Programmatic Advertising Explained: What, Why & How

Programmatic advertising is the preferred way to place your ads. Global programmatic ad spending has reached $493 billion, accounting for 54% of U.S. media budgets. Why is everyone switching to this form of ad placement?

The answer is pretty simple: Programmatic advertising is simpler and more effective than its predecessors. But what about mobile programmatic advertising? Can it offer the same ROI as your programmatic advertising strategy?

Why Should You Use Mobile Programmatic Advertising?

Programmatic ad buying significantly outperforms traditional methods, like display network advertising. Here are just a few advantages you can experience with programmatic advertising:

• Greater ability to reach targeted audiences

• Faster campaign launches

• Deeper data insights for clicks and views

• Smaller overall advertising costs

• Faster, real-time changes to optimization strategies

For a full breakdown of the benefits, check out the 4 Advantages of Programmatic Advertising.

Choose Your Preferred Media

Mobile programmatic advertising can take many forms, encompassing any digital ad optimized for a mobile experience. The following are five types of display ads you can place with programmatic advertising:

1. Banner Ads: These ads are usually non-intrusive, as they don’t interrupt online experiences and simply pop up on the screen. They are also one of the most widely used forms of mobile online advertising because they are simple to create and deploy.

2. Video Ads: Video ads include any mobile ad using video as its main medium. This could be a video that pops up, similar to a banner ad. It could also be a video commercial that precedes content from a streaming platform. 

3. Native Ads: Mobile native ads appear to be built into the web page. In the past, native advertising had to be cemented to a particular website, meaning it was not conducive to programmatic placement. Now, these native ad placements can be swapped out to best target a specific customer. A common example is when an online publication posts an article about a third party’s product.

4. Social Ads: Most commonly, you’ll see these ads in your feed between the posts from people you follow. Ads can be incredibly specific, thanks to the data social media platforms collect.

5. Audio Ads: Music streaming platforms, like Spotify and Pandora, use audio ads to support lower-tier subscription models. These ads can be swapped out depending on the listener’s online behavior.

How to Choose Goals for Your Programmatic Ad Campaign

Choosing a goal for your campaign isn’t as hard as you might think—it’s all about going back to basics.

Like with any ad campaign, pick your goal and work backward. Starting with your goals will ensure you don’t derail your marketing strategy with a misaligned targeting approach. Once you have a goal in mind, you can gather creative assets into your programmatic inventory, knowing exactly how they will be used.

How do you choose goals—or, more importantly, the right goals, for your programmatic ad campaign? Do you want to boost awareness, push leads through the consideration phase, or get them to finish with a sale? It all boils down to the desired results.

Awareness Goals

You want more people to learn about your brand or product. This is particularly ideal for new product launches and new website designs. Or, you may just want to increase your fan base.

How do you measure the success of an awareness campaign? The simplest indicator is clicks. Every click represents a person who was enticed enough to learn more. The more clicks, the more people are on your website. Hundreds of new leads are in the consideration phase.

Consideration Goals

You want to push people further along in the consideration process. Maybe you have a high bounce rate or leads that only scan your landing page. Consideration goals encourage your leads to stick around and research everything you have to offer.

Success in consideration goals means more interactions on your website. Clicking a CTA button starts an order submission form. In programmatic advertising, you’ll want creativity that entices visitors to interact with your website. That could involve an ad highlighting a feature of your website, inspiring leads to return and explore. 

If you go the interactive route, make sure it’s optimized for mobile. Something that works great on a desktop can be useless for mobile users.

Sales Goals

Your leads are up, and website engagement is good. But now you have a cart abandonment problem. A sales goal would be to reduce that issue and increase overall conversions.

A simple example would be a retargeting campaign—plastering their feed with ads for the products they looked at. That may help them to finally take the plunge and complete their purchase.

Can Audiences Be Too Narrow for a Programmatic Campaign?

A major selling point for mobile programmatic advertising is how granular you can get with your audience targeting—you can target the exact individuals your message will resonate with. But if not optimized correctly, your targeting strategy may get so narrow that you won’t see a lot of return on your ad spend.

But how narrow is too narrow? No magic number divides a narrow target audience from an adequate target audience. Instead, consider how well your current targeting strategy helps you acquire new leads. Are you seeing an increase in leads? Or have your metrics flat-lined? If the answer is the latter, your campaign’s parameters may be too narrow.

A Better Way to Reach Mobile Users

Mobile users account for 58.99% of all web traffic. If you’re not prioritizing mobile programmatic advertising, you’re missing out on a large majority of potential customers. 

The best way to get started? With Agility. Our platform will help you extend the reach of your marketing messages across mobile-optimized channels. Get started today.