User acquisition diversification: DOOH, CTV, podcasts, radio

A few webinars ago, we polled our audience of user acquisition and direct marketing pros: who’s focused on user acquisition diversification as a core priority?

The result was astonishing. Almost everyone said diversifying their sources of growth was critical. If that’s actually the case, and not just something marketers say in polls, I chatted about a few applicants for the UA diversification job in a recent Growth Masterminds with Angelina Marmorato, a VP at Lemma. 

The applicants?

• CTV
• Podcasts
• Digital out of home (DOOH)
• Radio

Hit the play button to watch, and keep scrolling:

User acquisition diversification

There’s a bunch of reasons why user acquisition diversification is important to mobile marketers. They’re often looking for …

1. New UA partners that just might possibly test out as more profitable than their existing ones.
2. A price advantage, perhaps via channels or partners that their competitors have overlooked.
3. To be able to drive new users from a previously untapped segment of people. (A gold mine if it turns out to be true.)
4. Ways to reduce dependency on core UA partners.
5. New ad units or modes that might work better at either top or bottom funnel growth.

When you’re doing that across new platforms and devices and channels, 1 of the things that’s going to matter is cross-device attribution and reporting.

More on that later …

Let’s start with CTV and podcasts

CTV and podcasts are pretty well known by mobile UA pros by now, even if they’re not being actively used. That’s something you might want to reconsider, says Marmorato

CTV can be significantly cheaper, for starters.

“You can really cost effectively get access to somebody watching super high production quality on mobile,” she says. “But since it’s on their iPad, it actually comes with a lot lower CPM. If you’re a performance marketer, you can do targeting like that on purpose.”

And, of course, CTV ads are typically unskippable, so you’re kind of guaranteed at least some minimum level of attention.

In addition, there isn’t as much performance marketing competition here, since “TV” has traditionally been the domain of brand marketers.

Podcasts are also a good option for user acquisition diversification, especially if you’re looking for specific niche audiences.

(Which, by the way, doesn’t mean your app only appeals to a niche. You could also target multiple segments of people for the same app or game by simply focusing on different aspects of it, or of the audiences.)

“Touching on podcasts, it’s a different experience, it’s unique,” says Marmorato.

“This is a niche audience …  people know what to expect when they’re watching. And that offers a really unique opportunity to really get in with niche audiences, to identify podcasts that really make sense for your audience … and so I think the ROI on that is often really high just based on the specificness of it.”

Radio and digital out of home (DOOH): next-level user acquisition diversification

But channels that UA pros have perhaps NOT considered are radio — more the new streaming radio than the old-fashioned terrestrial radio — and digital out of home, or DOOH.

The new radio is very different from the old radio, especially in how you buy ads against it.

“It’s really becoming more digital and for the first time a lot of the major players like iHeartRadio  are making a lot of their inventory available programmatically,” Marmorato says. “Performance buyers can buy them via the platforms they’re already using for their campaigns.”

That means it’s easier to apply your same targeting criteria, as well as measurement and insights, she adds, making them both feel and act like performance marketing channels should.

Plus, like podcasts, radio tends to be consumed in some degree of isolation and focus, meaning you have essentially a captive audience.

Similar things are happening to digital out of home.

“If you think about something like digital out of home, that’s something performance marketers would never touch that in the past, and we’re getting to a point where it’s easy and it’s cost effective because it’s now digital,” Marmorato says. “There’s a huge amount of impressions all of a sudden, and so you can really cost effectively — almost like around the same as a display ad — get some out of home spots.”

Measurement is more challenging, but can be addressed via specific URLs, calls to action, or good-old-fashioned coupon codes. Plus, of course, all the usual incrementality and lift tests.

Much more in the full podcast

As usual, there’s much more in the full podcast. Check out Growth Masterminds wherever you get podcasts, or on our YouTube channel.

What you’ll find includes:

• 00:00 Meet Angelina Marmorato: VP at Lemma
• 01:23 Understanding Omnichannel Platforms
• 01:50 Exploring Emerging Media
• 02:51 The Evolution of Out-of-Home Advertising
• 03:55 The Rise of Digital Radio and Podcasts
• 05:20 The Nostalgia of Traditional Radio
• 07:08 Hyper-Local Targeting in Advertising
• 08:24 The Explosion of CTV
• 10:52 Challenges and Opportunities in CTV
• 15:41 Gotchas and Measurement in New Media
• 21:40 Final Thoughts and Insights

And, as noted earlier, when you’re focusing on new channels and partners for user acquisition diversification, you can still rely on Singular for cost aggregation, user journeys across platforms, and attribution functionality for apps, mobile web, desktops, and more, including deep links and short links.

Find more details here …