From data to execution: developing a programmatic advertising strategy that works

A properly planned programmatic advertising strategy can revolutionize how brands connect with consumers, delivering a personalized brand experience that consistently outperforms other digital display advertising methods in driving online leads and sales conversions. It’s no wonder that building a successful programmatic marketing strategy has become vital for the world’s most successful brands. Leveraging data-driven insights enables them to enter markets swiftly and outmaneuver competitors, offering increasingly refined and personalized customer experiences with every interaction.

Yet, despite its superior targeting and predictive capabilities, powered by AI and machine learning, navigating the programmatic strategy can feel overwhelming without a clear and actionable plan. Without proper guidance, the strategy can quickly transform from a marketer’s holy grail to a bewildering mess that makes no sense to anyone. 

So, where do you start to make it right? Let’s explore.

What is a programmatic advertising strategy?

Programmatic advertising strategies are meant to boost brand awareness, improve lead quality, and amplify campaign results. This approach blends multichannel marketing strategies, enabling you to engage your target audience across multiple platforms. This ensures your brand stays top of mind, accelerating the sales process when prospects are ready to make a purchase.

One of programmatic advertising's standout advantages is its unparalleled scale, offering significantly greater reach than purchasing ad space directly from publishers. It’s also a cost-efficient alternative to traditional methods, providing the added benefit of seamless performance tracking and optimization to drive better outcomes.

Creating a proper programmatic strategy takes serious planning and preparation. A well-defined strategy or roadmap will be your compass, helping you stay on course through the inevitable challenges and changes that come with adopting new advertising technology.

How to build a programmatic strategy?

While programmatic advertising strategy is undeniably powerful, it’s also complex and requires thorough planning. It also requires constant monitoring, optimization, and regular updates to your creative assets.

Building a successful programmatic ad strategy involves defining clear objectives, understanding your target audience, and selecting the right data and technology to reach them. 

• Define your objective and budget

A well-defined objective is the foundation of any successful programmatic advertising strategy.

Clearly identifying your client’s goals will shape every aspect of your programmatic setup. Consider whether you aim to:

• Drive traffic to your website.

• Boost conversions.

• Increase brand awareness.

Often, businesses want to achieve a mix of these objectives. By figuring out the priorities, you can allocate the budget effectively and maximize impact where it matters most. For example, if the goal is brand awareness, you might use a CPM (cost per thousand impressions) bid to prioritize reach or a CPE (cost per engagement) model, paying for impressions only when users click and engage for over 15 seconds. For lower-funnel objectives, such as conversions, a CPC (cost per click) bid strategy may be more appropriate. Aligning your campaign strategy with your business objectives from the outset ensures focus and effectiveness. 

It’s essential to clarify what you want to achieve. Identify the specific goals you’re aiming for and the metrics you’ll use to measure success. These will serve as the foundation for every decision you make throughout your campaign.

Equally important is determining your budget. Knowing how much you’re willing to invest from the outset allows you to calculate appropriate bid amounts to effectively reach your target audience. With your goals and budget in place, you’ll be ready to develop a focused and actionable strategy.

• Work with the right audience

To craft an audience-centric programmatic advertisement strategy, start by determining what type of data (first-party, second-party, or third-party) will help you define and reach your target audience effectively, both at scale and within your budget. It’s equally important to consider the balance between scale and frequency. Overly narrow targeting can limit your reach, making it harder to achieve the desired impact.

Today’s advanced audience targeting tools offer incredible capabilities, especially for marketers new to programmatic advertising. These tools can provide the head start you need to effectively engage your audience. Imagine you’re a property consultancy looking to connect with people exploring properties in specific regions or countries. By providing a list of relevant keywords and competitor domain URLs, programmatic ad tech can anonymously identify these prospects and serve them targeted display ads across the web. This approach allows you to reach your audience segment with precision while maintaining scale and flexibility in your campaigns.

• Choose the right ad format

Programmatic campaign can involve a variety of advertisement formats, so it’s essential to ensure your ad platform supports the one you select.

For example, you could run a display ad campaign, with a banner that appears in designated spaces on websites across the internet. Alternatively, you might opt for a connected TV (CTV) ad, playing as a commercial on popular video streaming platforms. Another option is an audio-only format, designed to engage audiences while they enjoy their favorite music streaming services.

These are just a few possibilities to consider when choosing programmatic advertising best practices and your ad format. Once you’ve decided, the next step is to focus on planning your creative strategy.

• Map an engaging user journey 

Mapping the user journey is about strategically shaping and evolving your interactions with prospects to maximize your chances of conversion. In programmatic advertising, this means delivering the right ad to the right customer on the right channel at precisely the right time.

Think of creative mapping as an extension of your sales process. Your creative assets act like salespeople, building relationships that grow as the customer moves through the journey.

Just a couple of scenarios:

• The prospecting phase:

  A first-time in-store customer needs to feel comfortable with your brand before being encouraged to buy. Similarly, in the programmatic plan, this phase involves softer, introductory messaging designed to create awareness and spark interest in your brand and product.

• The retargeting phase:

  Once the customer is familiar with your product, the conversation shifts to more relevant details, eventually leading to discussions about pricing and closing the sale. In programmatic terms, this is where retargeting comes into play. Here, tailored creative messages are triggered by specific actions, such as visiting certain URLs or clicking on particular buttons, to nurture the prospect further.

A strong programmatic ad partner will take the time to understand your sales process, ensuring that the creative strategy aligns with your goals and KPIs. With tools like creative management software, your ads can be easily adjusted and optimized in real time, adapting to insights gained as the customer journey unfolds.

• Leverage data for performance analytics and troubleshooting

Once your programmatic advertising strategy is finalized and your campaigns are live, it’s crucial to monitor their performance closely. If your campaigns aren’t meeting their goals, dig into the analytics to identify what’s not working. This could involve tweaking your bid strategy, refining your targeting, or updating your ad creative. Take the time to pinpoint the issue and make the necessary adjustments.

Mistakes are a natural part of the learning process. What truly matters is how you apply the insights you gain to improve. Use these lessons to refine your approach and ensure you don’t repeat the same errors.

Building a programmatic ads strategy is challenging but it can be made easier with a clear structure and a good bit of planning. Start by setting realistic objectives, whether it's increasing brand awareness, driving traffic, or boosting conversions. Working with the right audiences across the right channels is also critical. But arguably even more important is to leverage data-driven insights to segment your audience and tailor ad creatives accordingly. Data is at the center of everything these days, and you need to operate data strategically to generate value for your business and maximize the impact of your programmatic media marketing.

Main challenges of your programmatic strategy

Programmatic advertising has gained popularity as an efficient option for advertisers. However, to achieve optimal results, certain challenges must be addressed during strategy development. As you define programmatic approach and the ways you can set up your strategy, you should also be aware of the challenges along the way as well as the potential solutions that you could use to resolve these problems.

Ad fraud and viewability

Ad fraud remains a significant challenge, encompassing fake impressions, bot-driven clicks, and fraudulent conversions. These not only drain programmatic digital media budgets but also compromise campaign effectiveness and brand reputation, as impressions on fraudulent platforms bring no real value. Poor viewability further exacerbates the issue, with ads displayed in areas of a webpage that users rarely see.

Solution:

Collaborate with programmatic experts to place ads only in trusted environments. They can help you employ sophisticated fraud detection tools to identify and block suspicious activities in real-time. Work with reputable ad platforms that implement pre-bid fraud prevention measures. Most importantly, regularly monitor and audit campaign data for anomalies, ensuring impressions are genuine.

Brand safety

Ads appearing alongside inappropriate or harmful content can tarnish a brand's reputation, leading to a loss of trust among audiences. Without proper oversight, advertisers risk unintentionally associating their brand with content that conflicts with their values.

Solution:

Partner with demand-side platforms that have strict vetting processes and collaborate with verified publishers. You should also use contextual targeting to align ads with suitable content categories. On top of that, use brand safety tools like whitelists, blacklists, and keyword exclusions to ensure ads only appear in appropriate environments.

Ad blockers

Ad blockers have become increasingly common, significantly reducing the reach and impact of digital advertising. This not only limits campaign effectiveness but also affects the ROI of programmatic efforts.

Solution:

To tackle that problem, what you can do first is adopt non-disruptive formats like native advertising, which blend seamlessly with content and are less likely to be blocked. Next, focus on creating high-quality, user-friendly ad experiences to reduce the likelihood of triggering ad blockers. You can also engage users through contextual advertising, delivering relevant content tailored to their browsing behavior.

Lack of transparency

The intricate nature of programmatic advertising can obscure visibility into ad placements, bidding processes, and costs, leaving advertisers in the dark about where their money is going and what value they’re getting.

Solution:

Work with transparent platforms that provide detailed reporting and insights. You may also want to implement Supply Path Optimization (SPO) to evaluate and select the most efficient paths to inventory. Demand accountability from partners by setting clear expectations for reporting and auditing practices.

Attribution and measurement

Determining which touchpoints drive conversions and tracking ad viewability can be hindered by fragmented user journeys across devices and platforms. Without accurate attribution, advertisers struggle to optimize campaigns effectively.

Solution:

To address these challenges, use third-party verification tools to validate impressions, clicks, and conversions. Define clear KPIs and measurement frameworks before launching campaigns. Multi-touch attribution models can also be useful to gain a comprehensive view of user journeys and identify the most impactful touchpoints.

Ad fatigue

Repeated exposure to the same ad can frustrate users, leading to reduced engagement and, in some cases, outright avoidance of the brand. This issue is particularly common in campaigns lacking variation or dynamic creative strategies.

Solution:

To battle the ad fatigue, regularly update and rotate ad creatives to keep campaigns fresh and engaging. Experiment with different formats, including video, interactive, and dynamic ads, to capture user attention in diverse ways.

Privacy and compliance

With stringent regulations like GDPR and CCPA, advertisers must tread carefully when collecting and processing user data. Non-compliance can lead to hefty fines and damage to brand reputation.

Solution:

Ensure full compliance with regional data privacy laws by obtaining explicit user consent and respecting their preferences. Use secure data management platforms (DMPs) to protect sensitive information. Adopt privacy-first advertising techniques, such as contextual targeting, to reduce reliance on personal data.

Consider Teqblaze as your trusted partner

Teqblaze stands out as a trusted partner for crafting and executing successful programmatic advertising strategies, combining expertise, technology, and a customer-centric approach to deliver exceptional results.

At the core of Teqblaze’s success is our team of seasoned professionals who understand the complexities of the digital ad ecosystem and help clients navigate it with confidence and precision. Teqblaze employs a data-driven approach, leveraging advanced analytics to build and optimize ad campaigns. By ensuring your ads reach the right audience at the right time, we maximize ROI and elevate campaign performance.

Recognizing that every client has unique needs, Teqblaze delivers customized solutions designed to align with specific goals. Whether your aim is to boost brand awareness or drive conversions, our strategies are tailored to achieve measurable outcomes. With advanced technology at the heart of our operations, Teqblaze enables efficiency and precision. Our expertise and tech solutions support real-time bidding, audience segmentation, and detailed performance tracking, ensuring your campaigns are both effective and future-ready.

Transparency is a cornerstone of Teqblaze’s service. We provide comprehensive reporting and actionable insights, giving clients full visibility into campaign performance and empowering them to make informed decisions. 

By partnering with Teqblaze, you gain more than just a service provider — you gain a strategic ally committed to delivering programmatic ad strategies that drive results and help you achieve your marketing objectives.

TeqBlaze’s experience building programmatic ad ecosystems

Let us give you a brief overview of one of our client’s success stories, just to showcase our expertise in not just building campaign strategies, but building entire programmatic ecosystems. 

Our collaboration with a forward-thinking startup is an example of our success in delivering custom programmatic advertising solutions. The partnership revolved around developing a custom white-label SSP (Supply-Side Platform) and DSP (Demand-Side Platform) bundle, designed to transform the startup’s programmatic capabilities.

The startup set out with an ambitious goal: to revolutionize contextual targeting and ad formats, pushing the boundaries of programmatic advertising. However, they faced notable challenges, including the integration of advanced targeting mechanisms and ensuring seamless ad delivery across multiple formats.

Teqblaze stepped in with a comprehensive white-label solution that addressed these challenges head-on. Key features of their approach included:

• AI-driven optimization to enhance ad performance.

• Customizable features tailored to the startup’s unique business needs.

• A scalable infrastructure capable of managing high data and traffic volumes.

The results were transformative. The startup achieved significant market growth, with improved ad engagement and increased revenue. This success story underscores Teqblaze’s ability to deliver innovative, scalable programmatic solutions that drive measurable business outcomes.

Final word

While programmatic advertising offers tremendous potential to optimize ad targeting, enhance performance, and drive ROI, it also comes with its share of challenges — whether it’s navigating the complexities of ad fraud, ensuring brand safety, or managing ad fatigue. These obstacles can often hinder the effectiveness of campaigns and prevent advertisers from achieving their goals.

However, by partnering with a company like Teqblaze, these challenges can be easily overcome. With our expertise in programmatic advertising, data-driven approach, advanced technology, and commitment to transparency, Teqblaze provides a comprehensive solution that enables businesses to implement and optimize their programmatic ad strategies effectively. Their customized, results-focused approach ensures that advertisers not only avoid common pitfalls but also maximize the potenti