The impact of programmatic advertising on financial services marketing

Ads in all shapes and forms have become a part of our lives, whether we like it or not. Whether you’re scrolling through social media, watching TV, or listening to your favorite podcast, your immersive experience will be interrupted by some advertisement or another. Most of the time, this is a mildly annoying occurrence that we’re used to, but there are instances when ads get us hooked, and we want to know more about the product/service that’s advertised.

If this ever happened to you, chances are you experienced the impact of quality programmatic advertising first-hand. Finding the right audience for your ads is easier said than done, but it’s instrumental to do it right, especially if you’re a financial services marketer. Here’s everything you need to know!

What is programmatic advertising?

While “programmatic advertising” may sound robust, if not downright scary, the base of the system behind it is somewhat straightforward. If you want to run targeted ads for your financial services, one of the most efficient ways is to use real-time bidding (also known as RTB) to buy the digital ad space automatically. If you’re not sure where to start, programmatic advertising services by Pathlabs and similar trustworthy companies can help put you on the right track. 

Here’s an example of how the process would look in real life. Let’s say you want to promote a new type of life insurance, and you want to reach people with whom your offer will resonate. These are the steps you need to take:

• You’ll gather data about your prospective customers (their age, income, financial interests, location, etc.) so that you know who will most likely respond positively to your ad about a new kind of life insurance.
  
• Next, you’ll use a data management platform (DMP) to segment your audience by using the relevant criteria mentioned above. This will allow you to adjust ads so that they better correspond to each group.
• Now, it’s time to set up your ad campaign on a Demand-Side Platform (DSP) using all the collected data. This is also the time for you to create your bidding strategy and set your budget.
• It’s time for real-time bidding! What this means is that when a prospective customer lands on a website that’s a good fit to share your ad, the DSP starts a bid for that ad space in real-time. The goal is for your bid to win so that your ad can be displayed to the prospective customer who sees the option for your new life insurance plan.
  
• In order to learn from your programmatic advertising efforts, it’s crucial to track the performance of your ads. This means it’s important to keep an eye on some essential metrics like overall ROI, CTR, and conversation rates. All of them will give you insight into what’s working and what should be improved.

And that’s the gist of it! Naturally, there’s a lot more that goes into exploring the different types of programmatic advertising systems and finding a bidding strategy that’s right for you, but these steps will help you understand the basics of this approach and help you consider your next advertising moves.

Advantages of programmatic advertising

Now that you understand the process let’s talk about the advantages of programmatic advertising and what it can bring to your business.

• The precision of ad targeting is on a new level. The more precisely your ads can target your prospective customers, the better the chance of getting new clients, and programmatic advertising can be fine-tuned to make that happen.
  
• The processes are more efficient. Bidding systems are completely automatic, so once you set them up, they’ll do the heavy lifting for you, buying and selling ad space in a matter of milliseconds. This means that manual work is reduced to a minimum, leaving you time to deal with high-level tasks.
  
• Optimized budgets and a smaller chance of overspending. Overstepping your ad budget is a big concern whenever there’s talk about paid marketing, and using programmatic advertising significantly minimizes the chances of that happening.
  
• There’s a lot of flexibility within the system. Depending on the number and size of your campaigns, you can easily set them up in a way that serves your goals and optimize them to get the optimal ROI.

Potential rabbit holes of programmatic advertising

Since you’re in the YMYL business, you know how important it is to consider all the challenges that come with a particular opportunity. The same can be said about programmatic advertising, and if you do decide to give it a try, please be extra careful when it comes to:

• Unallowed data usage. As we mentioned earlier, a lot of user data is being used to ad optimization, and this naturally raises privacy concerns. Make sure that your use of programmatic advertising complies with GDPR laws (in Europe) and CCPA laws (in the US).
  
• The possibility of ad fraud. If you’ve never heard of ad fraud, it refers to bots and fake accounts generating fake clicks on your ads so that you get the impression that they’re getting traction. You can take steps to ensure fraud detection to prevent any malicious activity.

Conclusion

While there’s a lot to learn about programmatic advertising, it’s important that you understand the system before you decide to use it. There are companies and experts who can help you with that, just be sure that they’re legit and have a clean track record. That will help you start things right, get new customers, and make more profit from your paid ads.