Even the disruption and chaos of the pandemic couldn’t hold back the growth of programmatic ad revenue. The “IAB Internet Advertising Revenue Report” showed a 12.2% increase in digital ad revenues in 2020 compared to 2019.

The pandemic acted as a catalyst for the shift to even more digital, data-driven marketing. Programmatic ad revenue touched $14.2 billion (+24.9%) amid uncertainties in 2020, hinting at an even brighter picture for programmatic ad revenue in coming years.

Intent Data Fuels Programmatic Ad Revenue

B2B marketers like you must first discover where the eyeballs are before you can deliver any message. To know where to dive in and which audience bases to target, many brands turn to intent intelligence.

A combined solution of programmatic marketing and intent data gives you the result you’re looking for. Here’s what intent does to expand programmatic ad revenue growth.

• Generate quality leads with B2B purchase intent: Design your marketing campaigns to address the needs of your target audience. Easier said than done, but with intent intelligence, you reduce additional costs as you don’t waste resources on irrelevant impressions. Intent-based branding improves programmatic ad revenue generation by reaching out to leads having high chances of conversions.

As a marketer, you have access to two primary data touchpoints in the pre-purchase, purchase and post-purchase stages:

1. Internal data: Track website engagements, interactions, and campaign performance.
2. External data: Track users’ online behavior on external platforms like social media channels and browsing history.

67% of B2B buyers perform internet searches and 53% engage on social media before finalizing purchase decisions. Intent data gives you insights into how your target audience segments behave and interact on external platforms such as online searches, reading product reviews before purchase, and visiting competitors’ websites.

• Send effective campaigns with intent-based targeting: The competition to grab users’ attention gets fiercer with every passing day. When B2B marketers need to optimize ad spend and extract better ROI from multi-channel campaigns, they turn to intent-based targeting.

The attention-worthiness of marketing campaigns depends on two factors primarily: how you serve your ads, and what’s the ad content. Intent-based targeting boosts higher ad recall lift, as compared to ordinary demographic targeting. This method not only makes your campaigns more effective, but also builds brand awareness.

• Reduce additional costs with better messaging: The main objective for adding intent signals to programmatic campaigns is to communicate better with personalized messages to specific target audience segments. Forensic understanding of the market is crucial to feed content built around clear value propositions and responsive engagement tactics.

Supercharge Your Programmatic Game

U.S. digital display programmatic ad spend has roared past previous forecasts. eMarketer reports upward revision for 2021 exceeds $15 billion. Intent-based marketing has clearly earned a key spot in the future of B2B revenue engines.

Follow these four points for higher programmatic ad revenue:
1. Use the preferred ad formats: If demand is highest for video ads, should you design more display banners? The answer is simple. Know what your buyers want and deliver the same.
2. Manage audience data: Marketers work on improving user experience with audience data analysis. Once you have the answer to “who are my users, and what do they want?” it’s easier to address their pain points and grab their attention.
3. Campaign optimization: Monitor ad revenues to be always informed about campaign performance. The moment you notice revenues going downhill, you need to act fast and implement accurate measures. Intent data can offer guidance about what’s working and what’s not.
4. Practice user privacy: Brands must abide by regulations and guidelines to secure user data privacy. For cookie-based targeting, you must let users know how their data will be used once they accept the cookies. Once cookies fade away, marketers must find other ways to reach prospects while respecting privacy.

To cultivate intent-driven programmatic ad revenue, you might want to look at these articles, too:

• Choosing a B2B Programmatic Partner
• First Steps to Add Intent to Your Programmatic Ad Strategy