Advertisers around the world are familiar with the AIDA framework or the marketing funnel – the four stages a consumer goes through before making a purchase; attention/awareness, interest, desire, action.
It is accepted wisdom that consumers must first become aware of a product or brand, then become interested by learning about the benefits, then develop a favorable disposition to the product or brand and start to desire it, before finally taking action and buying a product. In simple terms the funnel looks a bit like this:
- Awareness/attention: I’ve heard of it
- Interest: I like it
- Desire: I want it
- Action: I’m buying it
Advertising campaigns are planned around these KPIs – with ads designed to drive brand awareness and affinity at the top of the funnel and ads designed to drive a consumer response at the bottom of the funnel.
For a long time, programmatic has been associated with bottom-of-the-funnel metrics, being seen as a performance driver. But things are changing.
As more high-quality media moves into the programmatic sphere, advertisers are increasingly embracing programmatic for their brand spend. PubMatic commissioned Forrester to run a study in APAC which found that media buyers are increasingly embracing programmatic mobile app for their brand campaigns. And, as the natural evolution of linear TV, OTT and CTV already attract a lot of brand spend.
The latest iteration of programmatic – Auction Packages – are helping to facilitate that shift. Through Auction Packages, media buyers can easily access programmatic inventory and audiences that help them achieve a specific campaign KPI. Auction Packages pull together programmatic open marketplace inventory, bound by specific parameters, into one Deal ID for easy activation. Inventory can be curated by how it performs or by the audience accessing that inventory.
At the top of the funnel, campaigns tend to skew towards video – video being a well-established format for delivering branding objectives. For advertisers running awareness campaigns, ensuring that their ad is seen and has maximum visibility is key – so an Auction Package that is optimized for viewability is ideal. The higher the viewability rate, the higher the percentage of ads that are actually seen by a user. High Viewability Auction Packages are optimized to include inventory that meets and exceeds viewability thresholds of 70%, 80% and 90%.
When running an interest campaign, advertisers need viewers to stay engaged with their ads – so an Auction Package that delivers high video completion rates is ideal. The higher the completion rate, the higher the percentage of viewers who stayed engaged right until the end of the ad and were exposed to the entire story the ad was designed to tell. Remember, these ads are designed to have consumers think ‘I like it’ after viewing. High Video Completion Rate Auction Packages are optimized to deliver completion rates of 70%, 80%, 90%, and above. Rewarded Video Auction Packages are another useful tool here – rewarded video is a format that incentivizes a viewer to watch an ad to completion in return for something, usually an extra life or some other prize in a gaming environment.
The viewers most likely to then be converted into the ‘I want it’ bucket are those for whom the brand or product makes the most sense. So, for advertisers running desire campaigns, being able to target a specific audience is key. Again, Auction Packages offer a solution here – audience data can be layered onto inventory to ensure the campaign is targeted to the viewers most likely to find it relevant. And when layered on the sell-side, closer to the viewer, audience data can be more effective as there are fewer hops around the ecosystem.
At the lower end of the funnel, video can still be an effective medium, but this is where display comes into its own too. Campaigns at the pointy end of the funnel need a viewer to take action – ideally to click on an ad to make a purchase, find out more about a product or visit an advertiser’s website. So, Auction Packages that deliver high click-through-rates can get advertisers the right result. As with high viewability and high completion rate packages, Auction Packages that are optimized to high click-through-rates include inventory that meets and exceeds certain thresholds, so advertisers can get a higher percentage of viewers taking the desired action.
The next time you’re looking for an effective and efficient way to achieve a campaign KPI, at scale – think programmatic, because there’s an Auction Package for that.
PubMatic offers a range of seasonal and always-on Auction Packages that are designed to help media buyers smash their campaign KPIs – including High Viewability, High Video Completion, Rewarded Video, Demo/Audience and High Click Through packages.
Check out our Auction Packages Store to find out which package is best for you.
