BSkyB shapes programmatic trading strategy for mobile devices
BSkyB is shaping its programmatic buying strategy to suit mobile devices, having upped its overall investment to half of its online display budget, according to online marketing controller Joel Christie.
Speaking at ad:tech in London today, Christie said the pay TV operator is currently investigating how to incorporate mobile into its overall real-time bidding (RTB) strategy, rather than just replicate its display approach – an undertaking that has proved more challenging than first perceived.
He said: “We really wanted to get under the skin of the RTB space and start implementing what we have learned from our display RTB strategy which takes 50 per cent of the budget now… I thought it would be a matter of lifting and shifting what we have learned in the desktop space, but it is far from."
Christie stressed the importance of not approaching mobile in isolation or as a “bolt-on” but rather where it can sit within the wider marketing mix. "The initial approach we took was flawed - we should not have used it as a bolt-on but as part of everything - the rest of the media plan," he said.
It began working with Infectious Media to better understand cross-device consumer behaviours, to ensure it could send the right message to people to help boost cross or up-selling capabilities across devices via RTB. Yet it soon hit a “stumbling block” according to Christie.
“When we dug a bit deeper we found it hard to target users where they want to congregate. Each platform like Facebook for example isn’t joined up to other platforms to let you buy [RTB] inventory, which makes it more challenging,” he added.
It is still in early phases of testing how to roll out a full RTB strategy for mobile, and once it has there is scope to create a budget particularly for this purpose, according to Christie, who also told The Drum it is making progress in tapping brand budgets to help fuel its RTB strategy.
It is in the midst of running research aimed at better understanding whether its audience is content with the site experience, so it can differentiate how to target creative to suit an individual’s particular mindset according to the device they are on, and what they expect both the ad and content experience to be on said devices.
Earlier this year Christie told The Drum the pay TV operator was dedicating 40 per cent of its £15m yearly display budget on programmatic trading.