Household Income Targeting
March 11, 2010 by Benjamin Christie · Leave a Comment
As part of our new Demographic Targeting feature on Gourmet Ads, one of the new targeting options for advertisers is Household Income Targeting. This new targeting option is ideal for any advertisers who are looking to target consumers with the total household income as the main metric for the campaign.
The level of household income can be a significant driver in relation to the making a purchase decision for a product. Household Income Targeting can target populations with higher or lower buying power. As such the 5 segments advertisers can target include;
- $0-29K
- $30-39K
- $40-49K
- $50-75K
- $75K+
So what are some examples of advertisers using Household Income Targeting for campaigns?
- Food Coupon company wanting to reach low income households
- Gourmet Food company (ie truffles, caviar etc) wanting to reach high household incomes
- Cereal company wanting to reach low to medium income households
- Kitchen Appliances company wanting to reach an affluent consumer
- Winery wanting to reach high worth individuals for their premium wine club
- Automotive Company wanting to reach different income levels with different vehicles
This new targeting option provides advertisers the ability to greater reach their target audience and they are available now. So if you’d like to use our new demographic targeting options on your next campaign, Download our Media Kit or Request a Proposal from our team.
Demographic Targeting
March 9, 2010 by Benjamin Christie · Leave a Comment
Nearly every campaign which runs on the Gourmet Ads network has some sort of targeting applied to it. Some of the targeting used includes Geo targeting, time day part, frequency capping etc. In addition to the full suite of targeting options, we can now announce the newest targeting options on Gourmet Ads is the ability to target by US Demographic Targeting.
The new US demographic targeting feature enables advertisers to target line items to US ZIP codes based on underlying demographic characteristics derived from projected census data for the current year. For each demographic metric, the US population is divided into five groups each representing a segment of the US population.
With this new targeting feature you can target by the following metrics:
- Median household income
- Median age
- Children in household
- Owner-occupied household
- Employment level
This new targeting option provides advertisers the ability to greater reach their target audience and they are available now. Over the next few days we’ll be writing about each of the demographic targeting options and offering some ideas on how you can use them – Read the demographic targeting blogs here
So if you’d like to use our new demographic targeting options on your next campaign, Download our Media Kit or Request a Proposal from our team.
Brand Safe Environment
March 5, 2010 by Benjamin Christie · Leave a Comment
Gourmet Ads works with well-known brands right around the world and one of the important things we strive to deliver each and every day is a brand safe environment for our advertisers and their ad agencies.
So what does a brand safe environment mean? A brand safe environment is one where advertisers can be rest assured that their advertising will run on approved premium websites. There has been unscrupulous ad networks in the past who’ve been trafficking premium brand advertising across brand-damaging objectionable content, causing major PR issues for all of those involved.
The Gourmet Ads Brand Safe Environment
We believe that technology sometimes has its flaws, so we prefer to use a manual process, coupled with technology to ensure our brand safe environment. As such Gourmet Ads ensures a brand safe environment for advertisers in three separate ways;
- Transparency to Advertisers
Prior to any advertising campaign going live, we provide advertisers a full list of sites that are part of Gourmet Ads. We do of course add sites all the time, but overall we do offer total transparency for our Brand Safe Environment. - Hand Selected Editorially Selected Recipes Sites
Websites can’t just join Gourmet Ads and start serving ads straight away. First off every site must meet our selection criteria (detailed here) and then they are manually reviewed. Each of URL is then screened by our publishing team for both theme and content. Because we know the food and recipe space, we know very quickly if we want them part of Gourmet Ads. Some ad networks have the reputation of taking any publisher that comes through the door, and unfortunately many do. We’re proud of our high rejection rate! - Tagging of Approved Sites
Apart from simply adding sites to Gourmet Ads – each site is tagged with keywords for additional trafficking. i.e sample tags include for “Above the Fold” and “Privacy Policy”. So if a advertiser only wanted to run with sites that have a Privacy Policy we can easily traffic this. - URL Restrictions
Apart from the manual process detailed above, our final check is via technology, ensuring that ads are only served on approved URLs and that our ad tags are not trafficked across other sites.
For more about the Gourmet Ads network, Download our Media Kit or Request a Proposal from our team.
Easter Advertising
March 3, 2010 by Benjamin Christie · Leave a Comment
This year Easter is the first week of April (dates below) and even if you don’t sell chocolate Easter eggs there are significant opportunities over the holiday period for all types of industries. Once regarded simply for the kids, Easter has become one of the most profitable holiday seasons of the year.
With spring in the air and many consumers possessing tax return money makes it an ideal time for you to kick-start your marketing campaign. As such we thought we’d put together a few Easter advertising ideas separated by various sectors.
Retailers
Given that Easter is of course a holiday period, many retailers run Easter Sales and to drive interest in the lead up is important. So running at least 10 days prior to the sale starting is essential, then upping the visibility over the Easter weekend to drive consumers in store. Ideally you’ll be running discounts off big ticket items and winter apparel.
Grocery & Supermarkets
With many people spending time with the family over Easter it’s important to gain market share in the lead up to the Easter Weekend. Ideally your Easter Advertising will feature creative with messaging to drive consumers in store like discounts off key staples items or loss leader activity encourage them to do their Easter “big shop” while in store.
Travel Companies
With most people spending time with their families over the Easter weekend, there are two opportunities here for travel companies. Firstly, with many people head home there is a significant benefit for companies such as airlines to go heavy up 3-4 weeks prior to Easter, then slow it down closer to the weekend. The 2nd opportunity is for people not heading home, but rather going away for the weekend. So vacation specials should be advertised 10-14 days from Easter weekend. See Grocery Buyers make Travel Decisions.
Ecommerce Sites
Many of the major ecommerce retailers run Easter weekend specials, from free shipping to coupon discounts so why let them have all the business? In the lead up to Easter why not run a campaign targeted at consumers with creative indicating your Easter specials. So no matter if you sell food, clothing or kitchen gadgets, Easter is a great time to boost sales.
Movie Releases
Many over the Easter weekend will be looking for things to do to fill out the weekend. So for the movie studios, running movie trailer campaigns for new release in the days prior and over the Easter weekend will help boost a movies weekend revenues.
Automotive Companies & Dealerships
Consumers in the market for a new auto will dedicate the weekend heading to dealerships and doing test drives. So running a campaign in the 5-7 days prior to Easter, then heavy up over the Easter weekend will no doubt result in leads being generated. Learn about our audience of automotive buying Grocery Buyers.
So as we head in Q2 and with only a few weeks to go till Easter now is the time to book your Easter Advertising Campaign. For more information, Download our Media Kit or Request a Proposal from our team.
2010 Easter Dates
Good Friday is 2nd April 2010
Holy Saturday 3rd April 2010
Easter Sunday 4th April 2010
Easter Monday 5th April 2010
Advertising Free Shipping
February 26, 2010 by Benjamin Christie · Leave a Comment
The other day I was reading an old article in the New York Times about how offering Free Shipping on your ecommerce site can significantly increase sales. The article discusses and shares insight into the strategies of the some of the most popular online stores and how they price their shipping and how it can greatly impact sales. Read the article here – Nothing Says ‘Buy’ Like ‘Free Shipping’ .
The Free Shipping Article had me thinking about how a company which was going to offer free shipping for a period of time and how they would promote the offer. Naturally I think most only stores undertaking a free shipping promotion would do two things. First they would put some sort of promotional messaging on their sites advising prospective customers that they might qualify for free shipping on their first order. Secondly, an ecommerce store offering free shipping would reach out to their existing customer with an EDM of sorts advising that for their next order the shipping is free. Another idea is advertising free shipping, but I’ll get back to that in a moment.
What I think most online stores forget is that free shipping could be a great lead generation strategy to build sales. A few years ago I was involved in an online store start up as a consultant. Well before the successful bricks and mortar company started building their new start up website, they undertook a market research study to identify customer ideals, which they assumed were very different from their existing bring and mortar customers.
The number one thing that came from the market research was that customers online were more likely to make a purchase on their new site if the shipping was free, opposed to paying a premium for the delivery. So the company went into the new ecommerce site with the marketing tactic that customers would never pay for shipping. They simply built the shipping into the price point. The result; sales exploded for them and they’ve never looked back. The site has turned out to be a multimillion dollar online business and I believe that it’s because of their foundation that customers will never pay for shipping.
Ok, so you’ve decided to run a free shipping promotion. So apart from reaching out to customers on your site or your existing customer base, you should consider running an advertising campaign to market your free shipping campaign. By advertising free shipping you’re removing one of the hurdles that many online stores face and reaching out to gaining new customers. It could be the best lead generation campaign you’ve ever run.
Apart from simply running your free shipping advertising across our entire network of grocery buyers, we can help develop your advertising creative. It’s important for the creative to indicate that you’re offering free shipping. Don’t put the key message in a small font, make it stand out in bold and gain attention.
For more information about running your free shipping advertising with Gourmet Ads, Download our Media Kit or Request a Proposal from our team.
March Advertising Packages
February 25, 2010 by Benjamin Christie · Leave a Comment
For advertising agencies and companies who’ve had incremental budgets become available for March, the last month of Q1, check out Gourmet Ads March advertising packages.
Our March advertising packages feature extremely competitive CPM rates and once again we’ve included high visibility ad units including Intersitial Advertising and Floating Ads which are ideal for any food company or CPG advertiser who wants to reach the main household grocery buyer. Priced this month at US$15k and US$35k all packages feature high profile placements together with regular display units. As always we’d be happy to further customize each of the packages depending on your campaign targets and desired reach.
Additionally we are happy to extend these campaigns for 30 days from the start date opposed to just 30 days. So if you book your campaign to start on the 12th of March, it will go through to the 12th April.
If you’d like to check out our March Advertising Packages, simply go to the Contact Us page and mention “March Advertising Packages” in the message field and we’ll email them together with our Media Kit. Providing you have advertising creative ready to go. The team at Gourmet Ads can turn around a campaign in less than 24 hours.
2011 Media Planning
February 23, 2010 by Benjamin Christie · Leave a Comment
Believe it or not a great deal of digital advertising agencies are already undertaking their 2011 Media Planning for their clients. The RFPs from agencies coming in right now are mostly for companies planning media from July 2010 through to June 2011 activity. This is very different from media planning which we experienced last year with most planning taking place either a couple of days from going live or at a maximum of 8 weeks in advance.
Interestingly most companies have increased their budgets for 2011 Media Planning by approximately 2 to 2 and half times from that in 2009/2010. Many of the companies we deal directly with in the food, wine, tourism and kitchen appliance industries are all looking at online as a cost effective channel to achieve growth in sales.
Already apparent across 2011 media planning that we’ve seen is the shift from the performance based metric of just click through rate (CTR) over to the broader brand based metric of engagement rate. The move to engagement rates suggests that a heavy emphasis will be placed on creative development in 2011, using high visibility units such as video. This is very different from the past where most campaigns booked consisted of only regular display units such as 728×90, 300×250 and 160×600. Its seems that agencies are planning to use creative such as pre roll video, widgets, long term integration, dynamic ads, expandable units, interstitials, background skins and social networking elements all which can be executed through Gourmet Ads.
For companies in the Food and Wine space, Gourmet Ads is a natural fit, but some of the media planning we’ve seen in 2011 is for companies outside of this space. Advertising agencies have recognised the value of our female grocery buying audience which has led to RFPs in the tourism, financial, automotive spaces indicating that many brand advertisers are seeking quality inventory out of their “safe” advertising places that they used in 2009 and Q1 2010.
Gourmet Ads can help you or your advertising agency develop your 12 month plan to target your audience online throughout the year. By booking media in advance (either 6 month or 12 months) allows us to offer significant discounts on CPM rates and bonus impressions increasing your return on investment.
To have Gourmet Ads help with your 2011 media planning, please Request for Proposal from us or to learn more about Gourmet Ads, download a copy of our media kit.
Dynamic Ads
February 19, 2010 by Benjamin Christie · 1 Comment
Imagine being able to control and change the entire content, messaging or call to action of a display campaign in just a few minutes. There is no doubt in anyone’s mind that fresh creative as part of a campaign significantly increases click through and engagement rates.
Dynamic ads are generally created in Flash or HTML and instead of the content being written into the files, the content is sourced from a server live or cached. The content could be fed into the ad by a RSS feed or there are some companies specializing in creating and developing dynamic ads.
Developing a creative execution paired together with consumer behaviour in the form of cookies could significantly increase sales. For example Amazon has been using dynamic ads for years, integrating products you’ve looked at into their ad units. Adding in both to behavioural data, geotargeting data could also be applied to the add.
Dynamic Ads sound great but what are some practical uses or examples?
- Supermarkets could publish today’s special together with a product photo
- ecommerce sites could publish today’s product of the day
- Airlines and hotels could publish a hot vacation deal or cheap flight of the day
- Your brands Twitter conversation (as above)
- Sponsors of sports games like Superbowl or Football World Cup could publish the score in real time
- TV stations could publish what’s on tonight’s line up
- News companies could publish the current headlines
- Restaurant chains could advertise todays specials
As you can see the ideas are endless and are really only limited by your imagination. The team at Gourmet Ads can help develop dynamic ad concepts to reality and deliver them to our audience of highly engaged grocery buyers.
For more information about Dynamic Ads or Gourmet Ads, Download our Media Kit or Request a Proposal from our team.
Wine & Grocery Buyers
February 17, 2010 by Benjamin Christie · Leave a Comment
Gourmet Ads works with a variety of wine companies, but you’d be suprised to know that the majority of the campaigns being run are targeted to the grocery buyer and not the wine coonisueeer. Apart from working with major wine companies and smaller boutique wineries, Gourmet Ads runs a lot of wine campaigns for wine retailers and liqour chains.
There is no doubt that expensive high end wines (here at Gourmet Ads we call them collectors) skews to more of a male demographic however the majority of wine campaigns we run are for wines are under $20 and targeted to the female grocery buyer. Our clients prefer to target the audience which is going to make a wine purchase while doing the groceries. With this mind it’s important to influence the wine buying decision before they go to the grocery store. With Gourmet Ads our advertising positions are next to or close by recipes, allow you to reach the grocery buyer while they are doing their grocery list. Instead of having your target market put down wine on their shopping list, wouldn’t it be better for them to write your wine brand down? That way their looking for your brand instead of just a white or red wine.
Some wine brands are national, others are available in select markets. Using our platform’s industry standard geo targeting capabilities, we can pinpoint your target market only displaying your ads if they live in your target market’s location.
So if youre a wine retailer or winery, what kind if campaigns could you run with Gourmet Ads? Well a while ago we wrote a list of ideas – check our Wine Advertising Ideas.
So of you’re charged with lifting wine sales and increasing brand awareness, then Download our Media Kit or Request a Proposal from our team. We’ll help you reach the grocery buyer online and influence their buying descions.
Driving a Social Audience
February 12, 2010 by Benjamin Christie · Leave a Comment
Most brands (particularly food and wine brands) these days have developed or are in the process of developing their social networking strategy. Some will opt for a Facebook Page others will use Twitter, while others will opt to develop their own platform. Irrespective of the platform, how are you driving a relevant audience to your social networking environment?
For some it might feel foreign to drive traffic to a social networking page which you don’t actually own, but these platforms allow you to engage deeper with your audience of consumers. These people are your brand ambassadors. Simply by them adding your brand to their profile is an endorsement of your product. Over 4 million people have added the Coke Cola page to their Facebook profile which is the largest of any brand.
So how can Gourmet Ads build your social networking audience? There are two stages we would recommend as part of the development of any social networking strategy.
- The first is running a wide reaching ad campaign with creative encouraging them to join or follow your page. If budget allows the creative could even draw in the current conversation on the social networking page allowing the audience to engage by default. This initial burst will quickly bump up the numbers which will help from a viral aspect. It gets the ball rolling.
- Prior to the initial burst of activity we would provide a beacon which would need to be installed on your site. This simple Javascript drops a cookies for people that visit your site. Then we would run a longer campaign aimed at only people that have visited your site. The conversation rate for this campaign will be much higher than the initial burst, but will of course be lower in terms of the people because the funnel is smaller.
The key to a successful social networking is the creative, and where possible including a dynamic type aspect will certainly help get the audience engaged with your conversation straight away.
If you’re interested in Gourmet Ads driving traffic to your social networking pages, then Download our Media Kit or Request a Proposal from our team.
