AdAdapted: Marketing Function Audit

Background

Founded in 2012, AdAdapted is an advertising technology solution that increases purchase intent of shoppers by reaching the right consumers at the right time to get brands on shopping lists and into carts. With more than 110 million US shoppers using mobile devices for their grocery lists, AdAdapted has built a distinct audience and ad offering that uses intent-based targeting, providing the easiest, most efficient way to reach active verified shoppers — exactly when they are deciding what to buy. AdAdapted has worked with a variety of CPG clients, including KraftHeinz, Nestle, Campari, and more.

Business Problem

In 2020, AdAdapted sought to expand its marketing efforts through the growth and expansion of the marketing department, specifically seeking to put in place more seasoned marketing leadership. The lack of executive-level leadership manifested itself in a number of ways, including limited awareness of their proprietary Add-It™ technology and unique offerings, a lack of clear messaging and pricing, and a missed opportunity to communicate the differentiated value AdAdapted brought to CPG brands and retailers.

With the pressure of high growth expectations from investors and the board, AdAdapted did not have the time or resources to recruit and hire a VP of Marketing at the time, so AdAdapted turned to Callan Consulting to perform a marketing audit and help bridge the gap to the next growth milestone.

Solution

Callan Consulting began the marketing organization audit by conducting a quick-turn audit of AdAdapted’s marketing function, focusing on eleven separate aspects of its marketing organization across three major areas: strategy and planning, programs, and organization/staffing. The marketing audit was based on interviews with key members of AdAdapted’s sales, marketing, and executive teams, as well as a review of AdAdapted programs, materials, and marketing activities. This audit resulted in specific recommendations in areas ranging from the need to establish a new category to better identifying and sharpening its ideal customer profile.

Callan Consulting then used the results of this audit to develop a new set of sales materials for AdAdapted, including an internally facing sales battlecard, a customer-facing sales deck, and a customer-facing one-pager.

Results

The marketing function audit findings were well received by AdAdapted’s executive and marketing teams, and the go-to-market team instantly put the new sales enablement materials to the test, yielding a number of new key customer wins over the following three to six months. Further, AdAdapted was sufficiently pleased with Callan Consulting’s work that it invited Callan Consulting back to perform several additional projects, including a thought leadership research and marketing materials development project.

The work with Callan Consulting was one of the impetus projects for greater marketing focus and increased resources dedicated to marketing. AdAdapted entered a new phase of growth after working with Callan and gained a deeper understanding of how marketing truly impacts company success, growth, and innovation. In fact, the Callan Consulting project was a contributing factor to AdAdapted growing revenue by 2-3x year over year.

Client Feedback

“Callan Consulting was easy to work with, flexible, and innovative. Their fresh look at how our marketing arm functioned gave us the insights we needed to evolve and grow. Callan really helped us bridge a strategic marketing gap by helping develop actionable, tactical, customer-facing materials that succinctly communicated our unique value proposition in a compelling, customer-friendly way.”