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ARTICLE

4 Steps for Executing True Omnichannel Experiences in Programmatic

May 10, 2018 — by MediaMath    

This post originally appears on Martech Advisor.

Years ago, marketers’ media channels were highly specialized and siloed. And there was good reason for that. As new channels emerged, they needed to be tested and have standards and measurement applied to them that often varied from other channels. Plus, specific channels, like video, were often tied to certain types of campaigns, such as branding, which meant they sat in a specific budget. It was hard, back then, to approach programmatic in a way that was full-funnel and across channels.

But that’s all changed in 2018. There’s no longer a need to use disparate point solutions for each of your channels that prevent you from seeing the totality of your marketing investments, audiences or insights, or walled gardens that can’t fully share data or target relevant ads during the full lifecycle of a consumer. We now have consumers engaging with different channels across multiple devices (they can watch that video ad across the display or social, on desktop or mobile). And more importantly, we now have integrated technology that can manage, segment and activate your audiences in media across all channels at your disposal. This provides a more holistic view of your customers, a fluid budget and frequency capping and sequencing to avoid delivering annoying, repetitive, incessant ads. You can meet the audience where they are, interacting with them in the medium and message type that is most engaging to them to deliver true consumer-first experiences that they enjoy and that they have elected to engage with.

But how do you get started if you’ve never run a true omnichannel campaign before? We talk through four key areas and include actionable tips below.

Put Data First

Data is at the core of omnichannel marketing. Marketers use it to inform the customer journey, uncover brand-specific channel and audience insights, develop a more sophisticated and unified view of the consumer and understand how each channel influences the many points along the customer journey.

  • Clearly define and implement internal data ownership to ensure that you know where all your data sources live and which teams are responsible for them.
  • Clean, organize and centralize your first-party data to generate the information you need to determine which customer experiences move the needle most for your brand, at a segment level.
  • Understand where your gaps are so you can layer on second- and third-party data where appropriate, such as for prospecting efforts.

Reassess Your Goals

Clicks and impressions are out. ROAS and ROI are in. Marketers must identify specific business and marketing goals and use these to evaluate success across all channels.

  • Hold working sessions with channel experts, such as sales and the paid media team, to collaboratively define your unifying business goals, benchmarks and assess the impact of each channel.

Consumers expect—and deserve!—consistent, personalized brand experiences. Marketers who have embraced an omnichannel strategy tailor their creative execution and messaging to the individual, not simply to screen sizes or ad formats. It is essential to capture and maintain attention by telling each person a compelling story, and to engage in a meaningful way, at the right time.).

  • Carefully control your messaging and creative across all channels, aligning with your integrated marketing communication strategy: narrative, channel and placement.
  • Remember that the messaging for a new customer versus a lapsed customer, and across- versus an up-sell opportunity, is different.

Activate with Technology

Clean, centralized data. Check. Defined goals. Check. Aligned messaging and creative. Check. What comes next is the technology to execute. Your data management platforms (DMP) and demand-side platforms (DSP) are critical for activating and executing omnichannel strategies in real-time, reaching all desired customers, across devices. Having these technologies integrated with each other helps ensure that audience segments target omnichannel strategies by factors including demographics, exhibited behaviors and interests. Through these platforms, budgets, return on investment, engagement and reach can be maximized.

  • Consider audience overlaps when buying third-party data for “enrich” and prospecting marketing campaigns.
  • Reduce ad wastage by frequency capping.
  • Ensure that DSP and DMP partnerships are compatible and can satisfy any platform integrations required, with little to no data leakage.