3 Tips for CPG Brands and Agencies to Improve Programmatic Audience Targeting

Despite the pandemic winding down in the U.S thanks to the increase in COVID-19 vaccinations, marketers still face uncertainty as they plan for the back half of 2021. Reaching diverse consumers as they head back out to live, work, and play and driving them to purchase is just what the insights unearthed by Catalina’s shopper intelligence experts, data scientists, and analytics teams help brands do.

Want to improve your programmatic audience targeting? Here are 3 tips to help do just that.

#1 – Understand the Why Behind the Buy

It’s imperative to move beyond consumer demographics to get a holistic view of shopper behavior. The importance of using purchase-based and lifestyle/shopping behavior to understand brand and shopper affinities is key. Purchase data goes deep and granular to unleash shopper behaviors that inform brand campaigns and activations that deliver. Not everyone fits into a demographic or a box so layering it with data to make it richer delivers a clear picture for brands. As more consumers track label ingredients and seek low-sugar and gluten-free options, for instance, algorithms can be created based on shopper affinities to deliver relevant messages and drive brand sales.

The ability to be predictive based on real-time insights lets brands move faster and better. Use custom audiences where possible, ones that are based on specific brand objectives – like targeting your lapsed buyers, your current buyers, or competitive conquests. There are custom affinity groups to target too, like seasonal flu and cold product buyers. Custom segments are the rage and Catalina’s legacy of deterministic in-store targeting has been modernized to better deliver for brands looking to build proprietary modeling approaches to increase audience reach.

Programmatic audience targeting is being fueled by tech and digital innovations that when harnessed, deliver unseen lanes for brands to personalize and undoubtedly grow their consumer base. It breaks brands out of boxes and can deliver fans across demos.

#2 – Test Drive Your Audiences

Once you understand your disparate audiences, test-driving the data findings before unleashing millions in marketing spend to reach consumers is the next important step.

We intimately understand Audiences perform differently across different media channels, so it’s important to have tools like our HUB360 Audience Insights to test performance before activating campaigns. Testing campaigns and benchmarking results in real time against competitors allows brands to quickly pivot to optimize activations. With data driving how to allocate media dollars, better returns are delivered.

When Noosa yoghurt was a newbie in the dairy aisle attempting to break into the competitive yogurt category, Catalina’s data nerds crunched numbers from more than 85MM households in addition to shopper behaviors for north of 80K products. Considering variables like recent purchase, frequency, tenure, and spending habits, a custom and predictive model was built so Noosa could ID the Highest Potential Brand Triers and develop a plan to drive trial.

Business, is indeed, personal. Customized messages that included personalized offers were unleashed with precision to new, existing, and returning buyers. Specific test-and-control methods that allowed Noosa to refine buyer characteristics and offer deals in real time delivered massive results. Trial rates were up as much as 5% while repeat was 50-100% higher than the repeat of average brands. Retail sales were 3-4x higher than the client’s initial investment and sales nearly doubled versus Noosa’s initial investment for returning buyers.

Talk about using targeting to accelerate growth. Whether for emerging or established brands, the power of programmatic audience targeting and giving agencies the ability to test waters before diving in cannot be denied.

#3 – Measure Twice, Optimize Always

In-flight measurement continually identifies the best mix of media, creative, and audiences so brands can most effectively execute activation. Staying agile and being able to pivot via always-on measurement is the way to dominate competitors.

Catalina’s measurement and optimization solutions pave a way to shoppers in more personal, meaningful, and motivating ways.

As Digiday reported in June, Verizon Media harnessed the value of shopping data via a just-inked partnership with Catalina.

Verizon Media, as the business publication reported, already has a pretty detailed idea about what its users read and watch. By teaming with Catalina, it can now tell advertisers what its users have bought too.

That’s a shopper WOW.

Holistic approaches for clients across categories allow Catalina to customize insights and drive campaigns that are continually measured and tested to boost audience engagement. A strategic shopper marketer differentiator if ever there was one!

Visit Catalina’s Audience Catalog and/or Audience Solutions page to learn more about how to start improving your brand’s programmatic audience targeting today.