Automation is certainly the biggest and most important development in marketing in recent years. Data plays a central role: Never before have companies learned so much from the online behavior of users. A prerequisite is, however, a strategy for how companies want to turn these data into actionable insights. A data management platform is the right approach.
Success in marketing is increasingly dependent on the ability to process data effectively. Data makes it possible to create detailed user profiles and segments. Marketing measures can be created and delivered even more precisely on the basis of these insights. Both marketing efficiency and sales are boosted. Data Management Platforms (DMPs) play a central role in the distribution of data-driven advertising. Using DMPs, user data can be centrally aggregated and segmented. With such a platform, very accurate targeting and comprehensive personalization in the automated real-time bidding processes of display advertising becomes possible. Hence the biggest benefit of DMPs is superior targeting in programatic advertising.
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What is Programatic Advertising?
Programmatic advertising is the fully automatic and individualized buying and selling of online advertising space in real time. Based on user data, individual advertising banners or other forms of online advertising are displayed on websites or in mobile apps. The sales process of these advertising items is usually carried out via the so-called real-time bidding, which is basically an automated auction process. The auction process is triggered as soon as a user visits a website. The user does not notice this process, which is completed before the website is fully loaded (it usually takes less than 100 milliseconds).
The publisher with the advertising space to be auctioned is connected to a supply-side platform (SSP). A so-called bid request is generated via the SSP and forwarded to a demand-side platform (DSP). All companies and agencies affiliated to the DSP, whose campaigning characteristics both match the user information (e.g. demographics) and the available advertising space, can place their bids to the SSD. The highest bidder receives the advertising space in question and the banner is finally integrated into the publisher's website.
What are Data Management Platforms?
A DMP must do two things to be considered complete: it must be able to record and store data from various sources such as owned media, software as well as offline sources (CRM, email) and third party sources. In addition, DMPs provide data to DSPs and SSPs to enable real-time bidding processes.
DMPs are not just about gaining insights from data – this would also be possible with other analysis tools – but to turn data into actions. Each user receives a so-called cookie ID, which is used to recognize him. This cookie ID can also be used to accumulate data from different devices as long as the individual consumers use the same logins on the various devices they own. The Customer Journey of individual customers can be precisely understood from this. Through this information, companies and agencies not only learn which touchpoints are of interest to their target groups. Using these data, you can learn which information is of interest to individual users and display content on the basis of this information at the respective touchpoints (for example via real-time bidding processes in the context of programmatic advertising).
A DMP differs from traditional databases in the sense that the latter collect offline data and serve as a central repository for a wide range of data, including sales and transaction data, product data, and inventory or personnel data. The DMP gathers and consolidates data across channels to use it for decision-making processes (such as strategic campaigning) and actions such as real time bidding processes. It is about presenting the right content to the right customer at the right time in the right place.
The Benefits of Data Management Platforms
People have been calling data the oil of the 21st century for years now. Data is also the fuel that carries marketing campaigns across the finish line. Many companies are already gathering customer data, but they have trouble managing the data, to gain insights from it, and to use these insights for highly targeted marketing activities. For this reason, DMPs are becoming more and more important. Only they allow companies to transform data into usable target group information to address existing and future customers across the entire marketing ecosystem. In particular, a powerful DMP offers a multitude of advantages:
- Existing data is utilized better. All interactions at your own touchpoints are recorded. The Customer Journey is made visible and companies can develop and optimize their marketing activities based on these findings.
- Comprehensive personalization and automation for digital display advertising.
- Campaign effectiveness is continuously improved. Thanks to a DMP, companies have the opportunity to respond to customers' needs with dynamic content. Because each previous interaction has been processed, customers do not start at zero each time they interact with a company's content.
- Resources are used more efficiently. Since the DMP provides comprehensive analyses on the brand's target groups, advertising is only displayed where it is also of interest. The stray losses typical of conventional advertising are significantly minimized.
- The entire Customer Journey remains in focus: Data from different sources flow into one application. Companies will thus receive a precise, empirical data-based reflection of the Customer Journey.
- New target groups can be developed. With Look-Alike modeling, companies can generate contacts that are very similar to existing customers.
Our service: We would be happy to advise you on the various DMP providers on the market and, if necessary, support you in the implementation of the solution which best suits your company. Get in touch.
