By Liam McCarten, VP of Sales APAC, StackAdapt
Programmatic advertising expenditure is earmarked for significant growth this year as marketers seek greater efficiencies and return on investment (ROI) in an uncertain economic environment.
With marketing budgets under greater scrutiny, the need to make every dollar go further is shifting the focus to programmatic opportunities, with 40% of marketers planning to increase ad spend to drive ROI.
Research undertaken by independent media buying platform, StackAdapt, reveals that multi-channel advertising is a key factor to drive ROI success. By incorporating a multi-channel strategy across native, display video, connected TV, audio, in-game, and digital out-of-home, 50% of marketers reported achieving a better ROI.
As multi-channel programmatic options have widened, getting the right media mix has become more vital. Employing a programmatic campaign across multiple channels enables brands to connect with consumers across the entire purchase journey, but finding them is only part of the equation, according to Liam McCarten, StackAdapt’s VP of sales, APAC.
“The modern consumer is now active across a variety of media channels—and devices—at any given time. Therefore, the ability to understand how they are behaving and, most importantly, how to effectively engage with them is a crucial component for campaign success.
“With cookie deprecation fast approaching, the ability to combine contextual targeting with a multi-channel campaign is giving marketers the right formula for ROI success,” McCarten said.
Context is everything
Contextual targeting, which uses contextual signals rather than third-party data, is rising in the ranks of audience targeting as marketers prepare for life without cookies. By removing the need for a single identifier that requires tracking across multiple environments and instead targeting consumer behaviours, contextual advertising enables brands to better understand consumers.
“We know that having the right context can deliver a sizable boost in performance for advertising. Our historical analysis has shown that placing ads in the right context can significantly increase user engagement, McCarten said.
“We developed our Page Context AI solution to provide marketers with an innovative way to reach a relevant audience that is currently reading about that topic. This approach allows for a brand to connect with a potential customer at the most relevant time and engage with a primed mindset.”
Connected TV is the new frontier
It’s not only the desktop web that is in flux. As the Internet has moved to TV, so have the audiences and the advertising landscape. Programmatic opportunities and solutions are expanding as consumer behaviours change and audiences shift away from linear TV to connected TV (CTV) platforms.
When incorporated within a broader multi-channel strategy, along with contextual targeting, CTV can supercharge a marketer’s ability to effectively reach their desired audiences cost-effectively without compromising on quality.
“We know that changing consumer behaviours, ongoing media fragmentation, cookie deprecation, and tougher market conditions are creating a more challenging brief for marketers. However, we are seeing the green shoots for ROI effectiveness through programmatic and contextual advertising within a broader multi-channel mix, McCarten said.
CTV ads are sold as impressions, the same way regular video ads or display ads would be sold through a programmatic platform. This means that you can apply the same targeting parameters that are available for those channels for CTV. Since CTV ads work with streaming data, users can be tracked across platforms. If a potential customer sees your ad on their smart TV, you can now track them across other devices and retarget them. This gives you the potential to boost your customer conversion rates and create a well-rounded cross-device approach that will provide a full story to the viewer experience.
“Not only can these methods increase the size of the audience a brand can reach, it can also help create a compelling brand story to connect with consumers throughout the entire customer journey,” McCarten said.
This is a sponsored article by StackAdapt