Programmatic media buying has revolutionized the way companies purchase digital advertising. By using automated systems and data to buy ad inventory, programmatic opens up advertising opportunities that were previously time-consuming or impossible to access. However, the complexity of programmatic buying also poses challenges for companies trying to implement an effective strategy. Missteps can lead to wasted budgets or ads that fail to reach the right audiences.

Set Measurable Campaign Goals

The first step to programmatic success is defining clear campaign goals and choosing metrics that will determine if those goals are met. Without measurable objectives, you won’t know whether your programmatic media buy achieved what you wanted. Start by asking questions like:

What actions do we want site visitors to take after seeing our ads? Do we want them to purchase a product, sign up for a newsletter, set an appointment, or something else?
What key performance indicators (KPIs) will determine if our campaign succeeds? Example KPIs would include cost per acquisition, click-through rate, conversion rate, return on ad spend, and more.

When setting your goals and KPIs, ensure they are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound. Avoid vague objectives like “increase brand awareness” that are difficult to track. Instead, choose quantifiable goals, then determine the best metrics to gauge your progress towards those goals.

Carefully Target Your Audiences

One major advantage of programmatic advertising is the ability to target your ads with precision. Make sure to maximize this capability when running programmatic campaigns. There are two components to effective audience targeting:

Identify the ideal customer personas you want to reach based on attributes like demographics, interests, behaviours, and more
Use programmatic tools to target ads specifically to those personas. Most programmatic platforms allow advertisers to layer on multiple types of audience targeting to further refine reach.

Advanced targeting parameters you may want to consider include:

First or third-party data: Target based on attributes provided by the user or extrapolated by analyzing behaviour across sites
Contextual: Target ads based on the category or semantics of the web page content
Geo-location: Target ads to specific countries, regions, cities, or even GPS coordinates
Device or channel: Target ads to specific device types (mobile, desktop, tablet, etc.) or advertising channels (social media platforms, video sites, etc.)
Dayparting: Adjust targeting to reach certain audiences at specific days of the week or times of day when they are most active
Retargeting: Target ads to people who have already engaged with your website or ads to drive further action
Lookalike modelling: Use algorithms to find new audiences that share common attributes with your existing customers
Predictive modelling: Use machine learning to determine audiences likely to respond well to ads based on past campaign performance

The more refinement in your audience targeting, the better chance your ads will resonate. But beware of over-targeting your ads to very narrow niche audiences. Make sure to size your target audiences appropriately so that campaigns can achieve the necessary scale to drive results.

Implement Smart Bidding Strategies

Programmatic advertising relies heavily on automated bidding algorithms to purchase ad inventory. Setting the right bidding strategies is critical for optimizing campaign performance.

When executed well, bidding algorithms can help you win the best available ad placements for the most efficient prices.

Poor configurations can lead to overspending or failure to secure ideal inventory. There are several advanced bidding techniques to consider:

Cost per click (CPC)

The advertiser pays for each click their ad receives rather than impressions. This shifts focus solely to driving site traffic.

Cost per acquisition (CPA)

The advertiser pays only when a desired conversion happens, such as a product purchase or email signup. This technique focuses on converting audiences while avoiding non-converting clicks.

Return on ad spend (ROAS)
Bid strategies are automated to target a specific ROAS goal, calculated by the advertising revenue generated divided by total ad cost. This helps scale budgets to maximize profitability.

Portfolio bidding

Run multiple campaigns with different objectives (brand vs performance) and allocate budget dynamically across them to meet overarching goals.

Dayparting bids

Set flexible bid prices based on time of day, day of the week, or seasonality to accommodate audience behaviours.

Work with your programmatic partners or advertising team to analyze campaign data and model different bidding scenarios. Many factors like floor prices, budget pace, and bid aggressiveness can be adjusted to improve performance.

Continually refine bidding tactics to reduce wasted spend on poorly converting inventory and shift the budget to higher-quality placements.

Carefully Select Programmatic Partners

Most companies rely on ad tech partners to execute programmatic media buys using their technology and inventory connections. The partners you choose impact everything from the quality of ad inventory and targeting capabilities to how efficiently your ads are optimized. Thoroughly vet potential partners before selecting which ones to trust with your programmatic budgets. Key criteria to evaluate include:

Inventory scale and quality

Programmatic platforms should provide access to premium, brand-safe inventory at a sufficient scale to support campaign goals and audience sizes.

Targeting capabilities

Assess both native and third-party data integration capabilities for executing precise audience targeting.

Technology expertise

Evaluate how advanced a platform’s algorithms, bidding intelligence, fraud detection, brand safety tools, and other programmatic technologies are.

Campaign analytics and optimization

Analyze what visualization, reporting, and optimization tools are available to glean insights and improve mid-flight.

Customer service and support

Assess the level of account management support and determine what training resources are offered to set you up for success.

You may choose to work with multiple programmatic partners to capitalize on their unique inventory sources, first-party data advantages, geographic or category expertise, and other differentiated strengths.

APIs also increasingly allow seamless integration of multiple buying platforms. Just beware of fragmentation driving up administrative costs. Consolidating primarily to platforms that will help you holistically achieve goals can increase operational efficiency.

Wrapping Up

By following these programmatic media buying strategies — setting clear goals, executing precision audience targeting, optimizing bids, vetting partners thoroughly, and constantly improving performance — advertisers can cut through the complexities and minimize common pitfalls.

Programmatic’s data-driven automation provides efficiency, intelligence, and targeting capabilities that weren’t possible in traditional media buying. But human strategy and analysis are still crucially important to navigate these tools successfully. The recommendations in this article will enable both immediate and long-term optimization of programmatic campaigns to deliver exceptional returns on ad spend.

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