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Who’s Your Audience? President’s Day
3 Min Read You might still be riding the high from yesterday’s Big Game, but we’re looking ahead to the next holiday just around the corner—President’s Day. Your campaigns might be ready to go or already live, but it’s never too late to add some more targeting to spice up a President’s Day sale. Plus, the more you experiment with different audience segments, the more you know about who is truly engaging with your messaging and brand. It’s a win-win, really. So, what do we know about this three-day weekend, besides the fact that we’re all looking forward to sleeping in on Monday? Typically, a three-day weekend like President’s Day gives consumers more time for consideration and action, since big ticket retailers are likely to offer promotions and generous discounts on items like home goods, furniture, large appliances and more. And with inflation being a sore spot for many, you can bet that every dollar that can be saved, matters. Let’s take a look at some audience segments you can apply to your MNTN Performance TV campaigns—or some food for thought for the next long-weekend. Audience Name: President’s Day Audience Provider: Connexity Why they’re valuable: All campaigns should at least have this audience segment in their targeting pool, as they’re actively on the hunt for items over the long weekend. Audience Name: Online – Big Ticket Shopper Audience Provider: MasterCard Why they’re valuable: Being the first major holiday of the year, President’s Day is an ideal time to shop for big-ticket items like furniture, bedding, kitchen appliances, TVs and more. Audience Name: Valentine’s Day Spenders Audience Provider: Oracle Why they’ve valuable: Yes, Valentine’s Day is tomorrow, but savvy shoppers know that delayed gratification wins hearts. With inflationary pressures making us think twice about buying full price, it makes sense that consumers are waiting for President’s Day discounts to shop up. Audience Name: Mattress Firm Buyer Propensity Audience Provider: Alliant Why they’re valuable: Mattress purchases typically fall between October and December, but we get it—shoppers’ wallets can look a little empty by the time holiday shopping is over. Which is why many wait until President’s Day weekend to look for their next big bedding purchase. Audience Name: Black History Month Audience Provider: ComScore Why they’re valuable: President’s Day overlaps with Black History Month, which runs through February. Don’t forget to add this segment to your campaigns to engage shoppers who are making purchases through the month. Audience Name: Singles Audience Provider: OnAudience Why they’re valuable: If the end of year holiday shopping is for friends and family, and Valentine’s Day is for lovers, then President’s Day is a weekend for self-love shopping at a fraction of the price. Sign Up for the Connected TV ReportSubscribe to the report Apple, Amazon, NBC and more use to get their CTV news.
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Who’s Your Audience: Pets (and Their Owners)
2 Min Read Did you know 70% of U.S. households (90.5 million homes) owned a pet as of 2022? Not surprised, since man’s best friend is considered more than just a pet but a family member. The global pet market is worth $261 billion, and by the end of 2022, US pet owners will spend close to $109.6 billion on their pandemic puppies. A Statista survey conducted at the start of this year revealed the generational breakdown of pet owners (or shall we say, pawrents), with Millennials taking the lead (32%), followed by Baby Boomers (27%) and thirdly Generation Xers (24%). While we can’t promise you cute puppy memes in this post, we can promise that as a marketer, you definitely have your pick of the litter when it comes to audience targeting and segmentation. Thanks to our recently launched Audience Segmenting Reporting feature, you can take it one step further and compare performance tied to each of your segments—informing more effective ways to test, learn and optimize your MNTN Performance TV campaigns. Audience Name: Pet Owners Audience Provider: Lotame Why they’re valuable: Want a slice of that $109+ billion of total pet spending? Tap into this audience of pet owners dedicated to their furry family members. Audience Name: Pets Deserve to be Pampered Audience Provider: MRI Why they’re valuable: Damn right they do. And yes, this is the actual name of the audience segment—targeting those who want to spoil their pets (which speaks for most of us). Audience Name: Exotic Pets Audience Provider: ShareThis Why they’ve valuable: Pet owners think outside the box just as much as our audience targeting capabilities. This segment reaches users whose furbabies extend beyond the usual dog and cat (think lizards, rats, snakes…). Audience Name: Pet Lovers Audience Provider: NinthDecimal Why they’re valuable: Last but not least, this segment targets the pet lover in all of us—whether you’re a pet owner or not. Audience Name: New Pet Owners Audience Provider: Audiences by Oracle Why they’re valuable: Whether it’s your first pet or a new addition to the family, new pet owners want to set their furry companion up for success from the get-go. Audience Name: Pet Rescue Donors Audience Provider: Infogroup Why they’re valuable: According to the ASPCA, approximately 4.1 million shelter animals are adopted each year. This audience segment represents users who are passionate about animal rescue and rehabilitation (reminder: adopt don’t shop!). Sign Up for the Connected TV ReportSubscribe to the report Apple, Amazon, NBC and more use to get their CTV news.
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MNTN Just Leveled-Up Audience Testing on Connected TV
3 Min Read Today, we’re excited to officially make Audience Segment Reporting available to all marketers using the MNTN Performance TV platform. Now, MNTN users can drill down and view performance data tied to each individual audience segment included in their targeting—providing a detailed picture of the exact, high value customers responsible for driving conversions and revenue. Although many DSPs and other digital platforms have been offering audience segment reporting for a while, we’ve done one better as our Audience Segment Reporting opens up opportunities for marketers that aren’t available on other platforms. Here are a few ways you can use MNTN’s Audience Segment Reporting to level up your marketing activations right now: Test, Learn, and Target More Effectively than You Can With Any Other CTV Platform While a limited number of other Connected TV and OTT platforms come with integrated targeting segments, those segments are often limited to basic demographics and interests. Our unique integration with Oracle Data Cloud and other third party data providers allows us to offer significantly more targeting opportunities, including over 80,000 unique segments you can use to build out their audience profiles. These segments go beyond basic audience demographics and empower marketers to leverage consumer purchase data, in-market intent, business decision-making capabilities, TV viewing behaviors, affinities, and more to hone in on CTV viewers that have high propensities to convert. MNTN Audience Segment Reporting empowers marketers to target any combination of MNTN’s multitude of audience segments—and their CRM lists—report back on the performance tied to each one, and optimize their expansive targeting more effectively than they could on other platforms. What’s this mean? Better performance. Test Audiences More Effectively Than You Can With a DSP Most DSPs charge fees for every third party audience segment you target in a campaign. Unfortunately, these extra costs limit your ability to scale campaigns and drive performance. Marketers often have to be more selective about the audience segments they target and test during their campaigns—limiting the insights they can gather in the process. With DSPs, your ability to learn is limited. With MNTN, it’s now limitless. Unlike DSPs, MNTN doesn’t charge any data fees. So, take a leaf out of DECKED’s book and target over 50 different audience segments in one campaign without impacting scale or performance, and then use your audience segment reporting to analyze the outcomes driven by each segment. Apply Your Learnings to Platforms That Don’t Offer Granular Audience Insights Many key performance marketing channels still don’t audience segment-level reporting, including some major social platforms. This makes it difficult to learn which audiences to prioritize when investing in those activations. Brands can use Audience Segment Reporting to test and learn on Connected TV and then apply those learnings across their marketing mix—informing better targeting strategies on channels with more limited audience reporting. You have to love when a rising tide raises all ships. Want to see how your brand could benefit from Audience Segment Reporting for Performance TV? Schedule a demo below. Want a Closer Look?Discover how Performance TV delivers revenue, conversions and more through the power of Connected TV. Request a demo today to speak to an expert.
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Hindsight is 2022: Make it a Memorial Day to Remember
5 Min Read If summer, barbecues and vacation are the first things that come to mind when you hear the words ‘Memorial Day,’ you’re not alone. But perhaps ‘revenue’ should be added to the list too, where retail sales are concerned. A survey conducted last year by Coresight Research found that almost two-thirds of consumers planned to increase their spending over the Memorial Day weekend for dining and drinking out, as well as both ecommerce and in-store purchases. Looking back to last year, total sales from March 2021 to May 2021 were up 36.2% versus the same period in 2020. Last year’s recovery has since worked up to a full recovery, as foot traffic is back to pre-pandemic levels and travel has made a roaring comeback as people make up for lost time—a survey conducted by GlobalWebIndex revealed that 78.7% of people are planning to take a trip this year, and 10.3% have already booked at least one vacation. And, if it’s not vacation, then it’s making moves (we mean of the real estate variety)—80% of all moves in the US occur between April and September. That explains all of the home improvement, furniture and appliance promotions that you see during Memorial Day. We’ll cover: Memorial Day or Memorial Month? This year, we’re expecting to see a similar theme—except with a few nuances. Inflation has hit a 40-year high of 7.9%, meaning consumers will be a lot pickier with their purchases. It also explains why the majority of consumers are planning to head into shops rather than online as they want to ‘see before they buy’ in order to make an informed purchase decision. We also analyzed our own MNTN Performance TV data across key Memorial Day verticals, such as home and garden, ecommerce and retail, travel and leisure and consumer goods, and saw clear increases in both revenue for our prospecting and retargeting campaigns, spiking at Memorial Day. However, what was particularly interesting was revenue continued to increase exponentially leading into the summer months weeks after Memorial Day, as advertisers reaped the rewards of their CTV campaigns. We also wanted to see whether this big increase in revenue the two weeks right after Memorial Day was correlated with a relative increase in ad spend and found that the latter increased nominally (by 7%), while revenue jumped almost 170%. We saw a similar pattern with retargeting campaigns, where ad spend increased by 45% across the same time frame, but revenue increased by 84% in comparison. Keep in mind that although Memorial Day lands on May 30, sales start as early as the start of the month—with most sales occurring in the week leading up to the holiday. Since last year’s data showed both retargeting and prospecting campaigns having a residual effect with bigger gains post-Memorial Day, we recommend that advertisers heavy up on their ad spend the month leading up to the holiday as this will give sufficient time to expand your targeting pool and reconnect with your current customers and reap the rewards sooner. Your Targeting Tune-Up You asked, we delivered—check out some of the audience segments you can (and should) target Memorial Day Shoppers: Of course, no Memorial Day campaign would be remiss without this classic segment, targeting those who celebrate the holiday. Lotame > Holidays & Special Events > Holidays > Memorial DayExperian > Retail Shoppers: Purchase Based > Seasonal > Summer Sales Event Shoppers: High Spenders: Memorial Day ShoppersPlaceIQ > Holidays and Seasonal > Memorial Day Sofa, So Good: Outdoor and indoor furniture, lawn equipment, mattresses and homewares are hot commodities during summer. Oracle > Retail > In-Market > Home and Garden > Outdoors > Patio and Outdoor FurnitureCuebiq > Geo-behavioral Audience > Retail > Housewares & Furniture ShoppersOracle > Retail > Merchant Category Audiences > In Store Furniture and Home Decor High Spender First In, Best Dressed: Memorial Day marks the unofficial start to summer, but retailers are looking to clear out their spring merchandise to make way for the new season’s styles. In-Market > Retail > Clothing, Shoes and Accessories > ClothingDatalogix > DLX Seasonal > Spring Seasonal > Spring Apparel BuyersPlaceIQ > Retail > Clothing Stores > Recent (Visited a clothing store once in the past 90 days) Clarify Your Message, Connect With Consumers So, you’ve got rising prices, a positive retail outlook, but pickier shoppers—this requires a nuanced approach to your campaign strategy this year. Creative will play a pivotal role in the way you deliver your message to capture the mind and hearts (and ultimately, dollars) from consumers. Some things you may want to consider is experimenting with value-based messaging to justify any price hikes. This includes: Enhanced product benefits: Prices might be rising, but if your product or services are getting a facelift, it’s prime time to have this front and center in your messaging. Loyalty programs: Price sensitive consumers are willing to experiment—and potentially switch brands. It’s important to retain and engage your current customers, through referral discounts and rewards. Monthly subscriptions deals: Retailers are offering discounts for regularly purchased or refilled products, which help to differentiate from competition and offset any price increases on a single unit product. A lower price point: A price per month, per mile, or per other unit of consumption is usually much lower, more transparent, and much more manageable for customers than an outright purchase price. Such prices also align better with how customers create and derive value.
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Who’s Your Audience? – Nonprofits and Charities Edition
3 Min Read What’s an advertiser to do when it’s no longer New Year’s resolution season, but it’s not yet Spring (Cleaning) and all of the seasonal events which fall under that umbrella? When perusing themes for this month’s audience spotlight, one industry stood out in particular—nonprofits and charities. Not only is this a sector that is much closer to our hearts, it’s evergreen no matter the season or month. And, as they say, it’s always better to give than receive, which is why charitable giving is expected to increase by 5.7% this year and hit a record $471.44 billion in contributions. Last year, and through this year, we’ve seen the nonprofits that have invested in their digital marketing—whether through data collection, fundraising strategy, personalized communication, audience targeting, and so on—were the ones most likely to exceed their KPIs for fundraising, program delivery, marketing and overall mission. However, as with many other industries, the nonprofit and charitable sector aren’t without their challenges. “Historically, individuals contribute approximately two percent of personal income, however while wages have grown, they have not kept pace with inflation. Purchasing power is declining…which could have a profound effect on charitable giving,” said Michael J. Rose, one of America’s top fundraising consultants. In this climate, it’s time to turn to other tools for support, whether it’s to attract new donors, acquire talent or simply drive brand awareness. We’re bringing to light some unconventional audience segments that you might not have considered, for your upcoming campaigns. Audience Name: Early and Late Baby Boomers Audience Provider: Alliant Why they’re valuable: Not only do they possess the highest spending power, they’re also the most generous, with almost three-quarters of this generation donating to charity. Audience Name: Profits to Charity Audience Provider: Oracle Why they’re valuable: Individuals make up the majority of donors, but let’s not forget corporate philanthropy, too. This segment includes organizations who embody charitable values. Audience Name: High Income Families Audience Provider: AdAdvisor by Neustar Why they’ve valuable: Studies show that households earning over $162,000 also donate the most, with 93% of these households donating to charitable causes. Audience Name: Charity Philanthropy Audience Provider: Infogroup Why they’re valuable: 80% of donations come from individuals—reach this group through this catchall segment targeting people who have an interest in charities and philanthropy. Audience Name: Giving Tuesday Audience Provider: Zipline Why they’re valuable: Last year’s Giving Tuesday broke all records, with total donations of $2.7 billion. Target this group of individuals who are likely to be charitable donors, too. Audience Name: Volunteers Audience Provider: Cross Pixel Why they’re valuable: Let this target audience work double duty—85% of volunteers donate to the nonprofit or charitable organizations that they volunteer. If you’d like us to feature a specific area, send us your suggestions at audiences@mountain.com and we might feature them in an upcoming edition. Sign Up for the Connected TV ReportSubscribe to the report Apple, Amazon, NBC and more use to get their CTV news.