The 5 golden KPI to evaluate your programmatic campaigns

Programmatic ad campaigns allow marketers to pay for the best option to reach large audiences online. By understanding key performance indicators (KPIs), they are able to determine important metrics that provide pertinent data on their campaign.

Media bought through programmatic channels are not as easy to track as set purchases made for mass media. With mass media, it is clear how many times an ad is run because it is based on the initial purchase of ad space. However, programmatic advertising inherently functions differently and so it is crucial to know the KPIs that exist because they serve as benchmarks and data points to maximize your success.

Listed below are 5 golden KPIs to evaluate your programmatic campaigns:

  1. Clicks. In the world of programmatic advertising, clicks are the one of the most obvious yet crucial performance indicators. They are an uncomplicated performance metric as it is simply measuring the number of clicks your ad receives. While not all clicks may be deliberate, they still remain an indicator of of the digital landscape.
  2. Reach. To measure the direct effects of an ad campaign, using reach as a metric can be incredibly helpful. Rather than rely on measuring views, reach is determined per person. Therefore, by combining it with other metrics, it can create a broad understanding of the effects of your programmatic advertising.
  3. ROAS. Return on ad spend, or ROAS for short, determines gross revenue for the amount of money that is spent on advertising. It works similarly to the concept of Return On Investment (ROI) by illustrating a bigger picture from which to extrapolate information and help to understand the efficiency of your market spending.
  4. Impressions. As a standard, impressions are a critical metric because they can help you understand how many times a third-party site has displayed an ad. This is a baseline key performance metric that allows better control and maintenance of your ad’s success. It’s important to mention, however, that this does not correlate to the number of times your ad has been seen but simply the amount of times it has shown up in a digital space. 
  5. Conversions. Conversions act as a way to measure the number of times an action has been completed in reaction to an ad display. For example, buying, signing up, and sharing can all act as conversions. One of the most powerful aspects of the conversion metric is that it means that the customer is more likely to interact with that company again as they’ve already shown direct interest.