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Programmatic Advertising – The Way of the Future, Today

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Target your Customers on BlackboardThe world of advertising is one that has always been in a constant state of evolution – and that was before the digital age kicked into full force in the last several years. During much simpler times in decades long past, the key to advertising was essentially to broadcast your message to the largest possible audience that you could afford and watch the money roll in. During the 1950s, it was not uncommon for 50 million people to all sit in front of the television and watch the same program at the same time. Now, even a number as small as two million people is enough for a television program to be considered a success. Though the fragmentation of the audience has meant significant changes for the television industry, it has also meant that advertisers have to look for newer and more efficient ways to connecting with their target audience.

A Blessing in Disguise

The digital age initially seemed to make things even more difficult for advertisers than they already are, only serving to fragment consumers in a way that seemed nearly impossible to manage. Now, thanks to new and advanced techniques like programmatic advertising, marketers can see the digital age for what it really is – a blessing in disguise.

Consumers are no longer waiting until they get off from work or school to sit down in front of the computer and use the Internet. Thanks to the smartphone boom that was brought about by the release of Apple’s iPhone, the vast majority of people in the United States are essentially connected to the Internet at all times. It is currently estimated that 90% of adults in the United States have a cell phone, most of which have some type of Internet capability.

This means that marketers can essentially connect with them all day, every day on their own terms.

Types of Programmatic Advertising

Programmatic advertising is the name given to a type of technology that lets you automate some or even all of your digital marketing campaigns. One of the biggest burdens that many types of online businesses have to deal with is shopping cart abandonment, for example. A user will add one or more items to their virtual shopping cart, navigate away from the site for whatever reason and never return to complete the sale. The reason itself varies, but it is also unimportant at the same time. Sometimes the customer found a better deal on another site. Sometimes they just got distracted by whatever Honey Boo Boo’s mom is up to this week and forgot that they were in the process of making a purchase altogether.

These are the types of situations, however, where programmatic advertising comes in exceedingly handy. Using a simple shopping cart abandonment email campaign, a business could send an automatically generated reminder to the customer after a specific period of time has passed. Did the customer add an item to their shopping cart two days ago and never return? A programmatic shopping cart abandonment campaign might just be what you need to get them right where you want them.

Retargeting campaigns can accomplish something similar. If a user views a stereo on your website and then navigates away, for example, you can automatically generate ads for your site and the items that were browsed on the next several sites that the consumer visits.

With great power comes great responsibility, however, and the digital age most certainly requires advertisers of all types to keep a few key things in mind.

Programmatic Advertising Best Practices

One of the main things that you have to keep in mind regarding programmatic advertising is that even though you can connect with people at essentially all times, not all of them will be using the same device. An email will display differently on an iPad than it will on a laptop or even an iPhone, for example.

There are companies that offer services ideal for these situations and for making the most out of a programmatic advertising campaign. They can take a single email and format it perfectly for any type of device it is viewed on, using responsive email template, thus giving you a better shot at making that sale. It’s estimated that 42% of subscribers delete an email that doesn’t display properly on their device. This means that even if you successfully send out a programmatic shopping cart abandonment email, you might be losing almost half of your possible sales due to simple display issues.

Combining these best practices with your programmatic advertising techniques will help revolutionize your marketing campaigns for the digital age.

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Brian Hughes

Digital Marketing Director & Founder at Integrity
Brian Hughes is a digital marketing expert who enjoys writing about helping small businesses be successful with their Internet and social media marketing objectives. He helps to get brands recognized and their sites ranked highly through his agency Integrity marketing & Consulting.

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Comments

  1. Retargeting ads is quite interesting and I believe effective. However it may get to the point in the near future that this will become not welcome either. I had a bunch of people complain about FB doing this retargeting, but it was not facebook at all it was the company, which will go nameless. Maybe FB had something to do with it as well?

    It does bring the customer back to the site when you see that site all over the place and you do want to learn more, it does eventually fall off which is good.

    • Thank you Preston! I don’t see this form of advertising going anywhere but evolving – which will improve results. Please will always complain. You have to balance out the complaints against the positive ROI and brand response.

  2. Advertising is complicated and getting even worse. This is a huge opportunity for internet marketing agencies and freelancers. Learn skills most don’t have such as how to retarget ads or test email marketing. There is always room for testing and improvement when it comes to both websites and email marketing.

    • Thank you Gail for commenting! Yes, I agree – there is plenty of opportunity for online marketing agencies and freelancers to learn and grow in this area, which would benefit clients.

  3. I think what most of us hate is when an ad has zero relevance to our lives, individually. But I’m hopeful for the next 10 years. As Joe Pulizzi said, we’ve had about 7 years to figure this out and the fact that it’s not fully figured out proves how tough all of this really is. Definitely a wild world from the 1950s. If those “mad men” could’ve seen a glimpse into today and how fragmented everything is, their heads would spin, really

    • Thank you Alex! I believe that things are already improving and the data is being used in a more efficient way.

      It would be like a scene out of Scanners and their heads would explode, lol.

  4. Honey Boo Boo can sure be distracting. 🙂

    Both Amazon and Google follow me around with whatever I have last searched for (Amazon) or whatever ad I last clicked on (Google). It’s actually kind of creepy. So, yes, great responsibility, or else you just drive the customer away.

    • You can say that gain, lol.

      Thank you David! Yes, I agree, it’s a fine line between success and irritation.

  5. I agree with Prestons take on remarketing… I like to think of remarketing as “Adwords with rebuttals…”

  6. Brian,

    Great article. I am one of those buyers who looks at something 2 or 3 times before I buy. I agree that I might buy from an email with the item – as long is the email is honest that it noticed I was looking at the product.

    Sometimes I feel a bit creeped out when an advert follows me around the web. I almost feel pestered. In a way – I agree with David. I want my research to be private. Email feels more private – not like I’m shopping for anything I’d be ashamed of.

    For example, I was comparing at Bluetooth, USB headphones, and 2.5mm stereo connected headphones. I had an advert from MonoPrice stalking me! I love mono-price, I just didn’t want them popping up while I was looking at LA Times, Perth Now, and blogs!

    Final comment – I *can* be upsold. Alex mentioned he likes seeing relevant ads, and I have bought products I wouldn’t have considered after seeing it in an ad or email. I just prefer the promo to (again) hint that I’m getting the suggestion based on my behaviour.

    Keep up the great insights!

    • Thank you Shauna! Thank you for sharing your experience and insights. It also irritates me when the display ads follow me around while doing irrelevant research.

  7. Good article Brian, and I can certainly relate to getting disrltracred. I do it all the time when I get on the computer for a specific thing I end up working on various other sites.