No Remarketing Pixel, No Problem
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Global Sneaker Brand
This global sneaker brand's success is rooted in the brand culture they've created, and the lifestyle their brand stands for. Being true to their brand values and creating brand-driven customer experiences is the foundational aspect of everything they do.The Challenge
When the news dropped of digital marketing’s privacy-first future without third party cookies, this brand chose to remove all remarketing pixels from their website. Behind this bold move was an appetite to run out ahead of competition by testing the audience targeting capabilities of the future while preserving their audience first strategy.
From a digital marketing standpoint, remarketing was the most successful tactic for driving Return on Ad Spend (ROAS). However, with traditional remarketing now off the table, performance goals remained the same. It was an unprecedented challenge.
The Strategy
Users with previous ad exposure are more likely to convert (hence why remarketing is so tried and true!). By no longer having the option to remarket, we needed more innovative tactics to drive performance forward across channels, platforms, targeting, and creative. It was time to learn and test every effective tool in the toolbox.
We analyzed audience targeting options that were still possible without a pixel and additional innovations we could leverage. We found that there were more options available than not!
The overarching goal was to create a tailored consumer journey for specific audiences by channel and cross-channel. Our Phased Testing & Prioritization Approach started with highest value tactics while balancing the effort to build and launch each phase.
Phase 1: Max Out Known Audiences & Lower Funnel
In Platform Remarketing
- Added More Video to Social: To maximize in-platform retargeting capabilities, Rise created new video assets tailored to unique audiences (e.g. fashionistas or music loves) and built campaigns to generate a Video Viewers audience on Meta.
- Expanded Google Ecosystem: Added Google Discovery campaigns to re-engage with consumers who viewed ads across Google properties like YouTube and Gmail.
- Leveraged First Party CRM Data: Ensured all capable platforms were ingesting CRM lists for known audience targeting, built lookalike segments, and instituted a cadence of CRM list refreshes to align to specific product launches and promotions.
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Phase 2: Move Up the Funnel Across Platforms
Launched New Platform and Inventory
- Snapchat: We reached unique consumers while using Snapchat’s more granular and personalized in-platform remarketing.
- Teads: Tested this programmatic inventory partner that specializes in unique placements and ad formats that look like social ads and appear natively within news and lifestyle articles. The consistent user journey of showing customers the same assets and messages on the open web and social platforms drove better engagement and CTR than standard display ads while providing new content insights for future strategies.
Integrated CTV with Programmatic Display Targeting
- Launched product-specific CTV campaigns and built audience and product-specific re-targeting tactics in Display based on the CTV campaigns’ reach
Phase 3: Invested in Acquiring New Zero Party Data
With existing first party data in full use and new tactic expansion, we then built campaigns with the specific goal of acquiring new first and zero party data, specifically phone numbers and email addresses to fuel SMS and Email acquisition campaigns. These ads, especially Snapchat’s Swipe to Text ads, encouraged people to sign up for special product announcements and promotions.
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Phase 4: Automated CRM List Management
With a strategy reliant on CRM lists to fuel targeting, it was critical to use the most up-to-date data to appropriately include and exclude individuals based on their engagement and purchase behavior.
We partnered with the client’s IT team to set up automated CRM list updates that pushed into the advertising platforms to dynamically update audience segments in near real time. This elevated our ability to activate our waterfall targeting strategy to mirror as closely to traditional remarketing as possible.
The Result
The brand was thrilled with the incremental performance improvements of each phase. The most exciting impact was realized during the first month having all four phases live, with astonishing YoY results: