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AnteriadNovember 4, 20204 min read

First Steps to Add Intent to Your Programmatic Ads Strategy

Intent programmatic ads are no less than gold when it comes to maximizing CTR, engagement and other conversion metrics. As a marketer, if you already know answers to questions like “Who are my customers?”, “What do they want?” and “Why do they want it?”, you can hit the sweet spot.

Getting hold of intent data and analyzing the same gives a cleaner picture of your prospects and your marketing campaigns. (In case you are curious about intent data and its role in martech, have a look at “What To Look For In Intent Data That Drives Results.”)

Do you need intent-based programmatic ads?
Intent-based marketing strategies are the steadying hand in this mad digital world. The process of referring prospects to relevant services or products based on their demands is known as intent-based programmatic advertising. You’re aware of your users’ intent and can design customized solutions for them. This means you can drive a higher ROI by reaching a specific user base, who are most likely to respond to the message or service you are providing. 

Your programmatic ads must be relevant to your target account’s stage within the buying journey, and this will help you to plump up response rates. Adding a data-driven approach to your programmatic advertising strategies is nothing less than a science experiment. Empirical repeated testing will help you get to the truth. After data collection and analysis, you’ll finally realize what is best for your campaign based on facts! 

The traditional programmatic ad, one without the goodness of intent data, is much like bait that fish won’t bite. To get your programmatic ads off the hook, start adding intent, and wait for a mind-blowing result. Hang tight, and read on!  

What to consider for adding intent to programmatic ads? 
You’re all set to incorporate intent data into your programmatic advertising strategies. But, there are a couple of factors you must never neglect. 

  • User’s identity: You must start the process with knowledge about prospects’ identity. Who are your users? Unless you are 100% sure about who your users are, you cannot execute your marketing campaign. First, know your target audience. You can either gather first-hand data from users when they fill out forms or accept cookies or gather third party data from external sources. The practice of gathering user data like title, geographic location or demographics can be highly advantageous. 
  • User’s interests: After you obtain the prospects’ identities, you must connect with their interests and tailor campaigns with personalized solutions. Marketers observe users’ “digital body language,” their online behavior, resource downloads, browsing habits, social media activities, etc. and analyze their likes and dislikes. Once you get to the core of the motivation behind intent signal data, programmatic ads become more valuable and meaningful. 
  • Intense data analysis: You’ve got the required data, but does it make sense? Serious data analysis will help scoop out the meaning. Once you know what your data means, you can organize it and use it in campaigns. Examples would be creating content that answers a commonly seen search query or optimizing an ad to include a better term. These intelligent campaigns will now help in hyper-targeting and escalating conversion and engagement rates. At times, the data available is vast and unstructured. Big data analysis comes in handy in sorting and organizing the information, allowing you to curate the right offers for the right users. Sometimes marketers receive fragmented user information, but in a B2B context, you can overcome this by in-depth research about intended targets and their behaviors. 
  • Right content: Adding intent intelligence to your programmatic ad strategy lays a foundation for delivering relevant, attractive content to prospects just when they're looking for those answers. Put the intelligence to work to create the content you’ll need to resonate with user’s demands and interests. To put simply, user intent must be at the focal point of your ad content. If your content is dotted with solutions to user queries, you are good to go! 

Are you doing this the best way? 
Intent data can be the soul of your programmatic ads, provided you follow a few best practices. These things must be on your bucket list before you build strategic programmatic ads. 

  • Choose the right topics to attract the highest value accounts. 
  • Create specific placement lists that ensure ads are displayed on sites delivering the highest conversion rates. 
  • Timing is everything. Increase CTR by displaying ads to users right when they are looking to buy. That is, close to the time of their intent behaviors.
  • Make data-driven decisions about content, timing and audience. First- and third-party data both bring value.
  • Use intent data to optimize ad copy, campaigns, landing pages and demographic filters, and never miss target accounts. A marketing cloud can help keep all this in one place.

Not everything in life is a piece of cake, but setting the right intent programmatic ads can be! Look around our resources, and don’t hesitate to reach out. We can set you up for a data trial and you can see for yourself.