On trend: using data to accelerate your advertising
Effective advertising is a key factor in the success of businesses of all types and sizes. By understanding and incorporating trends data, businesses can optimize their advertising investments even more.
Mary Courie, director of sales and marketing at Hard Rock International, and Eric Gombo, senior vice president of performance media at Spark Foundry, shared with Yelp how they use trends to improve everything from advertising to the customer experience.
Why Eric uses trends data: informing go-to-market strategy for performance-based advertising
Eric: “Whether people are staying in or going out, what time they’re looking for services, things of that nature, are ultimately informing a lot of the optimizations that we do.
“Everything from audiences—and making sure that we’re targeting the appropriate people—to ‘What does our testing roadmap look like?’ A lot of times, the trends we’re seeing help inform that testing strategy and where we should be placing our bets, where we should be looking to spend that next dollar.”
Why Mary uses trends data: Improving the customer experience
Mary: “There is a much higher expectation in the hospitality world right now—especially if you’re going out and you’re going to pay certain prices—that you need to have the ultimate experience that will bring them in for the next celebratory visit; that will bring them in for another event or have them come to your venue, your hotel, or your resort. They want to feel that experience, and it starts within that first visit.
“You’re not the only one [customers are] looking into, but being the first to get back to them, being the first to make it easier on them, will just continue to help your business.”
The relationship between trends, consumers, and business
Consumers fuel trends, which businesses can use to attract customers. Businesses can also start their own trends, which consumers can resonate with and use to inform their purchasing decisions. Below, Eric breaks down how the world around us affects trends and how businesses can harness them to create meaningful messaging and adjust their marketing and operating strategies.
How trends inform messaging
Eric: “From a messaging perspective, we want to make sure we are going to market with whatever copy would resonate best with the ultimate consumer. And then measurement as well—when you’re talking about offline versus online, that’s going to be a big piece of it too. Where is that trending and [for which] client and vertical that we’re working with? At the end of the day, the trends data is going to play a role regardless.”
How inflation affects trends
Eric: “[Inflation] is impacting consumers’ purchase patterns across every vertical. Something we’ve seen is that price point and promotion is going to play a bigger role, [meaning] ad copy realistically needs to be focusing around price points with a very price conscious consumer. You’re not doing yourself any favors by not having that front and center because that’s ultimately what people are looking for.”
How trends affect timelines and budget
Eric: “From the shopping and retail perspective, timelines have continued to move up. It used to be all about Black Friday, and then it ended up becoming Black Friday week. And at this point, most people are starting to have those Black Friday sales in October. That’s something we’ve continued to see on our side, [and we’re] ensuring we are allocating our budgets and messaging appropriately and taking advantage of people getting ready for the holidays sooner than they ever have in years past.
“The other piece of it is, there used to be this major pressure of ensuring that you had this sizable budget allocated to those few days or weeks of the year. And now it’s decentralized a bit in terms of when people are in the market for products. It enables us to spread things out where it makes sense. So for a lot of advertisers, that means moving up dollars to spend more in October, but for some, it also means that there is still that opportunity after Black Friday and Cyber Monday to take advantage of potentially lower competition as we start to go into December.”
How to be successful with trends
Businesses will experience the best results from incorporating trends that make sense for their product, service, and business model—rather than trying to keep up with every trend that comes along. Research is key to identifying and integrating trends that appeal to your target audience and align with your business goals.
Recognize online and offline trends
Eric: “Obviously with the pandemic, online had this huge boom, and we really saw everybody shift completely or largely to the digital space. And that shift has continued, [but] we’re seeing a lot of people have returned to that in-store experience, and that’s something, as advertisers, we need to make sure we’re adjusting for as they’re expecting to have those experiences and interactions across both.”
Research consumer preferences
Mary: “People aren’t watching cable anymore. The trend is now on streaming apps. So the more that we can put out there and actually have an actual ROI on, such as the CTV or the sponsored ads, that’s where we’re leaning towards now as far as advertising strategy.
“One of the other things that we started to do this year was really dive into our local markets with local researchers, so really tapping into not just the consumer but also our employees within that market. Having a third person asking these questions to our employees, so it’s not coming from our corporate or support center, gets real conversations going. And we’ve benefited from that a lot just by getting different views from all demographics and from all sorts of people that come in, whether it be from the house or heart of the house. That’s been a very valuable tool for us as well.”
Target your ideal audience: Pay-per-click ads
Mary: “Targeting specific people and demographics with the help of Yelp and other agencies, you can really home in on who you’re trying to reach, and you’ll get a new set of audiences. Sponsored ads [allow you to target your audience], and once they click and convert, that’s when you actually pay for it. I think that’s huge, especially if you’re on a budget.”
The three elements of measuring success
Eric: “We have had some pretty wholesale shifts in terms of how we are gauging success, where I think that in years past it might have been either focusing strictly online or focusing strictly in store, depending on what that business model might look like. Across most advertisers at this point, we have some kind of a blended model in place where we’re accounting for both of them.”
- “Make sure that you have a robust first-party measurement solution in place and that you’re tracking towards that.”
- “There’s a number of different third-party sources where it’s going to make sense. I think strategic partners like Yelp are going to be a huge piece of that as well.”
- “Market research tools, something like an e-marketer as an example, that honestly could also be really helpful just in terms of from a high level. There is value there in terms of seeing those macro trends and how things are shifting in the marketplace.”
Let the data do the talking
Eric: “There is a tendency for advertisers to have these ideas or preconceived notions about their business: ‘This is the person that is our target customer,’ or ‘This is the way that our market tends to react.’ Sometimes they’re 100% on the ball and sometimes they’re not. So making sure that you are leveraging data, whatever that might look like for your business, to really help craft your strategy is going to benefit you. Trends data is changing all the time. So just being as flexible and nimble as possible and trying to, as best as you can, check any preconceived notions at the door, will ultimately benefit your business in the long run.”
Yelp trends data
We’re constantly evaluating multiple industries for trends local businesses can use to thrive. Check out the popular topics and free resources below.
Food trends
Yelp has noticed a huge increase in consumers wanting vegetarian/vegan, gluten-free, and dairy-free options. These are not new concepts, but the growing popularity of them is worth keeping an eye on.
Location shift
People are returning to in-person experiences, but the work-from-home movement has shifted people away from downtown areas. While business growth is up in general, non-downtown areas are growing at a faster rate.
Delivery
Home delivery is on the rise, including restaurants, meal kits, grocery stores, and convenience stores. Due to factors such as the pandemic, work from home, inflation, and more, consumers are searching for budget friendly options more and more on delivery apps.