This week’s chat featured guest co-host Marc Poirier of Klever and the topic was “Programmatic Advertising.”
Chat Questions
Q1: What does the term “programmatic advertising” mean to you?
Q2: Are you currently managing any programmatic advertising for your clients or brands? If so, what platform(s) are you using?
Q3: What is your biggest challenge or frustration when it comes to programmatic advertising?
Q4: What questions do you have for @marcpoirier about programmatic advertising?
Recaps
Read the full chat recap here.
Listen to the podcast recap here.
Questions from the community for Marc
From @PeoMolale
What is programmatic exactly I have been in PPC for 5 years and I still don’t think I quite understand programmatic advertising?
It’s buying media on the open internet, in other words, everything but paper is now accessible via programmatic buying. It’s a lot of display and online video ads, but also native, in-app, in-game, Connected TV, Digital Out Of Home, Audio, and the list goes on. Most experts would probably say an advertiser can access programmatic ads via DSPs and often use expert services (trading desks) to plan and operate campaigns. Ads are usually purchased on a CPM basis, using data that you either own or pay for. In my view, programmatic excludes PPC hosted auctions like Google, Meta, Pinterest, TikTok, Linkedin, etc.
From @tonyzara
What do you see as the best use cases for programmatic for Google advertisers?
A1. There can be many ways to make programmatic work for Google advertisers, the higher value strategies usually revolve around reach and awareness, or driving “tonnage” – once you’ve reached a plateau harvesting existing demand, you have to create it and that’s where programmatic shines. Another strategy is to augment or optimize GDN reach, which can have meaningful impact on results, sometimes. Finally and perhaps the most obvious and familiar thing Google advertisers can do of course is retargeting users on a much larger network than just GDN.
How can smaller advertisers onboard and activate data?
There are 2 main paths to onboard and activate data for smaller advertisers. The first is almost always to install and configure a pixel on the web properties to start building audiences of web visitors. The second path is to upload or provide a feed of custom audiences (emails / mobile numbers) into a platform such as LiveRamp for example. There are costs associated with the latter so it wouldn’t apply to tiny advertisers, usually.
What’s winning as the identity solution?
A winning identity solution first and foremost needs a large 1st party data pool. Players such as Samsung DSP (Samsung Devices data), Xandr (AT&T data), Liveramp etc are definitely very well positioned to run addressable targeting by matching IDs to their unique data sets. The problem is that all these publishers, DSPs, device manufacturers etc have their own identifiers and audience definitions. This fragmentation makes it challenging for advertisers to scale targeted ad campaigns. The UID from TTD may be the solution to identity since the ID framework will be open source and available for free for everyone. The UID is being adopted by more and more publishers, SSPs and data companies.
Which DSPs would you bet on for the future?
DSPs can be separated into “generalists” and “specialists” – I think if I had to bet on generalist DSPs knowing what I know today, I would choose The Trade Desk for its sheer market coverage and true “demand side” roots that are not biased by a supply side revenue bias/imperative. Others have exclusive access to inventory, so if YouTube ads are a must, at this time, Google DV360 is the only way to go. If Netflix ads are a must, then you would have to use Xandr.
From @timmhalloran
What are common mistakes that people from a self-serve search PPC (google, bing) background tend to make when diving into self-serve programmatic ad buying?
The most common mistake is to treat programmatic like a bottom of funnel tactic and to evaluate its contribution based on a last click attribution model. Those advertisers who transition well always reserve a good budget for branding and use relevant metrics for this approach such as reach and frequency, brand lift, etc.
What are the biggest differences between the traditional PPC and programmatic advertising?
In my view, the biggest differences between PPC and programmatic would be 1) bottom of funnel demand harvesting VS top of funnel awareness and demand building 2) diversity of data options, tools, channels 3) increasingly opaque hosted auction vs transparent real-time auction 4) tracking: where in programmatic one can track post-click AND post-view activity within a campaign which expands & compliments the previously mentioned diversity of data options, tools, channels
What are tactics that you’ve seen work for different industries and sizes (Ecom vs leadgen)?
The tactics that we’ve seen work for different industries and sizes (Ecom vs leadgen) is always a blend of prospecting and retargeting; However heavily skewed towards retargeting. Though high level tactics include: Prospecting (Top Funnel using 1P & 3P Data), Keyword Search (Mid-Funnel Consideration), and then Sitewide, Shop Cart & Form Abandoner Retargeting Tactics (Lower Funnel)
Can programmatic/ctv work for small budget PPC clients ($1-5k/mo)?
Programmatic works well for smaller advertisers as long as their audience is clearly identified and limited in scope (geo or other). With small budgets you absolutely have to contain your strategies to a very well defined / small audience. Tactics like geofencing locations of interest (your store, your competitors, etc) for targeting or even to measure in-store traffic work well for smaller local advertisers.
How does research differ when buying programmatically vs search/social?
It’s based on the Data Sources & Providers…of which some might even be shared between programmatic & search/socia when considering 1st & 3rd Party Data. Programmatic data is either 1st-Party (ex: direct from advertisers; emails lists, CRM data, keywords, etc) or 3rd Party Data / Providers (ex: From Data Providers (Blue Kai), Social Data Providers, and 3rd party cookies)
Pros to buying bundled deals vs on-demand?
- Pros – Bundled = larger scale and reach given that there’s more inventory. We can also pick super premium bundled inventory which allows us to target premium ad spots at scale
- Cons – Bundled: Less control at the page level
- Pros – on-demand: Access to premium inventory that isn’t sold on PMP/Bundled level or on the exchange.
- Cons – on demand: Scale can be limited and pricing is on the higher end
From @prateekstrider1
What is the future for Google ads compared to programmatic advertising? Seeing that Google Ads are moving more towards automation and limiting manual controls.
Or is Google Ads becoming programmatic now?
Technically no one can answer this definitively at this point. But by definition, it is all becoming Programmatic as “Programmatic is an automated way of buying ad space in real time”.
From @alimukadam
How to best leverage programmatic in a holistic way to augment existing social, search campaigns? And how to show impact?
First use programmatic’s omni-channels: DOOH, CTV, Video, Audio, Native, Display
Boost performance by incorporating existing social & search data. For example using top performing keyword data, programmatically retarget users through utm pixel data from social clicks (ie: Facebook “fbclids”, Google “gclids”, etc), and more] By doing this programmatic can show which which channel (and how many times) a user was touched/influenced programmatically along the path to conversion.
If GDN is already being used, what is the USP of other platforms that could be a differentiator for insisting on Programmatic?
Though GDN is great, it is still a finite network. Using other DSPs (such as The Trade Desk) gives the opportunity to advertise across the open internet giving advertisers and businesses the opportunity to scale, penetrate new markets, and advertise on new & emerging channels & platforms (ie: Programmatic Digital Out-of-Home).