4 more insights for ecom marketers from our H2 strategy pack

Our July edition of the Readout included a strategy pack for H2, with insights on brand strategy, approaches to audience and channel diversification, suggestions to reduce CAC, and more.?

With just five weeks to go before Q4, I’m sharing 4 more insights from the report that will help you grow your brand:

1. A winning international strategy derisks economic instability

As the economic climate in the UK remains uncertain, an increasing number of brands are looking to scale internationally. Two of the most attractive markets are the US and EU.

The most common mistake brands make is to try to enter the US gradually with no strategy. With much higher advertising costs, you will blow your budget in no time.?

Strategies that work for entering the US market include: targeting either the East Coast or West Coast; a city-by-city approach starting with bigger cities across the country; carrying out market research to discover areas with similar demographics to your current customers; and an omnichannel strategy where you open stores or pop-ups where you are targeting.

The EU is a very different beast – with a diverse cultural landscape and distinct consumer behaviours. Having the right cross-border and localisation strategies is crucial. For instance, it is possible to enter most EU markets without a localised website or payment methods, but this is not the case in the single market’s two biggest countries: Germany and France.

2. Not knowing where your customers come from is harming your brand

There are many measurement solutions available to brands. Which one is right for you depends on your level of spend.

One solution you should avoid is last click measurement , which misrepresents the reality of your customers journey and undervalues discovery channels. This will harm your growth in the long-term (and likely in the short-term, too).

For smaller brands, your best bet is a combination of platform proxies – where you adjust your in-platform KPI against statistical analysis and incrementality testing – and channel lift tests. This is what we do for our clients.

Once your brand reaches a higher level of spend, consider investing in measurement software such as Fospha . These solutions are more accurate than manual solutions, and enable you to test and scale new channels.

In addition to this, we also suggest Market Mix Modelling for a longer-term view. MMM uses historical data, marketing, pricing, market conditions to look for patterns that can power future decisions. Recommended providers include Metageni .

3. A winning creative strategy is key to scale your brand cost-effectively

Having the right creative strategy is crucial for efficient media buying. With a decline in data availability and growing reliance on Meta’s algorithm rather than manual targeting, creative has become the most significant lever brands have for optimisation and performance. Increasingly, this is true for Google, too.

Most brands now recognise this. However, this has led to creative production becoming increasingly commodified with solutions of highly variable quality. Ensuring you have the right partner here is important. After all, you will be relying on this creative to optimise the results of your ad spend.?

Proximity to media buying is especially important, as your brand needs creative that is produced with the platform in mind for performance. Similarly, it’s important that your partner knows how to structure creative tests and implement those learnings.

Furthermore, understanding the role of different types of creative in different parts of the funnel is key. Whether your ad is for direct response or brand awareness, your creative needs to be tailored to your objective to deliver the best results .

4. This is your final moment to ensure you have the right strategy for peak

With peak just a few months away, it’s essential that you have the right approach to perform. Your brand needs to act now if you want to succeed.

Meta CPMs are at a three-year low, and conversion rates keep improving . You should take this opportunity to ensure that your creative is delivering and to test new concepts.

Shoppers start buying earlier every year, so you should take advantage of lower CPMs in the weeks leading up to Black Friday to reach customers early and build momentum.

Having a strong foundational set up that aligns with Meta best practices will mean you will deliver the best Q4 results.

Over Black Friday weekend, you should focus on maximising purchases. Your return will outpace the cost of higher spend.

We can say with more certainty this year that Meta will deliver strong results during Q4.

There is still time now to reverse bad strategy. That may not be the case come November.

Explore the latest ecommerce marketing trends, learnings and opportunities in the full report :