Just a few months ago, Nielsen Catalina Solutions discovered through a study (pdf) of 1,400 campaigns run on multiple advertising channels over the past 11 years that mobile advertising delivers the highest sales per 1,000 impressions ($26.52), outperforming every other channel, including digital video and even cross-media spend.

To any CPG marketer who has already shifted their strategy – and spend – to mobile, this might not come as a surprise. After all, they were one of the first industries to truly take advantage of the unique targeting capabilities that mobile offers, such as location-based ads. But CPG marketers have also discovered that mobile has more to offer than simply location. For instance, by partnering with a company like Nielsen Catalina Solutions, which has purchase data from 90 million households, brands can create custom NCS audience segments and serve ads to them, but, more importantly, be able to see the return on that ad spend (ROAS) by tracking not just foot traffic lift, but also frequency of shopper visits and increase in product sales.

Much of this is tied closely together with loyalty card programs, because in many cases it’s smarter to market to existing customers than new ones. In one campaign Opera Mediaworks ran recently, for example, a popular drug store retail advertiser wanted to maximize ROAS with their existing loyal customers through daily offers on their mobile app. To do this, we developed custom NCS targeting segments to reach those cardholders, also including people who had downloaded the drug store’s app. We deployed display ads to reach this custom audience, touting the app as a source for daily offers and discounts. Users who tapped on the ad were deep linked into the “Offers” screen within the app.

The campaign performance was astounding, with ROAS metrics that far outpaced others that did not leverage purchase-based data. It was 65% above average sales dollars per 1,000 impressions.

This is just one example of how CPG marketers can drive incredible return on their ad spend. After working with NCS on multiple campaigns for CPG brands and retailers, we’ve learned much more about effective ways to maximize the impact of their advertising. See below for the 5 best practices that stood out the most to our CPG account teams.