Digital Marketing - Mason Interactive

We’re thrilled to announce that Mason Interactive has won an RFP from Robert Louis Stevenson School to deliver a best-in-class paid media and email marketing strategy for the New York City-based independent private school.

Stevenson is an independent college preparatory school with therapeutic components designed to promote academic engagement and social-emotional connections.

“Stevenson’s small, specialized learning environment resonates with students of varied backgrounds, and, time and time again, students have demonstrated a proclivity for finding and valuing commonalities in each other’s life experience.“
Chris Ongaro, EdD – Head of School

The Robert Louis Stevenson School was founded in 1908 with a mission to promote the emotional mastery needed for learning and living. By bringing students into a strong academic and therapeutic environment, Stevenson works to propel them towards postsecondary independence and success.

This exciting new partnership will focus on building the foundation for a long-term digital marketing strategy that will support lead generation and family nurturing. The Mason paid media and email strategy teams will be responsible for increasing brand awareness, and working with the Stevenson team on audience insights, with an emphasis on profitable new student acquisition and retention.

Read more about Stevenson, and learn about this post-secondary success, here.

We’re excited to announce that Mason Interactive recently added UK-based luxury luggage and travel brand, Bennett Winch, to our roster of clients.

Robin Winch and Robin Bennett launched the company with a singular focus, “to create the products we need but can’t find”. They believe true quality is timeless; if you buy well, you need only buy once.

Every Bennett Winch product is handmade in England. From Italian leathers to solid British brass hardware, they engineer accessories using traditional skills and materials.

“Our products are designed for the discerning minimalists; those who seek to own fewer, better things.”

This exciting new partnership will focus on growing awareness through a long-term digital marketing strategy that will support direct-to-consumer eCommerce sales in the US. The Mason paid media strategy team will be responsible for increasing YoY revenue, and working with the Bennett Winch team on performance insights, with an emphasis on profitable customer acquisition and retention.

Contact us to schedule a free consultation with our digital experts, and take the first step on your journey. Learn more about Bennett Winch, explore the Weekender, and read about their Lifetime Promise, here.

We’re excited to announce that Mason Interactive has added mission-driven brand, Two Blind Brothers, to our growing portfolio of fashion brands.

Brothers + Co-founders Bradford and Bryan Manning launched Two Blind Brothers for the sole purpose of funding blind research. After being diagnosed with an eye disease that causes blindness over time, their condition inspired a special vigilance for details, and a passion that carried over into the construction of their clothing line.

Through their SHOP BLIND experience and other partnerships, the brand donates 100% of profits to make this a reality.

Last year alone, customers helped fund 30,678 HOURS of clinical studies through Foundation Fighting Blindness (FFB).

This exciting new partnership will focus on customer retention, loyalty and performance through a cross-channel email marketing and creative strategy that will support direct-to-consumer eCommerce sales. The Mason email strategy and creative teams will be responsible for increasing revenue, and working with the Two Blind Brothers team on creative performance insights, with an emphasis on out-of-the-box ideas and retention.

Contact us to schedule a free consultation with our digital experts, and take the first step on your journey. Learn more about Two Blind Brothers, and help cure blindness when you SHOP BLIND.

Introducing Advantage+ Shopping Campaigns

It’s no secret that Meta platforms’ performance is impacted by Apple’s iOS 14.5. Apple’s relentless focus on user data privacy resulted in signal loss, changes to targeting capabilities, and most critically, measurement.

Our view: Instagram and Facebook aren’t broken, they’re different. As industry standards evolve, so do the platforms we use, whether for social connections, community and brand building, or business growth and development. This makes the landscape more uncertain, the data more difficult to read, and the insight more challenging to articulate.

Meta has rolled out Advantage+ Shopping Campaigns globally. ASC use artificial intelligence to enable e-commerce and retail direct-to-consumer brands to potentially achieve better performance, greater personalization and more efficiency through advancements in AI + machine learning. These campaigns provide greater flexibility to control creative, targeting, placements and budget, and more opportunities to optimize campaigns that drive conversions.

What are Advantage+ Shopping Campaigns and how does it work?

Simply put, ASC falls under Meta’s new suite of Total Advantage tools. While Advantage tools are designed to automate a specific part of a manual campaign, Advantage+ focuses on automating a campaign from beginning to end or part of a manual campaign (e.g., placements or creative).

Here’s a simple overview:

Advantage+ Shopping Campaigns offer end-to-end automation and support dynamic and static ads

Advantage+ Shopping Campaigns combine Prospecting and Remarketing strategies in one campaign

Meta does not see ASC replacing existing products, and it is recommended to test and learn across current Business as Usual (BAU) campaigns

Advantage+ Shopping Campaigns are designed for Broad reach, removing campaign restraints

Advantage+ Shopping Campaigns are designed to automate creative, resulting in less audience saturation

Advantage+ Shopping Campaigns can test up to 150 creative combinations, reducing creative fatigue

If you’re looking to make your advertising operations more efficient and drive performance at the same time, Advantage+ Shopping Campaigns are worth looking into. If you’re not already a Mason client, book a consultation with our team and we’ll work on a tailored approach for your brand, together.

I spent about a month and a half as a summer intern for Mason Interactive. Mason Interactive is a digital marketing company that uses holistic strategies to help brands grow. With amazing strategists, innovators, creatives, data wizards, digital natives, growth marketers, and analysts, it was an experience to see everyone working together to help bring satisfaction to our clients.

First Day

The moment I stepped into the DUMBO, Brooklyn office, I felt at home. The furniture and decorations gave the office a biophilia theme. The window and private patio had amazing views of the Manhattan skyline, as well as the Brooklyn and Manhattan bridge. Medina Shareef, the director of HR, introduced me to the office as I settled in. I proceeded with adjusting to my workspace and working on my Google Ads Search Certification.

Team Projects

I worked alongside Ashley Bruzas, the director of Business Development and leader of Team Killer. She taught me about the team’s goals and outlined how I would collaborate on projects over the summer. I was given an overview of how the brand strategy process works for an agency, which includes researching direct-to-consumer brands, creating competitive analyses, and providing them with opportunities to improve. Additionally, Ashley gave me a Photoshop tutorial which was fun to watch because you are able to customize logos or create anything that your mind wants to.

I attended a Meta Webinar which gave me insight into how companies can prepare for the upcoming holiday shopping season through key strategies which includes connection, interactivity, and community. In addition, I was also given the task of working on a project called the Q4 Outreach. Working on this project was my favorite because I got to research targeted brands and create analyses to uncover what they are doing well, and how Mason Interactive could help them improve. This project allowed me to see how big companies differ from smaller companies in terms of their SEO, digital advertising, and creative approach. Overall, the summer internship was an exciting and accomplishing learning experience.

Internships give students valuable on-the-job experience. If you’re interested in exploring internship opportunities at Mason Interactive, contact us today.

First party data refers to user information collected from direct interactions with your brand (email, site, app etc). Owning this data should now be an essential part of your marketing strategy–especially as platforms prepare to sunset 3rd party cookie tracking.

Today’s consumers are shopping online more than ever before, but they’re also more protective of their data than ever before. Despite the increase in user activity, it’s getting harder to tell who these users are and which are most likely to be interested in your products.

Apple’s new iOS privacy features allow users to refuse data tracking. Facebook & Google are moving away from 3rd party cookies. Changes like these mean that it’s up to your business to collect the data you need to understand who your customers are and which acquisition channels are the most effective.

In other words, you need to start collecting first party data.

Understanding First Party Data

Consider first party data the foundation of your marketing strategy from this point on. Since most sites won’t be able to collect the key identifier data, it’s on your business to collect it from your customers and prospects.

Asking users to share your data is challenging, but it’s much easier when the user has an established relationship with your brand. Therefore it’s incredibly important to build trust with your customers in order to collect first party data.

Want Proof? Nike Just Did It

Nike’s share price shot to an all-time high in 2020 thanks to its customer-centered DTC strategy.

The company couldn’t utilize its network of over 900 global stores in the midst of the pandemic, so it instead leaned into what it called a “Consumer Direct Offense”.

“[In] a future increasingly defined by e-commerce, fast-moving trends and, above all, the rising power of branding to drive consumer preference when competitors are just a click away, Nike realized that in order to thrive, it needed to take control of its distribution to better manage its brand and deepen its connection with consumers.”
Inside Nike’s Radical Direct-to-Consumer Strategy, Business of Fashion

Mapping the Customer Journey with First-Party Data

Connecting with your loyal customers is critical, and every single step of your customer journey should be optimized with that in mind. Here’s a helpful video on building trust with your customers and why that matters:

We can help you strategize around this so you can:

Improve targeting precision
Improve omnichannel measurement
Drive ad relevance
Close the loop on attribution
Create a single view of the customer

We’re currently helping our clients prepare for the cookie-less future. Here’s how we can help you too:

Make a roadmap for your first party data
Determine the right data sources and data points
Benchmark and monitor over time

Now that we’ve covered the basics, let’s meet and discuss how we can create a tailored strategy for your business.