The “Ad Rush” of 2021 is here.
Outsmart other advertisers by running digital campaigns at unorthodox times – starting with the July 4 weekend.
First came the recovery, then came the g̶o̶l̶d̶ ad rush.
It’s June 2021, and these are halcyon days in the advertising industry.
In the U.S., the post-pandemic economic rebound looks to be firing on all cylinders. Consumers are splurging. CEO confidence is soaring. And spending on advertising is red hot.
Global advertising spending is “surging a record 14% to an all-time high as the world economy emerges from the pandemic with a summer of sport and consumer exuberance,” according to the Financial Times.
Skyrocketing share prices of the largest advertising holding companies appear to reflect this optimism.
Advertising Holding Company Share Price
This ad rush is overwhelmingly driven by brands spending large sums trying to sway consumers on digital platforms.
Digital advertising represents 64% of total ad spending in 2021 compared to traditional advertising (36%).
And whereas digital advertising spending is up 20% YoY, traditional advertising (print, radio, out of home) will only increase 3% compared to 2020.
Although Google and Facebook continue to reap the majority of digital advertising spending (29% and 25% according to the Wall Street Journal), Amazon (11%) and other social media platforms and media/streaming services are making big strides. So are individual influencers, who have handsomely benefited from the acceleration of eCommerce and sCommerce technologies over the past 16 months. Reflecting the importance of peer-to-peer marketing and decentralized advertising, spending on influencer marketing is up 42% YoY.
Here’s the rub:
With demand for digital advertising content and placements at a fever pitch, brands would be wise to wonder how they can effectively reach and persuade consumers who are inundated with content and wary of advertising.
Every company – from the most conservative Fortune 500 brands to the most creative Direct To Consumer upstarts – is looking to one-up or outspend their competitors. Trouble is, almost all major brands use the same creative agencies and media buyers who bid for the same (limited) ad space.
Our Recommendation: Think outside the clock.
Advertisers spend hundreds of millions of dollars trying to entice consumers to shop their Independence Day sales.
But most still spend their budgets in familiar ways on familiar platforms – Facebook Ads, Google Ads, Programmatic, Remarketing, etc.
And they tend to run their ads at predictable times, with campaigns either set to flat 24-hour run periods or from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. when they have support agents available to field customer questions and troubleshoot problems.
Even with superior creative or budget, conventional approaches are only likely to yield conventional ROIs.
For your 🇺🇸 July 4th 🇺🇸 campaign, try this ad schedule:
If you’re a B2C brand or publisher looking to increase eCommerce sales or visibility, you should create and deploy a late-night digital and social advertising campaign.
Feeling bold? Shoot your shot with a late night digital advertising campaign this July 2 through 5th.
Maximize Instagram and TikTok ad spend, influencer marketing, and organic posts between 12 and 4 a.m. on July 2, 3, 4, and 5th.
Seriously.
This is a low-risk, high-reward opportunity to capitalize on less expensive ad placements and consumers who are more likely to make an impulse purchase or other action (retweet, view, follow, download, etc.).
And it’s not just a hunch. Social platforms don’t make much usage data publicly available, but Google Trends data from the 2021 Memorial Day holiday period shows a clear spike in consumer search demand for TikTok and Instagram after midnight on non-working days.
While this is NOT the same thing as actual usage data, we believe it’s highly correlated.
Avg. Hourly Search Demand for Social Platforms
Memorial Day Holiday Weekend
This data illustrates a few things.
Above all: very-late-night scrolling, swiping, and consumption of content on Instagram and TikTok is more common than anyone could imagine.
From May 26 to June 1, 2021 – including three to four work-free holidays for many Americans – peak search interest in TikTok was between 1 a.m. EST and 4 a.m. EST every night. Demand for Instagram similarly peaked between midnight to 3 a.m.
By contrast, collective search queries for Facebook – with its much older audience and different purpose – topped out first thing in the morning between 6 and 8 a.m. EST.
We fully expect these same trends over the July 4th and Labor Day holidays. And we recommend any brand with significant (≥ 7 figures) advertising spend to give this strategy a shot.
Drop us a line if it pays off!
Deep.ad uses Computer Vision and Natural Language Processing to analyze and label digital advertising and marketing collateral in any format including images, videos, PDFs, and HTML pages. Contact us to learn how we can improve your understanding and measurement competitor advertising and pricing strategies.