To maximize ROI on their out-of-home spend, Float's media buying was highly scientific. They physically mapped the office addresses of their existing customers across the country, identified clusters in cities like Toronto, and then concentrated their billboard buys in those specific regions.
Related Insights
General advice is easily dismissed. By providing hyper-specific guidance tailored to a customer's unique context, like gardening tips for their exact climate zone via geo-targeted ads, you demonstrate a deep understanding of their problem. This specificity builds immense trust and confidence.
Tushy's out-of-home truck campaign isn't a 'spray and pray' tactic. The trucks use GPS and geofencing to ping nearby mobile device IDs. These IDs are then matched to home IP addresses to track subsequent website visits, providing directional data on the campaign's effectiveness and demystifying OOH measurement.
To prove marketing's ROI, run geo-fenced ad campaigns targeted at a specific set of retail locations. By comparing sales in these "test" stores against a control group of similar stores, you can measure the direct, incremental sales lift caused by your creative, providing black-and-white accountability.
Instead of treating all channels equally, identify which customer segments (e.g., brand advertisers) are best served by which channels (e.g., TV screens). Shifting demand accordingly can unlock massive growth by optimizing the entire portfolio and increasing customer ROI.
To add a performance layer to TV advertising, Float measured immediate impact by analyzing website analytics within the 15-minute window directly following a TV spot's airing. This provided near real-time data on whether a commercial drove immediate action, boosting confidence in the channel.
Instead of relying on vague brand metrics, Float measured the success of its billboard campaigns by observing the direct lift in its performance marketing. Demo requests, website visits, and even Google and LinkedIn ad performance all increased by 30-50% during and after the OOH flights.
Unlike typical consumer ads, San Francisco's outdoor advertising is dominated by niche B2B startups. They accept that 95% of viewers are irrelevant to reach a high concentration of VCs and tech talent, signaling a strategic return to immeasurable brand awareness over direct-response marketing.
Float's successful billboard campaign focused on emotional, human personas like "the receipt loser" and "the big spender." Using a portrait photographer and vibrant colors, they stood out from typical logic-driven B2B ads, creating strong brand recall.
Leading marketers confidently invest in high-cost, low-measurability channels like billboards and physical books. They understand that reaching a concentrated target audience builds brand in a way that can't be captured by direct attribution but drives long-term pipeline.
When considering transit ads, Float realized their finance leader audience wouldn't be riding the bus, but driving behind it in traffic. They strategically bought ad space on the exterior of buses to maximize "dwell time" for commuters, a nuanced take on reaching a specific B2B persona.