You may have heard of programmatic advertising, or using automated software to buy digital advertising and direct it to a more concentrated target audience, delivering your ads to the right people in the right places at the right time.
The word “digital” in this definition used to be necessary, as digital programmatic advertising was the only type of programmatic advertising, but that has changed.
Marketers across the globe are discovering that through advances in digital printing technology in automated web-to-print production workflows, everything that could be personalized online can now also be personalized in print.
The Trouble with Programmatic Digital Advertising
Marketers everywhere celebrated the invention of programmatic digital marketing. It was exciting that brands could personalize their message to whoever was viewing the ad. Someone who visited a specific product page multiple times without purchasing it could be served an ad featuring that product. You could advertise events and products based on people’s interests, location, income levels, and more.
The trouble from the beginning is that digital marketing lacks the connection and subsequent engagement and stronger relationships that print pieces can form between brands and consumers thanks to their tangible qualities.
The trouble now is that so many marketers have capitalized on programmatic digital advertising that people are becoming frustrated with the amount of ads being served to them at every turn, and with the ever-growing use of ad blockers, people don’t have to see digital ads at all. This is where print has the advantage.
Programmatic Print: Personalization Meets Tangibility
With the advent of personalized programmatic digital advertising, rumour spread that this was the end of print marketing, specifically direct mail marketing, as we knew it. We’ve already discussed why direct mail marketing is still alive and kicking, and it thrives with the opportunities programmatic print presents.
With programmatic print marketing, brands can accomplish all they could with digital programmatic, even personalization and direct targeting, without becoming part of the noise of online ads and without losing the profound personal connections formed through tangible print pieces. Print pieces are easier to read, harder to ignore, and prove to have higher conversion rates than email marketing. They tick all the boxes.
All Hail Digital Printing
Even better, with the latest digital print solutions, brands can incorporate digital and print programmatic advertising into their campaigns for even better results. Sophisticated digital printers and web-to-print interfaces can be customized to a brand’s needs, with design tools, automated production, and direct printing available to serve print ads to their customers. These ads will be both emotionally appealing in their personalization and high converting as customers value physical interaction more than online communication.
Print Three was one of the first companies to invest in web-to-print solutions, with over 15 years experience perfecting and evolving them alongside the latest digital printing techniques. If you have any questions about programmatic print, web-to-print software, or digital printing, contact us today!