Recipes Recipes Recipes
July 2, 2010 by Benjamin Christie · Leave a Comment
For brands looking to influence grocery buyers online, there are two real options.
The first is the spray and pray method, derived from a military term for not aiming, but firing in the general direction. The best illustration of this is where brands book say the home page of a portal for a day. Apart from reaching just the household grocery buyer, you reach the father, son, daughter, grand father, social gamer, automotive enthusiast and technophile. Not really the best form of efficiently if you’re trying to reach the grocery buyer.
The second method is to work with a media company, such as Gourmet Ads who not only understands how to reach the grocery buyer online, but specializes in reaching the grocery buyer online. When you start targeting a niche like the grocery buyer, sure the reach isn’t anywhere near as huge, but the upside is the spend is less and the media is much more efficient than reaching everyone on the internet.
Why do we know how to reach the grocery buyer online? Easy. Over the past few years we’ve developed a vast community of recipe sites, and we’ve worked hard to ensure that our ads run close or nearby recipes online. This is where meal decisions are made and grocery shopping lists are developed.
Because reaching grocery buyers online is all we do their isn’t any deviation from the focus. Sure we have a strong female demographic, but we don’t have lifestyle sites, beauty sites or gossip, we only do food and more specially recipes online. This is great if you’re marketing food products with the aim of increasing sales.
So if you’re responsible for booking campaigns aimed at reaching the grocery buyer online, then Download our Media Kit or Request a Proposal from our team.
Cinco de Mayo Advertising
May 1, 2010 by Benjamin Christie · Leave a Comment
Cinco de Mayo is a Mexican holiday celebrated on the 5th of May each year, and Cinco de Mayo is Spanish for “fifth of May”. The holiday celebrates the victory of the Mexican militia over the French army at the Battle of Puebla in 1862.
Within Mexico itself Cinco de Mayo is only celebrated regionally, however in the United States, Cinco de Mayo is heavily promoted by grocery companies, bars and restaurants where the it has become a celebration of Mexican culture. In American border states such California and Arizona, Cinco de Mayo is significant holiday, with most grocery stores, bars and restaurants offering special deals to entice and generate sales.
For green grocers and grocery chains, Cinco de Mayo sees increased sales of food items especially beef, limes, tomatoes, cilantro and avocados the cornerstone of Mexican Cuisine. For Liquor stores, tequila and Mexican beers such as Corona and on the shopping list.
If you’re interested in running a Cinco de Mayo Advertising campaign, then Contact Us for more information or download the Gourmet Ads Media Kit.
Mother’s Day Advertising
April 9, 2010 by Benjamin Christie · Leave a Comment
In the United States, Mothers Day is the second Sunday in May and is a day where mom is pampered by the family. Everyone loves giving gifts to their mom, however some need a gentle reminder which is where running a Mother’s Day Advertising campaign can drive sales before the big day.
According to the National Retail Federation, consumer spend over $15 billion on Mother’s Day each year with an average spend of around $140 on their mother’s day gift. Most consumers will buy a single gift opposed to buying a few gifts.
Your Mother’s Day Advertising, shouldn’t just remind consumers that Mother’s Day is on Sunday, but rather provide real gift solutions, pricing and how it can be purchased in store or ordered online. You could even offer a coupon based campaign to drive sales through to Mother’s Day. Whatever the messaging you decide to go with, it really needs to make an emotional connection with the consumer, encouraging them to purchase a gift of value for their mom.
So what companies can benefit from running a Mother’s Day Advertising Campaign?
- Major Retailers
- Jewelry stores
- Florists
- Gift Card Companies
- Online Retailers
- Spa / Beauty Stores
- Gift Baskets / Hampers
- Gift Vouchers / Gift Certificate Companies
If you’re looking at running a Mother’s Day Advertising Campaign to reaching potential consumers then Gourmet Ads reaches specific demographic of females aged 25-55. Our audience is made of a high proportion of household decision makers, who in turn purchase gifts for others.
For more information on Gourmet Ads for your Mother’s Day Advertising Campaign, Download our Media Kit or Request a Proposal from our team.
IASH for Adify Media
April 7, 2010 by Benjamin Christie · Leave a Comment
Adify Media in London has recently become a full accredited member of IASH after an independent audit by ABCE confirmed that the ad network has complied with the IASH Code of Conduct. This is great for both advertisers and publishers of Gourmet Ads because we work exclusively with Adify Media in the UK.
IASH exists to police and encourage best practice among online advertising sales houses and IASH is a symbol of trust and transparency, providing confidence and reassurance to advertisers and publishers.
Adify Media’s membership of IASH affirms its commitment to providing brand safe environments for advertisers. Nick Reid, VP of Adify Platform Development and Adify Media UK said: “We are absolutely delighted to now become a full accredited IASH member and look forward to working closely with the organization, helping to drive this sector forward in the UK.”
Julia Smith, head of IASH said: “Adify Media have worked hard to pass the stringent audit carried out by ABCe and they are now committed to adhering the IASH Code of Conduct, and protecting their clients’ brands. Aligning yourself with the IASH Council and successfully completing the ABCe audit demonstrates a real commitment to transparency, which serves to reinforce the integrity of our medium.”
If you’re currently media planning to run a campaign in brand safe environments on IASH certified sites in the UK, then download the Gourmet Ads UK Media Kit, or Request a Proposal from our team.
Diet After Easter
March 30, 2010 by Benjamin Christie · Leave a Comment
Easter is about food, especially chocolate and hot cross buns. So it isn’t unusual that a great deal of diet and health food companies kick their advertising campaigns of on Easter Monday. Maybe bound by guild of eating a stack of chocolate after Easter a lot of people use this as trigger to kick off their diet. So for advertisers in this space it’s about being in the right place at the right time.
So who do most diet companies wish to target? The household grocery buyer, who is mostly female and aged between 25-55 year old. This person in the home influences the family eating habits and make the choices about whats going on the dinner plate today. So gaining the attention of this person in the household is key to any campaign success. Recent
Already booked this Easter is a number of well-known retail diet advertisers who are seeking to take advantage of the post Easter diet phase. These diet advertisers are running a range of creative from standard IAB sizes through to expandable creative to really gain attention of readers.
Generally speaking (as every campaign is different) diet advertising which works on Gourmet Ads includes advertising of diet books, diet programs, diet products you buy in the supermarket (i.e low carb, low fat), diet meal replacements (shakes) and of course meals which you have delivered to your home each week. Also advertising campaigns which focus on Gym memberships also provide good results. Gyms that focus on female only membership have performed very well in the past.
Some Comscore Index’s in relation to Dieting on the Gourmet Ads Network include;
- Index 267 for having searched for Diet Program information online in the last 6 months
- Index 146 for having spent under $25 for Diet meal replacements (e.g. Slim Fast) in the last 30 days
- Index 319 for having spent between $25-$49 for Diet meal replacements (e.g. Slim Fast) in the last 30 days
- Index of 251 for going to a gym or healthclub within the last 6 months
- Index of 135 for having a weight problem (25 lbs or more overweight )
Gourmet Ads has strict controls when it comes to the diet advertising. We can’t accept advertising that we call “fat ads” (the ones where is a thin stomach and a fat stomach on the ad) and any ads which make false and misleading claims. We prefer the advertiser to develop creative around food or simply use great messages reinforced with a strong call to action.
If you’re interested in running your next diet campaign with Gourmet Ads, then please 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
Post Impression Tracking
February 4, 2010 by Benjamin Christie · Leave a Comment
Most people think that a click (measured as the click through rate or CTR) is the only trackable metric when running a display advertising campaign. However comScore Brand Metrix data indicates that many website visitors respond to ads by going directly to the advertiser’s site — either through a brand search or by entering a web address — without clicking the ad itself. Either way the individual arrives on your site because they were influenced by seeing your ad campaign running, which is why it’s important to mention the website within your ad creative.
Unlike many other networks, all campaigns running on the Gourmet Ads network can track the overall ad effectiveness, via post impression tracking (also known as view-through tracking).
With post-impression tracking, advertisers can tie ad impressions to conversion events on the advertisers’ sites, up to 30 days after the original ad view.
Digging deeper, Post-impression tracking enables us to;
- Tie ad impressions to later purchases, searches, or sign ups on the advertiser’s site, for deeper insight into customer behavior and future campaign optimization
- Customize the tracking timeframe from just a few hours to up to 30 days
- Track up to four events per campaign and collect up to eight attributes (such as shopping cart value or SKUs purchased) for each conversion event
- Measure advertisers’ cost per conversion by campaign
- Easily manage implementation and reporting via the Adify console
Setting up post impression tracking is relatively easy. After you’ve booked the campaign and it’s been trafficked, we’ll provide javascript tags which you insert into the footer of your site. Our trafficking team will do some testing, then as soon as your campaign goes live your reports will be available.
So if you’re interested in measuring ad effectiveness for your next campaign, then be sure to request post impression tracking when booking your campaign with us. For more information, download our media kit or you can request a proposal and we’ll send through a full digital media plan for your consideration.
President's Day Advertising
February 2, 2010 by Benjamin Christie · Leave a Comment
One of the first big retail shopping weekends of the year is President’s Day and most retailers offer significant savings off products. To achieve great high sales it’s essential that your President’s Day Advertising campaign includes a wide reaching digital aspect to drive consumers to both your online store or bricks and mortar stores.
For those that don’t know, Presidents Day was originally known as Washington’s Birthday in honor of the first US president, George Washington’s birthday on February 22, 1732. President’s Day is a federal holiday in the United States and is generally celebrated on the third Monday of February.
Ideally your President’s Day Advertising should launch about 2 weeks prior to Presidents Day weekend on or about the 7th or 8th of February and should be wide reaching initially. Then about the 10th or 11th of February you should start running higher visibility units such as floating ads or interstitial advertising to gain attention, then rely on regular display throughout the network.
President Day Weekend is a great weekend for discounts, so make sure that your offers are exceptional. Remember your competitors will be in the market too undertaking President’s Day Advertising of their own. So have a clear offering in order to stand out.
So no matter if your advertising campaign has a national focus or local focus, Gourmet Ads can deliver your Presidents Day Advertising to your target demographic. For more information, Download our Media Kit or contact us for a proposal.
Yearlong Campaign
January 27, 2010 by Benjamin Christie · Leave a Comment
I want to share a strategy which we developed for a client who advertised every other month on Gourmet Ads last year. This client wanted Gourmet Ads to develop ideas for a yearlong campaign in 2010 which would be booked in addition to the other booked branding campaigns throughout the year. Most important to her was that whatever we did it had to be targeted to reach possible consumers of her product.
What we developed was rather simple and just a few weeks into the campaign is already proving fruitful and driving sales and subscriptions. Although this client is in the food industry, the same strategy we developed could easily be applied to any industry.
So what was the all year campaign that we developed? Well it’s basically a retargeting campaign, which uses a variety of creative to drive people back to her site depending on pre determined trigger points. In fact we plan to change the creative every couple of weeks.
The client added JavaScript to their site late last year, which meant they starting dropping cookies in the lead up to Christmas when their site had increased traffic. Now any people that visited our client’s site and didn’t make a purchase or signup to their newsletter is targeted for the year long campaign. Effectively we’re bringing back people that have already visited their website, who in theory are more likely to convert than first time visitors.
To even refine the targeting further we’re also time day parting the campaign as purchasers are more likely to purchase on weekdays from 10am through to 10pm at night. So the ads will only be displayed during these times. Once again we’re drilling down the targeting for ROI purposes.
This is an ideal strategy for any sort of company whose goal is customer acquisition or online sales. We would of course suggest that you also run far reaching branding campaigns to drive additional traffic. These could be short run campaigns or around key dates in the year.
For more information, download our media kit or request a proposal from our team.
