• DE&I Commitment
  • Careers
  • Locations
  • Book a Meeting
    Book a Meeting
  • Company
    Learn a little more about us, our values, and our team
    Our Values
    We don't just talk the talk; we live by our core values
    About Us
    Empowering brands to realize their potential with data, insights, and technology
    Leadership
    Meet our leadership team
    Secure Data Architecture
    Our promise of data security and privacy. We keep your data safe from publishers, competitors and bad actors
    Corporate Social Responsibility
    We are committed to making a positive impact on our communities and our planet
  • Platform
    Plan, manage, optimize, and measure your campaigns with our omnichannel platform
    Our Platform
    A platform that connects all walled garden media
    Connected Media
    Create and manage campaigns across search, social, retail media and apps, in one platform
    Connected Data
    Make data-driven decisions as you plan and strategize
    See the industries we serve
    Learn how our customizable solutions can help with your unique needs
    Explore our partner integrations
    See the media, retailer, and data partners we work with
  • Clients
  • News and Events
    Check out recent announcements and see what we’re up to
    News
    Check out our recent media coverage
    Events
    Join us for our next conference or webinar
    Quarterly Trends Webinar
    Get the latest insights on digital marketing campaign performance for Q4 2022
    Retail Media for Grocery Webinar
    Join us to dig into trends and challenges shaping the industry in 2023
  • Resources
    From new releases, to industry trends and best practices, Skai has you covered
    Blog
    Read the latest insights and thought leadership from our industry experts
    Capabilities
    Take your campaigns to the next level by enhancing your platform capabilities
    Research
    Explore our reports and whitepapers so you can keep up on the latest industry trends
    Subscribe
    Sign up to get the latest updates straight to your inbox
    Quarterly Trends Report
    Learn digital advertising campaign performance trends from Q3 2022
Back to Blog

Insights from Skai’s Local Search Roundtable

Joshua Dreller, Sr. Director, Content Marketing @ Skai™

June  11, 2020

Since the beginning of the pandemic, we have strived to help our clients navigate their way through these challenging times. 

One of those ways was to launch our COVID-19 Marketing Resource Center with weekly data trends, marketing-in-a-crisis recommendations, and tips for using Skai to stay agile during this time. We’ve also hosted webinars, shared relevant stories in blog posts, and even built new features to help clients stay better connected while working from home. 

local search roundtable

Something that we’ve done behind the scenes is to connect clients from different companies to share their experiences and best practices learned during this time. These roundtables have been small, closed-door sessions so that the marketers could engage each other “off the record” and share their observations during this crisis. The Skaiers that hosted these private events were there to stimulate discourse by asking questions and then got out of the way so that the attendees could progress the discussion in a more natural manner.

Although not recorded, we did take notes and would like to share with you some of the most valuable—and anonymous—insights that we learned from these conversations. 

Insights from Skai’s Local Search Roundtable

When and what decisions were made when COVID-19 was ramping up (especially with the ramp-up state-by-state)?

Some of the attendees were already working remotely either individually or in teams that had been virtual, so the impact on their daily lives—in terms of their work setting—was very minimal. In fact, the marketers that were already working from home were able to share their best practices with colleagues who were adjusting to the new work environment. This was more than just how to stay productive in their jobs, but also how to handle the WFH work/life balance. This included some of the agency participants who shared that they were even able to help their clients with the transition. 

While some of the companies pulled back budgets or even paused all spend, the marketers whose companies continued their advertising efforts saw an uptick in performance. Across an auction-based channel such as search, with fewer competitors bidding on their terms, costs went down which positively impacted ROI metrics such as CPA. 

Virtually all of the marketers who attended the roundtable reported that there’s an intense focus on ROAS right now. Driving a positive return for every dollar spent—whether at full volume or still partial levels—is incredibly important. There’s a lot of scrutiny at most companies right now to make sure that their marketing budgets are truly working at a time when consumer spending in most categories is fairly low.

Once the pandemic became the “new normal”, what strategic changes were made and how have those somewhat changed over time?

Most of the attendees shared the same two pivots that their marketing organizations made at the beginning of the crisis. The first and most immediate change was to be creative. They wanted to make sure to pause any current creative that wasn’t accidentally tone-deaf to the issues facing consumers. For example, ads which showed groups of people out and about—such as at parties, at the beach, at a bar, etc—would just land wrong at this time. Also, every new ad would need to be COVID-19 related. Figuring out the right new messaging was a full team effort as they brainstormed many different directions and then settled on creative that was a balance of staying relevant but not too negative.

The second pivot that most of the attendees spoke about was with budget allocation. The first step there was to stop spending on any part of their programs that drove consumers to stores that weren’t open or products that were out of stock. In many cases, this meant shifting budget to ads that were branding and awareness focused than acquisition. If a company had essential items to sell, the budget was switched to invest in those products and nothing else. 

There was a lot of discussion around the changing of goals and expectations. For agency marketers, it meant having hard conversations with clients who were looking for ways to navigate through the chaos and hoping that their agency partners would be able to help them. The feedback was that “any engagement at this time was good engagement.” Without knowing how long the quarantining would last, across the board, the strategy was to continue to build relationships with customers, remind them of the brand’s value, and be ready when things returned to “normal”. 

As the pandemic has extended past the initial timelines, the roundtable group echoed each others’ sentiments that the fatigue of COVID-19 messaging is starting to set in with consumers. They don’t want the “in these uncertain times…” commercials or ads anymore. Even if things aren’t back to normal, they don’t want to be reminded of that every time they go online or turn on the television. They want a sense of normalcy and so the messaging has changed to reflect that. One participant added, “Think about the customer’s point-of-view first whether we’re in a crisis or not.”

There has been a lot of analysis of how COVID-19 has changed consumer buying behavior. Which patterns do you see staying past the pandemic and how do you plan to shift your strategies moving forward?

This was a hard topic to tackle for the roundtable because so many things are up in the air right now. The assumptions are that this pandemic will certainly shift consumer behavior to shop online more than before and for more things that they may have never considered buying online. But, it still seems to be a wait-and-see approach as there’s no telling even when this pandemic will be over, let alone how it will truly impact business. 

However, the attendees shared some individual observations that are on their mind right now about the post-pandemic future:

  • The future of the website. Some local marketers are wondering if they should even have a website or they should use their Facebook or Instagram profiles as the primary destination for their advertising. 
  • Let the customer lead. This pandemic has highlighted a need for companies to stay much closer to their customers so that they can better understand their needs. They are asking more questions now and finding new ways to engage with consumers in order to remain relevant. This customer-centric approach should persist post-pandemic and companies shouldn’t go back to their old habits of simply pushing out ads without the customer’s point-of-view deeply entrenched in the messaging.
  • Search needs other channels. Search advertising is a great low-funnel channel that can capture demand, but in times like these, it’s become evident that a search-heavy program can fall short when consumer searching behavior dramatically shifts. Other channels such as social advertising are needed to help build and create demand right now. Consumer-driven content is also an area that could help drive low-funnel search volume.
  • What data can help right now? Most of the local roundtable attendees agreed that data-driven decision making is relatively hard during this time as the historic data can be somewhat irrelevant. Marketers have relied on month-over-month and year-over-year analysis for so long, but that data isn’t very useful right now. Other signals are needed to help guide programs and measure success. 

Hindsight is 20/20. Looking back on the past couple of months, if you had the chance, what would you do differently and what advice would you give your clients?

It seems that marketers have really learned a lot over the past few months. While many of the anecdotes that were shared varied by attendees, the overall sentiment was simply that marketers need to up their game. While the pandemic is a dramatic example of a market fluctuation, the truth is that there are always forces pushing and pulling on marketing performance at all times. 

Staying closer to the customer seems to be the very best advice moving forward. That can sometimes be lost in a sea of keywords, bids, and ads. Understanding their motivations, fears, and what’s driving purchase decisions will only benefit marketing performance. 

Also, having a nimble and agile marketing process from start to finish can be very beneficial when a crisis hits. Many of the attendees expressed how quickly any program inefficiencies were exposed by COVID-19. By fixing these issues, they will not only be able to react quickly to the waves of the pandemic, but moving forward, it will help them be a better marketing organization that can better adapt to any future situation.

Interested in joining the next Skai roundtable?

If you are a Skai client and would like to participate in a future roundtable discussion, please let your Skai rep know. 

And please visit our public COVID-19 Marketing Resource Center with more ways for you to up your marketing game during this time.

Learn More About Skai Local

Related Posts

  • Responsive Search Ads Are the Present—and Future—of Paid Search Marketing
    Read More
  • What’s Going to Happen with Multi-Touch Attribution in a Cookieless World?
    Read More
  • The Annual Skai Hackathon Fosters Team-Building and Innovation
    Read More
  • The Evolution of Search Engine Marketing Software to Total Search Intelligence
    Read More
  • How Skai Takes the Growing Pains Out of the Client Onboarding Process
    Read More
  • Microsoft Advertising on Your Amazon Sales
    Measure the Impact of Microsoft Advertising on Your Amazon Sales
    Read More
  • Share on Facebook
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on LinkedIn
  • Share via Email
  • Copy Link
    Copied!
Tags: Create, Data, Local, Measure, Optimize, Plan, Research, Roundtable, Search, Target, xTLx

Subscribe to Updates

Media that matters.
Marketing that works.
© 2023 Kenshoo, Ltd. All Rights Reserved.
Privacy Policy. Cookie Policy. Recruitment Privacy Policy.
  • Connected Data
    • Market Intelligence
    • Our Approach
    • By Need
    • By Solution
  • Connected Strategy
    • Dynamic Marketing Mix
    • Budget Forecasting
    • Strategic Consulting
  • Connected Media
    • Overview
    • Retail Media
    • Paid Search
    • Paid Social
    • App Marketing
    • Auditing
    • Expert Services
  • Measurement
    • Incrementality
    • Experiments
    • Cross-Channel Attribution
  • Resources
    • Blog
    • Glossary
    • Case Studies
    • Training & Enablement
    • Developer Hub
Privacy Preference

We use cookies on our website. Some of them are essential, while others help us to improve this website and your experience.

Privacy Preference

Save All

Save

Accept Only Essential Cookies

Manage Cookie Preferences

Cookie Details Privacy Policy Imprint

Privacy Preference

Here you will find an overview of all cookies used. You can give your consent to whole categories or display further information and select certain cookies.

Save All Save Accept Only Essential Cookies

Back

Privacy Preference

Essential cookies enable basic functions and are necessary for the proper function of the website.

Show Cookie Information Hide Cookie Information

Name
Provider Owner of this website, Imprint
Purpose Saves the visitors preferences selected in the Cookie Box of Borlabs Cookie.
Host(s) .skai.io, skai.io
Cookie Name borlabs-cookie
Cookie Expiry 1 Year
Name
Provider Owner of this website
Purpose This cookie stores selections made by the user in the Accessibe tool in order to maintain those settings on future visits. These cookies help us make our website compliant with our obligations under US law.
Privacy Policy https://accessibe.com/privacy-policy
Cookie Name acsbState, acsbReset
Cookie Expiry n/a
Name
Provider Owner of this website
Host(s) skai.io
Cookie Name wordpress_sec_,wordpress_test_cookie,wp-postpass_*, wordpresspass_*, wordpressuser_*
Cookie Expiry Session / 1 Year

We use these cookies to enhance functionality and allow for personalisation, such as live chats, videos and the use of social media.

Show Cookie Information Hide Cookie Information

Accept
Name
Provider Owner of this website
Host(s) .chilipiper.com, skai.chilipiper.com
Cookie Name fs_uid, CHILI_PIPER_CLUSTER, guest-session, _sp_ses*, _sp_id*
Cookie Expiry Session / 2 Years
Accept
Name
Provider Owner of this website
Host(s) .comeet.co, www.comeet.co
Cookie Name visid_incap_, nlbi_#######, incap_ses_, referrer22_00a, incap_ses_1364_2167377
Cookie Expiry Session / 1 Year
Accept
Name
Provider Owner of this website
Host(s) skai.io
Cookie Name moduleFormPardotDownload
Cookie Expiry 30 days

Statistics cookies collect information anonymously. This information helps us to understand how our visitors use our website.

Show Cookie Information Hide Cookie Information

Accept
Name
Provider Google Ireland Limited, Gordon House, Barrow Street, Dublin 4, Ireland
Purpose Cookie by Google used for website analytics. Generates statistical data on how the visitor uses the website.
Privacy Policy https://policies.google.com/privacy?hl=en
Cookie Name _ga,_ga_*,_gat,_gat_*,_gid
Cookie Expiry 2 Months
Accept
Name
Provider Hotjar Ltd., Dragonara Business Centre, 5th Floor, Dragonara Road, Paceville St Julian's STJ 3141 Malta
Purpose Hotjar is an user behavior analytic tool by Hotjar Ltd.. We use Hotjar to understand how users interact with our website.
Privacy Policy https://www.hotjar.com/legal/policies/privacy/
Host(s) *.hotjar.com
Cookie Name _hjClosedSurveyInvites, _hjDonePolls, _hjMinimizedPolls, _hjDoneTestersWidgets, _hjIncludedInSample, _hjShownFeedbackMessage, _hjid, _hjRecordingLastActivity, hjTLDTest, _hjUserAttributesHash, _hjCachedUserAttributes, _hjLocalStorageTest, _hjptid, _hjSessionUser_2229986, _hjIncludedInPageviewSample, _hjIncludedInSessionSample, _hjAbsoluteSessionInProgress, _hjFirstSeen
Cookie Expiry Session / 1 Year

Marketing cookies are used by third-party advertisers or publishers to display personalized ads. They do this by tracking visitors across websites.

Show Cookie Information Hide Cookie Information

Accept
Name
Provider Linkedin
Cookie Name lidc, li_gc, lang, AnalyticsSyncHistory, UserMatchHistory, li_sugr, bcookie, TDCPM, TDID, bscookie, ln_or
Cookie Expiry Session / 1 Year
Accept
Name
Provider Skai
Accept
Name
Provider 6sense
Cookie Name _gd_session, _an_uid, _gd_visitor, _gd_svisitor, 6suuid
Cookie Expiry Session / 400 Days
Accept
Name
Provider Pardot
Purpose Cookie name associated with services from marketing automation and lead generation platform Pardot. The visitor value is the visitor_id in your Pardot account. This cookie is set for visitors by the Pardot tracking code.
Host(s) .pardot.com, pi.pardot.com, skai.io
Cookie Name pardot, visitor_id*, lpv*
Cookie Expiry Session / 10 Years
Accept
Name
Provider Google Ireland Limited, Gordon House, Barrow Street, Dublin 4, Ireland
Purpose Cookie by Google used for conversion tracking of Google Ads.
Privacy Policy https://policies.google.com/privacy?hl=en
Cookie Name IDE, 1P_JAR, NID, SOCS, CONSENT, AEC, _gcl_au, OTZ, test_cookie
Cookie Expiry Session / 400 Days
Accept
Name
Provider Meta Platforms Ireland Limited, 4 Grand Canal Square, Dublin 2, Ireland
Purpose Cookie by Facebook used for website analytics, ad targeting, and ad measurement.
Privacy Policy https://www.facebook.com/policies/cookies
Cookie Name _fbp,act,c_user,datr,fr,tr,m_pixel_ration,pl,presence,sb,spin,wd,xs
Cookie Expiry Session / 1 Year

Content from video platforms and social media platforms is blocked by default. If External Media cookies are accepted, access to those contents no longer requires manual consent.

Show Cookie Information Hide Cookie Information

Accept
Name
Provider Wistia
Host(s) .wistia.com
Cookie Name cb_anonymous_id, _sp_ses.2b40, _li_dcdm_c, __hssrc, _gcl_au, _clsk, hubspotutk, _sp_id.2b40, __hssc, __hstc, _uetsid, _uetvid, _gid, _ga, _ga_GQR109DZ3Y, _lc2, fpi, _ex-pricing-cta, _fbp, cb_group_id, cb_user_id, _clck
Cookie Expiry Session / 400 Days
Accept
Name
Provider Meta Platforms Ireland Limited, 4 Grand Canal Square, Dublin 2, Ireland
Purpose Used to unblock Instagram content.
Privacy Policy https://www.instagram.com/legal/privacy/
Host(s) .instagram.com
Cookie Name pigeon_state
Cookie Expiry Session
Accept
Name
Provider Openstreetmap Foundation, St John’s Innovation Centre, Cowley Road, Cambridge CB4 0WS, United Kingdom
Purpose Used to unblock OpenStreetMap content.
Privacy Policy https://wiki.osmfoundation.org/wiki/Privacy_Policy
Host(s) .openstreetmap.org
Cookie Name _osm_location, _osm_session, _osm_totp_token, _osm_welcome, _pk_id., _pk_ref., _pk_ses., qos_token
Cookie Expiry 1-10 Years
Accept
Name
Provider Twitter International Company, One Cumberland Place, Fenian Street, Dublin 2, D02 AX07, Ireland
Purpose Used to unblock Twitter content.
Privacy Policy https://twitter.com/privacy
Host(s) .twimg.com, .twitter.com
Cookie Name __widgetsettings, local_storage_support_test
Cookie Expiry Unlimited
Accept
Name
Provider Vimeo Inc., 555 West 18th Street, New York, New York 10011, USA
Purpose Used to unblock Vimeo content.
Privacy Policy https://vimeo.com/privacy
Host(s) player.vimeo.com
Cookie Name vuid
Cookie Expiry 2 Years
Accept
Name
Provider Google Ireland Limited, Gordon House, Barrow Street, Dublin 4, Ireland
Purpose Used to unblock YouTube content.
Privacy Policy https://policies.google.com/privacy?hl=en&gl=en
Host(s) google.com
Cookie Name CONSENT
Cookie Expiry 6 Month

Borlabs Cookie powered by Borlabs Cookie

Privacy Policy Imprint