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Political Ground Game Goes Digital

Political Ground Game Goes Digital

by | Jun 22, 2020 | Digital Marketing

With uncertainty around whether or not any traditional ground game will be feasible this cycle it is imperative that candidates build a cohesive digital ground game. Population Science is actively working with clients to deploy paid, owned, and earned media strategies to compensate. While there is no one size fits all strategy for political campaigns, there are two tactics that we feel can be universally deployed:

 

Geofencing

Go neighborhood, by neighborhood with targeted, digital messages across various channels. The information you can get back from short-run, micro-location targeted campaigns can be invaluable. You can measure engagement rates as signs that certain locations might be more interested in your campaign.

Campaigns can take learnings and apply them to wider targeted campaigns. For example, did you notice neighborhoods with a median age of 36 responded better than a median age of 51? Maybe you should be investing more of your digital budget in a younger voter across all of your campaigns.

 

Influencer Recruitment

Take your endorsement game to the grassroots level. Anyone who reaches an audience of potential voters via social media can easily sway small numbers of voters your direction. Community activists, neighborhood leaders… really anybody that can reach an audience of tuned-in voters. This is especially important in local elections.

You need to create content that is shareable and has the ability to go viral. Here are some ideas:

  • Memes (the more creative, the better)

  • Short form video

  • Informational posts

 

2020 might be the most bizarre campaign cycle in modern history. Get ahead of the game by lining up your digital ground game today!

Retargeting – The Forgotten Tactic

Retargeting – The Forgotten Tactic

by | May 7, 2020 | Digital Marketing, Programmatic

As I talk with clients and prospects about adapting to changing media consumption, one theme seems to be emerging: nobody is interested in talking about their retargeting strategy. 

Reasons given include:

  • Marketers have simply put retargeting on cruise control using “set it and forget it” programs.

  • With cookies disappearing in two years, what is the point to revisit?

  • Marketers have been focused on new and emerging trends.

It’s easy to fall into a trap of thinking you’re already maximizing your retargeting program. The truth is you probably are not.

Programmatic has changed the game when it comes to retargeting consumers. Emerging channels are being woven into the equation, creating new opportunities to retarget with video, rich media, and voice.

As consumers are using more digital channels to learn about products and services, it is imperative to engage site abandoners with the right message, on the right channel, on the right device, at the right time. 

Here are some thoughts on how you can ensure you’re getting the most out of your retargeting program:

  • Audit your pixel placement. It amazes me how few digital marketers have no clue if their retargeting tags are properly deployed across all product/service pages.

  • Reassess your customer journey. Is your website properly guiding potential customers across the finish line?

  • Integrate video to provide site abandoners a compelling reason to return and convert.

  • Negative target audiences that don’t need to be reengaged. For example, you likely don’t want to retarget people looking at your website from your own office. Also, do your clients access a login to use your service via your website? Consider if you should negative target that CRM file.

Retargeting is the highest ROI channel next to email, and it is the foundation of any digital strategy. Once you have implemented a retargeting strategy, or simply given your old strategy a tune-up, you are ready to take retargeting to the next level.

Opportunities abound to optimize your campaign by retargeting visitors to a physical location or past customers in your CRM database… more on those opportunities soon in future blog posts.

If you are ready to review retargeting your strategy or explore implementing a new one, contact Population Science today for a free audit and consultation!

Using Programmatic to Amplify your Affiliate Strategy

Using Programmatic to Amplify your Affiliate Strategy

by | Mar 1, 2020 | Programmatic

Programmatic media buying and affiliate strategy have a lot in common. Affiliates are constantly looking to recruit, retain, and optimize high quality publishers and influencers. Programmatic isn’t that much different. It’s all about leveraging data to identify and optimize media placements across a wide array of publishers.

While affiliate and paid media teams are traditionally viewed as completely separate disciplines, there are a lot of synergies where programmatic can be leveraged to amplify affiliate programs. Below we look at Connected TV and Influencer/Publisher Amplification as two immediate opportunities for affiliate marketers to leverage programmatic tactics:

Connected TV:  Connected TV is the most powerful paid media opportunity available to marketers today. It combines the impact of television ads with the precision of digital targeting. Connected TV hits on all of the important metrics that make a successful marketing channel:

  • Reach: Over 80% of internet connected households in the United States stream at least some of their television content.

  • Demographics: All demographics are represented with the average age of a streamer being 42.

  • Impact: Connected TV ads have a 95% completion rate and drives up to 4 times the number of website visits compared to YouTube ads.

At this point you might be thinking “this sounds great, but I can’t afford it.” That couldn’t be further from the truth! Highly targeted CTV campaigns can be done at a small fraction of the cost of a traditional TV buy. There is even good news for advertisers that haven’t invested in a video ad. The cost of video production has fallen substantially during the last decade. Shooting a high quality commercial can be done with just about any budget. Finally, to link everything back to your affiliate program, tracking can be done by creating custom coupon codes in your affiliate platform.

Influencer/Publisher Amplification: Influencer outreach is a booming area in affiliate marketing. Programmatic tactics can reach into the channels that your influencers use such as social media, digital audio, and digital video. Chances are you already advertise on social media. So why shouldn’t you also be in digital audio and video? If it works for the influencers you are partnering with, it will work for you too.

Another interesting fact to consider is that many of the publishers and influencers you currently work with leverage programmatic exchanges to fill ad inventory on their websites and mobile apps. When you know your product or service will be a part of a publisher/influencer post, look for opportunities to place display, native, or even video ads on the publisher website. This can help you reinforce the message and nudge window shoppers into your funnel.

In conclusion, programmatic is not that different than the affiliate channel. Leveraging programmatic tactics and channels with your affiliate program can provide a significant boost to both your affiliate and paid media strategies.

Bold Predictions for the 2020s

Bold Predictions for the 2020s

by | Jan 21, 2020 | Industry News

Industry News – January 21, 2020

Innovation and change in the ad tech and mar tech spaces happened at a dizzying pace over the last decade. With the start of a new decade I fully expect the roller coaster ride to continue.  I’m making bold predictions about how ad tech will evolve over the next ten years:

  •  The Walled Gardens will crumble: Facebook and Google will be forced to split up their publishing and ad businesses. There isn’t much that both parties in Washington have in common these days, but they both have Google and Facebook (and Amazon) in their regulatory crosshairs. Google and Facebook control around 80% of all digital ad spend (with Amazon rapidly leveraging their vast ecommerce/data platform to catch up).  With no viable competitor to any of these companies, the government will be forced to step in and break up their respective monopolies. The result will be a boost for programmatic as walled garden inventory will once again be available via exchanges.

  • Medium to small online advertisers will go programmatic. DSPs, data companies, and others that comprise the programmatic ecosystem have spent the 2010s going after enterprise clients. As the enterprise market becomes saturated, these companies will start to develop methods that make their solutions easier and scalable for advertisers with smaller budgets. These advertisers will be more than willing to ditch Facebook Business Manager and AdWords for DSPs that give them access to more platforms (Connected TV, Digital Audio, Digital Out of Home to name a few) and more data solutions.

  • Cable TV will go the way of dial up internet. The growth of streaming video content has been staggering. Currently, about 80% of households stream at least some portion of their video content every month. As more households become accustomed to using devices such as Apple TV, Roku, etc to access their video content, the desire to pay for bloated cable packages will continue to crumble. By the end of the decade we will finally realize the a la carte model for TV content via streaming services. The impact for marketers will be immense with vastly improved targeting options for TV ads.

Lend360 2019 Conference Highlights Importance of Programmatic Tactics

Lend360 2019 Conference Highlights Importance of Programmatic Tactics

by | Oct 29, 2019 | Industry News

Industry News – October 29, 2019

Population Science was on hand in Dallas last month for this year’s Lend360 conference. We love this conference because it showcases the latest advances in FinTech. It’s also great to see so many familiar faces and discuss new approaches to how data-driven programmatic advertising can help their businesses.

The FinTech space is not dissimilar from other B2C verticals where reengaging past customers is just as important as prospecting for new ones. Traditionally FinTech has relied on email, direct mail, and SMS to re-engage past clients. Unfortunately that isn’t enough anymore. As inboxes (and mailboxes) get more cluttered it’s becoming harder to stand out.

The biggest takeaway from this year’s conference for me was how programmatic CRM retargeting is moving to the forefront in terms of importance for financial technology marketing. 

Programmatic CRM retargeting allows companies to engage past customers on all of their connected devices, across a wide variety of channels, while managing frequency across channels and devices. This omni-channel opportunity allows marketers an opportunity to efficiently maximize their opportunity to engage past customers with offers to return for more products and services.

CRM retargeting is a tactic we will be implementing or expanding for all of our clients in 2020. To learn more about how CRM retargeting can make an impact for your business contact us today for a consultation.

We look forward to Lend360’s return to Chicago in 2020 and the opportunity to review campaign successes with our clients (and maybe meet new clients in the process)!