Author: Liz Cerrone

If you’re looking to drive measurable growth for CPG brands, you must have an effective CPG omnichannel marketing strategy. Consumers have gotten used to the notion of getting what they want and need online, but still want the same experiences they had when shopping in-store. Although things are getting somewhat back to normal, there is still an opportunity to cater to these types of customers without them losing interest in a great shopping experience from brands they love.

While some companies may have a siloed structure within their organizations and don’t have the resources or analytical know-how to integrate captured data to create a holistic, effective CPG omnichannel marketing strategy, understanding how this strategy is imperative to future success can make the difference between moving forward or being left behind.

What is Omnichannel Marketing?

Think about the brands providing a cohesive shopping experience for their customers, whether online or in-person. The same products and experiences are accessible to everyone, catering to every audience while empowering buyers. Customers are reached across a number of channels working together based on their buying cycle state.

The beauty of a CPG omnichannel marketing strategy is the granular way consumer buying patterns are identified to determine who is most likely to purchase based on the in-store or online experience.

What is an Omnichannel Strategy?

An omnichannel strategy delivers campaigns differently. It focuses on delivering content across the entire buyer’s journey, no matter where they are in the funnel. The brand is focused and strategic, providing the same voice on every platform regardless of the audience. Each channel used should build on the next, creating a strong presence of channels working together for the buyer.

Although different channels are used, traditional media should still be included. A good omnichannel strategy includes radio, OOH, digital, eBooks, brochures, flyers, packaging, and other tactics.

CPG and Omnichannel Marketing

Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) can really thrive in the omnichannel marketing space. Consumers like being engaged with brands, so the communication must be there. With so many ways to share content, brands must incorporate all these tactics into their strategy to effectively reach every audience. Making customers feel like their buying journey is tailored just for them is key. CPG has a unique opportunity to gain traction with customers by understanding and delivering optimized communications at every touchpoint.

Doing the research matters. The brand must find out who their customers are, what they are buying, how they are buying (online or in-store), are there products that are bought only online or in-store? How many channels are in their buyer’s journey before they decide to buy? This is a great opportunity for CPG companies to stand out from their competition and make a real impact in the marketplace among those customers that are interested in their brand.

With customers shopping online more, flexibility in the way the experience is presented makes a difference. Mobile devices are one of the best ways to engage customers and drive conversions, but employing a direct approach that includes operations, marketing, sales channels, and fulfillment within their CPG omnichannel marketing strategy.

CPG brands can succeed by building on this direct approach to keep up with the modern consumer by doing the following:

1. Capitalize on direct-to-consumer channels.

Companies that have started building direct-to-consumer sites are the real winners. Customers in the past year have turned to DTC to purchase items they regularly use or CPGs. In fact, 87% of consumers indicate they would purchase directly from brands online. How can this occur? Consider any channel conflict that may occur by diversifying products being sold online and in-store, don’t neglect new, emerging technology, and have the right fulfillment systems in place.

2. Use social media to promote the brand.

It’s no secret that brands must be on social media to engage with different audiences. Brands that have a DTC website are ahead of the curve but giving consumers options to purchase on social media platforms like Instagram or Facebook enhances the experience and helps build stronger connections. Using additional channels to engage and drive consumers to the DTC site helps create continuity and brand awareness. Tik Tok is one of the best platforms to do this.

3. Be transparent with inventory.

Not only do CPG brands need to focus on DTC and promoting the brand, but having what consumers want in stock makes the brand look good, increases demand because they don’t have to wait for new inventory, and helps the back office centralize fulfillment operations.

4. Have a seamless order and fulfillment process.

There are many companies that only have DTC options available to customers in certain areas. One of the reasons this is so effective is because their order, shipping, and fulfillment processes are second-to-none. Having the inventory on hand and a quick shipping process makes consumers happy and eager to spend money on that brand again.

By gathering data and gaining a deeper understanding of their customers to fully grasp their challenges, goals, and needs, CPG brands will be able to provide the best omnichannel experience. Departments within the organization must work together, restructuring how they operate to develop an integrated customer experience from every touchpoint. By working together, each department understands how they all contribute to the customer experience and can communicate from an agile marketing mindset. eCommerce is a huge part of CPG brands and will continue to grow with consumer demand. CPG brand strategies must also include voice search, an enhanced relationship with retailers, and adapt additional channels that help them stay relevant in this space.

The Value of a CPG Omnichannel Marketing Strategy

Is it really worth it to offer an omnichannel experience for consumers? Absolutely. CPG brands who understand the value of these types of experiences within their marketing strategy have a 30% higher lifetime value than the brands that don’t.

If your brand is looking to develop a CPG omnichannel marketing strategy, working with a team that understands the nuances and development process is key. The team at Digilant works with your brand to create a strategy that helps you engage, interact, and convert your audience into loyal customers. Interested in learning more? Contact us today.

The travel category is commoditized and highly competitive, with aggressive marketers for brands, OTAs, and third-party booking sites spending hundreds of millions of dollars in media.

Brands like Trivago, JetBlue, and Hyatt are spending as much as $65 million a year in advertising. eMarketer reports that in 2019 travel marketers are expected to spend over $10 Billion across digital channels alone. Travel brands focus heavily on the category’s transactional dimensions — price, reviews, loyalty perks — leaving no white space for brands who can’t or don’t want to outspend the competition.

So how can travel brands cut through the clutter in a category where you can’t simply buy your way to success? Our approach is to help travel brands connect with customers begins with a proven formula that combines a data-driven planning discipline with flawless execution across programmatic, search, social, and beyond.

The following is a guide to must-try digital advertising tactics to help you strengthen your brand’s customer engagement and acquisition in today’s ever-more-competitive travel landscape.

​​CRM and Look-a-Like Audience Targeting 

Onboard first-party CRM  data to target and customize ads to travelers and utilize Look-a-Like (LAL)  targeting to find new  prospects that look and behave more like your most valuable customers (using CRM data and/or pixel data).

Benefits

• Personalized advertising experience – Customize ads using real-time  behavior and data points drives over 50% higher  engagement.
• Higher engagement – Send users to the right pages  and actions by pinpointing  user intent helps boost engagement and conversions.
• Uncover new customers – Extend reach and increase performance with “look-a-  like” audiences.

Location-Based Targeting

Create custom location-based audiences by setting a specific radius that can be targeted on display or mobile devices. This gives marketers the ability to target people who are currently at or have previously traveled to a specific destination.

Benefits

• Connect with consumers  throughout the customer journey – Use custom geo-fences to  target consumers before they  arrive at a location, while they’re at a location, and after  they leave a location
• Convert impulse buyers – Location-based targeting removes barriers to sales. When a prospect is physically close to your location, you have a much better chance of persuading them to purchase from you.
• Outsmart the competition – Utilize location data to identify consumers who have previously traveled to a similar resort, hotel, or city to pursued them to book with you for their next trip.

Adaptive Segmentation

Develop custom segments based on observed behaviors to reach the most qualified audience segment(s). Segment consumers who have visited your booking site(s) multiple times, and/or abandoned the booking cart to reach mid and bottom-funnel prospective customers. In a similar way, you can segment consumers who have clicked on ads but have not yet converted.

Benefits

• Create precise audiences – Define and size granular segments using historical data.
• Be there when it counts – Activate audiences quickly and benefit from audience real-time updates as your consumers interact with your brand.
• Make smarter decisions- Fuel campaigns with customer  insights and with campaign performance data to optimize performance.

Site Retargeting

Use pixel-based retargeting to reach consumers who have previously visited or engaged with your website, researched booking, and/or requested information as they’re continuing their travel planning.

Benefits

• Engage lower funnel consumers – Reach and convert previous site visitors and shopping cart abandoners.
• Improve cost-effectiveness – With retargeting, you are reaching consumers who have already been to your website at least once, and are that much closer to taking action.
• Drive brand awareness – Promote brand familiarity and trust by keeping your brand in front of consumers who have previously engaged with your brand.

Behavioral Targeting

Leverage web search, purchase history, mobile app ownership, and web visit data to create deliver brand messaging to consumers who have shown the most interest in your brand.

Benefits

• Convert more – Customizing ads using real-time behavior and data points drives over 50% higher engagement.
• Drive higher engagement – Sending users to the right pages and actions by pinpointing user intent helps boost conversions by 6X.
• Help uncover new customers – Identifying ”behave-a-likes”  helps to increase performance lift over 150%.

Private Marketplace Advertising

As the focus on the quality of ad placement rises, PMPs have become more desirable. PMPs give advertisers access to inventory before it becomes available in the open marketplace. Advertisers can partner directly with publishers to create a program that meets their exact needs,  without forgoing the power of programmatic.

Benefits 

• Increased control – Negotiate CPMs and buy a  specific type or amount of impressions across a pre-defined set of publishers.
• More safeguards – Pick and choose publishers that meet our brand safety and contextual guidelines.
• Better efficiency – Reach your audience across publishers that have driven proven ROI.

Dynamic Creative Optimization 

Dynamic creative optimization (DCO) is a  technology that creates personalized ads based on data about the viewer at the moment of ad serving. Because the creative is continually tested it often outperforms static display ads.

Benefits

• Dynamic content – Feature top-selling offers and personalize content based on geographic location and weather data.
• A/B testing – Dynamic Creative allows necessary creative testing and revamping in ways that  traditional A/B testing cannot deliver.
• Creative process efficiency – The creative process is much more efficient with DCO build technology.

Paid Search Broad Match

Broad Match is the keyword match type that allows you to reach the widest audience via search. When using Broad Match, your ads are eligible to appear whenever a user searches any word in your key phrase, in any order.

Benefits

• Keyword discovery – Broad Match keywords help you find new keywords to add to your campaigns. In particular, Broad Match can inform Exact Match keywords when you are first starting out.
• Cost savings – Broad Match will optimize campaigns to avoid wasted ad spend. Non- or low-performing keywords will be paused so that you can focus your time and budget on the keywords that are performing.
• Amplify other digital efforts – Capture mid and bottom-funnel  consumers who have been
  warmed up programmatic,  social, and more in the moments  they are most likely to convert.

The Path Forward

As noted above, a successful digital advertising strategy for travel brands requires much more than a single execution tactic. You need a thorough strategy – a set goal, and a plan to achieve it. For travel marketing, that means getting creative  with data solutions by looking beyond out-of-the-box audience segments, marrying tactics that complement each other and selecting partners that understand your business.

Another critical component is knowing which tactics are working and which aren’t. Finding the best mix of digital tactics can be overwhelming and it may mean you need to rethink how you are reaching travelers online. The good news: digital marketing reporting tools and attribution models make it easy to get a  clear measure of marketing effectiveness tactic by tactic and campaign by campaign. Digilant can help. Contact us today!

Building a successful brand takes hard work, strategy, and tools to enhance awareness. With the digital landscape continuously evolving, utilizing the power of advertising in this space makes sense. Today’s consumers are online most of the time, relying on these channels to learn and buy. If your brand strategy doesn’t have a digital brand awareness component, you won’t get very far. Programmatic for branding is a smart strategy for building brand awareness.

What is programmatic for branding advertising?

It’s a form of advertising where ads are automated. In fact, programmatic advertising is the preferred choice in the online space. This allows brands to offer a more personalized experience across all the devices they use. Marketing strategies are more targeted with interactive ads and engagement at higher levels to reinforce messaging.

How can brands capitalize on programmatic for branding and reach their key customers? Here are a few ways to effectively drive awareness:

Cross-channel marketing strategies

You never know where your ideal customer is until you start implementing different strategies to find them. Your goal is to find those customers across every platform, channel, device, and system to deliver experiences that connect, engage, and convert. The data you gather will help determine which ones work best for your brand. Consider the way people consume information. Mobile device outreach should also be an integral part of your overall strategy.

This is also known as omnichannel and multichannel marketing. Why is this important? You want to offer your customers a seamless, integrated experience so they can move effortlessly through the customer journey no matter what platform they are on. Everything should be coordinated among departments to offer insight into what customers want and need. Use your data effectively. Behaviors, how they browse, how they react to certain ads, where and when they purchase, and if they engage in other ways can make a huge difference in pinpointing the brand awareness strategies that work.

Be creative

The more you exercise your creativity, the better your chances are of standing out among the crowd. First impressions are lasting ones, and you want to make sure your potential customers remember you from the initial introduction. There are different advertising formats you can use to show your creativity, share the story of your brand, build an emotional connection, and foster trust.

Two types of ads that work well in programmatic for branding are display ads and banner ads. Banner ads help with brand awareness and can be retargeted to those who have already become exposed to your brand. Once you are ready to move past these two, there are additional options that require a bigger ad spend. Interactive banners, video ads, and other forms of digital advertising allow your audience to interact and engage with your brand.

Video is one of the most effective forms of advertising today, with consumers preferring to be entertained. Focusing on viewable content and those metrics is key. You’ll know which advertisements are being shown, which ones are being seen, and which ones are most effective.

Use data

Data drives results. If you’re just putting ads out there and haven’t mastered the art of analytics, you’re wasting money. Brands that focus on the numbers are successful because they have learned what keeps their customers engaged.

What types of data should be considered?

Demographics, psychographics, and geographics to start. Once you know where these customers are, it’s time to look at their behaviors and the time of day when they are looking at your brand. How close are these customers? Are they local or can only shop online? What do they prefer? In-store or via an online platform?

The beauty of programmatic advertising is that you can track everything happening in real-time. That provides an opportunity to quickly change an ad that’s underperforming with one that gets more traction. You should be looking at the amount of traffic, how many views, click-through rate, and overall engagement to get a big picture analysis of the types of audiences you have and what they respond to.

By using these analytics, you’ll be able to have more effective campaigns that reach the right audiences at the right time on the right platform. Once you have this information, you’ll be able to funnel your ad spending to the right channels.

The overall goal is to know your customers well enough to utilize the power of programmatic for branding strategies effectively. This can seem overwhelming if you don’t know where to begin. These tactics, along with using different options for media buying all work together for optimal results. Programmatic advertising not only helps funnel your advertising to the right channels, but it helps minimize the risk of your advertisement being placed in the wrong environment.

Significantly different than paid search, programmatic puts your placements in front of people that don’t know your brand but probably want to. The best thing you can do when driving brand awareness is to create data-based ads that are relevant from the start. With the shift toward programmatic advertising growing, it is crucial for brands to understand and embrace this concept.

Not knowing or understanding how to move forward in programmatic for branding can be confusing. Having a knowledgeable team on your side who can help navigate your brand awareness strategy, pinpoint your target audiences, and get your ads in front of the right people results in a great return on your investment. Working with a partner like Digilant can help you develop a strong programmatic branding strategy while focusing on additional elements of your brand.

For more information on how Digilant can assist in setting your brand awareness strategy for success, contact us today.

 

The number of mobile users engaging with brands continues to skyrocket, year after year. In 2020 alone, a 53% majority of shopping traffic came from mobile devices.

At the same time, no marketer should jump to write off desktop’s moment as being over. Considering all global e-commerce revenue as a whole, 56% of it came from desktop users who lean into the increased visual real estate, higher screen resolution, and more convenient navigation experience.

Many brands have already centered their advertising around desktop and now find themselves needing to add depth to their mobile digital advertising in order to get current with the times. This trend is being actively encouraged by major players like Google, who ha implemented mobile-first indexing and other pushes that prioritize a quick, well-designed mobile experience.

Below, we will highlight desktop advertising, mobile digital advertising, and cross-device advertising, as well as some actions you can take now to optimize your brand’s presence on each of these channels. Through our recommendations, we strive to highlight the advantages of desktop versus mobile, and what sorts of special measures you can test on each.

Every industry is different, and so everything from the exact audience breakdown by channel through the specific features to test will vary. Given that your brand likely wants to occupy a unique niche that differentiates it from competitors, and given how quickly digital marketing performance evolves, it is best to conduct strategic testing for your business. Remember, your priorities for testing and even the amount of resource spend you allocate towards testing can—and should—evolve with your business’ needs and resources, as well as any data findings you collect.

Mobile Digital Advertising: The Wunderkind

Market research across all industries continues to show that mobile digital advertising is where the most sharing happens. As a result, competition tends to focus on how each individual brand can include as close to perfectly curated or tailored content directly to users right when they engage with the brand.

There are features built into mobile that make it easier to achieve the delivery of such tailored content to captive audiences. Take, for example, the location services that most people enable on their mobile devices. With this functionality present, it is easier to implement geographic targeting that serves up customized results that are relevant to where an individual user is located. If “local” is in any way relevant to your business’ offerings, building out or souping up any associated pages and content around locations is one relatively simple way to boost your mobile presence.

Mobile advertising also shows distinct strengths for video advertising. Whereas on desktop, videos are often watched in windows alongside other tasks, on mobile the focus tends to be entirely on the media being played. Full attention allows for messaging to better reach consumers, and may make them feel more confident in their assessment of a brand and its products or services. Both this confidence as well as the particular convenience in sharing things via mobile makes it a particularly attractive advertising platform. Much of this convenience comes from how various social media platforms have designed very robust experiences on mobile apps.

Optimizing pages to load quickly and faithfully—for a seamless viewing and navigation experience—is another way to boost your mobile digital advertising. You can increase everything from visibility in search through user conversions, simply by providing a smoother user experience across mobile devices.

Desktop Experience: The OG of Digital Advertising

The desktop experience allows perhaps the most room for A/B testing, given the visual real estate at your—and your audience’s—disposal. You have the broadest range of options to test different versions of all of your site’s elements. You can test what headlines resonate best with your visitors, and then even carry this testing over into paid search or social media for further refinements. You also need to test how you broadcast this headline, including the imagery you choose to associate with it as well as generally defining what is “above the fold” on your site—which is usually first done on desktop, and then adapted to ensure it works on mobile as well.

CTAs represent a huge yet often overlooked opportunity for testing. Everything from the wording on the CTAs through the color chosen, the placement throughout pages and so forth is worth deliberate consideration. All of this testing should shed light on the needs of your target audience, and what resonates best with them.

Even if they have spent time researching and exploring brands on their mobile devices, many consumers prefer to complete their purchase on their desktop device. For some, desktop is simply what they are most comfortable with; for others, desktop offers a less cramped visual experience.

Cross-Device Success: The Holy Grail

Successful brand advertising across both desktop and mobile devices—also known as cross-device marketing—is widely considered to be best practice. Even users that tend to favor one platform over the other will still engage with both, and multiple studies have continued to show that repeated brand exposure across multiple settings drives successful messaging and, ultimately, conversions.

While it may sound straightforward, many businesses stop short of the most fundamental “first step” in cross-device success: knowing where their potential customers live. Most businesses are sitting on data, even just within their Google Analytics dashboard (no fancy apps or other tools required). What devices do users use? More importantly, how does the device breakdown vary with the different pages that users engage with? You are likely already examining the steps involved in your funnel. What pages—and user devices—are tied to each step in the funnel?

Even if you are strapped for resources, these insights can help you ensure that you are investing resources into creating better user experiences for the content, channels, and devices that your visitors are actually engaging with. Don’t spend your time preparing for possible audiences until you have devoted a significant amount of time optimizing for the audiences you do have.

Take this a step further and use heat mapping to see how users engage with elements on pages, and understand where there is room for improvement. For example, are visitors looking to click somewhere on a page where they currently cannot? If you place an important link there, you can drive traffic to your money pages. Is there critical content belonging to your brand that is currently going unseen? Once you learn about it, you find places to feature it more prominently.

You may also choose different directions for content development. Video is trendy even in SEO, but if a meaningful number of your site visitors are on mobile, now might be the time to invest more in creating meaningful video content. For desktop users, build a navigation scheme that makes sense; you can keep money pages top-of-mind for mobile users, but desktop users—with the monitor real estate to explore a bit more—could be nudged along a deeper dive into your products and services.

For every optimization idea you have, be sure to test it across both desktop and mobile experiences. We touched upon this when covering desktop advertising: while changes may be easier to test on desktop (as well as paid search and social), any selected changes should be fit for both.

Conclusion

Every advertiser wants to know which particular channel will be the golden ticket cure-all that their brand can ride to maximum success. The reality is that there is no single channel that guarantees success. Cross-device success requires that advertisers master both desktop and mobile advertising in ways that meet the precise needs of their target audience.

Partner with Digilant for Cross-Device Wins

If you are looking to win at omnichannel marketing, Digilant is the partner to choose. We think beyond just specific channels and in terms of the holistic brand experience. Work with us to learn what boundless advertising success across all devices really feels like.

To engage your target audience(s), properly implementing data is key. The best way to begin this is by using the best online marketing analytics tools. These tools help support the digital marketing strategy by measuring and managing performance.

What do these online marketing analytics tools provide? These tools may include following features or capabilities:

• Data from all channels in the marketing mix
• Reports
• Competitive analysis
• Tracking for campaigns
• Competitive analysis
• Attribution modeling
• Revenue funnel analysis
• Optimization & predictive analysis
• Forecasting

These online marketing analytics tools get the job done:

Moat Analytics

This is a cross-platform analytics software that helps gather information on ad impressions and content views to measure and drive attention through watching exposure, quantifying the audibility of messages, and measure viewability in-geo and in-demo in real-time. Features include data unification; video ad impressions analysis; mobile web analytics; and in-app ad measurement in display and video.

 

Datorama

This tool uses AI-powered technology to gather data to drive decision-making. This tool has data integration, insights engine, and activation engine components with cross-channel visibility. Performance marketing is enhanced with one-click dashboards of the most important marketing KPIs. Features include the ability to centralize your marketing reporting; create expert dashboards, reports, and AI-powered insights; and optimize performance by making data actionable.

 

Affinio

This is a SaaS platform designed for larger businesses. The data gathered through this platform is turned into actionable insights, revealing patterns and relationships within a dataset. Features include the ability to create data-driven buyer personas; uncover hidden audience segments; identification of relevant influencers and partnerships; monitor audience dynamics and trends; empower your content strategy and uncover insights faster.

 

Funnel

This platform offers an integration with Google Analytics. Reports and dashboards that do not require IT involvement make this an attractive tool to use. Features include uploading advertising cost data to Google Analytics and the ability to push advertising data to your backend or BI system with one API. This helps analytics match advertising data to measure ROI based on sales.

 

Marketo Engage

This software helps measure the impact of marketing efforts and drive lasting customer engagement by listening to consumer behavior across email, web, social, and advertising channels. This software helps trigger communications across all digital channels based on mobile environment behaviors. Features include CRM integration; program and campaign analysis; an email and landing page creator; email marketing; web personalization; revenue analysis; user segmentation, user behavior tracking, and more. There is a wide range of services to choose from with no limit on the market size with a detailed market analysis.

 

Improvado

This software provides cross-channel reports and visualization software to aggregate advertising data in any visualization tool. Users enjoy an all-in-one custom dashboard with performance details, attribution models, detailed statistics, an ad channels report, and Google Sheet integration.

 

Beckon

This platform combines data best practices with marketing best practices. Using automated data management, total visibility into cross-channel marketing performance, integrated campaign planning, omnichannel analytics, real-time dashboards, and scorecards, and marketing KPIs. The platform delivers data aggregation, data cleansing and validation, and more.

 

Indicative

This software provides analytics for business growth, delivering metrics on customer conversion, engagement, and retention. Features include a data explore, multi-path channels, data manager, intelligent dashboards, and a user explorer to understand customer behavior.

 

InsightSquared

This tool is a sales performance analytics solution. Users get information from pre-built reports on every major sales metric. Features include custom configuration; a simple report builder; multiple data connectors; unlimited logins; custom alternative values, historical trending; insight feed; sales analytics, and reports and marketing analytics.

 

Ensighten

This software is used among the world’s largest brands across digital marketing. This tool has privacy GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation), a customer data platform, tag management mobile tag management, and a privacy enterprise. The benefits include an easy to install GDPR; easy GDPR compliance and data destiny control.

 

Google Analytics

This popular software collects customers and their purchase history from websites, as well as behavioral data from different systems. Features include collection APIs, tag management support, data access, filtering and manipulation, funnel analysis, custom variables, shopping, and checkout funnels, and more. Users have access to user flow reporting, visualization and monitoring audience demographics, multi-touch attribution, predictive analytics, remarketing integrations, and more.

 

BrandsEye

This tool uses a proprietary mix of search algorithms, crowd-sourcing, and machine learning. This works to provide accurate opinion data to organizations around the world. Users are able to better understand and support strategic business objectives with custom operational reporting, and custom dashboards and scorecards.

 

NinjaCat

This all-in-one reporting platform gives users the ability to deliver SEO, PPC, social and call tracking reports in a PDF or dashboard. Features include SEO reporting, budget monitoring, integrations, call tracking, and campaign monitoring. Client reporting can be automated while reporting PPC progress to clients and monitoring the budget spend for clients. NinjaCat provides white label dashboards, white-glove setup and service, 24/7 support, and best practices.

 

Using Marketing Analytics To Get The Insights You Need

The right tools make a difference when gathering data to make good business decisions. The right data not only helps identify the right target market but indicates what tactics are working and which ones need refining. Although there are a number of tools on the market, the three most important factors are usability, need, and affordability. The online analytics tools listed are just a few on the market that address every size business and price point. From measuring media strategy to insight on what your competitors are doing, these tools provide in-depth knowledge at high levels.

The most valuable asset you can have when figuring out which tools work the best is to have a team that delivers the metrics you need using the software you can use. The team at Digilant understands the necessity of utilizing the best tools to gain the metrics and insight you need. For more information on online marketing analytics solutions and how best to implement them while working with a trusted partner, contact Digilant today.

The shift from traditional media to digital marketing was a hurdle for many at the beginning. However, today’s marketers are well-adjusted and prepared to report nearly any advertising measurement a client requests. Digital marketers are prepared to report on KPIs, conversion rates, reach, and beyond at a moment’s notice. Despite this new sense of comfort, the future of advertising measurement is changing yet again.

As the advertising industry continues to grow, new channels and expectations for measurement have emerged. What has worked for the past few years will not satisfy clients through this next decade. Even with the global pandemic, digital ad spend grew 12% to reach $139.8 billion total. Simple reports of who may have seen ads or the conversion rates are quickly growing to be an advertising measurement of the past. These top three strategies will help digital marketers prepare for the future solutions and expectations of the digital advertising industry.

1. Measure Beyond Ad Verification

The Interactive Advertising Bureau and other authoritative agencies came together in 2012 to create guidelines for the conduct of ad verification. The need for these guidelines arose from digital marketers providing a range of inaccurate advertising measurement reports to their clients. The standard for ad verification currently requires advertisers to take a step back and determine if the ad is valid, viewable, and brand-safe.

When these three boxes are checked off, digital marketers move forward with the ad. They have met the bare minimum requirements, and they are satisfied. However, this will no longer be the case as the 2020s decade advances. Bare minimum reporting will only produce bare minimum results, which may cause clients to move on to other advertisers who provide more insights for the same monthly retainer fee.

Those who want to excel beyond the industry and provide better performing advertisements will measure beyond ad verification. By looking at active time on a particular page, interaction rates with an ad, and other metrics, digital marketers can understand the effectiveness of their advertisements. With this information in hand, they can determine how to further optimize an ad for the best results.

2. Upgrade Media Quality

Along with measuring beyond ad verification, media quality must be upgraded to meet new expectations. If landing pages are cluttered, ad layouts are not formatted correctly, site loading speed is slow, or basic features do not load, users will not have a positive experience. Even if the measurements from an ad show wonderful results, media quality can prevent leads from converting.

The future of the industry will require looking beyond the basic expectations of media quality. Extensive quality assurance testing and site user experience mapping will need to be conducted to ensure buttons, sliders, and information are in the right places. Simply placing information on a page and moving to the next project will not suffice in the late 2020s.

Digital marketers who take the time to upgrade media quality will see improvements in ad results. The ads will be effective because they grab attention and lay out information in a way that serves the target audience. The destination landing page will have better conversions because the page has information in the areas the leads actually look. Furthermore, the most important information will be placed where the lead naturally looks as they read the page. This means their clients will have a greater ROI on digital marketing ad campaigns. In turn, marketers can expect satisfied clients with higher conversions and recurring revenue from these clients.

3. Utilize New Marketing Channels

The way the average person consumes TV and entertainment has completely changed over the last decade. With on-demand streaming services available through Over-The-Top (OTT) and Connected TV (CTV) devices, individuals can watch their favorite movies and shows wherever they go. In response to the increased usage of these services, platforms are now offering advertisers the ability to reach consumers while they are viewing.

Rather than pushing out an ad and hoping it reaches the right individuals, OTT advertising allows digital marketers to create local ads that are displayed at certain times on specific shows. This form of advertising provides more control of who sees an ad and when. This greatly helps conversions and allows ad dollars to be stretched further than before.

Unlike other digital marketing campaigns, OTT ads and CTV advertising do not have click-through metrics. Marketers must be creative with how they measure ad performance on these new marketing channels. Tomorrow’s digital marketers will need to rely on a combination of metrics like SMS opt in, video completion, and attribution tracking in order to understand the effectiveness of their OTT ads.

Don’t Use Yesterday’s Advertising Measurement In Tomorrow’s World

Each day, the state of the digital ad industry is changing. Technologies are advancing faster than individual consumers would like. The best digital marketers will invest time and learn more about the future of advertising measurement practices. This will allow them to get ahead of the industry and provide higher performing campaigns to their clients.

The team at Digilant does more than think about today’s measurement strategies. We are always planning for the future, so that we can help advertisers and brands develop the highest advertising campaigns possible. Optimization, training, and reporting are just some of the key pillars that drive the capabilities of our omnichannel digital strategies. We do not wait for industry standards — we predict and adapt to them far in advance.

Whether you are just getting started in digital marketing or want to optimize your current strategies for the future of advertising, please do not hesitate to contact our team. Digilant has helped countless agencies, brands, and marketers over the past decade, and we are confident we can help you excel as well.

Digital marketing has grown significantly in the past year, with more companies increasing their B2B digital advertising spend by about 22.6% over last year. Why? B2B advertisers have a huge advantage in connecting with their target audiences through desktop formats since the pandemic. Although things are getting back to normal, these marketing trends will continue.

Understanding digital marketing is the first step in attaining success. In a nutshell, digital marketing is any form of marketing online or using the internet or an electronic device. Businesses use this form of marketing with digital channels like email, social media, search engines, and websites to connect with their customers. Used effectively, digital marketing helps reach larger audiences that would be more difficult using traditional methods. It is also more cost-effective and data is quickly accessible.

B2B digital advertising spend is projected to increase by 10.9% this year, which is slower than previous years, but the marketing landscape has embraced digital transformation, creating new opportunities for businesses to be successful. Knowing how and when to use the right digital marketing strategies can significantly increase the bottom line while keeping your business ahead of the game. Here are 8 B2B marketing strategies that should not be ignored:

Retention Marketing

If you already have B2B customers, it’s always better to keep them happy, healthy, and on your roster. Marketers are paying attention to their customer relationships, recognizing that when a customer continues purchasing from you, chances are they buy more resulting in a higher marketing ROI. According to the Harvard Business Review, all you need is a 5% increase in your customer retention for a 95% increase in your bottom line. There are a few ways to accomplish this, including new customer onboarding and education, customer training, consistent communication and support, customer appreciation, and surveys and testimonials.

Interactive Content

Interactive content is non-negotiable as it relates to B2B advertising. By having more engagement through interactive content, marketers understand customer tastes and habits. Use social media, videos, infographics, and other relevant information where your customers can find out more about you and your business. Being transparent and having them feel as if they understand you better is a part of your story which becomes crucial to your success.

Nostalgia Marketing

Nostalgia marketing is an asset for B2B digital advertising. This is how marketers relate to the world. There’s nothing like taking your customers on a walk down memory lane, using cultural trends and repurposing discontinued products or services. Nostalgia brings back memories, which forges a connection that makes customers feel good. Reinventing products in digital form is a smart move, creating content that is targeted and true. For example, Intronis used nostalgia in their marketing campaign and had a 35% conversion rate and 650% ROI. Mazda was also successful with their story-driven, multimedia campaign “Driving Matters.”

Buyer Experience

Customer-centric marketing is key in your B2B marketing strategy being successful. With so many B2B buyers being centralized at home, creating interactive, engaging B2B advertising experiences is crucial to keeping customer attention. Using immersive digital experiences based on generational demographics will help tap into lifestyles and purchasing habits, especially with those immersed in a digital-first environment. Mobile also influences over 40% of revenue on average in leading B2B companies.

The channels, thoughts around marketing certain products and services, understanding buyer persona, and how it is advertised in the market is key. B2B buyers should be viewed as standard consumers, with the speed, convenience, correct product positions, and use of tech integral factors in the marketing mix. While customer experience was always a factor in B2C, it has now become a necessary component of B2B marketing strategies.

Video marketing

Video content is a staple in B2B digital marketing strategies and is very powerful in B2B digital advertising. Video content helps customers visualize the buying process, with 70% of B2B buyers now watching videos when they are researching a company and its products or services. Video advertising spend is continually increasing, with marketers utilizing videos to educate and entertain. With this type of advertising expected to grow to $12.66 billion by 2024, B2B buyers can gain a lot from branded videos by understanding new trends while gaining additional skills.

Lead conversion

B2B brands are focusing more on macro conversions in their B2B digital advertising. While eBooks and guides are a great way to engage, digital and hybrid events are gaining traction in securing leads. Using interactive digital events like webinars to increase customer engagement through customized experiences, B2B brands can harness their influence more effectively to drive their customers down the sales funnel.

Podcasts

To date, there are over 850,000 active podcasts with more than half of all U.S. adults listening to one or more every month. This is a great way to reach customers, with ad revenue from Podcasting expected to raise over $1 billion in 2021. This is a very effective digital marketing strategy for brands, as it helps them form deeper connections with their audience. Podcasts are more informal and help with authentic and organic growth. Podcasts focusing on marketing can help B2B sellers grow. In fact, Content Champion from the Content Marketing Institute has been on the air with a huge following for quite some time. This is an ideal way to connect with B2B audiences that are always on the move.

Email marketing

It’s true – email marketing is not dead, and it’s not going anywhere. While emails used to be boring and too long, today’s emails are consistent, engaging, transparent, and trustworthy. It has never lost traction in the market as an effective tool, and it continues to be a profitable channel for generating revenue. Personalizing emails also increase margins. For instance, Zomato has engaging and humorous emails that engage their audience. There are tons of graphics, less content, and 100% engagement. B2B marketers can take a page from this team to utilize in their B2B marketing strategies.

Technology has shifted B2B marketing strategies into a digital-first marketplace which makes it crucial to understand the trends and tactics that work. Partnering with a company that can infuse strong B2B digital advertising and marketing strategies like these into your brand will keep revenue flowing and your brand at the front of the line.

Are you ready to make an impact and stand out from the competition? Digilant’s marketing services can help get the results you want now! For more information on how we can help your digital marketing strategy, contact us today.

The beauty industry is ever-evolving and extremely dynamic. It is particularly dependent on changing customer trends and purchasing preferences. Therefore, beauty brand marketers have to face and overcome the challenge experienced by beauty brands to maintain relevance by being willing to adapt to consumer preferences and industry innovations. The following are five digital marketing strategies for CPG beauty brand marketers that should be adhered to to ensure longevity in this highly competitive market:

Digital Marketing Strategies Beauty Brand Marketers Should be Using

1. Video Presents an Interesting Opportunity

Video may have killed the radio star back in the dawn of music videos but they can save the beauty industry. A Pixability: Women’s Wear Daily study discovered that 68.5% of all views of the 200 top beauty videos were of makeup tutorials. This means more than half of all beauty videos were makeup tutorials, showing consumers exactly how to apply products. This is just one example of the power of video to elicit a customer response.

Content marketers have given more attention to videos as they have begun to understand the impact that video content has on retail sales. Unfortunately, beauty brands, unlike those in other industries, are often faced with limited budgets when it comes to making videos as part of their digital marketing strategy. Thankfully, though, with the surge of popularity in tutorial-style videos, as mentioned above, this presents a great opportunity for beauty brands to get into the game.

As a marketer, you don’t have to spend thousands of dollars to make a product ad video. Instead, you can simply feature your products in tutorials. Another budget-friendly option for incorporating videos into a marketing strategy includes utilizing content in motion on social media. These videos are up to 70 times cheaper than standard product-centric videos according to Olapic. Consequently, they also have twice the engagement than a static image, which makes videos a win, win for beauty brand marketers. Clinique used product-centric six-second videos to replace traditional display ads and saw a 70% increase in their ad recall rate and a product awareness increase of 26%.

2. Augmented Reality (AI): Dawn of the Robots

While we have seen countless movies alluding to the dangers of letting robots take over, in real life augmented reality or AI is far from dangerous. In fact, for you as a beauty brand marketer, it can be immensely helpful. Beauty brands can use AI, to allow customers to “try on” their makeup virtually. Many beauty brand leaders have embraced the technology and are combining it with virtual capabilities to give customers a truly hands-on experience without them having to set foot in a store. Not only does AI help consumers, but it also helps beauty brands themselves to know what customers are most interested in, so they can channel their efforts towards their most popular products.

For example, Smashbox was one of the first brands to utilize AI when they introduced their eye-tracking technology. This was a tool that allowed their customers to “try on” their products. When trying them on, the AI technology could measure the eye movements of the consumers and instantly know if the consumer was responding positively or not to the product. This information was vital in helping the company determine what products to carry, and they were subsequently able to increase their conversions by 27% after implementing this AI tool.

3. The Age of the Influencer

You can’t spend more than a few minutes on social media without coming across a social media influencer. While the use of influencers to push products is on the rise in every industry, beauty influencers are perhaps the most pivotal in providing a boost to the industry. An influencer is defined as someone who showcases products and then shares their opinions of said products with their audience of social media followers.

The act of seeing a “real-life person” use a product can be a tremendously influencing act. This digital marketing strategy is one every beauty brand should be embracing because the influencer is not going anywhere anytime soon. It’s all about helping your brand connect on a personal, relational level with your customers. Influencer and Beauty journalist Victoria Ceridono said the following about the power of the influencer:

“The reason why an influencer has its audience is that they [the influencer] are real and genuine.”

Social Media: Within this category, it’s important to mention the importance of a social media presence. Without social media, there would be no influencers, at least not as we know them today. As a beauty brand marketer, you must create a social media presence for your brand and maintain that presence, engaging with followers and promoting them to give feedback and reviews. The more your brand is mentioned, the better.

4. Rethinking Tradition in Terms of Business Model

When it comes to the beauty industry, most think of the traditional path of selling makeup and skincare products i.e. a crowded mall or loud department store. However, in recent years, the beauty industry has grown leaps and bounds, especially in terms of its nontraditional business models. For example, instead of traditional methods of a customer walking into a brand’s store and buying products, beauty lines are now offering subscription services like Ipsy, Smashbox, Birchbox and FabFitFun.

A wise beauty brand marketer will embrace a variety of business models. While in-store purchasing might work for some, online stores or subscription services might work better for others. The idea is to think outside the traditional confines of how to sell makeup and/or skincare. This of course does not mean that your brand cannot still enjoy a brick-and-mortar existence or have a physical presence within a mall. Instead, it is often seen as a way to reach even more customers, by making your brand accessible across both physical and digital worlds. For example, instead of merely being available to your local buyers, your brand could be available nationwide or worldwide.

5. Utilize Crowdsourcing

Crowdsourcing is another digital marketing strategy that the beauty industry should be embracing. Glossier is an example of a brand doing this well. Glossier uses its social media community to engage with consumers, asking for feedback and input. This gives power to the consumers to influence the creation of new products and gives them a sense of ownership in the brand, which creates brand loyalty.

Another example of a beauty brand using crowdsourcing is Volition, a community-focused beauty brand, whose business strategy is built around crowdsourcing. Volition allows consumers to suggest and vote on ideas for new beauty products. If a product idea gets enough votes, it’s put into production and made available for purchase. To drive further engagement and sales, consumers who submitted ideas or participated in voting are offered a 40% discount on the product. This is a good example of how a brand can use crowdsourcing to build a following, encourage engagement, and most importantly, drive sales.

What This All Means, Staying Relevant in a Crowded Market

Although the beauty industry is a challenging place to make a name for yourself, as a beauty brand marketer, you can promote your brand by adhering to the digital marketing strategies noted above. Each of the strategies discussed will help you move closer to your customers and further away from stale strategies that have long since lost their luster. If you can’t incorporate them all at first, at least try to embrace a few and then work your way towards utilizing them all. Thankfully, if you contact the team at Digilant, we can help you determine which of these digital strategies are best suited to boost your brand’s reach and sales and help incorporate them into your marketing initiatives. Contact us today to get started.

Effective digital marketing analytics companies define leading campaigns. With more agencies appearing each year, however, it’s important to identify the right one for your strategy. Research shows that today, digital advertising and marketing analytics companies are the most sought-after specializations in the industry. When a brand needs to balance digital project management, content strategies, SEO, website development, and data applications—an expert’s help can make all the difference.

To maximize your digital marketing strategy’s effectiveness, you’ll need to team up with a high-quality provider. While finding specialized support can seem daunting at first, there are a few indicators of success to look for. Not every digital marketing team is created equal, after all, making one’s decisive eye worth its weight in supplied help.

Your strategy demands attention, and you should demand the best qualities in a third-party provider. Below, we’ve listed the three most important qualities to look for. They’ll help you cut through the white noise of today’s abundance of offers, first and foremost. But they’ll also align your brand with a partner who prioritizes it.

Let’s get started.

Quality One: A Strong Online Presence

The best indicator of quality, when it comes to digital marketing analytics companies, is their digital presence. Not only does a positive public perception fortify their claims—but it also reveals an incredibly valuable trait. And it’s one not immediately recognizable, in other cases:

A strong social media presence.

Chances are, you’ll need a provider capable of managing, micromanaging, aligning, realigning and expanding upon your current strategy. Analytics companies might be specialized in data gathering, but many fall short when it comes to data application. Prominence across the web displays effectiveness in today’s most valuable locations of public outreach, like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn.

It also implies the ability to create and manage email-based analytics, generate higher clickthrough rates and fine-tune existing SEO strategies. No resource should remain untapped, nor should any digital platform be off the table. Today’s leading strategies can certainly succeed by prioritizing some platforms over others, but a multifaceted approach to the online world’s many channels is critical. So, when browsing for the right team member, opt for the one whose familiar with the digital spotlight—as they’re best suited to introduce you to it.

Quality Two: Research Devotion

Center stage appearances aren’t all that matter, of course: A high-quality company needs to be capable behind the scenes—and they should be ready to give you a glimpse, upfront. If you’re going to perform an online marketing campaign, you’ll need a provider just as dedicated to data research, analysis and implementation.

This research should cover multi-industry metrics proven to work—but it should also cover your own industry in great detail. Every campaign begins and ends with high-quality research, and specialized assistance is absolutely required. The best digital marketing analytics companies not only understand this, but live and breathe it. This can be tough to identify, at the get-go, as a company’s best approaches to analytics tend to be revealed behind closed doors. Even so, there are a couple of ways to identify providers who always pursue new information, new strategies and new ways to connect with their clients.

As a rule of thumb, pay close attention to which providers balance a competitive nature with true passion: a dedication to lifelong learning which isn’t afraid to be unsatisfied with current results. It’s important to choose a provider which won’t endanger your brand, of course, so the third-party provider to seek is one that assures safety regardless of current, and future, market conditions. At the same time, their pursuit of new solutions in the wake of current industry trends will be invaluable. It’s the practice of innovation, and it’ll set your brand up for success quickly.

Quality Three: In-House Work

One of the most important qualities of top-performing analytics companies is their focus on in-house coordination. Your provider shouldn’t need providers of its own, and you should feel comfortable knowing they don’t contract other third parties. This is an increasingly vital trait to seek, too, as organizations, every year, find themselves risking data integrity simply by connecting with an analytics provider.

A company capable of sustaining itself, data-wise, alongside yours will conversely maximize their value. This approach to digital marketing solutions is a major differentiator across the industry, and it’s the hallmark of a provider who understands the ins and outs of ground-floor work. Even more importantly: It’s the best identifier of a provider well-versed in the art of creating solutions—even in the face of tough situations.

A great way to identify this quality, when browsing providers, is to check out their online reviews. A company’s clients, more often than not, are the best references of quality. Green flags to keep an eye out for include reports of constant action, self-responsibility and the application of highly relevant data. Even though past clients may not be keen on explaining the exact strategies used to boost their success, their overall take on a provider, more often than not, indicates enough.

The best providers are those capable of adaptability, but they’re also the most organized. These two devotions are difficult to balance, in any regard. For this reason, the qualities above, when combined, will highlight the digital marketing analytics companies worth your time.

Pairing Passion with Persistence

Here at Digilant, online marketing is our passion—and data analysis is our time-tested-and-true tool. We’re constantly updating our own strategies to enhance yours, supplying the custom-tailored solutions your next campaign needs. Today’s digital marketing world has plenty of options available, but we’re here to supply the best.

So pair your lifelong creative passion with ongoing innovation, and empower your strategy with the industry’s most dedicated providers. Digilant is here to open the doors of opportunity, and to guide you through them. Contact us today!