increase from our original goal of 320 leads. These metrics demonstrate our success in reaching highly interested people at the right time.
We learned that strategically curated audiences, paired with informative creative, drove numerous leads. This found candidates for the tours while also expanding their email list. As we plan for cookie deprecation, tools such as Facebook lead generation campaigns will be important for building first-party data. This information will be extremely beneficial for Grit Moto Adventures moving forward.
How Coegi Became One of AdExchanger’s Top 50 Programmatic Power Players
Coegi is thrilled to be named to AdExchanger’s Top 50 Programmatic Power Players!
When Coegi was founded in 2014, programmatic advertising was still in its infancy. Seeing the vast opportunity for improvement in transparency and performance, our then three-person shop set out to create a solution for brands and agencies rooted in data to allow for best-in-class audience targeting, measurement, and optimization. Since those humble beginnings, the company has grown to a full-service, strategy-focused digital media agency with 50+ employees, 4 offices, and experience with over 300 brands across a broad array of industries.
Coegi, which is latin for ‘to bring together’, has curated the strongest set of technology, data, research, and measurement resources in the industry, enabling our teams and clients to produce marketing strategies that are multi-faceted and focused on business outcomes. Our unbiased approach to technology deployment allows us to support all of our clients’ needs, with certified marketing partnerships with Google, The Trade Desk (Coegi captured seat number 6), Pulsepoint, Amazon, Amobee, Vistar, Meta, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Tiktok, Tagger and Instacart. We are also a founding member of the Programmatic Health Council, helping spearhead best practices in programmatic advertising for healthcare and pharma brands, further enforcing our leadership in regulated industries.
This success would not be possible without a relentless focus on culture and innovation. Each day, Coegi strives to not only make our clients feel like digital heroes but also to empower the growth and success of our employees. This passion has resulted in some substantial achievements for our organization over the last year:
- Top 75 Fastest Growing Agencies – Adweek
- 15+ New Account Wins
- Top Women in Media and Ad Tech – Monica Herschelman – AdExchanger/AdMonsters
- Finalist in Worklife Awards for Most Dedicated to Employee Growth – Digiday
- Development of three new departments: Marketing & Innovation, Account Strategy, Performance Marketing
Coegi’s President and Founder, Sean Cotton says: “I’m immensely proud of our team for achieving the success and recognition that has been bestowed on us over the years. However, I’m most satisfied by the way in which we have reached these milestones – doing work that we are proud of, in the company of people we are proud to work with. The collaborative, positive culture exemplified across our organization is a testament to the amazing group of individuals that I have the privilege to lead and support each day.”
Social Commerce 101: What Marketers Need to Know
During your leisurely afternoon scroll through social media, you may have come across a post with a shopping feature prompting you to purchase a product within the app. This is social commerce at play – the ability to buy and sell a good or service within a social media platform.
Why Is Social Commerce Important?
The pandemic permanently changed consumer shopping behaviors. 62% of US consumers are shopping more online now and 48% of US social media users have bought something on a social platform.
Brands, now more than ever, should explore social commerce to meet the consumers where they are. Let’s explore ways you can leverage social commerce by platform to meet campaign objectives and business goals.
Meta: Facebook and Instagram
Meta makes it easy for brands and consumers to engage in social commerce. In Facebook Business Manager, a business can upload and manage their inventory and even provide customer support via Commerce Manager. To get started, create a Commerce Manager account where you’ll be prompted to link your business account, set shipping options, create a return policy, and assign a bank account for payouts. You can upload as much inventory as you desire to the Facebook catalog because there is no limit on product uploads.
Facebook also introduced in-app shopping features in 2021 including: Shops in Groups and Product Recommendations in Group.
Likewise, Instagram added Shopping from Creators which allows users to purchase products that influencers tag in their posts. Users can also research and purchase products on the Shop Tab which is located on the Search and Explore Page in the Instagram app. Instagram is really driving the user experience and optimizing the algorithm to become the go-to hub for product discovery.
Twitter recently introduced a new shopping feature, Twitter Shops, that allows brands to create an inventory list of up to 50 products that can be displayed on their profile. Users can then peruse the brand’s products and click a “View Shop” button that will direct them to the brands website to complete the transaction.
It is important to note that the transactions do not directly take place in the Twitter platform. This means users will be driven to your external site and your brand does not need to develop a new transaction process for payouts.
Pinterest was one of the trailblazers for social commerce, introducing shoppable pins in 2019. Within the platform, there are a plethora of ways a consumer can engage with a brand and purchase products. This includes the Shopping List feature, which automatically saves all of the product pins a user has pinned in one location so they can easily come back and shop. It also notifies a user when a product price has decreased to entice them to purchase.
Additionally, Pinterest has an AR shopping experience that allows users to virtually try out products, such as placing furniture in their home, before purchasing. Check out this article for more Pinterest advertising tips.
Snapchat
Snapchat may not be the first platform that comes to mind when thinking about social commerce, but it is helping brands drive efficient sales. Through Snapchat’s AR lens product, Try On, brands’ product catalogs are pulled into the platform to allow for user interaction.
Major makeup retailer, Ulta, has seen significant success using the AR lens feature. They generated $6 million in sales by allowing users to virtually try on makeup in the app.
TikTok
TikTok is also beginning to enter the social commerce space. Brands can promote their products in the app by adding a Shopping Tab to their profiles. This allows users to look at products and prices, and then redirects the user to the website once ready for checkout. Two prominent brands successfully utilizing the Shopping Tab are Kylie Cosmetics and Sephora.
If you’re unsure how to adapt your marketing to fit on TikTok, follow these Do’s and Don’ts of TikTok Advertising.
Which Social Commerce Platforms Should You Use?
When planning a social commerce strategy, first define who your target audience is and identify which social platform(s) can help you reach them efficiently. Also consider the different social commerce offerings and capabilities each platform provides and how they can best meet your brand needs. Use this information to choose the platform(s) that can most effectively promote your brand’s products and create a positive user shopping experience.
Social commerce is a great way to align with shifting consumer shopping behaviors and meet the next generation of shoppers where they are active online. The volume of new shopping tools we’ve seen roll out in the first half of 2022 alone indicate this is only the beginning. Now is the time to get familiar with and start testing different social commerce applications to find what sparks the greatest results for your brand.
For more on social commerce and other emerging topics, view our top 5 Social Media Trends for 2022.
The Impact of Attitude in the Workplace | The Coegi Way Series
Coegi is a digital marketing agency that prides itself on being a positive and flexible work environment for our diverse group of employees. We strive to break away from the non-stop grind agency jobs often bring. This is supported by a set of values titled The Coegi Way.
Hear from Coegi’s Senior Programmatic Specialist, Kyle Davis, to learn how the Coegi Attitude helps shape our company culture.
How Does Coegi Shape Attitude And Culture?
On my first day with Coegi, I met with our President, Sean Cotton, and he presented the company’s core values, known as The Coegi Way. This encompasses four key pillars: Attitude, Approach, Service and Culture. The vision is that while we are always working hard for ourselves and our clients, we also take time to relax and have fun together. When we dedicate time to educating ourselves, we bring new ideas to our clients that foster a stronger relationship. When we find insights that drive results, we trumpet those wins and celebrate achievement to build morale internally and externally. And when we find successes, we make our clients heroes.
It clearly set the tone from day one, stating to this new employee in big bold letters, “This is who we are, this is what we are about.” It was a very powerful meeting for me. As someone who has been in the workforce for a while, I had never experienced such a strong message of a company’s culture and identity. I remember coming out of that meeting thinking that I had just been handed a roadmap to success within Coegi.
Attitude’s Impact On Work-Life Satisfaction
Early in 2021, I went through a challenging period. I was working on several demanding accounts. My wife and I welcomed our second child, but he needed to have an extended stay in the hospital. And generally speaking, fatigue of the lingering pandemic had set in.
I was feeling the weight of the world. As stress and frustration sank in from all angles, I found myself battling through my days; I was working hard, but likely not as smart as I should have been. That frustration and stress took a toll on me, which carried into my work. When new tasks or problems came through, I started to think “what now?” versus “how can I make an impact today?”. I reached a tipping point, and was forced to look at myself in the mirror and understand that a change was needed.
In my period of reflection, I remembered our set of guiding principles – The Coegi Way. I went back to this roadmap and found the answers almost immediately. A change in attitude could help to change my approach.
So I did.
I became determined to face every situation with a new level of enthusiasm. I began to look at each as an opportunity to display my skill set, to learn something new, or to teach something to a coworker. This attitude was infectious. By shifting my mindset, I reinvigorated my enthusiasm for problem solving and strengthened relationships with co-workers. That renewed attitude is what I believe helped me to have a more self-fulfilling and, I dare say, more successful rest of the year.
How Attitude Influences Our Work
The Coegi Way was designed to inspire employees to maintain a light and fun atmosphere within the company, avoiding the continuous grind of the infamous ‘agency life’ that has created a bad taste in the industry. It also serves as a mirror for employees. Whenever we find ourselves in a rut or a difficult period, a shift in attitude can help us get back on the right track.
The Coegi attitude is exemplified by enthusiastic determination, responsible communication, pride in workmanship and a desire to be the best. It’s an attitude that requires individuals to enjoy being problem solvers, to never do things halfway and always push for better, and stand behind their work. It also thinks critically about the power and impact of our words, so that we can best communicate to our clients and teammates.
Lastly, it’s about showing up and giving a full day’s work. This concept has a special significance to me being the father of two young kids. If I can put forth my best effort during the day, I can feel proud of the work done and be content to step away and be the dad my kids deserve.
How to Drive In-Store Sales With Digital Advertising
CPG brands operate in a highly competitive industry which requires marketing efforts across various media channels to ultimately drive in-store sales. While in-store activations are important in driving purchases, digital touchpoints ahead of store visits are critical in the customer journey. In the article, you’ll learn how to use digital advertising to directly impact sales revenue by answering three key questions:
- How can CPG brands use digital advertising to stand out?
- How can brands prime audiences to make in-store purchases?
- How can you measure the impact of digital media on in-store sales?
How Can CPG Brands Use Digital Advertising To Stand Out?
Consumers are inundated with ads every day. It’s important to be strategic with your creative messaging and media placements to ensure your ads are impactful and not disruptive. By carefully curating a strategy focused on the consumer experience, you have the ability to drive meaningful moments rather than creating noise.
- Be discovered. Get in front of potential customers early in the discovery phase. Use search and commerce channels to show up where consumers are actively looking for products.
- Be memorable. Create intriguing story lines of what the product or brand can do for users beyond basic utility.
- Be different. Showcase your unique value proposition to stand out among competitor products.
- Be loyal. Re-engage your current customers and nurture them to, in turn, stay loyal to your brand. Use follow up offers, new product suggestions, and special promotions to show your appreciation and build up that relationship.
How Can Brands Prime Audiences To Make In-Store Purchases?
To drive in-store sales, you need to establish awareness and consideration before that shopping trip. However, crossing the boundary from ad impression to ‘add to cart’ can be challenging. Use targeted messaging and effective frequency exposure across channels to make sure your product is included on the shopping list.
- Reach users across various media touch points from social to display to CTV with an omnichannel strategy.
- Use loyalty card data to understand frequency and cadence of purchase to serve your ads in the right place at the right time.
- Understand how many interactions are needed before a new customer will remember and purchase once in store.
- Keep previous customers engaged with relevant messaging and offers to maintain brand loyalty.
How Can You Measure The Impact Of Digital Media On In-Store Sales?
It can be complicated measuring online and offline channels and tying media spend back to brick and mortar purchases. Thankfully, there are measurement tactics and tools we can use to showcase ROI.
Here’s how we approach measurement at Coegi:
- Use advanced measurement tactics to uncover sales lift from your media.
- Look at success through the lens of incrementality. Test how product sales change year over year when an ad is in market versus out of market.
- Consider external factors like seasonality to make decisions based on non-media data.
In essence, shift the conversation from vanity metrics and click through rates because those don’t equal sales.
Want to learn more about how to create a best-in-class media strategy for your CPG brand?
We’ve got you covered. View the complete CPG Digital Marketing Playbook here.
4 Ways to Drive Greater Impact with Your Media Investment
Brands, now more than ever, are seeing the benefits of digital marketing: flexibility, addressability, and scalability. This is resulting in continuous growth in media investment, especially as more consumers are increasing their time spent on digital channels.
However, the more amateur marketers who fail to drill into the details of digital buying, yielding ad fraud, poor brand safety, and ineffective placements are undoubtedly wasting dollars and, in some cases, causing harm to their brand. These issues range from blatant criminal activity to troublesome contextual environments to sky-high ad frequency.
At Coegi, we have strict standards in place to ensure that we are treating our clients’ media investment as if it is our own. Here are the key factors to make your dollars work harder when setting up digital campaigns:
1) Reflect On The Past And Plan For The Future
It’s time for digital advertisers to take a look in the mirror. The last decade of explosive growth needs to be peeled back and examined. In its infancy, digital advertising was a marketer’s dream world. Everything was measurable and targetable – in other words, it felt easy. Marketers were able to reach anyone, anywhere.
Then entered increased regulation and walled gardens. Regulation, although needed for consumer protection, broke the original execution method. Programmatic is no longer the wild, wild west. Many have tried to continue operating as if nothing has changed, which has left massive vulnerabilities in the industry for ad fraud to enter the picture, often undetected. With this came wasted dollars, brand safety implications, and fear for the future of digital advertising.
2) Diversify Your Marketing Dollars
Marketers need to have a high degree of inventory accountability and transparency. Direct and private marketplace placements will help, as you know exactly where your ad is being placed. However, it’s important to diversify in order to expand reach against your target audience.
Open exchange placements can be equally effective when carefully curated whitelists and blacklists are applied. Aggregate all media metrics within one dashboard to avoid siloed analysis, and ensure brand dollars are being used efficiently across your marketing tactics.
3) Invest In High Value, High Visibility Inventory
In today’s environment, inventory quality is the key driver of media success. If you want to be seen in a high impact medium – whether it’s a high traffic billboard, premium CTV spot, or something else – you have to invest the dollars.
No, I’m not here to tell you to just increase your media budget and everything will be great. You can also improve performance by leaning into channels which provide rich data and reliable, compliant targeting. Retail media, for example, is an excellent source of cookieless second party data and provides directional metrics to track down-funnel results. Direct publisher buys can provide access to contextual placements and premium audiences as well.
4) Go Back To The Basics Of Measurement
It’s not just the cookie that’s dying, it’s last click attribution, IP tracking, and more. It’s time to substitute antiquated attribution models for more tried and true incremental measurement tactics to showcase actual marketing ROI, such as media mix modeling.
This will allow you to better define optimal budget allocation by stitching together sales-related data and media metrics – and also keep you focused on the data so fraudulent activity does not go unnoticed.
Paving The Way For A Stronger Future In Digital Marketing
The digital world has changed in drastic and permanent ways over the past decade. We can still benefit from the gains in automation and efficiency the industry has made. We will not go back to writing dozens or hundreds of IOs for a single campaign and trafficking ad tags to each publisher directly.
But, it’s due time to put more guardrails on the media buying process in terms of the publishers we leverage and the way we measure results.
