• by Ryan Christiansen , December 26, 2018

To stay ahead of your competition and maintain trust and engagement with your growing customer base, it’s important to keep reinventing your marketing strategy. New and innovative formats are allowing brands to tell more compelling stories and create stronger connections with their audiences. Here are five ways to use those formats in the new year.

Bring connected TV into the mix. Although CTV is regarded by few to be in its infancy when compared to widely known marketing channels, advancements in OTT technology have delivered advertisers with the attribution that exists in programmatic media. The value of CTV advertising is increasingly apparent as brands realize they can reach their customers in a laid-back setting with insights into their consumer’s behavior.

Expand your search advertising. Most brands are now familiar with Google search engine marketing and its effectiveness, but a largely untapped audience lies outside of Google search users. Bing Ads present an opportunity for companies to reach a unique segment of their customer base. The Bing network accounts for 27% of the search impression market share, with 145 million unique searchers in the U.S. alone, according to an iProspect study. Bing Ads also incorporate powerful advertising features such as location targeting, Sitelink extensions, call extensions, product ads, and app install formats.

Use programmatic audio advertising. The online streaming audio market is expanding every year. Programmatic audio takes radio advertising to a new level, offering in-depth attribution and diverse ad formats. Advertising with programmatic audio allows you to create additional touch points with your customer base even while their eyes are off the screen. Major retail brands and advertising technology platforms are shifting their focus toward this new marketing channel, including large media publishers building in-house audio streaming services.

Test new social ad formats. Advertisers now have a plethora of social advertising formats to connect with their consumers. Platforms such as Instagram and Facebook have rolled out Stories Ads, providing an immersive experience for end users. Native messaging ads are also on the rise, with Facebook’s Messenger Ads providing more organic ways to create real conversations. Certain ad formats such as carousel ads and lead-gen ads have been adopted by both Facebook and LinkedIn, allowing brands to showcase more content in a single ad with multiple images and call-to-actions.

Focus on hyper-local marketing. It’s no secret that “near me” searches have continued to rise as the preferred search inquiry among local buyers. The trend continues to grow, with supporting terms included alongside the popular phrase. A study by Google showed a 500%+ growth in mobile searches containing “Can I buy” or “to buy” in the last two years. Local buyers are no longer looking for places to shop, but instead searching for a specific item and its location. By creating a focused radius around targeted locations, brands use display, product listing, and search ads to reach the customers most likely to make an in-store visit.