Tag: Programmatic

Growing Scale and Efficiency Reaching Financial Services Professionals with Search Marketing

Posted on by Coegi

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.

Building a Brand Performance Strategy for Bread & Butter Wines

Posted on by Coegi

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. 

CTV Targeting Best Practices: 4 Tips for Higher Performing Advertising Campaigns

Posted on by Coegi

How can your brand achieve extensive advertising reach without putting valuable marketing dollars at jeopardy? Create a smart CTV targeting strategy. 

TV advertising is a high impact advertising channel for building awareness and increasing share of voice by reaching your target audience in a non-skippable environment. However, the landscape is shifting. 47% of the U.S. TV viewers are already cordless and, by 2025, there will be over 235 million connected TV viewers. Is your brand reaching them? 

In this article, I’ll lay out how you can leverage the targeting and addressability benefits of connected TV in your large-screen video advertising plan. By the end, you will be able to apply four key learnings to your CTV targeting strategy to improve both your marketing ROI and your audience’s experience with your brand:

  • Pair cable and streaming for optimal reach and frequency
  • Diversify streaming platforms based on your CTV campaign goals
  • Leverage the addressability of CTV audience targeting
  • Lean into the power of contextual CTV targeting and premium placements

4 CTV Targeting Tips

#1 – Pair Cable and Streaming for Optimal Reach and Frequency

Before we dive too deep into specific CTV targeting strategies, let’s get one thing straight. We aren’t saying you should ignore linear (cable) television to go all in on digital. Linear TV is still one of the fastest ways to effectively reach mass audiences. However, the best way to achieve comprehensive consumer reach at an appropriate frequency is having the right mix of CTV, OTT, and linear. 

Traditionally, marketers would pour the majority of their big-screen budget into linear TV, and save a small fraction for CTV. There was a misperception that CTV had limited efficiency and reach. It was also more difficult to control ad frequency and compare measurement between linear and streaming. That has since changed. Today, these channels are beginning to speak the same language in terms of measurement, allowing for cross-platform comparisons and omnichannel reporting. 

Treating CTV as simply an incremental tactic is not only outdated, but inefficient. Connected TV ads can offer much greater control in regards to reach and frequency versus linear buys. To maximize results, pair linear and CTV/OTT in your media plan to create an omnichannel video strategy. Then, use cross-channel integration platforms to avoid siloes or ad fatigue, as well as understand impact. 

Hear why there should be a more equitable distribution between traditional and streaming television from our President, Sean Cotton, in this short video clip:

#2 – Diversify Streaming Platforms Based on Your CTV Campaign Goals

CTV targeting success comes down to knowing your marketing objectives and aligning that with placements that make sense based on where your audience consumes television content. You may be understandably concerned by the fragmentation of connected TV. There are so many streaming services and devices that it feels challenging to unify the experience. 

When evaluating targeting decisions, you have to evaluate what you value most: 

  • The streaming platforms on which your brand appears (Hulu, Disney+, Netflix, etc.)
  • Reaching audiences on a 1:1 basis

If you really want to advertise on a select few premium streaming platforms, you should be open to targeting a broader audience. Layering multiple audience segments on top of strict inventory limitations causes difficulties with achieving scale. But, you can leverage research to justify this strategy knowing that your audience spends time on platforms like HBOMax or Hulu, and take comfort knowing your ads are running on quality inventory. 

If your priority is reaching a highly specific audience, cast a wider inventory net. Look beyond the Hulus and walled gardens like Amazon Prime and YouTube TV, and instead lean into an omnichannel CTV buying strategy. While this will require more due diligence to ensure brand safety among lesser known CTV services, it creates an opportunity to take a more holistic approach to the opportunity across your consumer base.

#3 – Leverage the Addressability of CTV Audience Targeting

The golden rule of marketing – do everything in your power to avoid wasting media dollars. At least that’s our philosophy at Coegi. Needless to say, the typical “spray and pray” approach often used to reach broad audiences with linear TV makes us cringe a little. By using data-driven CTV partners, you can still reach broad audiences without overspending. 

There are a lot of data providers that can be activated to reach users on a 1:1 basis. This audience-first approach reaches high-value, addressable segments without overspending on mass media buys. Plus, you improve the user experience by serving relevant content in an engaging, large screen format.

You can also gain greater addressability through automated content recognition – an effective technology to simultaneously improve your audience targeting, ad personalization, and measurement in a privacy preserving way.. Automated content recognition (ACR) technology captures and identifies audio and visual on-screen content. It can capture any content being viewed on a smart TV screen: linear, streaming, video-on-demand, commercials, video games, etc. This data is fingerprinted and can be tied back to IP addresses, creating unique user IDs for specific devices 

The primary ACR targeting methods include:  

  • Target based on ad exposure (competitive conquesting)
  • Content affinity (live tentpole events, shows watched, games played)
  • Viewership behavior (cord-cutters, sports fans, etc.)

ACR data empowers you to better understand and reach your unique audience, as well as personalize messaging. 

#4 – Lean into the Power of Contextual CTV Targeting Strategies and Premium Placements

Audience targeting offers many benefits in the ability to drill down to specific behaviors, purchase history, and more. However, to maximize CTV targeting success, it’s important to balance audience-based and contextual targeting strategies. 

Why? Households share devices, so you cannot always be sure the person you are trying to reach is the one in front of the screen. Additionally, third-party cookie deprecation will impact overall addressability. Contextual CTV targeting does not rely on third-party cookie data, making it a more future-proof solution. It is also a valuable tool to achieve scale by targeting specific networks and content genres using audience affinity data. 

If you want to put a true stake in the ground, secure premium CTV placements through programmatic or direct publisher buys. Think live sporting events, award shows, or an ad spot on the latest Netflix series taking the world by storm. 

These premium placements are more expensive, with CPMs often ranging between $40-50. But, it’s critical to understand the value of running your brand’s message alongside highly recognizable content. If your audience is made up of huge sports fans, the impact of running a thirty-second ad spot during the NBA Finals could be invaluable to your long-term brand performance. Premium CTV placements both elevate trustworthiness for newer brands and energize existing brands. 

Learn more about how to optimize your CTV budget with quality inventory from Coegi’s Director of Programmatic Operations, Hannah Schatz, in this clip: 

The ways in which viewers consume TV are changing, but the overall love of programming remains. Knowing your brand and how your target audiences index against specific content is essential in the future of CTV targeting strategies. Implementing these data-driven targeting tactics will give you access to higher-quality ad space. 

For more information, view our OTT/CTV Advertising Webinar here or access our TV 2.0 Guide to gain a better understanding of the CTV ecosystem. 

Driving 4X ROAS for CPG Wine Client on Instacart

Posted on by Coegi

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. 

Targeting Tourism Audiences With CTV Advertising Campaigns

Posted on by Coegi

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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How to Drive Job Applicants for Healthcare Recruiting Campaigns

Posted on by Coegi

The Brief

A hospital client tasked Coegi with developing a digital healthcare recruiting campaign to drive interest and qualified website traffic for open job positions. Using a combination of social and display tactics, we were able to generate a significant increase in website visits and drive new job applications from a niche audience. 

Highlights

1,496
LinkedIn “Apply Now” conversions

10,000
page views from Display

0.63%
Facebook CTR

Challenge

The ultimate goal was to drive maximal website traffic. But Coegi understood it was critical to ensure the visitors were qualified potential applicants. Due to restrictions on employment-based ad campaigns, the team was creative with data usage across platforms, especially Facebook. Additionally, the client was recruiting for multiple positions, each with different qualifications. This resulted in separate creatives and messaging for each job position, adding a layer of complexity to campaign execution. 

 

Solution

We identified three primary channels for this healthcare recruiting campaign: LinkedIn, Facebook, and programmatic display. 

LinkedIn:

Linkedin was chosen to reach the job-seeking audiences while they were searching. Plus, because they could use job title targeting to be confident the intended audience was being reached. This tactic led to the highest number of “apply now” conversions.

Results: 1,496 application form submissions

Display:

Display was chosen to drive site traffic. Data segments allowed the team to reach niche job titles relevant to the target audience. Using custom data segments allowed for granular job title targeting, while also reaching a larger number of likely users. We ran all job titles in one campaign. Each ad set was targeting a specific job field driving users to unique landing pages. 

Display Results: Nearly 10,000 recruitment page views

Facebook: 

With Facebook, we navigated targeting limitations since employment is a special ad category. This forced a more general targeting strategy focused more on consideration, driving scale for the campaign. Like display, this was primarily used to drive site traffic and make job seekers aware of open positions. 

Facebook Results: 0.63% CTR, 5,650 interview page views, 8,783 career page views

This cross-channel strategy allowed us to target niche job titles and drive high site traffic, despite limitations. Healthcare and pharma brands often defer to brand awareness campaigns due to restrictions in targeting sensitive audiences and compliance laws. However, this campaign showed how health-focused brands can shake that mold and achieve out of the box, lower-funnel goals, such as recruitment, using strategic digital media plans.

How to Prove ROI for CPG Brands Using Loyalty & Purchase Data

Posted on by Coegi

The Brief

Bahlsen partnered with Coegi to relaunch their brand across six geographic locations in the United States. Partnering with Catalina, a consumer data company, the teams were able to target, measure, and optimize CTV and display campaign results in real-time across multiple platforms. This resulted in significant incremental sales lift and an increase in new buyers and repeat purchases. 

Highlights

28%
Sales Lift

38%
New Buyer Base

8%
New Buyer Repeat Purchase Rate

Challenge

Measuring marketing campaign ROI can be complicated for CPG brands. Data from online and in-store sales combined with the cyclical purchasing habits of consumers can significantly blur the lines of marketing attribution. It can also handicap a marketer’s ability to make informed optimizations throughout. Without these insights, a true understanding of campaign success can be out of reach for most brands without the assistance of advanced measurement. 

 

Solution

We knew the key to success for Bahlsen was gathering real-time sales data to inform quick optimizations and gain feedback on sales lift. It was also important to reach audiences across multiple channels to facilitate consideration and keep the brand top of mind. 

We looked to Catalina to assist with this challenge. With almost 40 years of consumer data and one of the largest in-store media networks, Catalina has built an activation, measurement and attribution model. This allows CPG marketers to build and target hyper-focused niche audience groups across multiple channels. 

Using Catalina’s measurement technology and data, we developed and activated highly segmented first-party data lists across CTV and digital display platforms. These audiences consisted of current customers, lost/lagged customers and potential consumers. These rich targeting segments were more likely to engage with and purchase the product than the broader U.S. population. This set the foundation for campaign success. 

However, the real key to driving results for our client was in the cross-channel targeting of these lists to keep the brand top of mind at point of purchase. To do this, our team activated CTV and display campaigns using Catalina’s in-house network. Simultaneously, we were targeting the same audiences on Facebook and Instagram. 

The seven week campaign resulted in an incremental sales lift of 28% (16% benchmark) with a 38% increase in new buyer base and a repeat purchase rate of 8% in those new users. For CPG brands looking to prove advertising ROI, prioritize collecting high quality customer sales data to accurately track and measure sales lift throughout campaigns. To amplify results, use segmented audience lists with a cross-channel strategy to increase reach and frequency among key consumer groups.

Growing Omnichannel Retail Solutions for a Wine Brand

Posted on by Coegi

The Brief

Coegi helped a wine brand grow both its online and in-store sales by executing an omnichannel digital campaign. Leveraging strategic micro-targeting, paid social media, and grocery delivery app relationships, the campaign achieved impressive ROAS, along with increased purchases and store visits to retailers in the wine brand’s distribution network.

Highlights

5X
Return on Ad Spend

4,500
Direct to Consumer Purchases

9,700
Store Visits

Challenge

A “healthier-for-you” wine brand came to Coegi to expand its omnichannel retail presence. In 2020, they were facing the challenging effects of COVID-19 on shopping behaviors, as well as growing consumer demand for online alcohol sales. Our client needed to provide a convenient way for consumers to shop online while still growing brick-and-mortar sales.

Solution

Coegi helped our wine client create an omnichannel retail solution using digital media.

First, we leaned heavily into Facebook to support online sales using a social commerce ad along with a dynamic retargeting catalog ad. Throughout 2020, these two campaigns alone drove over 4,500 DTC purchases with an exceptional average ROAS of 6.76x. 

We also built a precise shopper marketing campaign on Facebook using co-branded retail carousels to target major DMAs on a national scale. The click-through URL showed consumers a list of nearby stores. We then deployed a foot traffic lift study, which attributed nearly 9,700 store visits to these campaigns.  

To build on this success, we partnered with grocery delivery providers, Drizly and Instacart. With Drizly, we ran a co-branded Facebook campaign to increase awareness of the brand’s availability on this platform. This allowed us to track delivery purchases attributed to the campaign to understand short-term ROI. Instacart in-platform ads were also a major success. In the final months of the year, the team saw an average ROAS of 5.9x with nearly $83,000 in attributable sales. 

Together, these campaigns increased overall brand equity while also driving an increase in omnichannel sales revenue. 

Driving Retail Traffic and Sales for a Beauty Brand

Posted on by Coegi

The brief

Coegi created an omni-channel campaign to drive in-store retail traffic and attributable sales for a beauty client during a key sales period.

Highlights

$0.25
Cost Per Store Visit

4.6M
In-Store Conversions

Challenge

Coegi’s beauty brand client sells skin and lip care products online and in retail locations across the US. In-store retailer purchases drive the majority of their revenue and were the priority for our marketing strategy. 

However, it can be challenging to track and measure the impact of paid media on in-store purchases. Coegi needed to show how this campaign drove sales and purchase consideration during the holiday season.

Solution

Coegi used three core audiences to target this campaign – Eco Consumers, Millennial Moms and College Consumers. Additionally, we used high-intent holiday shopping audiences to maximize the time of year.

We activated these audiences across display and video campaigns, optimizing for reach and completion rate to drive in-store traffic. This was reinforced through retailer-specific creative to ensure shoppers knew where the brand was available. A foot traffic study was also implemented using mobile app ID data to correlate ad exposure with store visitation. 

We took a test and learn approach, using traffic and purchase data to determine top performing retail locations. We then reinforced those top stores in key geos, further building upon sales momentum. This campaign drove over 4.6 million store visits, with an average cost-per-store-visit of $0.25 across all media and millions in sales. This was highly efficient for driving brand consideration compared to the $3-7 product price point. 

Q4 sales reports indicated that the strong revenue numbers were directly tied with efficient cost-per-visit metrics. Analysis of foot traffic conversions also helped identify top markets for the brand. This campaign displayed the importance of combining advanced measurement studies and non-media data to determine the incremental impact of digital media on driving retail traffic and sales. 

Gaining Traction on YouTube for an Agriculture Brand

Posted on by Coegi

The Brief

An agriculture company needed assistance driving reach and video completions for a video series on their YouTube channel. Using in-stream, bumper and discovery ads on YouTube, the team was able to improve the brand’s overall organic presence.

Highlights

53MM
Impressions

55%
Completion Rate

$0.04
Cost Per Completed View

Challenge

An agriculture company produced a video series for its YouTube channel. But they saw few views and low channel engagement, despite having dozens of videos and a dedicated in-house YouTube team. They wanted to expand reach and video completions to see a greater ROI. However, this proved to be tricky. Most of the video content was longer than 5 minutes, which often loses the user’s attention, unless they are highly invested or are already brand loyalists.

Solution

Coegi worked alongside sister agency, True Media, to amplify content on YouTube to meet the client’s upper-funnel goals. View in-stream and bumper ads for their series introduction video helped increase awareness, with the goal of encouraging users to watch the full series.  Additionally, users who watched the full bumper ad or 30 second in-stream videos were retargeted with other relevant content in the series. 

We also recommended adding in Discovery ads that appear in YouTube search results and video suggestions. In this placement, users are redirected to watch the full video on the brand’s channel, thus meeting the goal of increased video views. 

Despite a quick turnaround time, the team achieved outstanding results from this campaign. With a roughly $100,000 investment, the campaign drove over 53MM impressions across the US and Canada. The average completion rate was 55%, exceeding the 40% benchmark. Cost per completed views were also efficient at just $0.04. Finally, this improved the brand’s overall organic presence. They also achieved over 100,000 earned views across videos that offered added value outside of the campaign investment. 

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