Recently, I was invited to attend an event in Cleveland known as StackSocial, where our preferred programmatic partner brings in industry experts, additional agencies who use the platform in the region, and of course, their staff and leadership to discuss the future of their platform and the industry. As StackAdapt is a programmatic DSP (Demand Side Platform), this allows St. Gregory to directly buy certain digital media for our clients via their platform. They operate more as a platform rather than a managed service, where others are doing the buying for us. St. Gregory directly buys and places media through the platform, optimizes campaigns, and provides insights on performance, the same way we do with many other platforms.
Through this event, I was given insights into how their platform is evolving compared to others in the market, gained key insights into the shape and future of the programmatic spaces, and, most importantly, got the meet with my representatives at the vendor face to face. In many cases, these mainly are remote relationships, meaning more calls and emails and little face time. While remote is a fantastic way to help maintain and grow things, a few days of face time is always welcome to help chat in person, build on those relationships, and get to know them better.
Here are a few key takeaways from my trip.
- The programmatic space is going to continue to grow. Digital Ad Spending as a whole will grow by double digits by 2028. Whether you’re an SMB or a Super Regional company, you should have some presence in the programmatic space.
- OTT / CTV will continue to grow, thanks mainly to declines in cable. Local Broadcast is still declining, but not nearly as quickly as cable. OTT is picking up the slack.
- Leveraging first-party data is going to be essential to successful marketing, even though cookies are not being deprecated. That’s right, Google finally gave in and cookies shouldn’t be going anywhere.
The Importance of Knowing Your Agency’s Vendors
Many factors go into selecting your agency, including the staff, the capabilities, the pitch, and how suited they are to meet your business needs. One thing that doesn’t come up as often is which platforms they work with. While many traditional options are fairly clear (local stations, outdoor placement providers, national platforms, etc.), knowing which digital platforms an agency uses is essential.
At St. Gregory, we currently partner with StackAdapt, a programmatic DSP based in Toronto, among other digital platforms (Google, Microsoft, Meta, the same platforms every agency with digital capabilities works with). A DSP is a Demand-Side Platform, which allows us to buy digital media in-house rather than having a vendor place the buys for us. Through our DSP, we leverage options to buy OTT / CTV inventory, Native Ads, Display Ads, Audio Ads, and occasionally Digital-Out-Of-Home. While some DSPs allow for the purchase of channels like Paid Search and Paid Social, we currently buy those via their individual channels to best maximize their performance.
What We Look at When Choosing a Digital Media Platform
- Capabilities – With DSPs, there are three main areas examined, Inventory, Targeting, and Tracking.
- Inventory – Will we have access to premium inventory through the multiple channels we’re looking to target? For us, the main area was OTT / CTV, and we were able to get access to multiple premium channels.
- Targeting – What targeting can be leveraged? We wanted to be able to activate on 1st Party Data, 3rd Party Data, and Contextual audiences, which are available on the platforms we work with.
- Tracking – Can we track the post-impression experience? This is crucial. Knowing what a user does after they view or click helps prove results from the media tactics we select.
- Spend Minimums – Many platforms have minimum spends, which is important to know. At St. Gregory, we work to partner with platforms that either have no spend minimums or very low spend minimums. Many people would ask why that is important, but it comes down to strategy selection. When we don’t have to worry about meeting a platform’s spend requirements, any client knows the tactics selected were only for their benefit, not to hit a spend threshold.
There literally are hundreds of DSPs currently on the market, so knowing who your agency works with is important. If you’d like to learn how programmatic advertising could help your business, feel free to drop us a line.
