3.10.2023
Online co-op advertising is a powerful tool for brand awareness, around a new beauty launch. But did you know that tracking these ads will help to accelerate sales figures too? The trick is to make sure you’re getting exactly what you paid for from your chosen eTailer – something that’s quicker, easier and more accurate with automated monitoring.
A Quick Co-Op Advertising Refresher
Unsure what counts as an online co-op ad? Put simply, it’s an ad on an eTailer’s website. Usually, it appears on the homepage or a covetable collection page, like the Fragrance category on a department store’s website. Online co-op ads are the online version of in-store activations – such as traffic-stopping counter displays – helping you reach consumers in a shopping environment, and tempting them to tap ‘add to basket’.
However, although there is no cost to eTailers, co-op ads are an investment for beauty brands. They have a big impact on awareness and, with the correct strategy, they can cause pivotal spikes in revenue, too.
So, how do you ensure you’re getting a good return on investment from co-op advertising? Here, we reveal three key ways ad tracking will help to increase your sales…
1. Keep an Eye on Uptime
Even in the costly co-op advertising industry, uptime mistakes can happen. In fact, MMI data found that 43% of eTailer ads do not appear for the agreed timespan. Checking uptime manually – from the beginning to the end of a campaign – is a time-consuming process. Brands simply can’t afford to spend their vital budget on an ad that isn’t visible to the consumer.
For this reason, ad tracking is fundamental to a successful online co-op campaign. A tracking tool, such as Ad View, will take hourly screenshots of your ad, so you can quickly check if it’s appearing as agreed. If you do notice a lag or lapse, you have visual proof that the error took place. This enables you to secure compensation for a non-compliant campaign.
2. Check the Target Product
Here’s where manual monitoring of ads becomes even more time-consuming: as well as checking that the banner is appearing, it’s vital to check the target product is visible, too. In 13% of cases, the ad doesn’t link to the product you’re promoting in the banner, making for a user journey that’s, at best, confusing and, at worst, detrimental to revenue.
Worse still, there have been cases where ads have linked through to a competitor’s product page, which helps to boost their sales on your brand’s time and money – a mistake no brand wants to see on an eTailer website. The right ad tracking tool will monitor the click-out page from start to finish, ensuring a seamless journey from banner to beauty product to basket.
3. Monitor Campaign Messaging
In 33% of cases, co-op ads go live with incorrect messaging. For example, your new fragrance campaign may be published with a discounting tagline you hadn’t agreed to. Prestige beauty brands do not usually want to pay to promote a price reduction as, even though it can increase sales, it may be at the expense of brand equity.
As such, marketers should be using ad tracking to ensure agreed messaging stays intact. Not only will this save brand equity, but it may help you spot other non-compliant components too. Getting these elements right will mean you make the most of the online co-op activity, and that these activities drive the sales you are seeking.
