A piece by Sam Thompson, Head of Media and Partnerships at Bench
As we know, when there is uncertainty, we tend to fall back on what we know works best and where we can get those quick wins that help keep sales or leads coming through the door. From a digital marketing perspective this means that oftentimes brands will fall back on the lowest hanging fruit, search and social activity.
The question then becomes, what happens when the sales or leads start to slow down, or start to become too expensive? These environments are not one in which a brand can simply just pump more budget and keep the positive ROIs flowing. As we all know, social media buying has points of diminishing returns against your in-market audiences in which you will eventually see CPAs rise. When we hone in on search, we know that it often will lead to the best ROI performance, but will only capture consumers who are already in your sales funnel.
It’s no secret that to combat this, brands need to invest in branding channels to create more awareness of their products or services. We all know that these channels drive value. They are tried and tested and have delivered business outcomes for years. The challenge that brands have when it comes to investing in these channels right now is the aforementioned uncertainty and the fact that we as ‘digital’ media sponges are very much shifting the way in which we consume media, which leads to complexity in how to best fill that funnel and enhance your performance media plans.
The main challenges when it comes to enhancing lower funnel performance –
- Investing in volume deals with broadcast media are costly, timely and inflexible
- Targeting your specific audience segments
- Directly measuring the impact of media buys
- Shifting media consumption
The infographic covers how programmatic marketing addresses some of the most important issues advertisers face as they strive to optimise their campaigns.
