CPG Advertising Strategies to Go Farther, Faster

Every business is in competition with others in its industry. The market is saturated with brands vying for the attention of consumers, and there’s one time-tested way to capture it: advertising. Even CPG brands, whose products are prominently displayed on retailer shelves, need an advertising budget.

CPG advertising faces some unique challenges, but that doesn’t mean marketers can’t still find winning strategies. Efforts like investing in e-commerce, advertising on digital channels or even just adjusting brand messaging can all be effective ways to spend advertising dollars. To find the best advertising solutions for your brand, you should consider your goals, find the right amount and places to focus ad spending and let your CPG marketing and advertising plans work together.

How CPG Brands Can Use Ads to Achieve Goals

Every business has an overall goal for its products, which usually includes making a profit. In the CPG industry, however, there’s the added necessity of brand awareness and brand loyalty. So when it comes to investing money in advertising, CPG companies want to make sure their chosen strategies will help them reach these goals.

Consumer packaged goods are high-visibility products, meaning brand awareness is generated from seeing your label, product or logo over and over again. Having it on a retailer’s shelf is a great start, but to accomplish broad notoriety, you’ll need some specialized advertising efforts.

Television commercials have long been a favorite method of CPG advertisers. Think about all the quirky, funny or impactful commercials you can remember from your childhood. Odds are you can probably still sing some of the jingles. That brand is still in your mind, all these years later, and that commercial probably pops in your head when you see it on the shelf. 

Today, however, with the emergence of streaming services, there are fewer people tuning in to those commercials. This means you have to find relevant modes of advertising to pair with your tried and true methods. One of the best ways to showcase your CPG product now is through digital advertising. You can use tactics like social media ads, video ads on YouTube or streaming services, or even Google ads to find those consumers who have left traditional TV behind.

By combining these marketing efforts, your CPG brand can reach a wider, more varied audience. The more people you reach, the more people become aware of your brand and can start looking for it on shelves. Brand awareness is all about exposure, so if you can maximize who is exposed to your brand, it can help you reach those goals you have set for your products.

CPG Advertising: Where to Focus and How Much to Spend

To further show how digital ads are making gains in CPG advertising, we can look at consumer behavior in the past few years. Online CPG sales grew 35.4% in 2018, showing a definite shift in purchase habits and maybe even signaling consumer demand for more e-commerce options. The pandemic only furthered this trend, so the digital space can no longer be ignored.

We mentioned a few digital options for CPG marketers in the previous section, but let’s go into a little more detail.

• Google ads: These are great for targeting specific groups or demographics. They’re also easy to track through Google Analytics so you can adjust which ads and placements you run to maximize your budget. Google has multiple ad platforms that give you the ability to bid on keywords and place ads across a variety of websites where you feel you’d get the best exposure.

• Social media ads: Social media platforms are a popular ad space because there’s a diverse captive audience. Many platforms also offer the option of purchasing directly through their platform, thus making it even easier for customers to engage with your brand. Facebook and Instagram ads are both available through the Facebook Business platform and are a great way to capture customers based on their demonstrated interests.

• Video ads: Whether on YouTube or your website, video ads are great ways to clearly convey what your product is and what problem it solves. It immediately engages customers and could turn interested prospects into loyal customers.

These are all great ways to get the word out, but they can also be costly. Especially if you’re an emerging brand, you don’t want your ad spend expenditures disproportionately allocated. One key element to keep in mind is your consumer acquisition cost (CAC). You want to make sure you’re not spending more to bring customers in than you’ll make when they buy your product.

The U.S. Small Business Association suggests companies making less than $5 million per year dedicate only 7-8% of their overall budget on advertising and marketing. You’ll want to weigh this figure with your CAC to find the advertising dollars sweet spot that can grow your brand without breaking the bank.

How to Make CPG Marketing and Advertising Work Together

Marketing and advertising can easily work hand-in-hand if you know where to focus your efforts. The key is to use your best marketing strategies where you’re seeing the most advertising success so you know you’re getting the message out to the widest possible audience. There are three main ways you can marry these two areas of your business.

• Target growth areas. You know what makes your new product special and you’ve probably already devised a marketing campaign to show everyone else. Now all you have to do is get that campaign into the right space. Look at your advertising areas and identify markets that are steadily growing. These will be the best places to see long-term success.

• Use your data. There is a plethora of first-party data you can collect from your customers as they visit your sites or interact with your ads. Don’t let this information go to waste. You can take some of the more compelling parts of the compiled data and let it inform your next marketing and advertising steps. What age group are you seeing the most engagement from? How long are people staying on your website? Things like this can give you insights into adjustments you can make or audiences you can target to reach your brand goals.

• Adjust to the new market. Nothing is as it was last year, and it’s not just the pandemic’s fault. As your marketing efforts follow prospective customers to their favorite spaces, be sure to adapt your advertising to fit them. For example, people don’t want to watch a commercial while they’re scrolling Instagram just like they don’t want to stare at a photo before watching their YouTube video. Make sure your type of advertisement fits the space your marketing was designed for to see the most return on investment.

These steps are all easy to implement, but sometimes going it alone can feel overwhelming. As your CPG advertising partner, VDriven can help you design advertising to promote your brand in the right places. Reach out to us today to see how we can help you grow.