The question on most marketers’ minds is, “What’s better for a brand — partnering with well-known influencers or programmatic advertising?” Studies show that while 70% of users trust people’s recommendations, even if they don’t know them personally, according to experts at HBS.edu, while programmatic advertising can reach an audience of millions in seconds. But which strategy is more effective for your business? Or are they two parallel strategies that should ideally complement each other?
For reference, the experience of a company like SmartyAds suggests that while influencers can create an emotional connection with your audience, resulting in high engagement, the ROI of partnering with programmatic advertising is still higher than other marketing channels. If you want to learn how to increase your brand awareness, you visit our insider site — the best source of information on the subject. Below, we talk about the benefits of programmatic advertising and how it compares to working with influencers. Read this article to the end, and you’ll find what’s right for you.
Partnering with influencers: The power of personal interaction
The unique quality of humans is the ability to produce with one hand and succumb to the charms of the other. That’s something AI can’t do — but for now, it’s the influence of personality through charisma that translates into customer trust. But it’s not quite that simple. The thing is, influencers have to really believe in your product to make their recommendations seem natural and convincing — the audience feels it.
The second reason brands choose influencers as a customer acquisition channel is the ability to target niche markets. The essence of this approach is that influencers have a specialized audience that trusts their opinions. For example, if you decide to partner with an influencer whose influence extends to a young audience interested in eco-friendly products, you will be more persuasive in making your case for eco-friendly cosmetics to them.
How to pick the right influencer?
These two circumstances — 1) the exceptional impact of influencers on 2) the selected target audience — form the following two challenges: How to decide the right influencer and how to measure the results of the campaign?
The digital marketing industry offers three building blocks to solve these issues:
- Define your target audience so you know who to look for — influencers with a similar subscriber base. For example, if your target audience is young people interested in fashion, look for influencers who publish content about fashion and have subscribers in that age group.
- Analyze candidate influencer metrics based on three criteria 1) Engagement of their subscribers through likes, comments, reposts — these all indicate a real and socially active audience. 2) Demographics — this should match your target audience. 3) Content — this should match the values and tone of voice of your brand.
- Check the reputation of potential partners. Stories of their past campaigns and testimonials will help you avoid partners who may be detrimental to your brand.
Once you’ve selected your influencers, set clear KPIs. Metrics such as reach, engagement, and conversions are critical to success. Use trackers and UTM tags to evaluate campaign ROI. Compare campaign results by pre- and post-campaign status. High audience engagement rates and content quality will point you to the best candidate. Examples of best-in-ad-class campaigns such as Nike’s “Just Do It” & Apple’s “Shot on iPhone” prove that influencer partnerships are better suited for brands that want to create a personal connection with their audience and promote products through trusted opinion leaders.
Programmatic advertising: Accurate metrics and scalability
Automation of ad buying processes and speed, as well as analytics and transparent reporting, are key advantages of programmatic over influencer. Another area where influencers lose out is programmatic’s access to a broad advertising network. The digital approach to advertising allows you to reach a massive audience at a much lower cost. This, in turn, allows you to optimize your budget by paying only for the actions you actually target.
But programmatic advertising also has drawbacks — low quality traffic and bot fraud.
Solutions:
- Use platforms with fraud protection and data transparency, like SmartyAds.
- Audit your ad campaigns regularly to optimize budget and settings based on metrics.
How to choose to partner with Pragmatic Advertising?
If you are an advertiser, your choice is Demand Side Platforms (DSPs) that offer to buy ad impressions for targeted users. If you’re a publisher — holding ad inventory — your choice is Supply Side Platforms (SSPs), which allow you to sell ad space, whether on websites, apps, or other digital media such as video platforms (external digital advertising and TV) and social media.
Programmatic advertising is ideal for brands looking to reach large audiences with precision targeting and minimal cost. Retail and e-commerce, financial services, automotive, travel and tourism, and education and online courses are suitable business niches.
Compare and choose strategies: What’s right for your company?
The choice is which is more important to your brand — emotional connection or scalability? Differentiating between these two strategies is like choosing between weapons: sniper rifles, like influencers, need to perform point-by-point tasks to build trust; drones, like programmatic advertising, are designed to automatically perform large-scale tasks, in the case of marketing — to reach and engage audiences with the brand.
The complexity of today’s advertised products suggests a combined approach. For example, with technology products such as smartphones, gadgets or software, influencers can promote the product by demonstrating its function and benefits, while programmatic advertising can reach a wider audience to attract new customers.
Influencers vs. programmatic ads: Quick comparison
| Criteria | Influencers | Programmatic Advertising |
| Business Niches | B2C, small businesses, startups | B2B, B2C, large companies |
| Cost | $100 – $10,000+ per post | $0.50 – $10 CPM |
| Audience Reach | 10K – several million followers | Potentially millions of users |
| Functionality | Personal connection, native ads | Automation, targeting, retargeting |
The combined approach leverages the strengths of both influencers and programmatic advertising, creating an emotional connection with audiences and ensuring scalability and reach.
Overall conclusion
According to the results of the analysis of the best advertising campaigns by our SmartyAds consultants, we conclude the presence of influencers in the advertising market so far proves the immutability of the human genius — the ability to inspire trust. Programmatic advertising can spread that trust automatically and on a scale beyond human capacity. Thus, the combination of these two methods is born: Influencers provide the emotional engagement of influencers with the broad reach of programmatic advertising, allowing your brand to connect with niche audiences while maximizing your brand’s presence in the marketplace.
