What really matters when choosing a programmatic vendor? There are so many out there with “proprietary” data belonging “exclusively” to them. They sit on every single ad exchange ever created or their CPM’s are super low. They offer to whitelist sites, super refined targeting, they average .2% CTR’s, they win awards…

After a lot of trial and error, its become clear to me on things you should definitely do and things you should definitely not do depending on your vertical.

If like a lot of my clients, you are a brand that prides yourself on quality (read: not the cheapest), then you really need to get picky about your KPI. What are you optimizing to?

Don’t go with the vendor’s advice for your KPI because they will surely lead you to the one that looks best on paper but may not find your best consumers. You really need to get picky about your KPI. If you choose click through rate, and nothing more, expect phenomenal CTR’s (especially on mobile, ESPECIALLY if it’s a mobile interstitial), but also expect super high click variances, really high bounce rates, short time on site and pretty much no more than one page per visit. Also, don’t expect that a lot of these sessions are going to come back to your site because they won’t… they didn’t mean to come to your site in the first place. They became your target audience because your target audience is the person most likely to click on your ad: that is most likely to click on your ad, not most likely to click on your ad and land on your landing page, most likely to click on your ad and convert, most likely to click on your ad because they meant to… you see what I’m saying here. The clicks you’re getting and the impressions you’re showing are probably not to your best next customer. It’s probably the one that fat-fingers their iPhone the most. If you choose CTR as your KPI, I am sure you can get something like a .3% CTR which is great, but I wouldn’t want to dig any deeper as you’re not going to find a ton of meaningful interactions.

Instead of choosing CTR as your KPI, think about more meaningful interactions that someone may exhibit with you. For instance, instead of making it CTR, choose landing page rate. That way, you’re more likely to get consumers that actually want to see more about what you’re showing them in your ad unit (lower click variance). Also, consider taking that one step further… instead of landing page rate, how about this fun one I created for my client: landing page engagement rate! So not only do you have to click on the ad, you also have to land on my page, AND engage with it. I will say that CTR’s were lower than what we could have had if we chose CTR as the KPI, but the interactions were more meaningful and more importantly, these users came BACK to the site later and converted.

It’s like choosing delayed gratification… sure we aren’t getting insanely high CTR, but at least this way you’ll REALLY find the person that meant to engage with your ad unit in the first place.