Kristina: How is the back-to-school season shaping up so far this year?
Frost Prioleau, Co-Founder & CEO, Simpli.fi: This is a very unique back-to-school season, with so few students attending the beginning of the school year in person. This has caused a shift in the type of advertisers that are active, with fewer people shopping for clothes and more shopping to align with learning at home.
Kristina: How should brands and merchants be pivoting, right now, to prepare for the holiday season?
Frost: As noted above, consumers are expected to be doing a larger percentage of their shopping online. Ensuring that brands have streamlined and provided easy e-commerce solutions for consumers while having very compelling websites, and strong online advertising programs in place will be important.
Kristina: What role is data playing right now and can marketers begin using data in new ways to provide more relevant experiences?
Frost: While third-party data remains widely available, many marketers are looking for ways to better use their first-party data to both target ads as well as customize messages. Capabilities like household targeting are excellent ways for e-commerce advertisers to use their data to target both existing and prospective customers.
Kristina: What indicators are you taking from BTS shopping for the upcoming holiday season?
Frost: The biggest shift that both the BTS and holiday season will have in common is a shift to e-commerce. Consumers have been conditioned through the stay-at-home times to do more of their shopping online, and that will definitely continue into the holiday season.
Kristina: What strategies will be most important during the upcoming holiday season?
Frost: While tried and true highly targeted digital advertising strategies (like site retargeting, and search retargeting) will remain important, this season there are new capabilities available in the form of household addressable advertising that enable advertisers to use their first-party data coupled with household data to deliver precisely targeted ads.
In addition, this will be the holiday season that Connected TV advertising will come into its own. Over the last 12 months both the inventory available, the targeting techniques used, and the attribution/measurement have improved significantly. Based on these improvements, advertisers are finding very strong returns from investments in CTV advertising.
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