With the rise of automated buying in digital media, it can often feel like technology has replaced human optimization and service and the ability to offer personalized messages to customers.

But that doesn't have to be the case. If you're using the tools correctly, marketers should be able to leverage both data-driven tech and dynamic creative to develop campaigns that stand out in an oversaturated digital market.

That's why, for our next 3T webinar, we're exploring how marketers can build effective creative that aligns with campaign goals and KPIs. Because tech and tailored messages can, and should, go hand-in-hand and are essential to success in digital advertising.

Join us and Centro's VP of Creative Services, Martin Betoni, as he dives into how marketers can begin to understand and embrace the creative environment.

Martin will discuss:

• Best practices for addressing digital ad hierarchy, and conceiving and optimizing designs for the appropriate format and KPI
• Innovative creative opportunities across various platforms and examples of what you can do with each

"With publishers scrutinizing who gets into its header bidding pipes, demand sources who can’t illustrate their value will be relegated to the lower levels of the waterfall, fighting for scraps."

Read more in MediaPost from Centro's Jessica Burget about choosing a header bidding partner.

In consumer advertising, incremental gains count for something. But in political advertising? It's a zero-sum game. You either achieve a goal or you don't.

The 2016 election season produced winners and losers — from the presidency to down-ballot measures and congressional races. For those of us in digital media and advertising who were part of this cycle, there's much to be learned that can be applied for future elections.

The Flow of Ad Dollars Is Based on Trusted Relationships

Advertising, especially in politics, is a people-driven business. As the industry (e.g., media companies, agencies, tech companies, etc.) braced for the election season a year ago, there was a fair number of industry folks who believed that, due to the high number of competitive races, political ad dollars would virtually fall from the sky. All they would have to do was catch them — so they thought. The simple plan would be to send a salesperson to D.C. to drum up business, or even to open an office in D.C. and hire a couple of specialists in the field.

And significant money was spent in the 2016 cycle, but the political winds were blowing it in the direction of marketing consultants who had already cultivated deep relationships with political groups. Most companies with existing political accounts were able to credit them to strong networks, political expertise, and tech savvy.

Political teams knew there was a need for digital capabilities in order to engage the public, with campaigns spending 23% of their social media budgets on mobile targeting in 2016, and 49% toward social, but they worked with partners that they trust to help them execute.

Data and Digital Dominate Political Advertising

Data-driven and digital strategies gained momentum leading up to the election. We saw a large number of down-ballot candidates prioritizing digital ads over other media because of the precise targeting to local audiences.

A rising number of candidates also incorporated more data into their campaigns compared to elections two and four years ago. Local campaigns turned to programmatic advertising for its cost-effectiveness and targeting efficiencies, while agencies managing statewide Senate or ballot initiative strategies emphasized geotargeting in areas where candidates had low support.

Many agencies used predictive modeling to assess how different types of messaging affected the likelihood of turnout and to identify areas where the candidate or ballot measure lacked support. I know of an instance when a campaign team analyzed its supporters and discovered particularly low awareness and weak support with cord cutters, leading them to invest in connected TV platforms. These are real-time data points that can influence the media mix.

Political campaigns increasingly invested in digital by reallocating advertising funds from mail and print to tech-based strategies. But, because banner ads don't inspire the same emotional connections videos do, candidates have continued their love affair with video — and television, in particular. However, they're also creating shorter, punchier, more “raw" videos that play well in digital channels such as social media.

The Data Was Not Wrong

Perhaps one of the biggest stories to come out of the election was how wrong the polls were when it came to predicting the outcome of the presidential election. Many questioned whether the data itself was faulty, but numbers do not lie. How people read those numbers, however, definitely matters.

Keep in mind that data was used for plenty of races and ballot measures, and they served those campaigns well. With the national election, the overall message from many state-by-state polls was that the presidential race was going to be close — and it was. But there were some assumptions made, such as predicting turnout likelihood based on recent voting history, which may have proved incorrect. Interpreting polling and voter file data is crucial to the overall marketing strategy.

The election may be over, but its effects on the advertising and media business are far-reaching. Digital media innovation tends to begin on the consumer side; then the political arena adopts it, and tried-and-true tactics make their way into advocacy.

With the end of this election cycle, issue-focused advertising will now ramp up as advocacy groups petition the new administration and Congress on a variety of causes. I expect real-time, data-driven advertising to play a stronger role in advocacy than it has in the past, especially as marketers become more sophisticated in their digital tactics.

Ad exchanges are not a new piece of the digital media puzzle, but they've been in focus lately as marketers continue to funnel their ad dollars through online marketplaces, while also navigating the programmatic advertising land mine that is brand safety. It can be hard, for both buyers and sellers alike, to make sense of it all. But one of the best ways to safeguard against fraudulent activity and low-quality inventory is to do your due diligence on the various ad exchanges that exist in the digital market right now.

OK. Let's go back to basics. Can you explain what an ad exchange is?

Sure thing. Picture a digital marketplace. There are no shortage of terms and pieces of technology that are part of this virtual marketplace, but to avoid further confusion, it's often easiest to think of ad exchanges as the intermediary between publishers selling their ad space through SSPs and marketers buying inventory through DSPs. An ad exchange's job is to announce each impression, in real-time, and ask buyers if they're interested in buying said impression and at which price. Keep in mind: in the automated buying world, this happens in a matter of seconds as webpages are loading.

Now I'm with you. Real-time bidding. Why the fancy word? That's just programmatic advertising, right?

Wrong. Programmatic advertising and real-time bidding (RTB) are not the same things. Programmatic is a very broad term that simply means automated technology infrastructure that enables media buying. It's the overarching umbrella term you'd use when describing automated buying, and RTB falls under that umbrella. But RTB is its own thing. In simple terms: RTB is a buying method of purchasing a single impression via an auction-based system in real-time – aka what's described above.

Alright, now I'm really with you this time. An ad exchange is just a fancier ad network, right?

Wrong again. They're similar in that both are handling massive amounts of publisher inventory. And it's easy to get them confused because ad exchanges and ad networks are providing similar offerings and services. One of the key differentiators is the fact ad networks are, on some level, more specialized than exchanges. Networks pull together inventory from groups of publishers and resell to advertisers, but an ad exchange could house inventory from multiple ad networks and plug into an SSP for an auction-based buy. An easier way to look at it: Picture the ad exchange as a shopping mall. The ad networks can be the stores or even the shoppers.

One more question.

You've been wrong twice now. Three strikes and you're out.

Are advertisers and publishers the only ones accessing and using ad exchanges?

To keep it simple and easier to digest, you should break it down into “buyer” and “seller,” and the larger point is that buyers and sellers need a tech access point. That can mean different things. For example, an advertiser could access it through an in-house bidding platform, or through a vendor’s DSP that it uses directly. Or an advertiser could work with an agency, and access exchanges through its own bidding tech, like a trading desk, or through a DSP.

There seem to be a lot of moving parts. How do you keep track of where your ads are placed?

There are a number of ways to protect your brand and have your ads appear on brand-safe and brand-friendly websites. When bidding through ad exchanges, there are pre-bid settings such as publisher blocklists – effectively selecting and screening a list of sites where you don't want your content to appear. Another way to ensure placement control is to utilize private marketplaces.

Private marketplaces? Huh?

It's not as confusing as it sounds. It doesn't matter if you're using an open marketplace or a private one: all the buying is still done via real-time bidding. The difference? Private marketplaces are customized, invitation-only marketplaces where publishers make their inventory available to a select group of buyers. A private deal typically involves a separate negotiation between a buyer and a seller to agree upon a deal. The technicalities aren't super important – it involves Deal IDs and coding – but what is important to note is the access to premium inventory that might not otherwise be available in an open marketplace that can be littered with fraudulent and unsafe sites. Private marketplaces and private deals are also beneficial to sellers (i.e. publishers). Sometimes publishers looking to monetize their inventory in open marketplaces are left with mediocre and low-paying advertisers who are on the hunt for cheap inventory.

How will I know which ad exchange is right for my company?

Like any decision that affects your business and your bottom line, there are several considerations to take into account when evaluating tech. Are you concerned careful vetting and ensuring your ads appear on appropriate sites? Are you looking to tap into a niche market and target local consumers? Are you just getting started and in need of some extra attention and service?

Centro Brand Exchange, the largest premium and private ad exchange on the market today, is built on the quality and strength of its brand-safe inventory. We connect more than 2,000 trusted journalistic news sites to demand across more than 6,000 brands. And, because our exchange is invite-only and the result of leveraging longstanding publisher relationships, we can be confident that we're offering high-quality inventory and deep access to local inventory.

In fact, Centro Brand Exchange has a 96% “Ideal" rating from Trust Metrics, as well as coverage in 98 of the top 100 DMAs, and includes the No. 1 or No. 2 newspaper site in 20 of the top 25 markets.

And, if you need a little help getting started, you can always scale your campaign initiatives with Centro's team of best-in-class digital specialists who can help you make sense of it all. Learn more about Programmatic Advertising with Centro.

"With the right plan, SMBs can target specific audiences and gain significant traction in the market. The potential ROI boost is major: Programmatic gets your brand in front of the right eyeballs, regardless of what type of content they’re viewing."

Read more about programmatic advertising from Centro via Business.com.

Our client is a premier sports, outdoor, and lifestyle retailer with a broad assortment of quality hunting, fishing, and camping equipment and gear, along with sports and leisure products, footwear, apparel and much more. The company started working with Centro on a few test campaigns to promote store openings. A 2015 holiday campaign demonstrated our abilities to use digital to attract, engage, and influence new and existing shoppers. The next step was to build a complete set of digital strategies and tactics that aligned with the client's business goals.

Read more in our case study.

Last year, a major U.S. restaurant group with more than 400 locations nationwide and overseas, broke into the world of digital advertising with help from Centro. Centro helped achieve positive business results by executing an all-encompassing series of digital strategy campaigns that connected to every step of the customer buying journey.

Download our case study to read more.

When you are a specialty retailer and distributor of professional beauty supplies with more than 5,000 stores worldwide, a small bump in store sales can represent a large chunk of revenue. When the company decided to launch a national digital campaign to drive off-line sales and in-store traffic, it turned to Centro.

Download our case study to read more.