Programmatic Advertising Rescuing Advertisers during COVID — Kritter
The last few months have been tough for everyone!
COVID-19 and the resulting lock-downs have affected everyone at the macro as well as micro levels. Individuals, families, businesses, and economies worldwide have suffered in some way or the other. Businesses are striving or rather forced to do more with less, be it with resources, money, or time. Marketing has been no different. There have been budget cuts across industries, more for some than others. Traditional marketing channels are the most affected.
TV & Out-of-Home media has been hit the most. While Display & Search advertising has also declined, it is the fastest to recover since people across demographics & geographies are spending more time online. And among the digital media, Programmatic Advertising is still expected to grow. Read along to know more.
Meanwhile, let’s talk about how internet usage pattern has shifted during these times.
As expected, with fewer people stepping out of their homes, they have more time to be online and browse through content.
A report from Ofcom confirms the same. The study conducted in the UK found that internet users in the age-group of 18–24 years, on average, are spending over five hours online, while internet usage of people in all age groups has increased by at least 30 minutes compared to Dec’19.
So What does it means for Marketers?
With less than usual budgets and customers little vary to make purchases as before, marketers and advertisers need to focus on strengthening their brands. They need to emphasize on the differentiators that lead the customers to buy from them in the first place while keeping the messages trustworthy, empathic, and sensitive. The image below comprises of brands from different walks of life conveying one thing in common — “we care.” With various social messages, punchlines, and PSAs, they are all trying to get the word across that ‘your favorite brand is trustworthy and stands with you in these tough times’.
Brands, health organizations, NGOs, Governments, and other social agencies are all voicing the same tone. They are all building a responsible and trustworthy brand that outlasts the pandemic, creating a higher recall value. Brands that are reaching out to their customers or people, in general, will reap the benefits when the consumer spending comes back to normal post-pandemic. Research from Ebiquity found that “brands that increase spending during a recession achieve market share gains averaging 1.6 percentage points during the first two years of recovery.”
How can Programmatic help?
Efficiency has always been at the core of Programmatic advertising. From targeting the right audience to the last details to delivering messages in different formats and from optimizing campaigns for better ROIs to saving audiences for future campaigns, Programmatic is the go-to tool in the digital marketers’ arsenal.
Programmatic has been in play for the last two decades and has been delivering advertising success across industries. Marketers enjoy benefits like increased transparency & control, wider audience reach, flexible ad types, real-time measurement, and detailed targeting features, to name a few, with Programmatic.
What sets Programmatic Advertising apart from other digital (or traditional) marketing channels is the level of precision and relevancy in targeting audiences.
With behavioral targeting combined with the first-party data, marketers can reach the right audience with the right messages, cutting through the noise.
Today, programmatic advertising has also entered our television sets and outdoor displays, making it a comprehensive tool to reach your audience. With the usage of Connected TV on the rise, especially in the US, marketers can create richer customer segments by marrying the mobile/web content consumption with the content consumed on TV.
So when it comes to brand building, improving reach, and doing result-oriented advertising campaigns, marketers, advertisers, and media planners, worldwide are placing their bets on Programmatic Advertising.
This is reinstated by the fact that despite the global slowdown and budget cuts across marketing channels, Programmatic is still likely to grow by over 6% this year.
Why Programmatic Advertising?
Staying on top of the mind
Remaining at the top of the mind is what marketers continuously strive for. With stiff competition and open market economies, even market leaders can’t afford to slack for a moment. Even if your sales are stagnant, you need to maintain the brand salience, so that when things fall back to normal, your brand remains in the consideration set of the consumers.
Audience Insights
Programmatic advertising provides real-time insights on customers and their actions, ensuring marketers of easy maneuverability along the course of the campaigns. So in case, particular geography, demography, or behavioral group isn’t responding well to your messaging, you can always change the course of your ship without wasting much time and money.
Personalization
More in-depth audience segmentation & precise targeting are some of the critical virtues of Programmatic advertising. Combined with first-party data and behavioral targeting, it can help marketers and advertisers target their audiences with personalized messages and offers.
The efficiency of Cost & Operations
Ease of control over the campaign and ad delivery, access to ad inventories across the world on standalone platforms, and scope of optimizing on all available parameters make Programmatic advertising very cost-effective and easy yo manage. At the same time, with customizations, like custom bidding algorithms, advertisers can further improve their ROIs.
Comprehensiveness
Using programmatic media, marketers can reach out to their desired audience groups across channels and devices. The introduction of programmatic advertising on Connected TV and out-of-home media has further solidified its place in the advertising mix.
The changes that we see now will remain for some time and have a long-lasting effect on consumer behavior. At this juncture of time, marketers and advertisers need to adapt to technologies that make their job more flexible and easy to change course. Programmatic advertising and digital marketing, in general, are seen as the more accountable counterparts of traditional advertising. With limited budgets and cost-cutting, marketers have to rely on them to make every dollar count.
Originally published at https://kritter.in on August 20, 2020.
