Top Programmatic Digital Marketing Channels

Emerging digital platforms are paving the way for fresh, innovative advertising. Brands and marketers that adopt a multichannel approach and implement strategies across these channels are maximizing their return on investment and boosting the effectiveness of their digital campaigns.

In today’s digital world, there are more ways than ever for customers to access information and connect with brands. It is equally true that there are more opportunities for marketers to make sure brands show up where their target audiences are online in a way that is meaningful and that will resonate.

Welcome to digital multichannel marketing: a comprehensive strategy using both indirect and direct channels — including websites, catalogues, direct mail, email, mobile and video — to connect with existing and target customers. At its core, digital multichannel marketing is about making use of a variety of options to engage.

Among the key options rising in importance are programmatic digital marketing channels such as Connected TV (CTV), programmatic audio, in-game advertising and digital out-of-home (DOOH) advertising. Brands that integrate these gamechangers into their digital multichannel marketing strategies are maximizing return on investment and boosting the overall effectiveness of their digital marketing campaigns.

Benefits of multichannel programmatic digital marketing

Multichannel programmatic digital marketing helps brands:

• stand out and reach their target audiences where they are online;
• expand their reach to high-intent audiences;
• deliver consistent messaging across channels;
• collect analytics-driven insights;
• create a more predictable buyer journey;
• tap into a wide variety of innovative ad types and formats;
• effectively engage with their target audiences; and
• increase sales.

The essentials of effective multichannel programmatic digital marketing

Map out your target audience’s buying journey

Knowing each customer’s unique buying journey can help you better target, reach and keep high-potential customers interested in your brand as they move through each stage:

• Awareness: buyers have identified a problem and are preparing to find a solution.
• Consideration: buyers are actively searching for a solution.
• Decision: buyers have found a solution and are evaluating and making comparisons.

Create buyer personas

A buyer persona is a research-based fictionalized version of your target shoppers. It describes who they are, what they want, their challenges, their interests and how they make decisions. The buyer personas will inform and allow you to personalize all of your marketing and advertising campaigns.

Choose the right channels and programmatic platforms

Create a brand presence on your ideal customers’ preferred digital channels and use the data you collect about them to create high-impact, personalized, consistent messaging across these channels. Leverage appropriate programmatic platforms to run and manage your campaigns. Postmedia’s The Programmatic Buying Ecosystem: SSPs, DSPs and Ad Exchanges provides a foundational understanding of the different platforms.

Measure the effectiveness of your campaigns

Implement multi-touch attribution to track individual brand interactions that lead to a sale and understand the influence a particular channel had on advancing a sale. 

Programmatic digital marketing channels to embrace

Connected TV (CTV)

The popularity of streaming services, such as Netflix, AppleTV, Amazon Prime, Disney+ and Hulu, through internet-connected TVs continues to grow. Not surprisingly, in 2023, 88 per cent of U.S. households reported owning at least one Connected TV (CTV) – an all-time high. For marketers, this is a great time to add this digital channel to an effective digital multichannel marketing strategy.

In addition to any television capable of streaming digital video or device that enables streaming (such as Roku), CTV includes ads that play before and/or after a movie, episodic series, documentary or other content streams. This allows brands to reach precisely targeted audiences and access explicit reporting and metrics.

To leverage CTV, adjust your existing linear TV budget to include both and adapt linear TV ads and creative for CTV. Retarget your linear TV advertising audience using programmatic campaigns to better connect and fully leverage these two channels.

Fast fact: CTV ads are projected to double from US$20.5 billion in 2023 to US$41.2 billion in 2028.

Programmatic audio

People are listening to all forms of audio content – including news, music, podcasts and books – and they want more.

Fast facts:

• Podcasts in particular are booming. There are 4,449,114 podcasts registered globally. Each month in the U.S., more than a third of adults listen to podcasts and 90 per cent are listening from home.
• Audio brands such as Spotify, iHeartRadio and Pandora are household names that are growing in popularity, with 92 per cent of U.S. residents listening to radio weekly.

Until recently, there were few ad format and programming options and advertisers had a limited ability to measure audio ads. Automated buying, selling and insertion of ads into audio content (a.k.a. programmatic audio advertising) is changing that and providing these benefits:

• enhanced targeting (brands can segment audiences by demographics, location, interests and purchase history);
• context-aware, personalized messaging via dynamic creative optimization;
• data-driven insights; and
• improved effectiveness.

Brands are reinforcing their messaging by coordinating their programmatic audio ads with other channels and formats, such as out-of-home advertising. This increases the number of times consumers receive a message, boosting engagement and improving the effectiveness of campaigns.

To craft an effective ad for audio that creates an emotional connection with listeners, develop a concise, compelling script with a clear, easy-to-understand message that fits with the content on the platform it will air on; include a specific call to action; make sure your sound effects match and elevate your message; and cast the right voice actor.

In-game advertising

The global video game industry is booming. In North America alone, it is worth about US$73 billion and on track to hit nearly US$90 billion in 2028. It is one of the world’s fastest growing industries. In-game advertising represents an exciting new channel for brands to seamlessly reach their target audience.

There are a number of different in-game advertising formats, including rewarded video ads, banner ads, playable ads and interstitial ads. Google describes mobile interstitial ads as full-screen advertisements that cover the interface of a host application and appear during transitions from one level of game-play to the next. These ads are proving to be one of the top ways to monetize mobile games.

Experiment with different ad formats to determine which is the most effective with your target audience. Make sure to include your brand name or logo, large easy-to-read text, high-contrast colours and a clear call to action. Design each ad to ensure it does not disrupt gameplay.

Digital out-of-home advertising

Digital out-of-home (DOOH) programmatic advertising is the technology-fueled version of traditional out-of-home advertising (such as billboards and signage) that reaches people on the street, using public transportation or in other public spaces.

DOOH campaigns use geo-fencing, tracking, retargeting, personalization, attribution and a range of formats, sizes and interactive features to engage audiences in a variety of public environments.

The automated buying and delivery of these ads allows brands to manage campaigns through their programmatic platforms. Complying with privacy regulations is not a concern because DOOH ads don’t collect cookies.

Be sure to match the format of the DOOH ad to where it will be shown. Large format DOOH ads work best in high-traffic areas, such as highway billboards, outdoor digital walls and transit/bus shelters. Place-based DOOH ads are most effective where you can customize the message to the location, like a shopping mall, office building, university or restaurants. Point-of-purchase DOOH ads allow you to influence shoppers in the aisles of their favourite grocery stores, big box retailers and pharmacies.

Leveraging CTV, audio platforms, in-game advertising and DOOH channels will help take your overall digital multichannel marketing strategy to the next level and build a strong foundation in the ever-growing and changing digital advertising landscape.