How We Diversified ACT’s Media Mix for YoY Increases Across Metrics

American Conservatory Theater is located in San Francisco and committed to being an essential gathering place that brings artists and communities together to inspire and provoke. Their mission is to engage the spirit of the San Francisco Bay Area, activate stories that resonate, promote a diversity of voices and points of view, and empower theater makers and audiences to celebrate liveness.

Capacity Interactive has partnered with A.C.T. since 2020, and has helped optimize and engineer new and improved digital media strategies year over year. Ahead of the 2023-24 season, we paid particular attention to diversifying our channels and campaign types and saw significantly improved results compared to 2022-23.

DIVERSIFYING CAMPAIGN TYPES

During previous seasons working with CI, A.C.T. had what we might consider a more “traditional” media split between the big two: Meta and Google. For 2022-23, they invested about 30% of their media budget on Google channels (Paid Search and YouTube), and 70% of their media budget on Meta. This definitely represented a 2022 mindset and reality, with more limited investment in dynamic campaign and content types:

In the subsequent season (2023-24), the CI team recommended a more diversified approach, leaning into the enormous increased potential of newer Google campaign types that made maximum use of machine learning. A.C.T. also made space within the budget for an initial experiment with Spotify campaigns:

IMPACT

Overall media spend increased by 47% season over season. A decent percentage of that increase can be attributed to incorporating three Spotify campaigns into their digital advertising mix, but many other increases were the result of responsive budgeting, which capitalized on campaigns that were driving strong results, and the shifting power of placements within Meta and Google.

Spending on Google specifically more than doubled with that shift (overall spend on Meta increased by just 4% YoY), and the more diversified Google strategy enabled by the budget increase significantly improved reach and engagement metrics across the platform:

Change in Google Metrics YoY

Most often, when budgets are greatly increased, efficiency metrics like ROI and CPA are negatively impacted, a trade-off when you drive a higher volume of purchases. This did hold true for A.C.T., but the decreases in campaign efficiencies were fairly minimal: ROI decreased by only 25% across Google campaigns, with CPA increasing by only 18%. The total volume of purchases attributed to Google campaigns increased by 83% season over season.

It’s also worth noting that Spotify, back in December 2023, was treated largely as an awareness platform, with performance metrics focused on reach, impressions, and clicks. Notably, the average CPM across all three Spotify campaigns in the 23-24 season was much lower than the average CPM across Meta and Google. As of Spring 2024, conversion tracking via pixel is offered for Spotify campaigns–and the two campaigns that could be tracked in this way saw 110 attributed purchases between them.

TAKEAWAY

In the digital landscape, best practices–and even what kind of advertising and tracking is available to you–change very quickly! To continue achieving the best possible results and return on investment, organizations must be open to experimentation and diversification.

For A.C.T., this meant leaning into the fact that Google could be so much more than display and search: there was enormous potential for increased campaign efficiency and results with campaign types like Performance Max within a multi-faceted Google strategy. Moreover, Google and Meta are no longer the only platforms with a real playing field. Higher digital media budgets can mean experimentation and investment in channels like Spotify (other examples could include CTV and TikTok).

READY TO MIX UP YOUR MARKETING?

Let’s talk about how our digital advertising team can help you shift to more diversified, dynamic strategies!