Top Highlights from Annual State of Video Marketing Report Recently, the seventh compilation of Wyzowl’s “The State of Video Marketing” was released. The survey charts usage, spend, channels, and opinions among video marketers and consumers. Here are the top five things brands need to know. Video remains crucial for marketers in both usage and spend. 86% of businesses use video as a marketing tool in 2021, the highest percentage since the survey’s inception in 2015. Because of its versatility, video can be integrated into a marketing plan in many ways; from social media to TV commercials, YouTube videos, and more. In short, video marketing is not slowing down despite surpassing critical mass. The pandemic increased the number of videos watched. While which pandemic trends continue as the world returns to some sense of normal, the pandemic not only increased the total volume of videos watched, but the number of unique environments we watched as well. Fragmentation is real. Marketers felt positive about the ROI offered by video. Video continues to strongly influence traffic, leads, sales, and audience understanding. 78% of marketers who took part in the survey reported that video has improved their company’s bottom line. This means that video will continue to have a positive impact even if the focus remains on other metrics. Video still holds underutilized opportunities for marketers. This is especially true for the explainer video. 94% of people report watching these types of videos to learn more about a product, with 84% being swayed by the video to make a purchase. It’s so simple and so underutilized. Demand continues to rise for videos. Nine out of ten people report wanting to see more videos from brands in 2021. This makes video an excellent tool for lead generation and brand awareness while giving brands permission to go beyond :30s and :15s to create authentic brand video content. Conclusion The pandemic did little to slow the rise of video. The stats and findings presented in this report set the tone for video to continue as a success story for brands.

5 Facebook Insights Every Marketer Should Know According to Oberlo, an online learning platform, Facebook continues to be the most used platform with nearly 2.6 billion active monthly users. But as the world changes dramatically, where are these shifts showing up in how we use Facebook as marketers? 1. Facebook’s core demographics are changing – and not for the younger. Users between the ages of 35 and 65 are Facebook’s core demographic, with the fastest-growing group ages 55 to 65. Fewer teens are using Facebook now than in previous years. It’s essential to keep this in mind when advertising and interacting with your audience. 2. How users engage with Facebook is changing – it goes beyond keeping up with friends and family. While most of the 1.62 billion Facebook users are on the platform to interact with and stay connected to friends and family, they are also using it for entertainment, news, and following brands and companies. Users want to connect with brands and companies as if they were friends or family members. 3. Facebook is a mobile platform. Full stop. 94% of Facebook ad revenue comes from mobile, according to Sprout Social. This information serves as a reminder to marketers to optimize for mobile-friendly social media content. Ad impressions also continue to rise, while prices fall, reinforcing the purpose behind a strong Facebook strategy. 4. Your visuals matter more than your audio. While Facebook users continue to consume videos as the most favored post type, they also prefer to view them in silence. Your video’s imagery must catch the viewer’s attention. Plus, always ensure your videos have captions if there is any dialogue to make the engagement as accessible and useful as possible. 5. Adding Stories to your marketing mix transforms your results. Brands that utilize and optimize their Facebook Stories ads' placement see a boost outcome of up to 35%. Adding stories to your Facebook strategy will enhance your current feed campaigns—they go hand-in-hand. Plus, there are a slew of built-in Facebook Stories tools to help customize your assets. Continued growth within Facebook Ads, video, and mobile usage is a significant theme for 2021. Knowing these Facebook statistics and trends can help your brand keep up with the possible shifts to increase engagement, reach your growing audience and meet and exceed your goals. -Team Exverus

Walking the Thin Line Between Ad Relevance & Privacy Consumers don’t treat privacy logically. They are wary of brands tapping into their mobile phones to eavesdrop on their conversations, yet willingly overshare just about everything on social media. And despite existing and incoming privacy legislation in most U.S. states, the EU and even device-led like Apple, brands have a good deal of latitude in how they target consumers. It is critical that brands avoid overstepping when it comes to privacy. The Solution Commit to Transparency Studies show that consumers are less wary of personalized advertising if they know how their information was obtained and what it’s being used for. In a Harvard Business Review experiment, when online shoppers were told that an ad was based on their on-site shopping activity, the ad’s performance jumped significantly – CTR by 11%, and revenue for the advertised product by 38%. The takeaway for advertisers is to consider explaining how personalized advertising works, and demonstrate how it can be genuinely helpful. Take it a step further than the AdChoices icon; build an easily-accessibly page on your website devoted to data collection, for example. The goal is to educate consumers on the original intent behind personalized advertising and help remove its nefarious stigma. Target Responsibly Brand messages have power that shouldn’t be abused. Avoid targeting members of a specific race or sexual orientation, or those with medical conditions, for example. These are sensitive topics. Fortunately, most media providers automatically ban this type of targeting. Instead, use it for good. Proper targeting is about solving a consumer need. It can also be altruistic. If your brand can offer help to a disaster-struck neighborhood (food, water bottles, etc.), target mobile ads there letting residents know where they can find help. Consider Traditional Targeting If your brand or product caters to audiences of specific race or ethnicity, utilize traditional media buys. Planning media based on a channel’s own assertion of its demographic has worked for decades, and it still does. You can also let consumers tell you what they like directly. This can be achieved through third party techniques, like surveys, and even first-party data gathering – think Netflix’s “thumbs-up, thumbs-down” feature. Point being, not all consumer data has to come from third party surveillance. Final Thoughts With ads becoming more tailored to individuals – and big data growing bigger – we’ve reached the confluence of relevant ad targeting and privacy infringement. The key is to not violate consumers’ trust. Ultimately that trust is the greatest motivation for purchase, and through transparency and responsibility in ad targeting, consumers have less reason to fear what brands are doing with their personal data. -Team Exverus

Using a CDP: How To Get the Most Value Out of Your Customer Data In recent years, Customer Data Platforms (CDPs) have become more valuable for businesses. CDPs create a unified customer database that integrates first-party, third-party, and Personally Identifiable Information (PII) data and makes it accessible to other systems. A CDP helps marketers in three significant ways: 1. Data Unification Over 2.5 quintillion bytes of data are created each day. CDPs gather customer data from various sources and platforms, combining them into one source. Having one source allows for a holistic and accurate view in a fraction of the time spent gathering among multiple systems. 2. Improved Customer Communications CDPs make targeted, personalized experiences possible by providing insight into what customers expect at each point in the customer journey. You can support those touchpoints by creating custom interactions that may have otherwise been missed. 3. Customer Journey Insights CDPs assist in mapping out your customers' journey and experience in real-time. With the gap between gathering and analyzing data curtailed, targeted marketing messages can be deployed and tracked instantly. You will be able to see when and how a customer’s journey changes, adjusting as needed along the way. What the Statistics Say 43% of marketers using CDPs saw a significant improvement in ROI Online sales improved for 45% of marketers implementing CDPs 39% of marketers report a considerable reduction in time spent managing customer data CDPs provide a significant stepping-stone to identifying real-time journeys customers want to take when they want to take them, which is vital to a company's longevity, outlook, and relevancy. -Team Exverus

What Your Brand Can Learn From Walmart's Evolving Marketing Strategy The most prominent challenge marketers faced in the past year was keeping up with COVID-driven demands. Even Walmart, the largest retailer in the United States, was not excluded from this challenge, which led to a realignment of their marketing strategy. Now, as the world makes finds relief from the pandemic, Walmart is trying to decipher which pandemic-related marketing strategies will endure and which will sunset. Strategy one – shifting out of the lower funnel. Walmart quickly repositioned its marketing strategy from upper-funnel to lower-funnel when the pandemic hit. However, this meant that most customers would now have the benefit of trust-driving media to justify new ways of shopping with Walmart. Although beneficial at first, a lower-funnel strategy is inefficient without balance. That is why Walmart will transition back to an upper-funnel bias, especially as the economy improves. Strategy two – bringing the brand back into focus. Walmart stepped up technologically and for its community members during a time of enormous societal change. They prioritized putting the needs of others first and placing their brand in the backseat. Now, as more predictable levels of demand materialize, Walmart is rebalancing its investments to focus on building strong relationships and trust with its ever-growing customer base. Strategy three – maintaining a service-oriented approach. Even among the pandemic chaos, Walmart was able to successfully launch Walmart+, a membership program that offers subscribers in-store and online benefits, such as unlimited free delivery and fuel discounts. This year, Walmart plans to further focus on a service-oriented approach, looking past the traditional customer journey to deliver benefits to all parts of their customers' lives. No matter a brand's post-pandemic approach, the key takeaway should be building authentic relationships with consumers. After more than a year spent in quarantine, separation and isolation, people are yearning for brands to create and build a community that makes them feel safe, seen, and supported. -Team Exverus

The 5 Instagram Ad Mistakes Your Brand Should Avoid According to statista.com, Instagram is the fifth most popular social media platform as of January 2021. As marketers, we are frequently updated on best practices to leverage the most out of Instagram for business, but not so much the things we should avoid. These five mistakes could be stalling the full potential of your brand's Instagram advertising success: 1. Only using photo ads Instagram offers five different ad formats to drive awareness, engage and gain customers and share your brand’s story. No matter how brilliant your photo ad may be, this type of ad has its limitations. Other formats have their own strategic applications depending on your objectives. 2. Not leveraging A/B testing Having just one ad set gives you nothing to compare to see if it delivers the best results. Test various elements such as ad copy, the image, ad titles, and more to help improve your ads and make the most of them. The only thing better than A/B tests are A/B/C/D tests - be bold! 3. Missing the right audiences, or only targeting one Targeting the right audience is a big challenge for brands of all sizes. Your brilliant ad will only be a success if it properly reaches your target audiences, and if you are testing multiple audiences for engagement, sales and efficiency. 4. Not utilizing Instagram Insights Monitoring your business’s Instagram ad analytics enables you to understand further how your audience interacts with your ads, what’s working, and what could use improvements. Track your impressions, reach, and actions all in one spot. Also, gain insights into your audience’s gender, age, and location. 5. The ad content is wrong Your ad content should accurately reflect your brand, provide inspiration and not be too promotional. Producing ads that focus on inspiring your audience through stunning imagery and spectacular stories have their place but above all, be relevant and useful. By avoiding these mistakes, you can leverage your followers, generate more traffic, build a healthy, loyal audience and reap the most out of your Instagram advertising investment. -Team Exverus

What the Best Social Content Has in Common It’s no secret that social media has become the most popular way for audiences to interact with brands. Facebook and Instagram combined have billions of daily active users, with numbers continuing to rise. While we typically focus on paid strategies, the content our clients support means a great deal in the success of our paid campaigns. We always aim to help our clients create a virtuous cycle of positive engagement and lower media costs. We looked at the best social content and what it has in common so your brand can optimize and get the most value out of your social media investment: 1. Variety Variety is the most crucial factor in a successful social channel. Including a blend of different content forms, such as videos, article shares, infographics, stories, photography, user-generated content (UGC), etc., keeps your audience engaged for the long run. 2. Include relevant hashtags Ever since the introduction of hashtags—about 14 years ago—content has become easier to search and organize, at least on Twitter, Insta, TikTok, etc.. While they are not the sexiest marketing tool for businesses, including the correct, most relevant hashtags will bring your business more visibility. 3. Post positive content There’s no question that the best social content evokes strong, positive reactions from users. People are more likely to appreciate and trust a brand that posts light-hearted news, statistics, and stories. Such posts connect with audiences on a deeper level and go beyond the otherwise incessant request from brands to consumers of “Buy Now” and “Shop Npw”. Now that you know the three main ingredients that make up the best social content, what should your brand do? Focus on the audience, of course! Know your audiences and the type of content they most enjoy. Or, take this time to test different kinds of social media content and develop a powerful strategy. -Team Exverus

Choosing Search vs. Social It’s an age-old (er, decade old) battle: Paid Search vs. Social Media. While they both have advantages and work best together, today we will highlight areas where paid search has the upper hand. SEM Is Intent-Based Social media is full of articles, pictures, and videos that cover all of a consumer’s interests. But in paid search, customers don’t typically find you unless they’re searching for you or something you offer. This means that traffic coming from search to your site is usually consumers who are lower in the marketing funnel and are closer to becoming customers. Think if it like casting a smaller, more refined net, with target-customer-shaped holes. SEM Provides Unique Data One of the most powerful assets of paid search campaigns is its keyword lists. If you look closely, search keywords and phrasing offer golden insights into the mind of your customer. Keywords and phrases can influence creative, help you understand your customer, and plug into your website or landing pages for better SEO ranking. SEM Is Better for B2B Let’s face it: social media wasn’t made for B2B advertising. Social feeds are built for distraction – users want something shiny they can see quickly, understand immediately, and keep scrolling past. Speaking of scrolling, that’s what most users do on social media. CPG and other DTC products have an advantage here, as they’re inherently more enticing than B2B services. An ice-cold bottle of beer with on an artful backdrop is just going to get more likes and shares than an ad for small business IT services. There’s no unfair competition in paid search. Your B2B brand isn’t competing with B2C products, and anyone who sees your ad is looking for exactly what you offer. While we believe the real discussion is not search versus social, instead it is search plus social, consider search’s unique advantages and if they are aligned with your brand’s objectives during your next media allocation. -Team Exverus

New Exverus White Paper: Podcasts: The Rising Star in Audio Are you a podcast listener but not using podcasts to grow your brand? Are you utilizing Podcasts in your brand marketing mix, but not sure how they fit in? Are you thinking about using a platform that has grown massively in the past five years? Exverus' new white paper, Podcasts: The Rising Star In Audio is now available for download! CLICK HERE to download today. -Team Exverus

How to Measure Consumer Attention: 3 Tips Consumer attention is shorter than ever, which is why it's critical for marketers to measure performance beyond typical metrics, such as views, clicks and even direct conversions. How people pay attention to your advertising strongly determines your business outcomes. Let’s say your business goals are to increase sales, improve conversion rates and generate more leads. Not every media channel gives you direct insight into how it affected these metrics, but they still may have been effective at converting to purchase. Shifting to an "attention signal" strategy is a holistic approach that spans all media channels and platforms. For desktop and mobile media, in-view time, interaction rate, and interaction time help determine how people engage with the advertising on a given page. For video and digital streaming, percent of video played in-view, audible rate, and completion quality are great for effectively assessing the quality of video ad exposure. For branded content, scroll rate, scroll depth, and active page dwell time measures the user's full engagement with the content. And for all of the above, utilizing a market simulation or MMM model can help assign a value to this attention, ensuring it stays in your list of core KPIs for the future. Key takeaways and tips: Shift to an "attention signal" metric system and tailor it to your business. Leverage those metrics across omnichannel campaigns and devices. Evolve your key performance drivers for your business to identify gaps and optimize impact. Wherever your company may be in its metrics journey, following a more holistic approach will help elevate your digital strategy and uncover meaningful insights for your businesses' critical performance drivers. -Team Exverus

Data-Driven Creative: You Have The Data, Let's Use It! When programmatic media came about several years ago, the push was for relevant, personalized ad experiences. We all thought data-driven creative would make consumers more eager to click. But today’s consumer is weary of relevant advertising – especially when it’s so “relevant” that it borders on creepy. Still, the science behind programmatic advertising is sound, and the data you’ve gathered is vital to creative messages in any channel. Here’s how to use it to build and write powerful creative messaging that speaks directly to your target audience: 1. Don’t Ignore Your Data When it comes to using your programmatic data as intended, you may not be. One simple way to do this is to build separate executions for unique segments within your main audience. Consider the two ads for Brooks at the top of this email. The products, design style, and language are similar, but the audiences are unique. The ad on the left is targeted to runners in warm climates, who want athletic gear to keep them cool and looking good. In contrast, the ad on the right speaks targeted toward runners in cold, rainy climates. From the language, it’s clear this is a more utilitarian audience, seeking to keep the elements at bay while working out. 2. Know Everything About Your Target Customer Today more than ever, it’s important to know exactly who your customer is. Almost as if you know them personally. And again, today more than ever, we have the data to pull it off. Take the OOH ads below, part of a larger campaign from Spotify’s recent marketing push. Here, the streaming music giant leverages its vast array of individual user data, highlighting the way its most interesting customers use Spotify for unique ads. The campaign is so targeted it become a caricature of itself, alluding to a unique, tailored listening experience: There’s something for everyone on Spotify The next time your team designs a creative message, ask yourself: Are you leveraging your customer data? - Team Exverus

Super Bowl LV - Good For Advertisers? A report from AdColony, a mobile advertising and marketing platform, reported 81% of consumers said they wanted humorous ads in this year’s Super Bowl. In comparison, 36% preferred a more heartwarming approach, and the remaining 11% desired political or social change ads. So, how did advertisers do this year? Let’s break it down by the numbers: According to AdAge, a total of 56 advertisers took 67 ad spots, both up from last year. TV ad impressions totaled over 6.3 billion, which was down slightly from last year. But what blew everyone out of the water was the number of impressions on social media, which totaled just under 64 billion–60 billion more than last year! What makes this year different? Well, the pandemic, of course, but more so the break we all seek from the stress of COVID through a good laugh and heartwarming messages. From State Farm’s “Drake from State Farm” and Amazon Echo’s “Alexa’s Body” to Jeep’s “The Middle” and Indeed’s “The Rising,” there is no doubt advertisers got it right this year–almost. Almost, because one major thing fell short: diversity and inclusion. According to the Association of National Advertisers’ Alliance for Inclusive & Multicultural Marketing (AIMM), little progress has been made in the industry to show a broader range of people in ads. Many marketers have set goals surrounding representation in advertising, but AIMM’s findings suggest that brands still have a long way to go, especially concerning the Super Bowl. And, of course, Oatly, whose self-indulgent ad felt out of place and like a unilateral decision by the CEO to spend shareholder money. A case study in what not to do to maximize brand returns. But what advertisers did get right was immense creativity, talent, and ingenuity, even during trying times. By 2022, brands should be courageous and persistent in bringing more representation to the audiences they support and serve. Will you be ready to share your brand on the biggest stage? Negotiations begin next week. - Team Exverus