Marketing Insights: What You Should Monitor with Pathmatics

The world’s leading brands are spending millions each month to reach their audience with clever, targeted messages. Between July 29 and August 27, Samsung spent more than $35 million on digital advertising and realized upwards of two billion impressions. 

But, for any business, ad budget is limited. So the real question becomes: how can you maximize return on ad spend and make the most of every placement?

Using digital marketing intelligence from Pathmatics, you can execute more agile advertising strategies informed by real-time trends and data. 

For example, which brands pose a threat to your product or service? Which competing ads are making an impact on your buyer? Is your biggest competitor doubling or tripling your impressions?

Dive deeper into their advertising data and discover where you could be missing the mark (or the opportunity). Below are four key marketing insights you should be monitoring in Pathmatics to constantly evolve your strategy.

1. Popular creatives from your competitors

What pain points are your competitors tapping into? Are they lowering prices or offering additional services that could impact your pipeline?

Search for your top competitor and view their full profile, including top creatives, daily spend and impressions, top websites, and more. Use the intel as a competitive advantage when crafting your next campaign. 

Think: How can you cater to your buyer in a way that the competition doesn’t? Has this idea been done before?

2. Ads that will appear next to yours

Before you purchase ad space, take a look at which brands also advertise through your chosen outlet. After all, your ad more than likely will appear next to (or in close proximity) to other ads. Using Pathmatics, you have full access to top advertisers and categories, and therefore, have more control over which brands may appear next to yours.

Take Mashable for instance. Top categories advertising on Mashable include Computers and Consumer Electronics, followed by Financial Services and Media. Drilling down into advertisers, make a list of the top spenders (like Samsung in this instance) and review the creatives that will share space on the page.

3. Key websites (and corresponding impression share)

Ensure your ads have the utmost visibility from the right audience. Once you have a pulse on the top advertisers in your space, monitor where they are paying to be seen. 

For example, the top sites for the financial services sector are Youtube, Ebay, Realtor.com, AOL and Bloomberg, among others. Thus, if you’re in financial services and not visible on Youtube or Ebay, you’re missing out on the lion’s share of impressions.

Taking it a step further: Uncover the site spend share to gain insight on your top competitor. Are there sites on that list that aren’t (and should be) on yours? Take Nordstrom for example. The retailer is spending 17 percent of their budget on Vogue.com and 9 percent on Time.com. If Nordstrom is allocating nearly one fifth of its spend on Vogue, perhaps they know something you should too.

4. Ad spend and impression share compared to your competitor

Do a side-by-side comparison with your competitor to see where you might be falling short. Pathmatics delivers a full breakdown by spend and impression volume, number of creatives running, a historical comparison, top sites running ads for your competitor, and purchase channel.

Below is a quick comparison between Apple and Microsoft. It’s clear that Apple is far exceeding Microsoft’s investment in ad spend.

When you monitor these four marketing insights using Pathmatics, you’ll be better prepared to spend wisely and exploit opportunities. For even more tips on how to leverage ad intelligence, check out the related reads below.

Related Reads:

• How to Report to Your C-Suite and Brand Managers on Digital Ads

• Hitting Your Digital Ad KPIs: The Importance of the Right Impressions

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