It’s important to deliver a relevant and accurate message to your target audience no matter their native language. If you’re trying to engage Spanish speakers and Hispanic audiences at scale, Centro DSP offers many targeting options across desktop, tablet, and mobile.

Context

The content consumers are browsing is a powerful indicator of their interests and characteristics. If people are reading articles or using an app in Spanish, it’s likely they speak the language. To apply contextual targeting at the site level, Centro DSP has established partnerships with leading Spanish private marketplaces and supports custom Spanish site and app lists. Creating a separate tactic for page-level contextual targeting can increase reach on related content.

Audience

Third-party data providers aggregate many signals beyond context and allow you to target an audience more broadly as they browse outside Spanish content. Centro DSP has a wide range of segments available for demographic, behavioral, in-market, and Spanish speakers. Make sure to look at reporting regularly to discover additional sites or apps that are performing well.

Browser and Geography

Some consumers choose to set their browser language preferences. Consider testing a campaign targeting people who have selected the Spanish setting. Geo-targeting ZIP codes or metropolitan areas with large Spanish-speaking populations is another opportunity if context and audience are not delivering.

Extra Credit

If you apply all these settings to a single campaign, the targeting will be far too narrow. Remember to test each one discretely, monitor performance, and apply the insights for optimization. Programmatic advertising with a demand side platform takes the guess work out of marketing and lets you make data-driven decisions.

Wondering if you’re ready to be a self-service DSP user, or if you need a vendor to help guide the way? We’ve designed this questionnaire to help you figure it all out. Yes, we’ve set it up to resemble those surveys in women’s magazines we all ‘hate’. Because, let’s be honest, we say we hate them, but we still take them. Just last week I took a quiz that told me what Disney princess I was. (I’m Jasmine, for the record.)

You know the drill: Answer the questions, tally up what letter you get most frequently and find your results at the bottom. Obviously, this is only 5 questions, and there are plenty of things to consider when getting started with a DSP – but these are the basics.

So, without further ado, here are 5 questions to begin with:

Are you digital ready?

A. Digital is core to our business. We understand the importance of having a mobile app and mobile-optimized website, and we’re running display, mobile, and video advertising.
B. We’re new to the world of digital. Right now, we’re only running paid search, and we’d like to learn how to implement best practices.
C. We’re stuck in the dark ages.

How much programmatic training and education will your team need?

A. We have a staff of programmatic advertising experts with knowledge of the digital industry and time to manage campaigns.
B. We have a thin staff with less time on their hands, and even less expertise in using a DSP. We would really benefit from interface trainings and educational content.
C. We don’t even know what DSPs are. Let’s start there?

What is your budget and how much are you willing to invest in programmatic?

A. We already invest in digital talent, so we don’t see the need to spend more for an SLA. We also want control over and transparency about where our digital dollars are going.
B. We know we need the help, so we’re willing to invest the money to get it.
C. We can barely afford rent.

How much control do you want over your campaigns?

A. We’d like to set up our own campaigns, control what sites they’ll run on and what platforms, and once it’s live, we’d like to make minor adjustments and implement optimizations.
B. We’d prefer to take advantage of in-house experts to provide us with best practices, and to set up, manage and optimize our campaigns.
C. Jesus take the wheel.

What are the business goals and how will you measure success?
A. No matter the campaign objective, we have clearly-defined goals and measurable KPIs, and are always looking to optimize.
B. We do not have clear objectives, and need assistance translating goals into KPIs.
C. We’d just like to stay in business.

Mostly As: You’re self-service
Mostly Bs: You’re managed
Mostly Cs: Can I suggest our educational webinar series? Or maybe the Disney princess quiz?

Learn more about Programmatic Advertising with Centro.

"Younger demographics and technological advances are inspiring more innovative social media tactics. Apps can no longer make a good run solely from messaging purposes; they now need to incorporate new features to stay relevant and elevate their brands."

Read more from Centro's Aubry Parks-Fried on MarketingProfs.

A major U.S. home furnishing retailer with stores worldwide has made the leap from print to digital to social media advertising in just a few short years. This well-known American brand relied on a small in-house team to do all of its advertising. With marketing limited to mostly print campaigns and catalogs, the company was late to the digital age, even during a period of continued revenue growth and global expansion. That changed when Centro was engaged to usher the company into the new era.

Read more in our case study.

Last week, we answered questions surrounding DSPs. Because that was geared toward advertisers and agencies, we’re turning our attention this week to publishers. It doesn’t matter if you’re a traditional media publisher with roots in print or a publisher with digital as your core business. The benefit to using a DSP is the same: audience extension.

So, let’s dive in. And stop me if you get lost.

I’m already lost. What’s audience extension?
Audience extension is used by publishers to capture a greater share of digital ad budgets by accessing additional inventory and audiences.

Audience extension allows publishers to retarget their users on sites outside of their own. This makes it possible for publishers to increase the volume of their inventory and the value of their first-party audience data.

But keep in mind: It’s more than just site retargeting. Utilizing a DSP for audience extension allows publishers to expand both their digital inventory and their digital offerings. In other words, audience extension turns publishers into a one-stop-shop for their advertisers’ digital needs.

An example might help.
Let’s pretend you’re an online sports publication and your visitor is a female in her mid-20s. She’s reading about Alex Rodriguez’s retirement from baseball while she cries into her morning coffee, but when she’s done, her digital activity will extend beyond your website to other devices, platforms, channels and interests.

She might head to her favorite blogger for ideas on how to decorate her apartment, or perhaps she visits REI’s site to buy backpacking gear for an upcoming trip to New Zealand.  Maybe last night she ordered too much pizza online, and now she’s Googling local gyms she can join. It’s also possible she spent all morning at work researching what audience extension is so she can write a blog about it, and takes a break to like all of Britney Spears’ posts on Instagram.

The point is: Your website attracts a unique set of visitors with their own range of hobbies, behaviors, brand affinities and lifestyle preferences. Advertisers are buying your inventory directly because they want to connect with that unique audience. As a publisher, you can offer access to these users on your site and continue targeting them after they leave your page.

This sounds a lot like retargeting. You said audience extension is more than that, but I’m not seeing how.
Think about it like this: You’re the same popular sports website. And Joe’s Sports Shack loves advertising on your website. He can’t get enough, and he keeps coming back for more. Every quarter that he spends on your site directly, he sees an in-store traffic uptick. And now Joe wants to spend more money with you. He needs your help geo-targeting a nearby little league tournament with mobile ads. And Joe, busy guy that he is, also recently put together a TV spot and he’s wondering if you can help him run a video campaign. With DSP technology, you’ll never have to say no to Joe.

Well, I see the benefit for programmatic advertisers in this scenario. What’s in it for me?
Audience extension allows you to follow your readers after they leave the page, which turns your website traffic into audience segment data. You’re now selling audiences to advertisers – instead of physical ad units – which allows you to monetize your readership, web traffic and increase inventory capacity.

Ok, but how does all of this this work from a technical standpoint?
Audience extension uses HTTP cookies, a string of text sent from a web server to a user’s browser. Cookies store a unique identifier, and may contain information like the users’ browsing activity and what ads were recently seen. To facilitate this, it’s as simple as publishers placing code into the backend of their website. Once the cookies and ad tags are there, the ads follow the audience as they browse the web.

One more question: Can’t I achieve audience extension with just an ad exchange or DMP?
You might already be monetizing your website, or collecting first-party audience data. You might even be utilizing ad exchanges or DMPs to offer retargeting to your advertisers. That’s great – you’re doing some good work.

But guess what? You’re still leaving money on the table.

Remember Joe? Using a DSP, you will have scalable inventory and audience targeting across any device, anywhere, any time.

For more information on DSP technology or on Basis DSP, visit our website. You can also check out our 3-part video series on using a DSP as a publisher.

Learn more about Programmatic Advertising with Centro.

You’re new to the digital media industry, and it’s your first week on the job. In meetings, co-workers are throwing around words like “demand side platform” and “viewability” and “programmatic direct” and “cookies.” You’re left scratching your head in bewilderment – and, wait a second, cookies? Someone brought cookies? You don’t see cookies in this conference room.

Nope, unfortunately, no one brought cookies. What they’re talking about is an HTTP cookie – a string of text sent from a web server to a user’s browser. Cookies store a unique identifier, and may contain information like what ads were recently seen and when the web cookie was created.

See? It’s hard to keep up.

Ad tech is already rife with complexity, but throw in advertising buzzwords and jargon on top of that and you’ve got a recipe for confusion, miscommunication and misunderstanding.

So, to help you out, we’ve created a quick cheat sheet to help you understand some of the more common and popular terms being thrown around the industry. Soon enough you’ll be the one dropping these words into casual conversation.

To those of you who have been in the digital media space for quite some time, rest assured that this guide is useful for amateurs and seasoned veterans alike. You digital experts might not think you need a refresher, but it couldn’t hurt. Technology is constantly evolving, and everyone has different definitions for the terminology, so it’s good to have this handy.

Read the cheat sheet here! 

We continue to release product features, updates, and functionality within our DSP to make your day-to-day campaign management more effective and efficient. Over the coming weeks we will be introducing important enhancements to pacing and budget management. These updates are designed to give you more precision and control when managing campaigns.

Advertiser Spend
There are many ways buyers and sellers work together. Business models can range from selling on a dynamic CPM to a fixed CPC -- and everything in between. In order to provide more visibility to buyers, today we are releasing new optional fields within our DSP at the campaign and group level. These fields can be used to calculate and track contracted budgets, media spend, and performance. The platform will calculate progress at the line-item level. Now buyers can compare and report on goals directly in the DSP and will no longer need to refer to a spreadsheet or email.

New Pacing System
Using a DSP can be like driving a car. Whether you’re on a city street or the freeway, you need to be sensible about how fast you’re going. Pacing is the speed at which your DSP campaign spends its budget, and controlling delivery is vital to ensuring a campaign performs well. On August 16, Centro DSP will enable a new pacing system, giving you access to several new options for setting pacing at the group and campaign levels.

At the group level, you’ll have the option to set start and end dates and apply a group pacing setting. This means all campaigns within the group will inherit the pacing, which eliminates extra work, potential errors, and wasted time. Also, you can choose to spend evenly or more quickly at both the group and campaign level to make sure each tactic has the fuel it needs.

Experts from our Customer Success team will be sharing best practices and use cases for the new pacing system and advertiser spend during our August 18 webinar. You can sign up here. For more information, contact your Centro DSP representative or visit the help center.

Most national magazines, newspapers, and websites don’t have the sales resources to connect with regional advertisers. Instead, they focus on national campaigns that drive the most revenue per campaign. While national publishers are aware that local ad dollars are available, it makes sense that they don’t pursue them based on staffing limitations.

Read more from Centro's Jesse Cozart in Publishing Executive.

At Centro, we know that keeping up with the trade pubs and latest trends can be tough and time consuming. To make that easier, we’ve compiled all the articles, reports, and other bits of awesomeness you may have missed, but should definitely read. Enjoy our latest list below!

Why Social Data Will Dominate Online Ad Targeting
Social data is becoming a key part of online marketing campaigns -- Facebook data is so pervasive it can’t be ignored -- but how do marketers deal with the fact that most social networks operate as walled gardens?

Only 20% of Companies Have a Mobile Strategy
The vast majority of brands and advertisers still lack a mobile-specific strategy. A new report from Adobe and eConsultancy found that only 20% of companies and 11% of agencies have built out year-long mobile strategies.

Stonyfield Farm Cultivates Pokémon Go Mobile Moments Via In-App Ads
Are brands and advertisers taking advantage of the Pokémon craze? You bet they are! While the app’s developers have yet to release direct advertising opportunities, CPG brand Stonyfield Farm sought to target Pokémon players through AKi Technologies. Also: check out six ways local merchants are getting on board.

Consumers Don’t Mind Hearing From Brands in Messaging Apps
As the way we consume, engage and share in the social space evolves, brands and consumers are starting to figure out how to interact with each other in messaging apps. This infographic highlights a few stats that signal a potentially massive shift in how brands connect with consumers in a mobile and social arena moving forward.

Google Can Now Place Native Ads Programmatically
The worlds of native and programmatic continue to collide -- this time with even less barriers to entry.

Search Advertising Coming to Facebook
In their recent Q2 earnings call, Facebook announced they are preparing to offer paid search advertising. This comes on the heels of a similar offering by Amazon last year. Timing has not been given, but expect continued competition for Google’s lucrative search business.

YouTube Expands, Tweaks TrueView Video Ads
The digital video behemoth shakes things up with announcements about a few new features rolling out soon, putting an even greater emphasis on mobile.

How Set-Top Box Data is Changing TV Buying
For years, traditional TV buys have been bought on age and gender demographics, but as the industry continues to see dollars shift toward digital channels, there’s been talk about moving beyond Nielsen ratings and rethinking historical targeting and currency models.

Can Spotify Make Programmatic Audio Mainstream?
Shifting away from audio-only exchanges (like Triton), programmatic buyers can now access Spotify’s 70 million users of its ad-supported platform with audio ads alongside display and video.

IAB Ad Blocking Report: Who Blocks Ads, Why, and How to Win Them Back
A new report by the IAB and C3Research dives deep into who is blocking ads, why they’re blocking, and what they want to see (i.e., what we can and should be doing). Full report here.