Key Media to Ride the Wave of Relevance in an Omnichannel World

In a sea of omnichannel options, consumers are like swimmers making their way into open waters. The customer journey has long lost its linear path: instead of a straight and predictable route, it involves a series of inconsistent interactions that can easily resemble a turbulent tide. This poses a challenge for brands, which increasingly struggle to stay on course.

Consumers no longer follow the traditional sales funnel — they can jump stages, take a step back or find alternate paths. Just as if they were swimming with a changing tide, consumers usually explore different options and paths. For example, they can enjoy a meal at their favorite restaurant and make a big online purchase at the same time. Or they can take their time to research car sales online, but visit a dealership for a test drive before making a decision. This new landscape reflects the increased complexity and flexibility of consumer behavior on the customer journey, where interactions change based on the most convenient way to face the tide.

Three Beacons to Engage Audiences

Brands can resort to different media to create new audiences and win their loyalty even in a wide sea of possibilities. Building new audiences is one of the most complex challenges for marketers today.

The key is finding the right balance. Display, connected TV (CTV), and digital out-of-home (DOOH) advertising are the key pieces of the must-have media mix for the first stage of the —no longer linear — funnel.

Programmatic display advertising is part of every stage of the funnel. It is constantly evolving, which makes it a foolproof resource. Combined with artificial intelligence (AI) solutions, it becomes the format of choice for companies both big and small. The main benefits of display ads are based on their segmentation and measuring capabilities. Using solutions like Groovinads, marketers can mix and match different segmentation techniques to enable brands to be relevant for the right audience, at the right time and place. 

CTV is one of the latest innovations in digital advertising. Unlike traditional TV, CTV offers a great array of formats, more segmentation capabilities, and more control over ad frequency. All this can greatly improve advertising ROI. At the same time, CTV audiences are more active. According to a report published by Comscore and IAB (2022), 31% of CTV users search for an advertised product online, 24% discuss the ad, and 15% have bought a product or service advertised on a CTV platform.

For those unfamiliar with the term, Digital out of Home (DOOH) advertising refers to the old-school ad posted on outdoor signs, only now they have gone digital. A study carried out by Latcom (2022) has found that 63% of consumers who see a DOOH ad are more likely to act on that information online, either by checking out the product’s website or buying it on an e-store.

Foot traffic, the weather, and vehicular circulation are constantly changing. Brand messaging and audience engagement strategies must follow suit. Outdoor advertising today can adapt dynamically to these changes, and DOOH, powered by AI-based programmatic solutions, is a true example of this.

By leveraging the synergies between demand-side platform and dynamic creative optimization technologies, DOOH advertising allows advertisers to automatically choose the best outlets and times for an ad based on the goals of each campaign. It also allows brands to customize ads in real time based on strategic segmentation variables such as the weather, the time of day, the day of the week, and the location.

For example, a food delivery platform can use the same outdoor billboard to offer different menu options based on the time of day, foot traffic, and vehicular circulation. This means the brand can increase ad frequency during the evening commute, when people are thinking of what to make for dinner, or at weekends, to advertise the best snacks for when consumers watch the big match with friends.

Land Ahoy!

As we mentioned at the beginning, consumers are like swimmers in open waters: they come and go, they use different techniques to manage the tide, and they explore the best routes to a purchase. They can also take breaks and continue their journey at a moment’s notice. For brands to succeed, just keeping pace with consumers is not enough. Brands need to become the beacon that leads them back to shore. How? By delivering the right message at the right point in their journey to light the path back to land, where they can satisfy their needs.

In the deep sea of advertising, brands need a technology partner like Groovinads to support them through thick and thin, with smart and efficient solutions and the help of a team of experts. This winning combination will be essential to enable brands to become more relevant for their audiences at the time and place where consumers can be found.