Brands will be disrupted by factors outside their control in 2023
The era of easy money is officially over. Central banks have ratcheted up interest rates in order to combat inflation, and this has had a serious impact on consumer behavior as credit lines shrink and essential goods become more expensive. 61% of UK consumers are considering cutting discretionary spending in 2023, and a staggering 43% will be forced to dip into their savings accounts for essential expenses.
For companies, this will translate into longer consideration times, lower conversion rates, and ultimately more picky consumers. Brands will be forced to fight over a dwindling pool of customers who will expect a lot more bang for their buck.
This may sound like a helpless situation, but it isn’t. A company is like a sailing ship. When it has the wind at its back, it can move quickly with little input from the crew. Now we’re facing chilling economic headwinds, but if the crew is clever about how it tacks the sails and steers the ship, it can still catch the wind and keep moving forward.
A company can thrive in these conditions by adjusting how it connects and communicates with customers, and taking advantage of MarTech trends to “catch the wind” and convert customers, particularly by maximizing the value of one of its most powerful tools: Promotions.
Brands can tempt price-conscious customers with promotions
Even during good times, customers love promotions, and during hard times they often need them to finally convert. Our internal data shows that brands see a sales uplift of 30-50% during promo periods as customers chase time-limited deals.
Promotions are a flexible tool for brands. They enable fashion or retail companies to identify dead stock, and free up warehouse space by encouraging customers to snap up unsold stock. It can also be a great way for luxury retailers or brands with big-ticket items to encourage customers to try something they wouldn’t normally feel that they can afford.
However, promos come at a cost. Brands experience slimmer margins, so will need to rely on volume to make up the difference. It also means that any marketing techniques they use need to be highly efficient, in order to avoid reducing overall ROAS during a campaign.
Martech gives brands the tools they need to maximize ROAS during promotion periods
Promo periods are a time of opportunity, but also intense competition for customer attention. This means that brands need to work hard to cut through the noise and grab the attention of customers who are constantly being bombarded with information.
In order to take advantage of this, brands can use emerging MarTech tools in order to stand out. Specifically, tools that you can use to reach users during promo periods, and maximize the probability that you can convert them into customers.
Cookieless targeting techniques help to target customers without compromising their privacy
The first step of any successful marketing strategy is targeting the right people. In the past, many brands relied on third-party tracking cookies to identify and follow consumers throughout the sales journey. That is beginning to change with Google’s plan to retire third-party tracking cookies.
Fortunately, RTB House has been working closely with Google and other partners on building the targeting solutions of the future. Deep Learning makes solutions like AI-powered contextual targeting a highly efficient method to reach new consumers.
It is also possible to leverage first-party cookies, which only use the data from a publisher’s website, in order to build target groups for specific campaigns. This helps brands reach out to very specific types of audiences, without needing to track an individual user across multiple sites, or even be able to identify them personally at all.
Once you’ve found your customers, the next step is to determine the right creatives for them.
Deep Learning seamlessly selects the right creatives for each user
One of the toughest jobs of any marketing department is developing creatives. They need to not just be compelling, but be able to appeal to a wide range of users, across a variety of formats. RTB House has developed solutions that take this burden away from our clients.
It begins with unique creatives, built in-house, which can then be adjusted to an individual user. For example, we can use dynamic banners to showcase products that we believe a user is most likely interested in, or to highlight features of a product that will appeal to that specific user.
This can go even further. We can use other custom solutions, such as video banners, zipper banners, or dynamic video streaming ads in order to not just deliver incredible creatives, but deliver them in the format that a specific potential customer is most likely to engage with.
For example, RTB House helped Renault showcase Captur and Kangoo with display & video banners. Clever targeting allowed RTB House to achieve 87.67% ad viewability, far exceeding the campaign goal. This targeting, when combined with compelling dynamic creatives, resulted in a Video Completion Rate (VCR) of 74.05%.
The best part? These solutions are all created by RTB House using assets provided to us by our clients. There is little to zero additional work, sometimes all we need is final approval on the assets.
There’s one final trick you can use to get an edge, and that’s dedicated sales sites.
Dedicated sales websites keep users coming back year-round
People love to feel like they’ve got a good deal, so will often scour the internet for sales. To attract these deal-hungry users, many brands opt to create a dedicated web page that keeps all of their sales and clearance items in one place. This enables brands to keep track of their clearance products and ensures that users are able to find amazing deals without too much hassle.
This approach helps to build loyalty among users who might normally only consider your brand during promotional periods, and you can take advantage of sales sites by using proper tagging. Allowing your marketing provider to produce content specifically tailored to your sales pages.
Combing these tools will help maximize the benefits of any promo campaign
The key takeaway is that any successful campaign will need to take a combined arms approach. By cleverly using a combination of effective targeting, MarTech-enabled personalization, and dedicated promo pages, brands can significantly increase the impact of any promotional period.
In the short term, this translates to stronger sales. In the long term, it provides an opportunity for brands to connect with a wider pool of customers and build lasting brand loyalty, with the potential to significantly increase a user’s lifetime value.
Talk to RTB House today to find out how your brand can benefit from MarTech in 2023
2023 is set to be a tough year, but with the right planning, technology, and expertise your brand can navigate these troubled waters. One of the best ways to get access to these advances is through MarTech-focused companies like RTB House, which often have highly advanced in-house methodologies that they can use to help you grow your business.
Our team is standing by to help. Just head over to our contact page, and let’s talk!
