Millennial, Gen-X Opps: Backroads loses CMO, taps marketing VP amid spend increase (Score 46)

Active travel company Backroads selected Anne Ashbey as its new marketing VP in September 2021. She joined from Digital Prophets Network, where she had served as its GM, digital, eCommerce and marketing advisor and project lead. Ashbey will have say over Backroads's strategy, so keep the company on your radar. She stepped up just months after Lesa Musatto parted ways, having served as Backroads's chief strategy and marketing officer for the past five years. 

So far this year, Pathmatics reports the company has spent roughly $119.6k on digital ads, up 63% from the roughly $73.5k it spent in all of 2020. In 2020, Backroads's estimated full-year spend ($73.5k) reached a mere fraction of that of $237.6k in 2019. It has earned around 21.4m digital impressions YTD via Facebook (53%), desktop display (32%) and mobile display (14%) ads. Top site destinations for this year's desktop display ads have included statesman.com (10%), espn.com, aol.com, cnn.com and yahoo.com/health.

Though its target demographic could change under this new marketing leader, for now Backroads is primarily targeting millennials and Gen-X. Sellers able to offer high-ROI strategies among this audience will have the best luck securing ad dollars.

Agency & martech readers - Get in touch soon to see what work is available under Ashbey's leadership, especially as Backroads seeks a new CMO. The company currently handles all creative in-house.