Learn how to use programmatic advertising

Programmatic advertising has matured. At least that's what you should think when you see the buzz around the topic, expectations in connection with performance marketing and the fact that customers take it for granted if they rely on "programmatic measures" as an additional or individual measure.

As a pitch consultant, pitch companion, consultant for digital media tendering processes and as a sparring partner for various digital media technology topics, I work with various customers and agencies. In connection with performance/hard KPI currency, programmatic measures are also taken into account. Agencies often propose programmatic solutions as a performance measure. Even more striking is the extraordinarily high expectations of programmatic advertising, which then also causes disappointment or uncertainty if the KPIs are not met. Of course, awareness of the topic of programmatic advertising has increased significantly, but the expectations regarding programmatic advertising and its attributes are mostly a part where more education is needed. This article is intended to help marketing decision-makers to correctly classify the topic "programmatic" and to assess the topic more realistically for their own goals and needs.

Especially because programmatic is very often seen in connection with performance marketing, I would like to mention right away that programmatic is not a panacea for performance measures. Programmatic is not a panacea for conversion generation and optimization within digital media & marketing activities. Programmatic advertising is to be seen more as a sales-support measure than as a pure sales channel.

Programmatic can and will show good results for post click conversions activities. However, programmatic can contribute more to post view/post impressions conversions. Especially in the case of products where product features, service features, products themselves do not require much explanation, post-click shopping will also work very well. In the case of products that require explanation or where the user has to "find out the information first", post clicks will (almost) always have fewer conversions than post impressions.

Programmatic is often sold and understood as “the solution” for sales. In itself, the push measures including programmatic advertising can create the incentives, but the decisive factor is whether the user has a need and/or purchasing power at the moment or is on the move as an "active searcher". The sales figures via programmatic are (almost always) lower than the SEA measures. However, programmatic should have a lion's share of the success of other measures including SEA. This requires the correct measurement and channel attribution.

Pull marketing measures like Google Search will (almost) always work well because the user is in search mode. Of course, the potential here is limited to the search queries. It may be that the search trigger was set by other measures (e.g. programmatic display, mobile, video, OOH, ATV, native etc.). In any case, I would recommend rethinking the last-click-only approach.

With programmatic you can implement a retargeting approach well in order to follow users where they are currently surfing. You can use it to address users “again” and use retargeting measures to create incentives to bring users back to the site/shop.

When it comes to awareness or upper-funnel campaigns, the programmatic measures can be very helpful. With programmatic measures you can often reach your own target group, but also address a user group that was previously unknown. You could form look-a-likes and thereby expand the "potential target group/customer base". Through segmentation, the target group can be addressed in a very targeted manner via the programmatic measures. Programmatic helps for granular control. It is important to mention at this point that B2B target groups are still more difficult to reach than B2C target groups.

Various data-based campaign management options such as DMP audiences, custom audiences or contextual targeting could help for campaign performance, but a lot of learning by doing is required here. While there are many DMPs built into the leading DSPs, information about how the data was collected, how often it was updated, which sample set is behind it, etc. is often missing. Here I would advise that you obtain the key information from the DMP providers in advance. It is often possible to create a custom audience for your product. That could be significantly more effective than any other data. With contextual targeting, it might make more sense to create tailored segments. You also have to talk to your own DSP or DMP in advance.

Programmatic offers the flexibility for “push marketing” across mobile, display, video, native, addressable TV and OOH (more coming soon) channels. With programmatic you can buy the advertisements individually instead of doing "bulk buying". For campaign optimization, delivery (even, asap, ahead, etc.), pausing the campaign, setting frequency capping, etc. can be adjusted.

Programmatic advertising is particularly useful when you want more control over campaign planning, delivery, optimization, and overall control. Taking more control also means making decisions, testing, and sticking with it. Programmatic brings more ROI with "active control" and is by no means to be understood as a lean-back measure.

With programmatic measures you can get much more insights into motive performance, timing (purchase, click, conversion), costs (CPM, CPC, CPA, eCPM, eCPC, eCPA, eCPV etc.), domain (where can I find the right target group), Generate contexual insights (what are the appropriate content context environments), which in turn can be used for campaign planning, implementation, optimization and learning.

The effect and success of programmatic can also be measured using other success signals.

• Increased searches

? Increased brand searches

? Increased brand product searches

? Search terms, whether they contain e.g. action, feature, function etc. that was communicated via the programmatic campaign.

? Post impression conversions

? Post click conversions

? Number of new visitors

? Sale/ promotion/ transaction/ registrations

? Support for the action/transaction via other channels (e.g. search, email marketing etc.)

? Drive to Store (e.g. more visitors, targeted purchases)

? Other interactions (video views, interactions, newsletter subscriptions, etc.)

? Increased awareness values for brands, products, TOM values, etc.

? Gross and net coverage.

? Time spent on the site/shop via programmatic traffic.

Do not limit the success measurement of programmatic measures to programmatic campaign reporting, but also consider the actual effects on other channels.

For effective control, you can also work a lot with whitelists and define yourself exactly where the campaign should run. Also not to be underestimated are the blacklists, where you can define where the campaign should not run. You are in control.

Basically, if you look at the digital market over the last 10 years, you can see the following.

? The CPCs tend to go up

? You may need more contacts/users for better awareness or TOM values

? The CTR tends to go down

? The conversion rate also goes down

Accordingly, it may well be that you have to invest more budget in order to achieve the same conversion goals. Programmatic is no exception here just like SEA. This applies to all genres. Programmatic measures definitely bring many advantages, but as a push marketing measure, programmatic (as well as other well-known push measures) also brings all the disadvantages of push marketing.