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Moloco Commerce Media GrowthU
After you’ve assembled the right ad policy, offerings, and technology for your commerce media operation, you also need to generate awareness and demand from advertisers. Achieving this at scale requires a mix of marketing efforts across both internal and external touchpoints.
In this article, we’ll look at how you can nurture your biggest spenders on a more direct basis, while scaling your messaging to reach many long-tail advertisers using a variety of channels. Here’s some steps on how to implement each strategy effectively.
Build and grow your advertising business with Moloco Commerce Media
With limited time and resources, every sales team should focus direct outreach on your biggest potential advertisers. Often, one-to-one pitches come early in the process — you may even tap some large sellers to become "free testers" and help troubleshoot your ad product. These key partners can help you understand what's resonating and how you should go to market.
Direct activation focuses on personalized engagement strategies such as:
Hire in-house specialists to strike up tailored conversations with leadership at top brands and agencies. Break through the noise — and crowded inboxes — with targeted seller content at every stage of the journey (see Figure 1).
Dedicated account managers and category-specific teams help provide personalized support around new campaign launches and optimization, helping advertisers maximize their ad performance.
To accelerate GTM ramp times, look for external experts, agencies, or fractional sales leaders that can instantly extend your reach and enhance lead generation efforts through more targeted activities.
Encourage early spending with offers to match ad credits after a specified percentage of ad spend relative to the advertiser's gross merchandising value (GMV), or set a dollar amount of ad credits per month.
The success of your direct activation methods will ultimately depend on your sales efficiency and resources (see Figure 2). This includes your deal win/loss percentage, the number of prospects pitched each day, and your overall number of sellers.
While direct sales is table-stakes for big-ticket spenders, you also need a more automated approach to engage the broad majority of advertisers and truly scale activation. This can include strategies across a variety of internal and external touchpoints, including:
Your ads landing page is one of your most important demand generation tools. Use it as part of your direct sales process, as well as a brochure for digital marketing efforts, increasing awareness and converting long-tail sellers into advertisers.
Soon, we’ll be publishing a step-by-step guide to building a page that wows advertisers, including must-have sections like:
Rapidly activate more advertisers by integrating your ad campaign manager into the seller portal. This provides seamless access for sellers, who can discover and sign up for ad products within their existing accounts and single sign-on (SSO) profiles. Combining organic and paid efforts in one dashboard also enables more unified reporting and sales insights.
To learn more, see our in-depth article that covers three ways to integrate ads into seller portals.
Create dedicated social media pages for your ad business, or use your current vendor-facing profiles to attract long-tail advertisers. YouTube is particularly effective for sponsored ads and how-to videos, while Linkedin and Facebook are better suited to announcements and blog articles.
Advertiser testimonials pack a powerful punch across all channels, especially if they feature household names or quantifiable success metrics.
Attend, sponsor, or speak at industry events to promote your ad product. Participation could include a booth with product demos, welcome drinks, or after-parties.
While most retail networks need to scout major advertiser events — such as DMEXCO, Shoptalk, or MWC — don’t overlook the opportunity in regional or specialty conferences that might be more cost-effective and offer a bigger return on investment.
Use the webinar format to educate and engage both current and prospective advertisers in a more personable way. Even companies with limited marketing resources can partner with their ad-tech vendors that may have an ongoing series or podcast.
Potential topics to cover include:
Announce the launch of your ad business and other significant milestones to attract more advertisers. Use the press release format to distribute official company statements to media outlets and wire services. You can hire an in-house specialist to run these media relations campaigns, or tap a PR agency that has experience in your vertical or geography.
When done right, PR can surpass the impact of paid advertising efforts at a fraction of the cost.
Leverage industry experts that can help establish your presence in the ad marketplace. Partner with retail media thought leaders (e.g. Insider Intelligence) to position your ad offering by publishing joint reports or writing bylined articles. In addition, look for boutique agencies that can support advertiser acquisition and support at scale.
All of these omnichannel tactics play a role in scaling your advertiser activation (see Figure 3). Internal sites and vendor portals leverage your product as an on-ramp, while external touch points across social media, PR, and events help you build a full-funnel marketing engine.
Effective advertiser activation in commerce media requires a dual approach (see Figure 4). Direct strategies nurture key relationships, while scaled tactics efficiently reach a broader audience. By blending personalized outreach with integrated tools and multi-channel marketing, you can build a robust activation funnel for advertisers of all sizes.
The key is to continually refine your approach based on performance data and advertiser feedback. As your commerce media business grows, your ability to efficiently activate advertisers at scale will become a critical advantage in the evolving retail media landscape.
Build and grow your advertising business with Moloco Commerce Media
Next in our GrowthU series, we’ll break down how to build a best-in-class “Advertise With Us” page that can fuel your lead-generation efforts.
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