The last blog post in this series identified the key players within an organization that need to align their goals in order to implement programmatic technology. Yet, to realize the full strategic advantage that programmatic can deliver, marketers need to think of it as more than just a better way of buying media; it needs to be viewed as a full organizational shift. The strategic advantage is very real and it’s worth investing the time and energy to ensure the organization is readily equipped to get the most out of their programmatic technology. Here are a few considerations that marketers familiar with programmatic media buying can act on to integrate the technology deeper into their organization:
A New Breed of Marketer: The Marketing Engineer
Companies with a presence in online retail will have a slight advantage when it comes to preparing for the programmatic shift. These organizations will have a vice president of e-commerce or similar executive who can take on the additional marketing technology responsibilities. Organizations lacking a person with these responsibilities will have to ensure their marketing experts and their web technology experts are synched up, and may consider hiring someone with a skill set that traverses both disciplines to unite teams and spearhead programmatic initiatives. At MediaMath, we like to consider this new breed of marketer the Marketing Engineer. We define a Marketing Engineer to be an individual that possesses exceptional analytical, communication, and consulting skills that’s able to execute and oversee management of digital marketing campaigns.
Charge Forward with Revenue Driven Marketing
This sounds simple and straightforward, but it’s easy to lose sight of the forest for the trees. All online marketing should be accountable, and as marketers, you should be able and prepared to prove that your efforts are moving more products profitably. Leading with revenue-driven marketing effort means that the marketing team can demonstrate that the budget invested in media can be tied to incremental sales online or in-store. The Marketing Engineer will be able to define a solution whereby this can be accomplished, whether it is a tracking a confirmation pixel on your website, or brand sales lift through dark market testing, or pulling in an attribution technology.
Unify Marketing Teams and Efforts
As was raised in the previous post, this is a clear objective, but it’s one that’s easy to lose track of. It’s essential that marketing teams understand they’re working towards a common goal. However, this isn’t always the case. I’ve spoken with retailers whose team’s function in disparate silos within marketing. Search, display and affiliate marketers are separated, working within walls, independent of one another. This becomes incredibly detrimental when it comes to attribution. Finance might recognize that marketing generated $500 million in sales, but the siloed marketing teams will claim they drove $1 billion in sales in total. Obviously Finance is correct, but this needs to be reconciled and a good measurement system needs to be implemented with marketing. Teams have to be more closely aligned to ensure each marketing channel is understood and working in concert with one another to optimize towards clearly defined goals.
With the right integration, programmatic technology can give your company a tremendous strategic advantage with regard to online advertising. Food for thought: Has your company taken the key steps to prepare for the programmatic shift? Review our checklist to see where you stand.
This post is the third in a series for marketers with an understanding of programmatic technology who are looking to step it up.
Keep up with this series to further educate yourself on how programmatic technology fits into the bigger marketing picture by following the Step It Up Series on the blog.
Do you have what it takes to integrate programmatic technology more deeply into your business strategy? Take our quiz to identify your level of programmatic sophistication and get to the next level.