How & Why Performance Marketers Must Get Brand Marketing Traction For Q4

Instead of knuckling down itamp8217s time to look up amp8211 up the funnel to brand campaignsYes itamp8217s counterintuitive to get further from the point of conversion while purchase intent is highest In this article Iamp8217ll explain why itamp8217s a good idea amp8211 and how to take steps to get thereWhy brand campaigns are a smart move in Q4Not only are CPCs and CPMs more expensive than ever particularly in Q4 nearly every brand who comes to my agency for support is overspending at the bottom of the funnel If you havenamp8217t done analyses for marginal return or incrementality I can almost guarantee youamp8217re spending on campaigns that produce less of a return than you thinkCampaigns built to capture high levels of intent amp8211 think retargeting campaigns and brand search campaigns amp8211 arenamp8217t just piggybacking on the demand generated up the funnel theyamp8217re often spending budget to record events and conversions that would have happened anyway If you do the work to identify where thatamp8217s happening you can pull money from those campaigns without much of an impact on revenue amp8211 and find yourself some resources to reallocate on initiatives like reach to bring new users into the funnel at lower engagement costsSpeaking of lower engagement costs weamp8217ve seen some startling numbers even recently One clientamp8217s upperfunnel Meta campaign last month recorded a CPM of 07 which means they were paying virtually nothing to introduce their brand and products to a huge new swath of usersHow to get tractionOf course moving up the funnel isnamp8217t a nextday initiative once youamp8217ve made the decision To get started properly I recommend the following1 Examine your data and reportingIn a worstcase scenario youamp8217re still relying on lastclick attribution and reporting from the platforms themselves This will leave you vulnerable to poor incrementality and to each platform overcrediting itself for your conversionsIf this is your situation start by picking a more nuanced platformagnostic model of attribution that accounts for more touchpoints And it should go without saying that your CRM data needs to be clean to get a full picture of things like pipeline impact and CLTV customer lifetime value so spend some time on QA there as well2 Run holdout or lift testsOnce your data and reporting is in relatively good shape itamp8217s time to run a lift test also known as a holdout test to assess incrementality There are some caveats to keep in mind here the test needs to be structured well to produce accurate results and you may not want to risk going dark in highvolume geos or demographics when purchase intent is highestThe good news though is that you can stand one of these up fairly easily Google and Meta offer lift test functionality that you can tap into Whether youamp8217re working with an agency or directly with a platform rep you can definitely get something underway in short order once youamp8217ve decided on your parameters big enough to be conclusive but not so big you might tank your overall volume3 Build a creative repositoryExpanding your reach means youamp8217ll have to expand your creative When you build out your creative for upperfunnel campaigns make sure youamp8217re covering a range of themes appeals pain points and benefits which will give you a much more powerful understanding of what resonates with your users than creating a lot of visual iterations of the same message4 Reallocate your budget into channel testsAssuming your holdout tests showed where you can cut some budget with minimal effect youamp8217ve got some budget to play with There are two main options here test netnew channels which may be a bit of a tougher road to hoe in Q4 or test different campaign types within active channelsIf youamp8217re trying to find new pockets of younger users TikTok is a great play especially with their new search ads option Unlike Google TikTok search is more of a blend of discovery and intent than straightup intent so it covers more of the funnelIf youamp8217re running Meta campaigns with DR objectives consider a combination of objectives that can help you reach more users We recently helped a B2C client move from conversiononly objectives to a combination of conversion and reach objectives and got big gains in both scale and efficiency amp8211 reach increased 82 landing page clicks increased 51 and CPA dropped 20 without any extra budget addedTaking the steps above comes with a huge bonus unlike with DR campaigns where results are relatively ephemeral your efforts in moving up the funnel will help set the stage for a huge 2025 Any new audiences youamp8217ve engaged now will cost less to convert later and building the muscles to identify smarter budget allocation will make you a stronger marketer for the long termPosted at MediaVillage through the Thought Leadership selfpublishing platformClick the social buttons to share this story with colleagues and friendsThe opinions expressed here are the author39s views and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillageorgMyersBizNet

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How & Why Performance Marketers Must Get Brand Marketing Traction For Q4

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Bryan Karas

The Ad Council, Huntsman Mental Health Foundation and Amazon Announce “The Mind Set” to Support Mental Health - Ad Council InSites

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