The beauty of digital marketing is the data that can be accessed, often in real-time, to inform what is or is not working, and what customers are really interested in – which can be demonstrated by the online steps they take, such as visiting a website, clicking on an ad, considering and making purchases, and much more. The challenge then is to take those insights and retarget consumers with the most relevant messages and content to continue influencing their purchase journey.
As the ‘Winning the Rebound’ article in the June issue of ANA Magazine outlined, that takes more than the digital equivalent of shouting at consumers on the street after they leave your store. The article is full of tips and best practices for targeting with expert advice from a variety of digital marketers – including our suggestion to spend time at the beginning on a comprehensive strategy.
Here are a few more of our best practices suggestions for digital marketers:
- Always start with the goals – Ensure that campaign goals are candid, transparent and clearly communicated upfront to all stakeholders, including any agencies, tech partners or publishers so everyone is aligned for success. Share any specific KPIs for retargeting and tracking methods. A solid set-up leads to better performance.
- Cast a wide net and layer for success – Set up for success with broader targeting and let real-time insights and data steer this effort. An unexpected and untapped audience just might be the biggest and best opportunity. Also consider retargeting pixels to further extend audiences, and layer audience data to have the best reach and gather insights for optimizations.
- Be flexible and open to optimization – Ideal audiences can be a moving target, so campaigns that are not constrained in reach with stringent setups around targeting, creative, or platform have the best chances for success. Flexibility and openness to optimization is especially important when real-time performance monitoring is possible, such as with our products, where we can focus on best performing tactics to help marketing partners reach goals.
- Keep it consistent – Remember branding basics, and make sure audience extension creative fits into the broader campaign so there is consistency throughout the consumer journey. Also, ensuring creative assets are strong from the beginning and continuing to optimize creative throughout the campaign can make all the difference.
The audience extension products we offer our marketing partners use Expedia first-party data on shopping and purchase behavior to identify the attributes of a ready-to-convert shopper and then reach that audience profile across the web.
For example, Korean Air was interested in increasing bookings from the US audience, and specifically expanding their reach beyond the traditional campaigns they had been running. By leveraging our first-party data and audience extension solution, Korean Air was able to reach shoppers interested in using the air carrier outside of the Expedia sites with a simple and direct call to action. The campaign produced excellent results, with 6.8 return on ad spend (ROAS). For more on the campaign, see the Korean Air case study on our site {{cta(’90e3eb27-451f-4e9e-b3a4-0cccd9367424′)}}
