Display Advertising and the Integrated Marketing Stack

You may have read the news that Rocket Fuel acquired X+1, Alliance Data agreed to buy Conversant, and more recently, AppNexus will acquire Xaxis for Publishers (formerly Open AdStream). These companies, and others like Adobe, are making big investments in advertising and marketing technology, many of which bring big advantages for the display advertiser. Key components of a marketing stack that benefit display advertisers include

• Website analytics
• Site optimization
• Tag management
• Cross channel (search, social, display, mobile) ad management, optimization, tracking, and attribution reporting
• Audience management
• Demand-side platform (DSP)

Adobe has made various acquisitions over the last several years including Efficient Frontier (cross-channel ad management and optimization platform for display, search, and social advertising), Demdex ( data management platform), and Omniture (Site Catalyst for web analytics, Test & Target for site optimization), all of which are components of the Adobe Marketing Cloud and offer benefits for the display advertiser using the Adobe Media Optimizer Display DSP.

The investment in display is not surprising given the size of the display industry, its projected growth, and the ongoing shift to programmatic buying. In the “Programmatic Ad Spend Set to Soar” article published by eMarketer, a report estimates that

• Programmatic spend worldwide is $12 billion currently (the US at $7.5 billion) with growth to $32.6 billion by 2017 (the US at $16.9 billion)
• Real-time bidded (RTB) programmatic buying will grow from $3.3 billion to $8.5 billion by 2017, showing a double digit growth rate

Benefits for Display Advertisers

Here are some of the ways that an integrated marketing stack (or marketing cloud) can benefit the display advertiser.

Reduce resource and time investment.

• Common tag management reduces reliance on IT and Ops resources for pixeling of the advertiser website for audience segmentation and conversion tracking, and it streamlines the process of pixeling for various solutions in the integrated marketing stack (website analytics, site optimization, retargeting, display/search/social conversion tracking, audience management)
• Centralized audience management and unified user profiles allow for easy segmentation and targeting across all solutions in the marketing stack without having to recreate a separate audience for each.

Drive more conversions through access to website analytics data for targeting. Get access to high value audiences, and find more of them.

• Easy access to high performing users and audiences for retargeting (cart abandoners, product pages visits). Site analytics allows segmentation of users that have shown high interest in the advertiser brand by visiting the website and shown high intent by actions on their site
• Find more high-value audiences through site analytics by combining granular segments that may not have scaled for standard retargeting.

Deliver a consistent and relevant experience across the customer journey.

• Display ad and website content – Leverage centralized audience management and segmentation across the marketing stack to reach the same audience with a consistent and relevant experience across the display ad and website content.
• Display and search channel – By managing search and display in the same platform an advertiser can use their product feed to drive relevant experience (price, product, image) in both display product retargeting ads and search Google Shopping ads. And track the path to conversion across display, search, product retargeting, and search Google Shopping.

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Cross-channel optimization, tracking, and attribution reporting in the same marketing stack.

• Optimize display campaigns and budgets with other channels (search, social, mobile) that are supported in the same marketing stack.

Manage all display buy types programmatically in one platform, the DSP

• Cen­tral­ized cam­paign and cre­ative man­age­ment, track­ing, per­for­mance and attri­bu­tion report­ing with trans­parency into media costs, ven­dor fees, ad exchanges, and ad inventory.
• Pro­gram­matic buying to meet needs for all types of display campaigns including real-time bidding (RTB) on open ad exchanges, pri­vate exchanges, pri­vate mar­ket­places, as well as direct pro­gram­matic guaranteed.

When choosing a vendor for display advertising don’t just look at their display capabilities. Also consider the entire set of digital marketing solutions that they offer and how they work together to meet your needs.