How you can use digital advertising to achieve a greater ROI on your media spend

According to World Economic Forum, two-thirds of chief economists says that there’s a chance we’re headed towards a recession. Despite the rebound from the past years , and in a time where consumers are looking for the best deals, can paid marketing performance result in increased sales?

Many brands get cold feet and tend to pull back from advertising spend in a tougher economic environment, and Marta Skrabacz, Digital & eCommerce Lead at Godiva ANZ agrees that most will relocate their time and effort into owned media. It’s not necessarily a good or bad tactic, because you get to cut operational and marketing costs, but there’s a missed opportunity of possibly cheaper and more effective advertising in a diluted pool of competition.

Raven Addei, Partnerships & Brand Lead at Overdose has been seeing a strong inclination for consumers to spend during promotional periods, but only on items that matter. This means that a tough economic environment isn’t stopping them from spending, just more frugally. For instance, last year’s peak season was a period for companies to tighten their spendings and lower their paid marketing performance, vastly different from the previous years, but last year’s sales performance ended up surpassing their prior years.

A seasonal perk can be nice, but relying on promotional periods for sales growth isn’t optimal for long-term success, so lean into your brand, values, and key differentiators to get people over the line to your own terms and upon the strength of your brand.

Enhancing your brand value comes hand in hand with customer experience, both online and offline, but with 2 very different shopping experiences, how can you personally communicate with your customers?

Online vs in-store experience, how do you communicate to your customers from a digital strategy perspective?

Overdose has taken full advantage of marketing automation to communicate, giving online and offline customers a different experience when shopping. For online customers, the online chat feature is best for educating consumers on the best ways to shop, connecting them to a tailored marketing flow that brings the consumers to the next stage of the buying journey.

Review platforms is a great way to engage both online and offline customers, where pain points can be heard and improved on, enhancing the consumer’s sense of importance to the brand, enhancing brand loyalty.

On the other hand, Godiva ANZ is said to provide the same service across both online and offline channels. They use an omnichannel strategy where their retail and eCommerce teams work in tandem to build pricing, promotions, and customer service.

Up-and-coming brands - Is it eyeballs vs conversions, or cost?

We’re seeing a lean towards digital marketing channels , a CAGR of 9% from 2020 to 2026 with an industry value expected to reach $786.2 billion by 2026. Measurement is richer and attributions are more tangible, providing a more desired outcome for new up-and-coming brands.

With the next financial year coming following a post-Covid era, Overdose needed some recalibration, and media budgets are seeing some tightening. But it’s seeing some light, as new brands are given the opportunity to make their mark outside of the cluttered digital ecosystem, but it can only come if they’ve got the means and understanding that a longer game is at stake.

In Godiva a young, in-market in ANZ, Marta is also focused on digital marketing, where audience building and sales growth prior can be achieved to boost the brand without the need for massive investment that Above The Line (ATL) and Out of Home (OOH) requires. They’re working with content partners in the affiliated space, amplifying seasonal campaigns where brand awareness takes priority over marketing needs.

So what if you’re a small business without the economic capabilities to sustain a long-term digital marketing strategy?

Meta vs Tiktok, which platform provides the best ROI?

Musical.ly then TikTok, a relatively new social media platform, but one that is taking the world by storm. Compared to Meta and Google, TikTok is still in its infancy stage since personalised advertising only started in June 2022, but that’s not saying it’s at a disadvantage. With fewer advertisers on TikTok, there’s opportunities to advertise on TikTok at a lower platform cost.

Overdose has seen varying performances from client to client, although similar performance metrics were seen for some cases across TikTok and Meta.

TikTok’s measurement and attribution is an area that they’re continuously improving. It’s important to know that to get the most out of TikTok, you need a strong and well-thought-out organic strategy – it’s not as simple as Meta’s copy-paste approach. There’s more to Tiktok than creating and ad account and kicking off ads.

Marta sees it as the best tool for organic engagement and discovery, especially when they’re targeting the Gen-Zs (18-25). With a brick-and-mortar store, it is perfect for their café content, and a great point of discovery of the brand. However, since they started only in February 2023, it’s still a challenge to garner meaningful ROI beyond its traffic as views, and likes do not necessarily translate into revenue.

Looking towards the experts in the market - how important are local digital agencies?

Digital marketing channels are relatively new in the industry, gaining popularity in 2006 with heightened importance in 2020, and there’s still much for newer in-house digital marketers to learn.

What’s the local market? Who has a greater understanding of unique quirks and consumer behaviour? How are campaigns best marketed for each festival? Overdosed understands that it’s easy to do a quick google online, but the experience isn’t as seamless and agile as it should be, and there’s nothing better than the experiences of expert agencies.

With the knowledge and data that agencies have fostered over the decades, Marta knows that working with them comes with its benefits that can enhance brand identity, given their proximity to relationship with advertisers and platforms.

Raven Addei, Overdose                Marta Skrabacz, Godiva ANZ