BrandVerge Delivers Strategic New Media Strategy for Nanit
Challenge
At the start of Q2 2024, BrandVerge’s client, a DTC Baby Technology business, was looking to drive brand awareness during key promotional tentpoles on Mother’s Day & Prime Day. The client tasked BrandVerge with activating upper funnel awareness tactics to increase brand visibility and attract potential new customers to the site at a time when they would be actively searching for products and be more inclined to purchase.
Solution
To ensure their core target audience was reached as efficiently and effectively as possible, BrandVerge opted to activate site direct partnerships in conjunction with targeted programmatic display, video and CTV media. The goal was to leverage hyper-targeted programmatic tactics to drive reach and scale while tapping into partnerships with hand-picked publishers to build brand equity and create demand through true upper funnel activations.
BrandVerge evaluated proposals from a range of female skewing media properties with strong parenting vertices. Ultimately TheSkimm was prioritized due to their large social following and efficient costs, as well as their influential status as trusted product review resource with a strong parenting vertical. Our approach involved tailoring their plan to reflect a mix of less traditional tactics that would provide a direct line to users who are more inclined to engage or opted-in to receive relevant communication. This included targeted dark social posts, where the brand logo and imagery would be pushed to the campaign demo via the properties social handles, as well as eNewsletter integrations flighted during relevant editorial (i.e. TheSkimm’s ‘Sleep Week’) and event-based (i.e. Prime Day) periods.
Results
As a result of this strategy, BrandVerge’s DTC baby technology client saw a combined +49% YoY increase in new customer sessions to site between May and July and a +22% MoM increase in Google brand search volume in May alone, with media also contributing to strong Prime Day performance in July. These lifts in new customer sessions and brand search volume coincided with the launch of a larger cross-channel upper funnel strategy, indicating that awareness media such as programmatic and site-direct sponsorships can help to amplify demand creation during key tentpole moments. BrandVerge’s strategic use of social and eNewlsetter tactics across site-direct sponsorships provided the client with a targeted and efficient way to reach relevant audiences and introduce the brand with a solution-oriented product offering. While these tactics were upperfunnel in nature, aligning with promotional periods helped to encourage consideration and ultimately push users further down the funnel.
Looking at Sponsorship performance specifically, TheSkimm’s May ‘Moms Who Get It’ eNewsletter commerce integration generated a 115% open rate, landing our integration in the top 20% of most clicked links. In support of the client’s Mothers Day on-site promotion, TheSkimm’s dark Instagram post over delivered by +22% with a healthy engagement rate of 7.33%. This was further amplified by the use of interactive video assets, a creative best practice recommended by BrandVerge to take advantage of reach driving tactics by leveraging visually engaging storytelling formats that capture attention and affect brand favorability. With the client’s own hero product winning the publisher’s TheSkimms ‘Good For You’ Best Award, this partnership clearly resonated with their primed audience.