Digital Display Advertising: How to Build a Healthy Plan – Part 1 of 3

Today, planners are faced with an enormous amount of choice. One look at the LUMAscape and your head starts to hurt. What does it all mean?

Strip away the industry jargon and what you’re really looking at is a ton of advertising inventory and terabytes of data. In fact, there is so much inventory up for grabs that we actually need software to access it all.

If you want to leverage the opportunities associated with digital, understanding the different buying methods and the objectives that each one fills is a great place to begin. In this three-part series, we’ll take a look at site-direct, ad exchanges, and ad networks, as well as RTB, highlighting the pros and cons of each.

As you make your way through each method, you’ll begin to notice that there isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach — which makes sense considering there’s no such thing as a typical campaign either. At the end of the day, it seems the more buying opportunities you leverage, the greater your chance of success.

Digital Display Advertising—Buying Methodologies

From site-direct to RTB and everything in between, there are a few key factors to consider before selecting the best buying methods for your particular campaign:

• Scale
• Capabilities (targeting, creative, data)
• Price
• Transparency

Download this handy infographic to learn more about each buying method, including when and where they work best.

Digital Display Advertising with Centro

With the right partner, creating a balanced digital media presence is within reach.

At Centro, we build digital media plans complete with a full spectrum of inventory types. Our approach is: All digital. All channels. Across all industries. And, unlike our competition, it’s the only way we work.

Part One: Site-Direct

Site-direct is the most straight-forward buying method and is a great way to reach your target audience. In the simplest of terms, buying site-direct is finding websites that relate to your product or service and purchasing space there. This method is best for plans where objectives include guaranteed delivery, high-impact creative, and brand lift.

Pros:

• Ideal for large canvas creative at scale including local homepage takeovers, unique ad units, sponsorships, and native ads.
• Guarantees delivery down to placement level. These are the ad units the client actually “sees.”
• Great for high transparency and viewability, as well as executing content integrations and/or local market takeovers.
• Fixed positioning offers the opportunity to align messaging with specific high-quality content

Cons:

• Offers limited ability to scale
• Lack of targeting sophistication at the publisher level
• Typically more expensive with CPMs ranging from $7 to $15 on average

The more you understand the pros and cons of digital, the faster you’ll be able to select the right digital media partner, one who will help you build and execute a smart, well-balanced plan.

Tune in for Part 2 of our Display Advertising Buying Series: Ad Exchanges and Networks. Until then, remember when it comes to digital media, variety is the key to success.