Author: Sierra Ducey

Guest Author: Jared Jackson, Client Development 

Think about how you make an online purchase nowadays, it’s often a scrupulous process – reviewing products, digesting reviews, inquiring on 3rd party sites until you’ve found the product that fits your standards and needs –

“Digital channels are much more important to driving physical channels than the e-commerce transactions themselves…[it’s] starting to affect the way companies think about the role of digital in driving their whole brand.” – Steve Dennis, President, SageBerry Consulting

As marketers, discovering how your target consumers are behaving in this shift of retail e-commerce allows you to execute precise media buys that find relevant consumers at the most optimal times in their path-to-purchase.

So what are these shifts? The growth and change in e-commerce is the result of a culmination of parts:

• Technology advancement is allowing the consumer to use their mobile device to make purchases more seamlessly – according to Emarketer mobile commerce is expected to supersede desktop by the year 2021.
• Social media platforms are becoming the premier partners for direct-to-consumer brands – hyper-relevant 1st party data makes the consumer’s path incredibly transparent making it easier than ever to model, target, and reach your ideal customers
• e-Commerce is cut-throat – According to Emarketer Amazon is the king of e-commerce, accounting for nearly 4 out of every 10 dollars spent in e-commerce.  In an industry where sales are won and lost by mere inches on desktop and mobile screens, investing in an advertising strategy to get in front of consumers first and more frequently is key.

To keep up with the e-commerce shifts mentioned above, it’s imperative marketers activate the right tactics Have no fear, we’ve made it easy to tell you to get started. Below you’ll find three must-try tactics to get more out of your advertising investments.

1. Social media advertising
   Social media is the #1 driver of customer acquisition amongst 61% of direct-to-consumer brands according to eMarketer. 
   Using social media for customer acquisition may seem like an obvious must for all e-commerce brands but it’s something marketers continue to struggle with. There are a couple of prerequisites for using social media for customer acquisition. First, you need to have a clear idea of who you are trying to reach. Second, you need a media plan that diversifies ad spending across any social media networks your customers are using. Example: a media plan that includes Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest rather than a plan that focuses solely on Facebook.
2. In-App Advertising
   According to App Annie, retail app sessions in the US jumped 70% from 2016 to 2018, signaling a notable shift in consumers’ digital shopping habits.
   Mobile commerce is quickly becoming a leading force in driving online retail sales. The barrier has been lifted in regards to aversion downloading mobile apps.  For e-commerce brands, this means two things. More opportunities to collect 1st party data on users of their owned app and more opportunities to reach consumers in an app-based context beyond your owned app. Example: targeting consumers with an offer while they are streaming music or playing a game in-app.
3. Influencer Marketing
   According to Emarketer, influencers are equally as effective as paid ads are for customer acquisition channels.
   As a marketer looking to invest in influencer marketing, your job is to identify the most important influencers for your brand, whether they are existing customers, industry experts, or celebrities with a niche following. While influencers are often characterized as having high traffic or follower numbers, it’s important not to overlook factors like engagement. After all, engagement is what digital advertising is all about.

About a month ago, I posted a blog about the changing dynamic of digitally native brands. Brands that started and found great success online – think Allbirds, Away, Outdoor Voices – are now shifting their brand position to include brick and mortar stores. At the same time, we’re constantly seeing headlines about consumers, millennials, in particular, shifting more and more toward online shopping. We’re bombarded with headlines like “…malls see tsunami of store closures, falling traffic,” “These haunting photos of the retail apocalypse reveal a new normal in America…” and “Malls are doomed: 25% will be gone in 5 years.”

So, if everything is pointing towards abandoning storefront, why are successful companies investing in these new brick and mortar locations?

It’s no question that consumers are shifting their spending dollars towards e-commerce, consumers will spend $586.92 billion on e-commerce in 2019, representing 10.7% of all US retail spending (a 14% increase from 2018). However, brick and mortar retail still account for the remaining  89.3% of total US retail spending. Brands shouldn’t shy away from opening up brick-and-mortar locations, they just need to 1.) ensure they understand where brick-and-mortar fits within the modern customer journey and 2.) ensure they can reach consumers no matter where they are at along the customer journey.   

The modern customer journey doesn’t start and stop online, today it continues beyond the screen to include in-store experiences and purchases. Here are three things marketers should keep in mind when building out a comprehensive marketing plan that encompasses the entire consumer journey:

1. The customer journey is changing: The traditional customer journey was a straight path outlined as awareness, familiarity, consideration, and purchase. However, with the increase in brand touchpoints, there is no longer a uniform customer journey. What was once a straight line to purchase, is now more of a loop. The customer journey loop requires brands to interact with the consumers long before and long after a purchase is made. Even after a purchase, customers continue to read reviews and look at competitor products, so brands need to continue their conversation and work even harder in hopes of eventually winning that customer loyalty. 

2. Design an omnichannel marketing strategy: Today, the options for brands to tell their stories extends beyond print, out-of-home, and TV placements to include digital advertising buys like display, search, and social. A modern approach to advertising is no longer about reaching people in siloed channels. It’s increasingly about reaching real people with the flexibility to meet audiences wherever the are across the customer journey.

Additionally, brands need to incorporate personalization ads and experiences, based on where a customer is in the journey as mentioned above. For example, programmatic advertising allows brands to target consumers based on the products they’ve looked at, past purchases and so much more.

3. Look beyond 3rd party data alone: There is no single digital tactic that can magically drive growth, but a data-driven marketing strategy is a critical aspect of any successful brand’s marketing DNA. Third-party data has become table-stakes. Thinking beyond third-party data expands the area of opportunities for marketers by enabling them to go beyond a pre-packaged audience. Consider layering on the following data sources to generate audience models that can be used in omnichannel marketing campaigns that help acquire new customers:

• 1st party CRM data
• Geo-location data
• App-ownership data
• Social media data

With newly emerging touchpoints, like shoppable ads on social media, brands are constantly challenged to stay in step with the modern customer journey. Finding a digital partner that can help you navigate this challenge and can make your job a little bit easier. To get started with streamlining your omnichannel marketing plan, contact us today. 

Automatic content recognition, or ACR, is a technology that identifies consumed audio and video content on digital devices. Though most commonly associated with smart TVs, ACR can be perused on any platform connected to the internet. It isn’t available everywhere, however, and only becomes accessible if a user opts-in to data collection and has their device turned on. More people are trading in their old television sets for smart TVs – they’ll be in 75% of American homes by 2022 – which explains why the acronym has quickly become a marketing essential. Just as the Shazam app can help a user identify a song played in a store, an ACR enabled television can identify what a user is watching on a second-by-second basis to help brands strengthen their marketing efforts. Read on to learn more about ACR and how implementing it can benefit your brand and target consumers:

What is ACR and How Does it Work?
ACR is a software that listens and absorbs to identify content. In seconds, it can determine what a user is watching and if they are using a tablet, smart TV, or mobile device. It can also label the content as linear, OOT, DVR, or VOD, and is expected to become a $5 billion business by 2021. This intelligent, highly profitable data process operates in four steps:

• Step One – Unboxing and Consent: Automatic content recognition is launched when an individual turns on a wifi powered device for the first time. Users will be faced with the option to opt-in to audio/video data collection during this initial set-up phase. They can go back and edit their decision in the future, of course, but it is often difficult to do so. Many devices will even require being set-up again in order to revert this decision.
• Step Two – Fragment Analyzation: If a user opts-in to data collection, a device provider is able to analyze small fragments of images or sounds from the content being consumed over time. This capability is embedded in millions of internet devices and gives marketers the ability to understand what kind of programs and advertisements a user gravitates towards.
• Step Three – Content Matching: These tiny samples are then processed by ACR software and uploaded to the cloud. The content is cross-referenced and matched to existing fragments, audio, or video-based, to allow advertisers to determine what piece of content, (think a TV show, a music video, or an advertisement,) is being viewed by a user. This process generates data about a viewer’s history and becomes identifiable to marketers via a device’s IP address.
• Step Four – Personalized Targeting: The content has been matched and the information has been shared with select advertisers. From there, marketers can link devices together to learn more about target consumers and where their interests lie. With this information, brands are able to launch individualized, cross-device marketing campaigns that increase ad visibility and consumer interest.

How Does ACR Benefit Advertisers?
ACR works hand in hand with brands by giving them a cohesive glimpse into the effectiveness of their marketing campaigns. With a user’s consent, advertisers are able to understand what people are watching in-real-time and how, when, and where their ads are being consumed. Having this information about viewing habits makes it simpler for companies to target the right ads to the right people in a personalized way. And by having an attached IP address, brands are able to retarget cross-functionally to encourage more viewers, (including those who weren’t paying attention to the ad,) to gain interest in the marketed product or service. ACR also allows brands to reach those who prefer to watch tv without ads. By knowing what content these individuals are consuming, marketers gain valuable insight as to where their interests lie and where they can be advertised to best. No matter the platform, this technology is what gives advertisers the highly anticipated ability to tailor highly customized messages to households and individuals nationwide.

How Does ACR Benefit Consumers?
Those that consent to audio and video tracking are also eligible for rewards. By opting-in, users are giving advertisers permission to deliver personalized ads to them across all approved devices. This gets rid of the unrelatable advertisements a consumer may be exposed to when watching television or scrolling through social media accounts. It makes their digital experience a unique one that caters to their hobbies and interests. It eliminates that ‘constantly being advertised to’ feeling and makes marketing feel like a normalized, seamless experience.

ACR has the power to revolutionize marketing as we know it and it will only continue to grow in popularity as more than half of US adults now own a streaming enabled television. To learn more about Digilant’s TV and video media buying capabilities, (especially when it comes to programmatic and addressable TV,) contact us here!

Programmatic adoption is rapidly rising, but some healthcare brands are still wary of making the investment. Guidelines put in place by government agencies are confusing, and the uncertainties surrounding patient privacy and Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) regulations are blurry. Healthcare brands want to reach the right audience for their services or products, but they don’t want to cross ethical or legal lines by taking audience targeting too far. Healthcare is one of the highest regulated industries and consumer health and medical record information is heavily protected, making it difficult to target the right audience online. Healthcare brands are limited in how they can track healthcare-based journeys, and they are unable to identify and retarget consumers based on known conditions. But the benefits of programmatic are promising. Keep reading to learn how healthcare brands can take on the digital space with confidence.
Why Programmatic? What are the Benefits?
71% of American adults venture online to learn more about healthcare information. By implementing programmatic strategies, healthcare and pharmaceutical brands are able to reach this promising audience quickly and effectively. And with 40% of consumers making healthcare-related decisions based on information found online, programmatic becomes a marketing must-have for healthcare brands. The digital space is where people research answers to questions and concerns about health. If they have a symptom, they look up potential causes. If something feels wrong, Google becomes the all-knowing provider of advice. Reaching these audiences online with targeted, contextually relevant ads (that abide by digital laws and regulations,) healthcare brands can break through the noise and actively engage potential customers. Before you get started, below are three things you should keep in mind if you’re planning to invest in programmatic

1. Understand Data Consent: It is essential for brands to acknowledge the NAI’s regulations pertaining to the collection of healthcare data before implementing programmatic strategies. According to the NAI, consumer consent of data collection is mandatory when sources pertain to sensitive health conditions such as mental health, cancer, HIV, AIDS, etc. When it comes to less urgent conditions such as dieting, acne, colds, or allergies, however, data collection consent is no longer necessary.
2. Target Based on Interest:  Consumers cannot be targeted or retargeted by healthcare brands based on health conditions. But they can be targeted based on their interests in conditions or symptoms. A healthcare brand can use what is known in the form of past content consumed to programmatically deliver ads. Though a brand cannot target someone with a certain disease, condition, or sickness, they can promote offerings to general audiences that are older and search for similar symptoms. These brands may not reach the perfect candidate, but they are increasing the probability of doing so tremendously.
3. Target Based on Content: Healthcare ads can be programmatically placed next to related content in the form of blog posts, videos, forums, and so on. The consumers searching for this content cannot be targeted or followed, but the content that reaches the right people can be pursued. Think of an anti-inflammatory drug popping up next to a blog about stomach pain. From there, whitelists can be used by pharma brands to assure that the same programmatic ads refrain from popping up on unreliable sites.

The future of programmatic for healthcare marketing is promising but undoubtedly complex. If you are ready to learn more about how you can leverage programmatic in your brand’s marketing plan, we’re ready to talk. Contact us today to get started!

Retail brands are beginning to outfit themselves head-to-toe in programmatic. The fashion industry is evolving quickly for small boutiques, large wholesale chains, and everything in between, and consumer shopping habits are changing. Technological advancements have made shopping digitally simple, (and, for the most part, preferred) but ample consumers still find joy in shopping at brick-and-mortar locations. So how can programmatic be used both online and offline to effectively reach today’s active, digitally-minded consumers? This year, more than 95% of retailers are planning to increase their online media spending significantly. And as more people shop for clothes —  something that will never go out of style — the more pertinent programmatic becomes. As a media planner or marketer working in fashion, consider the following information as you begin to allocate your attention to the digital space:

Why Now? What’s Been Holding the Fashion Industry Back?

The apparel industry isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. People find joy in buying and creating outfits, but shopping habits have become confusing. Today’s consumers are especially mixed when it comes to how and where they buy their newest attire. That being said, data has become an essential competitive advantage among retailers of any size. It unlocks information about past shopping habits, item preferences, geographic locations, and so on. But many fashion brands don’t know where to begin when it comes to using, (and finding) data to personalize offers and enhance retail experiences. Other industries are soaring ahead when it comes to using programmatic as those in fashion are held back, hesitant and confused. This hasn’t been a voluntary choice for many. Ample retailers are constrained by fast fashion’s rapidly changing discounts and product assortments. SKU numbers are complex and competition for ad space is intense. What’s worse, ⅓ of fashion brands currently lack the expertise necessary to realize the full potential, power, and profitability of digital marketing. Simply put: the fashion industry has been missing out on digital because it’s a field that hasn’t been prioritized. Through data enforcement and the creation of new, in-house tech teams, retailers have the power to leap ahead of age-old industry roadblocks. And by implementing programmatic, (or the buying and selling of ads in-real-time) communication can be established with consumers in seconds. It’s the digital tool retailers have been hoping for that keeps up with the industry’s speed while simultaneously increasing brand awareness.

What are the Pros of Programmatic?

The consumers of today are practically feeding their personal information into the digital space. The phones in their hands, the receipts at the bottom of their bags — the data readily available to fashion brands is alarming. Programmatic makes this data mean something. And its benefits, highlighted below, can reap major rewards for those hoping to dominate the retail space in 2019 and beyond:

• It stresses personalization: Less than 10% of fashion brands are personalizing communications via email, paid social, and display advertisements. But with programmatic, a tool that uses data to individually reach people at the right place and time, past marketing behavior becomes revolutionized. What’s most interesting about this lack of digital personalization is the fact that retail is known for forming personalized, mutually beneficial relationships with consumers. Thankfully, with programmatic, the same can be done in the digital space. It’s a tool that allows a brand to greet, understand, and recognize consumers again in a luxurious and intimate way.

 

• It expands reach: Programmatic strengthens relationships with current consumers. It can also help retailers reach future consumers who are likely to be attracted to their brand’s offerings. In an industry that is always expanding and growing, this ability to target lookalikes with catered products and services has become increasingly important.

 

• It creates an impressive data portfolio: Data gathered from programmatic initiatives can be altered at any time. Messaging can be amplified, designs can be changed — It streamlines creative with numbers to paint a picture of total campaign effectiveness. Programmatic’s data builds a single view of every single consumer a company comes into contact with. It records how they react to ads and, most importantly, what actions they take after seeing them. From there, a brand has the power to use what was learned in the past to create a stronger future.

More and more consumers are beginning to expect personalized treatment from brands across industries. In fashion, retailers that plan to use technology, especially in the form of programmatic, to better understand the past, present, and future behavior of consumers will rise ahead. They’ll obtain optimal market share, awareness, and satisfaction from consumers. And as the landscape of retail changes daily across touchpoints, they’ll be the digital, confident, well dressed stores left standing.

Guest Author: Erika Garbero, Senior Data Analyst

 
No two customer journeys are exactly alike so why do creative placements treat it as such? According to a recent Forbes article highlighting 2019 technology trends, “These days, customers expect brands to understand what they’re interested in, their position in the customer journey and their relationship with the brand.” Enter: Dynamic Creative Optimization (DCO).

Utilizing Dynamic Creative (Optimization) elevates traditional programmatic display or video placements by delivering timely, relevant, and user-specific ads to those engaging with the media. Dynamic meets media viewers where they are in their customer journey, at each stage of the funnel. Meeting consumers or potential customers where they are instead of serving a generic message is key when attempting to maximize Return on Ad Spend (ROAS).

 

How does Dynamic Creative work for those viewing my media?

A number of elements can go into a prospecting or retargeting Dynamic Creative strategy that trigger real time creative updates for a personalized experience – weather, geography, day part, audience targeting – to name a few. Retargeting power is heightened when you can pinpoint cart abandoners with a carousel of items that previously piqued their interest. Further, you may choose to customize pricing displayed to certain media viewers that previously had purchased on an incremental buy structure, rather than a one time lump sum.

Brian Francis, Director of Programmatic Advertising at Vehicle, describes engagement in two main phases, “On the engagement side the question would be what can we leverage from a programmatic perspective that can help grab the attention of the target by leveraging something familiar. This could be leveraging location, context, weather, time-of-day, group association etc. Second, is relevance. The question here is to align product or service benefits to the audience segment you are addressing. This can be leveraging demographic, psychographic, life-stage, presence of children or competitive insight.”

How do we set up Dynamic Creative?

Colton Dirksen, Head of Business Development at Adacado, offers advice for advertisers implementing Dynamic Creative for the first time stating, “advertisers starting out in Dynamic Creative don’t need to have to go all in at once…for instance, many of the advertisers using Adacado’s platform start by delivering simple efficiency gains and then post-launch, they’ll incorporate more creative targeting to increase message personalization, delivering higher ROAS.”

Setting up Dynamic Creative is an iterative process with multiple parties involved. According to Nicole Perrin from Emarketer, “Brands must take the lead, set expectations and manage the process to ensure success.” A data feed controls the triggers and logic laid out in the prospecting and retargeting strategies to enable these real time creative updates. Colton Dirksen describes a data feed as “a document that contains structured information around products, vehicles, flights, jobs or other list of items.  A data feed also includes attributes associated with each of the products / offer, such as images, titles, descriptions and URL. A feed is typically created to supply the content required to build websites in an automated fashion. These same data feeds may be used to automate the creation of digital display ads.” Collaboration between agencies, creative partners, and brands is key to get the creative up and running between the strategizing, technical, and testing/editing stages.

Through all the technical aspects of DCO, we cannot forget about the customer. Perrin comments on the importance of heeding the privacy of consumers and their data, “Consumer data is at the heart of much Dynamic Creative Optimization, and that means putting privacy and security issues at the center.”

We ran Dynamic Creative for our campaign. Now what?

Like traditional creative updating and testing, Dynamic Creative strategy is never fully complete. Dynamic Creative allows necessary creative testing and revamping in ways that traditional A/B testing cannot deliver. Not to mention, as Colton Dirksen confirms, that the creative process is much more efficient with advanced creative build technology which “decreases DCO creative build hours from 16 to 12 to 8 to 4” and in the case of the Adacado “new self-serve platform under an hour.” The efficiencies in the Dynamic Creative build process, like the service offered by Adacado, are essential to consider when calculating ROAS.

In addition to creating efficiencies in time and spend, running DCO for a given campaign opens a door to a robust data pool. Advertisers have a number of metrics at their fingertips: conversion or engagement performance by type of weather, time of day/day of week, creative messaging, creative images, and any other metrics an onsite pixel can pass back. As for advertisers, with more data comes more responsibility to our customers to deep dive into the information and consistently re-evaluate prospecting, retargeting strategies, and creative messaging to deliver the most personalized content possible.

Fortunately, partners like Digilant can help guide interested advertisers through the DCO process, including analyzing data to make appropriate optimizations or recommendations for maximum return. Please reach out to Digilant to chat strategy or mock up your creatives for your campaigns here.

Performance marketing is a popular business model that is predicted to grow at a 10% rate in 2020. An average 62% of a brand’s marketing budget already goes to performance marketing and this amount is expected to raise over time. To invest more energy and attention into the understanding of this model means seeing amplified results in a more promising, lower cost environment. If your company is tired of investing millions of dollars into campaigns without seeing any results, then this form of marketing is for you. And as it breaks down barriers, it builds up confidence, all while delivering incredible results for your brand.

What is Performance Marketing?

Performance Marketing is a mode of communication that occurs when advertisers pay agencies based on how well a campaign “performs.” Opposed to just paying for an advertisement here and there, advertisers are able to define desired outcomes in advance and pay for their ad’s success on a rolling basis. Performance marketers, therefore, are focused on measurable accomplishments in the form of leads, sign-ups, or conversions. It moves the focus away from impressions and clicks, (awareness), to genuine business results, (actions). This outlook strengthens partnerships, emphasizes consumer engagement, and limits fraud’s prevalence in today’s digital landscape.

What are the Benefits of Performance Marketing for Advertisers and Agencies?

• Increased Flexibility: In performance marketing, outlines are established ahead of a campaign’s launch that are transparent and concise. Advertisers discuss what they want to happen – what their goals are, what numbers they’d like to see, how they’d like to see them, etc. – and agencies adjust campaigns as necessary to generate the strongest results possible. The flexibility in performance payment plans and optimization makes these goals more accessible and attainable in the long run.
• • Payment Plans: This is a mode of marketing that rebels against the traditional ‘pay beforehand in confidence’ model. As aforementioned, performance calls for advertisers to pay agencies based on the quality and number of results obtained over time. Payment, as a result, is based on a pay-per-lead, pay-per-sale, or pay-per-click basis, (but other campaigns may pay based on other actions). In the case of a lead, an agency would be compensated once a consumer performs a specific lead action, such as filling out a form, signing up for a newsletter, etc. The opportunities are widespread and can be adjusted to best fit the campaign at hand.
• • Constant Optimization: Instead of launching a campaign in hopes of results, (without even seeing results), advertisers have constant snapshots of their ROI at any moment. This simplified access to data and trends allows brands to more efficiently monitor success and pay back agencies for their hard work. This also opens up opportunities to adjust campaigns as necessary, or to pour more energy into strategies that are working while simultaneously retreating from those that are not.
• Greater Accountability: With both sides of the advertiser-agency partnership remaining vigilant of results, accountability is heightened. Everyone is paying attention and money is exchanged only when success occurs. Fraud, in this case, is reduced and the pressure to make money and remain in frequent communication with the other is on.
• Less Costs, Quicker Launches: Advertisers only pay per result in performance marketing. If a certain campaign isn’t working despite adjustments, brands are able to save money and allocate funds toward profitable opportunities elsewhere. And, because the approval processes in performance marketing are less elaborate, campaigns are able to launch faster and, hopefully bring about timely results.

Why Align Performance With Programmatic?
The benefits of performance marketing are immense, and, when paired with programmatic, are strengthened. These two areas are inherently compatible due to their focus on results, collaboration, and transparency. When combined, the goal is not only focused on actionable outcomes, but also effective messaging and increased viewability. This combination emphasizes lift results with the addition of highly targeted ads that are paid on the basis of performance. It also grants the opportunity to alter programmatic campaigns based on progress; a major opportunity in today’s crowded, cluttered digital space.
To remain ahead, consider placing an emphasis on performance programmatic when launching future marketing campaigns. Rather than just accessing lackluster inventory, pursue quality placements that are backed in personalization and trust. By replacing awareness with action and dishonesty for accountability, your company becomes susceptible to greater results and a strengthened reputation.