Creatively Customising your Consumer’s Programmatic Journey

Often, the secret to campaign success is planning and executing a full-funnel strategy – knowing who your audience is, when to reach them, and how. Creative plays an important role in your strategy, as they’re an effective way to increase awareness around your brand, and build strong consumer relationships throughout your campaign story.

Utilizing the variety of Programmatic creative formats available, you can create a powerful consumer journey across relevant platforms that capture and retain the attention of your target audience. These formats allow your audience to relay relevant information about your brand and offers, while establishing a loyal customer base.

It’s crucial to your campaigns success that you choose a combination of relevant creative formats to achieve your campaign goals. The good news is, with programmatic platforms like Display & Video 360 (DV360), every brand has access to an exciting variety of ad formats to make the most of any media investment.

High impact rich media (gamification/interactive):

High impact display formats allow brands to tell their story and raise awareness among consumers, using immersive and engaging units. These prospecting HTML5 formats typically include interstitials, masthead, and interactive units that can include features from interactive games and actions to exploratory product experiences.

Check out this campaign we did with Hudson’s Bay.

Display banners (standard/animated/data-driven):

Useful in all stages of the funnel, display banners are engaging and eye-catching for the user. Animated banners can entice audiences with copy transitions, movement of illustrative elements, and microinteractions. Static banners are a great way for brands to broadcast their message at scale, and to re-engage exposed users lower in the funnel to encourage site re-visits and conversions.

These banners can be data-driven, allowing brands to personalise their creative’s look and feel for different customer segments, conduct dynamic creative optimization, and tap into valuable content management for greater efficiency and relevance. DV360’s Ad Canvas hosts a range of pre-built, ready-to-serve formats to help get you started on your data-driven journey.

We boosted Walmart’s engagement rate by 64% using this ad format. 

Video:

There are many video formats and lengths available within DV360. Inventory options include: Open Exchange, Private Marketplace, and YouTube, among others, with varying lengths of 6 seconds – 2 minutes. This is useful for brands that would like to promote their video content before, during, or after other relevant videos.

Here are some sample video animations we made.

Audio:

Leveraging audio advertising adds an essential upper-funnel touchpoint in the consumer’s purchase journey, allowing brands to connect with listeners at different points during the day. Audio creatives are 15 or 30 seconds in length and may be accompanied by a companion display asset depending on the publisher.

Native ads:

Native ads provide better user experiences because they fit the look and feel of the publisher’s page, resulting in increased engagement and higher visibility. Native formats can suit different funnel objectives, for example, they are great at directing users to content marketing efforts, and also promoting mobile app install campaigns that lead directly to an immediate download. Brands are often able to utilise existing assets (images and videos) for native formats, allowing them to extend their reach into different environments.

Gmail ads:

Gmail ads allow brands to reach key audiences at scale. The collapsed native display ad opens to an expanded unit, designed to promote user engagement. Ads are prominently showcased at the top of the Social or Promotions tab in Gmail, enabling advertisers to secure high visibility in users’ inboxes.

Connected TV:

Connected TV refers to television that is connected to the internet. The content can be streamed through apps on a Smart TV or through devices such as Roku, Tive, gaming consoles (e.g. XBox, Playstation), etc. This content is considered over-the-top (OTT) content. This format is highly recommended for advertisers with video or TV assets that are looking to reach users who do not have a subscription to a traditional cable or satellite provider.

Digital out-of-home:

Digital out-of-home provides advertising opportunities across a network of screens and settings such as billboards, gyms, bars and restaurants, bus shelters, office towers, etc. Inventory can be purchased directly from the publisher as well as programmatically. Programmatic execution of this format increases the efficiency of screen selection, provides more targeting capabilities, drives scale, and unifies targeting and performance measurement.

Main takeaway:

Planning a full-funnel programmatic strategy is not a simple task, but access to a variety of creative formats within Display & Video 360 helps you envision planning from one place.

Regardless of the campaign goal, identifying key creative pieces and where they’ll have the greatest impact to your consumers will help to keep your campaign foundation solid and ultimately improve its effectiveness.

Hungry for more? Check out our gallery.