Programmatic Advertising Blogs & Case Studies in India

Top Programmatic Advertising Platforms in India to scale your marketing

  • Balaji Surendar
  • |
  • 22 April , 2022
  • |
    • 8 min read

India Steps ahead into Digital advertising with Programmatic:

As we all know, this pandemic situation has pushed most brands to do online marketing in order to reach out to customers. This pandemic situation has changed the way customers reach brands since all physical stores were completely shut, leaving them with only online shopping as a feasible option. 

All brands who do either large scale or small scale businesses in India want a wider reach for their brand and good sales for their products by spending money efficiently on advertising and marketing. When marketers in India looked out for an advertising technique which allows them to explore a wide range of publishers’ inventories and audience available in the market with an efficient budget investment, they arrived at a new hero of an advertising format known as Programmatic advertising

What is Programmatic advertising and why it is a real boon to Indian Marketers?

Programmatic advertising in one line is “ Collecting all data from campaign history and using the data for the betterment of the campaign in future with the help of a system specific algorithm”. Indian Marketers have welcomed Programmatic buying with their arms wide open because programmatic ads help Indian Marketers market their brands online within a very effective budget investment. Secondly, to do any kind of online advertising you need users to be highly engaged online through any of the devices they own.

India has the highest smartphone population than any other country in the world. We Indians nearly spend 180 to 210 minutes engaging with our smartphones using the internet for watching online content and playing online games per day. This user behaviour of Indians gives an upper hand for Programmatic advertising to convince Indian Marketers to adopt it to market their brand online. Due to this, every year, programmatic ads grow at the rate of 70% in India.

That being said, there are many platforms out there to choose from so we have done a quick analysis for your benefit. 

Top Programmatic Advertising Platforms available in India to build your Advertising Programmatically 

The top programmatic advertising platforms in India are

Google Marketing Platform

Google Marketing Platform majorly consists of DSP (DV360), Google Ads, Adserver (Campaign Manager 360), Tag manager(GTM), Analytics manager (Google Analytics), Creative manager ( Studio) and report builder (Data Studio). Google marketing platform provides the marketer a whole new advertising experience. It helps the marketer to do end to end campaign management through all  resources GMP has across digital advertising, campaign management and tracking. GMP offers integrated digital advertising comfort to marketers by giving them everything in one set to run their digital programmatic buying campaigns. GMP is an user friendly tool which gives the marketer a wide range of access in a programmatic ads environment. GMP supports programmatic buying of ad space for all three formats such as Display, Video and Audio advertising. GMP with the help of its integrated analytics and advertising platforms, helps marketers to reach their target audiences and make deeper connections with them to convert them with efficient ad spends and better ROI.

Google Marketing Platform Product Features

  • Demand-Side Platforms (DSP)
  • Display Advertising
  • Marketing
  • Campaign Management

Marketing Analytics 

  •  A/B Testing
  •  Channel Attribution
  •  Mapping customer journey
  •  Dashboard
  •  Performance Metrics
  •  Predictive Analytics
  •  ROI Tracking
  •  Social Media Metrics
  •  Website Analytics

Web Analytics 

  •  Conversion Tracking
  •  Referral Source Tracking
  •  Multiple Site Management
  •  User Interaction Tracking
  •  Campaign Management
  •  Keyword Tracking
  •  Time on Site Tracking
  •  Pageview Tracking
  •  Site Search Tracking
  •  Goal Tracking

GMP Integrated with

  • Datorama
  • Delio Lead Management
  • Fone Dynamics
  • Google Ad Manager
  • Google Ads
  • Google Analytics
  • Google Tag Manager
  • LumenAd
  • MetaRouter
  • Only Mega
  • PlaceIQ
  • Zuuvi

Key Benefits of using GMP:

  1. Enterprise analytics solution in Google Analytics 360 (GA360) 
  2. Better measurement of all marketing efforts 
  3. Insightful understanding of your customers and how they engage with your brand 
  4. Smarter media buying 
  5. Increased marketing efficiency
  6. Improved cross device capabilities.
  7. Smart campaigns powered by machine learning
  8. Better ability to reach the right customers.

Criteo

Citeo is a programmatic ads DSP that is well known for the use of in-house third party audiences for remarketing and high conversion rate ability. Criteo DSP works on the basis of CPC cost metric and it has a very high click to conversion ratio than any other programmatic platforms. In Criteo no google or first party audience can be used, Criteo DSP is built in such a way that it can run only with the Criteo in-house third party audience data.

Recently Criteo has developed an Criteo’s own API to power the marketers advertising using the Criteo’s custom report builder API, automated Criteo’s Campaign setup API and automatic Bid management API. With this help of the API systems Criteo provides an enhanced opportunity for the Marketers to do full funnel marketing for their brand. 


Criteo Product Features

  • Demand-Side Platforms (DSP)
  • Display Advertising
  • Predictive Analytics

Predictive Analytics 

  • AI / Machine Learning
  • Data Mining
  • Benchmarking
  • Demand Forecasting
  • Sentiment Analysis
  • Data Blending
  • For Education
  • For Healthcare
  • Modeling & Simulation
  • Website Analytics

Retargeting 

  • Conversion Tracking
  • Audience Targeting
  • Personalization
  • Recommendation Engine
  • Geo Targeting
  • Behavioral Targeting
  • A/B Testing
  • Mobile Retargeting
  • Social Media Retargeting

Criteo Integrated with

  • Blendr.io
  • Blueshift
  • Calltouch 
  • Complete the Look
  • Data Virtuality
  • Faraday
  • LogiCommerce
  • Marfeel-Press
  • MetaRouter
  • Polar Analytics
  • ROIVENUE
  • Rivery

Key Benefits of Criteo 

  1. Real-time campaign performance tracking
  2. Prediction algorithms
  3. Personalized retargeting
  4. CPC Bidding Module
  5. Ads across mobile, desktop, email, and social 
  6. Criteo Facebook retargeting and offline conversion tracking

  
Amazon Advertising

Amazon DSP helps advertisers reach their target correct audience from amazon apps as well as Amazon’s website with the help of algorithms run by the system programmatically. It helps advertisers to reach out to the audience via Amazon publishing partners and third party exchanges. Amazon DSP supports programmatic buying of ad space for all the three formats such as Display, Video and Audio advertising. Amazon DSP provides a highly protected advertising experience to the Advertisers with the help of the brand safety advertising  policies of Amazon. The Amazon DSP comes with the both self-service and managed-service option for the Advertisers who want to try Amazon DSP for their programmatic ads business.

The contextual targeting capability of the Amazon DSP has been strengthened by the sources such as Oracle Data Cloud (ODC) - custom predictions and DoubleVerify - Custom contextual. The ODC provides the marketer an upper hand in marketing by allowing them to capitalize on the inventories associated with the trending contents.

The Bidding strategy which Amazon has is totally transparent to the Advertisers. The advertisers can control their budget and spend at any level of their campaign, they can even control their spend towards the KPI goal and campaign performance on its programmatic advertising platform. 


Amazon Product Features

  • Demand-Side Platforms (DSP)
  • Display Advertising

Marketing Analytics 

  •  Reach exclusive audiences
  •  Access unique, high-quality inventory
  •  Appear in brand-safe environments
  •  Build a metrics-based strategy

Amazon Advertising Integrated with

  • Amazon
  • Bionic for Agencies
  • ChannelAdvisor
  • Downstream
  • Kenshoo
  • Listing Dojo
  • MarinOne
  • OrderMetrics
  • PPC Entourage
  • Perpetua
  • Quartile
  • Seller Labs
  • SellerMobile
  • Sellics
  • Tool4seller

Key benefits of Amazon DSP:

  1. Reach audiences outside of other networks such as Fire TV, IMDb and Kindle
  2. A built-in brand safety mechanism that Amazon uses itself
  3. Access Amazon’s first party data and target unique customer groups
  4. Display ads on premium publisher environments

MediaMath

MediaMath provides the advertiser a comfortable and powerful online digital advertising experience with the help of its DSP TerminalOne programmatic advertising platform.  MediaMath helps marketers manage their mobile, display, social, video, audio and native campaigns with the help of an omnichannel global ecosystem.

MediaMath delivers a complete package of campaign handling for the marketers including campaign execution, reporting, targeting and creative management. MediaMath completely focuses on delivering the best results in terms of conversion ratios and  better returns on ad spends. 

Due to the wide range of ability MediaMath holds on Programmatic ads, Disney+ Hotstar has recently collaborated with MediaMath to provide marketers with a highly protected brand safe environment along with premium inventories to do marketing with an extensive audience reach through OTT platform programmatically. 

What is beneficial here for the marketer due to this collaboration of Disney+ Hotstar and MediaMath, is that this successive collaboration between the marketer and advertisers can reach even the narrowest regions of the country with a very high premium inventory on offer through programmatic. Also, advertisers can buy the Programmatic Guaranteed (PG) and Private Marketplace (PMP) deals to target the exact inventories and correct set of targets for their brand.

MediaMath with a huge reach and exact key targeting ability MediaMath is offering the Advertiser to do very exact marketing for their brand even in the regional areas of India through live sports or entertainment events.. With the access to audience based buying techniques in the programmatic buying environment offered by MediaMath, advertisers can have more transparency and control over their campaigns and target the exact required engaging audiences to explore better conversion results for their campaigns.


MediaMath Product Features

  • Demand-Side Platforms (DSP)
  • Display Advertising
  • Predictive Analytics

Predictive Analytics 

  • AI / Machine Learning
  • Data Mining
  • Benchmarking
  • Demand Forecasting
  • Sentiment Analysis
  • Data Blending
  • For Education
  • For Healthcare
  • Modeling & Simulation
  • Website Analytics

Marketing Analytics 

  • Campaign Management
  • Media Management
  • Creative Management
  • Targeting
  • Identity Management
  • Consumer Segmentation
  • MediaMath Audiences
  • Brand Safety
  • Global Scale Targeting

MediaMath Integrated with

  • Bionic for Agencies
  • Cross Pixel
  • Datorama
  • Neustar NetProtect
  • Neustar UltraDDoS Protect
  • PlaceIQ
  • Rivery
  • UltraWAF

Key Benefits of MediaMath

  • A fully transparent, mobile marketing platform
  • Unmatched control to reach your mobile audiences at scale
  • Business outcomes optimization to drive real mobile marketing results

     

Adobe Advertising Cloud

Adobe advertising cloud is a place where a programmatic advertising platform meets all media. Adobe has been a unique ad platform that gathers and automates all screens, data, media, and creativity at some measure. Introduction of programmatic buying with a Adobe Advertising Cloud brings an end to the traditional media buying process. Automated media buying with the help of a Programmatic DSP is the best duo for brands to move their digital advertising strategy one step forward. The DSP will  give you the advantage that you can successfully and cost-effectively implement your strategy accurately by forecasting and predicting the outcomes.This combo will give your customer a delightful experience online advertising. Adobe Advertising Cloud DSP provides the advertiser with the access to any ad inventory for any media practically with best quality control and Measurement.


Adobe Advertising Cloud Product Features

  • Campaign Management
  • Demand-Side Platforms (DSP)
  • Display Advertising

Predictive Management

  • Lead management
  • Database management
  • Email Marketing
  • Multi-Campaign management
  • Channel Management
  • Event Triggered Action

Adobe Advertising Cloud Integrated with

  • Bionic for Agencies
  • Adobe Campaign
  • Adobe Creative Cloud
  • TubeMogul

Key benefits of Adobe advertising cloud:

  • Cross-Channel Planning. Adobe Advertising Cloud is the most comprehensive platform for planning, buying, and measuring advertising
  • Innovative reporting and Insights in real time.
  • Quickly analyze results and improve campaigns
  • Integration with Microsoft Dynamics 365

TubeMogul

TubeMogul allows the advertiser to plan, buy, build, measure and optimize online advertising campaigns programmatically. With a TubeMogul on his/her side an advertiser or marketer can simplify the process of planning and buying ad space across multiple channels, inventories and environment all from a single programmatic buying platform. With a gift of TubeMogul’s consolidated campaign management and  cross-channel advertising software helps the advertiser to run brand campaigns globally using the first and third party data across all the devices with any ad format through the premium inventories.. Along with this TubeMogul provides a platform dashboard with the real-time metrics which gives an upper hand to the advertiser  to track the Ad spend, campaign performance and impact across the lifetime period  of the campaign dynamically at any point.


TubeMogul Product Features

  • Campaign Management
  • Demand-Side Platforms (DSP)
  • Advertising Agency
  • Display Advertising

Adobe Advertising Cloud Integrated with

  • Bionic for Agencies
  • Adobe Campaign
  • Adobe Advertising Cloud

Verizon Media

Verizon’s media group helps the marketer and advertiser communicate and reach most of their audiences through Verizon’s own brands such as Huffpost, TechChurch and Yahoo. Verizon Media with its high technologies such as AI, Machine-learning and XR in hand provides the customer a whole packed programmatic experience for their brands. Verizon Media innovates programmatic ads to a higher level with its premium exchanges and technologies.

Verizon Media provides a streamlined suite of publishing and advertising services to many brands by integrating verizon brands like Yahoo, AOL and BrightRoll in one DSP OATH. This unified OATH DSP provides marketers an additional advantage by providing access to the inventory across MSN, Yahoo, AOL and OATH’s other pre-owned properties. With the OATH DSP offered by Verizon Media,  advertisers can now target the Native and CTV inventories along with the display and video inventories.


Verizon Media Product Features

  • Campaign Management
  • Demand-Side Platforms (DSP)
  • Mobile Advertising
  • Native Advertising
  • Display Advertising
  • OTT Advertising

Verizon Media Integrated with

  • Only Mega
  • AOL
  • BrightRoll
  • Yahoo
  • Verizon Cloud

Key benefits of TubeMogul:

  1. Impression-by-Impression Buying and Valuation
  2. Targeting Technology
  3. Dynamic Optimization and Real-Time Analytics
  4. Transparency
  5. Private Exchange Capabilities and Access to Premium Inventory

Conclusion

Programmatic advertising is gaining dominance over mobile marketing in India. As a marketer you're probably excited to try it for your brand. Most advertisers wonder what is programmatic advertising and how they can set up the online advertising for their brand programmatically. But now you know how.

Most Advertisers initiate campaigns but pause them if there are no immediate results. However programmatic ads, like any other advertising platform, requires machine learning to generate results and generate ROI. Advertisers should evaluate the performance of a campaign not just by direct results but also by the impact it creates in terms of  consideration, remarketing etc 

Now leverage DV360 (Display Video 360) in Self Serve mode

Google offers their programmatic buying solutions only to agencies and not to brands - but there are agencies like Social Beat that offer a self-serve option to brands and other agencies where they can use the existing DV360 access to run campaigns. This is known as a Self Serve programmatic advertising platform. 

 


3.7x Transactions at 66% Lower Cost – Programmatic Case Study in Gaming

  • Sreekar
  • |
  • 30 November , 2020
  • |
    • 3 min read

Programmatic advertising or Programmatic marketing is an automated technique of Real-Time bidding on a specific inventory for a specific set of people. The ad marketplace runs the auction for the ad slot available on a specific publisher’s webpage (and apps) and selects the one with the highest bid to place their advertisement on the virtual space. Programmatic advertising has emerged as the future of online advertising due to the immense possibilities it holds.

While there are multiple programmatic platforms, Google Marketing Platform (GMP) has a powerful suite with GMP’s DV360 (Display Video 360) being the market leader. The advantages of leveraging programmatic advertising through DV360 include delivering faster and smarter marketing based on Google Marketing Platform’s machine learning algorithms, gaining control of your investments, and understanding the audience at a granular level.

What is Fantasy Cricket?

Most of you might already know what fantasy cricket is and how it works. But for a better understanding, fantasy cricket is an online game of betting on the players who are playing the actual game of cricket and we will be rewarded with cash in terms of points based on the performance of the players we bet on during the actual game.

About Gamezy

Gamezy is the latest offering from Gameskraft – India’s fastest-growing gaming platform. This app is a fantasy cricket platform designed for the user to select their choice of eleven players from both the teams in a cricket match. Based on the performance of the cricket players in the real game, the users of the app will be rewarded with cash prizes. 

How is Gamezy different from other apps?

Gamezy allows the user to change the playing XI at the end of the 1st innings based on the actual performance of the cricket players.

USPs:

-  Available in 8 languages

- Players can be changed before the 2nd innings starts

- 5-a-Side (an option to play without having to choose 11 players a side)

-   Daily Contests and Head to Head games.

 

Campaign Strategy

  • Platforms Used: On Display and Video 360, which is a Demand Side Platform (DSP) on the programmatic space, we have leveraged both display and video networks. Display network with static and GIF format creatives were run initially followed by YouTube which has worked well with different video categories that helped in increasing the number of installs and in-app actions.
  • View Through Conversions (YT): Videos have played a major role in scaling up as well as improving the performance of the campaigns. View Through Conversions refer to the installs that happen after a person has watched our video as an ad on YouTube. We have seen a significant rise in the number of purchases or Add Cash through the View-Through Conversions.
  • The most important targeting which has helped the performance of the campaigns is the targeting on DV360 through the interest category of “Fantasy Games”. By selecting this, we were able to relax all other demographic filters applied.
  • One important feature to mention is the accuracy of the post-click conversion numbers on DV360 was far better compared to the numbers on Google Ads. This was the power of insight-driven marketing.
  • Different creatives (Animated/Influencer): As mentioned, the different categories of videos which were used include Brand videos, User Generated Content (Influencer Videos). Animated Videos, USP based videos, Event/Theme-based videos etc.,

Themed Influencer Campaign refers to an example where we have used a “couple as influencers” to talk about how to earn money on Gamezy which makes it easy for them to buy their Valentine’s day gifts.

USP-based videos where the advantages of using Gamezy over other competitors like 8 Languages, 5-a-Side, and 2 Innings were shown as short stories or a slideshow to increase the Install rate.

  • Managed Placements: Optimizing the placements on YouTube Channels/YouTube Videos to exclude the junk placements and run separate campaigns with top converted placements. This helped in improving the overall performance.
  • Retargeting is not possible on Google ads for Real-Time Money based businesses to run campaigns but it is possible on D360 due to the server-to-server integration.

Results:

Within a period of 2 months, we were able to see a 226% increase in Installs with a 50% decrease in cost per Install. Since this is a real-time money based application, ‘Add Cash” is one of the most important in-app events to achieve. We have been successful in getting a 378% increase in Add Cashes with a 66% decrease in cost per Add Cash.


Beginners guide to programmatic advertising & DV360

  • Aarthi S
  • |
  • 20 August , 2020
  • |
    • 7 min read

What is programmatic advertising?

Programmatic advertising is not as complex as it sounds. It is a way to buy automatically & manage digital campaigns, rather than buying them from publishers directly.

Programmatic advertising is an automatic approach of RTB, which will be used on a particular inventory for a particular set of users. 

Demystifying the Jargons of Programmatic Advertising:

Real-Time Bidding (RTB): Buying and selling of advertisement space online through real-time auction that occur in milliseconds. 

Demand-Side Platform (DSP): A software which is utilized by publicists to purchase advertisements consequently. A portion of the main DSP stages are Turn, MediaMath, Invite Media, and DataXu. 

Supply-Side Platform (SSP): Technology stage utilized by distributors to sell publicizing space consequently. A portion of the main SSP stages are Google, OpenX, Right Media, and PubMatic. 

Data Management Platform (DMP):  An information stockroom that is basically a product that has data about purchasers and clients. DMP holds data principally through cookies that are utilized for publicist focusing on.

Ad Exchange: Digital commercial center where publicists and distributors purchase and sell advertisements. A portion of the main advertisement trade stages for automatic publicizing are OpenX, The Rubicon Project, and Google. 

First-Party Data:  First-party data comes legitimately from the source, either the computerized distributer or the stage holder. For example, in the event that you decide to publicize on Facebook, you can get data about the crowd to tailor your campaign. 

Third-Party Data: Third-Party Data is any data gathered by an element that won't have an immediate relationship with the client the information is being gathered on. More often than not, It is gathered from an assortment of sites and stages and afterward is bunched together by outsider information suppliers, for example, DMP.

Self Serve Programmatic: Google offers their programmatic solutions only to agencies and not to brands - but there are agencies like Social Beat that offers a self serve option to brands and other agencies where they can use the existing DV360 access to run campaigns. This is known as Self Serve programmatic advertising.

Types of programmatic advertising

  • Programmatic RTB: 

Like Google ads calculate the bidding in real-time for all advertisers, the same applies to Programmatic RTB.

RTB is done programmatically and the highest bidder's ad is displayed. Below are the steps on how it works -

  1. The User visits a website
  2. The Website communicates with an ad exchange/SSP
  3. SSP offers information to DSPs
  4. Advertisers place bids through a DSP
  5. Highest bid wins the ad
  • Private Marketplace (PMP):

Private marketplace works as RTB in similar sectors, which is available only to advertisers that require invitation. Usually publishers block or reserve premium ad inventory for some selected advertisers. Most of the demand side platforms have their own private marketplace which is exclusively available to DSP customers.

  • Preferred Deals:

This is a type of deal where the advertisers chooses the ad inventory even before displaying in the private marketplace by open auction at a fixed price.

This is also called spot buying as the purchase and negotiation happens on the spot and targeting, pricing etc are agreed by both the parties.

The advertiser also gets to see the publisher’s ad inventory which can help in deciding whether or not to make a purchase depending on the ad impression.

  • Programmatic Guaranteed:

This type of deal follows the usual path of media buying, where publisher & advertiser is given a chance of negotiating on one-on-one basis. Bidding process is not followed in programmatic guaranteed. Once the negotiation is over the inventory is sold to the advertiser.

Programmatic guaranteed is also called programmatic direct or automated guaranteed.

How does programmatic ad buying work?

Step 1: User clicks on a Landing page or website

Step 2: The owner of the site puts the ad up for auction

Step 3: Advertisers including competitors offer bids for the ad impression

Step 4: Highest bidder in the step 3 wins the auction

Step 5: winning ad is served on the website to the user who clicked on the ad

Last Step: Hopefully the user who clicked on the ad, converts!

The framework will assess the client examination once an advertisement is purchased on a portion of the measurements which is Behavior, Social commitment, Engagement level, Time per visit and Location. 

The above information from the measurements will help the framework in arranging, estimating and choosing what setting would be applicable to a particular client. In like manner the promotion would be shown as an advertisement on the applicable situation. 

For instance, when clients filter a few web journals which are identified with "Wellbeing and Fitness", The advertisement tech framework assesses and gauges the client conduct and shows a promotion that is identified with "offers on GYM Equipments" or "Sound eating routine food diagram". 

Through the above measures we can focus on the correct promotion to the ideal individual at the perfect time which reflects in expanding the proficiency of an advertisement campaign. While Google only offers their programmatic solutions only to agencies and not to brands - there are agencies like Social Beat that offer a self serve option to brands and other agencies where they can use the existing DV360 access to run campaigns.

Key Benefits of using Programmatic Advertising:

-Programmatic advertising works towards targeting your KPIs more closely which results in improving and increasing your overall ROI.

-With Programmatic advertising, advertisers have access to adjust metrics such as CPMs, CPCs, CPVs etc. which helps us in cost-effectiveness.

-There are a lot of things which we can explore on this platform. Gaining customer insights is one of them, and will enable you to take the learnings through programmatic technology and apply them across all types to improve overall advertising campaign performance, which results in a comprehensive marketing approach.

-Programmatic helps you to achieve your goal by reaching a larger audience which results in diversity and scalability

Frequency Capping Across Platforms

Control the frequency and analyze the performance of ads across multiple channels like Google, Facebook, YouTube, Native, OTTs and Publishers with the help of campaign manager and DV360

-Avoid overexposing ads to the same user across platforms 

-Acquire a wider pool of audience within the same budget. Thus, programmatic can help you get the best ROI.

-Get a single view of your audience across platforms 

Innovative and Interactive Ad Formats:

Create exclusive, interactive ads like Parallax, Flipbook, Cue Cards, and Audio banners

-Give your audience a better experience

-Drive engagement with your target audience 

-Helps increase CTR and boost Ad Recall

Premium Inventory & 3rd Party Lists:

-Access a more premium inventory and expand your reach across various publishers, OTT’s, audio streaming services, and third-party lists.

-Leverage 3rd Party Lists to reach niche audience segments relevant to your business

Improved Tracking on Programmatic:

-With improved targeting, you can optimize budget allocation with efficiency and produce elevated results

-Track impressions served to a single user across platforms

-Gives a view of the entire customer journey and overlap of audience across platforms for better Media Planning decisions

-Run Sequenced Messaging campaigns even on the Display Network to drive your audience down the marketing funnel 

Comprehensive Targeting:

-With comprehensive targeting options paired with audience insights and mining, you can optimize campaigns to deliver maximum results 

-Improved targeting using AI & Machine Learning with advanced bid strategies and data-driven creatives to deliver personalization to a target audience

-Leverage Combined Audience - Create a combined audience using Google Audience, 1st Party Audience & 3rd Party Audience to target even niche audiences effectively. 

Example - Your target audience is a CEO/CXO of a company size between 200-1000 in the US? 

That can be done!

The benefit with First-Party Data:

- As some of you might know, third Party Cookie tracking will be depreciated from Jan 2022 from Chrome (and soon other browsers). This is going to lead to many brands trying to build their first-party data and programmatic is best suited to manage this and build on your existing user data.

YouTube Trueview via DV360:

-Provides precise tracking with extensive targeting abilities 

-Explore Google Audiences, 1st and 3rd Party Data, also create combined audiences to reach the right target audience 

-Track post view and view through conversation for large scale trueview and bumper campaigns

-Leverage AI & ML for better-optimized campaigns

-Track Completed views and CPCV and not just views and CPV. 

Few Disadvantages of leveraging Programmatic Advertising:

Transparency from your agency: Since programmatic is usually executed via the agency, it’s very important to have access to the dashboard to understand key metrics. Most programmatic platforms also allow partners to add a % of their fee to the media cost (screenshot from DV360 below). It is known as Partner Cost in DV360. For example, if the CPM is INR 200, the partner can add a 20% margin on it wherein your dashboard would show a CPM of INR 240 (20% higher than INR 200)

Privacy issues: Privacy concerns have arisen as programmatic ads are based on individual internet user's information. This applies to most forms of digital media advertising.

Ad blockers: Most internet users complain about how the ads pop up then have resorted to using ad blockers or using search engines like DuckDuckGo and this trend is likely to increase.

Create a Programmatic campaign in just 3 steps:

Step 1 — All about Strategy

Firstly select your marketing campaign goal, then choose the type of programmatic ad campaign which would be suitable to your goal and strategy and lastly in the first stage would be to sign up for the right demand side platform.

Step 2 — Execution

First step in the execution is to set the estimated budget of your advertising campaign. Next would be selecting the basic targeting options. Last option is to select the creative type and upload the same.

Step 3 — Optimization

-To optimize the campaign the first step is to Receive Real-Time Reports and Analyze the data.

-According to the Analyzed data optimize the campaign settings

-Customize the targeting based on the analysis and Retarget the users who didn't convert

Optimization Secrets:

  1. Allow the campaign time to collect enough data so you're able to take a data-driven approach, Try not to optimize excessively fast 
  2. Similar to the previous point, Try not to optimize too often or too rarely as this will again not give the system enough data to collect. Always give enough time, spend & data between the changes.
  3. It is important to monitor all the progressions made even if it’s a small one. This record will help us to see what changes produce what results so that you can measure and alter the changes accordingly

Deep dive into Display & Video 360

DV360 is the extended version of DCM (DoubleClick Bid Manager), Campaign Manager, Data Studio & lastly Audience Center. This tool acts as a single tool which can be used for planning, organizing, designing, finding inventory, buying inventory, measuring & optimizing campaigns. Find out how we achieved a greater brand reach for a BFSI client using DV360.

What can be done in Display & Video 360?

-Collaborate across teams

-Gain transparency and control

-Get faster, smarter insights

Display & Video 360 is grouped around five integrated segments:

  1. Campaigns: 

This is where you build and execute the media plan. You can create, optimize & monitor the campaigns, Line items & Insertion orders.

  1. Audiences:

This is where you manage your audiences. Audiences can be set based on frequency caps, Audience bucket can be created & Audience profile analysis also can be made in this segment.

  1. Creatives:

Here, you tie your creative strategy to your data and your media plan. There are different variations of creatives, below are the following-

  1. The ad Canvas: You can design the ads visually with real-time previews on the Ad Canvas
  2. The Format Gallery: You can discovery new innovative formats, experiment them on Ad canvas & also browse Google Web Designer templates for custom solutions

c: Data-driven Creatives: You can create a variation of your message which suits with different audiences

  1. Inventory:

This segment allows you to discover and manage high-quality inventory from top broadcasters and publishers, which also includes exploring new opportunities in Marketplace and negotiating deals

  1. Insights:

All the campaign metrics can be found in this segment which helps in analyzing and measuring the performance across Display & Video 360 and take action on those results.


How we achieved a better brand reach for Sundaram Mutual with DV360

  • Veena Mahbubani
  • |
  • 29 June , 2020
  • |
    • 2 min read

Branding Campaigns with YouTube Trueview on DV360

 

YouTube Trueview campaigns on DV360 provide more precise tracking with comprehensive targeting abilities. Advertisers can leverage Google audiences, 1st Party and 3rd Party data and create combined audiences to reach just the right target audience. It can track even view-through-conversions along with click-through-conversions at scale, completed views and the cost for a completed view while automatically optimizing for lower CPCVs and higher view rates using AI & ML. 

 

About Sundaram Mutual

 

Sundaram Mutual is an Asset Management Company that manages funds that cater to the investment needs of investors with different risk, reward and liquidity preferences. It is committed to making mutual funds accessible to everyone and is backed with a strong research team and robust processes. It is also an innovative thought leader that is the first to launch funds in new themes like Mid-caps, Capex, Leadership, Rural India, and Micro caps and Services that enhance value for stakeholders while upholding the highest degree of ethics. 

 

Campaign Objective

 

Sundaram Mutual wanted to launch a new fund called Sundaram Equity Fund and wanted to maximize the awareness of the NFO. It also wanted to increase consideration for the fund and drive conversions with the audience created in the branding campaigns to push them down the marketing funnel. 

 

Objective for TrueView Campaign on DV360

 

  • Maximize brand awareness and reach 
  • Drive more views on the video at a lower CPV
  • Effectively measure the impact of the campaign 

 

Campaign Execution and Optimization 

 

Tested different videos - In the beginning we created the campaign with 2 videos; one with a voiceover and the other without a voiceover. We ran the campaign for 2 days and evaluated which video had a higher view rate at a lower CPV and then directed the budgets of the campaign to that video.

 

Leveraged various audience types and optimized budget allocation - We leveraged broad upper funnel audiences like Google audience lists, created custom audiences of competitors and investment platforms, alternate investments, 3rd party lists and combined audiences. After this, we evaluated which audience lists worked better and directed more budgets to that audience list.

Automated Bidding - We used an automated bidding strategy of “Maximizing Views” to leverage AI & ML to drive more completed views at a lower CPV and higher view rates. 

 

Frequency and View Caps - We leveraged campaign level frequency caps to avoid over-exposure of ads to a single user across multiple targeting options and maximized the number of unique users reached with the budgets. 

 

Results 

 

87% of the views were completed views 

63% decrease in CPV which drove 0.6x incremental views 

66% decrease in CPM which drove 0.7x incremental impressions 

50% higher views compared to YouTube Masthead in the previous campaign 

161% increase in brand search queries on Google Search 

 


How can you make the most of your marketing budgets with Programmatic Advertising

  • Veena Mahbubani
  • |
  • 15 June , 2020
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    • 7 min read

Programmatic advertising leverages the power of automated bidding for inventory in real time, which helps advertisers in delivering faster and smarter campaigns. India has seen exponential growth in programmatic advertising with 80% of the advertisers seeing efficient gains due to its effectiveness and the control it gives. The adoption of programmatic advertising in India is projected to grow by 52% till 2021. Programmatic advertising is the future of advertising in India and it is about time that advertisers start leveraging programmatic advertising to make the most of their advertising budgets. In this blog we’re going to talk about 

  • How programmatic helps advertisers make the most of their marketing budgets 
  • What advertisers can do to help programmatic drive maximum ROI 

How Programmatic helps in making the most of your advertising budgets

  • Automated & Smart Bidding 
  • Data-driven creatives for personalization
  • Brand Safety
  • Advanced Targeting Options on DV360
  • Advanced Tracking with DV360 and Campaign Manager
  • Transparency in PG deals 

Automated & Smart Bidding 

Programmatic Advertising through DV360 offers bid strategies that leverage machine learning to improve campaign performance by serving impressions or increasing bids for users based on the likelihood of achieving the KPI set by the advertiser. DV360 gives advertisers control over setting a goal for their campaign example CPA goal - 500 and tell the system what to optimize for example - maximize clicks/conversions and also choose what to bid on example - spend the entire budget while minimizing CPA or set a target CPA. 

Advertisers have various goals to choose from for Branding which include CPM, Viewability, and CTR while optimizing their campaigns for maximizing their impressions or minimizing their CPM and Performance campaigns include goals like CPA, CPE, and CPI while optimizing their campaigns for either maximizing clicks or conversions with bidding strategies focusing on a specific CPC/CPA or spending the budget while achieving the CPA/CPC the system can achieve.

Use the right bidding strategies for your campaign to show ads only to relevant users helps to make the most of our budgets and maximizing results 

Pro Tips 

  1. Start with CPC as a goal for a performance campaign, optimizing for maximum clicks and bid on spending the entire budget while minimizing the CPC/maximizing clicks, to let the system gather learnings for better optimization. Once you have enough conversion data in your campaigns, move to smart bidding strategies like setting a CPA goal or maximizing conversions. Starting with bidding can have an impact on the delivery of the campaign or will not have enough data to bid smartly to generate desired results. The same strategy method can be used for branding campaigns as well. 
  2. Leverage OBB (Outcome Based Bidding) to only pay for clicks and not to impressions served to save campaign budgets.

Data-driven creatives for Personalization 

Programmatic advertising campaigns on DV360 lets advertisers leverage the power of personalization with data-driven campaigns and creatives paired with rich media formats for increased performance and engagement. 

Advertisers can choose from various formats, upload images and copies suitable for different personas of their target audience and set the target audience for a campaign. The system automatically serves the most relevant combination of images and copies for each user based on machine learning. It involves using data to sub-segment audiences showing the right creative to the right audience at the right time instead of going the traditional route of showing one ad to an entire audience segment. This enables personalization and automation at scale, which means we don’t have to work on 10 different creatives with different copies and create different campaigns for each audience segment. Instead, we can easily do that with data-driven creatives on DV360 paired with interactiveness which helps maximize relevant engagement with the target audience and increases ROI. 

An example of personalization with data-driven creatives 

Brand Safety 

DV360 offers various brand safety control options to advertisers to prevent their ads from being displayed on sites with content that is not good for the brand’s image like Adult, Drugs etc. and tools like Ad Fraud prevention which can be used to exclude either High Risk or Medium Risk or High and Medium Risk Websites. Excluding high risk has worked the best in terms of minimizing ad fraud, however, excluding high and medium might impact the delivery of the campaign or increase the CPC. TRAQ Score is like a credit score for a website, the higher the TRAQ score, the safer the website. The scores range from 250-1000. Using scores between 500-1000 has worked the best for our campaigns, which helped prevent ads being displayed on spammy websites in just a few clicks without a huge impact on the cost for each click. 

This helps advertisers make the most of their advertising budgets by reducing irrelevant clicks which in turn reduces wasted advertising budgets and gets more clicks from relevant users.

Advanced Targeting Options on DV360 

DV360, one of the biggest digital innovations in recent times, offers various targeting options to advertisers to choose where they want their ads to be served to who they want to and do not want show their ads

Placing Ads - Advertisers can pick the environment like website or apps, categories and placements, choose specific apps or app categories, browser, viewability on the browser, above or below the fold, devices and even the connection speed of the browsers. The ad exchanges can be used to eliminate environments that are not relevant or generating ROI. Example - If ads placed on apps are generating too many accidental clicks and reducing the ROI, apps can be excluded in just a few clicks. 

Audience Targeting Options - Along with Google Audiences and custom audiences, advertisers also have access to 1st party lists, premium 3rd party lists and created combined audiences of any Google Audience, Custom Audience, 1st party or 3rd party list. For example, if you want to target CEOs of companies with employees of more than 5000, we can target those audiences using a combined audience of 3rd party lists. This helps advertisers reach the most relevant audience however niche it is and save impressions served to users that might not be relevant.

Audience Exclusions -  Exclude any 1st or 3rd party list, Google audience and also create an audience of users based on impressions already served to exclude them from your campaigns. For example A user has been served 3 impressions for one offer. You can create an audience for this and exclude it from the other offer to avoid overlap and save impressions and clicks which can be used to engage with more users. 

Advanced Tracking Options using DV360 and Campaign Manager

Programmatic advertising offers advertisers advanced tracking options when Campaign Manager is used. A few of these are:

 

Tracking Frequency & Journey across Platforms

Campaign Manager lets advertisers track the number of impressions a user is served across platforms like Google, Facebook, OTTs, Publishers and cap it across all platforms. This helps advertisers get a single view of a user and track the entire journey across platforms and avoid overexposing ads to a single user, since they are tracked as different users on different platforms, save wasted impressions and reach more users in the same budgets. 

Audience Overlap

Campaign Manager lets advertisers evaluate the overlap of audiences across platforms and helps make better media planning decisions. Example - we ran campaigns on two different platforms but the overlap of the audience on both the platforms is 85% which means the audience on both the platforms are the same and one of these can be removed from our media plan for the next campaign. 

Transparency in PG Deals 

Leverage programmatic advertising for placing ads on different publishers like Moneycontrol or NTDV has several benefits that can lead to optimizing the efficiency of campaign budgets:

  1. Tracking a user across platforms and capping frequency at a user level
  2. Programmatic offers 100% transparency of impressions served and clicks received, whereas in a direct deal, advertisers have to depend on reports shared by the publishers. 

What advertisers can do to help Programmatic drive maximum ROI 

  • Set clear objectives 
  • Use the targeting options in the best way to reach your audience 
  • Test, evaluate and optimize
  • Give the system time to learn and start working for you 

Set clear objectives

Setting clear objectives before starting the campaign helps in better optimization. The objective of the campaign shapes the entire structure of the campaign right from the goal, what we are optimizing for, the bidding strategy, the audiences that are targeted and creatives that are used. Making too many changes to these elements of the campaign can have a negative impact on the learnings. 

Use the targeting options in the best way to reach your target audience

With so many targeting options available on DV360, we can target even very niche audience segments to reach relevant audiences, paired with the relevant placement of the ads with data-driven creatives to be as relevant and interactive as possible. 

Test, Evaluate & Optimize 

Check which creatives work - Leverage rich media creatives and see which format and communication works better 

Check with audience works - Test different custom audiences, combined audience, look at the audience analysis report to check which audience list has an overlap with your 1st party list and define your target audience

Check which frequency works - With advanced tracking options advertisers can analyze which media platforms and which frequency works the best to drive ROI and optimize campaigns accordingly. 

Check which publishers have an overlap of the audience and choose the one which is more cost-effective - Analyze data from existing campaigns to make better media decisions and budget allocations based on the cost-effectiveness of each channel to reach the same audience.

Analyze Campaign Performance - Check all elements of the campaign like which environment, age, geo, day of the week, time of the day, placement, ad exchange, position, the bid strategy works the best for increasing ROI from a campaign. 

Give the system time to learn and start working for you 

A lot of times, advertisers initiate campaigns but pause it if there are no immediate results, however programmatic advertising, like any other advertising platform, requires machine learning to generate results and ROI. Advertisers should evaluate the performance of a campaign not just by the direct results but also by the impact it creates in terms of the consideration a campaign creates, how does the remarketing to this audience work in campaigns, etc. 

Now leverage DV360 (Display Video 360) in Self Serve mode

Google offers their programmatic solutions only to agencies and not to brands - but there are agencies like Social Beat that offers a self serve option to brands and other agencies where they can use the existing DV360 access to run campaigns. This is known as Self Serve programmatic advertising.


Taboola inventory is now directly integrated with Google DV360

  • Nandita Raman
  • |
  • 14 February , 2020
  • |
    • 2 min read

As the saying goes - The world is becoming a smaller place and digitisation is definitely contributing to it. Speaking of digitization, online advertising is considered a boon for businesses to keep their audiences interested in their brands. However, targeting the right audience is the first challenge faced by advertisers. This is where Taboola emerges as a game-changer in the sector of native advertising. With multiple options and settings, brands are able to create relevant and consistent content for ads that are published in multiple webpages and are synced with the design and behaviour of the users on the page. The best part of using Taboola is that advertisers can reach out to a large target audience to make their content visible and thereby converting potential users to customers

On the other hand, managing ad spends is the next challenge faced by digital advertisers. This is when Google DV360 comes to your rescue. DV360 is a service platform that helps online advertisers to optimise their campaign with data-driven insights. This platform integrates various advertising tools to create ads that are impactful and efficient. With DV360, it has become easy to manage ad spends and revise the strategies for maximum ROI

The best of both worlds

The good news for digital advertisers is that Taboola inventory is now directly integrated with Google DV360, Google's Programmatic Platform that is also available in India. This means marketers can now access Taboola using the DV360 platform and enjoy the convenience of optimising their campaigns while reaching a relevant target audience. This integration comes in as a blessing for advertisers to make constructive decisions to run campaigns that meet all the goals while managing spendings to yield the best results.

How to activate Taboola on DV360?

If you are already using DV360, activating Taboola is a simple process. Here is a step-by-step guide to activate the Taboola Exchange option on the DV360 platform.

  • Firstly, log in to your DV360 account. On the left menu, select the settings and click on the basic details option.
  • Then, spot the exchanges section and find Taboola exchange from the list of options on the page.
  • Tick the box next to Taboola exchange and save your changes.


Now you are all set to start your ads and bring out the best results as per the objectives of your campaigns. 

Online advertisers have started leveraging both Taboola and DV360 to run successful campaigns by making the right decisions and targeting a wide range of audiences with innovative creatives, audio and video ads.  If you have still not used these tools, hurry up and leverage these valuable platforms to build your brand and generate maximum ROI.


Programmatic Advertising: The Future of the online advertising landscape

  • Nandita Raman
  • |
  • 23 September , 2019
  • |
    • 8 min read

Programmatic advertising is considered to be one of the biggest digital marketing trends in 2019 and Google has predicted that 60% of its advertising budgets will be put towards programmatic by the end of this year. Although programmatic advertising has taken over a fair share of the digital advertising space, there is still a level of uncertainty among many marketers. The main reason for this is the lack of information when it comes to programmatic advertising and the reluctance in letting go of traditional advertising methods. So how can programmatic advertising help Indian brands take their customer reach to the next level?

What is programmatic advertising?

Today, two important factors that play a crucial role in the success of a business is its marketing techniques and digital advertising tools. Earlier many companies were dependent on offline mediums of advertising, but in recent years digital advertising has become the primary means of marketing for many businesses. Programmatic advertising is taking centre stage when it comes to this type of marketing. 

‘Programmatic’, as the name suggests, is the use of a program or software to buy digital space/inventories. Not only is this process more cost-effective but it is also incredibly efficient. There was a time when the process of advertising involved numerous sub-processes and human negotiations that resulted in a lot of delays. But with the use of artificial intelligence, programmatic advertising has made ad buying in the digital space easier than ever. 

How does programmatic advertising work?

In its simplest form, programmatic advertising is an automatic bid on advertising inventory which happens in real time. This is known as real-time bidding. It gives the owner of the ads the freedom to create and optimise the adverts to their liking. However this type of programmatic advertising is just one type, there are other programmatic types that guarantee impressions from specific websites. This is referred to as programmatic direct. 

When a person engages with a programmatic ad, the website publishing the ad bids for an impression in an auction of the ad in the marketplace. This auction is run among the different advertisers who want their ad to be displayed on the webpage. The brand with the highest bid wins. 

Although this auction process may seem time-consuming in theory, the system is automated and the entire auction can happen in milliseconds that it takes for the web page to load. The bids of each of the competing advertisers is pre-programmed into the system. When the customer clicks on the ads, the advertiser will convert this into a sale.

To learn more about programmatic advertising check out our video on how can it help your brand scale your digital marketing efforts. 

Types of creative formats for Programmatic advertising

When it comes to programmatic advertising, there are many different ad formats that companies can use so that they can create the largest impact and scale using creatives. 

Here are a few:

Native video

Many brands prefer native ads because they can be customised to meet the look and feel of the publisher’s page. This can result in better visibility and higher engagement with the ad. Native ads also allow you to reach the market quicker because a set bundle of assets are used to fill in the ad templates.

Youtube ad

In today’s mobile-first world, it can be hard to grab the attention of the audience. Bumper ads a quick and efficient way to give the viewer snippets of your product or service while they are on the go. Insteam ads, on the other hand, can be skippable or non-skippable, based on the objective of the advertiser. These ads are optimised with the help of AL and ML for better traction. They also have the added advantage of tracking post-view floodlight activity conversions for a specified attribution window. 

Lighbox ad

Lightbox ad comes under responsive ads which have the ability to fit to any ad space depending on the display screen. Lightbox ads typically contain galleries with images and videos that enable the customer to effectively engage with the ad. Moreover, lightbox ads streamlines the ad engagement which can be done by clicking or tapping on the ad that is displayed. This way it prevents any accidental engagement.

App Promotion ad

The app install platform helps you to create an ad that helps in increasing the number of app downloads. You can promote your app by creating an interstitial ad containing images or youtube videos, catchy title and suitable description. App Install ads are designed to create awareness about the app and also allows users to directly install the app by engaging with the ad.

Parallax ad

Parallax ads helps you create a distinctive and creative ad display. By utilising the parallax animation effect, you can display different images in layers with description. Users can view the entire ad only if they scroll down screen. Unlike other types of ad, the engagement is measured with the number of users scrolling down for complete information, even if they do not click on the ad.

Audio ad

Audio ads helps in brand awareness for reaching to a wider audience thereby increasing the number of leads. With the availability of different platforms like spotify, Apple music, google play and many more, leveraging audio ads will be a potential ad strategy to improve brand reach.

Flipbook

Flipbbok is a unique way to grab the attention of users with a short video on the mobile screen. This video is as short as five seconds and if the user is interested to learn more about the video, they can tap on the clipping to view the entire video. The video clipping plays  while the user is scrolling down and and while scrolling up the video plays in reverse. Similar to parallax ads, the engagement rate is measured by number of users scrolling, even though they do not click on the ad.

How can your business do Programmatic advertising?

Many consider Programmatic advertising to be the future of digital advertising. A report by Magna global stated that by the end of 2019, 50% of all advertising will be Programmatic. 

So how can your business do Programmatic advertising? Like traditional advertising, there are many factors that a business needs to consider before they implement this. They include:

Set goals

Once you know how and where you are going to implement the programmatic ads, the next step is to set goals. You need to know what you expect to get out of programmatic advertising such as the conversion rate or the click rate and set goals accordingly.

Study the market

As with any medium of advertising, the first step is to study the market. Programmatic ads appear on webpages, apps and audio-video content, to name a few. So, you need to know what type of web pages your customers are visiting as well as what competitors in the same space are doing. This will give you a better understanding of what webpages to target based on the audience personas identified.

Take up a full-funnel approach

Programmatic advertising is a great way to put your brand name out there, hence, it is crucial that your ad appears in the right places to the right audience. It is a good idea to take up a full-funnel approach and target the audience based on the consumer's journey. Pick out the information that brings out the essence of the brand in the ad.

Select your audience

DV360 provides comprehensive targeting options in order to fulfill the campaign objectives. Advertisers have the option of choosing Google-provided audiences for no extra cost, along with first-party audiences or purchase third-party audience, based on the campaign goals. 

How to use your company’s data to your advantage?

With the help of data available on the market, the brand needs to gather behavioural insights to run a successful programmatic campaign. There are three types of data that come into play when thinking about programmatic advertising. The first would be the data collected by the marketer on the customers. The second would be the data gathered by an advertising agency who would use the information to help the brand build its programmatic advertising strategy. The third type of data, also known as third-party data are reports that can be purchased by any company online. 

Brands need to pay close attention to the data they collect as it can give them valuable insights into customer patterns and behaviour. Programmatic advertising can then be targeted based on scale and accuracy. If the target audience is small, the accuracy can be intensified on a small scale or vice versa if the target audience is large. 

When it comes to retargeting existing customers, it is important to use programmatic advertising to give them a story behind the brand rather than information about the product or service as you would with a new customer. But don’t focus solely on retargeting, your programmatic advertising campaign needs to be optimised from start to finish to keep the customer engaged at all times.

Challenges of programmatic advertising

There are many challenges for online advertising and programmatic is no exception to these challenges. Although programmatic advertising is slowly gaining traction, the concept is still in its nascent stage. This is mainly because of lack of information about the concept, where and how to use the technique. 

The next big challenge is , having invested money in ads, it is a natural expectation for brands to reap maximum benefits. But what if your ads are viewed by bots and not real audience? This is called as the AdFraud where your investment on advertisements yields no results. Here is where research and knowledge plays a key role in displaying your ads to the relevant audience. You should make sure that your ads are displayed on reputed and trusted websites, for which you should be sure of the website. 

Brand safety plays a prime role in securing your ads on the webpages. Here are some brand safety methods that you can incorporate for your programmatic advertising.

Brand safety measures

One of the key concerns for many marketers today is brand safety. In recent years many brands have become more vigilant about safety measures which were spurred by the many ads being placed next to political and violent content that often took the focus away from the brand’s message.

Here are a few important tips advertisers can use to ensure that their programmatic ad buys to protect the brand name. 

Invest in private marketplaces

It is recommended that advertisers leverage their relationships with publishers and run ads in the private marketplace (PMP). This is an effective way to purchase programmatic ads because you know exactly who you are purchasing the ads from and where the ads will be placed.

Opt for premium placements

It is crucial for advertisers to escape the vicious cycle of posting their ads in fraudulent and irrelevant websites. Your advertisement should protect the brand’s reputation by making sure you place your ads on premium and trusted web pages. Using brand safety you set a platform for the right audience to engage with your ad.

Whitelists

In contrast to blacklisting certain websites, you can also whitelist them. This is a list of sites that are safe to run your ads on. This may seem like a time-consuming task but there are many exchanges that require websites to complete an intense inventory approval process.

Make use of exclusions in your targeting

Not only do you focus on targeting relevant audience, you should also be aware of your negative targets. Under brand safety tools, you can exclude certain web pages from showing your ad, considering the site to be unsafe for your ad to be displayed.

Ad fraud verification services

Advertisers can use the services of third-party vendors to prevent ad fraud. This feature is present under the "brand safety" tab where you can choose between leading providers like Integral Ad Science, Double Verify and Adloox to prevent your ad from being showing to fraudulent websites while saving up on advertising dollars. 

Is programmatic advertising the future?

Programmatic advertising is definitely on the rise in India in 2019 largely because of the efficiency it provides. Traditional ad campaigns require a lot of iterations and can either be a hit or miss. But with programmatic ad campaigns, brands don’t need to worry about their ad expenditures. The program ensures that money is spent in the best possible way. All you need to do is enter the required information into the software and you are all set. 

Programmatic advertising uses customer’s data and company goals to create and set ads to effectively target the customer base. This type of ad buying frees up more time from brands and agencies that they can use to think more creatively about the customer and how programmatic advertising can be leveraged to engage with India’s next billion Internet users.

Google offers their programmatic solutions only to agencies and not to brands - but there are agencies like Social Beat that offers a self serve option to brands and other agencies where they can use the existing DV360 access to run campaigns. This is known as Self Serve programmatic advertising.


9 digital marketing trends in India that will shape 2019

  • Divya Premkumar
  • |
  • 25 February , 2019
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    • 6 min read

It’s no secret that the world of digital marketing is constantly in a state of flux. What works today might be completely obsolete tomorrow. If your brand is still continuing to use the same techniques in 2019 as you did in the previous year, expect to see declining results. To ensure your brands stay on top of its digital marketing game this year, here are nine of the most important trends to stay ahead of.

An explosion of vernacular content online

The online space in India is set to get even more colourful and diverse. As even larger numbers of users get access to low-cost internet and affordable mobile phones, there will be a greater demand for internet content in the languages they understand best. To cater to this growing internet audience, brands need to push vernacular to the front and centre of their digital marketing strategy. Right from their websites, to their apps, social media campaigns, performance advertising and even social media listening, Indic languages should be the focus.

Speaking to regional audiences involves more than just taking a brand’s main communication and translating it into various languages. Instead, it requires them to develop communications aimed specifically at these audiences, keeping their unique needs, challenges and desires at the core. Only by doing this can they create that all-important personal connection with consumers. 22 Languages, one of the top vernacular startups, is designed specifically to help brands reach out to a larger audience in vernacular languages.

Read our case study on How Multilingual Ads Helped Generate Higher-Quality Leads With Lower CPL to learn how vernacular techniques can produce unprecedented results for your brand.

Growth of voice search

The seeds of voice search were sowed back in 2018, but it is in 2019 that this trend will fully come into its own. Today, it isn’t just mobile that’s driving voice search, but the proliferation of smart assistants like Amazon’s Alexa and Google’s Voice Assistant. The push for voice search will also be coming from the other end of the spectrum, from users who are just starting to use the internet or who might not even know how to type. But regardless of who the audience for voice search is, one thing is certain: SEO as we know it will have to change. Traditional keyword research will become obsolete since user queries will be completely different when using voice search. Voice also means that position zero, the ‘featured snippet’ will become even more coveted. 99% of voice search results draw from the featured snippet, so content creators will have to focus even harder on optimising their content for Google to pick it up. 

Be sure to watch our detailed video on a complete guide to Voice Search Marketing for more tips and insights.

Videos and interactive content

While videos have been around for decades, they have only recently started exploding on digital platforms and social media. In 2019, if your brand doesn’t have a strong repertoire of engaging, high-quality videos, you could be missing out on a sizeable audience. YouTube, the world’s second largest search engine, can become even more essential in 2019. Through techniques like YouTube SEO, brands can ensure that their content is visible to relevant audiences. For tips on how to rank your videos, read our in-depth article: YouTube SEO Tips: The Secret Sauce to Ranking Your Videos in 2019.

But the importance of videos extends beyond just YouTube. Videos on landing pages and in emails have been shown to improve performance and conversions. Facebook is also witnessing a growing popularity of videos. In one survey, around 44% of respondents admitted to watching at least 5 videos every day on the platform.

As videos gain momentum, multiple video formats are also being developed and explored. Interactive videos are emerging as a popular option due to the higher user engagement they deliver. In these videos, users are required to take some form of action which can influence the video. This could be either in terms of the content displayed or the storyline that the video takes. Apart from interactive content, live videos are also creating a stir. Currently, they are available on Instagram and Facebook, while YouTube is also starting to introduce it. Live videos are a great way for brands to showcase ‘behind-the-scenes’ footage and develop a more personal connect with their audience.

Smarter interactive chatbots

Chatbots have been slowly making an entry from 2017, however, chatbots in 2019 will be more intelligent than ever before. Most chatbots currently have a limited script, usually offering a fixed set of options that users can choose from. Once the query is narrowed down, users are often transferred to a human representative to resolve it. With the advent of AI, however, chatbots are likely to completely replace the human aspect previous involved. They are programmed to be smarter, respond to a wide number of queries in a meaningful way and resolve issues without requiring any human intervention. In fact, through AI, chatbots are likely to be able to keep up a long conversation with users without coders having to input a long script beforehand. As the technology matures, you can expect chatbots to become even more ubiquitous as brands capitalise on their low cost and higher efficiency. 

AI for better audience targeting

AI isn’t just for smarter chatbots; it is also becoming the most accurate way for brands to identify their core audience and develop core messaging for them. Through a combination of machine learning and artificial intelligence, predictive customer analytics can eliminate much of the guesswork involved with digital marketing.

One way they do this is by assigning a ‘lead score’ to leads generated. AI can analyse large volumes of leads at a time, identify common patterns, group them into various buckets based on their behaviour and help you create hyper-personalised content for them. Since personalisation is key to nurturing leads, AI can almost certainly lead to higher conversions for marketers. AI can also identify similarities in current consumers and generate custom targeting options that marketers can utilise to ensure more accurate delivery of ads. This will help improve the quality of leads generated via digital. 

UX and AMP for desktop 

Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) was a crucial mobile ranking factor for websites in 2018. In 2019, the importance of AMP will not be limited to mobiles alone. Google recently made AMP available for desktops versions of websites as well. With this feature, users will be able to enjoy the same speed and easy navigation that AMP offers even while browsing on their desktop.

With the introduction of this feature, it’s time for brands to re-look at their website and how user-friendly it is. By making their websites (or at least critical, content-heavy sections like blogs) AMP-friendly, brands might be able to enjoy greater visibility on search engines. Since AMP pages are also easier for users to navigate through, an improved UX can encourage them to spend more time on the website and learn more information about the brand.

Find out how AMP landing pages helped us achieve a 33% lower cost-per-lead.

Growth of Programmatic Advertising in India

In 2019, almost 65% of all digital media buying will be programmatic. Programmatic is without a doubt the most cost-effective, efficient way for advertisers to purchase digital ad space. Programmatic advertising is rapidly growing in India with Google Marketing Platform (GMP) leading the way. Unlike previous methods which required human intervention and manual bids, programmatic algorithms can determine the best media mix and automatically purchase it. This technology enables marketers to reach a scale previously unthought of. They can target larger audiences over a wider variety of channels with absolutely no time or effort lost. Since it can optimise in real-time, markets can do a lot more with their budgets and reduce their cost-per-leads.

Decline in organic search and traffic

With every new SERP feature that Google introduced, organic traffic takes a hit. Click-through-rates have been steadily dropping and 2019 will be a continuation of this trend. Answer boxes, for instance, answers a user’s query without them having to actually click on a link. So while your page might show up on a featured snippet, you might not notice a significant rise in organic traffic to that page.

So does this mean the sun has set on the SEO empire? Fortunately, no. This just means that marketers will need to re-align their SEO strategy. For example, they will need to start focusing more on creating brand awareness and driving up brand searches. When users start searching for your company’s name, Google cannot prevent users from clicking on your website. It also means tailoring your content specifically for higher click-through rates. You need to give users enough information that Google picks it up and displays it, but not enough for their curiosity to be satisfied. If users are only getting half an answer from your snippet, they are more likely to click on your page to get the full information.

Decline in organic reach on Instagram

Previously, organic reach on Facebook had taken a hit, with pages showing close to zero reach without paid promotions. In 2019, all signs are pointing towards Instagram going down the same route. As Instagram grows in popularity and adds new users every minute, it predictably wants brands to start paying for higher reach. If your company page doesn’t have adequate promotional budgets, then it’s time to scale up this year. But while showcasing your brand on Instagram might become more expensive, it’s still completely worth it. India currently has around 71 million active users and this number is only set to grow from here. Clearly, brands cannot afford to neglect this audience, paid or otherwise.

2019 is proving to be an exciting year for brands, giving them opportunities to experiment with new ad formats and strategies. By taking advantage of these upcoming trends, brands can gain a strong lead over their competition.

This article was originally published in Campaign India.

If you're looking for more information into digital marketing trends that will shape India in 2019, do check out our co-founder Vikas' in-depth video below.

The great thing about the digital space is that trends are always shifting, making space for new trends to come up. Check out our article on the trends we predict will shape 2020.

Are interactive ads changing the way brands advertise?

  • Rhea
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  • 23 August , 2018
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    • 5 min read

Interactive ads allow users to engage with them or explore them in new ways. The average digitally-active user is exposed to hundreds of ads every single day! With so many ads bombarding them, people automatically turn on their filters and are able to ignore a majority of these. While this coping mechanism might help a user wade through an ads-saturated world, it can also be a source of great concern for brands. With brands spending huge amounts on advertising, they can’t afford to have their audience simply ignore their ads. So how do you prevent a user from scrolling past, turning off or forgetting about your ad? The answer might lie in the new format of advertising: interactive ads.

What are interactive ads?

Interactive ads create immersive experiences for audiences that capture their attention completely. The rich technology that has fuelled interactive ads allows users to experiment and engage with your ads. This helps create a lasting impression on your audience, as a result of which ads perform better. While these ads work on desktop and tablet too, mobile is the platform showing greatest results. As more users spend most of their screen time on mobile phones, this is another reason why brands should start experimenting with interactive ads. Modern-day audiences, millennials, in particular, don’t want to be passive spectators. While digital advertising as a whole offers users a personalised two-way form of communication, interactive ads go one step further.

Why you should start using interactive ads

Interactive ads have delivered clear results for brands using them. If you start using the magic of interactive ads in your strategy, be prepared to see these four results:

1. Better engagement on ads

You might have a beautifully designed landing page, but how do you get users to actually click on it and submit their details? Most interactive ads also come with a call-to-action which takes a user to the brand’s landing page or product page. Since interactive ads are more engaging than other formats, users are more likely to actually click on the button. Interactive ads are also more fun than most other forms of advertising. Interactive campaigns in the past have witnessed a 300 per cent higher CTR, positive brand perception and higher recall than other forms of advertising.

2. Higher lead conversion

For most brands, the metric they’re chasing after isn’t just lead generation, but actual conversions of those leads. Interactive ads have an average of 3x conversion rates than other formats like video ads, with this number going up to 7x for some campaigns. On the face of it, interactive ads might appear to have a higher CPL than other forms of advertising like display. However, users who engage with the ad can be retargeted via display campaigns, leading to higher conversions and improved quality of leads generated via digital.

3. Generates more data

Data is the foundation of every marketing strategy and is immensely valuable to marketers everywhere. Interactive ads offer a huge goldmine of data that can go deeper than other kinds of ads. You can gain granular information on how long people viewed your ad, what they clicked on, if they answered any questions, whether they replayed it and if they shared it with others. This data can help you formulate a more refined approach, improving the performance of future campaigns as well.

Interactive ad formats

Like other forms of advertising, the platform you choose for an interactive ad will also depend upon your target audience and your defined metrics for success. Here are the top-performing interactive ad formats that brands need to sit up and take notice of.

1. mCanvas

mCanvas is a rich media ad format that helps brands communicate their story in an experiential way. It is designed exclusively for mobile, a platform that is becoming popular in India.

Ads designed for mCanvas are beautiful and visually appealing, which plays a large role in attracting higher CTRs and user engagement. After clicking on an ad, mCanvas is able to detect smartphone sensors, allowing users to interact with the ad by shaking, tilting or speakig a command. mCanvas also allows brands to reach out to their consumers in a more focused way through a number of targeting options.

For Piramal Mahalaxmi, we decided to look beyond the commonly used digital marketing strategies for real estate in India. We used captivating images of the view from the property to create interactive experiences through mCanvas. Through mCanvas ads on premium placement sites, we were able to direct a number of high-quality leads to our landing page. We retargeted them through Google Display Network, which fetched us a sizeable number of conversions. In this way, mCanvas was an innovative strategy for digital marketing for real estate that helped us push leads through the conversion funnel.  

2. Rich media ads

A rich media ad includes interactive features like videos, audio, gifs and other elements that make it stand out from a static display ad. Google's programmatic advertising solution in India, Google Marketing Platform (GMP), has multiple formats too.  With rich media, there is no limit to the creativity brands can use to captivate their audience. These ads are created through HTML5 technology, allowing multiple content formats to be placed in the same ad. An ad, for example, can play a video and conduct a poll simultaneously. Rich media ads can help brands achieve the twin objectives of higher CTR and greater brand awareness.

One of the best examples of how rich media lets brand push creative boundaries is Nissan’s 2016 World T20 tournament campaign. Nissan detected an opportunity in the fact that many Indians weren’t able to watch television and keep track of live scores. They developed a series of rich media banner ads that also kept track of live scores. The ads were also interactive because they asked users to vote for their favourite teams before a match started. Nissan’s innovative approach helped them stand out from the numerous other brands advertising during cricket season. Their rich media interactive ads delivered a 4x increase in website visits and 10x higher interaction rates compared to industry standards.

A commonly used form of rich media ads is Lightbox.

Lightbox

Lightbox is a format of interactive ads developed by Google. When you click or hover over a Lightbox ad, it responds by expanding. A Lightbox ad can expand to fill your entire screen, play a video or take you through a carousel of images. The ads also generally end with a link to your website. Since these ads are more engaging than traditional formats, it increases the likelihood that a user will actually click on your website link. Lightbox ads automatically adapt themselves to fit your screen size, so they work perfectly on mobile, tablets and desktops. The same display targeting options are also available for Lightbox ads, helping brands ensure they reach the right audience.

3. Interactive video ads

Video ads are one of the best-performing advertising mediums with 64 per cent of viewers buying the product after watching branded videos. When combined with interactive features, they become even more effective. Interactive videos transform what is usually a passive viewing experience into one that actively engages with them. Viewers can answer questions during a video, influence sequences of the storyline and even play games. Interactive videos capture your audience’s attention completely and can be a powerful way to generate leads or send viewers to your website.

At Social Beat, for example, we used an interactive format for our Team video to make it more fun and engaging. Questions popped up at regular intervals and viewers could click on them for answers. This held their attention for a longer time and even helped them learn more about our brand in the process.

Interactive ads have delivered proven results across the board for FMCG, BFSI and B2B brands. With audiences today looking for greater value from advertisements, interactive formats certainly have the upper hand.


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