“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” is a popular truism because it implies a logic and pragmatism that’s tough to refute. But it also can lead to (and sometimes even provide a handy excuse for) comfortable stagnation. While it might seem wise for an ag marketing team to take a rinse-and-repeat approach, what was once tried and true can eventually become stodgy and stale, leading to weaker results.
If you’re already using programmatic advertising, think about your last few campaigns. Have you used the same strategy to reach your agriculture audience? Or have you changed your approach and tactics to keep things fresh? Between busy schedules and pressure to get results, we all can grow overly reliant on what’s worked in the past.
At Precision Reach, we see some ag companies continue to use overly similar campaigns, such as running display ads every couple of months with the same creative and objectives. While copy-and-paste initiatives can be valuable, they also can lead to missed opportunities for growth and insight. To freshen up your programmatic ad strategy, consider some of these ideas.
Change Your Target
You know you want to reach a certain type of farmer, but why not try tightening your target? If you’ve been reaching row crop growers, for example, think about ways to make the data more precise. Here’s an approach: exclude CRM data so that you only reach new customers. Or you could intersect first-party data with behavioral data to target specific interests in certain topics, such as fungicides or equipment interest. Changing your target can be a good way to take full advantage of data-targeting opportunities, from first-party data to behavioral affinities to custom data onboarding.
Trade Places
In programmatic campaigns, you can be very precise with geographic targeting. Consider focusing on specific states, counties, zip codes or even within radii around smaller places like events and store locations. This approach ensures your ad is going only where it makes sense for your campaign. You’re not spending money sending messages to areas where people are less likely to care.
Switch Tactics
Look back at your most recent campaigns. What tactics did you use? We see a lot of companies relying only on display ads even though, in programmatic advertising, they have many more options. To freshen up your message, consider trying native ads, video or CTV. Audio, social media or event geofencing could also work.
For an integrated marketing approach, think about trying different combinations of tactics. You could use one tactic — say, audio — and retarget your audience with a different tactic, like maybe a display ad. These combinations can boost your response. For example, at Precision Reach we’ve found that if you run a CTV campaign and retarget with a display ad, click through rates can increase by two or even two-and-a-half times.
Modulate Measurement
Marketers usually use clicks to measure the success of their campaigns, but clicks definitely aren’t the only metric you can choose. Varying the metrics you use can help provide new insights into your audience and how they’re responding to your message.
While developing your campaign objectives, consider trying other metrics, such as viewability or conversions. The latter could include website page views, form fills, PDF downloads and more. Changing how you measure success might change the way you market to the people you want to reach.
Be Creative with Creative
Is the ad you’ve used in the past few campaigns still performing? Or is it starting to look a bit wilted around the edges? Creative that’s overly familiar to viewers tends to become invisible. The audience doesn’t see it anymore because they’ve already seen it too often.
It could be time to retire tired creative. Programmatic advertising gives you an opportunity to test different messages and visuals. You can run them all in the same rotation or switch them each month. You’ll find out which ones resonate best, and you’ll keep your brand vital in the eyes and minds of your audience.
Changing the strategies you use in your campaigns can boost engagement with the farmers you want to reach and also add energy within your marketing team. Then you can turn that energy into innovative ideas, fresh insights and greater ROI.