For many marketers, managed service is an ideal setup for optimizing campaigns and reaching customers, but it isn’t for everyone. That’s why self-serve options have seen so much growth over the past several years – marketers are diving headfirst into programmatic advertising solutions they can manage themselves.
With the self-serve market snowballing, it’s easy to overlook the many benefits of managed service. Managed service and hybrid service options are still ideal for many marketers who don’t have the resources to appropriately manage their campaigns from start to finish.
To effectively decide which option is best for you, managed service or self-serve, it’s first important to understand the differences between the two.
Self-serve programmatic adverting
Self-serve programmatic advertising is when an advertiser uses their Demand Side Platform (DSP) or journey advertising platform, like illumin, to conduct their advertising campaigns in-house. This means the majority, if not all, of targeting is managed by the brand itself. This option gives marketers better immediate control over their budgets, frequency, and creatives.
This kind of advertising is great for smaller teams and budget-conscious organizations. It lets advertisers be more active and hands-on, giving them close control of the entire process. It’s also great for brands looking to take full control of their campaigns from start to finish.
Marketers using self-serve can effectively track their campaigns in real-time with maximum control so that they can make changes on the fly. This means they can easily adapt to new data to better reach customers.
Managed service for programmatic advertising
Managed service is exactly what it sounds like; this method of advertising is where marketers create a strategy and budget in partnership with a marketing agency and that agency then conducts the campaigns for them. It is also sometimes called Direct or Direct IO.
Since an outside source fully manages a brand’s advertising campaigns, marketers can explore, invest in, and adopt programmatic ad strategies alongside experienced ad operations professionals – benefiting from their knowledge and resources.
In addition to the benefit of industry experience, brands using managed services can also take advantage of the add-ons offered by most agencies. These can include creative consultation and data gathering via brand lift and foot traffic studies.
Managed service providers can provide feedback on creatives, and even build bridges between brands and creative agencies to streamline the creation process. They can also help brands optimize their size and formats to comply with niche ad spaces. This is especially helpful for those working with complex formats like digital out-of-home (DOOH).
Finally, many organizations benefit from the client support offered by managed service providers. There is nothing quite like the peace of mind provided by quality client support. This gives many marketers with lower bandwidth the ability to set it and forget it (for a time) knowing that they have the full support of a qualified ad operations team minding the ins and outs of their campaigns.
Hybrid service
Hybrid service lets advertisers experience the best of both worlds. Advertisers can opt-in to certain self-serve options while taking advantage of the expertise and customer care that comes with managed service.
Each hybrid model will be unique, depending on the services the provider or brand has decided to include. This kind of service is ideal for brands whose needs don’t quite fit the self-serve or the managed service options traditionally available.
Is managed, hybrid, or service right for you?
Managed service is typically a more appealing option for brands and teams just getting started with programmatic advertising; they will see the immediate benefit from the expertise of a managed service team. Since managed service provides marketing teams with the opportunity to work alongside ad operations experts, newer organizations can gain immediate assistance and industry insight.
These teams also likely don’t have the resources and time to spare to run a self-serve campaign. By utilizing managed service, teams can free up resources for other marketing priorities.
It isn’t just for those without experience, though, it is also a great option for companies looking to offload some work, those looking for premium customer service, or organizations for which brand safety is a primary concern (like regulated industries, political causes, large enterprises, and brand directs). By taking advantage of experienced managed service providers, marketers can more effectively allocate their resources for the most impactful ad campaign possible.
Self-serve, on the other hand, is ideal for brands looking to increase their advertising efforts in-house. This is a great benefit to smaller teams looking for more control over their campaigns and to organizations looking to save on ad spend. In short, advertisers looking for hands-on control over their campaign management would benefit from self-serve programmatic.
If an advertiser doesn’t quite fit into either of these boxes, then hybrid service is a boon. Why choose one or the other when there is an option that lets you take advantage of both?
Every organization and brand has different needs. There is no one-size-fits-all option for ad buying. While managed service, hybrid service, and self-serve all have their benefits, each brand has unique needs and there is no right answer as to which is best. Brands need to choose for themselves which model works best for their advertising efforts.
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