This may be a challenging time for advertisers whose services/goods are views as extraneous/lux spend. There are many companies right now that are thriving even in uncertain or troubled times. Things like health, wellness, fitness, convenience, subscription, kid related products and information are all doing really well.
I wanted to shed some light on some things that we are doing as a company for our clients that are helping them tremendously as well as shed some light on some ideas that you should be thinking about with your own ads and onsite marketing.
- Follow the momentum. You may notice that your typical “cash cow” campaigns aren’t performing like they normally do. Take everything with a grain of salt right now and allocate budget to the campaigns that are working for you and are bringing in your target KPIs.
Do NOT stop spending. I get it, sales dipped or fluctuated and you might be seeing more of that than normal, but we see a TON of data and it isn’t as bad as many think it is.
- Be mindful of your budget allocation to retargeting campaigns so you do not exhaust those audiences
Yeah it would be great to simply scale those campaigns short term but you don’t want to burn out your audience for the long term.
- Update LAL audiences to the most recent purchasers (people still purchasing in this climate)
The Facebook gods are good at finding you customers. Give them the best chance of doing that.
- Update creative messaging that presents a more compelling reason as to why consumers should still spend money.
This is something BIG that is working well for many. Lean into the uncertainty. Embrace the unknown or the current situation. A good example of this is a supplement company highlighting their immune boosting properties of their product or a fashion brand saying something like… “You are working from home, you might as well look good on your video calls.”
- Value props are changing – it is more important than ever to address important drivers such as:
- Food protection
- Immunity boosting, health and wellness protection
- Convenience and delivered to your door by X date (we are testing this quite a bit right now with great success. People want to know what is going to happen, they want certainty, so set the expectation.
- In stock and ready to ship (this is working well too, safe, prompt and uninterupted shipping)
- Prioritizing self-care
- Maintaining a sense of normalcy
- Speak to new routines
- Your target customer is adjusting to new routines and needs. Ideas for targeting and creative:
- Target – work from home, telecommuting, coffee shops, packed lunch, parenting, child care, parents with children (select ages), organization and schedules, online fitness (peloton, obe fitness, corepower, virtual services)
- Speak to these behaviors in your ad copy and creative. Don’t be afraid to acknowledge that you are home right now
- Example – “Staying In? Shop XYZ and score free shipping”
- Do you have any flexibility for a special WFH promo?
- Seasonal moments are still coming up – Easter, Earth Day, Spring, Mother’s Day use these as an excuse to promote. Similar to black friday and cyber monday, we are in weird times where it shouldn’t have an impact on your brand to run a major sale to help you through.
Bottom line, look for things to test on your site, look for ways to tweak your ads. If you are seeing fluctuations it is normal, embrace it, use it but don’t freak out. Now is more important than ever to be testing and adjusting your marketing to thrive in these very uncertain times.