LinkedIn has expanded its B2B advertising offerings with Thought Leader Ads. LinkedIn Influencer Marketing If you thought influencers were just for dancing on TikTok or looking pretty on Instagram, think again.  No longer relegated to clothing or beauty brands, influencer marketing has become a lucrative business-to-business (B2B) advertising strategy, too. In fact, there are whole B2B digital marketing agencies who specialize in this area, but you don’t need to pay a big retainer fee for your business to benefit from the huge reach of influential people online.  LinkedIn has launched the full version of its Thought Leader Ads platform, which lets brands and companies pay to boost posts by respectable leaders in their industry with the author’s permission.  This expands the reach of the post far beyond the brand’s organic network, elicits engagement, and can result in brand awareness lift and lead generation.  Here’s a quick primer to get you started promoting your business effectively:  What is an example of a B2B ad?   B2B ads can take many of the same forms as B2C (or DTC) ads, except that they target other businesses rather than consumers, like:  Paid media placements , which include sponsored Google links, display ads in publications, social media ads, TV commercials, and billboards; or: Influencer marketing , in which a brand pays someone with a large following on a social media platform to tout their brand or product.  A popular example of a successful B2B advertising campaign was Slack’s “So yeah, we tried Slack” campaign, an entertaining video series in the mockumentary style of “The Office” in which fictional characters described how they’d incorporated Slack into their workflows. The campaign was funny and irreverent, standing out from the often-boring crowd of B2B ads, while presenting solutions to the target audience’s pain points. Which platform is best for B2B advertising? The best social media platform for your B2B brand really depends on where your target audience is looking for solutions and where you can shine in format-specific content. Answers will vary, but we find LinkedIn to be the most commonly effective platform for reaching decision makers at businesses who are seeking business-related information.  LinkedIn Marketing Solutions (its advertising platform) lets you set a budget, select goals, target audiences by specific job title or industry , and analyze real-time data to optimize your campaigns with control. LinkedIn’s use of first-party data for precise targeting makes it an excellent choice for B2B advertising.  In 2024, LinkedIn has taken over many of the functions that Twitter/X used to serve like information-sharing and people-connecting in a more professional environment than the more fun, personal platforms like Instagram or TikTok. However, LinkedIn far outperforms the other platforms in terms of advertisers’ confidence in brand safety  and return on investment (ROI) . What is a LinkedIn Thought Leader ad? Starting in July 2024, LinkedIn gave advertisers the power to amplify posts from independent creators, ushering in a new chapter of influencer marketing.  LinkedIn’s new product, Thought Leader Ads, allows anyone to boost an organic post, provided they receive permission from the author. This opens up new opportunities for marketers to amplify their reach and execute more personalized and humanized campaigns.  Facing a slowdown in growth, LinkedIn wants to challenge prominent players like TikTok and Instagram, capitalizing on the social media power trend of turning creators into brand ambassadors. Despite eMarketer's predictions that LinkedIn will capture only 4% of the market (equal to $4.5 billion in marketing revenue) the platform’s foray into influencer marketing demonstrates an ambitious vision for future growth . After launching on a limited scale last year, Thought Leader Ads is now positioned to fuel LinkedIn's expansion, using its 1 billion-member base to drive growth.  LinkedIn’s venture into influencer marketing may present a refreshing alternative to traditional ads, often perceived as repetitive and generic. As this trend takes shape, brands should prepare to capitalize on the opportunity to connect with their target audiences more personally. And look out for LinkedIn’s new AI-powered advertising tool, Accelerate , to be released in the fall of 2024! We’re here for anything that makes the path to prominence a little bit smoother.

Get around the competition by marketing your brand through exciting, less cluttered channels. Everyone in advertising is talking about programmatic CTV and retail media networks these days. And that makes sense! Both these channels present advertisers with a wealth of targeting and engagement capabilities. But they're not the only growth opportunities for brands. In fact, popular advertising channels like CTV, e-commerce, paid search , and paid social media can be quite noisy and cluttered with competition. How can your brand possibly stand out? Adding alternative, emerging channels to a paid media mix help brands to stand out from the crowd and reach people in exciting, memorable ways. What is the meaning of alternative marketing? What are some examples of alternative advertising? What are the advantages of alternative marketing? How do you measure the success of alternative marketing campaigns? How do you integrate alternative marketing into an omnichannel media strategy? What is the meaning of alternative marketing? Alternative marketing traditionally involves any media channel or tactic outside the traditional advertising mainstays of Radio, TV, and Print. Technically, digital paid advertising channels such as e-commerce, podcast advertising, and influencer marketing could be considered alternative marketing tactics even though they've become mainstream. The landscape is rapidly evolving, and emerging opportunities crop up under the umbrella term ‘alternative marketing.’ What are some examples of alternative advertising? The creative possibilities are endless, but a few effective examples include: Digital Out-of-Home (DOOH) DOOH boasts the ability to deliver big impact in precise geographical locations. And buying DOOH inventory programmatically (Programmatic Out-of-Home, or POOH) saves advertisers time and money, offering a holistic view of the campaign's digital performance. DOOH also allows brands to reach targeted audiences via hyperlocal campaigns and even use real-time data triggers (such as current weather conditions) to deliver relevant and impactful messages. DOOH ad spending is predicted to hit nearly $14.2 billion by the end of 2024! Experiential Marketing Ads can be more than just visuals; they can be fully immersive experiences. Whether it's a pop-up event, a branded installation, or an interactive campaign , experiential marketing brings people together in the physical world, where they can touch, feel, and sense the brand in a tangible way. These activations explode on social media, lead to higher brand recall, and instill customer loyalty. Strategic organic and paid media efforts lead to enhanced earned media. Cinematic Advertising Imagine your ad on the big screen, impossible to ignore , in a theater near you . Despite taking a hit during the pandemic, cinematic advertising is clawing its way back with digital strategies and box office hits, providing a much-needed jolt. The CPM for cinematic advertising is competitive with CTV and avoids many of the problems in search and social like signal loss and data privacy. An Exverus client who advertised in-cinema increased unaided brand awareness by 12x as a result of the campaign! Guerrilla Marketing These tactics show up in unexpected places, sneaking up on people out in the wild -- think pop-up art installations, flash mobs, interactive street games, or messages appearing on unlikely canvasses like sidewalks and buildings. Pardon the obvious pun here, but there was a truly "guerrilla" campaign for the latest Planet of the Apes movie in 2024: What are the advantages of alternative marketing? Thinking outside the box has its benefits. Bespoke and alternative 360 marketing efforts involving PR, creative, experiential, organic, touchpoints allows brands to stand out and capture consumer attention . Alternative marketing leads to lasting brand recall engagement that bolsters brand awareness, affinity, and ultimately drives purchase intent. How do you measure the success of alternative marketing campaigns? While it's true that alternative advertising campaigns are less directly attributable to sales than performance marketing channels like e-commerce, there are definite ways to measure their impact. For example, see the advantages listed above. You can measure KPIs like brand recall positive brand perceptions, and purchase intent through brand lift studies, surveys, and focus groups. You can also incorporate QR codes or other data collection methods into your campaign, which are very measurable (and extremely important in the face of third-party data loss). Here's an example of a successful experiential contest we ran that collected zero-party data and led to an 84% surge in revenue directly attributed to media! How do you integrate alternative marketing into an omnichannel media strategy? No earned or paid marketing tactic, traditional or otherwise, can yield steady, long-term growth in a bubble – they have to work together! A good media agency can help your brand build a holistic, omnichannel media plan that incorporates upper-funnel tactics like experiential activations or OOH with mid- and lower-funnel tactics like paid search and retail media, respectively.  Focusing too narrowly on lower-funnel tactics at the expense of brand-building is a common mistake called short-termism . The immediate, traceable performance effects can be enticing, but without upper-funnel brand building in the mix, your audience won’t grow, and your business won’t either.  Get your brand outside in the real world and create outstanding, memorable experiences for your customers. Show them a good time, and they'll stick with you. This piece originally appeared in our weekly Paid Media Insights newsletter. For more tips, research, and analysis; subscribe for free here .

Time for the advertising industry to get serious about sustainability. Here are a few ways brands and agencies can pitch in and reduce their digital footprint. Digital advertising leaves a carbon footprint the industry is only starting to address. In fact, programmatic advertising alone is generating 215,000 metric tons of CO2 emissions globally. That's equivalent to 24 million gallons of gasoline consumed!   So what can brands, ad tech vendors, and agencies do to make their media strategy more eco-friendly and more attractive to their target audience? Why sustainable advertising matters to brands In addition to the very real effects of climate change already wreaking havoc on our planet, brands should care about sustainable media because their audience cares! Research from Harvard Business Review  shows: “When Gen Z and Millennial customers believe a brand cares about its impact on people and the planet, they are 27% more likely to purchase it than older generations are — a clear measure of sustainability’s power to drive buying decisions in this group.” By demonstrating your brand's commitment to following through with ethical practices from beginning to end of a purchase cycle, you'll resonate with Gen Z and Millennial buyers, lifting brand perceptions and increasing sales over time. Just look at Patagonia for an example! The company has an estimated value of about $3 billion dollars and brings in $100 million in revenue annually ( Pereira, 2023 ). Sustainable advertising doesn't have to cut into your business's revenue growth -- in fact, it does quite the opposite. How to build a sustainable media strategy 1. Invest in eco-efficient hardware Loading, serving, and engaging with an ad requires electricity, and efficient hardware can minimize the energy output. Companies like Dell and Microsoft offer eco-friendly options. 2. Embrace greener ad formats Opt for lightweight ad formats that load faster, minimizing energy consumption by viewers. Emissions can be reduced without sacrificing ad performance! Lightweight creatives are ads with minimal file size, like text ads or simple banner ads. While video ads can be impactful,  pre-roll ads (shown before the main content) are generally shorter and viewed at a higher rate compared to mid-roll ads (shown during the content). This translates to less energy consumption overall. Compared to video ads,   audio ads require less data transfer and processing power, making them a greener option, particularly for podcast advertising. 3. Agencies, sign the Clean Creatives Pledge ...not to work with fossil fuel companies. As UN Secretary-General António Guterres reminded us last week, all of us in the news/media/tech industries have a responsibility not to promote fossil fuels and prolong humanity's dependence upon them for profit. ( Exverus signed the pledge long ago!) Join us at CleanCreatives.org . 4. Optimize content delivery Leverage efficient content delivery networks (CDNs) that use renewable energy sources to reduce your digital footprint. A CDN is a network of servers that store and deliver content to websites and internet services to improve the speed, reliability, and security of content delivery. For examples, check out CloudFlare, Akamai, or Amazon CloudFront. 5. Join Ad Net Zero & the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM) Ad Net Zero is an industry-wide initiative focused on decarbonizing the advertising sector. Their goal is to achieve net zero carbon emissions from all stages of advertising, encompassing development, production, and media placement by the year 2030. They achieve this by providing resources and promoting collaboration amongst advertising stakeholders to reduce the environmental impact of the industry. Measuring the environmental impact of advertising campaigns Speaking of Ad Net Zero: just this week, at the 2024 Cannes LIONS Festival of Creativity, Ad Net Zero announced it's been working with the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA)'s Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM) to develop the Global Media Sustainability Framework  for tracking emissions. As AdExchanger  reports, "Advertisers will be able to request data from media sellers using a common form, which should make data collection more efficient. Sellers that use the framework will voluntarily share information about the provenance of data, how the data came about and the scope of the data, so it’s clear how measurements are being calculated." While measurement has traditionally focused on electricity emissions, GARM also emphasizes the importance of embodied greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions , or those that occur in the upstream stages of a product's (or in this case, an ad's) lifecycle. Learn more about the new framework here . Think climate change is too big for one person (or one company) to make a difference? No, that kind of thinking got us into this crisis in the first place! If we each do a small part, we can slow climate change without sacrificing effectiveness. And that's good for everybody. This piece originally appeared in our weekly Paid Media Insights newsletter. For more tips, research, and analysis; subscribe for free here .

Your consumers are never without their phones, so make buying your brand a breeze. Here are a few tips for winning at mobile commerce. Real quick, do you have your phone nearby? I do! Your future customers do, too. We’re all tethered to our mobile devices these days, making them one of the most effective ways to reach your target consumers. In fact, Statista reports that the majority  of retail website traffic now comes from mobile devices! That means countless opportunities to reach shoppers in a purchasing mindset and persuade them to choose your brand. Smart advertising campaigns are no longer conceptualized and then later “optimized for mobile” – they’re built with mobile in mind.  Here are a few ways to take full advantage of this quickly evolving, high-performing medium: What are the different types of mobile ads? Mobile advertising refers to any form of digital advertising that appears within a mobile or handheld device. The creative possibilities are endless, but a few of the most impactful forms include: Display (or Banner) Ads In 2024, display ads must be designed for mobile users, which means eye-catching designs and interactive user experiences. Our award-winning mobile marketing campaigns have included rich media and location data tech that guided people to physical stores and fun AR filters that consumers loved putting on their photos. Native Ads Most of us are primed to visually recognize and skip over advertisements that stand out from the content we're looking at -- native ads blend in with the surrounding content so viewers will read them without disruption. Gamification Turning a digital ad into a quick, fun puzzle or quiz increases user engagement exponentially. What's even better: o ffering a reward for ad engagement or offering purchase credits for in-app game participation (a la McDonald's and their Hamburglar games) can build long-term customer loyalty . Audio & Video Ads Video ads are extremely effective on mobile devices because they combine two forms of attention: sound and motion. They provide an opportunity to convey your brand's personality through creative visuals and sonic branding -- but they can also be expensive and often skippable. Augmented Reality As mentioned above, AR-infused ads can make your brand stand out from the stream of static and video ads, especially for apparel and home goods. Customers want to see how items will look in their space before purchasing, and with AR tech, you can give them the visuals they need to make a decision in real time. What is m-commerce, and how does it differ from e-commerce? Mobile commerce (or m-commerce) is a subset of e-commerce that specifically uses wireless or handheld electronic devices for buying and selling goods and services online. M-commerce can take place in a mobile web browser or in an app, and it allows for payment via digital wallet or contactless payment in addition to manual credit card data entry. A 2023 Morning Consult study showed that 60% of Americans believe mobile shopping is a necessity for convenient online shopping. That means brands need to build their e-commerce stores with mobile in mind from the start and make mobile shopping as seamless as possible, or they'll lose out to the competition. It also means: Mobile advertising campaigns should be built with m-commerce in mind! Don't just show users a mobile ad and be done with it -- our eyes are trained to skip over digital advertisements that aren't engaging and actionable. Build a smooth path to purchase from your native or social ad to your online store. You can then track the user's journey using URL mapping so you know which media channels are successfully driving traffic to your product pages. Examples of m-commerce marketing campaigns: Exverus' 2024 WARC Effectiveness Award -winning e-commerce campaign for Premier Protein & Dymatize established a direct path to purchase from TikTok & Instagram to the brands' Amazon pages using influencer content & link stickers during Amazon Prime Day. We designed a mobile-first AI Chatbot product recommender for John Soules Foods, allowing users to input their food preferences and receive personalized recommendations. Build a branded app where consumers (current and future) can shop, get advice, and access new releases instantly. After expanding their app to include digital drops, personal stylists, and visual product search, Adidas saw digital sales go up 51% in Q3 of 2020! Give mobile users access to exclusive community deals that make them feel like part of an in-group. 58% of shoppers say an exclusive offer would increase their likelihood to purchase. 82% say it would increase how often they shopped with a brand. How Mobile Commerce Builds Brand Loyalty Again, the possibilities for successful m-commerce campaigns stretch as far as your imagination. Gather a healthy sample of consumer data so you know who your audience is and what they want, and you can build an impactful campaign that serves your consumer well. This piece originally appeared in our weekly Paid Media Insights newsletter. For more tips, research, and analysis; subscribe for free here .

This digital marketing tool gives media planners a bird's eye view of web traffic for efficient media investments. We’ve warned against the dangers of short-termism and celebrated evolutions in shoppable CTV and retail media as full-funnel channels, but how do we measure the impact of our ad strategies on both brand and performance cohesively?  “By using different methodologies, different buying tactics, different measurement solutions to really prove out that those things necessarily work together,” Exverus Managing Director Talia Arnold tells Digiday reporter Kimeko McCoy.  The two met for a panel discussion at the 2024 Digiday Programmatic Marketing Summit in Palm Springs, CA, which brought together programmatic advertising professionals from fellow media agencies, ad tech vendors, publishers, and journalists.  More from Digiday :  One strategy that Exverus leverages is looking at user behavior online, otherwise known as URL mapping  or URL analysis . A shopper sees a video ad, but there won’t be a [conversion] at that point. What the agency can do, however, is analyze online shopper behavior to see if there was follow up after a shopper saw an ad, whether through search, direct interaction with the website, etc., to get a better sense of measurement and attribution. “This conversion lift, these sequential actions, are so much more effective, that it actually means we can spend less on the other ads that don’t have that user path,” Arnold said. So, what is URL mapping? In simplest terms, URL mapping means putting specific markers into webpage URLs that indicate where the user came from, whether it be from a search results page or social media or a display ad. This helps us advertisers know which media channels are driving the most traffic to product pages, and thus where to invest the most ad dollars.  URL mapping is often discussed in the context of SEO, but as Talia mentioned above, it can also be employed by media agencies to monitor and measure the impact of paid media campaigns.  Why is URL mapping useful to a media planning agency? Media planning is all about deciding how to divvy up a brand’s advertising budget in the most precisely efficient way, earning the maximum return on ad spend (ROAS). URL mapping helps prevent wasting money on channels that don’t perform well, and it provides valuable information about a brand’s target audience and how they behave.  What should brand marketers know? When economic conditions are tight, it’s tempting for brand marketers to narrow their aperture and focus on immediate performance metrics — but in fact, a wider view that integrates brand and performance is necessary for sustained business growth.  URL mapping is just one of many tools a good media agency should have on hand for viewing digital advertising campaigns holistically. Today’s customer journey is anything but linear, and it takes a bird’s eye view to understand all the touch points that bring customers into the mix.  For more media buying news and tips, subscribe to our weekly Paid Media Insights  newsletter.

Media agency recognized by annual WARC Effectiveness Awards for ingenious e-commerce advertising campaign in 2024 (MAY 23, 2024) LOS ANGELES -- Exverus Media's 'Premier Nutrition: Winning Prime Day' campaign is the proud winner of a Silver WARC Effectiveness Award, presented in association with Cannes LIONS, for Best Path to Purchase North America 2024. The campaign demonstrated ingenious tactics for successfully bridging social media with e-commerce, making Premier Protein shakes one of the top-selling items on Amazon during its October 23 Prime Day event. Amazon Prime Days are always sales-driving events, but outperforming the heavy competition there required thinking along the entire purchase path . Instead of just loading up on targeted ads on Amazon, we took a risk by meeting our target consumers where they are (largely, social media) - something extremely rare and perhaps never done before in this way. On TikTok and Instagram, we served up the kind of influencer content our target enjoys to create awareness; nurtured consideration and urgency with TikTok’s timer features; and attached shoppable links from the social videos directly to the Amazon product pages with excellent deals to follow through with purchase. The future of omnichannel marketing success lies in seamlessly guiding a potential consumer from wherever they naturally gravitate toward a purchase with a single click. The North America WARC Effectiveness Award for Best Path to Purchase "recognises how brands have used omnichannel strategies to optimise the customer journey across the funnel. The judges reward activity that has driven businesses forward through a successful orchestration of e-commerce, social commerce , and physical channels." Founded in 2014, Exverus Media is a Los Angeles media agency elevating growth-stage brands through traditional & programmatic advertising, retail media networks & e-commerce, paid search, social media advertising, and OOH. Our data-driven media campaigns combine precise market research with creative ideas to confidently allocate every ad dollar for the maximum return. Named for the Latin phrase "from the truth", Exverus is dedicated to transparency and long-term client trust. Follow us on LinkedIn , Instagram , and YouTube .

Advertisers can now measure the quality of attention paid to their ads. But is it worth the investment? You can track how many people were served your ad, but how do you know they paid any attention to it? Metrics like impressions and click-through rates don’t tell the whole story, which is why many marketers are experimenting with attention metrics in advertising campaigns. In fact, a 2023 DoubleVerify study showed almost 96% of advertisers worldwide using attention metrics in at least some of their buys that year! Let’s see how the right media agency could put this valuable information to work for your brand.   What are attention metrics? Attention metrics are measurements that indicate the quality of focus or engagement a consumer gives to an advertisement; these can vary depending on the ad format and placement. The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) classifies these metrics into three main categories: Biometric Data - Tracks eye movements, facial recognition, brain waves, or heart rate Data/Device Signals - Time spent on site, scroll speed, cursor location, etc. Cognitive & Emotional Data - brand lift studies , focus groups, customer surveys, etc. Why is measuring attention important? Quality of attention can be a deeper indication of consumer interest than reach or viewability alone, offering brands better insights into which products or messages resonate best with their target audience. And, what if we could not only measure but optimize our campaigns for higher attention ?   Guess what? We can. Attention data is being used by Exverus today to place smarter programmatic bids through our partnership with DoubleVerify. Lastly, the signal loss from third-party cookie deprecation has intensified the need for advertisers to collect information about consumers’ preferences from other sources. Attention metrics are one way to fill that gap.   Challenges with attention metrics in advertising Admittedly, biometric data can be expensive to capture, and it usually comes from market research studies of consumers who opted in, but those research samples may or may not mirror your brand’s target audience. The lack of standardization across platforms also presents a challenge to advertisers comparing the effectiveness of different ad creatives or placements. Finally, the data signals publishers provide don’t always correlate with purchase intent . For example, significant time spent onsite could indicate consumer interest, or it could simply indicate a slow reader, multiple tabs open, or the person got up and walked away! These insights are meant to be a piece of the puzzle, not the whole thing. As with any new media metric on the market today, brands have to decide if the juice is worth the squeeze. According to our research, the data is showing us that impressions classified as "high attention" are getting 2 - 2.5X conversion rates above average.    And that's got our attention. For more media buying news and tips, subscribe to our weekly Paid Media Insights  newsletter.

One-size-fits-all doesn't work in advertising anymore. To stay ahead of the competition, know your audience and curate your messaging.   Brand marketers and advertisers, are you personalizing your marketing content? Personalization is a popular buzzword in advertising these days, but for good reason! Personalized advertising has proven 3-4 times more effective than blast messages and can reduce customer acquisition costs by 50% .   And the modern consumer expects it: research from McKinsey found that 76% of customers felt frustrated when a personalized experience doesn't happen. So, how can brands get started? For businesses new to personalization, we've summarized four key factors that drive successful personalization at scale: Key elements of personalized advertising 1. Data Foundation: Centralize customer data to enable seamless interaction across all channels. Data quality is paramount, as is privacy compliance. 2. Decision Making: Use machine learning and AI models to predict customer behavior and tailor marketing efforts accordingly. Segment customers based on value and trigger propensity scoring to identify the right opportunities for engagement. 3. Design: Develop flexible content that can be easily mixed and matched to deliver personalized messages. 4. Distribution: Integrate communication channels to ensure a unified customer experience. React to customer actions in real-time across all touchpoints. Examples of personalization in marketing Spotify recently built upon its popular, annual "Spotify Wrapped" feature with "Daylists" , sending users daily curated song playlists based on their recent listening activity. Similarly, Penguin Random House created an online "book matchmaker" quiz to help readers find new favorite books based on their reading preferences. And at Exverus, we've worked with the Stella & Chewy's raw pet food team to build personalized campaigns, like the America's Next Top Petfluencer contest, which encouraged pet owners to upload photos of their pets (and zero-party data !) for a chance to put their pet on a billboard; and the rich media AR selfies ad unit, which let pet owners create their own filters for pet photos. All of these strategies get consumers interacting with the brand and feeling confident about making a purchase because the recommendation is tailored their individual tastes. Why is personalization an effective media strategy? Because, at its core, personalization is about helping buyers see themselves in your brand and creating a connection with them through shared values, interests, or experiences. It helps create a holistic customer experience . When asked what they want most from personalization, one of the top answers from consumers was, “Know me no matter where I interact with you.” Online, offline, on-site, or in their inbox -- buyers expect a consistent and tailored omnichannel experience. But you can't personalize your content unless you understand your audience and their needs. Data-driven ad personalization Companies can gain valuable insights into their target audience's preferences, interests, and behavior patterns by analyzing consumer data. These insights allow you to tailor your content and messaging to resonate with the individual -- instead of delivering a one-size-fits-all approach. In a way, personalization starts before you even know your customer. You must build your strategy and workflow to collect the necessary data points to create personalized content. Once you have identified your audience and collected data, the possibilities for personalization are endless. Personalization can take many forms, from creating dynamic website experiences to segmenting email campaigns based on customer preferences. The future of personalized advertising The landscape of personalization is constantly evolving. Brands will create seamless customer journeys across different touchpoints. Imagine a shopping mall, retail store, and an e-commerce platform working together to deliver a unified, personalized shopping experience. Imagine a streaming TV service showing ads using AI to deliver the most relevant product message based on the individual viewer. By understanding where personalization is headed, brand marketers and their media planning teams can build stronger customer relationships, drive sales, and stay ahead of the curve. This piece originally appeared in our weekly Paid Media Insights newsletter. For more tips, research, and analysis; subscribe for free here .

These digital advertising channels may seem unrelated, but they synergize in a media plan. If you want to advertise your brand to a large audience, you probably already want Connected TV (CTV) in your media mix, and for good reason: a recent study by the Video Advertising Bureau (VAB) found that CTV advertising generated a 20% lift in brand awareness and 10% lift in intent to purchase! But have you considered adding digital out-of-home media (DOOH) to the mix? Digital out-of-home media is a powerful way to illustrate your message in public environments like digital billboards, transit stations, and building takeovers. These installations make a powerful impact and offer advertisers much more control and data than traditional out-of-home media. DOOH media might seem unrelated to CTV, but they actually have quite a bit in common! And when paired together in a media plan, they're a dream team. So: Why Do CTV and DOOH Pair So Well? Here are a few reasons we recommend these channels to our clients: Precise Audience Targeting As a media channel, CTV is practically unmatched in its ability to target the widest possible audiences of specific demographics and behaviors. Meanwhile, DOOH can target people in a precise physical neighborhood, who often share a similar demographic, income level, and lifestyle. If a consumer sees a brand advertised on TV and subsequently on the way to the train station, that’s a one-two punch already nurturing awareness and recall. "By integrating geo-fencing into all OOH placements after an audience profile has been built, we can build a retargeting base and follow up with CTV and other digital assets." - John Hoover, SVP at NPRP Media Programmatic Buying Both media channels can be bought programmatically , which offers advertisers time- and cost-efficiency, and a holistic view of their campaign’s digital performance. Like CTV display-side platforms (DSPs), programmatic DOOH platforms can work with an advertiser’s campaign parameters to deliver ads to the right people at the right price. Interactive Ad Capabilities Shoppable CTV ads  are exploding in popularity because they shrink the path from awareness to purchase into one touchpoint. In fact, a recent study by LG showed that 51% of the 1200 CTV users surveyed said they "wish they could shop online using their TV."  Interactive elements like on-screen QR codes, text message discount codes, or voice-activated commands get viewers immediately engaged with the brand and moving toward a purchase.  The same goes for DOOH! Those engaging elements can collect invaluable data points from across multiple channels to leverage into even stronger campaigns.  "Creating touchpoints across OOH and CTV ensures the exposure is consistently getting through, which is an ideal way to take a tough-to-measure format (like OOH) and position it as a touchpoint in attribution and measurement." - John Hoover, SVP of NPRP Media   Contextual Creative Delivery “Contextual” is the magic word of the post-cookie marketing era, and these channels do contextual targeting beautifully. Brands can reach audiences via hyperlocal campaigns and even use real-time data triggers (such as current weather conditions) to deliver relevant and impactful messages. Imagine you’re a coffee brand – you could serve hot coffee ads to folks bundled up in New York and iced coffee ads to Los Angeles simultaneously! Both CTV and DOOH dynamically adapt to real-time changes : CTV adjusts ads based on user behavior, while DOOH updates content according to location and time of day. The synergy between CTV and DOOH is strengthening as programmatic DSPs integrate more capabilities into single platforms. A good media agency partner can help your brand sort out which platforms will give you the most bang for your buck! Gone are the days when brand awareness and purchase consideration were relegated to separate channels – the funnel has collapsed , and omnichannel marketing campaigns that adeptly combine the advantages of each channel come out stronger in the end.  This piece originally appeared in our weekly Paid Media Insights newsletter. For more tips, research, and analysis; subscribe for free here .

Streamers are the new home for live sports, offering fans and advertisers big advantages linear TV couldn't. Live sports advertising was already on fire thanks to CTV streaming the NFL and NBA, but Women's March Madness 2024 has been a slam dunk for media buyers. The buzz around Iowa's star Caitlin Clark culminated in an NCAA Final game that drew 18.87 million viewers , the most watched basketball game — college or pro, men’s or women’s — since the 2019 NCAA men’s championship game. That's an enormous audience of highly passionate and engaged consumers. As women's sports viewership grows, the ad dollars flow -- brands like Home Depot, Ritz, and Aflac sold out all of Disney's ad inventory for March Madness two weeks in advance. We all know live sports are popular with consumers, but what about the backend? Does this channel provide advertisers with the results necessary to justify the cost? Why advertise in live sports? Audience Reach and Engagement: Live sports still reign supreme as the most-watched TV broadcasts. Brands have long understood that the sports fan is engaged and deeply loyal - so having access to them via CTV can be a goldmine for marketing teams. CTV Enables Mix of Ad Creative Formats: Live sports streaming on OTT platforms enables advertisers to reach entirely new audiences of dedicated sports fans with creative, personalized ad messaging. Precise Audience Targeting: The ad inventory can be bought programmatically , which allows media buyers to target precise audiences at the most efficient cost. Emotional Connection: Brands can tap into the deep emotional connection viewers feel for their teams by telling impactful stories. Take this Cetaphil Super Bowl ad , for example! Tug at the heartstrings, and you won't be forgotten. Omnichannel Opportunities: Sports isn't just on TV -- the players amass huge followings on social media, tell their stories in the press, sign endorsement deals, and inspire sports betting (another exploding advertising channel!) -- which means plenty of opportunities for retargeting and reinforcement. TV is an excellent brand awareness lifter, but people need to know how and where to buy your product or service in order to drive a sale. How brands can win at live sports advertising: A. Plan It can be challenging to plan, measure, and analyze the effectiveness of ad spend on sports events throughout a season because viewership is subject to peaks and valleys . Fortunately, some programmatic advertising platforms like The Trade Desk have developed pacing tools to help media buyers optimize their ad spend in real time. Partnering with the right media planning and buying agency can be the difference between wasting precious ad dollars and sending them straight to your goals. B. Diversify Since TV ad spots during big games can be expensive (and thus risky), it's important not to put all your eggs in that basket. Make sure you're building a strong brand identity first, then complement your CTV spend with other strategies like DOOH , social media, omnichannel retail, or audio spots . Besides, TV is an excellent brand awareness lifter, but people need to know how and where to buy your product or service in order to drive a sale. Shoppable CTV elements like QR codes or text codes can get viewers engaged right from their couch. Or you could include a clear call to action in your ad creative directing viewers to your website or store. C. Think Local Costly national TV spots aren't the only option for sports advertising. Local affiliate stations sell ad inventory, too, and they might be a more cost-efficient option if you have target audience segments in specific geographic locations. D. Measure To measure campaign effectiveness, be sure you're using the right metrics. For CTV advertising, KPIs like average viewership and unique viewers are most relevant. Cross-reference these with other channels like social media growth and merch sales . E. Grow eMarketer predicts that viewership of digital live sports content in the US will reach 90.7 million by 2025 ! That's an enormous growth opportunity brands can bet on. This piece originally appeared in our weekly Paid Media Insights newsletter. For more tips, research, and analysis; subscribe for free here .

Marketing to Gen Z consumers requires brands to reach them outside of traditional social media platforms. Social media advertising is alive and well, but traditional social media platforms are becoming less social and more entertaining (and commercial ). Many Gen Zers are looking outside of the typical platforms to share stories and exchange information with friends. Enter the group chat. For Gen Z, the group chat is more than just a way to stay in touch with friends - it's a key source of information and influence. Group chats significantly shape Gen Z's buying decisions, from sharing memes and viral content to discussing the latest trends and products.   They're more apt to recommend a product, share a viral video, or alert a sale to their friends in a private group chat than in their Stories or Feeds. Faster than email, more visible than being buried in the social media feed, and less spammy than SMS; the group chat has proven successful for a variety of brands from cosmetics to travel, delivering higher open rates, CTR, and engagement than email marketing. So: How Can Brands Market to Gen Z via Group Chats? Here are a few ideas for approaching it gracefully without overstepping boundaries or invading people's privacy. Leverage existing brand-friendly group chat spaces Platforms and games like Discord, Roblox, and Fortnite have powerful reach and influence among Gen Z. Don't forget the behemoth, Meta's WhatsApp, with 2 Billion MAUs. And among the newer players is RTRO, a messaging app powered by Chat-GPT and targeted to Gen Z.   These communal platforms can be a place to announce new product releases to your superfans, helping to build demand and excitement. By creating branded chat rooms or partnering with popular influencers, businesses can connect with target audiences more authentically and engagingly.   Get interactive and build community The smartest brands aren't just talking to consumers; they're listening, too. One-way ads are out, and two-way conversations are in. Branded communities are a modern way to keep your followers, customers, and subscribers actively engaged. For example, Selena Gomez's cosmetics brand Rare Beauty has a digital community called Comfort Club, in which consumers share self-care tips and mutual support. Wendy's has a Discord server hosted by a funny chatbot; and Canva has a popular Facebook group where designers share best practices and the company can announce updates. Everybody wants to feel belonging to something, so position your brand as not just a product to buy, but a community to be part of. Provide a benefit Bring something enticing to the table: offer customers the option to pre-order upcoming product launches through the group chat or access exclusive merch or content. The real-time nature of chat makes it the ideal place to share these types of incentives. Combining a sense of community with desirable, tangible incentives can foster long-term brand loyalty .   We're seeing shifts today in user behavior on social apps - they are more intentional about sharing with 'close friends' and preferred contacts. And with this change, our media planning and buying experts predict group chat will play an increasingly important role in the months to come. This piece originally appeared in our weekly Paid Media Insights newsletter. For more tips, research, and analysis; subscribe for free here .

What's on the horizon for digital marketing, AI in advertising, retail media, and more. It's officially "let's circle back after the holidays" season, so before we do, let's look ahead to the paid media trends on deck for 2024, as predicted by the media buyers at Exverus. Omni-funnel Commerce AI in Advertising AR Marketing Campaigns Evolution of Paid Search Marketing Data Privacy in Marketing Omni-Funnel Commerce That’s right: omnichannel is out, omni-funnel is in! For retail & CPG businesses of all sizes, speaking to your audience and collecting their data from across all digital and in-person channels cohesively is crucial. Shoppers are increasingly ordering goods online and picking them up in-store, or seeing an OOH ad and purchasing the item digitally, or any other number of combinations. Your brand’s voice, image, and user experience have to be consistent across all touchpoints in the purchasing journey. Retail media ad spend is projected to outpace TV by 2028, and with good reason -- it's a full-funnel marketing tactic for reaching your desired audience.  Retail media networks provide a wealth of first-party consumer data to help advertisers target consumers more precisely (and in more creative ways) when they're already in a purchasing mindset. Social Commerce is also a full-funnel strategy, combining the wide reach of social platforms with the immediate purchase ability of e-commerce. Learn more about how your brand can excel at social commerce here . " The lines are blurring between social and search, with Instagram and TikTok both offering sponsored search ad inventory; and social commerce is on the rise with the launch of TikTok Shop . As shoppable CTV ads and interactive ad units become more widely used, we’ll see further blurring of lines in 2024." - Alex Guardado, Paid Social Manager AI in Advertising Everyone’s talking about AI going into 2024 – how to use generative AI to create content and brainstorm ideas, how to use large language models (LLMs) to process data, and how to make our media buying choices more quickly and efficiently. 2024 will see a major expansion and clarification of use cases for this technology in paid media. We’re also watching the development of multinational government regulation of AI companies and services.  ​​Customer service is a huge area for AI in marketing. AI-powered chatbots can screen out a lot of customers’ questions or concerns, standardizing the answers and providing correct information every time (how many times has one customer service pro told you one thing, and their colleague told you the exact opposite?) Efficient chatbots can maintain the brand experience across channels and clear up human-powered customer service lines for lower wait times. Chatbots can also be built into interactive ad experiences ! In 2023, we partnered with PadSquad to build an AI-powered chatbot recipe-picker for John Soules Foods. The campaign harnessed the convenience of AI tools and applied it to product recommendations. Read all about the campaign in this Digiday  feature.  “ We'll see AI being used to enhance predictive personalization in e-commerce marketplaces. For example, AI can be used to recommend future products or services to consumers based on their past purchases, demographics, and preferences – that’s enormously beneficial technology for retail media networks and appealing to consumers looking to make their next purchase .” - Hillary Kupferberg , VP of Performance Marketing Advertisers can also utilize AI to personalize ad messaging to the individual viewer, determine the best channel or placement for the ad based on consumer behavior, and automatically adjust prices to follow market fluctuations.  Stay tuned for more about how to utilize AI in e-commerce . AR Marketing Campaigns Augmented reality (AR), rich media, and other technological advances have become popular media trends on the creative side of advertising. Many clothing and accessory brands now offer AR tools on their website or apps to let a shopper “try on” a product overlaying their photo before purchasing.  Our own media planning team for Stella & Chewy’s raw pet food collaborated with ad tech provider PadSquad to build an AR ad unit in which pet owners could upload their favorite pet photos and add AR frames/decorations - it was a really effective campaign! Get inspired to build your own mobile AR campaign in this Adweek  feature about ours.  “Interactive, high-tech elements are becoming increasingly important for ad campaigns to stand out from the usual static images and videos.” - Anna Elema, Media Director Evolution of Paid Search Marketing Search engines like Google and Bing are transitioning to AI-driven models that behave more like chatbots than boxes and links. A person seeking information only needs one or two really good answers, so being chosen by a search engine as “the answer” requires the highest-quality content and a conversational tone. These large-language models don’t yet have widespread ad inventory available for search advertising, but it’s on the way.  To learn how to prepare your paid search marketing strategy ahead of the change, read this guest article we published in Adweek . “The proliferation of AI-generated ads will mean that your ads will look very similar to your competitors using the same AI program. AI copy will level the playing field, only further increasing the importance of an optimized landing page experience to gain an advantage over the competition. Paid search ad copy will decrease in importance as landing page experience increases in importance.” - Ryan Schuster, Director of Paid Search Data Privacy in Marketing Google has (once again) confirmed the oncoming demise of third-party cookies  and transition to Privacy Sandbox next year, which affects marketing and advertising significantly. Larger companies with robust sets of zero- or first-party data will be just fine, but for the rest of us, a shift toward marketing strategies that bring the aforementioned data in-house is crucial. It’s imperative to respect your users’ preferences and be clear about your data collection practices. Only use legally obtained user data and only use it to make the ad experience more relevant. People are familiar with data collection practices and know it to be a necessary price for using different services/social media platforms at no cost. As advertisers, the best thing we can do is respect the data we have and use it to curate highly relevant experiences. “More and more, we're seeing sites have already implemented logins, which means visitors have knowingly or unknowingly [depending if they read the terms and conditions] opted in to share their data.” - Ian Clark, Media Director  Brands can demonstrate their concern for customers’ data privacy by utilizing tools that have existed for years like one-time passwords, two-factor authentication , and double opt-in subscriptions. Adding a line to the signup confirmation box or website lightbox saying “We’ll never sell your data”, “User data is end-to-end encrypted”, or whatever applies could make a consumer feel more comfortable doing business with you. Offer choices in terms of the quantity and type of communications the consumer could expect to receive as a result of signing up. Learn how we successfully collected an abundance of zero-party data with consumers’ enthusiastic consent in a clever media plan for Stella & Chewy’s.  For more advertising trends and industry analysis, subscribe to our weekly   Paid Media Insights  newsletter.