Retargeting Strategy
June 30, 2009 by Benjamin Christie · Leave a Comment
We recently wrote a blog on Search Retargeting and how you use the search engines to find relevant users for your products then using display advertising retarget them with highly related advertising. Since the Search Retargeting blog, we’ve had a great deal of enquiry asking about more generalised Retargeting Strategies to help generate a high return on investment for your online campaigns.
If you’re selling products online, the most important thing is for you to develop some sort of Retargeting Strategy. The sooner you start serving cookies, the sooner you can start retargeting and generating sales.
So first off what is retargeting?
Retargeting is tactic used by online advertisers who target previous website visitors and serve them an advertisement encouraging them to revisit the site and complete a purchase. The advertisements which get served could be via a roadblock or sequential targeting and can offer the user a range of advertising messages in order to complete the sale. This is done by dropping a cookie on the user’s machine depending on behaviour targeting criteria which we’ll go into detail further.
Why would I want to use retargeting?
There is no doubt that consumers do a great deal of research online before making a purchase and for products with long purchasing cycles retargeting is a strategy to keep your brand or website top of mind with your target audience. Often when a user starts off researching a product to buy they will visit a wide range of sites looking for information on the product. At this time if you drop a cookie with some information on their behaviour you can target this later in the purchasing cycle.
Who do you target?
There are few options to consider.
- Everyone – you should begin immediately gathering data on who visits your site, particularly if you’re a smaller or niche ecommerce site. You can target these users with branding campaigns in the future.
- People who look at particular products. I’d personally mark any user that looks at a high margin product. It’s no good marking low margin products because you’ll eliminate the margin with the advertising cost. Just stick to high margin products. These sorts of people can be targeted with product specific advertising, drawing them back to the site in the future.
- People that don’t complete the shopping cart. These types of people are obviously ready to buy, but there was something in the way that stopped the transaction. It’s usually either comes down to price or shipping costs. If you can eliminate an obstacle and bring people back to complete their shopping cart with 20% off your order if you buy today or free shipping then your conversion rate increases and you get the sale.
- People that signup for a member or newsletter but don’t purchase. They are obviously interested in your products, but are not ready to buy. Could these people benefit from offering them a free catalogue or a discount coupon in order to buy?
What are some of the offers or messaging I could retarget my audience with?
Anything really, the ideas are endless. The key is running different retargeting creative which appeals to that audience demographic. Some ideas on retargeting campaigns could include;
- 24 hour sale (everything reduced)
- Discount Code or Coupon Code
- Specific discount on a particular product
- Become a member and get a catalogue or white paper
- Signup to the Newsletter
Where would the Retargeting Campaign run?
The campaign would be run back in the Gourmet Ads network traffic pool. Our systems will start locating your retargeting cookies the moment they leave your site. So if a user has had a cookie dropped on your site, then visits a site within our network, they’ll see retargeting campaigns straight away.
With a proper retargeting strategy, you can expose that consumer to specific ads as they surf and shop outside the walls of your site. For products with a longer purchase cycle, retargeting leverages sequential advertising to reinforce your message as the consumer goes through the research and consideration process prior to completing a purchase.
To learn more about developing a Retargeting Strategy for your site or ecommerce store, contact us for more information and we’ll prepare a proposal for your consideration.
Fall Media Planning
June 16, 2009 by Benjamin Christie · Leave a Comment
It’s mid June and we’re already having companies lock away their fall campaigns with Gourmet Ads. It’s typical to see this sort of six month forward planning with campaigns booked already pretty much focus on holiday periods such as Thanksgiving and Christmas. Just like snow falling, media planner and media buyers need to take a blanket approach with high share of voice to ensure their products gain the attention they desire online. With this in mind, it’s key to lock it in as soon as possible.
Fall is so important to many food and wine companies. Not only are the holiday periods key, but we find that traffic generally increases to our sites during the fall. There are a variety of reasons for why we see this trend of increased traffic (I believe the main reason is that cold weather contributes with more people generally staying in) during the fall period. Take a look at the graph below from Google Trends for the keyword search “recipes”. Towards the end of each year take a look at the common annual trends for people searching “recipes”. Given that the majority of sites in the Gourmet Ads network feature recipes we also see this trend rather consistently.
Media planners and media buyers should look at starting campaigns in early September and October, then mid November vamping it up to high share of voice. Focusing on key dates around Thanksgiving, then Black Friday, the last few days of online Christmas spending and then Christmas spending.
We’ve previously write blogs on Thanksgiving Advertising and Christmas Advertising which both focus on each of these topics. Both blogs give you ideas on timing and what can be done in the lead up to both thanksgiving and Christmas.
So although we’ve just started the US summer, planning your advertising campaigns at the end of the year is something that should be happening now. Our team would be happy to develop a Digital Media Plan for your consideration, to do this, simply visit Request a Proposal. Or if you’re simply looking at all the opportunities in the market, then start by downloading our media kit.
Getting Products in Supermarkets
June 13, 2009 by Benjamin Christie · Leave a Comment
For many food companies getting your products onto supermarket shelves can mean significant sales and revenue. But the barriers to entry are usually high, with companies having to go through the hoops to make it happen, then you’ve got the slot fees that supermarkets demand. It can be a tough and costly task.
Food companies eager to get listed with supermarkets are regularly asked “what is your marketing plan to drive sales once it’s on the shelves”. This is ok for large food companies, but for small to medium sized food companies who solely concentrate on producing a quality product, a marketing plan is something that challenges them.
This is where Gourmet Ads can help. We’ll develop a digital media plan which can be presented to supermarkets to support your product. Your campaign would run on our vast network of food websites and would involve creative indicating that your product is now available in a particular supermarket or grocery store. We can also geo target your ads so they appear at nearby supermarkets.
Things we can do to create brand awareness quickly are advertising techniques such as;
- Over the Page
- Site sponsorships
- Road blocking
- Interstitial ads
- Expanding ad units
Finally, supermarkets won’t just want to see activity that will get short term sales. They’ll want to see a path to long term sales. Remember if the product doesn’t perform after the initial launch the supermarket won’t hesitate dropping your product and replacing it with a competitors products. You have to have a plan to keep your products on the shelves and generating sales.
If you’d like Gourmet Ads to develop a digital marketing plan for your product to help get it listed in a supermarket, then Request a Proposal from our team. For more information, download our media kit.
What CPM Rate can I expect?
June 9, 2009 by Benjamin Christie · Leave a Comment
Every new publisher wants to know what CPM or eCPM they can expect when running Gourmet Ads and from our perspective it’s very difficult for us to provide an estimate. The reason is simple, every site is different and this has a direct impact on the overall CPM rate. On average when a site joins the Gourmet Ads network, they’ll have between 50 to 80 campaigns running simultaneously and all with different CPM rates, different targets, different geo targeting.
Things to think about in regards to your overall CPM rate include but are not limited to;
How many ad sizes are you running?
Are you running just 1 ad size or all three? Sites running all our IAB ad units such as 728 x 90, 300 x 250, 160 x 600 will get the highest rates. Some advertisers will only book one ad size and if you’re not running that ad size our system automatically removes your site from the campaign.
Non IAB Units
If you’re not open to running interstitials, over the page or floating ads, then you’re once again not getting the highest CPM possible. Some advertisers don’t want to run regular display units and instead they’ll prefer to run a more high impact unit such as the ones mentioned dor video assets.
Above the Fold
Are you prepared to give us at least two spaces above the fold? Some advertisers only book above the fold and as such when we traffic the campaign, if your ad unit isn’t above the fold then you won’t be even included on the campaign. CPM rates are usually higher for above the fold positions. See a blog we wrote on Positioning your Ads.
Origin of Site Traffic
This is one of the biggest reasons why we see reduced CPM rates for a particular site. Gourmet Ads sells advertising directly in the USA, United Kingdom, Canada and Australia. If a large percentage (20% or more) originates from countries outside of this list you’ll see an overall reduction in the eCPM rates. Ways we can prevent the reduced CPM rate is to use an ad server and geo target your traffic for any of the countries to us. That way we’ll provide you only advertising for you in those countries.
Site Performance
Does your site have a high click through? We find that recipe sites have much higher click rates and conversion rates than food blogs. As such our system will automatically adjust the allocation of performing ads to sites that perform. Ways that you can increase performance include placing ad units above the fold, around text, placing ad tags into page templates instead of just one or two pages. Also reducing the number of ads on a page can significantly help as well. We recommend a maximum of 3 ads per page.
Advertiser has not selected your site or food blog
Some advertisers ask us for a list of all the sites in the network, as they have strict guidelines for ordering advertising. These advertisers will look at every site in the network and determine the suitability for their campaign. For some campaigns we’ll only run on particular sites in the network and not across the entire network. Not being selected for a campaign can be attributed to the design of your site, content you’re developing and traffic volumes.
Not Just Clicks
June 5, 2009 by Benjamin Christie · Leave a Comment
Earlier this week I stumbled over a study from iProspect.com which looked at the behavior of US internet users when visiting a website supported by advertising. The study surveyed Internet users to find out what actions they took when viewing a display ad on an ad-supported Website, 31% said they clicked on the ad.
In addition, 27% reported that they did an online search for the product, brand or company; something that we’ve believed for sometime. We’ve seen a tonne of research indicating this and I think we’ll write a dedicated blog about it in the future.
21% typed the company Web address in their browser. This was also rather obvious to us and is definitely the reason why you should have a naturally sounding domain name like www.companyname.com or www.brandname.com even if you simply redirect it back through to the product page on the company website. You could be missing out on traffic that’s looking for you. Make it easier!
Finally, and I cant really understand why, but 9% sought additional information using social media tools. It could be that the’ve looked at the product website and are looking for reviews, comments etc ?
So the conclusion of the study is that a click is only one measure of a display ad’s effectiveness. The by line of the report was “Display ads do more than look pretty” and as you can see this is very much the case. In order to measure the total value of a campaign it means you now need to be measuring all the online assets of your company or brand. For website metrics, you could use something like Google Analytics or Webtrends for visitors, tracking searches and domain name typing. Then on the social side you’ll need a tool to measure social side.
Source : www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?R=1007090
Beyond the Banner
June 3, 2009 by Benjamin Christie · 1 Comment
Nearly every RFP (request for proposal) we’ve seen for digital advertising this year has mentioned the phrase “Beyond the Banner” or some sort of related comment like “we’re looking for something further than just regular display advertising”. Why? Because advertisers (and advertising agencies) know that these sorts of campaigns build branding and driving purchase intent.
Recent increases in bandwidth as well as technology developments in Flash and Silverlight have meant that there is no excuse for not using rich media as a standard inclusion for the every campaign. Now advertisers can use creative assets such as streaming video to get the message across. All of a sudden internet looks far more attractive than compared to TV. For the first time advertisers can run a video advertisement (for longer than 30 seconds) like that would have on TV and then engage with them right then and there. Have them go to your website, purchase a product, signup for a newsletter, follow them on Twitter.
So what options does Gourmet Ads typically include on a digital media plan for clients? Each and every digital media plan is different. We’ll take a look at the target audience, how they want to communicate with the client and the ultimate aim for the campaign. But broadly these are some for the Beyond the Banner activity we would recommend to a client;
- Over the Page
- Site Sponsorship
- Viral Video Campaign
- Expanding video ad units
- Push Down Expandables
Gourmet Ads isn’t a creative house, but providing you can supply us with your existing creative (even offline creative) we will have them redeveloped into rich media for your Beyond the Banner campaign. We work with leading developers in the US to develop all the assets for your campaign.
Finally, apart from the Beyond the Banner elements, we always include regular display on our digital media plans. ie 728 x 90 (leaderboard), 300 x250 (MREC or Island) and 160 x600 (skyscrapers). This is because as good as the rich media beyond the banner activity is, the display ads which are closely surrounding them or viewed after the fact get the clicks. Think of beyond the banner as informing and entertaining them and display which gains the engagement and fulfillment.
So if you’re looking to reach a unique audience of food and wine consumers using Beyond the Banner creative or just want to learn more about what can be done online, then download our media kit or request a proposal from our team.
