RTB Playbook The Real-time bidding best practice guide for marketers and agencies powered by
The Programmatic Media Play Real-time Bidding (RTB) refers to the process of buying and selling ad impressions in an online auction marketplace. The bids take place in real-time and the bidding process is completed in the milliseconds before the content on a user's webpage loads. Bid prices are calculated based on the perceived value of the media being bought and the audience being targeted. Big Data is collected on online user activity and is used to decide on a bidding price. As a result, the publisher receives the highest bid, the bidder gets their ad placed in front of the user and the advertiser maximises ROI as the bid price is calculated on the quality of the lead. Assuming the advertiser has correctly defined their campaign goals, smart algorithms and Business Intelligence (BI) software are built to find the best impressions for the advertiser. Real-time bidding has changed the online advertising landscape, as marketers no longer need to waste ad spend putting ads in front of users who are not likely to convert or engage with their brand or product.
Kick off with a strong game plan Defining campaign goals, objectives and target audiences is the first and most important step in your campaign. The campaign objective might be brand awareness or offline sales, both of which can be achieved through online advertising. Benchmarketing s media platform uses the information within your strategy to suggest the perfect media sources for your ads. Based on huge amounts of historical data, the platform is also able to make estimates on conversion rates for your campaign, which helps set the right bid amount on each impression or click to achieve optimal performance.
You gotta learn it to earn it 63% 16% 21% Making assumptions of your target markets in online advertising will never lead to learning, insights or conversions. A brand might assume that their target market for affordable car insurance is 18-25 year olds, target them specifically and wonder why they didn't convert once the campaign has ended. If they had expanded their targets to make the data work for them, they might have found that, in fact, mothers from 45-55 years old brought in much higher conversions, as they were the primary buyers of car insurance for their young children. The practice of targeting new segments programmatically means advertisers can learn about new target markets for their brand. This trial and error method has been proven time and time again to be more successful for advertisers marketing their product through online channels.
Tech vs. Human touch Most DSPs and trading desks in 2014 rely much too heavily on data and artificial intelligence, and lack the care and effort needed to enhance results with high-level analysis. Programmatic media buying is in fact a combination of both science (data + algorithms) and art (high level interpretation + analysis). Real-time Bidding technology ultimately predicts future human behaviour from past events, but humans can often be unpredictable. Think about airplanes all commercial planes today have the ability to fly from take-off to landing without a pilot, but would you get on a plane if you knew there were no pilot managing the flight? The margin of error within predictions of online behaviour is getting smaller as technology enhances, but it is still important that advertisers and marketers connect with experienced media buyers like Benchmarketing who are able to drive big strategic decisions, make sense of vast amounts of data, and correct errors in a way only an experienced human can.
Play to your strengths Each media source has its own unique skills and you need to utilise them correctly to see results. Some sources might have a history of high performance for your industry but others may not, some might have high levels of customer service and others, more advanced technology. It is fundamental to the success of your campaign to complete a Benchmarketing Run of Sources (ROSo) test as part of your media plan. Maximise your budget and only allocate funds into the sources that will perform for you. Diversifying media sources is also a crucial component to any Benchmarketing media plan. Take the stock market as an example, diversifying your stock portfolio is a proven method for mitigating risk and maximising return; the same goes for Real-time bidding. Diversifying media sources is the best way to make sure your campaign is sustainable and free from risk. This diversity also helps to create a competitive advantage, as Benchmarketing is able drive down CPAs by making sources compete for the advertiser's budget.
Align individual goals with team goals It is important to define primary and secondary goals for your campaign. Your primary goal might be competition registrations but your secondary goal could ultimately be product sales. Keeping both of these goals in mind is fundamental to creating a winning campaign. For example, primary goals of a Facebook campaign may be competition entries, yet secondary goals may be new fan generation. In most cases creating several goals is not recommended as it dilutes the ability to achieve strong results in each, however in many instances having multiple goals is unavoidable. Let s look at an insurance provider example funnel. If the goal of collecting quotes is given higher priority than down the funnel conversions, such as insurance policy sales, you can expect to get many more quotes than policy sales. We ll call this Volume Strategy. The second potential strategy is to optimise towards policies, where it is likely you will get a lot less quotes as you will only be targeting the inventory where users convert from quote to policy. We ll call this Quality Strategy. The best method to resolve this is by giving priority to your goals. In the example of quotes vs. policies, you will need to assess whether your net outcome is better by getting more quotes (Volume) with a lower conversion rate or less quotes at a higher conversion rate (Quality).
Dress to impress Your offer! 2 1 3 All the elements of your campaign need to work in harmony to convert a customer. If your ad is compelling but your landing page is cluttered and confusing, you may be tracking a high Click-through Rate (CTR) but no actual conversions. Clicks are important as they tell you there is interest in your product. However, there is no point paying for clicks if customers are not going to convert because they are not attracted to your landing page. Benchmarketing s Booster Pages suite was built to help advertisers create landing pages and Facebook apps that are designed for conversions. The best part? After the first campaign round is over, advertisers are able to refresh the landing page creative to align with a new campaign strategy within one day, not the usual one month. When tested against company landing pages, Benchmarketing's Booster Pages have proven to lift conversions by 56%.
Precision is key to scoring a goal Retargeting is not just about persistence, it s about changing the message to suit the person who is seeing it. If a customer didn t click an ad the first time they saw it, it is unlikely they will click the second time unless the new ad they are seeing is altered in a way that is more relevant to them. Knowing the different niches within customer groups who engaged with your ad but didn t convert is the first step. Benchmarketing s Audience Mapping software is able to put leads into three main categories based on how far they came along the acquisition funnel: Hot, Warm and Cold. The software then breaks these categories down into complex subcategories which represent the specific online behaviour of different users in the acquisition funnel. It is also able to make the most of an advertiser's retargeting budget by integrating negative pixels. These pixels ensure no clicks are wasted as they segment and exclude existing customers, log-in errors, and other clicks that are likely to not convert.
Play it brand safe In order to keep your ad from showing on inappropriate websites, it is important to build out a content strategy for your specific campaign and brand sensibilities. Benchmarketing serves impressions to a list of publishers that you, the advertiser, deem good media. These lists are called White Lists, and they make sure inventory is filtered at the source. Benchmarketing ad ops are constantly asked how to combat click fraud and other brand safety concerns. By producing white lists with established and trusted publishers from network and exchanges we have worked with many times, we can have a strong level of certainty that advertisers are getting the value they are paying for. Beyond this, campaigns should set and measure metrics beyond the click. Benchmarketing s tag management approach will give insights into level of engagement after the first click and ensure accountability from first click to campaign goal conversions.
8 Takeaways: Define clear objectives Make the data work for you Partner with experience Diversify and test sources Give priorities to your goals Use strong landing pages Retarget with altered offers Use brand safe media
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