Your Guide to Planning a Programmatic Campaign

As a programmatic buyer, you need a partner who understands the buying process inside and out. To that end, we surveyed 1,500 programmatic buyers across six countries to hear the tales of their buying journeys.​​

Through this survey, we identified misconceptions and challenges that needlessly hamper your ability as a programmatic buyer to achieve the best possible results for your campaign.

To be the Yoda to your programmatic buying Luke Skywalker, we created this guide to address three crucial aspects of the buying journey — Targeting, KPIs, and Formats — to help you hit your goals.​

Okay, let the training montage commence! By the end, you’ll be prepared to embark on your next programmatic campaign confidently.

Takeaways: Planning a Programmatic Campaign Doesn't Have to Be a Challenge

Below, you'll find key takeaways from our whitepaper to help you master these three key areas of the programmatic buying journey and achieve the results you're looking for in your next campaign.

Targeting

Soon, 90% of the internet will be unaddressable by third-party cookies, making an already challenging step in the planning of a programmatic campaign even more difficult—that is if they're still reliant on third-party data.

Successful buyers will have to rethink targeting. Specifically, they'll have to embrace first-party data and the privacy and scale it can provide. By leveraging targeting solutions through a trusted SSP, buyers will achieve cookieless, privacy-forward, and future-proofed results.

KPIs

KPIs or “Key Performance Indicators,” are metrics by which we can measure and judge the success of a given digital advertising campaign, and typically correspond to ​​layers of the classic sales funnel: awareness, engagement, and results.

However, according to our survey, myopic adherence to KPIs leads to dead ends. Therefore, when planning a programmatic campaign, buyers should avoid the trap of standard metrics and add third-party measurement solutions. Achieving a holistic view of the campaign allows you to ​better understand what variables drive the largest shift in objective. Moreover, you’ll be better able to correlate those standard ​metrics ​​to specific outcomes and increase your ​​chances of achieving sustainable results for ​​your future campaigns.​​​

Formats

Ad formats are ​an important consideration when choosing your initial purchasing filters for your programmatic campaign. ​However, while unique formats are crucial to the success of your campaign, how you leverage those formats is equally impactful.

According to our survey, buyers from across the globe felt that each format (Native, Display, OLV, etc.) performed similarly in achieving KPIs corresponding to a given part of the funnel.

In other words, there's no consensus about which formats are best leveraged for certain parts of the funnel. So, how can buyers make the right choice for their campaign?

It all comes down to data. You need insights to identify proof points to clarify how products are packaged and how they are impacting campaign performance.​​

Rather than focusing on a specific format that most other buyers perceive as a path toward achieving certain KPIs, true programmatic heroes like you go the extra mile, aligning creative across multiple formats, for example. It’s all about synergy. ​​

Achieving that synergy is not easily done alone.  An SSP that has the experience to compile best practices powered by real data to recommend the right format mix and the right creative can help. ​​

As the most supportive team in Ad Tech, we're always here to help. Whether it's our first-class media formats, our easy-to-activate deals, or our first-party data solutions, no matter what your goals are, if you're planning a programmatic campaign, we've got the products and services to help you achieve them.