Programmatic in the post-Covid-world
In a year that forced us to rethink our way of working, we bet on the construction of data as a contribution of differential value.
If programmatic was already on the lips of the entire advertising industry, this year, without a doubt, saw the consolidation of a trend that was a reality a long time ago.
Small, medium and large brands had to sit down and think very hard about the next steps. Above all, they had to go digital and learn to promote their products through online channels.
Phase 1: The industry stops and I don’t know what to do!
This must have been on the minds of many, and perhaps still is.
At first, all marketing plans were paused due to the uncertainty of what the markets of each country were going to do. Brands that had allocated a large part of their budget to an on and off communication strategy had to redefine their plan and migrate to 100% digital. So much so that, while Zenith estimates that the global ad spend in 2020 will be 9% lower than last year, in the digital realm it decreased only 2%.
In this area, media buying is increasingly automated, and that is why the adoption of programmatic as a self-management tool for media buying has also accelerated considerably.
This brought several questions and problems for publishers, advertisers and users, which we will surely solve as we learn to live in such a changed world.
Phase 2: I‘ve changed and I’ll change again
All of us publishers have been looking for better ways to sell and show ads for years. This global pandemic forced us to go back to square one and rethink the foundations of digital advertising.
We understood that, by building data, we can be a crucial support in any communication. That, instead of just being a bridge between brands and users, we can be the dictionary that explains consumers.
What would happen if we crossed the information of the hundreds and hundreds of deals that we carried out in the last 2 years? We would be putting together a kind of DMP and creating technological solutions to extract valuable insights. Applying data analysis on customer campaigns allows us, for example, to cluster audiences across types of industry.
This extra contribution of value is a way of decommodifying our media offering, and encouraging traders to buy traffic through a PMP, and not through open auction.
Phase 3: What’s to come
A completely changed world, where markets do not interact in the same way, where advertising investments have suffered a considerable reduction, but where we have understood that, where there are crises, opportunities appear.
I am convinced that this year, in programmatic, there was a radical change in how we understand DSP and SSP, buying and selling spaces, the value of interaction between interlocutors and sharing information about the campaign in order to optimize and add value.
Agencies have understood that media are not only a means of communication to reach users but rather a strategic ally that provides support and insights applied to its campaigns, achieving better results.
Publishers have understood that sales shouldn’t be merely transactional, but that thet havethe obligation to add value.
