For as long as small businesses have existed, one of their biggest advantages has been their familiarity with customers. You may not have the same quantity of resources as the big players in your industry, but you know the people you need to target: what they need, what they want, where they live, and what their mindset is.
The power of programmatic is the potential to unlock the secrets within your customer data and leverage that knowledge to use your advertising budget more effectively than ever.
Programmatic’s robust targeting options are incredibly powerful for small businesses
A quick refresher: programmatic advertising uses automation to bid on remnant inventory (leftover ad space on websites) in real-time. When you run a programmatic campaign, you typically pay per impression, so the cost is based on how many users actually see your ad.
The heart of a programmatic campaign is targeting: which users are going to see which ads on which websites? An effectively designed programmatic campaign leverages your knowledge of your target audience and uses numerous criteria to find prospects, including demographics, behavior, location, and more. While traditional advertising was largely focused on “where” (and used imprecise location targeting at that), programmatic really allows you to zero in on “who” needs to hear your message.
The key, then, is to think strategically about your target audience, integrate all of the data you have about your customers—email addresses, phone numbers, physical addresses, and so on—match online and offline data using a data management platform (DMP), and find the right moments to engage with prospective customers at the right moment in the sales funnel. Think of a local retailer targeting customers on their phones when they are physically within a few blocks of the store, for example, or promoting an event by targeting people similar to past attendees.
With programmatic, you can leverage what you know best
When executed properly, programmatic has tremendous potential for small businesses because the automated system takes care of the heavy lifting—bidding on inventory, negotiating prices, managing the campaigns—so you can stay in control of your advertising strategy. Your job is to understand your customers, as well as give some thought to your brand identity and safety (using whitelists or blacklists to protect you from being associated with certain websites). Programmatic turns your expertise into advertising success.
If you’re a small business owner looking to make a big advertising impact, it’s time to invest in the power of programmatic display advertising. Contact us to find out how THRONE can help.