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.
2010 Advertising Trends
November 20, 2009 by Benjamin Christie · 8 Comments
Last year we wrote a blog called 2009 Advertising Trends where we looked gave a somewhat forecast of what we thought the trends would be. Some things we got right, others we didn’t. Certainly 2009 for most advertising companies is a year they’d rather put behind them.
So looking forward into next year, we thought we should but together a list again, this time with our 2010 advertising trends we think will happen in 2010. Some are from foundations of things that we’ve seen in mid to late 2009, others are purely speculative.
Any way we’d like to get your thoughts and comments on our 2010 Advertising Trends predictions. Because its 2010 we thought 10 would be a good number to start with, so here they are;
1. Media Buying via Vertical Ad Networks
We saw during 2009 a great deal of media buyers and media planners starting to include more vertical advertising networks into their client media plans. There is no question that Vertical Ad networks are an efficient means to reach niche audiences. So we believe that this trend will continue into 2010 and beyond. The key for all vertical ad networks (including us here at Gourmet Ads) is to ensure that we continue to deliver value for money on premium sites, whilst ensuring we provide quality audiences, reach and creative execution for all media buys.
2. Increased Online Media Spending
We’ve already seeing an increase in the budgets for 2010 RFP’s during Q4 in 2009. Companies and their advertising agencies that were only doing short term media buying are already asking for 12 month plans for 2010. We believe that as companies continue to reduce their TV, Radio and Print budgets they’ll be seeking to reach consumers online where the metrics can be measured. We’ve even heard from food companies that previously didn’t have an online strategy hiring digital teams and/or digital agencies.
3. Pre Roll Video
During 2009 we had a lot of agency folks indicate they were testing various video formats for clients. Some tested in-unit video, standalone video, pre roll, mid roll, post roll and video on interstitials. Agencies are now indicating that what is working for them is pre roll video and preferably with a companion ad. So we expect during 2010 that we’ll see increased demand for pre roll video inventory.
4.Increased spending by FMCG & CPG
This was a key advertising trend prediction last year and we’ve started to see this happen. Although some campaigns I question the messaging and creative, but overall many of the large FMCG / CPG companies are now actively spending online and consistently from month to month. We’re predicting we’ll see a raft of small to mid sized companies move to online in 2010 where they can easily compete with large FMCG / CPG companies, possibly on a localised / geo targeted basis.
5. Beyond the Banner / Non IAB Sizes
Throughout 2009 the buzz word on nearly every RFP was “Beyond the Banner” and we don’t think this will change as we head into 2010. We believe that advertisers will be asking for more Non IAB units as part of campaigns from simple logos to standalone rich media. So what kind of Beyond the Banner / Non IAB Sizes solutions excite advertisers? Try changeable backgrounds, recipes integrations, brand integrations and widgets to name a few. Additionally we’ll see these booked for longer periods such as 12 months or at least by the quarter.
6. Behavioral Targeting & Retargeting
If you’re at Adtech New York recently you would have noticed the vast amount of companies offering both Behavioral Targeting and Retargeting solutions. I even heard of one company that said vertical networks don’t have to have recruit publishers just gain access to pixels on people’s computers! We’re running more and more long term campaigns which include Behavioral Targeting of some sort. They are great for ecommerce sites and anywhere where conversions are critical. and we expect this advertising trend to continue well into 2010 and beyond.
7. CPM rates increase
We’re already seeing CPM rates increase in Q3 and Q4 2009. CPM rates for the most part are back at sensible levels compared to early 2009 when they were extremely under valued. Major publisher had to significantly discount. Although some markets are taking longer to recover than others, CPM rates across the globe are certainly increasing or are stable.
8. Interstitial Advertising
We touched on this above under Beyond the Banner / Non IAB Sizes. As brands are looking for higher visibility in more non IAB units, Interstitials are a great way to deliver them and we believe that during 2010 more advertisers will be requesting them. They’ve been the secret for many direct response advertisers for sometime because of their high click through rates as well as engagement rates. Its not always inbound interstitials, some of our publishers who provide gateway content are offering outbound interstitials. Finally, don’t just expect to see static or rich media on Interstitials. We expect to see more 10 and 15 second video being used on Interstitials as advertisers look at more high profile avenues to engage with audiences.
9. More Coupon based Campaigns
Given the economic climate of 2009 we saw a great deal of brand campaigns which include some sort of discount coupon. For the most part these Coupon based campaigns have performed extremely well and we expect this advertising trend to continue in 2010. The majority of coupon campaigns have been run by large food companies, however we believe that in 2010 we’ll see smaller food companies and even wine companies using these sort of tactics to drive sales. Expect to see even more and more ecommerce sites using this tactic to drive sales.
10. Gourmet Ads will be the largest Food Network globally
Obviously as I’m in the driving seat, I can say with confidence that Gourmet Ads will continue to grow in our key markets of America, UK, Canada and Australia. Apart from this we’ll also start to see other markets emerge in Europe and Asia. We’ll continue to recruit quality publishers with fantastic audiences ensuring that campaigns perform.
We’d love to get your feedback on some of our 2010 Advertising Trends. So feel free to leave a comment.
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.
