By Andrew Romano
From Advertising on 400,000 Websites Down to 5,000
A few weeks ago, digital advertisements for JPMorgan Chase were appearing on about 400,000 websites a month, using the most popular digital advertising strategy – spray and pray. In a 30-day period, of the 400,000 web pages JPMorgan’s ads showed up on, only 12,000, or 3 percent, led to some activity beyond an impression. Now, after extensive consumer research, JPMorgan
decided to limit their display advertising reach to 5,000 websites. And the results are interesting, the company is seeing very little change in cost of impressions and overall visibility of its online advertisements. So rather than relying on the strategy of buying more cheap inventory on non-relevant pages, they decided to hand select sites by creating whitelists, where they were more likely to find engaged consumers.
JPMorgan’s impression downsizing also emphasizes general skepticism marketers have towards the evolution of digital advertising and the importance of carefully controlling a brand’s online presence. As brands become more aware of hazardous content like fake news sites or disturbing and disrespectful YouTube videos, they realize that their online presence needs to be monitored to maintain their reputation as well as the right level of ROI for their investment.
A Combination of Human and Programmatic
As automated technology becomes more advanced, programmatic advertising experts like Digilant need to use all of the trillions of data points available to find real value for their advertisers. Although it may seem as if greater reach also equals higher likelihood for conversion, it all comes down to the old saying, “location, location, location.” Whether your campaign is targeting desktop, mobile device’s, geographical location, or demographic preference, it is crucial to place ads on pages that are appropriate for your brand but also in places where you are more likely find engaged digital consumers.
In JPMorgan’s case, they “human-checked” each YouTube channel and web page they wanted to target based on consumer research. Digilant offers a similar human approach to programmatic with very hands-on service allowing advertisers to customize their marketing strategies and approach to programmatic, in order to compete in a very crowded digital buying marketplace.
Customers look different along the sales cycle. Advertisers with growing budgets in programmatic, more than anyone, need help making informed decisions on activating effective advertising using the complicated signals coming from a sea of digital data. Digilant’s unique approach is to tailor and adapt all the signals so that they can be impactful to any advertiser’s business. Using JPMorgan’s case example, advertisers can recognize that it is not only important reach more potential consumers for the lowest cost but it’s equally essential to control advertising placements to secure brand safety while optimizing their ROI.