A marketing campaign is nothing without a strong measurement strategy. Each channel and tactic you are investing in needs to be held accountable to business results. Confirmation bias creeps in when you consider a KPI that is easily manipulated but isn’t a true reflection of business results.
Here are three ways confirmation bias may be hurting your campaigns…
Are you using artificial intelligence for your marketing?
If not, you’re likely spending unnecessary time and effort launching and optimizing advertising campaigns.
Which creative assets are best for this audience? How much should I bid for a particular ad placement? Who is my target audience?
AI can help you answer all of these questions, minimizing guesswork and assumptions.
To distill it down, AI uses algorithms to sort through data using a set of rules to complete automated tasks. To function optimally, the algorithm needs a goal to optimize towards. So it’s up to humans to tell the machine what that goal is and if the campaign is succeeding or not. These guardrails are necessary to ensure actions aren’t taken that create cost reductions, but are actually detrimental to marketing goals.
With this strategic foundation in place, artificial intelligence can significantly improve campaign performance, save time, and increase efficiency.
The most prolific use for AI in marketing campaigns is for media buying automation and optimization.
Automatic bidding allows media buyers to place appropriate bids for each ad placement in the open market. This ensures you are reaching your target spend levels and pacing evenly across campaign durations.
Artificial intelligence tools can also optimize pre and post bid to improve campaign performance and learnings:
These automations allow you to focus on meaningful data and strategic thinking. Use them to repurpose your time to more strategic tasks while platforms manage the day to day operations. Look for anomalies and trends in the data, but let the AI do the heavy lifting. Then you can take a more inquisitive approach to determining the “why” behind the data points.
The second way you can use AI to improve marketing campaigns is by expanding and refining audience targeting. Using AI, you are able to expand your first party and/or pixel data to find more people who look like your existing customers. Whether it be similar media consumption behaviors, demographics, or other behavioral attributes, this technology can find people most likely to convert.
In a post-cookie world, AI-assisted targeting will be particularly important. Many brands will have less complete customer profiles due to less availability of consumer data. There will be an increasing need for AI to rapidly test various targeting tactics to find your best audiences in a way that’s both measurable and efficient.
Finally, creative optimization is another impactful way to leverage artificial intelligence. Consumers are demanding more personalized, exciting moments from brands. To drive action, ads need to be hyper relevant to your niche audiences’ motivations, but also break through the clutter of other “personalized” ads.
Dynamic creative optimization is an AI feature that delivers the optimal combinations of creative imagery and headlines to individuals in real-time. This takes the guesswork out of the creative process while improving ad personalization. By letting computers sit on top of the data, you can gain valuable insights into what creatives drive the most impact among core audiences.
Here are a few tips to make the process of exploring AI go a little smoother:
If you’re a marketer, start getting more familiar with AI. Don’t expect to get it all right at first. Ask questions and talk with experts in this space. Start learning and move forward from there.
To work with Coegi and leverage our Data & Technology experts for your brand, contact us today.
Do you ever wish you could wave a magic wand to drive your customers through the sales funnel faster? Something that cuts the time needed to build awareness and pushes them straight through to consideration? Good news – one of the most tried and true digital marketing tactics can do just that. Enter: paid search advertising.
When looking at search engines as a marketing opportunity, it is important to know the distinction between Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and paid search advertising, also known as Search Engine Marketing (SEM) or Pay-per-Click (PPC) Advertising.
SEO is the process of optimizing your website to be more appealing to search engines. This increases the chances that your site will show up organically in search results. SEM is a marketing channel where you create search ads to show when specific keyword queries are searched and then pay when your ad is clicked.
While you can implement some aspects of SEO in a SEM campaign setup, SEO primarily requires time and human resources to optimize website content and performance whereas SEM requires that plus financial investment in search networks such as Google and Bing. The best results occur when SEO and SEM are integrated and seamlessly optimize toward your overarching business goals.
Exact match keywords are what they sound like: targeting searches that match exactly to your target keywords. Broad match expands your reach to show your ads in searches related to your terms. An example of a broad match targeting is if a brand targets the phrase “low carb diet plan” and then has their ad show up when “Mediterranean diet book” is searched.
Phrase match provides a middle ground between in between exact match and broad match. With phrase match, your ad will show up for searches that include your targeted terms but can include other relevant words. These other relevant words are often adjectives and additional descriptors helping the user narrow their search, but your ad will still show.
Use a strategic combination of these keyword targeting options to show up in the highest opportunity searches for your brand.
Responsive search ads are the most common ad type within Google Ads. This format allows marketers to add up to 15 headlines and 4 descriptions. The search algorithm then cycles through and tests, optimizing towards the combinations driving the greatest amount of desired actions based on your campaign objective. Responsive search ads are great for those looking to create flexible ads that can be tailored to reach and influence multiple audiences.
Dynamic search ads pull headlines and other ad content directly from a brand’s website. These are excellent for targeting people who know exactly what they want and are using intent-based search terms. Google’s algorithm can pick up on things from your website that you may not think to add manually. If you are looking for an ad format that constantly updates with your website, dynamic search is a great choice.
Building a search campaign differs from programmatic or social campaigns. Audience data targeting is of lesser importance. Instead, targeting keywords in your search campaign that are most relevant to your audience’s queries is of the utmost importance. Conduct in-depth keyword research to understand what people are searching, how the target audience speaks, and what information is most valuable to them. Then, further the reach of those terms using both broad match and exact match search terms.
To maintain high-performing search campaigns, it’s important to consistently monitor search terms. With broad and phrase match keywords, it’s possible to show up for terms that do not align with your brand or campaign goals. Monitor your Google Ads or preferred SEM platform for terms your ads appeared for, and regularly update your exclusion list for words and phrases you no longer want to appear alongside. This process helps ensure all campaign traffic is relevant, thus minimizing marketing budget waste on low potential terms. Keyword blacklists also help optimize for cost per click (CPC), driving greater efficiency towards terms that are more likely to produce results for your brand.
Paid search marketing is a must-have advertising channel for most any brand. There’s a multitude of reasons why, but the primary benefits are:
Implementing paid search in your marketing mix is highly influential, especially for driving lower down-funnel results. It presents a unique avenue to reach audiences with high intent. If a user is searching for terms that demonstrate interest in the product or service, they are immediately exhibiting more value than a user who simply sees a banner ad. In the latter case, you are hoping to pique their interest. With search, they are already interested or in-market for products or services similar to yours, and are that much closer to selecting your brand.
Everyone uses search engines, make sure your brand does too. Test out various keyword tactics and ad formats using both organic and paid search to find your competitive edge. Then, use these tips to fast track your company growth.
Need a strategic partner to manage your digital marketing advertising campaigns?
Instagram is a social media powerhouse which nearly all brands should be using in some way. With 1.4 billion users available to target and a wealth of commerce-focused tools, there are endless opportunities for brands to grow through the platform.
Instagram has a multitude of capabilities to help businesses grow: Instagram Shops, full-funnel campaign options, integrated commerce websites through Shopify, BigCommerce, Magneto and WooCommerce, as well as multiple ad formats to connect with your brand’s audience.
However, if you’re only leveraging static images in your advertising, and not incorporating new media formats and interactive tools, you may be missing the mark.
Keep reading to learn what Instagram’s new algorithm changes mean for marketers and key ways to drive your brand goals using Instagram marketing.
Instagram recently made two major updates. First, they altered their algorithm to focus on video and reels. Seeing the vast opportunity with the rise of video on platforms like TikTok, the goal of this change was to drive greater interaction with content users interact with rather than content from personal connections and followers. Another change made was regarding the length of video content. Instagram Reels used to be restricted to a 30 second maximum. That has now been extended to 90 seconds.
After backlash from very popular influencers (The Kardashian-Jenners in particular), Adam Moseri, CEO of Instagram, paused the company’s test of a full-screen video/photo feed layout. They also began decreasing the volume of recommended posts in feed, once again showing more follower content instead. Although the video-heavy test is on hold, the main goal of social platforms is to keep users on the apps for longer. And video content proves time and again to be the most engaging type of media.
The algorithm heavily impacts both users and brands. How can you use these changes to your advantage? We have four tips you can use to lean into these updates and maximize the effect of your Instagram ads on business goals.
As the second largest social media platform in the US, Instagram offers boundless opportunities for advertisers. To take advantage of this, it’s important to stay in tune with platform updates and changes in user behavior. Use these four steps to future-proof your Instagram marketing strategy and start connecting with your customers.
As marketers, it is our responsibility to understand trends and algorithm updates to help grow your business. For help kickstarting your social media strategy, contact Coegi for a discovery call today.
Retail media networks are having a historic year, with projected ad spend growing by $10 million YoY from 2020 to present in the U.S. alone. Even with the delay of cookie deprecation, CPG brands are flocking to these partners to gain access to end-to-end solutions including robust customer data sets, category and competitive insights, and sales attribution. It’s very appealing, especially for CPG marketers who do not have large customer databases.
Here’s how to use retail media in the marketing mix at each stage of your CPG brand’s growth…
Building business solutions for regulated industries is complex. At Coegi, we fearlessly take on clients across many regulated industries, and are well-known for expertise in healthcare and pharmaceutical marketing. Clients come to us regularly to build their knowledge in the space.
This Q&A blog shares our learnings over the years. Coegi’s subject matter expert, Account Strategy Director Colin Duft, and our technology partner PulsePoint’s Head of Strategic Accounts, Malcolm Halle, answer questions regarding healthcare and pharmaceutical digital marketing best practices.
A: PulsePoint – The foundation of all digital advertising is the data behind it. While data sounds like something objective, in reality not all data is created equal. Do the homework and look under the hood to understand the data informing campaigns. From a compliance perspective, two things are crucial:
1) Consent: guarantee healthcare audiences reached provide the brand permission to market to them
2) Deterministic data: the patient or physician information so marketers know they’re actually reaching person who consented to marketing
Building on this, it’s also important to consider the data in totality. The goal is to aggregate enough pieces of data about an individual compliantly to create a complete picture. Then you can meet the patient’s needs accurately. However, this process needs to happen in a privacy-preserving way. Lastly, the freshness of data will affect its usefulness and accuracy.
A: Coegi – Similar to other verticals, it’s important to keep a pulse on the regulatory committee guidelines. Compliance isn’t a black and white map. HIPAA allows room for multiple interpretations, so committees such as the NAI help provide greater clarity. Additionally, it’s important to always be transparent with the client. If something feels off, have a conversation to explain your compliance recommendation and hear their point of view.
A: Coegi – No matter the strategy, measurement should always be the nucleus of a campaign. Companies like IQVIA and Veeva-Crossix provide marketing measurement products that tell a story and tie back success to a Rx. Use these solutions to complement and build on the brand’s sales team as they start to enter the doctors’ offices once again.
A: PulsePoint – As digital becomes the dominant vehicle to reach HCPs, marketing to them doesn’t need to be restricted to office hours. Instead, understand and seamlessly align with HCPs’ shifting mindset as they go through their day. We can reach them with unique messaging during white coat moments as well as blue jeans moments. We see on our platform that HCPs are visiting work-related websites around the clock. But, we can also coordinate these marketing campaigns on other channels such as Hulu after dinner or on Spotify during a workout. These personalized touchpoints provide a more human experience.
Building on Colin’s point, PulsePoint offers an HCP measurement solution called HCP365. It enables healthcare companies to understand HCP brand actions across digital channels, including website, search and media, at the individual NPI level, in real time. This means brands can now know, with a very high level of certainty, that Dr. Susan interacted with a brand ad, or Dr. Patrick visited the web site. This kind of individual level analytics allows brands to understand, and therefore optimize, media performance with their specific target HCPs.
A: Coegi – On the healthcare provider side, marketers need to come to terms with the fact that doctors don’t just read medical journals all day. HCPs are people too. Even with a smaller audience, you can hyper target the doctor and scale simultaneously. For consumer campaigns, patients also don’t just read endemic articles on a particular condition all day. Use media to reach them throughout their day across various touchpoints.
A: PulsePoint – Marketers definitely need to break their ties with old school geographic and demographic targeting. This is especially problematic with connected TV. More than half of all CTV buyers in healthcare still use geo/demo targeting. They’re reaching broad audiences with significant waste. CTV offers so many more targeting capabilities, for example, targeting specific HCPs based on clinical behavior or targeting likely patients who have recently researched specific condition content. Take advantage of these capabilities. It may slightly drive up costs, but will significantly improve impact and ROI.
From the patient perspective, we know advertising and content marketing works to drive consumers’ health decisions. But it’s not a simple ‘if X, then Y’ journey. All consumers start their journey at different points, so they react to different messages in different ways. Yet we serve them all the same content and expect to see the same performance. Instead, use predictive analytics and machine learning to identify patterns and recommend marketing actions based on the customer’s profile and previous behaviors. This will maximize downstream results.
A: PulsePoint – The most direct, privacy-safe and effective way to reach people living with sensitive conditions is with contextual media. But don’t think of contextual media from five plus years ago. Contextual is now quite sophisticated. We can serve ads alongside relevant content, of course. When setting up contextual campaigns, it’s also important to understand co-morbidities and correlating factors associated with each condition, and use these to extend reach.
A: Coegi – If a particular health condition is sensitive, there are two primary considerations:
1) How did we collect this targeting data? and
2) if ISI is needed, can it work within the experience I’m trying to deliver an ad within?
Marketers can’t just take data and enter into a platform. They need to do their homework on the company, how they’re collecting this data and the targeting pool. With ISI, some channels fall off when it comes to channel planning. Not all forms of media make sense when you have a long ISI.
A: PulsePoint – Empathy is the ability to understand the feelings and perspectives of another. We can use data to uncover customer perspectives in real time. And we can go one step further: to use these insights to drive marketing outreach, also in real time.
A: Coegi – It’s important to lean into research tools, as well as patient panels/boards. These tools allow you to hear and feel for the individual affected by a particular condition. Translate these learnings into insights. They will then allow you to reach the patient/caregiver where they are in their journey in an empathetic way.
Colin’s final word of advice is to not fall into a rhythm of copy and paste strategies. It may be tempting to go that route as the “safe” choice given all the regulations in healthcare and . But, we must be creative and break the mold with out-of-the box thinking to continue delivering the best strategies using these healthcare and pharmaceutical marketing best practices for your brands.
Want to learn more? Check out Coegi’s guide to healthcare and pharma marketing.
In today’s world, we have access to the global marketplace with much less friction than in decades past. Previously, it was very difficult to initiate an international marketing launch without local people on the ground. You had to know who to call to get your ads placed.
The growth of digital was the biggest catalyst for globalization at the turn of the century. We gained the ability to conduct business, advertise and communicate from one location to another with ease. Access to the international marketplace means boundless opportunity, but can also be overwhelming for brands and marketers.
Thankfully, digital advertising and content promotion provides the flexibility to test, adjust, and be nimble with your marketing campaigns as you learn the nuances of a new landscape.
It allows you to:
Taking a digital-first approach lowers many logistical barriers to entry for a new market launch. Oftentimes, traditional advertising mediums involve lengthy contract processes, upfronts and lead times.
For example, in Japan, one media conglomerate owns the majority of all traditional media in the country. If you want to activate traditional ads in Japan, you must partner with them in order to penetrate the marketplace. On the contrary, digital offers a much quicker way to market, with much less red tape and upfront cost. Once you have digital campaigns up and running and understand what is working, you can begin to supplement with traditional media placements. This allows you to have a well-rounded, data-driven strategy.
With digital advertising, you can understand your ability to scale with your target audience in a new market before making a major investment in buys that offer little flexibility. To do so, lean into a test and learn approach to allow your marketing initiatives to fail forward.
However, don’t be too timid. If you only dip your toe in the water, you will not have enough information to know if your campaign is making an impact. Do the upfront research to create a strategic plan and then put mechanisms in place to test and track media success and pivot quickly as needed.
Look at the population of the country and the specific audience you are targeting. The goal is to reach a percentage of the audience at a high enough frequency so they know your brand. Typically this is around 6-12 exposures, depending on creative strength. Once you’ve reached this threshold, use a measurement framework or consumer study to understand the effectiveness of your campaign. Did it create strong brand recall? Was there a lift in brand affinity?
Some brands will also need to consider non-paid media ways your brand has been exposed to audiences in a given country. Have you had any positive or negative press? Are there any Google trends to inform changes in interest level?
Another benefit of digital marketing for international brands is the ability to quickly pull media out of market. In today’s climate, certain contexts can quickly become problematic due to changes in current events or world news. Even if there aren’t major world events impacting your marketing ecosystem, be sure you’re staying nimble in your approach to culturally relevant messaging, swapping out creatives based on what is and is not resonating.
Comparing marketing metrics across various countries will never be apples to apples. However, digital ads will give you quicker results and show clearer signals of success. Real-time platform data can give you a baseline understanding of what’s working, rather than waiting for post-campaign result readouts. This is especially critical during the testing phase.
To see a more holistic view of your advertising results, aim to have a unified measurement strategy in place to benchmark long-term success. Start by understanding what you can and can’t track in various countries. Then, consider filling in any gaps with these methods for gathering meaningful insights:
As you plan your international market launch, start with a digital approach to be more nimble, timely and informed. But, achieving maximum scale across a full country profile will require you to eventually incorporate traditional channels into the marketing mix.
For help preparing your international marketing launch, contact Coegi today to get started.
To read more, view Ryan’s second article on The Drum: The Key to Breaking Into International Markets
An audience-first approach or 1:1 marketing is something brands often strive for. As a digital marketing partner, it’s at the core of our mission.
However, the ‘cookieless world’, the meanest curveball Google has thrown at the industry yet, is approaching – even if its arrival has been further delayed. With cookieless targeting, being ‘audience-first’ takes on a new definition.
Targeting will no longer be as simple as building an audience persona and pressing “go” on pre-made data sets. Instead, it’s about really diving into the ethos of who your core consumer is and using that intel to guide your audience strategy.
We sat down with Coegi’s Account Strategy Director, Savannah Westbrock, to get her perspective and tips on how she’s helping clients prepare for cookieless targeting. The following article is an edited transcript of that interview.
There are three changes in audience research most marketers need to make to ensure the data tells an accurate story:
Pixel-based retargeting is essentially out of the picture. The best pivot brands can make is mining their own first-party data. But you don’t have to rely solely on your own data. Combine ‘hard’ data such as your website and platform analytics with ‘soft’ data such as social listening. Taking a more journalistic approach with these softer data sources can actually provide more meaningful insights and make your brand more authentic and trustworthy.
Tip: Balance quantitative and qualitative data. Trust your instincts and use research to back up or refute as needed.
First, you need to have systems in place to generate leads. Then, it’s all about what you do with that customer data to maximize results and become more strategic.
Lead generation campaigns: Keep first-party data and zero-party data collection top of mind when planning campaigns. For example, promoting a useful downloadable with a lead form. This will help drive consideration and give you an opportunity to learn about your audience in exchange for shared value.
Data enrichment: Once you collect and understand your first-party data, you can upload it to enrichment tools, such as consumer survey platforms. This helps you learn more about your audience’s interests, media consumption and day-to-day behaviors.
If your audience research is thorough, you will know the channels your audience frequents, their preferred devices, favorite shows, and where they are most engaged. Pair this insight with contextual placements that make sense for your ads.
Contextual strategies fell by the wayside in the late 2010s. Many brands focused on only reaching the “perfect” deterministic, addressable audience with cookie-based data. So some marketers may fear for impression waste by comparison. However, there are now many sophisticated contextual solutions that allow for hyper-customization and reach niche interest groups.
For instance, Natural Language Processing (NLP) algorithms are beginning to better understand the actual context of ad placements using artificial intelligence. This allows marketers to implement positive sentiment targeting and smarter keyword targeting. Smart contextual offerings can optimize to real-time content trends, going beyond standard display.
Cookieless identity solutions such as Unified ID 2.0 and Liveramp’s IdentityLink will help reach high-value segments without wasting media dollars on the wrong audiences. But, there will still be gaps. Pre-made audiences and 1:1 third party targeting will not be the same. As cookie-based information is no longer shared across the web, we’ll need to tap a few different buying strategies. I also expect walled gardens will center in on themselves more, protecting their high value audience data.
To overcome these challenges, marketers use all the data at your disposal to understand customers better, from channel-based information, survey data, CRM analysis, Google Analytics, and more.
What’s your best advice to brands preparing for a cookieless future?
There’s a lot to consider, but the two simple things brands should prioritize are:
The most important thing you can do now is establish a baseline. Then you can conduct a true study comparing your performance with and without cookies. Cover these two bases and you will be ahead of many brands. From there, you can continue to refine and adjust your research, targeting and measurement strategies as the industry evolves.
Our team at Coegi is actively testing cookieless solutions and brainstorming innovative cookieless media plans for our clients. For more strategic insights and tips on how to prepare your digital advertising for this change, listen to our full podcast episode on cookieless targeting here.
In our Social Media Trends Report, we highlighted that video content is king. Well, that trend is not just across social media, but across most digital channels: programmatic video, Connected TV, YouTube, programmatic out of home, etc. To capitalize on this, brands must approach video marketing with a strategic, omnichannel approach to reach target audiences wherever they are most engaged.
As a consumer, it feels like videos are everywhere. But as a marketer, video continues to be underutilized. In fact, across Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, video content comprises only 14%, 11%, and 5% of each network’s content, respectively. This is largely due to creative costs and misunderstanding about the ROI video offers.
Social media video advertising spend is continuing to increase. Video ads are expected to account for nearly 35% of social ad spend in 2023.
Digital channels overall are set to exceed 60% of global ad spend. Since half of social media users prefer video over other types of content and 85% of social media users want more videos from brands, the use of video in social media has never been more important.
Ready to tap into the opportune video advertising market? Here are four tips for high-performing social video content marketing.
It’s important to keep in mind that social sites are used for different purposes. For example, Instagram is the top platform for viewing photos, Facebook is used most for sharing content, and LinkedIn is used mostly for professional networking. Consider how your brand and your creative messaging fits into the user experience on each platform.
Understanding which formats different platforms prioritize to optimize your ad types for maximum visibility. For example, Instagram stated they are going to “double-down on [their] focus on video and consolidate all video formats around Reels” as they try to keep pace with TikTok. Knowing this, Instagram Reels and Facebook overlay ads in Reels should be utilized for paid media marketing.
Videos must be short and to the point as consumers’ attention spans are ever-shortening. According to Vidyard, 60% of all online videos in 2020 were under two minutes long. In 2022, 58% of users indicated that they will watch the entirety of a business’s video if it’s less than 60 seconds long. Even six second advertisements that quickly showcase the brand’s value drive consumer consideration.
Videos with captions receive 40% more views and make viewers 80% more likely to watch until the end. We should never exclude audiences who are deaf or hard of hearing. Accessibility is key for video across all channels.
Video is an impactful medium in the art of storytelling, but there’s a deeper neurological reason that compels us to consume. According to research, the brain processes images 60,000 times faster than text. When you consider we can only process five words per second, and our attention span is roughly eight seconds long, it’s easy to understand the science behind video’s growing popularity.
In fact, four times as many consumers would prefer to watch a video, rather than read about the same subject. And yes, it’s ironic that I’m writing about this topic.
Despite social media’s massive popularity, putting all your efforts into Facebook video may cause your brand to miss out. Not everyone is active on social media and audiences are fragmented across many disparate social platforms. This is why we encourage our brands to incorporate both programmatic and social channels into an agnostic video advertising strategy. This ensures they are delivering this high-impact creative to their audiences regardless of where they are spending time.
Written by Julia Wold, Director of Operations and Anissa Reko, Senior Social Media Specialist
3 Key Elements for Better Performing Video Content
Why Short Form Video is Critical For Your Brand’s Success
Creating Strategic Opportunities With Connected TV Advertising
Choosing which college or university to attend is often one of the biggest decisions a young adult makes. Higher education institutions need to be in tune with what the potential new student and others in their support system value in order to be that school of choice. Creating higher education marketing strategies that support college enrollment presents several challenges:
Fortunately, having a strong digital marketing strategy can drive enrollments with agility and efficiency.
Start by reaching parents and guardians first, providing long-term education to these key decision makers. Parents are the longer term play and require a unique messaging and channel strategy. Promote the value of a degree from your university or program five years after graduation. That’s what parents are typically thinking about and value most – how will your school set their child up for success?
With young students, you want to persuade them with their hearts. Communicate the experiential benefits of your school and how they will become part of the community. Capture the campus life vibrantly to show what makes your college or university special. Lastly, help them see how your school will prepare them for the future, while offering a safety net to learn and grow.
Don’t forget your non-traditional students. Showcase benefits like flexibility to forge their own education path. Highlight programs with online options, night classes, or part-time schedules, allowing students to create custom experiences for their individual needs. Additionally, create personalized marketing campaigns to promote the value of advanced degrees.
Video offers a solid foundation for higher education marketing strategies. The medium naturally lends itself to strong engagement, and offers a more personal view into day-to-day life on campus. Videoed student testimonials are a great way to build relatable content for students. Similarly, videos of professors can instill confidence that students will thrive in the school’s learning environment. Complement the video with a QR code or landing page to a PDF or brochure that reinforces the video content.
Placing these videos on more premium channels such as Connected TV (CTV) and YouTube is a great place to start. YouTube is a channel people go to for advice, perhaps looking for content such as “top 10 universities for engineering.” CTV offers the non-skippable, large-screen format to establish brand trust and recognition across the household (with greater flexibility than traditional cable TV).
Social media is a huge part of decision making for students thinking about next steps in their lives. Content on social is a major source of influence and inspiration. Video marketing ties in very well with a paid social media strategy, especially on TikTok, Instagram, and Snapchat.
We’re currently seeing high engagement on TikTok ads with our higher education clients. When done well, higher education institutions are able to reach stakeholders in a way that feels more organic. People inherently use the platform to search for valuable information, not just to seek entertainment. So it’s great for building intent, beyond awareness
With paid social creative strategy, the key is communicating your value authentically. Don’t try to be deceptive and act as if your ad isn’t an ad. But do be natural and avoid over-curation which sticks out and can cause more harm than good. Think of social media as a way to initiate a conversation, not just create demand.
These individuals have lives outside of social media. Sure, they’re likely spending several hours a day on social media. But, you need to reach them across various touchpoints. Video advertising across programmatic and social channels starts to drive education and consideration of various programs you offer. Then, look into mid-bottom funnel tactics to start supporting conversions.
This is a great time to introduce paid search – a very reliable conversion driver for higher education brands. Use insights from your awareness campaigns to inform the keyword and audience targeting strategy on this channel. Paid search can be a vehicle to promote downloadable educational materials or even applications now that your audience is at a higher intent phase.
Understand the multiyear cycle of a collegiate decision making process. Lifecycle messaging engages students and influential decision makers from initial awareness to application.
Start the cycle by investing in broad awareness early on. Focus on reaching parents first, then students, placing your school on the map as an option for their future. Use compelling video and other visual content to create a memorable impact. In this stage, use messaging to evoke positive emotions while making audiences aware of the higher education options you provide.
Work to establish yourself in the consideration set – those top 5 -10 higher education institutions. Shift to more conversion-based tactics, such as lead generation display ads or swipe-up campaigns on social media to gather prospective student information. In this phase, offer more details about the value of your programs, the campus experience, and the differentiators making your school special.
Once a new semester is approaching, how do you get interested students to take the leap and apply? Use data and insights to find audiences who are ready to take action. Then, drive conversions using tactics like paid search, email marketing, social, and SMS ads with the call-to-action of “Apply Now.”
If you need a marketing partner to create your custom higher education marketing strategies, contact Coegi today to learn more.
We’ll guide you through the process of in-depth research to identify your ideal target audience and how you can reach them. Then, we’ll partner with your team to activate a strategic, omnichannel media plan based on your core business goals.
