Education & trust key to future growth in programmatic

Over the last 12 months I have met many advertisers spanning across retail, travel, finance and education, where the common trend seen is programmatic is primarily being used for retargeting. Credit where credit is due, retargeting is a great way of converting an existing audience and has delivered significant value for advertisers across all verticals. That said, retargeting is only a conversion product, as is an advertiser CRM program, or if you want to push the boat out further, an advertiser’s checkout process.

What advertisers are neglecting, and therefore missing out on, is leveraging programmatic media to deliver value throughout the mid to the upper funnel, where lack of credible measurement and knowledge is inhibiting advertisers to invest further. In one instance with an unnamed multi-channel retailer, the view was that they are well aware that they invest too much in retargeting purely because their last click attribution model dictated it. Measurement has long been an issue for any ‘meaningful’ upper/mid funnel activity, with many advertisers steeped in the mind-set of ‘last touch wins’, which typically awards channels such as retargeting, affiliate and search. This ties in with knowledge and education – I believe many marketers are aware of this issue and the shortcomings of last touch, however they lack the credibility / fire power to persuade key stakeholders (such as CFO’s) to change their mind-set and be open to other ways of measuring success in the digital space. It rests upon the shoulders of third party suppliers and agencies to take the initiative and provide our clients with unbiased education to drive these shifts and change through all layers of a client organisational structure.

What I actually believe to be bigger challenge in the programmatic space is the lack of trust which advertisers have for ad tech players, agencies or third parties offering solutions in this space. For over 5 years many advertisers have tested a range of activity with numerous players in the space who offer very similar products and services with very little differentiation. This has yielded results which have undelivered on expectations, which has led to advertisers to be sceptical about the value which can be achieved in the market with third parties who actually do offer something of value & different. Lack of information & clarity on key industry issues such as publisher safety and viewability have unfortunately eroded this trust further.

I believe many advertisers would benefit from a partner who can help guide them through the complicated landscape of programmatic, providing advice on which solutions and media to engage with to provide the best results to achieve not just digital KPI’s, but overall business objectives. In addition to this, advertisers would benefit greatly from a partner who is able to provide unbiased education and thought leadership to all levels of an organisation on programmatic and how this activity can impact other channels. I feel many solutions and companies are guilty of offering campaign led, point solutions which achieve ‘performance’ in a silo, without thinking about the bigger picture. Moving forwards I believe vendors who are looking to provide value in the programmatic space need bear the above in mind to ensure a more value led & trusting relationship with their clients in the future.