When most people hear the term “Programmatic Advertising, they ask “Progra… What”?
Well, you need to familiarize yourself with this new technology if you are running any form of an online advertising campaign.
Without a doubt, Programmatic Advertising is one of today’s largest development in advertising technology; also known as the ‘AdTech Space”.
Imagine you are at an auction; if you have ever attended one, then you know how interesting it can be.
Auction items are put on display and then people are allowed to state the price they are willing to pay for it.
The bidding is an exciting back-and-forth jostle amongst bidders as each tries to win the item.
Once the bidding comes to a stop, the winning bidder proudly takes home the item.
Programmatic Advertising is similar to a public auction, with one big difference; while the public auction can take a few minutes, bidding in the AdTech Space can take a fraction of a second.
Programmatic Advertising: What on Earth is it?
Simply put, Programmatic Advertising is a way of Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools to carry out online buying and selling of advertising automatically. This process happens in real0time, is very quick, and tremendously effective.
This is a tool that small and medium-sized companies can leverage to make the best advertising buying and selling decisions.
You will be able to channel your advertising inventory through several channels including social, mobile, and web to deliver adverts to the right people, at the right time, and maximize your ROI.
You can simply set up a campaign from one source, avoid spending too much time and money and get the best possible results.
Programmatic Advertising is more of a deep science than an art, and this is the reason why you should simply look for a platform and let the experts handle the rest.
You have the option to have more control if you are familiar with the process.
This article will let you know a few things about Programmatic Advertising, and show you why you should adopt it when you are buying or selling ad space on the internet.
Let’s break down this “alien” concept a little bit.
#1: Programmatic Advertising is a great reputation management and brand safety tool
You would obviously be horrified if you found out that your advertisements are being placed on a website with degrading, extremist, or unsavory content.
The risk of having your brand’s reputation damaged is very high in such a case.
With Programmatic Advertising, you can make a full list of industry verticals and individual websites that you would want to be excluded from hosting your ads.
On the other hand, you could place a list of sites where you WOULD WANT your ads to be placed; these will be given the highest priority.
This process will help you ensure that your brand’s reputation is safe from being associated with offensive content.
Although some Programmatic Advertising platform has their own list of approved and reputable websites for placing advertisements, you should do your due diligence and create the list of “unwanted” URLs and further protect your brand.
A great rule of thumb is to ensure that you use a Programmatic Advertising platform with a private marketplace as opposed to one with an open marketplace.
Programmatic Private Marketplace (PMP) is very popular it assures that your ads are placed on top-notch websites.
#2: Bid for targeted ad spaces based on understanding the customer journey
Understanding the customer journey towards making a purchase is crucial in making the best decisions when placing your bids for ad spaces.
You must fully understand the needs and desires of your customers so you can maximize advertising ROI.
Programmatic Advertising considers the customer journey ensuring that you create better ad displays and they are placed on websites with a high probability of converting customers into buyers.
Once you know that your customer is in the awareness stage of the buying journey, you will be able to place your ads on blogs, social media platforms, and websites where they are bound to go looking for products and services in your niche.
It will augur well for your business when you have a better understanding and engagement with your consumer when it comes to marketing using advertisements on the internet.
#3: Clarity of the objective is crucial: Are you driving conversions or brand awareness?
It is important that you get ahead of the game to maximize your ROI when using Programmatic Advertising.
You must have a clear vision of WHY you are conduction the advertising campaign before you proceed any further.
When you have a clear understanding of the objective, then you can make better budgetary allocations to the campaign.
The strategy behind the campaign is a critical driver of the choices that you will make.
Ask yourself whether the strategy to have in hand will better serve your ultimate goal and just how to use Programmatic Advertising to achieve it.
Having a clear objective in mind, and understanding the target audience will help you make a better choice in the Demand Side Provider (DSP) for your campaign.
#4: Make better inventory investment decisions
As you may well know, the success of your advertising campaigns depends on your ability to deliver compelling, converting campaigns on different channels.
However, the task of focusing on reputation management and also thinking of providing the best return on your investment can be mind-boggling.
With Programmatic advertising, you can better understand where you want your ads placed and overcome this mountainous task.
Sites like Adobe have a premium inventory that you can purchase with respect to your niche.
However, you should take time to personally curate the list of websites where you want your ads placed so you can make a better ROI.
You may feel that buying premium inventories does not necessarily increase your exposure, and in this case, you should take the time to come up with a better list.
Analysis of the data collected when using Programmatic Advertising allows you to make critical decisions on which premium inventories you should invest in, or whether you really need their list at all.
Basically, you will know whether buying premium inventories will maximize ROI or whether you should go with your custom list.
#5: Create targeted personalized ads by segmenting your audience
One of the key drivers of successful advertising campaigns is the ability to connect with the right audience
The best way to accomplish this is by segmenting them into groups and creating ads that target each group individually.
For example, you can segment your audience depending on the stage they are at, in the customer buying journey, then creating ads that are specific to each segment.
With Programmatic advertising, creating these segments is easy as it can show you where customers are in the buying journey.
For those customers who are at the awareness stage, you can have Programmatic advertising that channels your ads to the website and other platforms that they are bound to visit.
Once you see how these prospects behave, you may create another campaign to make them respond to your products or services in a better way, to avoid losing them to your competition; this is the consideration stage.
You could offer them discounts and other incentives at this stage.
Analysis of customer behavior with respect to your advertisements will help you create targeted ads that will convert them into loyal paying customers.
#6: Use Mobile Programmatic Advertising to maximize your profits
Mobile Programmatic advertising deals specifically with buying and selling of advertising inventory directed at mobile devices.
Many people indeed use their mobile devices to access the internet more than any other device, and this is a platform that you should not ignore.
Creating an advertisement for mobile devices will help you maximize your profits since they can even make buying decisions when they are close to a venue where your products are being sold; For example, at a mall.
Another thing worth mentioning is the fact that mobile-first is deemed favorable even by search engines.
You need to make good use of this opportunity so you do not miss out on the high volume of purchases that are made using mobile devices.
For example, if you sell on amazon, take a look at these listing optimization tips that they have for you.
#7: Programmatic Advertising integrates very well with CRM data
Now this is quite an exciting aspect of Programmatic advertising.
You can now create a mirror of your audience based on data collected from your Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software.
You are already having a robust relationship with your existing customers through your CRM so go ahead and create profiles based on the data you have and then use it to create ads targeting prospective customers.
Apart from using the CRM data to target customers outside your current database, you can better retain those you already have with ads for new products or services and other incentives such as discounts or vouchers.
Integrating your CRM data with Programmatic advertising will take your advertising campaigns to another level.
You will be able to use the data and create insightful decisions on customer acquisition and retention.
Now you know some of the most important aspects of programmatic advertising, here are a few tips that you can use to make the most out of your campaigns.
Do A/B testing of your ads
Digital marketers know that this is where you become truly specific in determining who your audience is.
There are various factors that come into play in this part, such as gender, geographic region, operating systems, online platforms, job titles, etc.
These factors will depend on the DSP that you are using so make sure you get one that gives you the most options for better results.
When armed with this data, it will be easier for your Programmatic Advertising DSP to plug in the data and optimize your campaign accordingly.
This will enable you to place advertisements before the decision-makers when it comes to buying your products or services, which will improve your revenue generation and ROI.
Another benefit of A/B testing in Programmatic advertising is that you will not use precious resources on creating advertisements that will have no effect.
The DSP platform will allow you to create a set of advertisements, run A/B testing on them, and see which ones would give you the best CTR before you actually put them out to your prospects.
You will also determine which ads are best suited to each demographic, be it age, gender geographic region, etc., which in turn will make each campaign highly effective.
So, go crazy and create as many ads as you can, test them and come up with those that will best benefit your business.
Include eye-catching rich media in your advertising campaigns
In digital marketing, the term rich media is applied to the use of stunning graphics, audio, and video to capture the eye of your prospect.
When a reader sees the rich media, his eyes are automatically drawn to the ad and the resultant curiosity will drive him or her to clicking on the ad.
Remember that digital marketing is a competitive field and you must make every effort to connect with every prospect you come across.
There are several free and premium resources that you can use to create exceptional advertisements if you are not conversant with how you can create them on your own.
More clicks will increase your ROI thanks to the CPM.
Use shrewd audience data
You have a better chance of connecting with your target audience if you have accurate data.
Running a campaign without considering this data will lead to wasting resources on advertisements that will not connect with your prospects.
With audience data, you can tell how effectively you would target an audience, the regions where you are bound to find them, and predict just how well they will convert.
This will give you an idea of how much money you need to put into the advertising campaign to get the best ROI.
The data can be 1st part; which refers to the data that you directly collect from adverts that you have placed in the past, 2nd party; which is data that you get from a trusted partner, and 3rd party; the data you get from Data Management Platforms (DMPs).
Take Away
Programmatic Advertising has served the purpose of increasing marketing efficiency in a large measure. You can now bid on premium inventories within seconds and also see how well they are performing.
Brand safety and reputation management should be your top-most priority; any damage to this may adversely affect your business.
Get to know your customer better by studying their behavior, creating empathy maps, and understanding their buying journey; this will definitely enable you to create targeted and highly converting advertisements.
It is good practice to use tried and tested premium inventories, and always test each of them so you do not leave anything to chance.
