The TikTok effect for brands

The digital landscape is ever-changing. Trends come and go. Channels supersede each other at a rapid pace. Which begs the question: how do you differentiate yourself from the masses nowadays? We’ll tell you: by innovating. And that is precisely what you can do with TikTok’s new function TikTok Now.

At iO we work with Criteo: an advanced platform for digital advertising and targeted, data-driven campaigns. Find out more about what we can do for your organisation. 

Our +150 digital advertising specialists know how to make platforms such as Facebook and Instagram an essential part of your media mix.

Rely on the digital marketing knowledge and expertise of our iO experts, backed by strategy and crystal clear data.

From content to advertising and tracking tools: with media and performance audits, our experts will show you the next steps to take in the digital world.

CLM and loyalty is a win-win situation: customers benefit from their loyalty and you get data flows and a smoothly running business.

Intelligent growth won't happen without digital marketing and advertising — and much more. Find out what our agency marketeers can offer you.

Get more out of your ad campaigns with performance marketing. Find out how iO can support you, from strategy and setup to follow-up and optimisation.

We have experience with all kinds of advertising platforms, like display, search, social, video, and affiliate. Make the right choices with our advice.

Use radio and television ads to boost your sales and generate brand awareness. Find out how we can help you.

Content is powerful in marketing and communication. Our experts have a knack for creating everything from television ads, copy, video & photography.

Activate your target audience with dynamic online and offline experiences. At iO, we blend marketing, technology, and strategy to create impactful brand activations.

Our video experts help you maximise interaction with your target audience through live streaming.

The cookieless future is coming. Soon, marketers will no longer be able to collect third-party data — so they need to find new solutions to balance data collection, privacy, security, and customised user experiences.

Want to increase your sales from anywhere — even when you're sleeping? If so, affiliate marketing might be right for your organisation. Tim van Hout (Team Lead Affiliate Marketing at iO) tells you everything you need to know about affiliate marketing in this webinar.

Google Analytics 4 is the undisputed king of analytics platforms. Still, alternative tools are increasingly finding their way into organisations — thanks to different features, a greater focus on privacy, or better customer support. Want to know more about the analytics landscape of 2023? In this webinar, Glenn Weuts (Head of Marketing Technology at iO) takes you into the wonderful world of web analytics. That way, you will soon be able to make an informed choice that perfectly suits your needs.

We’ve all noticed that in the dynamic world of marketing data, traditional attribution models are less and less relevant. Changes in technology and legislation mean that we have to look for alternatives. Modelling of marketing data is playing an increasingly prominent role and is becoming more accessible to organisations. Marketing Mix Modelling offers you unique insights into channels that are increasingly difficult to predict in a cookieless world. Find out all about it in this webinar.

The marketing world is changing faster and faster, with a new update or new guidelines to discover every day. Google Consent Mode version 2 is an upcoming update from Google that aims to help website owners comply with increasingly stringent privacy legislation (AVG/GDPR). This implementation is mandated by Google from March 2024. So be sure not to hesitate and get informed in this webinar so that you can set up the right actions in preparation.

Now that cookies are disappearing, the biggest challenge for everyone in marketing today lies in measuring and analyzing marketing efforts.   Companies currently find themselves facing a bit of a dilemma: on one hand, they want a transparent view of the results of their investments, on the other hand, they know that they need to rely more on data to make their advertising more relevant and efficient.

Universal Analytics, the older brother of Google Analytics 4, will stop collecting data in July 2023. In other words: marketers will need to find an alternative. In this whitepaper, we discuss the most recent version of Google's data analysis tool: Google Analytics 4. With Google Analytics 4, Google is committed to scalability, privacy-centric measurement, machine learning, and expanding the integration features of the platform. This makes the latest version of GA fully future-proof — as will you be, after reading this whitepaper.

In this whitepaper, we will immerse you in the world of cookies, discuss what exactly is about to happen and how you can prepare your company for it. Enjoy!

How well do you know today’s web analytics landscape?When talking about web analytics, Google Analytics is usually at the top of the list. Google Analytics 4, is the undisputed king of web analytics tools. Or is it?

With cyber week (starting Friday, Nov. 29) and the end-of-year period upon us, there are some great opportunities ahead to give sales another boost, whether you're in B2C or B2B. With this guide and checklist of no less than 61 pages (!), we help you fine-tune your marketing, communication and advertising strategy so that you catch the eye of your target audience. With this guide & checklist, compiled by our +2000 experts from different departments, you'll roll out the digital red carpet for your customers in the year-end period. Download it now.

Soon, third-party cookies will disappear. Use our calculator and get an estimate of the potential loss of sales and website visitors. You will also get tailored advice on the next steps to take to minimise that loss. Go directly to the calculator via the button below or scroll down for more background information.

But how do you get started with a first-party data strategy? What do you pay attention to? Can you still rely on third-party data? And which stakeholders do you best involve in this 'new' phase? In this whitepaper, we help you out.

Digital marketing offers enormous opportunities in the field of data-driven working. We often fail to take advantage of these opportunities. That's means you miss out on a lot of opportunities to maximise the impact of your budget.

Webshops have reached the status of shopping standard in the digital age. Users are just a few clicks away from their favourite items. Anywhere, at any time of the day, from the comforts of home. This is why online advertising on digital channels has become key to webshop owners: channels allowing you to maintain your margins and successfully activate consumers throughout the purchase process.

Performance marketing is a branch of marketing where you focus on results. Which results? How can you measure it and - more importantly - how do you achieve it? This is different for every organisation, but the potential of performance marketing to deliver results? That’s universal. The efficient combination of leads, sales and targets is crucial.

In 2017, Google was fined €2.4 billion by the European Commission for abuse of power. The internet giant was pushing comparison websites (Comparison Shopping Services, or CSS) lower in search results with Google Shopping. That fine was bad news for Google, but good news for organisations looking to make more online sales.

The 2024 summer holidays are behind us and it's time for organisations to set their budgets for 2025. And that is often a more difficult task than we would like to admit.   We wouldn't be iO if we hadn't come up with anything to help you with that tedious task... Get 16 tips to make your marketing and digitisation budget for 2025 smarter

Avid advertisers might already know, but for those who don’t: Google is discontinuing Similar Audiences in 2023. Do you feel a mild panic rising in your chest? There’s no need to worry. Read all about the impact of Google’s decision on advertising in this blog.

You probably know about Netflix and Spotify. But have you ever heard of Twitch? With nearly 140 million monthly users, Twitch is one of the largest streaming platforms in the world. And yet, it is also a very underused advertising channel. Meaning there are loads of advertising opportunities waiting for you to take advantage of them.

At iO knowledge is at the heart of everything we do. Naturally that includes keeping our knowledge up to date with fresh learnings from key industry events. That's why our colleagues Xander Horvath and Joris Jans travelled to Hamburg in March 2023 to participate in d3con -- "The largest conference tackling the future of digital advertising", as they call it. Read on to learn more about their key learnings and takeaways.

The rapid pace of developments in the digital world is not a new development. It’s up to us to keep up with these developments so that we can build future-proof strategies for our clients. That’s why the iO advertising team participated in a four-week PPC Masterclass with advertising gurus Bob Meijer and Miles McNair. PPC stands for pay-per-click, a collective term for everything connected with online advertising.

Local SEO is local search engine optimisation, a marketing technique that ensures that your company is found easily when potential customers search with local search intention. Local SEO is becoming more important and is therefore a huge opportunity for retailers with multiple physical locations.

To make your online business run smoothly, there are several aspects you can focus on. Your channel mix is one of those aspects. But how do you know if your mix is the right one? And do you stick to your initial choices or is it better to adjust your mix regularly? With channel management, you will find answers to these questions.

CRO (Conversion Rate Optimisation) is important to generate more conversions from website users. However, Google will soon be taking its special CRO tool, Google Optimize, offline. So what are the alternatives?

Marketing campaigns are becoming more standardised and less distinctive due to automation. Today, you have to differentiate your campaigns on a strategic and creative level, where we are still better than the machine. What impact does that have on marketing organisations?

Despite the increasing popularity of digital media, offline still plays an important role in the media mix for companies and brands. Offline media - also known as traditional media - such as print, radio, and TV, among others, is still a powerful way to share information with the public. A way of communicating that should not be underestimated. Why is offline media important to your brand? And how can offline and online media support your brand?

Now that third-party cookies are on their way out, companies have to start using their own data. Expert Jacob Eeckhout, who leads the Center of Excellence Marketing at iO, sees opportunities for many companies to build closer customer relationships after the initial panic. "When companies have to build campaign strategies using their own first-party data, their users can easily become less open. Transparency and control will restore trust between brands and consumers."

The added value of social media is sometimes difficult for marketers to determine, apart from the results it has to offer the sales team. As a result, some tend to consider a 'must do', while it actually offers a wonderful way to gain a place in people's lives. The key is to identify your brand with the culture of your target audience, and for that, social works best. However, this requires a certain amount of courage from your brand.

In the ever-changing world of marketing, it can be challenging for CMOs to determine the correct marketing budget. The economic landscape and technological advances in the marketing industry calls for a new approach to budgeting. In this article, we share seven marketing budget insights, with recommendations for how to determine your budget for 2025.

Summer is slowly changing into autumn, the annual cue for the opening of the "budget season." Time to fire up the roulette wheel; redistribute marketing investments on gut feel, driven by the resources provided by management. Or are you doing it differently this year?

iO's social advertising team visited TikTok HQ for the first Benelux agency workshop. TikTok is Gen-Z's search engine, and an exciting platform that’s constantly developing new features. We’ll be highlighting the most interesting insights and opportunities we learned from TikTok in this article.

If you listen closely, you can already hear them. Christmas bells. Seriously. Christmas is coming! By the way, Christmas has already started for me. When I’m lying in my hammock in the South of France, I’m already thinking about Christmas trees, snow and beautifully laid tables. And, of course, I’m thinking about how to win at Christmas, traditionally the busiest commercial period of the year. But how do you make sure that your brand wins at Christmas? And how do you make sure you stand out from all the other Christmas campaigns?

It’s that time again: It’s Christmas commercial season 2023. I’m ready for a wagonload of snow, candy, British stars, and tortured covers of familiar songs. And what did I get? Exactly that. I love it! A (completely objective) overview of the (mostly) British 2023 Christmas commercials. Brace yourself for Rick Astley, kisses, Ryan Reynolds, talking mittens, singing oven gloves, pink flamingos, John Travolta as Santa Claus and... a rediscovered hit from 1965. And... What did John Lewis do?

You may not have noticed, but a lot has changed in terms of analytics and tracking over the past five years. This is partly because we've already grown accustomed to many changes, and partly because their impact has come very gradually. Half a decade ago, no one knew of the existence of a cookie banner, a year later everyone thought they could never get used to it, and today we don't know any better. We've made serious strides in terms of data regulation, and perhaps the biggest steps are yet to come in 2024.

More and more organisations want to measure the return on investment of digital platforms accurately. But how do you develop a successful measurement plan?

The marketing world keeps turning faster, with new updates or guidelines at every turn. It’s a world that forces businesses to change with it. A recent change by this organization includes, among other things, that Google Consent Mode must receive an update by March 2024 to enhance user privacy. Take the Digital Markets Act, for instance. This European legislative body regulates digital platforms by creating laws. A recent legislative change includes that Google Consent Mode is required to carry out an update by March 2024 at the latest to better protect users’ privacy.

Google is the unequivocal search engine market leader (and probably will be for a while). However, when it comes to search queries, there’s a challenger to that monopoly: Bing by Microsoft. In the last few months, Bing made some significant strides, moving from 1 in 20 search queries to almost 1 in 5. That growing influence and Bing’s market share are some aspects you should leverage in your digital strategies. You can ignore 5% of your potential visitors, but ignoring 18% of the queries that lead to your business would probably have a significant impact on your business – and not in a good way.

The rise of AI, shifts in the social media landscape, and the end of third-party data...2023 was, to say the least, a tumultuous year. But this year, marketers and their organizations are also facing significant challenges. Discover the six digital and marketing trends that will dominate 2024 and, most importantly, how you can successfully tackle them.

From March 12, we welcome a significant update in the world of web performance with the introduction of Interaction to Next Paint (INP) as part of the Core Web Vitals. But don't worry, you don’t have to be a web developer to understand: we’ll explain the importance of this update in plain language.

In the marketing optimisation of larger iO clients - such as Brussels Airport and Lidl - we see a shift from ad hoc campaigns to always-on. There are a few logical explanations for this trend. And both the elimination of cookies and the focus on the customer experience (CX) have a lot to do with it.

For many marketers, allocating budgets for the year ahead is a real headache. Will you carry your budget over from last year – even though technology is evolving at lightning speed and the marketing world could look completely different tomorrow? Or will you follow your intuition and take a chance? Fortunately, data modelling exists allowing you to allocate your budget with the certainty that you are spending it in the right place, and at the right time.

Navigating the rapidly expanding MarTech landscape can be overwhelming, but with a clear strategy and focused approach, you can build an effective MarTech stack that drives your marketing success.

Creative concepts can elevate a campaign, says Tim Colman (Head of Digital Communication at Proximus). He talks about the importance of creativity at every stage of the customer journey.

Creativity isn't just useful for building a strong campaign — it's essential. Daan Simonis (Global Media & Digital Marketing Director at Perfetti Van Melle) explains why this is the case and how a creative idea has a strong impact, especially on paid media platforms.

"With digital transformation, you can deliver added value to your customers," says Steven De Deyne, Head of Media and Production Competence Center Proximus), it in this video.

The Carglass website is a crucial platform, but other channels — digital and non-digital — are also very important in the omnichannel approach. Giving a personalised experience to every customer, with content tailored to their stage in the customer journey. Dorien Gevers (Email marketer at Carglass) explains every stage.

iO helped pharmaceutical company MSD create two awareness campaigns to improve communications between patients and their doctors. Discover this case.

We increased the conversion and revenue of Verf.nl's webshop with a strong personalisation strategy.

Find out more about how iO and Toyota Material Handling Belgium boosted online sales of compact warehouse trucks and improved the quality of lead generation.

iO created two creative and multifaceted communication campaigns to strengthen the ACLVB’s image and recruitment. Click the link to find out more.

The DIY and home improvement shop needed a sound marketing approach with strong targeting. Our experts took care of that.

Companies in a competitive industry have to be able to act and react quickly. Discover how we helped JBC create an efficient advertising strategy.

Successful affiliate marketing strategy generates leads and conversions. Want to know how we did it? Read our Philips case.

Propane as an energy source was in need of recognition, by all who were living off-grid to be more precise. We managed it on behalf of gas specialist Primagaz, with creative 360° campaigns - both online and offline. Read the case study!

Gosselin, active in international relocations, wanted more leads to boost growth. Our experts helped to bolster their digital presence. 

iO helps Torfs, the Flemish shoe giant, to position itself better in the Walloon market and as a fashion player. Read more about this case.

Maximizing ROI: iO's Approach to Boosting Conversion Rate in Beobank's Campaigns. Read the full story here.

From Festival Wristbands to Online Accounts: Converting Festival-Goers with Effective Paid Media. Read the story here.

YER is already big but aspired to double their presence in the world of recruitment and selection and secondment. iO helped them with creating a new brand, internal branding, external activation online and offline and bringing 3 websites into 1 site for all target groups.

For Port of Antwerp-Bruges, we brought a brand-new job platform to the market with a creative, multimedia campaign. Read more.

Read how we worked with Brunswick to create a full branding and international go-to-market strategy to launch their latest brand Navan.

Discover how awareness, behaviour change, and hyper-local personalization lead to cost efficiency and relevance at the right moment.

How do you tell a clear online story that pulls traffic towards your website if you represent multiple businesses? Read the case and find out.

How does iO keep its long-term relationship with Farmaline fresh as a daisy? By mixing trust with a profitable synergy of tech and marketing services.

Find out how we helped cheese brand CAMBOZOLA reactivate its existing customers and attract younger generations. Read the case.

Discover how iO helped Imperial transform into a future-proof food brand

Discover how Avans University of Applied Sciences and iO attracted over 20,000 new student choosers with creative, data-driven campaigns. Learn strategies that hold Gen Z's attention and create strong brand connections. Get inspired and discover how to entice your target audience.

Brussels Airport: In this case story, read how iO has become an extension of the airport.

How iO convinces travelers to choose Brussels Airport for their next trip. Discover the marketing campaigns.

We ensured GDPR-compliant, cost-efficient cookie management for Van Hoecke's platforms using CookieHub. Read our success story.

The first day of the Webwinkel Vakdagen (WWVD) is over! Still want to reminisce? Download the presentations of the lightning talks here.

As far as we are concerned, the Webwinkel Vakdagen (WWVD) was a great success! Did you think so too?