Programmatic advertising for FMCG – how to promote food brands

Many food brands face challenges in implementing their advertising strategies, primarily due to a limited knowledge of modern marketing practices. But among the many digital technologies, there is one that stands out as an exceptionally advanced approach. And that’s Programmatic Advertising for FMCG.

Here we explain mobile advertising for FMCG and how food brands may use this to achieve their campaign goals.

• What are the features of the FMCG market?
• Fast-Moving Consumer Goods and programmatic advertising
• Popular targetings for food brands
• Advertising formats for food brands
• How BYYD provides safe placement
• FMCG mobile promotion quality assessment
• Mobile advertising and FMCG market trends 2023

What are the features of the FMCG market?

FMCG, or Fast-moving Consumer Goods are products that can be sold quickly at a relatively low price.

Almost every person in the world uses FMCG items on a daily basis. And because of the frequency of their use, buyers have a unique consumption pattern.

However, in general, shopping becomes a routine, and interest in the process itself and in the product’s properties declines. How FMCG companies can avoid that – telling you below.

There are 4 types of Fast-moving Consumer Goods:

• Everyday FMCG: These include beverages and perishable food items with short shelf lives, typically lasting a few days, weeks, or months.
• Long-lasting FMCG: These products can be stored for years due to their extended shelf lives, making them convenient for bulk purchases. Examples include cosmetics, household chemicals, canned goods, and medications.
• Festive FMCG: An exceptional category comprising various themed items used during celebrations. Festive FMCG encompasses disposable tableware, gifts, greeting cards, and more.
• Seasonal FMCG: Demand for these products varies depending on the time of the year. Ice cream, for instance, is popular in the summer, while skis are in demand during winter. We discussed how seasonal marketing boosts sales in this article.

Moreover, the food brands face intense competition. Therefore, it is crucial not only to capture users’ attention with vibrant innovations and stylish packaging design but also to communicate the value through accessible communication channels.

Many brands are already using this approach. According to statista, advertising expenses for food brands are the highest in the market, reaching up to 20%.

Fast-Moving Consumer Goods and programmatic advertising

Some people believe that basic FMCG products are purchased mechanically, without considering the brand value and key attributes of the product. However, this is not true: in most cases, people are directly or indirectly familiar with a product long before they make a purchase.

The familiarity itself starts during the first contact with the brand.

There are various ways to reach the user’s first contact. However, programmatic advertising in mobile apps is currently considered the best way to attract attention.

As a reminder, programmatic advertising is an automated real-time technique for buying advertising inventory. Our platform specializes in mobile advertising, as Data Reportal indicates that mobile remains the primary source of traffic worldwide in 2023.

By the way, today, the average person spends approximately 5 hours using their smartphone.

People read books, listen to music, and play games, all while keeping their eyes glued to the screen. And advertising in mobile apps becomes an excellent starting point for effective interaction with the target audience.

Moreover, popular food brands choose mobile programmatic as it guarantees:

• Precise targeting and personalization

Programmatic advertising allows one to focus precisely on the target audience using a variety of user data, such as demographics, current interests, behavior and location.

FMCG companies pay special attention to this aspect, as representatives of the product segment target people with different interests. Each of them requires the creation of a unique approach.

• Efficiency and cost optimization.

Programmatic advertising is powered by AI, which enables automatic optimization of advertising campaigns in real time.

FMCG brands that need to attract attention quickly, maintain their company image and increase conversion rates benefit greatly from this optimization.

• Wide reach and higher visibility.

Utilities, widgets, casual games – people around the world use at least a few themed apps every day. Mobile advertising allows not only to find these users, but also to build quality communication with them.

Learn about in-app promotion for FMCG brands from our presentation.

Popular targetings for food brands

Let’s talk about important targeting in the FMCG sector on the example of the BYYD platform.

Targeting capabilities of the platform help to find the target audience of the food brands.

How does it work?

First of all, socio-demographic parameters are set up, such as:

• gender;
• age;
• geography of placement.

Then, to focus the advertising message, interest-based targeting is used (the user falls into certain segments by performing certain actions online).

On the BYYD platform, FMCG product promotion is available in apps of topics related to health, proper nutrition, sports, shopping, etc.

Supergeo is another important setting. It is useful if an FMCG company wants to show ads to people in a certain neighborhood. For example, to visitors of a shopping center or a particular store.

We applied this setting in this case study for Dodo Pizza.

In order to reach the target audience, Rich Media was shown at Dodo Pizza’s offline store in the Dubai Marina area.

Our mobile managers set up the targeting by socio-demographic characteristics and relevant interests. According to the daily optimization we were able to reach 1 443 363 of total expressions, 302 395 of unique users and CTR – 2.05%.

Moreover, with BYYD, you can target on:

• types of devices;
• cellular providers;
• device manufacturers;
• operating systems.

An example of the complex use of our targeting pool is the case of the Domino’s brand.

In addition to socio-demographic parameters, we selected suitable user interests. These include cooking, American cuisine, Italian food etc.

Specifically, under the customer’s needs, we developed a Rich Media banner with 4 different buttons for directing to a website, offline store, Google Play store or App store.

As a result, the total number of impressions is 988 231 and the CTR – 2,14%

More information about BYYD’s targeting capabilities here.

Advertising formats for food brands

Another important part of programmatic is advertising format. The success of the campaign and the result of FMCG promotion mainly depends on it.

On the BYYD platform, we develop ads for the purpose of placement. Each of the formats that we offer has its own peculiarities. It is important to note them before starting mobile promotion.

The most popular formats are as follows:

Fullscreen banners

Fullscreen banners – images that pop up after a site has loaded. According to statista, ad spending in the Banner Advertising market is projected to reach US$161.80bn in 2023.

The top food brands brands prefer the banner format because of its low cost and guaranteed high CTR.

Thus, specifically to promote the Baby Goat brand in Turkey, the platform’s Production department developed a fullscreen banner. During the entire placement period, we managed to reach 612 503 users and get a CTR of 1.58%.

Native banners

Native banners are customized to the platform on which they are placed. This makes them naturally perceived by users as part of the main content.

Based on our experience, advertisers use native ads in tandem with other formats: fullscreen, Rich Media or video.

For example, in the Dr. Körner case, we used a native format as well as an interactive Rich Media banner with slider mechanics. We also developed a landing page specifically for the campaign.

The placement was targeted at men and women 21-50 years old who are interested in the topics of Health/Wellness and Sports. As a result: CTR of the native format – 1.89%.

Rich Media

Rich-media – banners with interactive and multimedia elements. FMCG brands choose them when they want to fully engage the user with the advertising message.

Our team creates Rich Media based on HTML hypertext markup, which allows us to better structure online content.

By the way, in promoting the Tornado Energy brand, we used the Rich Media format with game mechanics.

During the game, the user watched the character progress through levels and lose energy during battles with monsters. However, at a critical moment, a suitcase with Tornado Energy drinks appeared. The drink chosen by the user restored the player’s energy, allowing them to successfully complete the level.

The chosen mechanics helped us to increase user engagement and exceed KPIs for CTR.

Additionally, as part of the promotion, the BYYD production department also implemented a landing page. On the landing page, we highlighted the benefits of each flavor and offered the user an opportunity to vote for their favorite drink.

Play the game by yourself here to evaluate the format’s strengths.

Video

Video is also a premium way of promotion. It has a multi-dimensional impact on the user, engaging them in a dynamic narrative.

Within the format, there are different ways to publish clips. Our platform offers outstream publishing to advertisers.

Its advantage is that the video is played in the publisher’s mobile app outside of the player and video content. This format gives good performance, as users are more loyal to outstream advertising.

Learn more about the benefits of outstream placement here.

Video content within mobile programmatic is also divided into:

• Non-Rewarded Video – the video is shown as a standard advertisement.
• Rewarded Video – the user is rewarded inside the interface for watching the advertisement.

How BYYD provides safe placement

Our platform is attentive to the safety of mobile promotion. We know that it is important to advertise FMCG only in reliable apps with relevant topics.

For this purpose, we apply the Brand Safety approach in our work.

It includes the following stages of brand protection: 

• multi-level verification of placement sites;
• checking the quality of traffic using special trackers;
• “white” and “black” lists.

All the features of Brand Safety are described here.

In addition, BYYD software platform participates in the auction only with verified devices. To confirm the data about security of placement and clean traffic can the following services: Weborama, Adriver, Gemius, MOAT, Sizmek, DCM, IAS, DoubleVerify.

Beyond that, it is possible to check the quality of traffic either through pixels or code.

FMCG mobile promotion quality assessment

Mobile advertising is aimed at generating purchase intent. Therefore, the programmatic channel has its own metrics for assessing the quality of promotion.

The BYYD platform offers advertisers to evaluate the results of mobile campaigns in different ways. 

First of all, with the help of Brand Lift research. It measures the level of familiarity of the user with the brand, as well as his loyalty before and after the programmatic campaign.

How Brand Lift research is conducted on the BYYD platform

At the end of the campaign, a survey is conducted among two groups: participants who saw the main campaign ad and those who did not. The results are compared.

Learn more about it here.

Plus, the efficacy of programmatic can be proven by:

• average time on the site;
• bounce rate;
• click-to-session conversion rate;
• CTR value.

Want to launch a mobile campaign? Write to hello@byyd.me – our experts will help you!

Mobile advertising and FMCG market trends 2023

1. As consumers become more selective in their tastes and choices, personalization will become more important in the FMCG industry. Brands will use data and AI analytics to create customized products and experiences.
   
   And to find specific audiences for specific products, brands need modern targeting methods. For example, such as the ones used by our platform.

2. According to FMCG Gurus, consumers will be looking to take advantage of more promotional offers in 2023, giving retailers the opportunity to modernize traditional promotional methods to be more in tune with consumer demands.

3. In 2023, users will prefer fast, colorful and entertaining content. Food brands should be aware of this while planning advertising campaigns.

By the way, BYYD has both interactive and static formats. Therefore, for comprehensive audience reach, FMCG companies can use both.

Finally, we would like to add that mobile advertising is a key tool for attracting FMCG segment audiences. Programmatic provides high quality traffic and builds user loyalty, improving the company’s image.

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