Adopting an omnichannel approach is arguably one of the most commonly recognised strategies in the world of marketing and advertising. Not only does it help to streamline activity between internal departments and improve internally efficiencies, it also helps to ensure the end-user experience is seamless and consistent across all potential touchpoints.
In the French market, it’s a slightly different story. Most agencies are incredibly siloed in their approach, with each team taking charge of their designated specialism, whether that be search, display or social. The notion of taking an omnichannel approach is therefore a rather alien concept and, as a result, there is a huge gap in brands’ and agencies’ ability to activate effective performance-driven strategies. Silos, after all, often breed inefficiencies and confusion.
At Cojecom, we pride ourselves on our progressive thinking. Since adopting a programmatic approach to digital advertising and setting up our own internal trading desk, we have been working with MediaMath to enhance our ability to execute multi-channel campaigns through a single integrated interface. We see this as a critical component to our ongoing development and innovation in the digital advertising arena.
Partnering with MediaMath has enabled us to dramatically change the way we set up and run campaigns and utilise the benefits of a programmatic approach. Despite this, it does seem the French market is in need of a bit of shake-up. Whilst there can be no denying the adoption of programmatic in the UK is very high—it currently sits at around 59%—France has been unable to develop at a comparable rate. Whilst it is catching up, France sits in European third place in terms of programmatic adoption. Therefore, there is a big education piece needed in order for the benefits of programmatic to be fully realised and fulfilled.
Convincing prospects and clients to shift a larger proportion of their budget to digital and programmatic continues to be challenging, as it needs to become the primary media focus of their advertising strategy. In addition, we also need to explain how programmatic can be used for quality. It was not that long ago that the space was full of bad inventory. As technology has advanced, we’ve been able drive improvements in ROI, pay a higher CPM if better targeting can be assured, buy above the fold inventory, negotiate private deals and verify ads with a greater level of precision. However, for this to be truly effective, clear goals need to be established with the advertiser. Price is not the most important criteria any more; it should be quality and the right level of targeting.
This emphasises the importance of knowledge sharing, particularly where programmatic advertising technologies and collaborative working meet and merge. Even though the adoption of programmatic is high, people still need clarification on the technology and the benefits that it offers. An omnichannel strategy is crucial to making this a reality. However, companies can only improve their capabilities by properly training their staff on how to use these technological developments.
Having one account manager responsible for looking after all active channels, for instance, enables them to have a better overview of the advertisers and determine how best to assign budgets to the best performing channels. For example, if Cojecom has a social, mobile or digital display communication for an advertiser, and realises that mobile does not work but social performs significantly better, budgets can be immediately shifted accordingly. When teams are isolated in separate divisions, the ability to activate this quickly and efficiently can prove to be rather problematic.
With the advent of new channels such as video rapidly accelerating up the agenda, action is needed now and fast. Ultimately, a clear and well-defined goal is crucial to any successful programmatic strategy. Any partner, therefore, needs to be constantly assessing what is working and, more importantly, what isn’t working and adjusting the strategy accordingly. For us, MediaMath does that in abundance, but in order for growth in the French market to continue, much more is needed. From our experience, partnerships and the free flow of information open up new potential buying strategies and insight on emerging data partners. Then, if you can implement these on a cross-channel level, results will manifest organically. It’s these insights which are driving a real business change and improving the service we provide to our clients.