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.