Business owners and marketers need a leg up to reach their ideal audiences and capture their attention away from their competitors. Display advertising is highly effective for connecting with potential buyers in apps, websites, and social media. However, relying on manual processes is not the way. It's time to embrace automation to optimize digital advertising.
Programmatic display advertising is an accessible and scalable option to help set your business apart. It refers to the automation of trading and placing online banner ads using software for more accurate audience targeting. Automating display ads comes with many benefits and strategic opportunities to grow sales, increase brand awareness, and develop better customer connections.
In this post, we’ll discuss how small businesses can leverage programmatic display ads to optimize their small business marketing.
How Programmatic Display Advertising Benefits Companies
Before we talk about how to implement this game-changing strategy, we should cover what it can do for your business. Programmatic ads achieve the following benefits for businesses:
- Requires a low upfront cost - Create and launch ads more cost-effectively. Programmatic ads have a low barrier to entry and are easy to make with little cost.
- Improves targeting - Programmatic display ads have robust targeting capabilities that enable more granular customer targeting.
- Provides greater scalability - Adjust and scale ads easily based on performance or A/B testing and increase the volume of ads accordingly.
- Offers a wide array of formats – Get access to various formats such as traditional display ads, native ads, responsive display ads, responsive retargeting ads, social ads, or discovery ads to reach your customers wherever their attention is.
- Helps keep your budget in check – Automation is already cost-effective, but it gives you greater control by making it easy to set budgets and monitor ad spending and placement.
- Minimizes ad fraud – Setting safe sites or using an O&O platform gives you security and control over ad fraud.
- Gives you access to analytics and trends – Gain data-driven insights to inform and empower your marketing campaigns.
Tips for Creating Programmatic Ads
Small businesses can succeed with programmatic ads by adhering to the following strategies.
Identify Your Ad Objectives
An easy trap for small businesses to fall into is not being specific with the intent for each individual ad or set of ads. If you aren't sure what you hope to achieve, measuring your progress will be very difficult. Start by developing a list of goals to narrow the type of ads accordingly. Display ads work well for brand awareness, while SEM works well for increasing sales.
Determine Your Target Audience
Analyze your ideal buyers to figure out who you want to reach. Create personas to understand who they are, their shopping behaviors, and what drives their decisions. Identify their pain points to help shape ad copy and placement to show how you can solve their problems.
Pick Platforms Accordingly
Knowing who your target audience is guides you to the type of platforms they use most often. Programmatic ads work for many platforms so you can choose between website display ads, search engines, social media, and mobile apps. You can even drill down on which social media sites and websites where your target segment will most likely encounter your ads.
Make Content Engaging
Regardless of the technique or strategy you use to reach your ideal customer, the copy must be eye-catching and engaging. Remember, there is a lot of content vying for their attention, so ensure yours is the one that draws them in and keeps them moving through the buyer's journey. Make concise and clear ad copy that stands out and gets attention.
Adjust Continuously
Marketing is never a one-and-done exercise. It requires consistent analysis, measurement, and refinement to optimize results. Always check in on ad performance and adjust as necessary to achieve your objectives and get the greatest return on ad spend (ROAS).
Lean Into the Power of Automation with Programmatic Display Advertising
Programmatic display advertising can be a groundbreaking strategy for small businesses. It provides numerous benefits, including greater scalability, flexibility, targeting, cost savings, and access to critical data while minimizing the risk of ad fraud. By carefully analyzing your target customer segment and marketing goals, you are poised to implement your strategy. In choosing the right ad platform, you can achieve improved success with your ad reach, placement, and engagement.
McClatchy has an extensive, well-understood audience along with our own self-serve ad platform to let businesses place ads on a trusted network. When you work with us, your business gains exclusive access to our distinctive audiences, cutting-edge digital strategies, engaging local content sponsorships, and other valuable resources. We are committed to propelling your business toward unparalleled success through targeted advertising solutions. If you are ready to take your small business to the next level with multi-channel ad placements, customized audiences, and real-time campaign reporting, get started leveling up your advertising now.
