How Programmatic Boosts Performance Marketing in Spain

MediaMath’s clients in Spain are on a learning curve to discover more about how programmatic trading can help their business and where the opportunities lie. Lorea Amezua, Manager of Platform Solutions, EMEA & LATAM for MediaMath explains how performance marketing specialists in Spain are finding its digital toolkit useful.

Performance marketing agencies in Spain are well placed to observe the larger trends in budget allocation and digital media buying. These agencies are increasingly intrigued by programmatic’s possibilities, especially as programmatic ad spend steadily grows in the region; its share in 2013 was 15% of total digital spend and that number is on track to 31% of total ad spend by 2017, according to the IAB and eMarketer respectively.

As expected with any relatively young technology, marketers are adopting a mix of strategies and there are client anxieties in the Spanish market that need to be addressed to increase investment. Jose Luis Valdivielso, chief operating officer for Affiperf Iberia and Latam, says that these focus on transparency and effectiveness. Valdivielso explains that many advertisers still want to know beforehand where banner ads will be displayed and the challenge is to explain how programmatic is helping the shift from a site-centric marketing approach to a far more effective user-centric model (i.e. serving the ad to the potential customer when it is most relevant to them and via the right channel).
The performance marketing agencies say they can see how using programmatic is increasing efficiency and taking a lot of the risk out of the agency-buying part of the equation.

Three key benefits have emerged:

• Programmatic modelling allows agencies to use statistical prediction to assess the potential of each user, when it would be best to serve ads to the prospective customer and when the agency can achieve the best price for an ad. The latter is particularly useful for Zanox, as it still works with a traditional performance model, where the advertiser is only obliged to pay once results have been delivered.

• Programmatic and real-time bidding (RTB) have also opened up the market, identifying new audiences for advertisers to target, which affiliates may have not previously engaged with through the standard networks. Valbuena says that “this gives the advertiser more choice and more opportunities to get their products in front of the right audience.”

• The technology allows fast testing of different strategies, for instance assessing how a broad branding-based strategy works against one that has a tighter audience segmentation to reach the target or to identify the target audience. It also helps bring back users to the site who have shown interest in a product via retargeting.

Spain is not as mature as more developed markets in programmatic advertising – which means there is plenty of opportunity for both agencies and their clients to gain a competitive edge with swift adoption of the right technology provider. Cristina Valbuena, head of advertising sales of Zanox Spain explains why Spain’s market poises agencies for success: “The introduction of programmatic and RTB means we have increased our efficiency and can more effectively identify our audience and convert them into customers. This has taken away the element of risk, allowing us to build on our success, rather than spend our time trying to find the right tactics.”