By Anna McCarthy, ChoiceStream
Luxury retailers have been hesitant to adopt programmatic advertising – the automated buying of digital media – for fear that is a bargain basement of cheap digital impressions that no one actually wanted. For brands that are used to high visibility, premium content advertising – a full page spread in Vanity Fair, for example – programmatic can feel like giving up contextual control.
But in today’s digital-first world, ignoring programmatic is like sticking with last season’s trend. Programmatic today IS premium – it is engaging, dynamic, and impactful. And along with the media, programmatic can deliver significant insights that help luxe brands understand their audiences in powerful new ways.
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Putting an ad in Vanity Fair makes sense – and no one is recommending that luxury brands stop doing that – but that gorgeous full page ad doesn’t tell you anything about the audience that saw and responded to it, or what happened after it appeared in the magazine. You might be paying for the media, but think about how much you would value the insights that come along with that purchase.
Programmatic helps turn media dollars into research dollars, by delivering back information as well as impressions. You can think of insights as the free – and extremely valuable – gift that comes along with the core purchase of media.
Programmatic for luxury means sophisticated, highly bespoke targeting strategies. Think haute couture rather than mass market fashion: rather than relying on generic, pre-defined segments for targeting (“fashionistas” or “fashion news followers”) or vague, general demographic targeting (“income over $150K”), brands today can reach tailor-made audiences built off of actual consumer behavior or stated intent data from polling. This helps luxury brands determine the motivations behind intent, and with that knowledge, brands can deliver exactly the right products through exactly the right custom experience.
For example, a luxury retailer learning what areas of an ad are being engaged with might discover that it is not in fact the call to action, but a lifestyle image, suggesting the aspirational messaging is resonating with its audience. Learning how many times a customer scrolled through a product carousel or hovered on an ad can indicate which creative resonated with which audience segment, and which hero products correlate with different audience attributes.
When it comes to the ad creative, programmatic enables you to deliver experiences tailored to the exact customer experience at that moment. Luxury retailers can become like digital personal stylists, using data and dynamic creative to provide highly personalized recommendations. For example, using weather and location data, a brand could suggest a trench or new boots for a city professional facing a stormy forecast for the week. By delivering creative messages that reflect the world the consumer is experiencing, you can engage and provide true value to the customer.
Programmatic for luxury is not just a trend — it’s the new reality. With the powerful insights into audiences and campaign performance, savvy luxury brands will tip the scales in favor of programmatic – and will provide exceptional experiences for consumers as a result.
Anna McCarthy is VP Client Development at ChoiceStream. Since joining in 2011, McCarthy leads ChoiceStream’s strategy and creative services group globally. She holds over 10 years of experience both on the media services and the client side of the business —across offline, email, e-Commerce, personalization and advertising marketing technology. Prior to ChoiceStream, McCarty held various senior level positions with digital marketing technology leaders. She served as Client Services Lead for eBay Enterprise, (formerly e-Dialog), focusing on providing cross-channel solutions keyed to the company’s retail client base. Before e-Dialog, Anna worked client-side, managing the email-marketing program for striderite.com, Wolverine World Wide, Inc. (formerly Stride Rite Children’s Group) and running lucrative cross-channel lead generation programs at Tranzact.
