OPINIÓN- Luciana Salazar from Teads: Six Programmatic Advertising tips for 2019

Programmatic advertising keeps growing. There are an increasing number of brand agencies that understand why programmatic buying is one of the fastest and most effective methods for online advertising. Given the advantages of segmentation and personalization, this kind of advertising has risen to first choice for online advertising spending among agencies. Meanwhile, ad spends in programmatic advertising are forecast to continue growing throughout 2019. However, to ensure success for our campaigns, we must focus on a set of key factors because, though they may sound obvious, day-to-day analysis shows they’re still emerging. Find below these key factors, not necessarily in order of importance:1. Creativity. Clients and agencies continue to associate certain ad methods with campaign objectives – for example, videos with views and reach and frequency with best display. Experience shows that to capture the user’s attention, advertising content must enrich the format with sensitivity, creativity and engagement attributes. Giving out hundreds and thousands of classic 300 x 250 formats has no value unless we make sure that creativity generates impact and interaction. In the same way, buying views of a 30-second video, in which the brand only shows up in the last 3 or 4 seconds, won’t produce good brand recognition either. Tip: Look for innovative formats, with ad hoc creative support for every kind of device and a strategic approach speaking the same language as the brand and agency creatives. A key point is that agency creatives should be trained to think digital first for ideas and campaigns, not conversely, since what usually happens is they tend to adapt current TV strategies to digital. 2. Targeting Through the first months of the year, agencies tend to use targeting tied to the brand manager’s release plan. It’s imperative to start planning a campaign based on all its angles but knowing their limitations. If media experts, media agencies, data companies and publishers work on research, they paint a picture of a very wide target. But if I manage a toothpaste brand that is looking for a key performance indicator (KPI) of reach, then applying it to a very specific target is not in line with its main goal. In this specific case, let’s imagine this brand is looking to reach a target of non-working women between ages 30-50 who spend a lot of time at home, with questions about the dental fluoride in their children’s toothpaste. That market truly exists in normal life, but using our data tools we have to educate ourselves to think in terms of targeting that contributes to the campaign’s KPI. And as the year goes on, budgets are not used up by their original targeting strategies, and in some cases what ends up happening is they begin to run those same brands with almost zero targeting in order to consume all budgets. Tip: Get a clear picture of the widest possible targeting by KPI and brand, and from there, keep creating different targeting strategies. At the same time, stay away from getting stuck in one or two targeting strategies – the key is to look for partial results as the campaign runs and make decisions on the fly. Associates who can provide real-time reporting are essential to this goal. 3. Timing Programmatic is the best way to place advertising in the media, and in terms of targeting, to pay the right price per view. It is therefore important to think strategically about how to perform the inventory purchase. For example, the available inventory is larger the first two weeks of each month, which means more target groups are less impacted, and floor prices will be lower. After the third week when the competition gets stronger, delivery and bids become more complex and prices more competitive. The same happens by day and time slots. Tip: Build your plan and define a timeline of creatives and assets that allows you to use these advantages according to the day, time slot and season. 4. Call-to-action and messages This point is related to creativity but with specific features. It is important to address users in a way that allows them to empathize with the brand. For that reason modeling is increasing the use of real life bodies, which triggers the acceptance of ads in the same way as selected words and tones. Moreover, Teads studies have shown that including subtitles to avoid depending on sound on generates excellent results. Regarding the CTA’s, it’s important to ask ourselves whether we are branding or retargeting and if we need the user to take an action. Depending on that, the CTA would have to be either more persuasive -soft- or more direct and concrete. Moreover, the website to which we redirect the user must be in line with the assets. Tip: Provide different versions from different creative groups, and rely on media agencies and other associates that make it possible to work with different formats and CTAs, according to the campaign. 5. Comply with regulations and make associates do the same From the beginning, it was assumed that digital meant immediate and easy. But that is a myth. The digital ecosystem has become more complex, adding multiple processes, many actors and all kinds of companies along the way. Tip: With the help of legal teams, choose vendors who respect users and their web browsing. Collect data in a way compliant with regulations, respecting the processes and above all allowing external audits for measurement and evaluation. 6. Purchase optimization As we mentioned above, the digital ecosystem has become more complex. It means more intermediaries. With more parties in the game, more portions of the work should be distributed. There are many companies that grant licenses with clear and transparent buying models. The key is to streamline the scenario in which we work. Choose vendors who own the technology, allowing them to develop tailored tools and solutions according to the advertiser’s requests. Tip: Diversify less, unify more. If it’s necessary to fall into the use of multiple technologies, the key will be to avoid building a walled garden but instead finding cross campaign tools.By Luciana SalazarTeads VP New Business Development