Using Integrated Media to Position Financial Services Company As Industry Thought Leader

Brief

Coegi’s financial services client wanted to use content marketing to establish themselves as a marketplace leader by growing brand presence alongside a competitive landscape and providing value to financial professionals and consumers through retirement planning content that educates, supports, and inspires action. 

To accomplish this, Coegi and the financial services firm strategized to establish a B2B2C content strategy focused on reaching both financial professionals and retirement-aged consumers through partnerships with well-known publications.

Highlights

17.8
Million Impressions


188,000
Clicks


110,000
Total Engagements

Challenge

The brand leverages a B2B2C model. While the majority of their objectives focus on targeting financial audiences, it is also important to increase brand awareness with consumers to aid in the sale of their products.

Their primary national advertising objectives are twofold:

  1. Brand Awareness – Increasing awareness of the corporate brand across consumer, financial professional, and prospective retail audiences. 
    • Extending their brand promise and messaging into the B2B space
  2. Thought Leadership – Establishing brand recognition and trust among financial professionals and consumers 

The brand had an opportunity to increase brand awareness with consumers. The data showed that unless they were already customers, consumers were less familiar with the brand. The consumers that did know the financial services firm believed their key differentiators were their ability to grow their investment and provide competitive fees. But there were bigger issues at hand:

  1. Consumers were still learning about annuities in general and, therefore, were difficult to convert into purchasers
  2. Financial professionals were not frequently recommending annuities, including the client’s

Solution

Partnering with the brand, we focused on the following key areas to help gain market share:

  • Helping change financial professionals’ perspectives about the value of annuities 
  • Positioning the brand as a trusted leader in the annuity space
  • Explaining how the brand’s solutions can provide value within a sound financial plan and, in turn, how it will help the financial professional grow their business

Based on the brand’s content calendar, the teams assembled a smart strategy to show Coegi would use content marketing partnerships and advertising to help raise their market share by slightly over 1%:

  1. In a traditional advertising driven industry, we would lean harder into digital channels to keep up with innovation, connect with users, and build a data-driven strategy that would differentiate them from competitors.
  2. We would focus these dollars to more cost efficient and effective channels that align to a digitally-minded consumer.
  3. We would work alongside established publishers to continue to build its digital presence and opportunity via a content strategy that would solidify their position as an industry thought leader.

Choosing digital content partnerships required an exercise of evaluating: audience, content quality, distribution, reach and value. This analysis pointed to these front runners: Kiplinger, Investment News, Bloomberg and Barron’s. The goal was to maximize reach with large publications (Barron’s & Bloomberg) while maximizing engagement with niche publications (Investment News & Kiplinger), authentically aligning the publisher’s editorial content with the brand’s subject matter experts. 

Results

Across four publishers and twelve pieces of content, the campaign generated a total of 17.8 million impressions, 188,000 clicks, and 110,000 total engagements from October – December 2022. Niche publications like Investment News and Kiplinger had the highest engagement rates, both publications reaching an average time on page of over 4:00, while larger publications like Bloomberg and Barron’s garnered the largest reach, with 10M and 15.4M unique views respectively. Consumers resonated with a more indirect approach to annuities by tying content to timely, relevant topics such as women and the recession, while financial professionals resonated with a more direct approach. Coegi extended content reach across platforms by layering programmatic and social campaigns, accounting for 28% of overall impressions.

The Kiplinger content piece “How to Get Retirement Income You Can Count on for Life” had the highest page views (24,516) and longest average time on page (4:39), indicating the importance of applying statistical research in a relevant, easy-to-digest format. Investment News podcasts garnered an average of over 1,000 downloads, on par with their engagement benchmark for Retirement Repair Shop, and “Demographics & the Coming Retirement Crisis” had the most downloads with a final count of 2,184, exceeding the benchmark by 118%. 

Bloomberg exceeded their contracted content impressions by 26%, and shorter, snackable content performed better on publications with high reach and numerous sponsored placements. The Wall Street Journal and Barron’s content “Psychology of Retirement Planning” program delivered 43,000 page views, exceeding the page view goal by almost 40%, while “Retirement Uncertainty” resonated with financial professionals and high net worth individuals, resulting in strong engagement as users spent 40% more time than average.

Key Takeaways

Through data-driven media and targeting recommendations, relevant content partnerships, and innovative thinking, this campaign was able to reach the target audiences in authentic environments by providing educational and informative content. This success was driven in part by tailoring content to different audiences and platforms, and applying statistical research in a relevant, easy-to-digest format. As the partnership between Coegi and the financial services brand continues, we will no doubt continue to see impressive results and strive to keep finding innovative solutions to enhance the traditional financial services advertising model.

Driving Patient Lead Generation for a Pharmaceutical Brand 

Brief

Coegi worked with a pharmaceutical company that supports people living with primary immunodeficiency (PI) and their care partners. They work to empower individuals with resources, treatment and education to manage their conditions. They partnered with Coegi to develop a patient-first lead generation strategy to enroll more individuals in their support programs.

Highlights

415%
Lift in Sign-Ups


3639%
Lift in Form Fills


453
Registration Submissions

Challenge

We faced the challenge of reaching and generating leads from a very niche healthcare audience. The brand did not yet have first-party data, so we partnered with Pulsepoint to leverage their healthcare targeting capabilities as well as compliant third-party audience segments and lookalike models. 

Solution

To engage this audience and provide resources for managing PI, our media drove towards key landing pages where users were encouraged to take action via guide downloads, assessment completions, and patient support program registrations. 

With a budget of around $1.4M for a 12 month campaign flight, we activated a cohesive media campaign spanning across paid search, paid social on Facebook and Instagram, and native and display programmatic ads. 

We outlined three primary goals:

  1. Engage audiences through thought leadership content. 
  2. Drive enrollment traffic through website sign-up forms. 
  3. Educate patients and providers by increasing landing page traffic to informational guides, assessment completions, and registration form fills.

To drive these actions, we amplified content centered around the realities of living with PI, patient empowerment, and other educational support provided by the brand. Through strategic retargeting and sequential messaging, we were able to develop a lead generation funnel 

This campaign was highly successful in generating a pool of first-party patient audiences including 502 patient program sign ups, 444 completed assessments, and 453 registration button submissions. For all key website actions, this campaign drove between a 225% to 3,539% lift in quarter over quarter results.

Using Multicultural Influencers to Drive Vaccine Consideration for Moderna

Brief

Moderna was seeking to drive preference for their COVID-19 booster with multicultural consumers by using authentic, relevant creator-driven storytelling. 

Highlights

28%
lift in vaccine consideration


88%
lift in vaccine discussion intent


7.56%
paid engagement rate compared to 1.86% industry benchmark

Challenge

Moderna’s marketing goal was to drive preference for COVID-19 bivalent booster by leveraging their positioning as the disruptive innovation leader in the space. They wanted to establish an enduring preference for their branded products by: 

  • Educating multicultural consumers
  • Growing urgency and 
  • Increasing uptake of the new COVID-19 booster vaccination

To establish this trust, Moderna needed to provide authenticity in its delivery when communicating with its multicultural audiences. We felt this would be best accomplished through influencer marketing

Solution

A key opportunity identified by the Coegi team was that 15.1M people within target DMAs primarily spoke Spanish. To deliver an authentic message, our aim was to support Spanish speakers’ health journeys while driving business impact for the pharmaceutical tech brand. We focused on utilizing booster messaging that was not only in Spanish, but content that was more culturally relevant. 

In order to speak to a Spanish speaking audience, we needed to learn about them in more detail. We started this process by leveraging data technology and intelligence platform, Resonate. Coegi placed an audience learning pixel across digital placements to learn about the Spanish speaking audience and their online behaviors. 

We collaborated with Moderna to identify the top US DMAs by vaccine data in combination with the highest indexing DMAs for Spanish speakers. In doing so, we were able to blend a demographic and geographic targeting strategy in an effort to build trust and affinity with a Spanish speaking audience. 

Coegi carried out a rigorous process to identify a varied mix of macro to micro influencers to generate authentic stories. These influencers were diverse – ranging from health content focused, healthcare workers to the average, lifestyle influencer.  But all were unified by sharing a value of preventative health and translating why vaccination against Covid-19 is important to them. Throughout the campaign, our team partnered with 13 influencers and delivered content to 15M Spanish-speaking individuals across the country.

We asked each creator to generate three pieces of content that authentically communicated the power and benefits of Moderna’s COVID-19 bivalent vaccine booster. Focusing on compliance while building the highest level of interest, relatability, and trust, we requested that the messaging of each piece answered these three questions:

  • Why is COVID-19 still relevant?
  • Why get vaccinated or boosted?
  • Why trust this brand’s product?

Results

Our influencer content performed well through multiple measurement perspectives. The content outperformed influencer benchmarks with some of our influencer content going viral – one piece of content earned a total reach of 414,000 which exceeded the influencer’s follower count by 2,000%. 

Coegi also leveraged a post-campaign brand lift study to measure more advanced impact learnings. According to the study, our influencer content delivered a 28% lift in vaccine consideration and a 88% lift in discussion intent, outperforming the Kantar benchmark by 4x. 

Organic Influencer Content

  • 1,447,404 Impressions
  • 732,297 Reach
  • 13,686 Engagements 
  • 6.36% Engagement Rate

Paid Influencer Content

  • 16,942,764 Impressions
  • 13,185,622 Reach 
  • 1,617,533 Post Engagements
  • 7.56% Engagement Rate vs 1.86% industry benchmark 
  • 2.28% Estimated Ad Recall Lift 
  • $5.25 Average CPM vs $8.75 industry benchmark

Key Learnings

We attribute a lot of our success to the authentic and real content created by our partnered influencers. The healthcare and pharmaceutical vertical poses many challenges. But with our focus on producing genuine, authentic messages for the Spanish speaking audience in the United States, we were able to provide engaging content in a form this audience could relate with.  

To learn more, check out Coegi’s guide to influencer marketing

Growing Scale and Efficiency Reaching Financial Services Professionals with Search Marketing

Brief

Coegi works closely with a financial services company whose advertising focuses on establishing themselves as a marketplace leader by growing brand presence alongside a competitive landscape and providing value to financial professionals and consumers through retirement planning content that educates, supports, and inspires action. 

This financial services firm partnered with Coegi to reach financial professionals and retirement aged consumers through a B2B2C omnichannel strategy. One component of this strategy included search engine marketing, which presented robust opportunities though with initially limited scale. 

Highlights

-92%
Cost per Click and Cost per Action


2,504%
Increase in Impressions Served Against 1st Party Audiences


$4
Cost per Action Compared $49 Before Optimizations

Challenge

The financial services company wanted to drive sales growth opportunities by engaging with prospective advisors through relevant content, utilizing first party CRM lists across a variety of channels to ensure media was reaching their specific audiences. The pull nature of the search channel resulted in minimal scale and high costs, impeding the impact of this channel within the media ecosystem.

Solution

In order to continue to reach these niche first party audiences while maximizing exposure across all possible channels, the team incorporated discovery ads. Adding this placement provided a higher volume of page visits at a lower CPA while maintaining tight control on users exposed to the ads.

Results

By expanding inventory to include discovery ads, the team was able to lower CPA and CPC by 92%, while increasing impressions served against the first-party audiences by 2,504%. This shows the importance of utilizing all inventory options to maximize platform results.

Driving 12K Leads for a Luxury Home Appliance Brand

Brief

A luxury home ice maker brand partnered with Coegi to create a B2B2C strategy that would establish relationships with custom builders, designers, and homeowners, driving in-store visits to authorized brand dealers and growing their sales pipeline.

Highlights

12,000
Leads Generated


68%
Lift in Dealer Visits

 

Challenge

Consumers who were in-market for home appliances were easy to reach and wanted the client’s products. However, they could not buy directly from the brand. We needed to reach kitchen designers and renovators to close the awareness gap between consumers and professionals. 

Our team had three key questions: 

  • How can we reach this niche audience beyond traditional B2B channels?
  • How do we evaluate if we effectively reached this audience?
  • How can Coegi set up the client for long-term success with this audience?

This home designer and builder audience had proven difficult to reach online. So, we needed to expand beyond traditional B2B channels, such as LinkedIn, to drive lead generation and build a long-term CRM growth strategy for the brand. 

Solution

Building Awareness With B2B Audiences

Digital media platforms offered limited reach to build awareness among our very niche group of trade professionals. Instead, we partnered with key trade publications to leverage their email syndication lists. 

Prior to activating any digital media, Coegi worked with three leading industry publications for a three week email-blast campaign prompting website visitation. This allowed us to build a fresh, highly-qualified audience list primed through sequential messaging. 

Driving Action From In-Market B2C Audiences

We took an audience-first approach focusing on consumers already in the consideration stage for relevant products, and drove three core audience segments to find the brand’s B2B dealers: 

  • Influencers: Custom builders and designers seeking a luxury ice maker producer for clients
  • Explorers: In-market consumer audiences already considering the brand 
  • Kitchen Buyers & Remodelers: In-market audiences with a history of purchasing luxury home goods but lacked brand awareness 

Coegi used Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest to reach users actively searching for home renovation ideas and products. This was accomplished using a blend of contextual, interest, lookalike and retargeting audiences. We also used display retargeting and a paid search strategy to own branded search terms and secure top-of-page placement at final stages of the consumer journey. 

Implementing a Full-Funnel Measurement Strategy

With email serving as the awareness driver, we were able to focus on measuring core actions, such as “Dealer Locator” button clicks and contact form submissions on their website. These actions helped us evaluate if we had reached the B2B audience and then implement sequential messaging and flighting to drive conversions.

The Results

By combining the audience quality of industry publications with digital reach and measurement, this B2B2C marketing campaign drove outstanding results. It generated 68% growth of in-person dealership visits and 12,000 B2B leads to establish a first-party CRM database. 

Key Learnings

  • Digital technology and tools that may not be top of mind for B2B marketers can be used creatively to solve problems
  • Understanding who your audience trusts up front leads to smart partnerships that take the guesswork out of your strategy

Building a Brand Performance Strategy for Bread & Butter Wines

Brief

Coegi partnered with a high-growth wine brand to launch a full-funnel digital campaign to quantify the impact on both brand and performance goals using advanced measurement studies.

 

Highlights

10.6%
Ad Recall Lift


9.1%
Purchase Intent Lift


621%
Site Traffic Lift

Challenge

Bread & Butter Wines came to Coegi in 2020 seeking a stronger marketing strategy to stand apart from the crowd of wine brands. Coegi was asked to provide a holistic, integrated marketing strategy that could reach their full-funnel goals:

  • Drive brand awareness in the US and Canada through emotional connection
  • Via increased brand awareness, drive trial and move brand into selection set within target consumers

Solution

Our targeting strategy reached consumers based on multiple data signals such as demographics, interests, and competitor affinity. This data indicated what was going to drive brand trial. Initially, we created six audience personas to focus on niche competitive opportunities and product use cases. Going into 2023, this was narrowed down to two core personas using purchase behavior data. 

We also used advanced research to understand wine buyers aged 25-54 and living in their top 8 sales states. Using an omni-channel digital strategy, our initial goal was to increase reach and frequency against key audiences. We selected channels offering efficiency and effectiveness, while also balancing lower-funnel ROAS goals. 

Key channels we are prioritizing include: 

  • Influencer and content partnerships to build trust and authenticity
  • Connected TV, display, and Facebook/Instagram to drive reach/frequency and website traffic
  • Instacart, Citrus Ads, and paid search to drive ROAS 

Additionally, we used advanced measurement through Upwave, Facebook, and Nielsen Catalina to understand the full-funnel impact on the brand – from ad recall to purchase intent. 

Throughout our multi-year partnership, we have served billions of cross-channel impressions. In the first three months, we saw a 621% increase in website visitors period over period and 27,000 site actions. 

The first Instacart campaign was especially successful in driving trial, with a nearly 3X ROAS, increasing attributable sales across all varietals. Instacart has continued to have a strong impact. The most recent campaign touts a 4X ROAS, 32% increase in YoY Instacart sales, and an average cost of conversion of $3.73. 

Our campaigns run with Nielsen Catalina were successful at driving incremental value for the brand. The display campaigns helped reclaim former customers with especially strong performance from lost/lapsed customers. The CTV campaign boosted exposure among key audiences and generated $230,101 in sales value of products transferred to their e-commerce cart after seeing an ad. 

The Bread & Butter team continues to be pleased with the Coegi partnership. 

Driving 4X ROAS for CPG Wine Client on Instacart

Brief

Bread & Butter Wines uses the online grocery delivery app, Instacart, as a central tactic in their e-commerce strategy. Because of this, our account team was eager to try a new optimized bidding tool offered by the platform. Our goals were threefold: to keep the client’s strategy in stride with a rapidly evolving platform, test AI’s ability to directly impact ROI, and reduce operational lift.

Highlights

4X
ROAS


32%
YoY Sales


$3.73
Cost per Conversion

Challenge

Coegi runs an evergreen campaign on Instacart for Bread & Butter, which has consistently delivered at or above a 2x ROAS benchmark. However, achieving these results required time-consuming manual optimizations based on cost-per-click metrics. While this approach was effective in driving results, we sought a more efficient and profitable bidding process.

Solution

Instacart’s new optimized bidding tool uses AI to automate bidding and maximize ad spend. Staying up-to-date with innovative platform updates is a priority for Coegi, and we knew this tool had the potential to significantly increase campaign performance and efficiency. Within a month of the Instacart release, our team implemented the new capability.

After a brief learning period, the AI algorithm began pushing ROAS into the 3x range. As the campaign progressed, this figure steadily increased to an average of over 4x, with peaks for individual products hitting up to 10x ROAS. As a result, the campaign generated a 32% YoY increase in Instacart revenue and decreased the average cost-per-conversion by 53%. 

In the age of Web3 and AI advances, a seemingly small platform update can have a significant impact on your results. Our team’s enthusiasm for testing and learning allowed this campaign to double its impact on Bread & Butter Wines’ ROI. 

Increasing Brand Lift and Growing Market Share for BODYARMOR

Brief

BODYARMOR was a new entrant into a well-defined CPG category: sports energy drinks.  

With a product containing less than half the sugar in Gatorade, but only 2% of overall category market share, BODYARMOR was looking to disrupt the paradigm. 

 

Highlights

16%
Lift in Brand Awareness


25M
Video Views in 2 Months


23%
Lift in Purchase Intent

Challenge

The media challenge was to break through the clutter in a crowded space and ensure BODYARMOR’s message of superior hydration was reaching the most relevant audience – ultimately increasing awareness and market share.

Logistically, they secured significant investment with grocery store and gas station distribution networks. The brand also had endorsements across all major sports leagues, plus significant involvement from investor, Kobe Bryant. But, to increase market share and sales, they needed to establish brand awareness with the right customers.

Solution

We used industry research to select the optimal digital media channels, as well as our own planning and channel mix software, to develop the optimal “go-to-market” plan. Using BODYARMOR’s first-party data collected from web engagements and promotional eblast sign-ups, we created targeted media plans for key niche audiences and engaged media partners to further invest in BODYARMOR’s success and growth.

Our team performed look-alike modeling and statistical analysis to create microtargeted audiences, including: Blue Collar Workers, Grocery Gatekeepers, Veterans, Teenage Athletes, and Health-Focused Adults.

Each audience had its own media plan and messaging strategy, for example:

  • The Blue Collar Worker audience focused on Midwestern and Southern states, Facebook and YouTube channels – using creative highlighting their partnership with NASCAR’s Ryan Blaney and UFC promotions. 
  • The Teenage Athlete audience focused on Instagram and Snapchat and leveraged endorsements from the NBA’s James Harden and NFL’s Richard Sherman.

To maximize campaign efficacy, we enabled multiple layers of targeting. This included layering our media with the national distribution footprint, to ensure the campaign was reaching the right people at the right time in the right place. We customized sequential messaging based on customer engagement level and continually made real-time adjustments to optimize performance.

We also engaged our Google reps to ensure alignment and efficiency across the board. These partnerships allowed access to Google Beta products, as well as brand lift and purchase intent studies to evaluate campaign success.

By all measures, this campaign delivered superior performance. Aggressive optimization throughout the campaign resulted in 55% over-delivery and engagement rates much higher than initially outlined. Through Google Site Link extensions, we were able to drive and measure a significant amount of in-store sales volume. 

In year one, the audience-first strategy produced strong brand recall lift amongst four of the five target groups. In year two, the strategy shifted to only include the top four performing audience groups.

  • The Blue Collar audience saw 22% brand lift and $840k in attributable sales.
  • The Grocery Gatekeeper audience saw 14% brand lift and $376k in attributable sales.
  • The Veteran audience saw 12% brand lift and $411k in attributable sales.
  • The Teenage Athlete audience saw 14% brand lift, $154k in attributable sales.
  • The Health Conscious Adult audience saw 2% brand lift, $214k in attributable sales.

More importantly, sales increased nearly 300% YoY, with 6% category market share; leading to the brand being acquired by Coca-Cola.

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.

Targeting Tourism Audiences With CTV Advertising Campaigns

The Brief

A state tourism client tapped Coegi to implement a CTV advertising campaign with the primary goal of driving awareness. We used a test-and-learn bidding strategy to identify optimal bid numbers across platforms. This allowed us to allocate the client’s budget across the most impactful CTV channels. Using this strategy, we achieved more even spend, higher unique views, and improved cost efficiency.

Highlights

2.75MM
Total Views


470,867
Unique Reach


$0.31
Cost per Unique Reach

Challenge

In programmatic CTV advertising campaigns, platforms will often optimize spend distribution towards total views. This oversimplification causes premium placements like Hulu to consume a disproportionate amount of the budget.

That risk was actualized when early reporting showed 99% of campaign spend going to Hulu and only 1% driving views on other high-indexing channels. As a high-impact platform, Hulu was important, but we wanted to ensure we were using other channels to expand the audience reach and maintain cost efficiency. 

Solution

Our specialists manually adjusted and optimized bids across different channels to create an even spend distribution. The goal was to identify the “sweet spot” that would give each strategic channel an appropriate amount of the budget.  Once the optimal channel mix was identified, the spend evened out to be 60% in Hulu and 40% distributed among other channels.

By serving ads to more niche channels such as Travel Channel, HGTV, and Discovery, we were able to reach key audience segments and boost overall ad performance. This generated 2,750,490 total completed video views, a cost-per-view of $0.05, a unique reach of 470,867 and a post-per-unique-reach of $0.31. 

Premium CTV channels can consume a disproportionate amount of budget. Correcting these standard optimizations with a manual test-and-learn strategy is necessary to find the ideal budget spend and maximize cost efficiency.

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