The world of advertising is one that has always been in a constant state of evolution – and that was before the digital age kicked into full force in the last several years. During much simpler times in decades long past, the key to advertising was essentially to broadcast your message to the largest possible audience that you could afford and watch the money roll in. During the 1950s, it was not uncommon for 50 million people to all sit in front of the television and watch the same program at the same time. Now, even a number as small as two million people is enough for a television program to be considered a success. Though the fragmentation of the audience has meant significant changes for the television industry, it has also meant that advertisers have to look for newer and more efficient ways to connecting with their target audience.

A Blessing in Disguise

The digital age initially seemed to make things even more difficult for advertisers than they already are, only serving to fragment consumers in a way that seemed nearly impossible to manage. Now, thanks to new and advanced techniques like programmatic advertising, marketers can see the digital age for what it really is – a blessing in disguise.

Consumers are no longer waiting until they get off from work or school to sit down in front of the computer and use the Internet. Thanks to the smartphone boom that was brought about by the release of Apple’s iPhone, the vast majority of people in the United States are essentially connected to the Internet at all times. It is currently estimated that 90% of adults in the United States have a cell phone, most of which have some type of Internet capability.

This means that marketers can essentially connect with them all day, every day on their own terms.

Types of Programmatic Advertising

Programmatic advertising is the name given to a type of technology that lets you automate some or even all of your digital marketing campaigns. One of the biggest burdens that many types of online businesses have to deal with is shopping cart abandonment, for example. A user will add one or more items to their virtual shopping cart, navigate away from the site for whatever reason and never return to complete the sale. The reason itself varies, but it is also unimportant at the same time. Sometimes the customer found a better deal on another site. Sometimes they just got distracted by whatever Honey Boo Boo’s mom is up to this week and forgot that they were in the process of making a purchase altogether.

These are the types of situations, however, where programmatic advertising comes in exceedingly handy. Using a simple shopping cart abandonment email campaign, a business could send an automatically generated reminder to the customer after a specific period of time has passed. Did the customer add an item to their shopping cart two days ago and never return? A programmatic shopping cart abandonment campaign might just be what you need to get them right where you want them.

Retargeting campaigns can accomplish something similar. If a user views a stereo on your website and then navigates away, for example, you can automatically generate ads for your site and the items that were browsed on the next several sites that the consumer visits.

With great power comes great responsibility, however, and the digital age most certainly requires advertisers of all types to keep a few key things in mind.

Programmatic Advertising Best Practices

One of the main things that you have to keep in mind regarding programmatic advertising is that even though you can connect with people at essentially all times, not all of them will be using the same device. An email will display differently on an iPad than it will on a laptop or even an iPhone, for example.

There are companies that offer services ideal for these situations and for making the most out of a programmatic advertising campaign. They can take a single email and format it perfectly for any type of device it is viewed on, using responsive email template, thus giving you a better shot at making that sale. It’s estimated that 42% of subscribers delete an email that doesn’t display properly on their device. This means that even if you successfully send out a programmatic shopping cart abandonment email, you might be losing almost half of your possible sales due to simple display issues.

Combining these best practices with your programmatic advertising techniques will help revolutionize your marketing campaigns for the digital age.