It can be tempting to silo digital marketing. The influence of world events on online campaigns is easily forgotten, drowned out by the noise of hundreds of optimisation levers being pushed and pulled on a minute by minute basis.
As we all know, however, an holistic approach to marketing is often the best. And accounting for offline factors in online campaigns is an incredibly powerful tool. Enter real-time triggers.
DV360 Real-Time Triggers: An Introduction
With every passing month, Google is taking more and more steps to enable advertisers to integrate offline events into their digital campaigns.
The latest change is the introduction of real-time triggers to Display & Video 360 (DV360). These triggers give advertisers the ability to activate and make changes to campaigns based on real-world signals, like football matches.
Triggers can currently be split into two types:
Manual Triggers
Manual triggers are the simpler solution. These triggers allow advertisers to set a duration for activation, and then apply the triggers to campaigns. These can then be turned on or deactivated manually, changing every campaign that the triggers are applied to.
For example, an advertiser could set up a manual trigger that lasts for two hours. If a brand influencer is making a TV appearance, this trigger could be activated on a campaign as the influencer appears, and the campaign would activate for that two-hour duration.
Sports Triggers
Sports triggers are significantly more sophisticated, and indicative of where the future for this feature sits. They allow advertisers to create triggers based on real world events in sport, across several sports, competitions, teams and even the actions of individual players. These can be turned on and left to run automatically, impacting campaigns whenever the event occurs.
For example, a football shirt seller could set up a campaign to run, selling shirts with certain names on the back. When that player scores, a specific targeting segment with creative tailored to that player would run for the duration of the trigger, before turning off again. The targeting segment would then automatically activate again if that player scored in the next game.
What’s Next for Real-Time Triggers?
While Google has given little indication of the next steps for the product, it wouldn’t be surprising to see more live triggers unveiled in the future for other events. Elections, live music events, and TV programmes are all potential triggers that may come to the platform in the near future.
3rd Party solutions are available through companies like mporium that overlay adjustments to digital campaigns based on TV activity, but in-platform solutions without additional fees could be hugely beneficial to advertisers with smaller budgets.
If you’d like to discuss real-time triggers in DV360, or better understand how Google’s Demand Side Platform (DSP) can help you reach audiences outside the immediate Google ecosystem, get in touch with the team today >>>
