Maximizing ROI with Programmatic Advertising: Strategies for Effective Campaign Management

Intro- what is programmatic advertising, and how does it differ from display advertising? 

Programmatic advertising is a type of marketing that uses various systems to buy and sell ads and ad space automatically. It is quite cost-efficient and uses big data to find the best ad spaces to publish ads based on customer behavior and likes.

In this article, we will examine how programmatic advertising works and how you can improve your ROI while using it.

How Does Programmatic Advertising Work?

So, programmatic advertising has multiple aspects. Some people want to place their ads in ad spaces, and those who sell those ad spaces. 

Both of these people need a platform to do this. The ad space seller platform is an SSP or seller-side platform, and the ad space buyer platform is a DSP or demand-side platform.

An SSP has an inventory of the web pages that the seller wants to sell ad space on. These web pages contain pixel trackers that collect user data. This data is used to determine which kinds of ads will interest the visitor. 

An SSP lets a seller set the price for their ad space and determine which ads can be shown on their platforms. 

On the other hand, DSPs enable advertisers to find various web pages with ad space and bid for them. The DSP can be set up to make automatic bids on the best ad spaces. 

The DSP and SSP are parts of an overarching system enabling programmatic advertising. 

Now that we have a basic understanding of how the system works, let us check out how you can maximize ROI with programmatic advertising. 

How to Maximize ROI from Programmatic Advertising?

1. Gather and Consolidate User Data 

For programmatic advertising to work, you need lots of data for machine learning algorithms to process. Once processed, they can find patterns in the data and learn which customers will respond to or engage with which ads. 

Data comes in two types: structured and unstructured. Structured data is usually in the form of numbers and tables. It is highly searchable and very organized.

Unstructured data is all kinds of data that cannot be neatly organized into tables. Pictures, videos, texts, and even social media activity. Unstructured data is often used for things like:

• Sentiment analysis
• Identifying interests
• Audience demographic
• Audience general location
• And other things, like types of content that customers engage with

The information about the audience is particularly important. It can give you great insight into what ads will resonate with them. 

To get audience information, use your own platforms to collect data. This includes information provided upon account creation, such as age and gender. Also, the browser header passes certain information, like the user’s IP address. An IP geolocation tool can help find the approximate region of that user. This and other information will help you create an effective ad campaign.

To make the most of your programmatic advertising campaign, you should have a big unstructured data bank. Then, a machine learning model will process it and perform the aforementioned analysis.

2. Take Decisions Based on Data and Your Own Business Acumen 

A savvy businessman is not a slave to data. A savvy businessman uses their own business acumen to identify the direction the market is going in using the data. So, that’s what you need to do. 

After you have consolidated the data, done a sentiment analysis, and gauged the audience’s interest, you have to make a decision about which ads to place and which ad spaces to sell.

That decision can make or break your entire campaign. The data collected data in the previous step should inform your decisions. It should not dictate them. 

You should use the data to double-check what you know about your audience. This information should help you make the best decisions that increase engagement.

3. Invest in Good Ads

Simply finding the best ad space will not be enough to maximize your ROI. The quality of your ads is also critical. This includes:

• The design
• The ad-copy

To create the best-looking ads for your campaign, you need great designers who are well-versed in color psychology. 

Similarly, you need expert content writers who can write attention-catching ad copy. The writers also need to be experts at writing content that can convert a visitor. To help them, you need to share the data about your audience so they can craft the perfect ad copy.

4. Ensure that all Ad Campaign Data is Available in One Space for Analysis 

One thing that can throw a wrench in is the lack of cohesion. Basically, all the data that you collect and process should be available in one space. A consolidated view of the data is more conducive to making good data-driven decisions.

Basically, you can check all the data in one space, which allows you to observe patterns and relations between different entities more easily. 

Now, what kind of data needs to be consolidated into a single space? Here are a few examples.

• Data from machine learning
• Charts and graphs showing your current ad campaign performance
• Projections for the next quarter
• Estimated impact of your new data and tactics on the performance
• Analysis showing results of previous efforts

When such data is available in one space, you can make better decisions to improve your ROI.

5. Ensure that the Systems in Use Perform Correctly

Since programmatic advertising is almost fully automated, it is susceptible to tech cracks. Basically, faults in the system due to oversight or bad design will result in problems down the line.

To avoid problems down the line, test system endpoints, analyze requests and responses, and configure settings and link functionality. Rigorous testing will reveal if there are any problems in the system, and you can fix them or find a better system.

Regardless, the onus is on you to ensure that the systems work for your benefit. This way, you can ensure that your advertising campaign performs well and your ROI is boosted.

Conclusion

This concludes our article on programmatic advertising. We learned what it its, what its constituents are, and how you can ensure that it helps you improve your ROI. As long as you follow the provided tips, you will have a reasonable amount of success in your ad campaigns.