By Kayla Matthews, Contributing Journalist
Marketing is a continually shifting landscape. Consumer tastes and trends are in a constant state of flux, and advertising approaches have to evolve quickly to keep up. The ever-dynamic world of technology only adds to this culture of change.
Being quick to adapt advertising industry trends can be a risky endeavor, as a false prediction could lead to a campaign harming a brand more than helping it.
However, successfully capitalizing on them can bring substantial profits. One such profitable marketing industry trend is programmatic advertising.
Programmatic marketing may not be the most recent innovation, but it’s continuing to grow. Advances in programmatic ad tech present a significant potential for increased earnings in the coming year.
What Is Programmatic Advertising?
Programmatic advertising is the practice of automating the purchasing of ad placements. The effectiveness of an advertisement is mainly dependent on it appearing in the right place at the right time. There’s little to no purpose in defining a target market if a company can’t reach that segment.
By leaving ad placement optimization to algorithms and machines, businesses can save a considerable amount of time and improve the efficacy of their campaigns.
It can prove challenging for a human to consider all the variables involved in ideal placement, but not for a program. Programmatic advertising leads to faster decision making and optimized targeting.
This vast potential is why more than half of video ad spending goes to programmatic advertising. Recent innovations in ad tech and consumer trends will continue to increase this profitability. Here are a few of the ways companies are profiting from programmatic ads in 2020.
1. AI-Based Media Buying
Artificial intelligence (AI) further bolsters the effectiveness of programmatic advertising. Machine learning programs can analyze far greater pools of data and make more nuanced connections than simple algorithms. This ability makes AI ideal for purchasing ad spots.
IBM’s famed AI platform Watson proved to reduce cost per click by 71% when businesses used it to buy ad spaces. Furthermore, 82% of early AI adopters report a positive return on investment from integrating the technology.
Intelligent solutions can predict customer behavior with significantly higher accuracy, making them an indispensable tool for programmatic advertising.
2. Native Advertising
Programmatic advertising offers a chance to optimize native ads, paid promotions that take the form of editorial content. These ads that don’t feel like ads are a bastion of online marketing, and programmatic advertising can help companies capitalize on them.
Native programmatic advertising represents the best of both worlds, using automated services to purchase native ad spots. With this process, businesses are buying effective, impactful advertisements with increased speed and range.
3. Voice-Activated Ads
Voice assistants, like Amazon’s Alexa and the Google Assistant, present an advertising stream too promising to overlook. Not only is voice assistant adoption growing, but voice shopping could reach $40 billion by 2022. Programmatic advertising enables businesses to take advantage of this growing opportunity.
Smart speakers and other voice assistant technologies collect a considerable amount of useful data. As more people shop via voice assistants, the value of this data to marketers grows exponentially. Programmatic ad systems can use this data to market not just to specific segments, but to individual consumers.
4. Programmatic Customization
The growing number of internet-connected devices generates an increasing amount of data. This spike in information means programmatic advertising has more varied and helpful insights available than ever before. With an abundance of consumer data, programmatic ad tech can market on an increasingly individualized level.
Personalization is a growing concern of modern buyers, making programmatic advertising all the more central to effective marketing. Using this technology, AirAsia produced more than 5,000 variations of an ad in a retargeting campaign. This level of customization would be virtually impossible without the help of tools like programmatic advertising.
5. Omnichannel Advertising
Another advantage of the data programmatic advertising considers is omnichannel marketing. To appeal effectively to a consumer, businesses can consistently supply ads across the entire buyer’s journey through every available channel.
This variety and cohesion can prove to be highly efficient, and programmatic advertising makes it not only possible but practical.
How to Make Money With Programmatic Advertising
The digital world of today presents marketers with an abundance of data and accessible channels.
Efficient marketing takes advantage of all that is available, a task would be nearly impossible and undoubtedly inefficient without the help of ad tech like programmatic advertising.