We’ve entered into another busy holiday season, which means it is time to start reflecting on the past year. That includes all things digital marketing and programmatic advertising. To help you get started, we’re recapping the StackAdapt highlights from 2019, so you can be well-equipped to charge into 2020, full force!
There were so many insightful and compelling blog posts this year, it was hard to narrow our list to just 12 (so we encourage you to go beyond these to discover your own gems!). All of these posts contain innovative tips and how-tos so you can build your overall campaign strategy and optimize digital campaigns for success. It really is the ultimate holiday, and 2019, stack of posts.
Let’s dive in!
1. Vertical Targeting Series: Intro to Building Your Vertical Strategy
This introduction to our series includes actionable tips on how to build your vertical targeting strategy from the very beginning. It provides the background you need to target and execute in a variety of verticals, including: Auto, Finance, Healthcare, Higher Education and Retail.
2. Need Help Navigating the Cannabis Landscape? We Have a Guide for You!
With the legalization in various North American localities, and the growing angst over how to advertise given all the regulations, cannabis has been one of 2019’s hot topics. Our Programmatic Playbook for Cannabis Marketers will help you navigate the complexity of the space and decipher how to build your campaigns that have cannabis ads. Definitely a resource you want in your back pocket.
3. Native, Video and Display: The Ultimate Recipe for Campaign Success
A lot of people think StackAdapt is native only—truth is, we do it all: native, display, video and connected TV (CTV). And since we have experience with all channels, we know there is true merit to running holistic campaigns across all of them. If you’re not sure exactly what we mean, you can catch up with some scenarios outlining how you can use multiple channels in concert to tell the most cohesive story to your target audience and get the best performance from your multi-channel campaigns.
4. Are Your Campaigns Really Using AI? 10 Questions to Ask Your DSP
In April, our Co-Founder and CTO, Yang Han, gave a keynote presentation at Programmatic I/O on Artificial Intelligence (AI) that really got a lot of attendees thinking. From that, we put together some key insights for those marketers out there trying to understand how AI works and if it’s really working for them in their DSP. Get up to speed with the 10 questions (and answers) to ask your DSP to see if it is really using AI.
5. Our Survey Reveals How Mid-Market Agencies Can Thrive in the Changing Ecosystem
2019 was a busy year for us here at StackAdapt and the first few months were dedicated to a research study we conducted with Advertiser Perceptions. We wanted to answer the question “How can a mid-market agency thrive in this changing digital ecosystem?”. Well, we got the answers. This blog post outlines some of the key insights from the report we compiled, based on survey results. As part of this initiative, we released The Mid-Market Agency: A Blueprint for Growth. The eBook identifies the gaps that exist between mid-size brand marketers and mid-market agencies, along with recommendations on how mid-market agencies can up their game.
6. It’s All In The Strategy: Bid Factoring and Creative Tactics will Streamline your Campaign Set-up
Our product team released several great features in 2019. One of the most anticipated features was our Strategy suite, which includes Bid Factoring and Creative Tactics. We’ve received positive feedback on how to best leverage each of these tools, and have found some very relevant use cases for those who haven’t tried them yet. Catch up with our subsequent posts: Bid Factoring: A Holistic Approach to Programmatic Campaigns and 3 Innovative Ways to Use Creatives with Creative Tactics.
7. 7 Reasons to Integrate Connected TV in your Media Mix
The masses have spoken: Connected TV (CTV) is here to stay. And somehow, there are still a lot of marketers leaving precious video and TV budgets on the table—CTV makes TV accessible to all. It also offers the opportunity to engage with viewers through content they are watching on TV, in the comfort of their living room. If you’re still not convinced, we have provided 7 reasons why you might want to change your mind. We look forward to seeing a lot more of CTV in 2020.
8. Putting 3rd-Party Audiences First: The What, Why and How
Digital advertising is more than just channels and devices. It’s about the audiences you are targeting. Capturing the most relevant audience for your campaigns is integral to ensure you are driving awareness effectively and getting those conversions you are striving for. We’ve outlined everything you need to know about 3rd-party audiences, along with actionable examples of how to apply them to your campaigns. More importantly, we tell you why you should.
9. My Favourite StackAdapt Feature: Dynamic Retargeting
Retargeting in programmatic is common knowledge. Everyone does it, but there’s still so much more that can be done to deliver the most personalized experience for your audience. We’re talking about dynamic retargeting. You have the ability to truly individualize your retargeting display and native ads to offer the most relevant information to the recipients. This post gives examples and proof that there is a benefit to leveraging dynamic retargeting in your campaigns.
10. StackAdapt Integration with Slack
Did you know that StackAdapt is the first and only DSP to integrate with Slack? It’s true and our clients love it! If you’re already using Slack, you can now receive quality-of-life notifications about your campaigns, including when a pixel that was installed hasn’t fired in over 24 hours, when custom segments from StackAdapt become available or when a campaign has reached its bid goals, or has effectively ended. This is definitely an update you want to get up to speed on.
11. 1st-Party CRM Data: The What, Why and How
We gave the 3rd-party audience download, and now we’re doing the same for 1st-party audiences. There is a unique opportunity with 1st-party CRM data, because marketers know exactly who these people are. This data offers the chance to run very relevant retargeting based on products purchased or customer preferences, and lends itself to finding lookalike audiences based on your CRM list.
12. Incorporating Programmatic in your B2B Campaign Strategy
B2B sales cycles are typically much longer than B2C cycles, along with higher price points, smaller target audiences and more decision makers. Naturally, this means that the digital campaigns for B2B will differ. We have provided an outline of how to develop your B2B strategy, taking into consideration the nuances of this vertical and how it would impact the way you execute your campaigns.
We hope you enjoyed this year’s Ultimate Holiday Stack. There’s plenty more where that came from, and we will continue to provide amazing tips, tricks and industry knowledge as we venture into 2020.
Want to run exceptional programmatic campaigns? Request a demo to learn more about StackAdapt.
Happy holidays!
