Audience insights underpin successful ad campaigns. These programmatic display examples are solid proof of how accurate answers can drive your efforts home.
Converting volatility into success has been one of the primary drivers of marketers, at least in the intense competition atmosphere.
Almost half of the global ad spend showcases that the advertising industry is reliant on algorithms and forecasts. And this number is all set to skyrocket to 80% by 2027, according to statistics.
With innovation cycles occurring every 2-3 years, marketing has one goal: to carve a constant edge over its competition.
What’s best for this, but programmatic advertising?
Machines are becoming increasingly imperative for seamless message delivery. Because they illustrate and execute intuitive ways to leverage and apply data, fundamentally, to establish differentiation.
It’s all about how creatively you use the data at hand, not what data you possess.
This is the philosophy on which programmatic advertising operates.
Programmatic advertising has been a strategic channel for affording marketers a constant edge to ride out the waves. And drive the market before they get driven by offering much-needed flexibility and innovation to scale and adapt.
Before we dive into some significant use cases of programmatic advertising, it’s crucial to ask ourselves-
What is Programmatic Advertising?
According to HubSpot,
“Programmatic advertising is the automated process of purchasing and selling online ads. The buying and selling of ad space happens in real-time through an automated system called a Demand Side Platform (DSP).”
As per HubSpot’s definition, programmatic advertising boils down to placing display ads across multiple channels with as little manual labour as possible. And that’s what an ad impression opportunity also points to: the probability that your target accounts view your ad.
The entire concept trickles down to two significant aspects: granularity and automation.
First, owing to scientific forecasting techniques, each ad impression opportunity can be selected, evaluated, created, and priced at a specific level. This offers an insightful means for advertisers to optimize their ad budgets. And second, across the course of campaigns, it becomes simpler to tweak any gaps, even at the molecular level.
Programmatic advertising basically hinges on a single aim: build long-term value.
Programmatic advertising is ‘the’ tool that can help brands shape the ongoing market shifts. And help them efficiently tie data, tech, and AI to contribute to a common goal of accelerating marketing efficiency.
Some popular names in the market have leveraged this to reinvent their advertising game. They have successfully adopted programmatic advertising. And this has not only optimized their ad campaigns but also driven them toward long-term success.
Let’s dive into the brands that unlocked the secrets. And decode what programmatic advertising looks like in practice.
6 Programmatic Display Examples to Inspire Your Next Ad Campaigns
1. Google
Google was way ahead of every other brand when it adopted programmatic advertising in 2014 to gauge the maximum potential of its digital marketing strategies. One of the early adopters of programmatic advertising wasn’t happy with Google Search’s performance.
The tech giant wanted better results from its digital ad campaign than they were receiving. And saw potential in programmatic advertising way back in 2014. At the nucleus of Google’s strategy was advertising its (then new) Google Search app.
Source: Google
Leveraging first-party and third-party audience data helped Google focus on the most valuable market segments. And once the campaign went live, it actively recycled the campaign performance data to make real-time tweaks.
They ran hyper-personalized ads across over 20 countries. For example, a student would view online course ads. This campaign was an omnichannel strategy spread across mobile, display, and video.
The outcome?
- 50% increase in brand awareness.
- 30% decrease in CPM compared to the preceding year.
- 30% more audience reached brands 3 times more frequently.
Google recognized the significance of measuring its ad campaigns through this.
The powerhouse realized that brands need data-backed answers to make informed decisions- what their audience really thinks about the brand and work to change the perception accordingly.
Programmatic advertising does precisely that, i.e., offers audience insights and real-time performance metrics to optimize campaigns instantly. And now, advertisers and publishers can also assess their media investments and streamline their creative strategies.
The result? Google Chrome’s brand visibility has been amplified. Its viewable impressions almost doubled, while the viewable CPM nearly decreased by 50%.
Programmatic turned out to be a saving grace, not for conversions, but for Google’s branding, offering it the market boost it lacked before.
2. Dell Technologies
Last year, Dell Technologies launched a programmatic DOOH campaign across two quarters. The objective was to drive impact through their digital campaigns and convert their brick-and-mortar presence into an entirely digital one. Especially across the entire United Kingdom.
But this was also its fundamental challenge- to shift from a traditional 100% offline retail model to a 100% digital presence. And given Dell’s diverse and complex audience base, it was a challenge to reach high-level IT decision-makers. Managing campaigns at this scale and across such a complex segment would’ve been nearly impossible.
The ultimate goal became to maximize touchpoints and reach Dell’s audience at the right time and place, as seamlessly as possible.
The solution?
- Running a programmatic DOOH campaign across mobile and desktop to elevate the number of touchpoints.
- Geotargeting in key areas with strong affinity for tech stores.
This allowed the company to outline third-party audience segments, broaden reach, and take a more granular approach to targeting.
Source: YouTube
Dell adopted a more hyperlocal approach to securing a digital presence. With the help of Locala, a French ad agency, it identified various highly concentrated zones of users across the relevant stores. This ascertained that the ads reached those with an affinity for tech retail.
The objective was both to build relevance and ensure resonance.
This campaign targeted over 2555 locations and 3423 DOOH screens, from subway platforms and gas stations to office buildings and billboards. The strategy that followed was maximizing engagement where foot traffic was relatively high.
The technical strategy succeeded a creative one.
The DOOH ads were developed in various formats- from high-impact HTML-5 banners to immersive DOOH formats. This ensured consistency across mobile, website, and DOOH platforms.
And the outcome?
Dell’s total impressions skyrocketed to approximately 2.6 million with 450,998 DOOH plays. There was a significant increase in purchase intent, brand preference, and overall CTRs.
The precision showcased in selecting DOOH screens when paired with one-to-one engagement was at the heart of Dell’s successful digital transformation.
3. Adobe
Adobe is a global leader in creative software applications, especially across design and illustration. Its development strategy follows a single philosophy- to make digital creation straightforward and more interesting.
But this giant faced a crucial challenge with its Adobe Experience Cloud. Adobe had to position its software as a leader in the enterprise marketing solutions and a robust customer experience platform.
For this, the primary step was to penetrate a new audience segment- C-level customers, i.e., CMOs, CIOs, and marketing directors.
Source: Adobe
The solution?
To achieve this, Adobe made a 100% shift to programmatic advertising. It had initially invested only 20% of its budget in the approach, and now it was making a 180-degree shift.
The underlying approach ensured a balance between transparency and creativity. Adobe’s programmatic strategy enabled it to grasp exactly where its ads are running and the fees incurred by publishers. This ascertained that the campaigns are running safely on appropriate websites without compromising brand safety.
Unlike its traditional framework, Adobe didn’t dip its toes in outlets that it intuitively believed the audiences would engage with. But it took a more informed approach by leveraging specific customer patterns, interests, and behaviors.
Then, the team at Adobe was able to analyze the actions using Adobe Advertising Cloud across multiple channels. This helped marketing zero in on accounts where the most optimal opportunities existed- enabling precision targeting.
The outcome?
Adobe witnessed organic growth in engagement and impressions. Within six months of leveraging a 100% programmatic strategy, the software powerhouse observed that its following metrics surpassed the industry benchmarks or were at the same level:
- Display and video viewability
- Brand safety metrics
- Impressions across target markets
- Fraud-free success metrics
These were Adobe’s final numbers for the programmatic ads campaign:
- Reduction in CPM by more than half, i.e., from $25 to $12.
- Elevated customer awareness and visit rates by 1.5 times.
- 30% more omnichannel reach.
- 13% elevation in unaided awareness.
- Buyer association between Adobe and its tagline, “Make Experience Your Business,” jumped from 16% to 27%.
- And 6% improvement in perception across all customer segments.
The bottom line? Teams were able to make daily and hourly tweaks on channels that actually drove results. Especially to reach where the customers are and beyond.
4. O2 (Digital Communications)
O2, a leading digital communications brand, wanted to do something different for its “Tariff Refresh” campaign. It obviously had viewership across TV, but what about other platforms and devices?
So, as the crux of its strategy, O2 decided to ‘repurpose’ its TV ads for mobile phones. This campaign is a prominent example of programmatic video advertising.
O2 modified and altered its TV ad for different platforms through dynamic creative optimization. This resulted in over 1000 different versions of the video ad spanning the campaign duration. The objective was to establish relevance for mobile users.
Source: YouTube
What was O2’s approach?
The team curated a sophisticated system that could track and assess mobile usage metrics- the type of mobile and its location. Then, according to these metrics, users were offered specific messages. If the ad messaging aligned with the user’s usage behavior, it would turn out more relevant and engaging. This would actively increase their chances of clicking on the ad and taking the desired course of action.
Leveraging customer data helped O2 offer brand-related, valuable insights to its audiences.
For example, it referenced the makeup and model of the user’s device, its recycling value, and potential upgrades available in nearby stores.
O2’s programmatic strategy was driven by geotargeting and hyper-personalization.
How did this unique approach impact its bottom line?
O2 created 1000 different versions of the video ad that aligned with users’ real-time location and device. And the overall CTR skyrocketed by 128%, outperforming generic video ads, along with a 11% increase in engagement.
This impressive strategic execution is what makes O2’s programmatic advertising one of the most recognized and an early success case of DCO adoption.
5. Yettel (A Bulgarian Telecomm Company)
The digital and telecom industries are diverse, and the audience segments are broad. To target a niche audience segment, Yettel wanted to try something new. But they had one doubt in mind- how could it retain the brand image, while experimenting with different ad formats? And also reach a more granular audience base?
There was only one solution in mind-
A brand awareness campaign streamed on connected TV (CTV) across popular apps and platforms. The aim was to launch its services to online streamers. “We were interested to see how it would go and maybe find out if there’s potential for future campaigns on CTV,” said Yettel’s Digital Head, Miglena Slavova.
Yettel’s primary focus wasn’t on interactions. It centered on elevating brand visibility and understanding the scope of CTV. Because one of the initial challenges it faced was grasping its demographics, the sites its ads appeared on, and who interacted with them.
So, Yettel opted for an approach that could help it with accurate ad measurement and visibility- programmatic advertising. Its video ads ran across the most popular Bulgarian apps and media outlets for this experiment.
And the outcome was quite impressive.
Yettel’s campaign hit almost 12.5k impressions. This helped outline valuable insights into channel capabilities and improvements in visibility rate.
The 17-second video ad achieved a 94.52% view-through rate, resulting in a 77.9% completed view among all served impressions.
Beginning as a test, this CTV campaign’s success became the benchmark for Yettel to undertake and execute additional campaigns across this channel.
These five brands are proof of programmatic advertising’s capabilities. It’s not just a method of optimizing your ad campaigns, but of checking the effectiveness of your data.
And in a business landscape driven by algorithms, programmatic advertising can make a vital difference. Especially in how brands deliver ads to their audience bases. Its functioning is instilled in agility and brand safety, turning each programmatic advertising use case into an opportunity.
An opportunity to accelerate your revenue growth and have access to premium inventory that can perform at record value.
Why Programmatic Advertising?
Users today swipe through a myriad of content as their brain sifts through and retain chunks of information that are relevant to them. And with minimal time on their hands, they want uninterrupted digital experiences.
The scene for advertisers today is dire. Users now defend themselves against poor, irrelevant ads. And if they’re not able to block it out of their memory, they use ad blockers. As they pause for an ad while swiping from a post by The New York Times and their friend’s update on Instagram, the responsibility falls equally on the publisher and the brand to ensure the user stays.
This is one of the advertising hiccups that gave birth to programmatic advertising. It didn’t just pop out of nowhere.
Modern age advertising has become all about relevance and context. Programmatic builds on this. It ensures contextual relevance and cohesion across all devices in use- in real-time, unlike traditional advertising.
Where’s programmatic advertising headed?
Programmatic advertising is set to conquer the majority of digital ad space by the end of 2025.
In 2024, the global programmatic ad spend elevated to a whopping $595 billion. And it’s forecasted to skyrocket to $800 billion by 2028. This could signify that within merely four years, programmatic display ads are breaking into new frontiers, ones that we haven’t even imagined.
The concern here is the need for more data. This means increased access to zero-party and first-party data as privacy regulations take root and the Internet becomes cookie-less.
Programmatic Advertising Has Become a Market Favorite (If Led with Caution).
This channel represents a crucial move beyond traditional advertising, which relied on manual workloads. In programmatic, all advertisers must do is create an ad, sign up on a DSP, select the target audience, and let the platform work its wonders.
The bottom line is, this methodology of ad buying and selling is much more streamlined and cost-efficient. And in the near future, it will remain the number one choice due to its capability to scale quickly and operate in real-time.
Programmatic advertising operates on a sophisticated algorithmic ecosystem, proving highly efficient in connecting relevant display ads with the right audience at the right time. This is why some of the significant names in the market are flocking towards programmatic advertising.
It’s the need of the hour to differentiate strategically and intuitively. Especially to cut through the online ad clutter and actually impact those who matter. Not only does it help your messages reach the targeted segments, but it also does so irrespective of who and where they are.
As we move toward the next level of marketing, this approach has become the go-to. And these programmatic display examples are the standing proof of that.