Programmatic advertising has redefined digital advertising with its automated, data-driven approach that allows marketers to reach the right audience efficiently across various channels. With programmatic, advertisers no longer need to negotiate manually; instead, AI-driven algorithms and real-time bidding (RTB) streamline the ad-buying process, optimizing reach, personalization, and overall campaign performance.
Programmatic advertising offers a powerful way to reach audiences efficiently, with precision targeting, automated bidding, and real-time analytics. However, as brands and marketers work to ramp up programmatic ad campaigns, they must be strategic to achieve measurable ROI without overspending. Often when advertisers switch over to programmatic campaigns or start using programmatic for the first time they have questions about how their campaigns will scale and when; they may also be curious about seeing immediate results as soon as they start their programmatic journeys.
However, success in programmatic advertising doesn’t happen overnight. It requires strategic planning, testing, and optimization, especially when seeking both effective performance and scale.
Why Every Industry Vertical Needs a Unique Approach to Programmatic Advertising
Different industry verticals approach programmatic campaigns uniquely, as each has its own challenges, audience preferences, and conversion goals – and these shape the strategy for their advertising campaign. For example, eCommerce campaigns often prioritize quick conversions, relying heavily on dynamic retargeting to nudge users toward purchases. Here, lower-funnel tactics and real-time product ads are crucial, as they can drive immediate action and help achieve volume at scale relatively quickly. In contrast, verticals like finance and fintech may take longer to scale because they typically target high-intent, quality leads rather than high volume. For these campaigns, audience segmentation needs to be more precise, as compliance and regulatory standards require careful targeting, and users may need more time to move through the consideration funnel before completing account registrations or transactions.
Similarly, mobile gaming campaigns often focus on user acquisition and engagement, using a mix of lookalike targeting and retargeting to attract players who are likely to make in-app purchases or become long-term users. This vertical benefits from rapid scale but must continuously refine creative and messaging to attract users who will stay engaged over time. Healthcare and medical apps face unique challenges in programmatic advertising, as they typically have a lower frequency of use but need to prioritize retention and prevent app uninstalls.
Crucial Factors in Scaling Programmatic Campaigns
Scaling a programmatic campaign without compromising performance requires a nuanced approach to targeting, creative execution, and continuous optimization. Key factors include:
- Data Quality and Integration: While it’s crucial to have the right audience data for targeting accuracy and personalization, advertisers can also focus on contextual signals to create detailed audience segments without identifying a user.
- Creative Testing and Optimization: To reduce ad fatigue and maintain high engagement rates, it’s crucial to consistently test and refresh ad creatives. Dynamic creative optimization and having an intelligent creative optimization with your programmatic partner can allow you to compare different combinations of images, copy, and calls-to-action to discover which resonates best with each audience segment. Creative elements should evolve with campaign phases; for example, top-of-funnel (awareness) creatives might differ significantly from bottom-of-funnel (conversion) assets.
- Budget Allocation and Bid Strategy: Scaling requires a balanced budget that accounts for higher costs associated with premium placements and peak bidding periods. Studies reveal that automated bid adjustments can increase ad spend efficiency by up to 20%. A robust programmatic platform offers dynamic bidding options, including AI-based bidding adjustments to optimize costs and offer better success.
. - Frequency Capping and Retargeting: Preventing ad fatigue is crucial for both performance and brand perception. By controlling how often users see ads, frequency capping ensures that impressions aren’t wasted. Meanwhile, retargeting allows marketers to continue engaging high-potential users who haven’t converted yet. Success here often depends on finding the right intervals to serve retargeting ads, segmenting users based on intent, and gradually re-engaging without overwhelming the audience.
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How Long Does it Take to Find Performance & Scale for a Programmatic Campaign
The timeline for reaching optimal performance and scale in programmatic campaigns varies, with factors like industry, data availability, and campaign complexity influencing the duration. While eCommerce or mobile gaming campaigns may start yielding strong results within a few weeks, sectors like finance and healthcare might need more extended optimization phases. Three key phases in any programmatic campaign involve:
- Exploration: During the Exploration phase (also known as the “learning phase”), our machine learning algorithms do what they do best: learning. By analyzing 1000s of variables, our growth platform identifies which specific ad units, placements, and contextual data points are driving the most conversions for the campaign—and therefore, what ads to show, as well as where and when to increase engagement and ROAS.
- Optimization: Our machine learning model will focus on finding which combination of variables will drive the best performance for the advertiser’s KPIs. As a result, campaign volume will start to increase and CPAs will fall.
- Scale: Having found the best combination of behavioral and contextual data points, our goal will be to achieve quality at scale, reaching more users while driving incremental growth for your app. This is one of the top questions app marketers have for mobile DSPs. As is often the case in programmatic, it comes down to data.
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Other Factors That Influence Performance of Programmatic Campaigns
In any programmatic campaign, there are three basic components that combine to make up performance:
Ad placements: the inventory where each ad is going to be displayed
Bidding: the pricing of each ‘bid’ or opportunity of showing an ad
Creatives: the ads representing different creative concepts across a variety of formats and variations
Any significant change made on these components which might limit the amount of available data is likely to extend the duration of the exploration phase. This includes reducing the budget of the campaign, pausing existing ad sets, and changing key events. This is why ad strategy needs to be defined upfront and based on the campaign goals to deliver a good balance between creative performance, ROAS, and the time the campaign will take to ramp up.
Struggling to get your programmatic campaigns work for you? It’s time to get the right experts in the driver’s seat! Schedule a call today with mDSP and know how our privacy-first programmatic can drive sustainable results for you!
