How “Old School” is your “Latest and Greatest” Marketing?
Let’s assume a common scenario. You’ve read about Search Engine Optimization. You’ve attended some online seminars about keyword searches. You have a Google AdWords account and you’re buying keyword search terms on a Pay-Per-Click Basis. You are aggressively monitoring your Analytics and your Click Through Rates. You feel good about yourself because you believe you are on the leading edge of the marketing frontier, right? Wrong!
The “Current” “Old School”
SEO, AdWords, PPC, and all their cousins, all focus solely on the prospective customer who is actually taking some kind of action to find you. They (your prospective customer) are typing keywords into a search engine and as a result they are hopefully being directed to your website through your SEO, ADWords, PPC and related work.
But you have to ask yourself, “What about all those who would be interested in my product if only they knew it existed?”
Boldly Entering the New Marketing Frontier
If you or your marketing/public relations agency are not currently putting your Real Time Bidding (“RTB”) plan into action, your “current old school ways” will leave you in the dust.
What is Real Time Bidding?
What, you ask, is Real-Time Bidding? Real-time Bidding (RTB), also called Programmatic Buying and Selling, is the process of selling and buying website display advertising one ad impression at a time.
Huh?
Let’s explain this with an example. Assume you own a website and you want to make some additional money. To do this, you can rent out a spot on your website, much like a landowner adjacent to a freeway does for a billboard. In our example let’s assume you lease your space to a company such as The Trade Desk (simply because they are one of the best).
Now, let’s assume someone is visiting your website for whatever reason. The Trade Desk looks at this someone’s information as your website is loading on your computer and sends a bid request out to potential advertisers with as much information as is available.
The bid request may include something like, “We have a 48 year old male from San Diego, California, who recently visited conservation/recycling websites, the Smithsonian website, a car manufacturer website, and who recently bought Bruno Mars concert tickets. Who is interested in that demographic and how much will you pay?”
Now, on the other side, three companies have informed The Trade Desk that their target market demographic is 45 to 55 year old males living in San Diego who care about the environment, history and cars, and are Bruno Mars fans. The company with the highest bid wins and its advertisement gets placed on your website.
The amazing thing about this process is how fast and how often it takes place. The entire series of electronic communications takes place in 300 to 500 milliseconds, causing no visible delay to the person visiting your website.
How is this “New School”?
Notice the difference. SEO, AdWords and PPC programs only put your advertisement in front of people who are actively searching for you, which is likely only a small portion of your potential sales demographic. Alternatively, Real Time Bidding will put your message in front of those who are not actively looking for you but are in your target customer profile. In other words, Real Time Bidding puts you in front of your full target demographic. This has the potential of significantly increasing your total sales since you are reaching more complete demographic sectors. With Real Time Bidding, your advertisement is placed in front of potential customers who identify themselves through their normal, daily routines or habits as being in your target demographic.
Conclusion/Recommendation
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that you should curtail any of your SEO, AdWords or PPC programs. In truth, you should continue to hone those activities and improve them, while assessing your results. However, if you are not advancing into the future of Real Time Bidding, you are going to be leaving a significant portion of your total potential target demographic untouched and “ain’t nobody got time for that!”