Whether you’ve been watching the nes or you’ve noticed price hikes at the grocery store, it’s likely that you’ve witnessed a few effects of the current economic state.
Even as executive confidence levels fall, consumer spending habits change, and governing bodies respond to high inflation, business must go on.
The question is—how can businesses and marketers spend smarter, even in the midst of an economic downturn? At Rockerbox, we’re tuned in to the nuances of marketing data and impact measurement. It’s our mission to educate marketers with the tools they need to make more informed decisions, no matter what the economic forecast says.
In this blog series, our goal is to help you be prepared for a recession and to avoid extreme reactions that could have negative consequences on your overall goals. Instead, we’ll walk you through how to make smart, informed choices to expand your resources and maximize your reach.
When the threat of an economic downturn is on the horizon, businesses must come to terms with the reality of the situation. The fact is, we may not know what to expect when the economic tides are turbulent. This uncertainty affects large corporate decisions and individual daily choices.
But just as your family might need to carefully evaluate how much extra cash to spend on certain items or experiences, businesses must also think more critically about spending. This isn’t because all activity has stalled; on the contrary, it simply means that businesses must move forward in the smartest ways possible.
That means spending marketing dollars in ways that make the greatest impact.
In light of a potential recession, most decision-makers have two options. They can either panic and freeze assets and spending, or they can simply work smarter.
We believe the answer is to work smarter. Even in a downturn, we can eventually expect activity to tick back upwards in due time. By keeping this in mind, smart marketers can make strategic choices to set themselves up for future success.
In an economic downturn, one of the primary things that we recommend avoiding is wastefulness. Don’t be sidetracked about your spending, especially on fast-moving digital platforms. Monitor these carefully, and take steps to improve efficiency of each channel where you spend or advertise. Practically, this looks like:
You can’t start making adjustments and preparations if you don’t first understand your approach to budgeting. Determining optimal budget allocation is easy to do within Rockerbox, but recommendations are divided into two main categories: Bottoms-Up and Top-Down.
In the sections below, we’ll discuss what these approaches look like and how you can optimize your spend accordingly.
The Bottoms-Up Approach states that you determine optimal budget per vendor and channel by determining optimal spend on a per campaign or tactic basis. A Bottoms-Up approach is helpful in the following scenarios:
A Bottoms-Up budgeting style is typically used for mid and bottom-funnel channels such as paid search, paid shopping, paid social, affiliate, display, and native.
Rockerbox makes it easy to reallocate your spending with a Bottoms-Up approach. Follow the steps below to start spending smarter.
The Top-Down Approach states that you determine the optimal budget per vendor and channel based on the overall ratio of spend and aggregated average performance of that vendor or channel. A Top-Down approach is most often used when:
A Top-Down budgeting style is typically used for upper funnel and branding channels such as linear TV, OTT, video, direct mail, sponsorships, and podcasts.
Rockerbox enables seamless budget reallocation for users of the Top-Down approach. Follow the steps below to achieve your desired spend.
To learn more about best practices regarding budget reallocation, visit Rockerbox help docs.
In the midst of economic downturns and upturns, we know that your spending matters.
The better prepared you are for the uncertainty, the more adept you’ll be when it’s time to pivot or optimize. Regardless of where your organization is on its path to growth, we hope that you’ll spend smarter with attribution data that gives you ownerships and freedom.