It’s a good idea for agencies to partner up with programmatic advertising specialists to hit the ground running with programmatic campaigns. If you have a client that wants to dip their feet in programmatic, but you don’t have the necessary expertise or manpower at your service, you might consider outsourcing to a specialized programmatic agency like Grapeseed Media. 

We talked to Stefan Muirhead, President of Ignition72, a full-service digital marketing agency and Matthew Kelly, Head of Digital and E-commerce Precious Media, about how they work with Grapeseed.

Stefan, Matthew thank you for your time today. Let’s start at the basics. What are programmatic ads and how do they help clients reach their ideal consumers?

Stefan: Have you ever had a family member buy something that you would never buy, but from your computer? From then on you see ads for that product, and other similar products. Programmatic ads are basically ads that target people based on behavior: past and expected future. Everything we do online is tracked, watched, and even anticipated.

While this might seem creepy at first, it does have a consumer benefit: ads are much more likely to be relevant to you. Who would have thought that in 2022 we are going to click on more ads than in 2012? Without programmatic you would get tons of teeth whitening and get rich quick ads, which reflect a market that does not believe in online ads.

This is because quality advertisers want a quality correlation. They want to know that their ads are being seen not only by humans, but by the specific humans they are trying to reach.

Why should agencies consider making programmatic ads part of the suite of services they offer their clients?

Stefan: If you’re an agency that wants to be marketing online, then programmatic ads should be part of your marketing suite. The more difficult your audience is to reach, the more likely programmatic ads are going to help you. From there it is a case of budget, tracking and strategic planning. 

For example: our company markets to Bank CEOs, a group that in general are hard to reach. With programmatic ads, we show ads not only against their work profiles, but also their personal/home ones as well. Then, by making the messaging and call to action compelling, we entice a click.

Any agency worth their salt has a multitude of weapons at their disposal to assist their clients. Programmatic ads are powerful & effective, and now. A better question would be why would you not consider them?

Matthew: As an agency, we have learnt a lot about media management since working with an agency like Grapeseed Media. This means when having conversations with other clients, we can articulate the media approach and how it fits into activations within a digital and eCommerce context.

What is it like partnering with Grapeseed Media as an extension of your agency to offer programmatic ads?

Stefan: My company did not originally do any programmatics ads, but our biggest client had terminated their contract with their marketing agency and asked us (their web Agency) if we could take over a substantial annual campaign.

Grapeseed Media made it possible, literally: they assisted and led all planning, provided assistance with making the ad assets and targeting plan; they put together the tracking in our clients Tag Manager. At its core, Grapeseed was a turn-key solution, we were up and running, and looking ‘pro’ from day one. It has been four years now, and we continue to grow our programmatic marketing: Working with regional retail clients, and other select opportunities.

Grapeseed opened our company to a very profitable, strategic and relevant technology.

Matthew: Onboarding with Grapeseed Media was very seamless and easily done. We saved time on campaign management from optimisation and reporting, leaving me time to concentrate on strategy. They manage our campaign on our behalf which is great. They have the knowledge and experience to be proactive as opposed to reactive.

Do you have any examples of how programmatic ads helped your clients’ campaigns?

Stefan: We have worked with Grapeseed to sell Pizzas, Artificial Intelligence License plate readers, and back office financial products for bankers. In every case we are targeting refined users who generally are hard to reach: they do not click ads, they work in secure environments; or they are just really hungry for Pizza, lol.

Every campaign we have run with Grapeseed Media has been a success, and each year beats the previous. 

What are the biggest benefits to using programmatic ads VS traditional ads?

Stefan:

  • Targeting. Normal ads are billboards at the side of the road: you hope that the right person happens to drive by and also happens to notice/remember/take action. In the old days we measured projected reach and frequency, and it took TIME to accomplish that. With Programmatic ads, you can literally target a group of users and inundate them with your message: quickly, but also cost effectively.
  • Cohesive nature of a programmatic campaign across disparate tactics: the system knows you saw an ad on FB, then went to the website, then saw an ad on Twitter, then did a google search and then finally, registered.
  • Detailed reporting. By using Google Analytics, our team can tell the entire campaign story down to device type, geo, creative message and more. Analytics is our source of ultimate truth; and it gives our clients confidence to see the incredibly detailed tracking and reporting we make possible.

To wrap up…

Programmatic advertising can be overwhelming at first – the complex infrastructure, the acronyms, the targeting options, the formats, integrations, tags, data etc. – the list goes on.  There are a lot of moving parts and a lot of factors are at play. For inexperienced users it might quickly get frustrating. When resources and time are limited, your best move as an agency might be to outsource programmatic campaigns to trusted specialists that will make sure your campaigns are performing optimally. 

 

Reach out to Grapeseed Media today to find out more about how we help agencies with programmatic ads.