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Programmatic Archives - acronym

Aug 16
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Sam’s Club Overhauls Its Ad Network with a Self-Service Platform

By eCommerce and Marketplaces No Comments

As retailers continue to invest in new ways to let advertisers reach consumers via their online properties, Sam’s Club is the latest to give its ad network a major overhaul.

In addition to giving online shoppers new search capabilities, Sam’s Club now lets advertisers buy sponsored product ads through a self-service platform called the Membership Access Platform (MAP). The platform allows clients to target shoppers based on search behavior, past purchases and membership info.

The Walmart-owned company today is rolling out a number of updates across its website, app and curbside pickup e-commerce options. Along with giving online shopping new search capabilities, Sam’s Club will now let advertisers buy sponsored product ads through a self-service platform called the Membership Access Platform (MAP) to target shoppers based on search behavior, past purchases and membership info. Marketers will also be able to retarget people off Sam’s Club’s platforms through programmatic ad partnerships with The Trade Desk, IRI and LiveRamp.

Marketers will also be able to retarget people off Sam’s Club’s platforms through programmatic ad partnerships with The Trade Desk, IRI and LiveRamp.

Acronym’s EVP, Performance Marketing, Gregg Manias offered his perspective:

“Sam’s Club is joining Target, Walmart and a few others who already share their first-party data with Trade Desk. As brands decide whether they should build their own clean room to deal with data sharing, Trade Desk provides more measurement value to their programmatic partners than they did just two years ago.

The new partnership will help brands understand the lifetime value of a customer. It also helps trace what customers are searching for both online and offline because it can all be traced back to the credit card.

Although Amazon has had the lead for years, competition is heating up. Retail media also helps marketers get better behavioral targeting data and more quickly track sales data rather than waiting for an entire quarter or longer to see how products are moving on shelves.”

Retail media continues to see significant gains. In the U.S. alone, retail media ad sales are expected to climb 39% from $29 billion in 2021 to $40 billion in 2022, according to Forrester, which predicts that could double to $85 billion by 2026.

And as third-party cookies become less effective, marketers want new ways of reaching consumers beyond traditional search and social media. If you’d like more information or want guidance on how your brand can drive conversions through programmatic ad partnerships with The Trade Desk, IRI or LiveRamp, give us a call. Our eCommerce and Marketplaces experts are here to help.

Aug 15
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Global Ad Trends: The Rising Cost of Incremental Reach

By Paid Media No Comments

Maintaining campaign reach in a fragmented media market is a growing challenge. WARC Media released a report on the rising cost of incremental reach.

Key findings include:

  • Linear TV represented 37.9% of daily media consumption in North America; by 2022, that percentage is forecast to drop to 24.5%.
  • In the US, TV CPMs are forecast to reach $73.14 in 2022, an increase of 40.0% on pre-COVID levels in 2019.
  • Channels like BVOD provide an alternative source of incremental reach; however, OTT ad costs are rising, too.
  • Attention research suggests that not all incremental reach is equally effective; channels with higher CPMs may deliver better-quality attention.

What This Means For Brands:

Mass reach via linear TV may become harder to achieve as media consumption fragments. In 2013, linear TV represented 37.9% of daily media consumption in North America; by 2022, that percentage is forecast to drop to 24.5%. Meanwhile, linear TV ad costs have spiked since the pandemic.

This trend of declining linear television viewership and rising TV media costs is encouraging advertisers to pursue incremental reach elsewhere, especially online where channels with higher CPMs may deliver better-quality attention. In paid social, for example, CPMs increased by 33% between 2019 and 2021.

As media consumption behaviors change, cross-channel measurement is vital to optimizing reach strategies. Brands need to be able to pivot quickly to meet shifts in consumer trends.

If you need assistance understanding where and how your audience is consuming media, contact us today. We’re here to help.

Jul 18
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Acronym is a Finalist for Two U.S. Search Awards

By Acronym News, Paid Search, Programmatic, Social Media No Comments

Acronym is Recognized for Best Use of Local Search and Best Integrated Campaign

The U.S. Search Awards short list was released on Friday and Acronym nabbed two wins as a Finalist for The Best Use of Local Search and The Best Integrated Campaign. Winners will be announced on July 29th.

The recognized campaign for the Best Use of Local Search campaign spotlighted our work with a luxury hotel brand that sought to increase non-brand local Search rankings and traffic for 700 individual property websites, including hotel/resort, residences, spa, restaurant, and bar listings — all while driving measurable revenue through local, organic Search efforts.

Acronym developed and executed a framework of best practices for local listing optimizations, including each location’s most desired non-branded Search terms and gave the individual property listing managers clear and tailored processes for ongoing efforts to drive lasting results.

The average non-brand local rankings for individual properties increased by 29%.

The individual property website traffic increased by 8% and property revenue from local organic Search also increased by 8%.

Local property managers are continuing to implement Acronym’s processes, and we expect these results to continue to increase month-over-month as additional content is optimized through local search engines. 

Meanwhile, the recognized work for Best Integrated Campaign spotlights how Acronym helped Wharton Executive Education grow their audience, improve prospecting efficiency, and limit the barriers to entry for programmatic content while ensuring the brand’s presence across premium publishers to drive more online applications.

Acronym streamlined prospecting and awareness through seamless buying to dramatically improve efficiencies by creating strategic programmatic content alignment with publishers on premium websites including sites like Finance.Yahoo.com, USAToday.com, Newsweek.com, Forbes.com, SFGate.com, CNN.com, NewYorkTimes.com, NewYorkPost.com, HuffPost.com, CBSNews.com, WashingtonPost.com, BusinessInsider.com, and more.

This new approach to display and programmatic advertising reduced time spent on media buys, drove efficiencies, and increased performance, enabling Acronym to limit barriers to entry, buy directly on premium sites more efficiently, lower barriers to entry and develop a new process that performed the way you would through direct site buys, programmatically.

This is the third recognition for Acronym’s work with Wharton this year. Last month, U.S. Campaign named Acronym a Finalist for the Best Use of Digital/Programmatic and the social media campaign supporting Wharton’s Live Online Programs was named Agency Campaign of the Year by Sprout Social.

If you’d like help developing the right local Search, Programmatic or Social Media campaign for your brand, please let us know. Our media teams are ready to help!

Jul 07
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50% of Marketers Hinder ROI by Underinvesting in Media, Nielsen Finds

By Paid Media, Uncategorized No Comments

Nielsen’s first-ever ROI Report demonstrates some of the gaps in marketers’ budgets, channels and media strategies that are negatively affecting ROI.

The report found that while about 50% of media plans are underinvested by a median of 50%, ROI can be improved 50% with an ideal budget, which Nielsen describes as the “50-50-50 Gap.”

“In a time when there are more channels than ever to reach desired audiences, it’s critical that insights on ROI are attainable and easy to understand. Brands can’t afford to waste valuable ads on the wrong audiences. By investing wisely and having a balanced strategy of both upper-funnel and lower-funnel initiatives, brands can reach the right audiences and maximize their ROI.”

Imran Hirani, vice president of media and advertiser analytics at Nielsen

The report found that media spend should be between 1% and 9% of a company’s revenue, with challengers spending more and larger brands spending less.

The report also found that overspending isn’t as problematic as underspending, which affects digital video (66% underinvested), display (60%), social (43%) and even TV (31%).

How to optimize ad spends, measure returns and improve metrics.

Nielsen’s “50-50-50 Gap” finding shows that while many media plans are often underinvested, results can be improved with better budgets.

  • Full funnel marketing: To grow ROI, brands should pursue a balanced strategy for both upper and lower funnel initiatives. Nielsen found that adding upper-funnel marketing to existing lower- and mid-funnel marketing can grow overall ROI by 13-70%.
  • Emerging media: It is difficult for brands to spend big amounts without proof that the new media works, but spending small amounts can make it hard to see if the media is working. Nielsen found that podcast ads, influencer marketing and branded content can deliver over 70% in aided brand recall, and that influencer marketing ROI is comparable to ROI from mainstream media.
  • Ad sales growth strategy: Ultimately, ROI will inform publisher pricing power. Publishers are not just competing against others in their channel, but also against other channels, so comparing channel ROIs can help set pricing strategy. The ROI Report uncovered that social media delivers 1.7x the ROI of TV, yet social gets less than one-third of TV ad budgets.
  • Audience measurement: Campaigns with strong on-target reach deliver better sales outcomes. However, only 63% of ads across desktop and mobile are on-target for age and gender in the U.S., meaning that on the channels with the most exhaustive data coverage and quality, over one-third of ad spend is off-target. To capitalize on opportunity and drive impact, advertisers should prioritize measurement solutions that cover all platforms and devices, with near-real time insights.

Along with channel underinvestment, Nielsen found that only 63% of ads on desktop and mobile are on-target for age and gender in the U.S., despite high levels of data coverage and quality in the channels. Advertisers should prioritize cross-platform and cross-device measurement solutions and near-real time insights to drive impact.

If you need assistance with your media strategy, contact us today. We are here to help.

Apr 04
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Trust in Advertising is on the Decline – But Search, Social and Programmatic Still Deliver

By Content Marketing, Programmatic, SEO, Social Media No Comments

It’s no secret that consumer trust in advertising has been steadily declining in recent years. But, it’s not all bad news for brands as reports indicate consumers still trust some channels over others. For example, Nielsen’s Trust in Advertising study found that brand sponsorships are among the most trusted advertising sources among global consumers, yet most marketers don’t readily consider newer ad formats like brand integrations, sponsorships and product placements in their media planning. This is where programmatic strategies can help brands connect with customers by leveraging the built-in trust of these partner integrations.

The report also highlights how important digital channels have become from a marketing perspective, evidenced by significant increases in planned spending across search and social media.

Digital marketing channels are attractive because they drive sales in the current quarter, not the next and deliver real-time conversion metrics. Marketers surveyed by Nielsen believe search and social media are the most effective for their businesses.

Meanwhile, The Edelman Trust Barometer has shown that both trust and reputation are correlated with actual and intent to purchase, but that trust is in many ways the more powerful factor. For example, 61% of people globally say that a good reputation may get them to try a product; but unless they come to trust the company behind the product, they will soon stop buying it regardless of its reputation.

So, how can a brand improve its reputation and create the kinds of connections that convert?

According to Edelman, consumers most want Diversity, Authenticity, Transparency, Social Responsibility, Data Security, Valued Opinion and Purpose from brands.

Marketers can demonstrate these brand attributes through their message as well as the select channels and media outlets in which they place their programmatic ads. This can be amplified by additional content marketing through social media and search.

If you’d like assistance with your content strategy and how to best select the right channels in social, search and programmatic, give us a call. We are here to help.

Mar 14
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Acronym Is a Finalist For U.S. Campaign’s Best Use of Programmatic

By Acronym News No Comments

Acronym was named a U.S. Campaign finalist for Best Use of Digital/Programmatic for Wharton Executive Education’s Live Online Programs. Winners will be announced at a special virtual event on April 28th.

The recognized campaign was developed to grow Wharton’s audience, improve prospecting efficiency, and limit the barriers to entry for programmatic content while ensuring the brand’s presence across premium publishers to drive more online applications.

Acronym streamlined prospecting and awareness through seamless buying to dramatically improve efficiencies by creating strategic programmatic content alignment with publishers on premium websites.

Using a marketplace curated by NYIAX, Acronym accessed premium inventory for Wharton, including sites like FoxNews.com, Finance.Yahoo.com, USAToday.com, Newsweek.com, Forbes.com, SFGate.com, CNN.com, NewYorkTimes.com, NewYorkPost.com, HuffPost.com, CBSNews.com, WashingtonPost.com, BusinessInsider.com, and more.

This new approach to display and programmatic reduced time spent on media buys, drove efficiencies, and increased performance, enabling Acronym to limit barriers to entry, buy directly on premium sites more efficiently, lower barriers to entry and develop a new process that performed the way you would through direct site buys, programmatically.

These activities were also supported by other prospecting tactics, including behavioral targeting (business executives), keyword targeting (business and finance topics), and an additional custom and curated publisher/content site list.

This is the second recognition for Acronym’s work with Wharton this year. Last month, the social media campaign supporting Wharton’s Live Online Programs was named Agency Campaign of the Year by Sprout Social.

If you’d like help developing the right programmatic strategy or social media campaign for your brand, please let us know. Our media teams are ready to help!

Dec 20
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Top Media Trends for 2002

By Insights & News, Paid Media No Comments

Today, we are looking at the top programmatic and media trends that will matter in the coming year according to Acronym’s SVP, Performance Media, Gregg Manias; VP, Media Integration, Joanna Cohen; and VP, Performance Media, Peter Semetis.

Display and programmatic will continue to grow in importance.

Programmatic lowers the barrier to entry enabling smaller brands to leverage media types that were originally unattainable for them. With programmatic, brands can reach people in different areas in a cross-channel environment to deliver contextual targeting. This is becoming more important because of the changing viewing habits of customers.

“Programmatic display is like using a scalpel to pinpoint precisely where your money is going,” explains Peter Semetis, VP, Performance Media. “For comparison, consider a highly rated program, like the Super Bowl, where a wide audience is watching your ad for floor tiles versus an online video about how to tile a floor targeting someone who recently purchased a home. That’s the power of programmatic – getting your message directly in front of the person most likely to want it.”

Another clear advantage of programmatic is tied to the increase in video consumption. Media consumption today is video based and with scrolling behaviors changing, the amount of media consumed in a given moment has grown exponentially. For example, more TikTok videos are watched in duration than on YouTube today. The consideration of how people engage with video content has changed and as such, their engagement with programmatic display is changing as well.

There will be a continued rise in CTV.

There are more connected TV subscriptions in the U.S. than cable subscriptions today. With this wider audience, comes more opportunities for incremental reach.

“We’ve seen connected TV growth surpass previous expectations, with viewability metrics eclipsing mobile devices” Semetis said. “The industry expected to see this kind of growth over two years, but with everyone at home during the pandemic, consumers began cutting the cord at an accelerated pace.”

Streaming services are focusing on the “hold-out” content that kept some users watching cable, specifically sports content. Helping clear up the misconception about sports content streaming services, YouTube TV has been the premiere sponsor for sporting events like the NBA Finals, the Stanley Cup Playoffs, and the World Series. This additional programming is expected to drive even more cord-cutters in the coming year and that’s good news for marketers.

“There are clear advantages to CTV and addressable video media opportunities”, said Joanna Cohen, VP, Integrated Media at Acronym. “With CTV, I know who my target audience is and what they are watching. Rather than targeting content and programming as a proxy to reach an audience, I am able to target an audience directly using data (set-top box and digital identifiers) and furthermore onboard and activate first, second, and third party data to prescriptively locate and address an audience in real-time. In the world of integrated media, data-driven targeting and addressable media opportunities represent a significant breakthrough – enabling far greater cost efficiencies, lower waste, and targeted reach – yielding improved brand experiences and performance results on behalf of the brands and marketers we serve.”

First-Party Data will become the best defense and offense for all brands.

The collection and utilization of first-party data has always been a priority for marketers. This data can create a clear and accurate picture of the customer, which allows marketers to better understand their mindset, wants and needs. With the expected dissolution of cookies, brands are placing a greater importance on first-party data in the coming year – along with data purchased from retail marketplaces. (Learn more about how retail leaders have allowed brands and agencies to combine their first-party data with marketplace data here.)  

“The more we understand who the customer is, what types of content they like and the types of products they want, the more personalized we can be in the content we deliver to them,” explains Gregg Manias, SVP, Performance Media, at Acronym. “Having data that you can buy through an auction site or marketplace or through other partners, alleviates the burden of not having cookies for targeting and measuring.”

With first-party data marketers can better capture the demographics of a customer and what they’ve bought, enabling brands to build a more honest and direct relationship with their customers. With all this data, we will also see an increase in neuromarketing as it becomes more powerful and subtle. (Learn more about Acronym’s approach to neuromarketing here.)

“First-party data is the best offense and defense for brands facing bigger players in their space,” Semetis added. “Brands leveraging CRM data are starting to realize what it’s worth and the fact that only you have access to it, gives you an advantage. Brands just need to be sure they don’t just sit on this data – they need to use it.”

If you are unsure how to best leverage your brand’s first-party data or want help combining it with marketplace data and the right CTV or programmatic campaigns in 2022, contact us. We’re happy to help.

POV by Gregg Manias, SVP, Performance Media; Joanna Cohen;, VP, Media Integration; and VP, Performance Media, Peter Semetis.

Nov 15
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The Six Best Practices that Deliver Programmatic ROI

By Insights & News, Programmatic No Comments

The latest Attitudes to Programmatic Advertising survey reported the percentage of advertisers investing more than 41% of their display inventory via programmatic methods increased to 70% in 2020 from 55% in 2019.

Data-informed programmatic ad targeting optimizes ad campaigns and ensures brands put their budget where it will deliver the greatest results by eliminating irrelevant segments and focusing spend on targets with predefined traits like demographics, age, gender, geolocations, browsing history, and online activities. 

Some other key findings include the use of video as a key driver of programmatic investment amongst agencies; 54% of agencies now buy more than 41% of their video inventory programmatically compared to 50% in 2019. And, with the rise in advertiser investment in programmatic, ads.txt inventory purchasing is increasing, as is awareness. 52% of Publishers meanwhile said they were selling more than 81% of their ads.txt inventory.

Today, the buy-side continues to evolve towards hybrid models. In 2019, 15% of advertisers stated that they had a hybrid model for programmatic trading. This has increased to 30% in 2020.

What Are the Best Practices in Programmatic Ad Targeting?

So, as more brands embrace programmatic, what are the best practices to improve your ROI?

1. Behavioral targeting: This is an important way to connect with customers by delivering relevant ads based on their behavior signals such as search history, browsing habits, social media interactions and purchase behaviors. 

2. Hyper-local targeting: Multi-location brands can leverage programmatic ROI by focusing on specific geographical locations. Google and Facebook, for examples, deliver hyperlocal targeting to serve specific users right down to their street addresses.

3. Ad-spend optimization: Marketers use predictive customer lifetime value (CLTV) to analyze future revenue generation by existing customers. This strategy optimizes downstream behavior like purchase decisions, app downloads and online engagements.

4. Relevant intent signals: Actionable data insights sourced from diverse touch points enable tighter ad targeting as brands can run – and adjust – campaigns based on real-time campaign performance. This is an important way to maximizes ROI and avoid wasteful spends.

5.  Frequency caps: We recommend brands differentiate cross-channel users and prevent them from viewing duplicate ads. Our Analytics teams help ensure you controls each users’ ad impressions on an hourly, weekly or monthly basis. This makes better use of programmatic media budget by avoiding repetitive ad displays to the same users.

6. Attractive brand visuals: As the Attitudes to Programmatic Advertising study showed, video remains the preferred visual media to drive the best ROI. Consistency breeds trust and brand relevancy. To make your ads more recognizable, make sure you follow your own brand guidelines and deliver not only a consistent message, but also a consistent look and feel.

If you’d like assistance in developing the right programmatic campaigns for your brand, contact us today.

Aug 25
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Top Tips for Programmatic Success

By Insights & News, Machine Learning, Programmatic No Comments

Constant scheduling, manual negotiations, and pricing discussions, all these time-wasting activities are obsolete with programmatic advertising.

Programmatic advertising is simply campaign automation. It allows your team to focus their time on measuring campaign performance to ensure your budget is put to the best possible use with zero wasted time or money.

Programmatic also enables you to reach a larger audience. Nearly 60% of the global population is online. With precise targeting and programmatic experience, brands can find an approach to every potential customer.

With that in mind, here are the top tips for programmatic success:

  • Be selective with platforms. Understand the platform’s reach – examine which ad exchanges are included and ensure they are relevant to your target audience. Ensure you – or your partners – know the platform’s pricing structure (dynamic vs. fixed CPMs) and make your selections based on specific campaign goals.
  • Understand the Customer and their Journey. The more you understand you customer’s behaviors, the better you can connect with them throughout the journey and at key points in the funnel. Programmatic advertising allows you to tailor your branded content to each user’s interest at each stage of their experience. In fact, segmenting your customers based on their interests, preferences, and the specifics of their journey enables you to deliver the right message in the right way to each audience segment.
  • Let performance drive optimization. There is a reason it’s called “performance marketing.” The best approach allows for flexibility and revisions as performance data is available. This means you need to give your campaigns enough time for machine learning to occur as each user response informs the algorithms on the types of people most likely to act on your ad. Every ad interaction creates an opportunity for learning and improvement. In other words, programmatic advertising enables brands to narrow campaign targeting with each measured result.
  • Cast a wide net that’s based on stated goals. Programmatic success relies on multi-channel optimization. However, it’s important to select the channels that will deliver the desired call-to-action. This wide net also includes the content types you use in your programmatic campaigns. Because the algorithms continually test user response, delivering three-to-five different pieces of content gives you more performance data to connect with different buyers.

While it’s easy to think that programmatic advertising is entirely automated, you still need a clear strategy behind it. Machines are only as useful as the people operating them. Combining human experience and creativity with marketing automation delivers credible, actionable, successful campaigns. If you’d like assistance getting started in programmatic advertising, contact us today. We are happy to help.