CASE STUDY

Ongoing Campaign Optimization Nourishes Sales for Cereal Brand

Snapshot

SOLUTION AREA

Marketing

SOLUTION

NCS Optimization

INDUSTRIES

Food and Beverage

CLIENT

Manufacturer

The Objective

Four Quarters of Continuously Improved ROAS Achieved. Is there such a thing as too much ad optimization? For the advertising team at one cereal brand, the answer is “not yet.” Together with NCSolutions and advertising partner Viant, the brand set out to increase sales by promoting newly launched products with digital advertising. To maximize effectiveness, they reached the audience most likely to purchase the brand in response to advertising while also making quick in-flight adjustments to their campaign tactics based on the real-time sales response. Four campaigns ran over four quarters and brought a steady increase in return on ad spend (ROAS) and incremental sales, specifically from new buyers. These are healthy improvements indeed!

The Challenge, The Strategy

In a saturated market, it was important to reach the shoppers most likely to purchase. To control the ad frequency and not waste costly impressions, it was also necessary to avoid reaching the same household mulple mes.

Work with Viant and NCS to deliver adversing at just the right frequency to customized purchase-based audiences, opmize the campaign while in-flight to maximize incremental sales and eliminate waste, and measure results to verify the impact and plan for the future.

The Results

83% of incremental sales came from prior brand buyers.

ROAS Over Time with Continuous Optimization

Q3 2020: $1.13
Q1 2021: $2.44
Q2 2021: $2.86
Q4 2021: $3.01

Keys to Success

Custom audience targeting approach to predict and reach consumers most likely to buy.

Weekly adjustment/optimization of media spend toward the best performing audience segment (NCS Health Food) based on real dollar sales.

Control advertising frequency while maximizing the reach to relevant households across all devices.

"With our Household ID and Identity Resolution capabilities, it's possible to reach tangible, meaningful households without the need for third-party cookies. This also allows us to control frequency for households that might appear in multiple purchase-based audience segments, which means impressions aren't being wasted and the advertiser can maximize reach to their prospect audience."

Kristen Careccia

Director, Sales

Viant