The 4 New Year Resolutions for Advertisers

As much as it pains us to say it, the realities we face today won’t look much different in early 2021. The industry will need to continue considering the pandemic when planning marketing strategies across paid media, virtual events, and sponsored content.

Check out these four resolutions to start your email advertising campaigns off on the right foot in the new year.

1) Stay nimble and evaluate your strategy often

Successful marketers keep a close eye on consumer trends and the social, economic, and political factors that influence them. If there’s one thing that 2020 has taught us, it’s that we can’t ever rest on our laurels. Marketers everywhere scrapped their 2020 marketing plans and learned the value of remaining agile, including our team at LiveIntent.

With the ever-changing news cycle, brands must keep their ears to the ground and be ready to swap out creative, update targeting, or revise ad placements at the drop of a hat. CMO of Bombas, Kate Huyett, recently shared with LiveIntent her first-hand experience responding to social and political unrest. In June of 2020, Bombas adapted creative to support the Black Lives Matter movement. In so doing, Bombas illustrated their sensitivity to and respect for the nation’s socio-political and racial climate. Bombas customers saw that the organization wasn’t interested in merely pushing the next sale, ultimately strengthening the bond between the brand and its customer.

2) Increase customer lifetime value

While customer acquisition is undoubtedly important, it actually costs less to retain existing customers than to find new ones. In 2021, leverage the relationships you created in the last year to drive business growth. If you don’t know where to start, check out our suggestions below.

Identify high-value customers

Take a look at your customer list from 2020 and ask questions like, Which customers are repeat purchasers, and what’s their average order value? Use your findings to create a profile of high-value customers. Then, onboard these audiences for targeting across your paid media channels.

Encourage and re-engage

Have your customers shown a specific interest in one of your brand’s product lines? Send them a message about new or similar products in your offering. Have a list of lapsed shoppers from last year? Re-engage them with “alumni discounts.”

Build a lookalike audience

If customer acquisition is part of your strategy in 2021, use the insights that you’ve just gleaned about what defines your best, most loyal customer to create a seed audience for lookalike modeling. By building a lookalike audience, you can find more new customers in our email exchange that are more likely to turn into high-value customers because they look and act like your seed audience.

3) Feature product availability, easy exchanges, and fast shipping

Because consumers are shopping more online, the Retail and eCommerce industries have experienced some inventory and logistical strain. With the holiday season well underway, that strain is likely to be exacerbated in upcoming months as customers look for a way to purchase both essential and non-essential items with ease. These operational issues may carry through after the holidays when consumers consider exchanging unwanted gifts from their quirky relatives.

If you’re a retailer, consider adjusting your creative and landing pages to tout your fast and easy exchange process and product availability. This small change provides customers with a sense of relief as they navigate the complexities of coordinating gift returns from home.

4) Continue to build up a first-party data asset

We can’t stress enough the importance of preparing for the inevitable demise of the third-party cookie. Start building up your brand’s first-party data by collecting customer email addresses. This first-party data, secured in the opt-in environment of email subscriptions, provides a stable, cross-device ID unaffected by browser restrictions and other third-party cookies woes. Then make this data asset actionable.

You can onboard your email addresses with LiveIntent’s Audience Manager, our platform for creating and managing people-based audiences. Audience Manager hashes your email addresses safely and securely, ensuring data privacy. Our Authenticated Bridge framework can target, optimize, and measure your people-based audiences in email and across the web without relying on third-party cookies.

As we collectively look back on the lessons learned in 2020, we are hopeful that the new year will be better in both our personal and professional lives. We wish everyone a safe and healthy holiday season!

Want to learn more about how LiveIntent can help power profitable growth for your brand? Visit our Advertiser Solutions page.