What Powers Effective Programmatic Advertising?

Programmatic Advertising Takes The Lead

Data is every marketer’s best friend. There was a time, not long ago, when “advertising” simply meant utilizing the creative side of one’s brain to come up with interesting spots that would pique audiences’ attention. That’s certainly no longer the case. Today’s advertising is driven by data, analytics, and everything marketing experts can use to truly get to know their consumers.

This is why programmatic advertising has taken the lead with successful companies that know how to get their brands in front of people who will take notice.

What is Programmatic Advertising?

Programmatic advertising employs the use of software to determine optimal ways marketers can utilize their digital advertising real estate. Essentially, machines buy ad space because they understand buyer behavior, so they’re able to put ads in front of the people who are most likely to pay attention to them.

The machines that drive programmatic advertising understand where your customers came from, how they found you, and which keywords or ads were deemed most relevant. It’s all about embracing the power of data science to learn how to better target your campaigns. Sure, humans are pretty good at managing data analytics, but when you put machines in the driver’s seat, there’s an entire world of digital behavioral data that will allow you to personalize messages in completely new ways.

How Does Programmatic Advertising Benefit Your Business?

For starters, programmatic advertising is effective. You don’t need humans monitoring your campaigns because the robots do the dirty work for you. Efficient ad buys are more cost-effective, which means you’re not only making money — you’re simultaneously saving money, too. Machines don’t get tired; they don’t take vacation days or need time off on the weekends. They’re always “on,” which means you can enjoy the benefits of real-time ad bidding, no matter when the optimal time occurs.

Programmatic advertising enables you to answer your customers’ questions before they even ask them. Thanks to the machines that are constantly scanning your audience’s behaviors, you’re now able to place ads directly before consumers who are looking for the exact solutions your company offers in real time. In return, you’ll receive a virtually limitless set data that helps you home in on various segments of your audience with more personalized messaging.

Using Programmatic Advertising to Target Specific User Subsets

Real-time behavioral data is a beautiful thing. The more data you have, the more individualized you can make your campaigns. Programmatic advertising enables you to reach a wider audience with more personalized messages.

Let’s say a woman was browsing your site for designer shoes. Thanks to programmatic advertising, you’ll know the price range she considered reasonable based on the shoes she viewed. You can also derive other essential information, such as:

How did she arrive at your site?
What did she end up purchasing, if anything?
Which shoes did other shoppers with similar behaviors purchase?
Was she shopping on a mobile device?
Was she shopping after work, before heading to the office, or during her lunch break?

Now, you have a lot of information that can be used to build a detailed buyer persona. The women who fit this persona are more likely to respond to certain targeted messaging than a retired male who’s shopping for shoes to give his daughter for Christmas.

Since programmatic advertising takes into account the entirety of consumers’ behaviors, it would be able to distinguish these two subsets of shoppers based on the way they interact with your site (and others).

Overcoming Programmatic Advertising Challenges

Despite programmatic advertising’s dramatic impact on the marketing world, there remains a major disconnect between media buyers and marketers. Media buyers have built the greatest understanding of this technology, while many marketers don’t even know such a tool exists. This disconnect causes certain obvious obstacles, which can be overcome with the right strategies in place.

Skills Shortage

Twenty-nine percent of organizations claim they’re not using programmatic advertising because they don’t have a staff in place with the skills to use it properly. Obviously, since only 22 percent of marketers are using programmatic advertising, there’s a huge opportunity for education to bridge this gap. Increasing awareness of this option means more people could begin to gain the skills necessary to execute successful campaigns.

No Budget Available

Often, it’s not that organizations don’t have money available to allocate to programmatic advertising. Instead, they don’t see the value in this tool when budgets are being created, so they allocate those funds elsewhere. The initial costs can seem intimidating to decision makers. Yet the increased efficiency and improved ROI, resulting from better-targeted campaigns, have early adopters of this technology experiencing strong competitive advantages in their markets.

Trust Issues

Media buyers and sellers in the digital space have traditionally maintained human-to-human relationships. Some companies fear the integration of programmatic advertising would harm the existing trust between these two entities. To overcome issues related to transparency, both sides of the buying universe will have to work together.

Centro is where outstanding programmatic advertising begins. If you want to enhance your audience’s experience while targeting the people who are most likely to pay attention to your brand, learn more about Programmatic Advertising with Centro.