Digital advertisements have become the make or break for marketing in the modern age. Successful marketing means meeting your consumers where they are, and, in 2020, they are on their cell phones, laptops, and smart devices. It is essential that a company’s marketing strategy includes a strong digital ad plan and an effective analytic tracking method.
“People know they need to grow and there is some understanding (but not necessarily trust) that growing can occur through digital strategies,” says Crimson Advantage co-founder and CEO Louis Amira.
“However, it is not uncommon to work with a business where 20 to 50% of the analytics aren’t there or understood.” Ensuring that the ROI, ROAS, and other data points are accounted for leads to strong business decisions down the line.
Return on investment (ROI) is important, but, when it comes to digital marketing, the return on ad spend (ROAS) is crucial. Geotesting, understanding consumer responses to various ad techniques, and ROAS are synonymous with strong marketing efforts. However, what can this method really offer in developing a powerful strategy? Louis shares his insight to what geotesting really means when it comes to digital ads and how every company should begin utilizing this method today.
The Digital Ad Landscape
Digital marketing is a cost-effective and sophisticated method as you glean major insights (i.e. data) into how consumers interact with your brand. There is a vast array of different digital marketing methods, and some popular ones include:
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Social Media Marketing
Pay-Per-Click Advertising
Affiliate Marketing
Display Advertising
Content Marketing
Digital marketing is crucial for any business attempting to reach new consumers in an already crowded landscape, and advertisements are a major component of such. Consumers are exposed to thousands of digital ads every single day. That type of noise means that a business should cater ads in a compelling way, speaking directly to the consumer to cut through thousands of other voices.
Digital ads include display, video, search, and email marketing. Any one of these methods is trackable, meaning you hone in on valuable analytics that can pave the future of your marketing strategy.
“Finding the thing that moves the needle and shows that your spend is actually working is the power behind digital advertisement,” Louis discloses.
Many companies don’t know where to begin in the digital ad space, and geotesting prompts the way forward.
A Simple Understanding of Geotesting
Geotesting is a marketing experiment that provides valuable insight on how consumers respond to different marketing treatments. Louis explains, “running tests and seeing materially different results, whether moving the revenue needle or not, brings significant data to life.” This method works across different company sizes and industries, though a business must spend enough in the experiment to ascertain results.
Randomly selected metro areas, also known as geos, undergo different marketing treatments during a predetermined amount of time. Revenue is tracked in these geos and drastically different numbers show that a market is responding favorably or unfavorably to the treatment.
Louis encounters many businesses who are unfamiliar with this strategy yet wanting to try new things.
“Companies may not know that they need to geotest, but they want to see how launching something new will affect their revenue. That is what a geotest is, and understanding of that is how we demystify the process.”
Benefits of Geotesting
Geotesting is a top method for digital marketers to test new ads. In its origination, geotesting was how marketing agencies would track different responses to commercials or print ads in legacy publications. Years later, geotesting is an advanced strategy that tracks consumer responses and informs businesses how to best share their ads.
Geotesting makes for stronger digital ads that speak more directly to consumers in particular markets. Some benefits of geotesting include:
Tracking revenue effects with significantly more or less ad spend behind it
Understanding consumer responses to different ad treatments
Seeing how digital ad frequency plays a role in responses
Digital ads take on a deeper revenue significance when cultivated from geotesting analytics. A business more deeply understands what type of ads work well in a market, what level of ad spend produces positive results, and what the best reach and impression rate is for increasing sales.
Geotesting has direct effects on ROAS as a brand sees how far a marketing dollar will take them in a specific geo. A dollar that can produce greater results in one marketing treatment should be replicated to encourage a company’s growth.
Targeting and Testing Digital Ads
Modern technology has led to incredibly complex digital marketing, and brands now have the power to run geotests themselves.
“Ad targeting allows a company to restrict where a digital ad is run,” Louis declares. Honing in on a single metro area with a specific treatment highlights differences in consumer responses. Marketing treatments can include:
Different ad spend
Different digital ad structure (display, email, search, etc.)
Various treatments applied to one digital ad structure (copy, graphics, etc.)
Louis explains, “Let’s take 5 or 10 randomly selected cities and spend significantly more or less in those areas. What happens in the span of 4 to 6 weeks is the experimental data that a company can use to launch new products, change ad strategies, and make strong ad spend decisions.”
Digital advertisements are only becoming more common in the marketing game. Businesses can level up their ads by utilizing geotests and making stronger, smarter decisions on ad spend, quality, and targets. Boosting consumer responses directly correlates to a heightened ROAS, and geotesting is the strategy that will get you there.
