But with that comes new pressure to prove the ROI, which drives more marketers to digital and programmatic than ever before. Marketers can use this shift to become even smarter leaders, providing answers to critical business questions like:
- How to balance the long-term focus on consumer trust and privacy while improving the advertising experience and making it more relevant?
- How to unleash the power of first-party data in a privacy-compliant way?
- How to associate the company with premium content?
O2’s CMO Nina Bibby said: “The opening up of demand and the economy brings hope. There’s rarely been a universal similar moment in time where marketeers are in a unique position to tap into that hope, elevate it and embrace it.”
To that end, here are three strategies that can help drive your business…
1. Find focus with precise goals
Competition for consumers across many sectors is hot and marketers are under pressure to prove returns on every decision. They need to deliver campaigns that achieve real business outcomes and goals, such as driving awareness, consideration or conversion.
As consumers’ media consumption becomes increasingly varied and fragmented, finding the right ad position at any given time is impossible without applying data and technology. A sophisticated ad buying platform like The Trade Desk’s Solimar brings the maximum amount of smart decisioning to every single ad impression, based on clear goals set at the start of a campaign.
Prioritising goals and supporting decisions with rich data allows marketers to be more strategic and focus on the things tech can’t do. Instead of having to manage thousands of campaign variables, platforms like Solimar pinpoints the priority decisions that make or break a campaign.
2. Make data meaningful with AI
Marketers understand their target audiences best. They can activate data on their best million customers to find the next million most valuable customers.
Susan O’Brien, Just Eat’s VP of Brand, said: “Today, we’ve got more data available, it’s easier to access but the important question is, is it all relevant and meaningful and can you [make use of] it? It’s not about the data but how you use it – that analysis and that sorting to make it actionable and usable is key.”
Marketing teams have so much data at their fingertips but don’t always have the right tools to know which data points to prioritise and take action on. Activating a campaign can feel like sitting in the cockpit of a 747 plane, expected to take off, with no flight training and no co-pilot.
The good news is, artificial intelligence – like KOA, the AI which sits behind The Trade Desk's platform (Solimar) – is really effective at handling massive amounts of data; the technology is more like a modern, automatic car, where you let the car’s software help you identify blind spots, stay in lane, and optimise fuel performance.
A powerful AI-guided platform optimises decisioning, incorporating the right data as necessary. In fact, on average, the Solimar platform sees more than a trillion ad opportunities per day – that’s roughly 13 million ad opportunities every second, which is well over 100 times the volume of global search – and automatically sorts, analyses and prioritises.
Based on the marketing goals, Solimar knows the important decisions, bringing new insights into the process, in a simple, intuitive user experience.
3. Thread the needle between privacy and relevance
Delivering relevant, timely ads and taking a privacy-conscious approach to data underpins a good consumer experience.
Consumers have come to expect ads that are relevant to their interests and demographic. Ads for pension schemes targeted at a young stay-at-home dad or cookery classes being targeted at a high-flying chef are not ideal. And the right ads must appear at the right time, spaced across the right channels with the right frequency.
Philippa Snare, SVP EMEA at The Trade Desk, said: “The seamless delivery of relevant ads must balance against protecting users’ privacy. Our research earlier this year showed 79 per cent of UK adults are concerned about the collection and use of their data, so the advertising industry must do all it can to grant consumers greater transparency and control over how their data is used.”
Marketers making investment decisions that prioritise the privacy of their customers must ask themselves, which tools are really transparent? Which technologies can really show me what’s going on?
Industry initiatives like Unified ID 2.0 put the consumer back in the driver’s seat, granting them the transparency and power to control their own data, all in an easy-to-use central hub.
Carpe marketing
Now is the time for marketers to step up and seize this unique moment, which is why The Trade Desk is launching Solimar, the biggest platform upgrade in our history, to help marketers succeed in today’s competitive marketplace.
To make sure you’re in the position to make the most of the moment, head here to find out more about Solimar.
