Programmatic was created to simplify advertising and turn it from a costly and time-consuming procedure into a transparent and automated experience. It’s time to find out whether programmatic can be useful for SMEs and what strategies should apply to effectively distribute costs and set campaigns for success.

Addressing unique needs and struggles of SMEs

SMEs are the drivers of world economies as they comprise at least 90% of all businesses globally – small businesses keep the emerging markets afloat. This sector is the most susceptible to changing consumer behavior and tastes, and that’s why small companies are always the first to innovate and deliver ground-breaking products and services to the market.

SMEs are very adaptable and flexible compared to big companies, which are not prone to quick changes and transformations. However, SMEs have their own struggles that mostly revolve around limited budgets and the inability to amplify their brand voice amidst tough competition.

Since small and medium enterprises work in ever-changing realities, and with quickly changing objectives, they also require an agile approach to branding and performance marketing strategies. Simply, entrepreneurs need to be able to make changes to their ad campaigns as soon as they arise – communication with vendors and agencies, meanwhile, can significantly slow this process.

The automation, measurability and simplicity of programmatic promises to democratise advertising for SMEs and solve major problems companies may encounter. The stats, below, prove that – today – programmatic is the most popular route for media-buying, and there are a couple of solid reasons for that.

Five reasons why SMEs benefit from programmatic

According to the stats delivered by Statista, programmatic ad spending reached $129.1 billion U.S. in 2020; in 2021, it is expected to hit $155 billion. Today, programmatic ad spending makes up almost 70% of total display spending altogether in some countries, like the UK, it accounts for 93.6%.

The programmatic advertising ecosystem includes several advertising platforms, each of which takes part in the ad serving process. This ecosystem may seem complex; however, its ultimate aim is to simplify the advertising process, making it easy to handle – even for non-professionals.

Using a convenient dashboard of the programmatic buying platform (typically demand-side platform), SME marketers can adjust necessary conditions for the campaign (targeting, budget distribution, channel, etc.). The platform automatically selects the appropriate placement for the ad and bids for the impression (if it corresponds to the chosen campaign criteria). This way, programmatic helps SMEs to serve ads only to the right audiences at the right times and channels. The benefits that programmatic delivers help to address the majority of struggles small companies typically face:

●  Saving ad budget. With targeting (geo, age, OS, language, etc.), ads are only shown to the appropriate audience, which increases the chances of conversions. It prevents brands from spending money on impressions to people who will unlikely find the offer relevant to their needs. Additionally, demand-side platforms are self-served, which means that no additional cost for campaign management is charged.

●  Reaching the right audiences. Competing for user attention is much easier when the offer is relevant. With programmatic, small companies can target audiences worldwide or show ads only to people who stay near their physical stores (applying geo-targeting).

●  Changing campaign course quickly. In the dashboard, programmatic campaigns can be continually monitored, changed and adjusted at any given moment. Real-time campaign analytics will help small companies understand if their campaigns perform well; if not, it is easy to make timely optimisation.

●  Saving time. Programmatic advertising minimizes human interaction and thus the time required to arrange ad placement. The system automatically bids on the right impression and places the ad at the suitable digital inventory.

●  Connecting to global publishers. For SMEs that sell their goods and services internationally, programmatic is very beneficial, as it ensures global reach across multiple ad networks and myriads of programmatically connected publishers.

How can SMEs start with programmatic?

The fact that programmatic doesn’t require companies to invest large budgets in purchasing bulk inventory is what makes it very convenient, especially for SMEs with limited budgets. Basically, all that company needs to do is register an account at the demand-side platform, fill in the budget and configure campaign settings. The minimal campaign deposit is also flexible so that advertisers could deposit sufficient sums according to their objectives.

Starting off with programmatic is a fairly easy task; however, there are several tactics that we advise following to achieve better performance. The following ones will be especially relevant to SMEs:

Five principles of programmatic advertising for SMEs

Choose the right type of deal – RTB/PMP. We suggest companies learn about real-time bidding and alternative programmatic deals to choose the one that suits their purposes best. At private marketplace deals, for example, publishers sell exclusive inventory unavailable at RTB auctions. At the same time, RTB offers more affordable inventory pricing and easy auction joining for advertisers. Oftentimes, one DSP offers access to all kinds of deals, so it’s important to choose a suitable one.

Choose the pricing model. CPM (cost per 1000 impressions) and CPC (cost per click) are the most popular pricing models in programmatic advertising, and it’s important to consider all pros and cons of each before making a final choice. CPC is very convenient since you pay for the results – clicks on your ads.

At the same time, the CPM model is more affordable and used more often for branding campaigns. For a brief comparison: (e.g.) 50 clicks cost $10 (CPC) and 1000 impressions cost $10 (CPM). It means that you get strictly 50 ad clicks for $10 (CPC).

Still, theoretically, you can get up to 1000 ad clicks for this same price with CPM. For this reason, don’t neglect ad creatives – the more engaging it (and the offer) is, the more clicks it will generate with CPM pricing.

Use your data. Self-serve DSPs already have in place effective targeting mechanisms and access to user data. However, there is third-party data available to all participants in the ecosystem. If you can bring first-party CRM data to the table, it opens a gateway to more sophisticated granular and precise targeting. SMEs that use their own data and connect them to programmatic platforms gain an ultimate competitive advantage when it comes to targeting.

Configure the budget. No one wants to spend their ad budget in one day, so setting a limit can be very important, especially for SMEs. On DSP, you can typically set a daily limit and total limit (counted in impressions or dollars). This way, for example, you can instruct the system to stop bidding when daily spending hits $100 or stop bidding entirely after total spending hits the $4,000 mark. In the same way, you should also use frequency capping to limit the number of impressions (shown to one user per day). This will prevent ad irritation along with overspending.

Apply retargeting. If your company has a small budget, a good tactic would be retargeting your audiences. When you notice that conversions increase, it’s also a good practice to use “combination campaigns” – addressing existing audiences with retargeting and reaching new ones with branding campaigns. This way, you will draw in new audiences while also retargeting those who didn’t convert in the first place.

Additionally, attracting the attention of local residents is, as a rule, very important for small businesses. Coffee shops, beauty salons, flower stores – all of these need promotion but cannot afford outdoor advertising, especially during a lockdown, when it is no longer effective. In this case, SME advertisers can launch geomarketing campaigns and configure geotargeting on programmatic platforms to show ads only to the users who stay or live nearby their physical stores.

Wrapping it up

The role of SMEs in economics can’t be underestimated but, most often, the marketing budgets of these companies are trapped in the gap of insufficient funding. Apart from that, small companies need a more flexible approach to advertising and need to directly manage their ad campaigns and align them with ever-changing business objectives. Programmatic platforms don’t require companies to have strict budget sizes. They automate the ad serving, making it more affordable and helping SME advertisers to directly impact and magnify the outcomes of their campaigns.

The post Five Ways for SMEs to Make the Most of Programmatic Campaigns appeared first on PerformanceIN.

During the past decade, affiliate marketing has grown exponentially across Europe. Coupled with e-mail marketing, it also accounted for 16% of e-commerce online income in the US and Canada. Still, such growth naturally slowed down and stabilized by the end of 2019.

Developing countries, meanwhile, are following different paths. Gradually overcoming development and trading barriers, these markets grow stronger and develop rapidly. Economies of countries like Japan, India, Brazil, China, and Africa receive billions of dollars in investments yearly. Such a picture only testifies to the fact – today, brands can access unexplored resources for establishing fruitful affiliate partnerships.

Specifics of businesses in developing countries

India – when you think of India, the first thing that pops up in the mind is the world’s best pool of IT talents. Internet technologies play a very important role in Indian transformation. Google and Amazon have built their own technological wealth on the basis of the existing infrastructure. Indian companies are typically run by small teams that are technically skilled, business-wise, and prefer to collaborate using a SaaS model.

Brazil – this country has a well-established system of startup accelerators that work across business verticals. Brazil doesn’t only replicate western successful business projects but also adapts them to the Latin American market – an important thing one should remember in order to quickly grasp the local approach to business building.

China – many iconic tech companies – Huawei, Alibaba, Tencent, Baidu, Lenovo, and Xiaomi originated in China. The encouragement of entrepreneurship is currently the main vector of China’s economic growth. In March 2015, China built a giant startup incubator Zhongguancun in Beijing based on the prototype of Silicon Valley. Position, membership in associations, etc., are the keys to business success in China. That’s why finding local partners may be indispensable if you are trying to conquer the Chinese market.

Japan – following the experience of western countries, Japan is becoming more open to entrepreneurs. The IT business is considered to be one of the main engines of the country’s rapid economic growth. Japan is also the third-largest ICT market in the world. The internal business processes are characterized by long technological chains that comprise small businesses that serve bigger businesses.

Africa – at the beginning of 2018, a shift in South Africa’s government restored the confidence of businesses in the country and elevated the rand, which grew to a maximum level. African business communities, in contrast to those in China and Japan, are very cosmopolitan. In some regions, companies that work in the mining, agriculture, energy, and tourism industries can also receive subsidies.

Building affiliate relationships at expos & conferences

No matter if you want to gain a foothold in new markets on a long-term basis or just eager to get larger brand exposure, interpersonal relationships established at big expos & conferences (below) may play a crucial role in your future success: 

India Affiliate Summit (Sep 17 – 18, 2020 – India)
Ad:tech New Delhi (March 19 – 20, 2020 – India)
Afiliados Brasil (May 28 – 30, 2020 – Brazil)
China International Internet & E-commerce Expo (Sep 23 – 25, 2020 – China)
eCommerce Fair Tokyo (Jan 28 – 29, 2020 – Japan)
iGB Affiliate Africa (Oct 28 – 29, 2020, Africa)

If you want to make the most out of each visited conference and expo, take the time to target the local community to make sure they are aware of your affiliate proposition/program: post it on local affiliate forums, make the announcement about participation, and notify potential partners where and when they can find you at the expo to discuss collaboration details.

Digital affiliate marketing opportunities

The digital affiliate program is the simplest low-budget business method that a novice can try without meddling with additional financial risks. As an advertiser, you can create your own affiliate program and attract highly-targeted relevant traffic from local websites.

The most popular affiliate programs to check out:

India

Amazon, eBay, Tata clique, ShopClues, Jabong,

Brazil

Paysale, MyLead, DoAff.net, 3Snet, Leadbit

China

Linktech, Chanet, YiQifa, LinkHaiTao,

Japan

A8Net, WhiteRabbit, Peerfly, CPALead, Admitad

Africa

WealthyAffiliate, Zando, Wonga, Loot, Zasstra

All offers in CPA networks are grouped according to the business vertical. Some of them might work only across one or two verticals, e.g. beauty and healthcare. The others might work in retail or luxury and so on.

Those brands that strive for awareness instead of performance give preference to CPM (cost-per-mile) ad campaigns, which can be launched on programmatic demand-side platforms. Unlike a CPA campaign, a programmatic campaign based on CPM enables the advertiser to cover all business verticals across suitable geo-targeting audiences according to the giant arrays of user data.

Embrace DTC (Direct To Consumer) collaborations

Setting the customer to the centre of your attention with a DTC campaign, you can bypass expensive channels and advertising intermediaries: television, press, billboards. For this, however, you have to know the specifics of every DTC market you are going to enter:

Japan – over 84% of Japanese population uses smartphones (instead of desktop computers) when purchasing online. If you want to gain the trust of customers in this local market, the product or service that you introduce should be localized, suited to fit Japanese etiquette, and showcased in detail, preferably on mobile devices.

India – to win over the Indian customer’s heart, one should keep in mind that this country has more millennial customers than any other (34% of population). These people give preference to online shopping experiences. However, 75% of the population still gravitates to offline experiences. The good combination of offline and online shopping might be a win-win strategy.

Brazil – Brazilian customers can be the most engaged social media followers for your brand (young people spend on social media no less than 3 hours and 43 min. daily). Mobile devices are used for 27.3% of e-commerce purchases. However, the desktop is still the most popular device. Thus, you can target your audience on desktop and then retarget them on mobile.

China – China has the biggest e-Commerce websites: Alibaba (500 million people), Taobao, TMall. Internet penetration in this country is higher than 75%. Most online purchases are made through mobile devices. Certain international web sources are censored. This means that products can be marketed online, but they need to be localized and suited to internal digital policies and regulations.

Africa – Africa’s Internet penetration is low, although the overall mobile phone ownership rate is high (91%). In such circumstances, ad campaigns should be run offline and online (via mobiles). To succeed, you need to develop sophisticated pricing strategies and take into account the needs of local customers with a multicultural marketing approach.

Use a multicultural marketing approach

Challenges that your potential customers may face, particularly in the minority-owned communities, are related to the fact that people may not have access to the same networks, sources of capital, or products.

Now, with the continued growth of the infrastructure for online services, your brand can take advantage of new opportunities. For this:

Prepare the product for the local market. In order to evaluate whether you can grasp a desired share of the local market, run a preliminary gap analysis. This will allow you to assess risks and understand how far your business stands from the desired position on the market.
 
Make sure you’ve pinpointed a vacant niche – in order to enter new markets effortlessly, take time to determine whether your product idea really covers an unfilled market niche: run a private survey, distribute questionnaires, attract customer representatives to test your product and obtain honest feedback.
 
Revise local regulations – keep in mind that legislation across developing countries varies, especially when it comes to services and products that utilize user data. If compliant to local regulation, your product will easily get certified or patented.
 
Make a roadmap of market expansion – determine market penetration plans for short, medium, and long time periods and adopt metrics according to which one you will use to measure the success of market penetration.

To wrap it up

Entering a new unexplored market niche can be a daunting task, but it can also be highly rewarding for those businesses that make it in-time. The quick rise of emerging markets arms millions of consumers with new purchasing power. Those brands that harness meaningful business relationships, and understand the needs of the local economies and communities, are far more likely to capture the loyalty of new customers and the trust of new partners.

The post How Affiliate Marketers Should Explore Emerging Markets in 2020 appeared first on PerformanceIN.