If you’re wondering how to make your display ad campaigns more effective, you might want to consider dynamic creative optimization (DCO).
DCO allows you to run multiple variations of your dynamic ads by personalizing them to your target audience based on metrics such as demographics, geolocation, or user behavior.
You can also customize the call to action (CTA), copy, colors, or landing page according to your requirements.
By leveraging DCO ad creatives as part of your digital advertising strategy, you can serve ads that are personalized, hyper-relevant, and engaging — creating a better ad experience that can drive more conversions and improve return on ad spend.
In this article, we’ll cover how DCO works and how a programmatic specialist can help you make the most of your dynamic ad creatives.
How Does Dynamic Creative Optimization Work?
DCO is a data-driven process that uses machine learning, algorithms, and automation to serve the most relevant creative assets to your target audience using a combination of historical insights and data at the moment the ad is served.
Rather than displaying the same ad creative with the exact same copy, colors, CTA, and more to every individual, DCO generates personalized ads based on information gathered about the viewer.
This type of personalization allows marketers to match the right message to the right user, increasing the likelihood that the user will like what they see and convert.
DCO ads pull data from a variety of sources, including:
- Browser history
- Shopping habits
- Device
- Weather
- Location
- IP address
- Customer relationship management (CRM) records, and more
If you’re concerned that the cookieless future may render DCO irrelevant, don’t be. Not all dynamic creative strategies require third-party cookies, and you can also leverage first and second-party data to deliver the most relevant ads to the right users at the right time.
Until recently, Dyanmic Creative Optimization was a novel concept that only the largest brands and agencies could access. However, all that’s changed, and DCO technology is now available to more advertisers than ever before. For this reason, many marketers are beginning to explore how to use it to amplify the effectiveness of their campaigns and drive more sales.
However, getting DCO right requires in-depth technical knowledge and programmatic advertising expertise. Unless you have those abilities in-house, you might be better off partnering with a DCO specialist than trying to figure it all out on your own. Working with a programmatic specialist takes the guesswork out of DCO and can make working with it easier and more effective.
Take a look at some of the benefits of partnering with a programmatic DCO specialist to decide whether it’s right for you.
DCO Specialists Take Care of the Complex Technical Aspects
Running hundreds of dynamic ad creatives for multiple target users can quickly become complex.
For example, let’s say you want to use Dynamic Creative Optimization for an e-commerce platform that sells thousands of different products. Displaying so many creative elements to multiple audiences with highly personalized display ads is cumbersome and can become confusing if you’re not familiar with the process.
A programmatic specialist can take the technical aspects of DCO off your hands, help you navigate the complexities of the programmatic landscape, and optimize your ad creatives to achieve your marketing goals.
DCO Specialists Help You Choose the Best Campaigns
DCO is a multifaceted tool that can enhance the performance and efficiency of your digital marketing strategy. However, that doesn’t mean it’s suitable for all branding initiatives.
A programmatic specialist can help you determine the best campaigns for DCO and which ones to avoid. For instance, campaigns with limited scale are not ideal candidates for DCO. Some verticals and campaign types that work particularly well with DCO include:
- B2B Product-based campaigns
- Geo-targeted campaigns
- B2B Form Fill or Download campaigns
- B2B Lead Generation campaigns
- Sequential storytelling across ads
A DCO Specialist Will Help You Set Up Your Campaigns
A programmatic specialist goes beyond helping you choose the best campaigns for DCO. They can also assist you with setting up, managing, and optimizing your campaigns.
This includes choosing the best ad formats, identifying the right target audiences, and setting up the necessary tracking and analytics to measure the performance of your ads.
A programmatic specialist can also assist with campaign optimization for the different segments of your audience. For example, they can help you show different ad copy or images to users based on their location, demographics, or browser history.
DCO Specialists Help You Analyze Campaign Performance
A programmatic specialist can help you analyze and interpret your campaign data and ad performance.
DCO experts use real-time data to analyze key performance indicators such as click-through rates, conversion rates, and cost-per-action. This allows them to identify which creatives are performing well and make recommendations for real-time campaign optimization.
DCO specialists can also support with A/B testing to discover which creatives perform best for different audience segments.
DCO Specialists Are Familiar With Industry Best Practices
Partnering with a programmatic specialist allows you to set up your campaigns for success since the specialist is aware of DCO best practices that make campaigns more effective.
For example, a programmatic specialist can help you develop full-funnel campaigns that optimize engagement at every stage of the customer journey. They do this by implementing dynamic goals and rethinking KPIs for each phase of the funnel.
A programmatic specialist will also help you avoid problems that can lead your campaigns to underperform, such as:
- Failing to continually test and monitor campaigns
- Testing too many variables at once
- Failing to capitalize on audience data
Make the Most of Your DCO Campaign with Expert Support
If you have plenty of in-house capacity, a lot of time on your hands, and a burning desire to learn about the technical ins and outs of DCO ad campaigns, you can absolutely learn to do it yourself.
However, it takes time to learn the ropes and may involve a lot of trial and error before you can get it right.
If you prefer to take the guesswork out of DCO and sleep easy knowing your dynamic ad campaigns are in safe hands, you might be better off partnering with a programmatic specialist like Grapeseed Media. Our team of adtech experts is well-versed in running cross-channel campaigns across multiple verticals and industries.
One area where DCO has the potential to make strides is programmatic digital out-of-home advertising (pDOOH). Advertisers that leverage DCO and pDOOH together will benefit from highly personalized ads that target users on the go.
Learn more about how pDOOH works and how to integrate it into your multichannel campaigns.
Got more questions about DCO? Get in touch with us to learn more about the best ways to customize your dynamic ad creatives or any other aspect of programmatic advertising.