How Can Brands Make The Most Of Programmatic, Location-Based Ads

By Sandeep Kuriakose, Founder, BPRISE by Euler Media.

Despite weak household spending and muted corporate investments headlining our dailies, there are ways to keep our festive seasons from being lit dimly. An inference drawn from observing brands’ media spends in the past quarter and understanding their take on parking budgets for future campaigns is that, their confidence in digital marketing is shaky. How does one revive this faith?

Every digital marketer worth his or her salt agrees that, brands need more than just marketing strategies. They need to be informed of the factual and structural upgradation possible with the right set of marketing technology. There are also questions concerning the retail industry that need to be answered. Has India’s economic slowdown really slowed down customers from walking in to stores?

Obviously, not. Bear in mind that the year’s festivities are about to begin or have already. This implies that everything from clothing to home décor will be upgraded slightly. A report by Crisil states that the India’s readymade garment makers are expected to grow sales by around 10% this year in comparison to the ≈7% last year. How ready are you to engage these last minute but invaluable store shoppers?

Speaking of customer engagement, it is a known fact that the gold standard in today’s digital marketing is relevance. Whether this can up the rate of consumption or not, only time can tell. Should you bet on it? Maybe. Unless as a brand, you’re able to service your most potential shoppers, exactly when they need it. Also, with the mad boom in online retail, offline retailers could use a new MarTech push.

Consider this, on an average, adults (ages 18+) in India, spend at least an hour and a half daily on digital platforms. And most e-tailers or online retailers that eye all options to sell and upsell, tap into every digital path there is, to reach such potential buyers. For instance, the minute you look up a product on an e-commerce site, almost right away a banner ad of the same product follows you around online.

Are you overlooking such potential shoppers who visit your brand outlets in the analog world by not advertising to them when the probability of its usefulness to them is high? When people walk into a store, they are either actively looking for products or have a passive approach. But what’s constant about them is that they keep facetiming their phones. In simpler words, your potential customer – who’s now inside your store – is also listening to music on a mobile app or better even, reading a news article online. This is your golden opportunity to engage them with your brand’s ad digitally.

Interestingly, proximity marketing is one of the methods of implementing such location-based advertising (LBA). The industry has too many terms such as location-based marketing, location-targeted advertising, geofencing, geotargeting that point to the same thing – show your ads to people when they are at specific locations – in this case, show your brand’s ads to store visitors.

However, considering the economic state of affairs, it goes without saying that unnecessary spending must be curbed. Brands must have a determined approach to engage the crowd actually interested in buying from their stores by making ads contextually relevant and intelligent based on location. Switch to programmatic – buy ad slots across websites and apps in real-time using a DSP (demand-side platform) – if you’re interested in showing banner and video ads to shop visitors at remarkably attractive CPM rates. Technology and strategy can only go so far, but as a brand if you’re ready to meet your in-store shopper halfway, with your “Diwali Dhamaka” offer ads, you’ve fared well in the relevance game digitally.

Sandeep Kuriakose is chief executive officer of BPRISE, a martech platform for location-based programmatic advertising.