Amazon DSP is fueled by the strongest retail first-party data ecosystem in the world

What is DSP?

DSP stands for “Demand Side Platform”—actually, it’s a software platform that allows advertisers to buy ads across millions of websites, apps, OTT and video platforms, etc., automatically. 

Here are a few DSPs for your reference. 

• DV360
• The Trade Desk
• Amazon DSP
• Criteo
• Adform
• Stack Adapt

FREE PROGRAMMATIC ADVERTISTING COURSE AVAILABLE HERE

The unique capability of DSP?

Once upon a time, advertisers wanted to connect with the websites/apps directly to show their ads. It’s a painful and time-consuming job. Through the single DSP platform, advertisers can buy the ad space across the below inventories—no need to work with each publisher separately.

• Websites
• Mobile apps
• Video platforms
• YouTube inventory (via DV360)
• OTT/CTV (Connected TV)
• DOOH (digital billboards)
• Audio streaming
• In-game ads
• Native ads

What makes Amazon DSP so powerful?

In this digital world, those who own quality data win the race. Through Amazon DSP, advertisers can access the most powerful first-party e-commerce data to deliver their ads to the right people at the right time. 

Showing ads to the higher purchase intent audience is very important to increase sales. That is why many advertisers spend their huge money on the Google search ad platform. Similarly, the purchase intent for the Amazon platform visitor is also very high. So, delivering ads to them is very useful from a sales perspective. 

For example, you are searching “Smart TV under 50K” “55 inch tv” on the Amazon e-commerce platform. In that case, your purchase intent is so high. Even after you leave the Amazon e-commerce platform, TV company advertisers can display ads on some news websites you visit or apps you use throughthe Amazon DSP platform. 

Other DSPs partnered with many data providers to find the audiences who are likely to purchase a smart tv. Those data providers are associated with different publishers to collect that data. So, the data accuracy is a big question?

But Amazon DSP uses its very own first-party data to deliver the ads. So, advertisers can deliver their ads immediately and effectively.  That’s why Amazon DSP is considered the most powerful demand-side platform.

Amazon’s Strong Data Capability

The below is not just traffic. This is high-intent, logged-in, purchase-intent behaviour user data. 

2.4B+ monthly visitors

310M+ active customers

200M+ Prime members

Most demand-side platforms rely on browsing data. Amazon relies on shopping data. That makes Amazon DSP so strong in this space.

What about other e-commerce platforms?

In the US, Amazon accounts for 37.6% of all e-commerce spending in 2024. In India, 32% of e-commerce spending happens through Amazon. 

Globally, we can tell that two e-commerce platforms only have their own DSP. One is Amazon, the Second is Walmart. 

The leading e-commerce platforms like Alibaba, eBay, Rakuten, Flipkart (India), Meesho (India), and others have an ad platform, but those are internal ad platforms.

Where Advertisers Can Deliver Ads Using Amazon DSP?

Amazon DSP provides one of the widest inventory accesses in digital advertising — combining Amazon-owned properties + third-party supply + premium CTV partners.

Below is the complete coverage,

Conclusion

Amazon DSP is powerful because it understands real people — their searches, habits, and the tiny decisions they make before buying. It connects these human moments with smart targeting and trusted identity, making ads feel more relevant and less intrusive.

Advertisers gain clarity, not guesswork, with visibility into how every impression leads to real sales. In a world moving beyond cookies, Amazon DSP offers reliability and confidence.

Ultimately, it wins because it reflects how people genuinely shop — and that makes all the difference.

The post What Makes Amazon DSP So Powerful in the AdTech Industry? first appeared on Marketing Strategy.

Bid Multiplier is a useful feature to achieve the campaign goals. But, you should understand it very well before implementing it into your campaigns. Otherwise, you may lose your ad spend. 

If you are completely not aware of this feature or have not used this feature due to minimum knowledge, No worries, This post is for you!

In this post, I explain all about the bid multiplier feature and how it works in campaigns. Finally, I share important facts you keep in mind when you use this feature in your ad campaigns.

Topics :

What is Bid Multiplier?

How does it work?

Important factors to consider while using bid multiplier

Advantages of Bid Multiplier Function

Conclusion

What is Bid Multiplier?

Bid Multiplier is an advanced feature available in most ad platforms that helps to increase or decrease the bid prices for specific campaign targeting based on its performance. Such as,

• Audience Segments 
• Placements/Websites/Apps
• Ads
• Inventories
• Demographics 
• User Lists, more

Usually, we set bid CPM prices at the line item level. To use the bid multiplier, we have to set the multiplication factor at any of the above levels to increase or decrease the bid price. 

The default bid multiplication factor for all the criteria is 1. 

The huge advantage of this feature is that within a single line item you can adjust the bid prices for different criteria. 

For example, 

The CPM price of a line item is $5 and you kept the bid multiplication factor as 2 for the inventory source C. In that case, this line item bid for a maximum $10 [$5 X 2] to the bids coming from the inventory source C. For the remaining bids this line item bid for a maximum $5 [$5 X1].

How does it work?

To understand the functionality of the bid multiplier, here I have shared a few examples. 

Suppose, you have a line item “XYZ T-Shirts” and include 10 inventory exchanges and assign 6 different size creatives. After running this campaign for one or two weeks, you can identify the best or worst-performing inventories, websites, creative sizes, etc. 

Usually, campaign managers exclude or remove the poor-performing targetings to improve the performance further. But instead of removing them completely, we can use a bid multiplier to increase the bid price for good-performing criteria and reduce the bid for low-performing criteria. 

Example 1: Inventory Level 

Here, we have performance data from inventory sources. Based on this report, we identified the best and worst-performing Inventory Sources. If you decide to increase the bid prices two times for good-performing inventories and reduce half for worst-performing inventories, you can implement it as below. 

Edit your line item and go to the inventory targeting. There you can see the bid multiplier column and it usually states “1” by default. 

For good-performing inventory sources change it to “2”

For worst-performing inventory sources change it to “0.5”

If the line item bid price is $5 then the bid price is calculated as below, 

For good-performing inventory sources: $5 X 2 = $10

For worst-performing inventory sources: $5 X 0.5 = $2.5 

Example 2: Creative Size 

Similarly, you can adjust the bid prices for best-performing sizes and low-performing sizes. 

Let’s take it, you want to increase the bid price for a good-performing size two times and reduce the bid price by half for low low-performing size. 

For good performing creative sizes: $5 X 2 = $10

For worst performing creative sizes: $5 X 0.5 = $2.5 

Important Note : 

When you are applying a bid multiplier, you should be aware that the bid multiplier factor is applied at all levels considered to calculate the final bid price. 

In the above line item, we have applied the bid multiplication factor at the inventory sources level and creative sizes level. So, both should be considered in the final bid price calculation.

Example 1 : 

Good performing Inventory Source A bid price is increased by two times. 

Good performing creative size 300×250 bid price is increased by two times. 

In that case, when a bid request comes from inventory source A for the creative size 300×250 will be calculated as below,

$5 X 2 X 2 = $20 

Example 2 : 

Good performing Inventory Source A bid price is increased by two times. 

The worst performing creative size 320×50 bid price is reduced by half. 

In that case, the bid price is calculated as below. 

$5 X 2 X 0.5 = $5 

The above two examples provided a clear picture of the bid calculation when using a bid multiplier.

Important factors to consider while using bid multiplier

• I do not recommend using bid multipliers at various levels. Because it is very difficult to understand the final bid calculation. So, implement a bid multiplier at a minimum level and see the performance improvement. 
• When using a bid multiplier, the final bid price will rise drastically. So, always set “Maximum Bid Price” to avoid such situations. 
• Using the bid multiplier function, you can effectively do cost optimization without creating multiple line items. So, start using it.

Advantages of Bid Multiplier Function

• You can effectively optimize your campaign at various levels without creating separate line items for each. 
• Without excluding poor-performing criteria completely, you can increase or decrease the priority by adjusting the bid multiplier factor. 
• By doing cost optimization using a bid multiplier, you can improve your ROI. 
• Using a bid multiplier, you can set different bid prices for a combination of targeting criteria. 

Conclusion

Bid multiplier is a powerful feature that is helpful in campaign optimization. Many campaign managers do not use this feature because they think that the bid calculation is a bit complicated while using it. It is difficult when you apply a bid multiplier for more targetings. But, it is very simple when you use it for one or two targetings. 

In this post, I explained this feature with various examples to increase your confidence in the bid multiplier. Hope, now you have better clarity about this feature. 

If this post is really helpful please leave your thoughts in the comment section.

Read More : DV360 Campaigns Optimization Guide

The post What is Bid Multiplier? How does it work? first appeared on Marketing Strategy.

Why should we check the legitimacy of a website?

After generative AI and keyword research tools became more popular, many people or groups created websites that looked like premium websites. Their ultimate aim is to make money by showing ads on their website.

They use the AdSense loading method, the cookie loading method, and click intention ad placement to make more money. In this way, they try to cheat the demand side platforms to show ads on their websites.

Maybe your campaign gets a higher CTR from these websites. But, all these clicks are not useful for you.

By excluding these websites, you can deliver your ads on legitimate websites and receive a good CTR that has a high chance to convert. So, finding and excluding these fake websites is very important for campaign success.

But how do you check the legitimacy of a website?

1. Prepare a list of websites

First, run a detailed domain level performance report on your ad platform and identify the websites that have a high CTR but a low conversion rate. In my experience, we can pull this report in 5 to 10 minutes.

List down the top 10 or 20 websites based on their volume. Then start to validate the domain.

2. Website content and design

The first step is to check the website’s content, design, and navigation. As a digital marketer, we visited many websites. So, it can be very easy to identify fake websites.

But you can’t conclude the legitimacy of a website at this stage. If that website passes this step, move on to the next step.

3. Domain rank and age

Many online sources are available to check the age and domain rank of a website. For example, you can check these details on GoDaddy, WHOIS, ahrefs, etc.

If the website’s age is new, then it shouldn’t be legitimate.

4. Check contact info

Usually, legitimate websites share their contact address, phone number, and other details on their website. If they aren’t, then they won’t share the correct addresses, other details.

If the addresses are fake, then you have to consider excluding them.

5. Check ad placement

The illegitimate websites stuff more ads to generate more accidental clicks. This way, they generate more income from the ads.

Three ads per page are usual. If they stuffed more ads, then you have to consider excluding them.

6. Expert Opinion

If you have old campaigns, you can check the historical performance of a website. Also, you can get an expert opinion to determine the legitimacy of a website. Based on their recommendations, you can take action.

Conclusion

In my 11 years of experience, I faced high CTR and low conversion issues many times. I implemented many optimization strategies to fix this problem. One of the important solutions is to analyze the legitimacy of a website that generates more clicks.

It’s very easy to identify illegitimate websites by following the above steps. Some experts may identify the illegitimate websites at first sight. So, it’s always good to hear the experts opinions.

High CTR and low conversion are common problems in programmatic advertising. In that situation, identifying and excluding illegitimate websites are very important to save ad spend and acquire more conversions.

The post How To Check Legitimacy Of High CTR Websites? first appeared on Marketing Strategy.

As a programmatic advertising manager, I have one common question. I hope you are all having the same question in your mind. 

Can we use conversion API for programmatic advertising in the cookieless environment? 

You will get the answer at the end of this article. In this article, I have answered the following common questions about Conversion API. So, you will get a complete clarification about Conversion API. 

• History of Conversion API
• What is Conversion API? How does it work?
• What are the ad platforms currently support Conversion API?
• Advantages of Conversion API
• Can we use Conversion API for programmatic advertising in a cookieless environment? 
• Conclusion

History of Conversion API

Over the years, major improvements continuously happened in online privacy, browser policies, and regulations. A few years back, Safari and Firefox completely stopped third-party cookie tracking capabilities. As of now, the major browser Chrome disabled third-party cookie capability for its 1% of users, and it promises to remove it for the remaining users soon. 

Tracking user data on the client’s website is very important for running a performance-based campaign. Based on the tracking data only, platforms can understand and target the users more effectively to acquire more conversions. 

After Safari and Firefox stopped third-party cookie tracking, one of the major advertising platforms Facebook struggled to track the user’s data from the advertisers website. So, Facebook decided to find a new solution for collecting user’s data even though the browser does not support third-party cookies. 

Any cookie or pixel code different than the original domain is considered a third-party cookie. So, Facebook pixel codes are automatically blocked as third-party cookies in both Safari and Firefox. 

To my knowledge, Facebook introduced the Conversion API [Server Side API] in 2018 to address privacy concerns and browser restrictions. Later many ad platforms including Google, TikTok, and more introduced their own Conversion APIs for their platforms. 

When you search about the Conversion API on the internet, all the articles are related to Facebook Conversion API. Facebook introduced this solution first and mostly, all of them are similar to the Facebook’s Conversion API. This could be the reason.

What is Conversion API? How does it work?

Conversion API or Server Side API is a tool that allows advertisers to send user data [user ID, user interaction data] directly from their Website Server to the Ad Platform Server such as Facebook Server.

In the traditional pixel method, we create a pixel in the Facebook platform and ask the client to paste the code on their website. Whenever people browse the client’s website, the Facebook pixel code fires and sends data to the Facebook Server.

Due to restrictions or other reasons on the browser, Facebook pixel is not able to collect and send data to Facebook Ads Platform. Below are the common challenges of tracking user data in this method,

• The browser plays a crucial part in firing the pixel code. If the browser does not support third-party cookies then Facebook can not track user data. 
• Ad blockers have trouble tracking user data 
• Brower latency issues trouble tracking user data 

In all the above situations, the website stores the user’s data in the website server. So, Facebook finds an API to get the data from the website server to its server.

Instead of relying on browser functionalities, the conversion API allows the data transfer from website server to Facebook server. 

When users interact with the website, always the data information is sent to the website server. From here, all the user data is directly sent to the Facebook Ad server using this API. Here, the browser’s functionalities and other blocking will not affect Facebook’s tracking.  

Facebook collects conversion data from both the pixel method and conversion API method. Later, it removes the duplicate conversion data.

What are the ad platforms currently support Conversion API?

You can not use Conversion API capability for all ad platforms. If your ad platform has the Conversion API then you can use it. Here are the major ad platforms that support conversion APIs. 

• Facebook Ads Manager
• Google Ads 
• TikTok Ads
• Snapchat Ads
• Pinterest Ads
• X Ads
• OpenX
• Adform
• The Trade Desk

Introducing Conversion API is a needed functionality to track conversions on all environments, including the cookielss environment.

Advantages of Conversion API

Conversion API has many advantages over traditional pixel tracking methods. Here are a few advantages of conversion API for your reference. 

• Ad platforms can track user’s data in the cookieless environment. Ad blockers and browser latency will not affect Conversion API.   
• Ad platforms track the conversion events from the client’s website server without loss. It includes shopping, ad-to-cart, website interactions, and more. 
• Using this data, ad platforms can optimize campaigns to run the ad campaigns more effectively. 
• Clients can segment this data and target the users back. For example, they can re-target users who leave without completing a purchase. 
• Ad platforms can do ad personalization and real-time optimization through this data.

Can we use Conversion API for programmatic advertising in a cookieless environment?

As a programmatic advertising manager, it’s very important to know the capability of conversion API for doing programmatic advertising. The main purpose of introducing the Conversion API is to collect user’s activities in all circumstances. Also, this Conversion API is more suitable for social media advertising. 

The conversion API is not a perfect solution for programmatic advertising in the cookieless environment. Using conversion API, the programmatic ad platform can collect users data directly from the advertiser’s website server to their server.

Tracking user behaviour on the third party website is very important for showing interest based advertisements. Using the conversion API, the ad platform can’t track the user behaviour on the third party website. So, it’s not possible.

To do the programmatic advertising in the cookieless environment, centric ID solutions should be needed. It may be ID5, Panorama ID, etc. 

These third-party solution providers have partnered with large publishers around the world to collect user data in the cookieless environment. Based on the visitor’s email id or phone number and from the soft signals they allocate an ID for each user. 

By partnering with those third party solution providers, you can create IDs for your visitors. By matching those IDs you can retarget them on the third party website.

If your programmatic ad platform has partnered with these third-party solution providers, they provide services to create segments. Using those segments you can target people in the cookieless environment. 

Each ID solution has different coverage and capabilities. So, you have to be very careful when choosing the ID solutions. 

Already, I have written a detailed article that explains the functionality of Trade Desks UID 2.0. Similarly, all other ID solutions are working. So, check out this article for a better understanding of ID solutions.

Conclusion

Many digital marketers looking for an alternative way to do similar advertising in the cookieless environment. Many proposals are available including Conversion API. As per my findings, conversion API is a alternative solution for Social Media Advertising, and it’s not suitable for programmatic advertising.

If you are using any social media advertising, then check with your ad platforms and implement conversion API as soon as possible. I have mentioned the ad platforms that support conversion API above. 

To do the programmatic advertising in the cookieless environment, you must contract with ID solutions like ID5, Lotame, etc. Many DSPs started associating with this kind of ID solution to support the advertisers. 

Check with your current DSP about the cookieless advertising alternatives and start to test their effectiveness before Chrome eliminates third-party cookie functionality for remaining users.

If you are using or trying any cookieless solutions, mention the details in the comment section.

Checkout the following articles :

How does trade desk UID 2.0 work?

Alternative solutions available for the Cookieless Advertising

The post What is Conversion API? Is it an alternative to Cookieless Advertising? first appeared on Marketing Strategy.

Within this programmatic advertising landscape, the private marketplace (PMP) is one key category that provides an opportunity to buy and sell exclusive ad inventories. 

As a market manager, it’s essential to understand the landscape of PMP to deliver your ads on premium inventories. In this article, I have explained the needs of PMP for advertisers as well as publishers, processes, types of private marketplaces, etc. 

[This article is too long but you can understand the PMP entirely after reading this article]

What does PMP stand for in programmatic advertising?

The expansion for PMP is “private market place”. It’s a subcategory of programmatic advertising, where publishers make their inventory only available to the selected advertisers on an invitation-only basis.

Example: The New York Times is a premium website (Publisher). They want to display a certain quality of ads on their website and sell their ad space at a good price.

Otherwise, many advertisers or buyers are ready to deliver their ads on premium sites like the New York Times.

Both publishers and advertisers expectations can be achieved through PMP or Private MarketPlace.

How does PMP work?

To understand the workflow of a private marketplace, you should know the process of real time bidding. Here, I will explain the RTB in a simple way and then explain the PMP.

Publishers or websites that want to sell their ad place are connected with the SSPs (Supply Side Platforms)

Advertisers or buyers who need ad places to display their ad are connected with DSPs (Demand Side Platforms)

Usually, one SSP connects with many ad exchanges and demand side platforms to sell the publishers ad space at a good price.

Similarly, one DSP connects with many SSP and Ad Exchanges to buy the suitable ad space at a good price.

Both publishers and advertisers connected through ad exchanges. Here only the ad auction will be conducted.

Let’s take an example, 1000 websites are connected with an SSP called XYZ and this SSP is connected with two ad exchanges ABC and DEF.

You are an advertiser and you have connected with the DSP called MYV. Your DSP is connected with one of the above ad exchanges called ABC.

Whenever someone visits any of the above 1000 websites, the ad request will be forwarded to XYZ SSP for looking at an ad. XYZ SSP forwarded the ad request to the connected two ad exchanges ABC and DEF.

Your DSP MYV connected with one of these ad exchanges ABC. So, all advertisers under your DSP get the ad request. Which advertisers targeting is matched with the ad requests can send the bid response with bid price.

Likely, bid responses received from many advertisers and the auction is conducted real time. Which advertiser’s bid price is high will win this auction and their ad will be displayed.

This is the simple workflow of RTB and this is how the entire programmatic advertising works.

In the above example, any advertiser from any DSP can participate in the ad auction. So, publishers don’t have any major control here to choose the advertisers or price limits, etc.

Here only PMP comes in.

The advertisers directly contact the publishers where they want to display their ads. They negotiate the price and amount of ad inventories they expect.

Once negotiation is done, the corresponding publisher generates a unique identifier on Server side platforms. This unique identifier is called “Deal Id”.

Already, I wrote this detailed article that explains the types and functions of deal id.

This unique identifier is shared with one or more advertisers those who negotiated already.

Once advertisers have that deal id, they need to setup their campaign with that deal id. Similarly, one or more advertisers setup their campaigns on their own DSP.

Whenever an ad request is generated from the publisher, it is sent to multiple exchanges. But, advertisers that have a particular deal id only received the bid request and they can only respond to that bid. (Highlighted In Red Colour)

Through this PMP feature, only limited known advertisers only participated in the ad auction.

What are the types of PMP deals available now?

Below are the types of PMP deals currently available,

Private Auction Deals
Preferred Deals
Programmatic Guaranteed Deals

The above deal types are categorized based on inventory allocation and price type.

In private auction deals, certain groups of advertisers were invited to participate in the ad auction. A floor price is set by the publishers and advertisers can bid above the floor price. Who bid more wins the auction.

In preferred deals, the price is already negotiated and it’s a fixed price. So, advertisers always win this bid.

The final one is programmatic guaranteed deals, here the publishers directly connected with one advertiser at a time. The publishers negotiated the price and amount of impressions.

Advantages of PMP

Below are the advantages of the PMP feature, 

• Publishers can control the type of ads delivering on their ad inventories by choosing the advertisers.
• Publishers can negotiate the price for their ad inventories.
• Publishers earn more money through PMP.
• Advertisers can avoid the crowd in ad auctions and they can show their advertisements on premium sites with less competition.
• Advertisers can work with publishers to tailor the audiences based on demographics, interest and etc. So, advertisers can target particular group of audiences.

Conclusion

Programmatic advertising is a complicated network where many tech players play together to make this happen. The buyer and seller in this network is advertisers and publishers. In open auction, any advertisers connected with the particular ad exchange can participate in the ad auction.

So, publishers do not have any control on choosing the advertisers and price for their ad inventory. This could be a main problem for premium publishers.

To solve this problem, PMP was introduced in programmatic advertising. Both publishers and advertisers connected on an invite basis. The publishers create a unique deal id and share it with selected advertisers. So, the selected advertisers can only participate in the ad auction.

PMP has many advantages over traditional open auctions. Because, publishers can make more money by selling their ad inventories to the selected advertisers. Other hand, advertisers can show their advertisements on premium websites with less competition.

The post What is a private marketplace (PMP) in programmatic advertising? first appeared on Marketing Strategy.

Already, I have explained the outstream video ads and their functionality in another article. You can read it here. 

Are you looking for a job in the digital advertising field? This is one of the common interview questions asked for entry-level roles to campaign manager roles. By reading this post, you can understand the differences practically and can explain the differences to anyone.

What are pre roll ads?

Almost all of us have seen pre roll ads many times in a day. But, we don’t know the name of it. When you try to watch any YouTube videos, you must see an ad before watching the video you are looking for, right? 

That is “pre roll ads”. 

Ads that are shown before the video content whenever users try to watch the video content are called pre roll ads. 

So, pre roll ads need video content to render or display.

You can see these pre-roll ads on YouTube videos, Facebook videos, Instagram videos, etc.

Pre roll ads are called intrusive ads. Because they always run before the video content and it is very disruptive to the users. Few pre-roll ads run with skip options to reduce the disturbance.

Due to its intrusive nature, the video completion rate of these ads is always high.

What are outstream video ads?

The pre roll video ads need video content to display. But, outstream video ads don’t need video content. It can be embedded on website pages, articles, etc.

For example, when you read websites like news websites you can see video ads in between the text content. Sometimes, video ads are embedded with the web page. Those video ads are called outstream video ads. 

Simply we can say “video ads that are displayed outside the video content are called outstream video ads. 

Mostly, users can close these video ads at any point in time. So, outstream video ads are less disruptive to the users. We can call it non-intrusive ads.

Conclusion

This post is completely written for answering in an interview. By reading this post, you understood the difference between pre-roll and outstream video ads very well. 

If you have any doubts about the outstream ads or intrusive ads, you can refer the below post.

9 Best Practices for Outstream Video Advertising

What Are Outstream Video Ads and How Do They Work?

The post What is the difference between outstream and pre roll video? first appeared on Marketing Strategy.

What is VTR?

VTR stands for “View Through Rate”. It will tell how frequently your video is watched by the user’s.

Below are the common metrics used in video campaigns,

VTR (View Through Rate)
25% Completion Rate
50% Completion Rate
75% Completion Rate
Completion Rate

VTR is the percentage of users who clicked and started to view the video advertisement. Even if they are viewed for a second it will be counted under VTR.

VTR % = Total Video Views/Total Impressions *100

For example, your video campaign served 100000 impressions and 50000 users started to watch the video ads.

VTR % = 50000/100000 * 100

So, the VTR is 50%.

Based on this value you can start optimizing the campaign in order to receive more VTR.

What is VCR?

VCR stands for Video Completion Rate. It’s a percentage of users who watched your video ads completely. Marketers measure the video campaigns success based on the VCR percentage.

Below is the formula for calculating VCR.

VCR % = Complete Views / Total Impressions *100

For example, your campaign has served 100000 impressions and 75000 users viewed the video ads completely.

VCR % = 75000 / 100000 * 100

VCR % = 75%

So, this campaign’s completion rate is 75%.

Conclusion

VTR and VCR are the unique measurements to understand the effectiveness of a video advertising campaign. VTR helps to understand how many users actually started to watch your video ad and VCR helps to understand how many users actually fully watched your ad.

Other than that 25% complete, 50% complete, 75% complete metrics also available to track the video campaign performance.

The post What is the difference between VTR and VCR? first appeared on Marketing Strategy.

What do no cookies mean for marketing?

Using cookies, we can identify and target users online. Two types of cookies are available now. One is first-party cookies that are used by publishers or website owners help to save user preferences, login information, etc. The second one is, third-party cookies mostly used for online advertising to show personalized ads by tracking a user’s browsing history and activities.

Due to privacy concerns, the majority of browsers have decided to stop supporting third-party cookies. Mozilla Firefox stopped supporting the third-party cookies completely. The major browser, Google Chrome, disabled third-party cookies for 1% of its users and decided to disable it for all users by the end of this year.

All browsers still support first-party cookies and they only stop supporting the third-party cookies.

Online advertising will become more complex without third party cookies. So, companies that are mostly dependent on online advertising will be affected by the cookieless world.

Online advertising has been considered the most valuable advertising medium in recent years. Without third-party cookies, it will face huge consequences until it finds an alternative.

What is UID 2.0?

The trade desk proposed UID 2.0 as an alternative to cookieless advertising. It’s an open-source framework that relies on hashed email or phone numbers.

By relaying a hashed email or phone number, it hides the user’s personal information and complies with privacy regulation policies like GDPR and CCPA.

How does the UID 2.0 work?

UID 2.0 is one of the recommended alternative solutions for cookieless advertising. So, understanding the workflow of UID 2.0 is very helpful in deciding the right tool for your business. Here, I have explained the process of UID 2.0 practically.

Publishers or retailers can participate in UID 2.0 by integrating with the Trade Desk’s Identity Link Service.

Also, users can opt-in to UID 2.0 by providing their consent. The consent is to share the email ID or phone number with the Trade Desk’s Identity Link Service. If the user opts out, their email ID or phone number isn’t shared with this service.

When the opt-in user visits the participating publisher sites, the email id or phone number of a particular user is shared with the UID 2.0 service. For each user, a unique, anonymized UID 2.0 token will be created using hashing and salting techniques.

Note: At any time, users can opt out of this service.

The generated UID 2.0 token is stored in a central database managed by prebid.org. prebid.org is a dependent non-profit organization. So, no one gets additional benefits from here.

The publishers or ad platforms like DSP can access the tokens, not the email addresses or phone numbers.

How does UID 2.0 work in real time?

Many industrial experts also struggle to understand the workflow of UID 2.0, the trade desk solution for cookieless advertising. Here is the real-time workflow example for UID 2.0.

1. User A visits the website xyz.com and this website participates in the UID 2.0 program.
   
2. The website motivates user A to provide an email ID or mobile number. For example: give additional information, offers, etc.
   
3. Once user A gives the email ID or mobile number, these details are sent to the UID 2.0 operator.
   
4. The UID operator returns the UID 2 token to the website, and the website stores the UID 2 token in the client side SDK.
   
5. When the same user loads a website that has an ad slot, it sends the ad request along with the UID 2 token to SSP.
   
6. SSP sends the ad request along with the UID 2 token to DSP.
   
7. DSP sends the UID 2 token to the RTB SDK and gets the decoded UID 2 of user A.
   
8. DSP identifies the user A’s UID present in the targeted segment “lifestyle”
   
9. The DSP sends the bid response for lifestyle ads to the corresponding SSP.
   
10. SSP sends the bid response to the website.
    
11. A lifestyle ad is displayed to user A.
    
12. That is how user A is identified under the UID 2.0 system and displays personalized advertisements online.

Difference Between UID 2.0 vs FLoC

Both models are alternative suggestions for cookieless advertising. But, both have unique differences. Here, I have explained the unique differences between them.

Conclusion

Everyone in the digital advertising industry eagerly looks for a solid alternative to cookieless advertising. But it’s not quite easy in the privacy-conscious digital world. Many proposals are available for cookieless advertising, but none are widely accepted.

In this article, you learned about UID 2.0 and how it works in real-time. The difference between FLoC vs UID 2.0 will help you choose the most suitable solution for your business in the future. We will discuss more alternatives in the upcoming articles. So, keep following our website.

The digital advertising industry should find a solution before the end of this year, as Chrome will disable third-party cookies for all users.

The success of any alternative purely depends on the acceptance of major market players.

Suggested Articled For You !

Cookieless World: What Are The Alternatives Available For Digital Advertising?

What is FLoC? How Does FLoC work?

What is Google Chrome’s IP Protection feature? and It’s impact on digital advertising

The post How does trade desk UID 2.0 work? | Unified 2.0 first appeared on Marketing Strategy.

What is campaign optimization?

Campaign optimization is the process done by campaign managers to achieve the desired goals. Example: Reach, CTR, VCR, Conversions, etc.

As I said before, campaign optimization is essential for increasing the campaign’s performance. So, campaign managers should implement the optimization strategies to run their campaigns successfully.

Free Programmatic Advertising Course Available Here

How do I optimize the DV360 campaigns?

Here is the list of optimization steps to improve the campaigns performance on dv360. You can also use the same optimization steps in any DSP.

• Do primary checkup
  
• Identify the cause
  
• Optimize the site and app list
  
• Redefine your audiences
  
• Use bid multipliers wisely
  
• Conduct A/B test
  
• Expand audience
  
• Try new creative
  
• Control Frequency Cap

Do primary checkup

Many advertisers run programmatic advertising campaigns to acquire leads like yours. So, you should be perfect to get the expected performance from your campaigns.

Before setting up the programmatic advertising campaigns, you need to conduct a primary checkup to avoid under performance issues.

Does your target have enough audience availability?
Are your creatives properly designed?

These are some common questions you have to ask before setting up the campaign.

Does your target have enough audience availability?

All demand side platforms can optimize themselves to achieve the declared goal, except for certain circumstances. One potential reason is “low audience availability.”. So, audience availability is very important for delivery as well as performance.

Are your creatives properly designed?

A clear CTA button, appealing images, a dark background, and attractive captions are very important for increasing performance. If your campaign’s creatives don’t meet these requirements, inform your client and get the updated creatives.

Identify the reason and react

Your campaign has enough audience availability, creatives are designed well but your campaign is struggling to perform. In that situation, you need to identify the reason for this under performance. For that, you need to run the below type of reports and take actions based on the results.

Bid Exclusion Report : Run bid exclusion report for your campaign with exclusion reason and amount of bids have been excluded. Mostly, higher amounts of bids are excluded due to low bid prices. Your campaign lost the opportunity due to low bid price. In that situation, raise the maximum CPM price to increase the performance.

If bids excluded due to other reasons, take actions based on it.

Site/App Performance Report : Including me, most campaign managers follow this step to improve the performance. Run site and app level performance report for your campaign. Based on the results, filter the low performing sites and apps and then exclude them from your campaign.

Gradually exclude the sites, otherwise it will impact your delivery.

Redefine your audiences

If you show a well designed shoe ad to the audiences who are interested in the sports category, it will bring low performance. Because, you target broad audience. In that situation, you have to redefine your audience and target people who have interest in shoe products.

• Avoid targeting broad audience
  
• Target particular group of audience
  
• Exclude converted users

Use bid multipliers wisely

Adjusting bid prices using the bid multiplier option will help to raise your campaign performance.

In a few DSPs, you can raise the bid price by specific targeting. For example, if you want to give more importance to the certain demo people it can be possible to raise the bid price by using a bid multiplier.

In a few DSPs, you can raise the bid price by 10% or 20% and more for the best performing targeting eg. Sites. Also, you can reduce the bid price for the poor performing sites.

Use the bid multipliers option that is available in your DSP to increase the performance.

Read more : What is Bid Multiplier? How does it work?

Conduct A/B Test

A well knowledgeable campaign manager always prefers to run the A/B test to identify the best inputs for the main campaign.

For example, Your client decided to allocate a huge budget to promote their new brand. They have multiple creative designs to promote their brand. In that case, you can allocate a small budget to run a test campaign to identify the best performing creative design. Likely, you can conduct ab test for identify best performing targeting, frequency cap, etc.

Based on the result, you can run your main campaign with a remaining budget. So, you can get better performance from your campaign.

Expand Audience

Demand Side Platforms has the capability to perform themselves to achieve the goal. With a small audience, it is very difficult to perform better.

If your campaign is delivering very tightly with low performance, you must expand your audience availability. So that the platform can look up new audiences suitable for your campaign.

Try New Creative

The creative play an important role in campaign performance. Even though you optimized your campaign it will not perform well if creatives aren’t compelling.

Wait for half the duration of the campaign. If the campaign doesn’t perform at the expected level then change the creative immediately.

Control Frequency Cap

By controlling the frequency cap, you can control delivery as well as the performance. Strict frequency cap, helps you to restrict the delivery and it pushes the platform to look up new users.

The correct level of ad exposure always helps increase the performance. So, try a different frequency cap and identify the suitable one for your campaign.

Conclusion

Campaign Optimization is very important for improving the performance. Here, I have listed the important optimization strategies you can implement for low performing campaigns. Campaign Optimization steps are mostly the same for all DSPs.

If your DSP has any specific features to improve the performance then please use it.

Free Programmatic Advertising Course Available Here

The post How Do I Optimize DV360 Campaigns? first appeared on Marketing Strategy.

What is dCPM?

The expansion of dCPM is dynamic cost per mille. That means, cost for each ad impression will vary based on many aspects like goal, competition, domain, time, placement, etc.

Example:

When you run an advertising campaign, you have two options to choose the pricing model.

CPM (Flat CPM)
dCPM (dynamic CPM)

Let’s take, you choose the CPM pricing model and give the CPM price as $10. In that situation, the cost for 1000 impressions is $10 and the cost for 1 impression is 10/1000 = 0.01.

So, this campaign spent 0.01 for each delivered impression. Due to the static price, this campaign will deliver its expected impressions. If this campaign budget is $20 then it will deliver 2000 impressions.

How does the dCPM model work?

In a fixed pricing model, the price should be fixed for each impression. But, the price varies in a dynamic model to achieve the desired goal.

When you choose the dCPM model, you should select the expected goal for your campaign. You can set CTR, CPA, VCR, etc. Also, you need to provide an average cpm price for your campaign.

Let’s take, you have selected the dCPM pricing model and kept the expected goal as 0.30% CTR and give average cpm price as $10. Instead of CPM price, we only provided the average price. That means, the platform can adjust the bid price for each impression but the average cost for 1000 impressions will not be higher than $10.

Here, we gave the goal instruction (0.30%) and average cpm price $10 to the ad campaign. If the CPM price is $10 then the bid price for one impression is $0.01. In the dCPM model platform can adjust the bid price of each impression based on the goal expectations, competition, placements, domain, etc.

Bid from user 1 : Let’s take, the platform identifies that the chance of this user will click this ad is high based on historical data. In that situation, another advertiser also bid against this ad impression with a $0.015 bid price.

Here to win, our ad platform raises the bid price to above the competitors bid price example: $0.017 or $0.018 etc.

Bid from user 2 : Already, the platform spent additional few cents to win the above impression. To maintain the average cpm price, here the platform reduces the bid price example: $0.008, etc.

Likely, the ad platform calculates and adjusts the bid price for each impression to reach the desired goal.

What is the difference between fixed and dynamic CPM?

Already, I wrote a detailed article regarding the “differences between CPM and dCPM“. You can read that article also.

Expansion:

CPM : Cost Per Mille
dCPM : Dynamic Cost Per Mille

Other Names :

CPM : Flat Bidding
dCPM : Dynamic Bidding or Automated Bidding

Bid calculation method :

CPM : It never adjusts the bid price, that means the price is fixed.

dCPM : Adjusts the bid price to reach the desired goal.

Goal Achievement:

CPM : It doesn’t adjust the price so it can’t achieve the goal under certain conditions.

dCPM : It can achieve the goal because of the flexibility in bid adjustment.

Campaign Types :

CPM : Flat bidding is more suitable for brand awareness campaigns.

dCPM : Dynamic Bidding is more suitable for performance based campaigns.

Conclusion

Flat bidding and Automated Bidding are the two common types of pricing model available in the ad platforms. Based on your campaign type you can choose the pricing model. Dynamic bidding can adjust the bid price for each impression based on the competition, placements, domain, probability for goal, etc.

The post What is a dCPM? Why do we use dCPM? first appeared on Marketing Strategy.