How brands can find their path to true advertising automation
The Path
to First Purchase
75% of marketers acknowledge that advertising to consumers before they make the first purchase with the brand is far more difficult than those who have done at least one transaction.
KEY TAKEAWAY
Streamlined, fluid and accessible ways of transacting between inventory and media have only partly been realized across current forms of advertising automation — namely programmatic.
Advertising Automation
When it comes to automation and bringing journey planning to life — i.e., getting ads to the right person at the right time — the execution is a black box, a line item interface that looks at individual exposures on various channels, screens and formats.
Advertising automation goes beyond reach at the individual impression or tactical message level to consider the brand story.
KEY TAKEAWAY
Controlling
the Brand Message
Marketers spend months carefully mapping out the consumer journey. The future of automation solutions will include automating the whole journey and not just part - or parts - of a campaign.
Advertising automation needs to work the way marketers want to advertise - omnichannel, sequential and attributable.
KEY TAKEAWAY
The Human Element
The client–agency relationship will still be an essential part of ensuring campaigns achieve their planned objectives, even as automation puts the power back into marketers’ hands to buy and sell their own advertising.
The human element, and human expertise, remain essential parts of automation, even when agencies act and optimize on a marketer’s customer journey plan.
KEY TAKEAWAY
User Perspectives
How would you define advertising automation?
Agency viewpoint:
Joseph Choi, director of digital media, Lamark Media
“It’s about making things easier for media buyers to setup, run and purchase media. A lot of these platforms are still very manual processes, or you have to set up and then configure all the little granular pieces of your campaign. Automation is helping to alleviate all those manual points and getting the setup of your configuration to be done very quickly and turn out very streamlined.”
Q
see answer
A Common Platform for All Teams
Technology is the connective tissue of modern marketing teams - from project management to shared drives - even more so as many teams move to working remotely. True advertising automation will allow for planning, strategy, execution and iteration to work from the same canvas to ensure the best return on advertising spend.
By automating entire campaigns those who run advertising and those who plan can increasingly operate with the same toolset instead of disparate and separate teams, platforms and systems.
KEY TAKEAWAY
Endgame
“The only way to solve consumer ad fatigue is if you run advertising as a journey and begin to get insights on where consumers are just fundamentally falling off,” says Seraj Bharwani, CSO at AcuityAds. “You want to get to that endgame sooner to minimize the annoyance and minimize the irritation, but provide them the guidance that is necessary to get consumers to whatever it is they want.”
True advertising automation goes beyond reach at the individual impression or tactical message level to consider the brand story.
KEY TAKEAWAY
Endgame
Where Are You On The Path?
To achieve true advertising automation marketers should ask themselves, and their partners, the following specific questions about process, data and attribution:
True advertising automation will allow for planning, strategy, execution and iteration to work from the same canvas to ensure the best return on advertising spend.
KEY TAKEAWAY
Does the technology allow teams to achieve their KPIs?
How do marketing teams know when to switch up creatives, channels or formats to push a consumer along their planned journey map?
What data are the teams getting from automation partners, and how does it correlate with consumer journey mapping?
Are teams working together in efficient ways that support the consumer journey?
The Big Picture
Advertising automation is evolving to create significant efficiencies in the consumer journey and alleviate significant phases of heavy lifting for marketers. Technology will work increasingly hand in hand with marketers to drive the analysis and insights they need to optimize reaching people across the consumer journey.
Automation technologies are helping marketers to reach consumers in meaningful, efficient and effective ways — with all of this based on the consumer journey — enabling teams to get better return on advertising investment.
KEY TAKEAWAY
Learn more about true advertising automation. Click here to download a new guide from illumin and Digiday and further explore new advertising automation technology.
The Human Element
The Big Picture
In a new report, Digiday and AcuityAds teamed up to unpack why true advertising automation — which is difficult to achieve — is poised to go beyond established programmatic approaches and power omnichannel success stories.
In the interactive infographic below, marketers can follow their own path to true
advertising automation, exploring the report’s highlights by clicking on each stop and unlocking the takeaways within. At any point, at every stop, click the Learn More button to download the full report and further explore new advertising automation technology.
The Human Element
Endgame
The Big
Picture
The Path
to First Purchase
Advertising Automation
The Path
to First Purchase
User Perspectives
Advertising Automation
User Perspectives
Agency viewpoint:
Joseph Choi, director of digital media, Lamark Media
“It’s about making things easier for media buyers to setup, run and purchase media. A lot of these platforms are still very manual processes, or you have to set up and then configure all the little granular pieces of your campaign. Automation is helping to alleviate all those manual points and getting the setup of your configuration to be done very quickly and turn out very streamlined.”
Agency viewpoint:
Joseph Choi, director of digital media, Lamark Media
“It’s about making things easier for media buyers to setup, run and purchase media. A lot of these platforms are still very manual processes, or you have to set up and then configure all the little granular pieces of your campaign. Automation is helping to alleviate all those manual points and getting the setup of your configuration to be done very quickly and turn out very streamlined.”
Learn More
Brand viewpoint:
Rob Towne, director of performance marketing, Purple
“The truth is, advertising automation is a term that historically has been limited to CRM and email channels. I think automation, going forward, is everything from responsive advertising formats to the automated building of audiences that are anonymous.”
Learn More
Learn More
Learn More
Learn More
Learn More
Learn More
Learn More
Learn More
Learn More
Learn More
Learn More
Learn More
Learn More
Learn More
Learn More
Learn More
Learn More
Controlling
the Brand Message
A Common Platform for All Teams
Where Are You On The Path?
Where Are You On The Path?
A Common Platform for All Teams
The Path
to First Purchase
Controlling
the Brand Message