By Lauren Magistro, Head of Account Management
Programmatic marketing can be confusing to those just catching on. More than understanding the technology ins and outs, clients often assume that success rests squarely on their agency’s shoulders.
In truth, a successful programmatic campaign has a lot of moving parts and mutual responsibilities. Ensuring satisfaction and renewed business comes down to making sure media planners and clients are able to agree on what goes into achieving success:
Success starts on day one.
Feelings of excitement, relief and eagerness accompany every campaign launch. Launches represent a huge effort on the part of many and everyone is anxious to see the results start rolling in. But clients first need to be able recognize that the programmatic relationship isn’t the next leg of a race, but rather a partnership they will be part and parcel of throughout the life of the campaign.
Key to this partnership is establishing open and honest communication between parties. Though some clients arrive with a very solid plan in mind, it’s important that they be open to new ideas and responsive to future requests surrounding the campaign. Data accuracy runs on timely, true response, not vague answers and unopened emails. Besides setting a positive, collaborative tone, being sure to take this first step can ensure that client revenue potential is maximized.
Success and visibility go hand in hand.
The importance of being able to see what the client sees, in real-time, is another cornerstone of success. Any lag-time in discovering places for optimization decreases the ability of those on the other side (the programmatic third party) to act effectively. Visibility into all data generated during a campaign, together with client input, brings critical insights to light that clients who are not well-versed in programmatic don’t yet recognize. Transparency can be thought of as three pronged, meaning:
A continuous feedback loop to gauge performance relative to expectation.
Access to real time data through pixel placement.
Direct access to client’s 3rd party reporting to see how optimizations translate to performance.
Visibility improves conversion attribution accuracy.
Access to third-party reporting data not only helps the programmatic partner understand how their actions are being reflected in the data that the client sees, it also improves the ability to better attribute conversions to the right channel–very important to a client who is figuring out where to invest their money and time.
Success means thinking bigger.
Programmatic success depends on data—a lot of it, though sometimes clients lean towards limiting it. It’s a delicate thing to tell a client who comes prepared with demographic data and other campaign expectations that they don’t know best (another reason for setting those day-one expectations for open-mindedness).
Media planners can position it like this: the more data available, the more the programmatic partner has to work with. The very value of the predictive analytics involved in programmatic marketing is the ability to mine campaign-boosting directives from the overwhelming amount of big data out there. In order to give programmatic room to experiment with the data, the client must be open to widening the pass. Where the client may see nothing, predictive analytics may find responsive audiences a client would have missed had they remained rigid.
Open communication. A dotted line between your information and theirs. Lots of data. All points media planners should make upfront when talking programmatic success. After that, delivering on expectations is as easy as swimming downstream.
Read our white paper “A Pocket Guide to Programmatic Buying” to learn everything you need to know to get the most out of investing in media through programmatic ad buying.
The post Why Visibility and Communication are Keys to Success in Programmatic Campaigns appeared first on RadiumOne - Data-Driven Marketing - Connections That Matter.