Ads influence brand awareness when paired with a comprehensive strategy. So, how do we realize the full potential of paid ads for optimal performance?

In their 2024 Gartner CMO Spend Survey, Gartner remarks that the marketing budget (as of total revenue) has been at their lowest since COVID. It went as low as 6.4% in 2021 and has again drastically declined to 7.7%.

Gartner concludes that we are approaching an era where growth is earned and not guaranteed. So, invest wisely because institutional trust is one of the central causes of market disruptions.

The Importance of Optimizing Marketing Resources to Improve Advertising Strategies

While CMOs are being asked to work more with less, your business needs to capitalize on the disruptions across the marketing landscape.

This is not an opportunity to spiral into doom and gloom about how modern tech can surpass us but rather a time to leverage our marketing preconceptions. Leverage and capitalize on AI disruptions – this is the motto of marketing in 2024.

Generative AI has been a bane and a boon for the marketing industry. While the advantages include AI working as your best friend, i.e., elevating your productivity and efficiency, it has certain drawbacks. This comprises the spread of misinformation, bots, and an overall user experience.

There is a way of gauging this fallout—investing smartly to foster deeper audience engagement. Thus, advertising has become one of the significant drivers of maximizing ROI. The priorities are meticulous budget allocation and optimizing expenditure across diverse marketing channels.

However, it doesn’t merely boil down to allocating resources and budgets. Your marketing team needs to identify the most impactful channels to ensure that every penny spent positively contributes towards meeting the marketing objectives.

And the next challenging task is justifying the spending because market share and data illustrate your organization’s value. If there is not enough alignment between the spent amount and the generated revenue, something is not working.

This is simple.

To balance these numbers, businesses are shifting their approaches and marketing channels. According to HubSpot, brands currently focus on channels that directly connect consumers to them. With strategic investments, they have to prioritize how and where they spend. The top channels driving ROI are:

• Social media shopping tools such as TikTok and Instagram Shop (preferred by over 97.9% of marketers)

• Paid social media content, such as influencer marketing (preferred by 21.8% of marketers)

• SEO and blogs (preferred by 41.4% of marketers)

As a marketer, you need to study which lead generation tactic offers the most benefits for your brand and is a worthy investment. Because trends are often short-term and might be a quick fix, long-term strategies promise stable growth for businesses.

Gartner says the latest market trend is the shift toward paid digital marketing channels.

Why?

With the increasing use of the Internet and mobile phones, people interact more on digital platforms, and brands actively invest in content creation, social media marketing, and digital advertising.

However, with increased market competition (especially after COVID-19), it has become quite difficult to focus only on organic and traditional marketing methods.

While several marketing techniques may be a shot in the dark, businesses prefer shortcuts that provide faster results, taking in the specific target audience and ideal business goals.

This is why they inch towards paid advertising, with over 34.6% of marketers opting for PPC advertising in 2024.

What is paid advertising?

Paid advertising is specific. It is also a crucial fragment of digital marketing. While opting for paid channels, businesses pay to market their products/services to targeted audience segments according to their location, browsing behavior, and purchasing interest.

This marketing method requires paying particular fees to advertising platforms, such as search engines and SEO.

According to a survey, over 14.5% of marketers prefer only paid advertising channels, i.e. SERPs and social media platforms. Meanwhile, over 64.2% leverage the benefits of paid and organic marketing.

The marketing strategy used here is entirely sales-focused. The intent is to facilitate sales-qualified opportunities and elevate the frequency. The ultimate goal of paid advertising is to propel sales by generating quality leads through relevant ads.

The relevance factor of the ad content is highly crucial here. Your ad content, placement, appearance, and size should catch the targeted attention at the ideal time.

I might not have been aware of MailChimp before, but the ad on top of web searches caught my attention as a browser.

Ad visibility is directly proportional to brand awareness. Frequent ads across different channels can strengthen brand recognition, facilitating brand recall with product association. This is why higher visibility is significant – the promise that paid ads offer.

Paid ads entail significant benefits that organic marketing doesn’t or cannot propose due to numerous limitations.

What are the benefits of leveraging paid ads?

Boosted visibility

Facebook Ads and Google Ads can propel a brand’s visibility among audiences that organic channels might not have reached.

Detailed targeting

Paid ads target specific audience segments. This ensures the ads reach relevant audiences, increasing the possibility of conversions.

Detailed performance reports

How does a business know its campaigns are effective? Measurable metrics. Paid ads enable this. They allow brands to track and analyze ad performance, highlighting its effectiveness.

If the strategies don’t lead to substantial results, performance reports can help businesses optimize roadmaps and align them with the necessitated objectives.

Engagement Boosters

If done efficiently, they illustrate almost immediate results. Once the ad is up, and this has been carried out insightfully, ads generate traffic to the brand’s landing page at the flick of a hand, also leading the users towards a purchase.

First, brands generally purchase advertising space. However, in organic marketing, ads should entail quality, valuable content, and relevance and be optimized according to the web page.

Why choose paid ads for the brand?

The objective of these paid ads is to take the prospect to the right landing page and end up converting into a buyer.

As shown above, for MailChimp, search engine ads or paid search ads are the top preferred paid advertising channels (72.3%), and as explained, it depends on the searched keyword.

And Google is one of the most effective options for PPC advertising. It offers particular paid options to target the most accurate audience.

Why did MailChimp’s ad appear at the top of my searches? For SEM, the factors for ad visibility differ.

Yes, Google has a pre-defined algorithm that uses bidding strategies (for ad space) to determine which ad will be placed on top of the SERP for a specific product/service. There are other factors, such as keyword relevance, offered bid, and landing page quality.

This is how Google Display Ads work for advertisers.

While ads are visually engaging and might engage prospects with little to no interest in your services/products, what distinctive benefits does paid advertising contribute to the business?

This seems like a fair question.

As a B2B organization, the priority is leads and revenue, and paid advertising offers diverse solutions to enrich the business with these. But businesses (small ones) rarely invest in paid ads. An article by Forbes states that there are two possibilities why this happens:

1. Limited resources and budgeting

2. Lack of understanding of current market trends

However, there are numerous additional reasons why businesses avoid paid advertising. For small businesses, the focus is on why they cannot leverage the benefits of paid ads, i.e., the resources they lack.

What about when a business has enough resources and budget and fears the unknown waters of paid advertising?

Potential Risks of Paid Advertising

Investing in paid ads is a huge step, but the “spent” numbers should align with the returns. This is a must.

The sticky situation here is – it’s quite easy to lose money on ads. Spending on ads is not quite like discovering a gold mine. A business could lose money or not witness any profits from paid advertising online, and sometimes, they don’t even realize this.

Is it the Ad effect or a fluke?

It’s quite difficult to track whether the ads are working or just a fluke when the numbers on the sheet are positive. Can a business trust these numbers?

Another article on the dangers of online advertising outlines how difficult it is to gauge whether the ads are working. It highlights two ways these paid ads function: selection and advertising effect.

The selection effect of paid advertising considers the audience who saw and clicked on a brand’s ad but would have converted nevertheless. Meanwhile, the advertising effect considers the conversions due to the ad. This analysis by Forbes asserts that if most people fall into the second category, then the brand is making profits through its ads.

Or the ads are just a waste of resources and budget. This is one of the primary risks of paid advertising – not being able to define whether the paid ads are generating any substantial ROI for the business, then they are just unnecessary expenditures.

Reaching the uninterested/unintended audience

Depending on the targeted audience, another challenge when it comes to paid advertising is not being able to target the correct audience.

No further action will be taken when the audience segments the brand’s ad is reaching are uninterested. No clicks translate to no significant revenue, poor engagement rates, and low click rates. While this is an error, it still affects the overall campaign and chips away the allocated budget.

One of the main reasons for this could be a lack of research.

Before executing the ad campaign, the team lacked a solid buyer persona which should generally entail demographic data, behavior patterns, and interests. It should be the very first step to curating a marketing campaign.

Refine the targeting strategies.

The plethora of emerging tech has enabled advertisers to select who sees the ads, based on their age, where they live, and interests among other factors. Leveraging the right road to an effective advertising campaign can increase ad visibility and performance by disseminating it to browsers with actual intent.

They will be the most likely to convert.

Risk of bot clicks in website placement ads

Additionally, paying heavily for ads without receiving placement reports can add to the disadvantages.

Reach is significant, but what if the ads are placed across risky websites? This is evident through unusually high CTRs or win rates. Sometimes, website publishers use bots that add no real value to your revenue but only help increase click-through rates – this could all be bot traffic.

Surveys across the Internet posit that paid advertising is a risky channel. Several malicious actors attempt to alter engagement metrics and deceive advertisers, which is quite common.

It becomes fraudulent and risky, given the entire budget poured into these ad placements. Here, the ads are being shown to bot traffic rather than actual humans, especially on sites with fake traffic, tricking fraud detection systems into seeming valid.

Because while it may seem there is ad engagement, there are no (numeric) business outcomes. If the ads are not watched by real humans, they are inherently generating sales or leads for the organization. This results in the waste of the marketing budget and resources and introduces inaccuracies in tracking reports.

But what about the expense wasted on the ads?

Negative branding & reputation.

According to research, this specific amount is expected to touch $172 billion by 2028. While it might not be a concern for the industry at large, it can largely influence the calculation of impressions and clicks and also halt the ad from reaching the right target audience.

Poorly targeted ads are a headache. Irrelevant ads in front of browsers can build a negative brand reputation. This can also result in bad reviews, increased customer churn, and wasted resources.

When a user does not require a service, repeated ads can elevate annoyance and frustration. This often leads to ad blockers, which can block one of your advertising channels, leading to revenue loss. Annoyed users may bad-mouth the brand, eroding trust.

This can disengage potential prospects as continuous and irrelevant targeted paid ads make brands seem desperate.

Additionally, negative brand reputation could also be enabled through ad content. Sometimes, dark humor works given who the ads target, but not always. Society is explicitly sensitive regarding societal issues and geopolitical events, and using this to form paid ads can harm the brand image.

The ad content should be assessed and focus on relevant factors concerning a brand. This also includes negative comments regarding other competing brands.

Competitive energy might also result in ad theft.

All of this depends on the brand’s success. With vendors selling similar services, the market has become quite competitive.

This can quickly get out of hand when brands copy other products and adverts. It triggers competition across the paid advertising channels, increasing the bids and CAC. There is a delicate boundary between a brand and its competitor’s ad strategies.

The battle is understanding the product’s success and how the ad propelled it. Hence, copying the marketing strategy is common, but its execution is a significant factor. When brands use the same marketing techniques, it can prove detrimental to how their product is received in the market, driving up advertising costs, especially for keywords and high-value placements.

With time, the functioning of the advertising channel may erode.

The first set of prospects who engage with the ad might have a better retention rate. In other words, the first few prospects are the most engaged and relevant ones. Hence, they react to the paid ads quicker than others, requiring fewer impressions per user.

This is channel saturation and inevitable.

Once this occurs, the channel will pull less relevant users, making it demanding to acquire new prospects. Prospects could react negatively to ad messages and become less engaged.

Does the ad campaign have concrete goals?

There are a lot of steps to elevate ad campaigns. But what comes after? Once the developed campaign is in the works, gauging its effectiveness is also crucial, right?

How does the team know that their formulas are working? Without a proper objective in mind, they cannot. If there are certain areas of improvement or which direction the strategy should take – these critical aspects have to have clear objectives in mind.

One of the key benefits of digital advertising is advertisers can use data to increase its effectiveness compared to traditional advertising. But capitalizing on this is something advertisers should be aware of.

Without specific metrics to measure the campaign against, your ad expense can only lead to directionless spending and disappointing numbers. Why run your campaigns blindfolded when the growing application of tech in marketing has attributed tools to assist us?

By mapping the ad performance by reviewing key metrics from clicks to ROAS and using analytics tools, your brand will have a clear goal in sight.

So, what is the end goal of the ads – more selling, brand awareness, or reaching potential customers? Allow your campaigns to focus on both tangible and intangible outcomes.

Paid ads significantly impact your brand and corporate value.

While ads are substantial for brand awareness and visibility, consumers are plagued with ad blindness and fatigue. This has transformed the customer perception of paid ads.

Businesses understand that they need to refine their advertising strategies. Random placing of ads on a page in front of a user and interrupting their search does not work in this atmosphere.

The lack of interest and attention has negatively influenced this landscape. Consumers want an enhanced experience when it comes to browsing and purchasing. Hence, a growing number of them use ad-blocking software to obstruct such ads.

Yes, they wish for content that offers quick solutions, and paid ads can help them get there. However, some advertising tactics are too intrusive.

Advertisers can opt for alternative advertising and consistently invest in chosen channels without relying on a single marketing channel to navigate these possible risks.

The risks of paid advertising are plenty. For the paid ads to instill benefits for a brand, isolating it from other channels can be detrimental. It all boils down to the strategic approach the brand undertakes to navigate the challenges and improve the effectiveness of paid advertising.

Mad Men. Nike. Apple —advertising is an intense study. And everyone wants a piece of it. Brands can build identities with ads and stay in the buyer’s head for decades or years. Becoming part of their nostalgia.

‘Advertising is powerful’ is an understatement. But now, the landscape of ads has changed. All it takes is one look at Times Square and the internet to realize that the most popular form of advertising is digital.

Although print has value and offers a throwback to simpler days, digital advertising has made it easier to reach relevant audiences and resonate with them.

The most challenging part of creating a copy is making it stand out and understanding the message for the right audience. Design, message, and content are the lynchpin of modern advertising.

But how do you reach your audience at the right time with the right message? The answer: Programmatic advertising. The logic behind programmatic ads is simple— as AI Sweigart says, automate the boring stuff.

Programmatic ads have revolutionized advertising. And we’re not even over-indexing its value. But to unravel the full breadth of ad potential, marketing teams must devise strategies for impact.

And these programmatic advertising strategies go way deeper than the obvious.

Programmatic ads are complex systems devised by publishers and advertisers to simplify the process of advertising. These systems involve a lot of moving parts. Before we touch on the strategies. Let us, for the layman, explain what programmatic ads are.

What is programmatic advertising in simple terms?

In simple terms, programmatic ads are the automation of the ad system. There are four technical concepts that marketing teams should know. These are the: –

1. DSP or Demand Side Platform
2. SSPs or the Supply Side Platform
3. RTB or Real-time bidding
4. Ad Inventory or Total ad space

The process starts with the demand side platform. Advertisers use these systems to automate their ads and set up campaigns. On the DSP, the advertiser sets their budget, bidding limit, and so on. In real-time, the RTB starts bidding, and when an advertiser wins, the SSP gives the ad inventory to the winning copy.

These ad inventories are spaces on a website or a slot in video or audio content.

All of this is automated. The advertiser has to choose their audience and define them for the DSP and SSP. The algorithms do the rest.

The Importance of Programmatic Advertising

It is an effective way of advertising. And it keeps on growing as the tech permeates into the tiniest details of our lives. The moment we wake up, advertising and its potential can reach us through our smart devices and OOH displays.

It is this potential that advertisers must use to elevate the consumer’s life. And that is where the programmatic advertising strategies start.

Types of Programmatic Advertising Bidding

Programmatic advertising has tiers of its own. There are various types of bidding that advertisers can engage in based on their budget and standing in the market. Yes, some advertisers enjoy the benefits of an exclusive guestlist.

These types are as follows: –

Open Exchange Biding

Many publishers can bid on the open exchange type of programmatic bidding. It is open to all entries. And there are a lot of publishers available to the advertisers. Open exchange uses RTB to bid for the spaces. These ads do not have a guarantee.

Private Auction

This is where things get exclusive. Not all advertisers are allowed in the private auction. Certain publishers allow a select few to use the ad inventory. Private auction works on the bidding system of PMP or private marketplace— it is the exclusive version of RTB.

Programmatic Guaranteed

This is where we realize the importance of a buyer/seller relationship. Programmatic guaranteed happen between two parties. There is only one advertiser and one publisher. The advertiser has exclusive rights to run ad campaigns on this publisher’s website. Imagine the potential it has. A deal with high-quality publishers means higher chances for ad personalization. After all, an exclusive publisher means access to exclusive audiences and premium inventory. They work on the programmatic direct technology.

There are no bids in programmatic guaranteed. The prices of clicks, impressions, etc. are fixed. And the number of impressions is fixed, too. Negotiated by the buyer and publisher, the publisher promises a certain amount of impressions.

A note on programmatic direct: It is a one-to-one interaction where advertisers’ salespeople meet with the publisher’s team for the deal.

Preferred Deal

Preferred deals are non-guaranteed types of programmatic bidding. The advertiser gets preferential treatment from the publishers, and the buyer can choose not to publish the ad. The publisher and advertisers set a negotiated price for specific ad inventories. Preferred deals are flexible and offer publishers and advertisers a middle ground for exclusive treatment.

Preferred deals also use programmatic direct for inventory purchase and negotiation.

Strategies often fail, and that is not a bad thing.

Programmatic ads are often said to be complex. And for good reason. There is a lot of thought behind them, and marketing teams must understand their workings.

There is a certain vagueness in the programmatic landscape. Most conversations surrounding the technology and its strategies are based on the basic rules.

Of course, A/B testing and understanding the customer are crucial for an ad campaign’s success. There isn’t a marketing leader out there who doesn’t understand the value of experimentation and its relationship with growth. Or understanding the customer in crafting a resonating message.

Crafting a strategy must go beyond all of the basics and the obvious. It would be easy to list down all the things that you must do to succeed. From A/B testing to understanding the DSPs, technical knowledge is a must, but it is a topic discussed at length.

However, one crucial aspect of programmatic advertising strategies, in fact, marketing in general, is how you find a strategy unique to your organization and then execute it.

In advertising, it is by understanding that you must be as fluid as the customer itself.

2025 Emerging Trends in Programmatic Ads

Ask your social media managers. They will tell you that trends change almost daily. Think of all the trends you followed. How many of them died within the day, and how many still persist?

Why does it happen? Psychologists and marketing experts have pondered over this question for a long time. A works, but D does not.

The answer lies in the cultural context of the message. B2B marketing is often said to be boring.

Emerging trends are linked to what is relevant to the culture you are advertising to. And this aspect goes beyond understanding your customer; it is context-based.

Culture, in this day and age, means understanding the societal and technological landscape of the target geography and demographic.

The simplest example is: Will you talk to a 20-year-old like you would with a 60-year-old? No, their technology and understanding of the world changes. Language and lingo changes.

With this information, marketing teams can not only identify emerging trends but also create them. One of the most famous examples is Oatly. Their disruptive marketing is based on eye-catching and energetic messages that go against the grain.

They recently went to the US capitol and gave people ice cream, which was advertised as tastier than regular ice cream. But such disruptive marketing is possible in the ever-social US climate. If it were Japan, they would have been subtle and contradictorily a bit more absurd.

Emerging trends and timeless messages are the crux of marketing strategies. And to understand them, you must understand your customer segments’ culture above everything else.

The Budget Strategy For Programmatic Campaign

Bidding is one of the most crucial aspects of programmatic advertising strategies. In Hubspot’s 2024 state of marketing report, marketers report facing scrutiny in how their budgets are spent and how ROI is generated.

And that scrutiny has only increased. Programmatic ads are budget-heavy. DSPs cost a lot. While running the ad itself will based on the ad budget, impressions, the bid at which it closed, and the keywords used, the tools that you buy will be out of the larger marketing budget. And they are expensive.

How will you justify your budget? This strategic question is often overlooked. In this piece by Google Think—Jim Lecinski, a professor of clinical marketing from Northwestern Univerity, suggests presenting marketing budgets not as a bill but as a financial investment.

It is a simple yet revolutionary idea. For your programmatic advertising strategies to work, you must justify the cost behind them and propose levers of financial growth.

You must: –

1. First, understand why programmatic ads are necessary for your brand. And the potential ROAS the campaigns will present to you.
2. Propose an exact budget and the returns you expect from the campaigns.
3. What market share do you expect your ad campaigns will deliver, and what will be the financial effect on the quarter?
4. What are the drivers of growth you are targeting? Is it brand awareness? Is it leads? Or is it sales?
5. What will be the end financial result of the campaign, and how will it affect the bottom line of your organization?

These are some of the questions that will help a CFO make sense of your spending. Advertising, as much a creative endeavor, is also a financial one.

The Creative Strategy

How does one strategize creativity when creativity itself is part of strategy?

The answer: Creativity is nurtured through experimentation.

While marketing teams love to assign data and attributes to their assets and winning templates, there is no such substitute for creativity. What resonates with people are emotions and outcomes. In the B2C industry, this is perceived to be easier than B2B.

But that is not true. When in a workspace, people are still bound to emotions related to their work, and simplifying complex tasks opens up space for more business improvements and a perception of elevated work lives.

As such, creativity must work within the bounds of emotions and provide a positive outcome to your buyers.

The message

Let us try out an example: –

Of the two messages below, what catches your attention the most?

a. Notion is an all-in-one workspace for managing and creating content.

or

b. Bring your ideas to life— ideation, planning, design, and creation. Notion, is a canvas built to evolve with your vision.

Both messages will resonate with the right audience. There is a chance one will elicit more emotion, curiosity, and imagination. But that is for you to understand which one.

Creativity can be enabled in your teams by letting them experiment. A/B testing is part of this experimentation to verify what is working. But it is not the only way to experiment.

Hotjar’s product experimentation method.

Hotjar, the solution for website analytics, goes through a framework for product experimentation. It is the scientific method of: –

1. Asking the right questions: What does the user want and would benefit from?
2. The possible solutions to the problem
3. Who does the solution exist for?
4. And the data backing up your claims.

This framework empowers marketing teams to come up with their experimentation methods by mixing and matching their unique user base to their behavior.

After all, a message about the product can also be seen as the product itself.

Ad copies are fascinating pieces of art that serve a practical purpose. And should be looked at from a creative aspect. But like architecture—whose art also serves a real function— ads’ creativity has to be deeply rooted in the needs of the buyer.

These needs can be found through understanding the buyer with data.

The Technical Strategy for perfect optimization

We have looked at things from the creatives’ perspective. It is time to get technical.

Technical programmatic ads strategies fall into four parts, and their function is to get a deep understanding of buyers’ needs. The technical strategy enables marketers to validate their creative messages. These four parts are: –

1. Understanding Insertion order and line items
2. Gathering data
3. Analysis
4. Integration

Insertion order and line items

One of the main aspects of running an ad campaign is the timing.

When do you want the ads to run?

For how long?

Where?

To whom?

And why?

Without these, you will not be able to have a successful campaign. Purpose, geography, time, and the user are necessary dimensions of a programmatic advertising strategies’ success.

You have to be very careful with these. Because automation will do as you say.

But how do you go about this? It is by defining the insertion order (A term used by Google’s DV360). Insertion order and its equivalent is nothing but the set of interrelated line items (a.k.a. ad groups.) and the commands given to those line items.

Say you are a SaaS company for salespeople. And you are launching your AI agent. The insertion order will have all your ad groups for the launch of the AI agent.

These ad groups will be of similar themes. But they can target: –

1. Different user bases with their language
2. Different geographies
3. Different keywords e.g., Sales AI Agent V.s. Conversational AI Agent.
4. Different messages and designs.
5. Have certain time periods and differing budgets – maybe one line item runs for an hour, and its budget, 500$ or it runs for the European region and should stop after there are 1k clicks on the ad.

With insertion order and line items, you can set up the rules you want for your campaign. There is complete flexibility as to how you want your ads presented to your users.

Data

Data is a treasure in marketers’ hands. Understanding buyer behavior comes from data. And programmatic advertising is ripe with data.

Every interaction, click, impression, etc. leaves a digital footprint of users’ behavior. And with DSPs, you can choose the data you need in specific scenarios for unique conditions. That makes DSPs a goldmine for first-party data— the holy grail of user data and a key components of programmatic advertising strategies.

However, data without analysis is like a book without a cohesive story.

Analysis

Data analysis has revolutionized human life. From winning wars to boardroom meetings, analysis has driven our decision-making ever since we understood the power of computational data.

There are multiple ways of analysis— through automated software or manual effort, data begins to make sense to the one looking for clues. It is the story behind these vast behavioral maps.

Why does one user behave this way with this campaign but not the other?

Analysis lies in questions such as these. Adobe has a great blog on data analysis and its tools. But for our programmatic advertising strategies, analysis must answer the following questions: –

1. Is the campaign working as good as you hoped it would?
2. Do the numbers or trends suggest that your ad spend was justified?
3. Does the trajectory of your ad campaign need to change? If yes, in which section do you think it should be?

The analysis gives insights into scattered data. But it is the human being who must choose what to do with it. An AI will provide a predictive analysis of your data and visualize it.

The main question is: What can you do about it?

Here’s a resource for all marketing analytical enthusiasts. To generate insights in BigQuery, you would need to do this: https://cloud.google.com/bigquery/docs/data-insights

But your DSP will also provide such analysis. At least, DV360 promises to do so.

Integration

Integration is a vital concept in marketing. It means delivering a cohesive and singular experience to your user.

Programmatic ads are part of customers’ journey into a seamless experience. One cutting-edge advantage of programmatic advertising is the data-driven approach it takes.

And thus enables a dynamic approach to marketing. Based on your buyer and their journey in the funnel, programmatic ads can change the message. And the mode it takes to reach the buyer.

These dynamic ads have the advantage of reaching your buyers wherever they prefer to be. Even if it is their smart TV.

The Reach strategy

Programmatic ads can reach the buyer anywhere. From TVs and phones to their Alexas, these ads can potentially approach your ICP on their terms.

Reaching your audience is not complicated. If your ICP loves podcasts, that’s where you will be.

But what matters is the message. The cohesive experience must also be dynamic enough to adapt to the channel. The message should stay the same, but the delivery will change.

If your ICP is an avid football fan, can you leverage that to reach them through their CTVs?

And you should not do this for clicks either. Remember the rule? 95% of your ICP is not in the market to buy.

But you should nonetheless market to them. Why do you think that is?

It’s because of category entry points. In any given scenario, if a buyer wants to buy something, they will search their memory banks for an option before any search engine. In short, if they think of you in an ideal buying situation, there is a high chance that you will be their choice.

There is a reason why positive brand awareness and market share are so intimately linked.

Bringing it all together – The end of strategy

This is not a comprehensive take on the programmatic advertising strategies that you must take to improve. There’s the omnichannel experience, cross-device targeting, second-party and third-party data leveraging, and more.

There is a good chance your strategy may fail. And that is a good thing. Programmatic advertising strategies’ success is based on the agile practices of failing, pivoting, and success. We have presented to you moving parts that will be necessary for you to understand its depth.

The way you use these moving parts will be based on your creativity. As you experiment and grow, so will your strategy.

As a leader, you must drive the balance between creativity, experimentation, budget, and execution.

Programmatic advertising strategies are intense and satisfying.

Programmatic ads are deeply rooted in marketing strategies. Ad copies must be creative and deliver value to the user. Whether it’s humor, design, content, or the message, each copy must be treated like a product and elicit emotion in the viewer.

There are many dimensions by which you can judge your ads’ success, but if it does not align with business objectives, there is a chance that you may not get the organizational buy-in necessary for the campaigns.

CMOs must teether the line between advertising’s creative side and its financial one. One of the greatest advantages of programmatic ads is its data banks, which can produce high-quality data that will be beneficial for the entire organization.

The complexities of programmatic advertising strategies are not lost on us. That is why Ciente.io orchestrates your buyer experience for you. We lighten the load on your shoulders by bringing our expert-led strategies for brand success.

With advertisers keen to follow the trends, are podcast ads the ideal strategy to attract positive attention toward your brand?

Today, we can perform a single task in multiple ways due to the onset of AI and other technological advancements.

Remember newspaper advertisements? Feels like ancient history.

In this fast-paced digital era, we have conveniently moved to screens (at the cost of our eyesight!).

And if screens were not enough, humans have found another way to consume content – listening. As much as we run towards convenience and comfort in this modern age, our senses are at maximum capacity.

Making us believe that listening and not watching is more comfortable is a marketing tactic. Today, there are over 546.7 million podcast listeners worldwide in 2024.

Why have podcast become so common?

Podcasts mix education with audio entertainment to elevate your mindfulness while you continue with your daily tasks, propelling a significant transformation in the advertising landscape.

Yes, we do commonly associate advertisements with visuals. But how do you elevate your storytelling? By utilizing multiple formats to drive a niche and unfamiliar audience base.

How does advertising strategy work itself into podcasts? We will help you understand this.

Podcast Ads are an underrated but rapidly growing advertising front. They allow you to boost your brand awareness and establish trust when speaking to potential buyers.

In 2024, over $4.02 billion was spent on podcast ads.

These sponsored ads communicate through or during a podcast episode, an uncommon form of paid marketing.

You might wonder whether podcast advertising works the same as radio advertising. Yes, both advertising channels use digital audio ads delivered by the host and some personal experience with that product or service. Also, check Programmatic Advertising Strategies.

But podcast advertising is undeniably different from radio.

Radio ads reach a broad audience, are irrelevant to the content of the radio show, and may seem vaguely random. However, podcast ads centralize targeting. They are placed cautiously within an episode to reach a targeted audience for deeper engagement. The advertisement aligns with the contents of the podcast episode such that its placement seems natural.

In podcast advertising, the target is an interested audience. The only objective is to create purchasing intent.

According to Spotify 2024 Podcast Trends, over 45% of Gen-Z and millennials and 62% of total study respondents stated that they trust the promoted brand during a podcast due to the easy-going relationship the host shares with them. This resulted in talking and searching.

Podcasts take engagement one step further. They offer interactivity features such as polls, real-time Q/As, comment sections, anonymous stories and questions of the week sessions, video podcasts, etc., underscoring a personal and one-to-one relationship with the host.

Podcast advertising takes advantage of this easy-going mode of communication between the host and his audience.

Consider the most popular podcast platforms – Apple, YouTube, or Spotify. To listen to a podcast, users log into their accounts. Hence, advertisers gain in-depth insight into who is watching and listening to their content, guiding them toward curating more targeted ads.

Podcast Ad Types

Podcast ads are placed at an episode’s beginning, middle, or end.

As an advertiser, you have to consider where to place your ad. Placement is a significant component of advertising. The main objective of advertising is to boost your brand visibility and to help you how to market your brand.

How do you catch the attention of your audience? By providing them with a distraction-free environment.

The approaches you use – how – to place or insert an ad into a podcast episode decides the where. You can occupy the spot in an episode in two ways:

Baked-in Ads

This ad placement is permanent, added to the podcast audio file beforehand, appears anywhere within an episode, and is available as long as the episode is on the chosen platform.

Every unique listener hears the same ad. And, even when a new listener goes back to listen to an old episode, they can still hear the ad embedded within.

Dynamic Ads

This form of ad insertion is an ad placed in a chosen spot to reach a targeted audience.

Through dynamic ad insertion strategy, you can offer a better listening experience by personalizing the ad and ensuring that you help maximize the effectiveness of the client campaign.

Here, the ads stay updated because the older podcasts are embedded into new ads. When a listener reverts to an old podcast episode, they listen to the ads, monetizing the back catalogs.

Dynamic ads are inserted by matching the brand with the relevant episode across the category collections – inserting ads with the relevant podcast discussion topics.

Types of ads according to the placement

Following the ad insertion into a podcast, there are three types of ads according to the placement:

Pre-roll Ads

These are ads placed at the very beginning of a podcast episode.

While reading a novel, we rarely drop it in the beginning. We often DNF it as we cannot read beyond the middle mark.

Are placing ads at the beginning of a podcast effective? Most listeners hit play and linger near the device to listen to the episode, boosting the chances they hear the ad. Consequently, if the podcast listener is listening to one of their favorite podcast series, they might be inclined to let the ad play as it eventually leads them to the podcast audio.

Initially, listeners are more patient, so they remain concentrated on the ad content showcasing minimal interest in the services.

Mid-roll Ads

If the ads are banded together one after another at the beginning of the episode itself, your listeners could suffer from ad fatigue. As an advertiser, you place them strategically throughout the podcast episode, figuring out the perfect placement where the listener pays the maximum attention.

Mid-roll ads are placed in the middle of 10-minute or longer podcasts. Is this a lucrative spot?

When podcast listeners reach the middle mark of an episode, they are already engaged in a side activity like cooking or exercising. The strategy is that by being engrossed in a physical activity, they are less likely to pause the ad, allowing them to play through.

What a way to monetize our distractions!

Post-roll Ads

Post-roll ads witness the lowest possible audience.

Readers likely DNF a novel before they reach the second half. This also applies to podcasts.

Most listeners directly skip to the next episode before the current one ends. If this is the last episode of the podcast, they are also most likely to close the app before they have heard the last few words.

An ad placement may seem effective at the end of a podcast when the listeners are busy with another task, so they let the ending play. This is beneficial when the episode is the last one in the series or the next episode is yet to be published.

A risk you have to take!

We explore the three distinct ad formats after how to insert podcast ads in the different placements or spots.

One-size-fits-all is not the right approach here. You need to focus on ad delivery at this junction.

Podcast AD Formats

Which podcast ad format would generate the most interest and create a lasting impact on the audience?

Pre-Recorded Ads

These ads are also pre-produced or announcer-read, targeting a specific audience demographic.

They are commercial messages relayed to the audience by, generally, a voice-over artist and not the host themselves. These are pre-recorded audio ads by the advertiser beforehand and then offered to the podcast host to play during an episode.

They run for over 15 to 30 seconds and are insertable across different slots.

Pre-recorded ads are dynamically inserted into the podcast to target a specific audience.

A targeting campaign helps the advertisers decide which audience should hear the ad based on demographics, geographic location, campaign dates, podcast categories, etc.

Host-Read Sponsorships

Have you ever heard of a live-read during live podcast episodes? Let me break it down for you.

A brand offers the podcast host a messaging brief and also provides sponsorship for the specific episode. After this, the podcast host puts this brief into their own words, changing its tone and fine-tuning it into more native, authentic, and creative content.

They blend it into the contents seamlessly to make it seem more natural. A connected shift in the ad entails more engaged listening from the audience, lasting over 60 seconds to a couple of minutes. It makes the audience think the ad is just another part of the episode.

Host-read ads are commercialized, edited into editorial messages, and recorded by the host. The benefit of host-read ad sponsorships is an improved listening experience resulting in deeper engagement.

In sponsor ads, the priority is driving engagement by blending relevant ads with native podcast content.

Long-Form Branded Episodes or Series

What does branded mean? It entails a sense of loyalty and responsibility.

A brand that wants to advertise on your platform sends a promotional message curated themselves. This could be a branded segment, episode, or entire podcast series.

The focus here is to be non-intrusive and centralize the tonality and voice of the message. The promotional message blends into the editorial content – a middle ground between the advertisers and the podcast host.

One content should not overpower the other, so the curated organic content that resonates with listeners should align with the ad message.

It has to utilize the loyalty and trust built between the podcast host and their listeners. It feels like a personal recommendation from a close friend.

Podcast Ads tap into the parasocial relationship the audience builds with the host.

By engaging and being invested in specific content, the audience sometimes develops an on-sided emotional connection with influencers, celebrities, athletes, etc.

This is what podcast ads take advantage of. And this is something that they monetize on.

It has become commonplace for brands to deliver their products or services to the host so that their talk regarding the experiences is more sincere.

According to a survey by the Guardian, 51% of respondents had a positive ad experience while hearing it on a podcast and even intended to purchase it.

In podcast advertising, listeners learn something new about a brand. Its appealing and informative content attracts attention from prospects, boosting purchasing intent and improving your performance across the overall marketing board.

It is not only helpful in lead generation but also in expanding your audience demographics. Podcast ads target a unique audience pool that is younger and has moved away from consuming traditional broadcast media channels.

By targeting younger audiences through podcasts, advertisers can target other audience pools through TV and radio advertisements without worrying about duplicate content.

Another benefit of podcast ads is their ability to have a multiplier effect on different ad formats, increasing the effectiveness of an ad campaign by offering new information about the brand and improving the authenticity of the brand experience.

And when combined, visual cues make podcast ads more memorable, i.e., boost memory retention.

Due to its diverse benefits and creative freedom, podcast ads have become one of the most trusted mediums for advertisers.

YouGov Research backs this by stating that the majority of their research participants felt more deeply connected when they heard a voice, a crucial element in personalized communication.

Podcast ads combined with sponsorships are the ultimate gateway for businesses of all sizes to boost their brand awareness. The diverse targeting methods, such as interest targeting and first-party integration, help advertisers reach the right audience at the optimal time.

Every business has an ideal audience pool, and podcast advertising has made it possible for advertisers to reach them.

But now that you are aware of the benefits that podcast advertising holds, how can you advertise ads on a podcast, and what are the relevant pricing to do the same?

You can implement measures as an advertiser to advertise your ad on a podcast.

• Decide the contents of your ad. What is your ad regarding, and what is its theme?
• Curate your audio ads and offer the main talking points to the podcast team.
• Look for the appropriate podcast. The relevant ad should blend with the native podcast. You may find the contact information of podcasters on social media and websites or reach out to the parent company.
• Finalize the ad placement. Decide ad placement and insertion beforehand, and finalize the pricing structure for podcast advertising.

The cost of placing an ad depends on different factors, such as the audience reading your ad, the number of spots booked, podcast popularity, the ad length, placement, and overall campaign duration.

Podcasts levy a fixed fee or place a charge per 1000 listeners – the cost per mile (CPM). The industry benchmark for podcast advertising is $8 CPM for 30-second ads and $25 CPM for 60-second ads.

• The period/duration for which the ad will remain in the podcast.
• How do you know you have chosen the right podcast? Track your ROI through vanity URLs, surveys, promo codes, and pixel-based attribution.

Podcast Advertising Effectiveness

Podcast advertising can serve as a unique and underrated marketing platform. But how do we gauge its effectiveness?

Particular podcast ad metrics help outline whether your campaigns drive your business growth. Podcasts are a cookie-less audio medium measured through listens rather than clicks or scrolls.

First, for basics, you may track the number of unique listeners who listened to your podcast at least once, comprising streams and downloads.

Second, there are specific attribution requirements mentioned beforehand that you can effectively measure depending on the ad content and funnel structure:

• Discount or promo codes: A unique redeemable promo code provided by the podcast host used during the checkout stage of the purchase. It helps track the number of purchases and the number of new buyers.
• Pixel-based attribution: How do marketing channels that use content marketing measure the success of their strategies? Through downloads.

Track ad exposure and overall website activity, i.e., every user action. However, how do you track user activity and web traffic once the user activity is taking place offline? The ways to track post-download engagement are complicated and limited.

While the RSS feed makes podcast distribution, i.e., downloading, streaming, and subscription easier, it complicates tracking. The user activity (listening) takes place offline once the podcast is downloaded onto the listener’s device.

How do we track the web traffic then? Pixel-based attribution.

This podcast measurement technique uses the available user data point to match the listener’s unique identifier with the purchaser’s unique identifier even when online cookies are absent.

• Surveys: In marketing and advertising, it is crucial to assess whether the channels are effective. It is not easy to analyze or anticipate the exposure, response, and effectiveness, hence, post-conversion surveys help outline the elements influencing the customer‘s decisions.
• Vanity URLs: Vanity URLs are unique, easy to remember, and shorter versions of longer podcast links. It mentions where the link will guide the listeners.

It is as easy to assess podcast traffic as other digital media.

Podcast advertisers, to accurately and reliably, analyze the traffic depend on insights illustrating the delivery and outcome of the podcast such as impression, frequency, and reach.

Research states that podcast listeners show favorable consumer behavior due to the positivity exuded by podcast advertising.

Margaret Moe in “Podvertising: Podcast Listeners’ Advertising Attitudes, Consumer Actions, and Preference for Host-Read Ads” published in the Journal of Economics and Behavioral Studies outlines how listeners engage, interact, and react to podcast ads, especially host-read ads.

The research outlines the correlation between podcast advertising attitudes, the authenticity of the host, and the preference for host-read ads. They prefer ads from regular contributors due to the authenticity and trust between them and their favorite podcast(er) host.

With a staggering increase in podcast listeners, advertisers can build more opportunities to nurture engaged listeners interested in listening to host-read ads and purchasing the services discussed.

Stirring up the Internet, in a recent campaign showcasing the work of some timeless artists, Coca-Cola shows the inspiration flowing from one painting to another- in the form of a Coke bottle. The ad is culturally diverse and demonstrates an eclectic mix of artwork. 
Featuring the canvases of artists like Andy Warhol, Edvard Munch, J. Vermeer, and more, the advertisement shows how Coca-Cola creates magic in the mundane. 

The ad creates a successful hook from the beginning- keeping the viewers’ attention and engaging them as it moves from one artwork to another. 

It starts with an art student sitting and slumping. While everyone around him is up and working, this student feels uninspired and dead beat. One painting decides to give him refreshment and then begins the process of handing him a bottle of Coke. He takes a sip and designs art that the teacher immediately approves and takes a liking to.

Coca-Cola has been excellent at brand marketing for decades now. From 1971, I’d Like to Buy the World a Coke to 1995, Holidays are Coming, to Create Real Magic (Present), its campaigns have never failed to take the world by storm.

With consumers across the globe drinking about 2 billion servings of the company every day, Coca-Cola is a marketing genius that knows how to use the power of creativity to drive demand generation. After 130 years, the company changed its typeface in 2018- TCCC Unity. Inspired by American modernism, the new typeface aligns better with the company name. 

The Editor’s Note

It’s high time B2B marketing drew some insights from such beautiful marketing done by B2C brands at scale. Coca-Cola has always conveyed how it makes ordinary moments special with its campaigns. Though B2B marketing works by leveraging different levers, marketing’s premise has always been to make the customer happy and satisfied.