Month: March 2020

Following the coronavirus outbreak, many businesses have pulled out their budgets and cancelled media buys. As a result, today’s advertising space has become less competitive. Concurrently, ecommerce might see a boost as consumers spend more time online.

We wanted to take a deeper look on how this new environment impacts our clients and what are the best practices to optimize advertising.

To get a better sense of the market as a whole, we pulled together data on CPM and conversion trends, and general changes in the market within the last month. The data comes from all of our media clients, across their Google, Facebook, Instagram, and Youtube ad accounts.

Check out the video below for a full analysis by Mason Interactive CEO, Brook Shepard, and Director of Media, Adrian Padron.

Our advice for Direct-to-Consumer brands

After a drastic spike two weeks ago, when many brands paused their campaigns, we are now seeing brands taking action again and returning back to the market. Many are testing new promotions and offers to fill the gap in the cash flow.

Lower CPMs provide a great opportunity to get in front of your audience with less cost than usual. Consider shifting strategies, especially if your brand has a healthy cash flow, and you are not focused on driving sales right now. Think how you can get in front of the audience with quality content, and brand stories that create personal experiences with new consumers. This helps to re-engage with them after the market normalizes.

Take this time to work with your agency to revise strategies and messaging, optimize your media mix and think about post click experiences. Don’t focus just on revenue, instead make personal connections with consumers.

Our advice for Higher Education Professionals

Research and historical examples have shown that whenever the economy gets rocky, people look to return back to school. Some of our education clients provide nursing programs, which in particular have gained increasing interest during the pandemic. Online programs are equally trending when people spend more time at home.

We are seeing a clear downward trend in CPMs with our higher education clients. We can now get a lot more with the same budget we had in place pre COVID-19, and, most importantly, we can get in front of more students with a lower cost.

While the CPMs are dropping, the data presents huge upward spikes in CVRs. We believe conversion rates will continue to rise when the time spent online keeps increasing, and as a consequence, the search volume grows. If you are a higher education marketing professional, use this opportunity to expand your reach.

If you could use a little help with optimizing your advertising strategy in this current environment, schedule a free consultation with us.

Marketers all over the world are forced to to rethink their strategies, pause campaigns and even delay new launches as a result of the coronavirus outbreak.

Thankfully, digital advertising allows us to adjust quickly. We listed some ideas for you to use in this new landscape where shopper intent is changing day-by-day.

1. Drive ecommerce

Household needs don’t go away and may even increase with stockpiling and panic buying. Concerns surrounding shopping in public places have driven consumers online – whether buying CPG goods, groceries or even apparel. Make sure to position targeting and messaging to capitalize on that consumer behavior.

“COVID-19 Concerns may boost ecommerce as consumers avoid stores”

eMarketer

2. Invest more advertising spend on branding, not less

When other brands pull back, you can increase your share of voice at a much cheaper cost because there is less competition for attention and ad inventory. Creating a branding impact will have a halo effect and pay off when the market normalizes.

3. Test different promotions

One of our clients used to offer free shipping for orders of certain value. Now, they offer free shipping on all orders. Another client extended free shipping for their friends and family. Both saw immediate results.

4. Revise your live campaigns, ASAP

Edit your ad copy as needed to let customers know if you are offering services like express shipping, or targeted promotions to loyalty customers. Pause campaigns promoting unavailable products that may have been impacted by supply chain issues.

5. Keep a close eye on your budget

If the cost of acquiring new customers is too high right now, remarket to past website visitors or re-engage existing customers through email. If you can see an increased interest in a range of products, focus on that.

6. Follow your audience

The foundation of any successful marketing strategy is knowing where your audience is. And at the moment they are all buying hand sanitizers and toilet paper from Amazon.

7. Incorporate more video to the mix

Time typically spent on sports, with friends, at theaters and restaurants, etc. is now shifting to watching videos and TV at home. You can capture a huge portion of those users on YouTube, a significantly cheaper advertising channel than TV.

8. Be human

This may be a time to shift away from traditional campaigns and engage with customers through social media. Can you add value to people stuck at their homes? Think about how-to videos, recipes, and virtual workouts. Most importantly, maintain excellent customer service and a seamless online buying experience.

It’s a lot to take in, regardless of whether you are a marketing team of 1 or 20. If you would like help steering your ship during this turbulent time, let’s chat.