The year 2020 has raised a lot of challenging questions for marketers, but there are two in particular that are top of mind for Susan Vobejda.
As CMO for The Trade Desk, whose platform facilitates digital ad buying across all manner of formats and devices, Vobejda sees the firm’s mission as applying advanced technology to help fuel the broad diversity of media, voices and content on the open internet. Most recently, that means working with the industry to try and build an alternative to cookies as they slowly fade away.
“We are helping solve the enduring value exchange of the internet – how do we pay for all the great internet content with relevant advertising while protecting consumer privacy?” Vobejda told Brand Innovators. “And just as important, how do we solve for that in a way that fuels the open internet of media and content, rather than an internet experience dominated and managed by a few tech giants?”
Of course, The Trade Desk and others are tackling those questions amid the backdrop of COVID-19, which has had a huge impact on brands of every kind. Vobejda has had a front-row seat to many of these challenges. When the pandemic first broke out, she said, many advertisers hit the pause button as consumers explored new ways to shop for food and other daily activities.
Since then, however, she said brands have adapted to the times by making sure consumers knew whether or not they were open, and whether they were offering enhancements to the customer experience such as curbside pickup and delivery.
What ‘ROI’ Means Now
Along with becoming more nimble than ever, Vobejda said the pressure to demonstrate return on investment (ROI) and data-driven thinking is the No. 1 issue for top marketers. In a recent survey The Trade Desk conducted with 200 leading advertisers, for instance, 50 per said traditional key performance indicators (KPIs) are being questioned.
“Every CMO I talk to is feeling this,” she said. “CFOs want to know the business value of every advertising dollar. It’s forcing advertisers to prioritize ad opportunities that are measurable and comparable.”
As a CMO herself, Vobejda said establishing a more granular sense of ROI means looking at how The Trade Desk’s marketing activities drive demand, sales or new discussions with its clients.
“Because of advances in data-driven measurement, we can connect those dots much more effectively than ever,” she said.
Bright Spots For Marketers
Vobejda praised her CMO peers and marketing departments at other brands who have quickly learned to incorporate both left-brain and right-brain thinking. Brands are also quickly capitalizing on the consumer shift to streaming services and investing in opportunities such as connected TV (CTV). This will have larger implications beyond the pandemic.
“Advertisers have an opportunity to apply data to their massive TV ad campaigns in ways that are simply not possible with linear TV,” she said. “In recent weeks, we’ve heard from many major advertisers about the need to rethink the upfront process, for example. And replace it with a data-driven alternative. It’s no longer about multi-million dollar commitments over a couple of rounds of martinis. It’s about being much more deliberate in everything we do. This is a trend that will likely accelerate in 2021.”
More broadly, Vobejda suggested another key takeaway from the events of 2020 has been the value of staying in market in a strategic way. In sectors like consumer packaged goods (CPG), for example, she said marketers that maintained their spend through the uncertainty performed better from a revenue perspective, based on The Trade Desk data.
She cited one CPG firm that lifted same-store sales for one of its brands by 40 percent utilizing a combination of CTV, mobile and PC advertising. An ecommerce brand, meanwhile, saw an 11-times return on ad spend for CTV.
“We have seen similar patterns show up across industries, whether it’s pharma or fast food or retail or technology. So those companies that are advertising effectively are gaining share,” she said. “This year has been a fascinating case study.
