Key GTM Tips for 2024: Going Beyond Walled Gardens with the Right Mix

Introducing and promoting your brand in a variety of markets requires close attention to detail in a wide, complex media landscape. It can be easy to get overwhelmed and go for the channels you’re used to while planning your campaign – here are 5 tips for a GTM strategy to make sure your ads don’t miss.

#1 Remix the Mix

A healthy media mix requires… well… a mix of media. It’s crucial to think beyond the digital ad triopoly of Google, Facebook, and Amazon. While diversifying across platforms like Reddit, TikTok, Pinterest, and Snap can offer incremental gains, these are generally different flavors of the same thing rather than a true media mix revolution. To effectively remix your media mix, reassess where your target customers spend their time and invest in new media opportunities accordingly such as the integration of decentralized premium networks. These channels not only diversify your ad placements but also improve transparency and control over where your ads appear and how they perform when your consumer isn’t hopping from one social platform to another.

Enhanced Tip 1: Expand your digital horizon by incorporating emerging media channels and mobile solutions into your strategy. This approach not only helps reach untapped audiences but also ensures more controlled and transparent ad spending.

#2 Go Beyond Walled Gardens: Aim for Premium Networks

Confining campaigns within digital walled gardens limits the potential of expansive, attentive audiences elsewhere. First-party data and high consumer attention levels can be found in various premium networks outside these gardens, such as retail media and commerce media platforms like Uber and Instacart, and significantly, in the mobile gaming sector.

Enhanced Tip 2: Broaden your definition of ‘Premium’ by exploring platforms that align with your target audience’s behavior, interests, and time-spent. Mobile gaming, for instance, offers a contextually engaging environment that can lead to substantially higher engagement rates and conversions without the constant distraction of a limitless content feed competing for attention.

#3 Follow Time Spent and You’ll Get in the Game

Mobile games represent the top category of apps downloaded, commanding substantial user engagement. Behind social media, mobile games are the leading destination where people spend their time averaging upwards of 1 hour per day. Recent research indicates that 20% to 40% of target consumers spend more time in mobile games than with traditional digital media. This shift presents a significant opportunity for advertisers to gain incremental reach by including mobile gaming within their media mix.

Enhanced Tip 3: Integrate mobile gaming into your advertising strategy to leverage its immersive environment. Utilize data-driven insights to place ads at strategic points within games, thereby enhancing user engagement and maximizing ad effectiveness.

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#4 Seek Out, Reward, and Leverage Attention!

The evolution of media consumption demands a shift from merely placing ads to creating engaging ad experiences. A report from Exchange Wire and Lumen underscores the potential of attention-based media properties like mobile gaming, where ads are integrated into natural gameplay breaks or as rewards. Such placements ensure the consumer’s attention is not only captured but rewarded, enhancing the receptivity to and effectiveness of the ad. This value-exchange between brand and consumer via formats like rewarded video allows for advertising to no longer be a tax on attention, but rather a value-add creating compelling user experiences.

Enhanced Tip 4: Leverage moments of high user engagement in mobile games through rewarded video ads and interactive ad formats. This strategy not only captures attention but also enhances the consumer’s ad experience, leading to better engagement and ROI.

#5: Privacy is Here – Harness First Party Data

With the erosion of cookies and the onset of privacy-focused changes like Google’s Privacy Sandbox, advertisers must pivot towards robust first-party data strategies. Within the programmatic ecosystem, 1P data is rare. However, premium networks provide fertile ground for collecting and leveraging first-party data, offering new avenues for targeted and effective advertising in a privacy-conscious world.

Enhanced Tip 5: Focus on developing strong first-party data capabilities through strategic investments in technology and partnerships. This approach allows for personalized and efficient campaigns that respect user privacy while delivering measurable results.

By implementing these enhanced strategies, advertisers can better navigate the complexities of the modern digital landscape, ensuring their brands not only reach but resonate with their target audiences more effectively.

 

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