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How to Level Up Your Instagram Marketing Strategy

Posted on by Julia Read

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.

What You Need to Know About Instagram’s Algorithm Changes

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. 

4 Tips to Level Up Your Instagram Marketing Strategy

  1. Lean into video: Although Instagram reverted their video heavy update, 91% of Instagram users watch videos on a weekly basis. Also, Reels now make up over 22% of all posts and receive higher engagement than any other post format. The longer your audience views or interacts with your content, the more likely they are to remember your brand when preparing to make a purchase. 
  2. Understand your audience: Instagram users are looking for quick, emotionally-compelling content. You don’t necessarily need high production value to do this – in fact, authentic marketing is exactly what people want to see. Find what your audience values and speak to their motivations through your ads.
  3. Complement with other marketing channels: Build a strong omni-channel experience for your audience. One of the best ways to improve your Instagram marketing is by supporting it with other channels. Make your brand consistent across multiple social and digital platforms, as well as in-person, to connect the dots in the customer journey. 
  4. Test new tactics: Regularly experiment and test new ad formats such as Instant Experience to increase engagement or a Collection Ad to drive conversions. Or, test first and third-party data segments other than Meta’s demographics and interests to reach a different audience. Find what works best for your brand and use these learnings to your advantage.

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. 

Q&A on Healthcare and Pharmaceutical Marketing Best Practices

Posted on by Coegi

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. 

 

Q: What should healthcare and pharma marketers do to ensure they are being compliant in their digital advertising?

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.

Q: The ecosystem of healthcare provider (HCP) marketing is shifting, with the acceleration toward digital. What are the latest trends in healthcare and pharmaceutical marketing for targeting HCPs?

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. 

Q: What outdated advertising strategies do healthcare and pharmaceutical marketers need to leave behind?

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.

Q: Building on this topic, how can marketers reach patients with sensitive health conditions?

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. 

Q: Lastly, we know it’s important to lead with empathy. How can healthcare and pharma brands keep patients at the center of their marketing strategy?

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.

Download Coegi’s Healthcare Marketing Guide

How to Nail Your International Marketing Launch

Posted on by Coegi

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.

Here’s four reasons why digital marketing is an ideal starting point for your international marketing launch:

It allows you to: 

  1. Launch campaigns quickly
  2. Test before you invest
  3. Flexibly adjust media placements 
  4. Track real-time results 

Launch Campaigns Quickly

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. 

Test Before You Invest

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. 

How to Run a Test Campaign in a New Market

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? 

Flexibly Adjust Media Placements

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. 

Track Real-Time Results

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: 

  • Do your own commissioned survey research (ie. brand lift study)
  • Use global market research providers (ie. Harris Poll)
  • Create a cross-country scoring model to normalize data across different geographies

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. 

Ready to Launch?

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

 

Cookieless Targeting and Identity Solutions

Posted on by Savannah Westbrock

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.

It’s Time to Improve Your Audience Research

How should audience research change in light of the cookieless future?

There are three changes in audience research most marketers need to make to ensure the data tells an accurate story: 

  1. Understand the methodology: We rely on research every day to inform our media plans and marketing decision making. However, we often don’t peel back the curtain to understand how that data was collected and consider potential biases. In the cookieless future, it will be even more important to think critically and be selective with our data sourcing. 
  2. Exit the platform: Don’t rely solely on demand side platform information and forecasting for your planning. This data will be most affected by cookie deprecation. Instead, combine platform insights with external research that never relied on cookies. 
  3. Diversify your data sources: It’s time to get creative. Platform data and syndicated research will still hold value. But, you’ll need to layer it with non-syndicated data and first party data. Combine these tools to see a full picture. Even consider non-media data, such as macro-environmental trends, which may impact your audience’s behaviors and the industry at large. 

What types of cookieless data should brands be gathering to understand their audiences?

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. 

How can marketers collect and expand their first-party data? 

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. 

Cookieless Audience Targeting Alternatives

Is contextual targeting an effective cookieless targeting strategy? 

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. 

Are new user identity solutions direct replacements for cookies? 

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. 

Cookieless Targeting Tips

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: 

  1. Invest in first-party data collection
  2. Start testing now 

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. 

2023 Video Advertising Trends and Best Practices

Posted on by Coegi

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.

How Have Trends In Video Consumption And Ad Spend Changed?

Social Media Is An Untapped Market For Video Advertising

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 Marketing Trends For 2023

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. 

1) Understand How Social Platforms Are Used

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. 

2) Lean Into Platform Prioritizations

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. 

3) Keep It Short And Simple

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.

4) Always Use Captions

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. 

So, Why Is Digital Video Advertising So Effective?

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.

 

Why You Should Incorporate Social Media Video Into An Agnostic Video Strategy

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. 

What Are The Benefits Of An Agnostic Video Marketing Strategy?

  • Ability to repurpose video advertising content across channels
  • Greater audience reach by not excluding certain channels 
  • Improve frequency by retargeting across channels
  • More accurate tracking and measurement capabilities 

Written by Julia Wold, Director of Operations and Anissa Reko, Senior Social Media Specialist

Additional Reading

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

3 Higher Education Marketing Strategies to Boost Enrollment

Posted on by Coegi

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:

  1. A complex targeting strategy: How do you reach rising juniors and seniors, parents and guardians, and adults seeking advanced degrees or just starting their education?
  2. The popularization of alternate schooling routes (e.g. trade schools or certifications)
  3. A long sales cycle: Influences on college decision making begin at a young age. When do you start marketing and how do you keep individuals engaged over the multi-year journey? 

Fortunately, having a strong digital marketing strategy can drive enrollments with agility and efficiency. 

Here are my top three higher education marketing strategies to help you get started:

1) Mix Targeting and Messaging to Reach Both Student and Guardian Audiences

Persuading parents

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? 

Persuading students

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.

Persuading non-traditional students

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. 

2) Select Channels that Resonate with Your Key Demographics

Video

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

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.  

Paid Search

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. 

3) Use Lifecycle Messaging to Keep Decision Makers Engaged

Understand the multiyear cycle of a collegiate decision making process. Lifecycle messaging engages students and influential decision makers from initial awareness to application. 

Awareness

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. 

Consideration

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. 

Application & Enrollment

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. 

The OTT/CTV Advertising Opportunity | Webinar

Posted on by Coegi

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

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

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

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

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

In addition, you’ll learn: 

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

For more resources, download our free CTV Advertising Guide.

Travel and Tourism Marketing: The Digital Guide

Posted on by Coegi

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

Are you taking advantage of it?

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

How to Succeed at Travel and Tourism Marketing

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

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

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

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

Your Guide to Success

Download this guide to learn how to:

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

Ready to take off?

View and download the guide below!

The Return of Travel and Tourism Marketing

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

Pathmatics Travel and Tourism Marketing Spend Data

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

Lead With Digital Tactics

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

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

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

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

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

High Impact Travel and Tourism Marketing Channels 

When choosing travel marketing channels, consider these four aspects: 

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

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

Facebook

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

Endemic Travel Sites

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

User-Generated Content 

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

Paid Search

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

Twitter

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

Online Video 

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

Connected TV

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

Influencer

Instagram

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

Pinterest

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

TikTok

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

Retail Media

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

DOOH

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

Local Partnerships

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

Ad Targeting for Travel and Tourism Audiences

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

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

Personalize Messaging 

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

Reach Your Travelers Throughout Their Journey

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

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

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

Measuring Travel and Tourism Marketing Campaigns

Create a Data Terminal

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

Check your unnecessary baggage 

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

Onboard advanced measurement 

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

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

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

Refuel with continuous learning

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

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

Key Takeaways for Travel and Tourism Marketers 

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

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

Gain Finance Consumer Trust with Thought Leadership

Posted on by Maggie Gotszling

You’re often asking your finance consumers to make major decisions – getting a mortgage, opening a child’s college fund, investing in their future… the list goes on. While the majority of financial consumer touchpoints have moved to digital formats to create convenience, it can also create more confusion. Less human interaction with financial advisors and customer representatives means the online content has to work even harder to gain finance consumer trust and influence decision making. 

That’s where thought leadership comes in. 

Thought leadership is any form of content shared by a subject expert with their audience to build credibility, trust, and loyalty. Some of the core benefits of thought leadership for finance brands are: 

  • Greater online visibility – For example, SEO ranking for long form content addressing top consumer banking questions and concerns
  • Competitive differentiation – Providing new insights, opinions, or research to stand out from other finance brands
  • Increased customer lifetime value – High value content establishes relationship building that keeps your brand top of mind

Build a reputation

Having a well-crafted and regularly updated blog on your website is a fantastic place to start building an organic reputation. To further increase your thought leadership efforts, establish publisher content partnerships to create a name for yourself in the industry. Look at high value placements your audience over indexes for, such as Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg News, etc.

Then, use these three factors to evaluate publishers: 

  1. Audience: Does the demographic match your core audience? Will your content be relevant to these readers?  
  2. Content Quality: Is this a highly reputable and trusted source? 
  3. Distribution: Does the readership number align with your target reach as well as budget? 

Find a sweet spot of high reach and high composition to drive the best results.

Think outside the box

Premium placements do come with price tags for the brand value and readership volume. However, there are other lesser utilized channels brands can find success in. Some great examples are Reddit and Quora. Both of these channels are informal, but trusted resources for people searching for answers to specific questions. You can show up in a more casual way on these channels, but still provide high quality information and build rapport with niche finance audiences. 

To really hone in on thought leadership at your financial organization, consider video and audio. Visual and audio content formats are supreme when it comes to engagement, recall, and retention. Consider alternative forms of content such as: 

  • Podcasts – starting your own, or appearing on others 
  • Informational videos on YouTube 
  • Live-streamed videos on LinkedIn

Humanize your finance brand

Thought leadership content humanizes brands in an industry that can seem cold and impersonal. Through content, you can guide your customers through their finance journey. 

That said, you must not lose focus of what’s most important: the customer, not highlighting your brand. Relay empathy – show an authentic understanding of your customer. Let them know you understand the topics they need more information on and the hurdles they are facing when it comes to financial decision making and planning. 

Walk in your customer’s shoes

Before you start touting what you think are the most important benefits your brand offers, stop to listen and learn about what your customer really desires. Is it financial freedom? Business success? Peace of mind? Security in their child’s future? 

Think about where your customer is now and where they want to be. Then, use your thought leadership and creative messaging to facilitate that transformation. 

Support your customers’ needs and concerns

As a financial brand, you undoubtedly have a large range of consumers with an even larger range of needs. From commercial and retail banking to financial services and advising to retirement planning and investing – there are ample opportunities to share information and gain finance consumer trust, ultimately growing your business. 

To understand these needs, make sure you stay on top of trends. Understand what is likely top of mind for your core consumers:

  • Is there an impending recession making older adults rethink retirement? 
  • Is there a housing market boom driving a demand for mortgages? 
  • Are there global crises affecting the stock market and investment decisions? 

Whatever is going on externally, use challenges as a way to serve as a trusted resource and help them navigate what can be overwhelming financial decisions. 

This is not a sales pitch

Wherever you are posting thought leadership, share your knowledge and expertise, not your sales sheet. The content you create should be relevant to a specific consumer issue that is tangential to the solutions or services you provide. Once you’ve established credibility and authority, you no longer have to sell yourself. The consumer will be convinced already – and if not, they were unlikely to ever convert. 

So whether your goal is to improve industry recognition, differentiate from competitors, or enhance customer lifetime value, give thought leadership a try. And remember these keys to gain finance consumer trust through your content: 

  • Use publishers with the right reach and audience composition
  • Be creative with your content formats
  • Keep your content authentic and readable
  • Understand customer needs and concerns 
  • Avoid giving a sales pitch

For more strategic insights to improve your financial marketing strategy, view our Ultimate Guide to Financial Marketing.

Coegi’s Ultimate Guide to Finance Marketing

Boost Customer Lifetime Value with Awareness Marketing

Posted on by Maggie Gotszling

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

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