Beyond Ads: Programmatic Content for SEO, ABM, and More

What is programmatic content?

Traditionally, programmatic content refers to the automated buying and selling of online ad inventory through real-time bidding on ad exchanges. In simpler terms, it's using algorithms and programmatic technology to automate what used to be complex manual processes involved in display advertising.

At its core, programmatic content is rooted in the idea of automation and serves as the backbone for programmatic advertising, which includes various ad formats like banner ads and native advertising.

How programmatic advertising works

Imagine you're running a tech blog, and you've got a mix of articles—some about smartphones, some about cloud computing, and others about cybersecurity. You decide you want to monetize your blog by displaying programmatic ads through platforms like Google Ads and Google Display Network.

On the other side of the equation are businesses that want to advertise their products or services to your target audience.

Now, you could go through the manual process of contacting potential advertisers, negotiating deals, and manually placing ads on your site; or you could let programmatic advertising handle it, often at a pre-calculated programmatic advertising cost.

Step 1: You, the publisher, provide ad space on your blog

You make this ad space available through an ad exchange.

An ad exchange is a digital marketplace that facilitates the buying and selling of online advertising space. It connects media owners, who have ad inventory to sell, with advertisers looking for space to display their programmatic ads.

Step 2: Advertisers set their budgets and criteria

Advertisers, often using demand side platforms, specify certain criteria like they want to display only tech-related ads that are relevant to your readers, with a focus on keyword targeting.

For example, a cybersecurity company specifies they want to show their ads on blogs that discuss cybersecurity topics and target readers who are IT professionals through programmatic platforms.

And the company clarifies how much money it can budget for these programmatic ads.

Step 3: The ad exchange acts as a mediator

When a reader opens one of your articles on cybersecurity, the ad exchange, supported by programmatic technology, quickly conducts an auction among advertisers who want to target users with that kind of content.

• Real-time bidding happens: In milliseconds, bids are placed by different advertisers based on the reader's profile, data points, and content relevance. The highest bidder's ad gets the space, often managed via a demand side platform.
• Ad display: The cybersecurity ad is then instantaneously displayed on your programmatic page or blog post about cybersecurity, and you earn money for providing that ad space.
• Performance metrics: After displaying the ad, performance metrics like data points on clicks, impressions, and conversions are collected automatically through programmatic media analytics. This allows you and the advertisers to fine-tune your strategies for future campaigns on programmatic platforms.

So, in this scenario, what could have taken days of back-and-forth communication, negotiation, and manual placement of banner ads gets done in a fraction of a second through programmatic marketing.

This is traditional programmatic content at its finest—an automated, efficient, and highly targeted way to connect advertisers looking to sell ads with publishers, all without the need for human intervention in the decision-making process.

How much does programmatic advertising cost?

Programmatic advertising costs can vary significantly depending on several factors, including ad format, targeting, platform, and competition. Here's an overview:

1. Ad format and placement: The cost of programmatic advertising can change according to the ad format, such as display, video, audio, or native. Ad placements may also influence costs, with high-visibility or premium placements often more expensive than basic ones.

2. Targeting: The level of targeting can impact cost. More specific targeting (e.g., demographic, geographic, or behavioral targeting) typically results in higher advertising costs.

3. Platform and inventory: Different programmatic advertising platforms may have varying costs. Additionally, prices might vary depending on whether you are using a Demand Side Platform (DSP), Supply Side Platform (SSP), or Private Marketplace (PMP) for inventory.

4. Demand and competition: Cost can fluctuate based on the demand or competition for audience segments or ad placements. For example, more popular categories or placements might come at higher costs due to increased competition.

One common pricing model for programmatic advertising is the cost per mille (CPM), which represents the cost per 1,000 ad impressions. On average, CPM rates can range from $0.50 to $2.00 for programmatic display ads, while more expensive ad formats like video might see CPM costs of around $12 or higher.

It's essential to consider these factors when budgeting and planning for programmatic advertising.

Keep in mind that overall costs can depend on your marketing strategy and specific goals.

Best programmatic advertising platforms [2023]

Here is a list of some of the best programmatic advertising platforms to buy and sell ad space:

Google Ad Manager: Google's programmatic ad platform, previously known as DoubleClick, offers a wide range of tools for publishers to manage, optimize, and sell their ad inventory.

It has powerful targeting, forecasting, and reporting capabilities, as well as support for mobile and video ads. Google Ad Manager is suitable for businesses of all sizes.

Xandr: Xandr (formerly known as AppNexus) is a highly customizable programmatic advertising platform that allows publishers and advertisers to manage and optimize their campaigns. It offers powerful targeting, real-time analytics, and a user-friendly interface.

MediaMath: MediaMath offers a programmatic buying and optimization platform that integrates seamlessly with various third-party tools. It offers advanced targeting, audience management, and campaign optimization features.

TradeDesk: The Trade Desk is a platform that allows buyers to purchase digital advertising space across different channels, including mobile, video, and display. It offers advanced targeting capabilities and real-time bidding options.

Adobe Advertising Cloud: Adobe Advertising Cloud is an end-to-end programmatic ad buying and selling platform. It uses artificial intelligence (AI) to optimize campaigns, making it easy to personalize ads, target audiences, and maximize ROI.

PubMatic: PubMatic is a programmatic advertising platform that provides advertisers and publishers with tools for managing their campaigns. It offers a wide range of targeting options, including contextual, behavioral, and location-based targeting.

Amazon DSP: Amazon DSP is a demand-side platform that allows advertisers to programmatically buy display, video, and audio ads both on and off Amazon. Amazon DSP offers advanced targeting to reach Amazon customers on and off Amazon.

These programmatic advertising platforms offer businesses and publishers advanced features to manage their ad campaigns, optimize targeting, and increase ROI.

The platforms vary in their features, pricing, and suitability for different-sized businesses. A business's choice of platform will depend on its budget, target audience, ad goals, and resources.

But in 2023, something happened: generative AI took the world by storm and opened up new opportunities for programmatic content.

How AI has expanded programmatic content beyond advertising

While traditional programmatic content focused largely on automating the ad-buying process, AI has drastically changed what can be automated and personalized. 

For this post, we’ll show how programmatic content has expanded even more deeply into to the world of: 

• Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
• Account-based marketing (ABM)
• Sales enablement

We’ll start with programmatic SEO. 

What is programmatic SEO?

Programmatic SEO refers to the use of automation, usually through software or artificial intelligence, to perform Search Engine Optimization (SEO) tasks at scale.

Traditional SEO involves a range of activities aimed at improving a website's visibility in search engine results. This can include keyword research, content creation, meta tag optimization, link-building, and much more.

But these activities can be time-consuming and often require manual effort, especially if you're dealing with a large website or multiple websites.

Programmatic SEO streamlines this process.

It allows businesses to automate the repetitive and scalable aspects of SEO, freeing human experts to focus on more strategic tasks that require creative or analytical thinking.

How does programmatic SEO work?

Here's a simplified overview of how programmatic SEO could work:

1. Automated keyword research: Software can scrape search engine results and identify valuable keywords in your industry, grading them by factors such as search volume and competition level.

2. Content generation: Once a list of valuable keywords is identified, programmatic SEO tools can help generate content templates or even fully fleshed-out pages optimized for these keywords.

3. Meta tag optimization: The tool can automatically generate meta titles, meta descriptions, and other SEO-relevant tags based on the content and target keywords.

4. Internal linking: Programmatic SEO can auto-generate internal links between pages on your website, improving navigation and potentially boosting SEO value.

5. Monitoring and reporting: Automated tools track the performance of your pages, providing insights into metrics like page views, click-through rates, and rankings. Adjustments can then be made programmatically based on performance data.

6. Adapting to algorithm changes: As search engine algorithms evolve, programmatic SEO tools can quickly adapt, allowing for agile shifts in strategy.

Use cases

Programmatic SEO could be used to generate landing pages optimized for specific keywords, locations, or customer segments.

If you're running an e-commerce site, for example, you could generate unique, optimized pages for every single product category, sub-category, and even individual products. Similarly, if you're engaged in Account-Based Marketing (ABM), you can programmatically generate landing pages tailored to the particular needs and pain points of individual target accounts.

But more on that in a moment.

Programmatic SEO offers a potent combination of scale and personalization that traditional SEO methods struggle to match.

Through automating the heavy lifting, your time is free to focus on strategic growth rather than getting bogged down by the nitty-gritty details.

How Copy.ai helps with programmatic SEO

Using Workflows in Copy.ai can be incredibly beneficial for your programmatic SEO efforts.

Workflows allow you to streamline your content creation process and generate various types of content simultaneously. This will help you to improve your online visibility and strengthen your SEO strategy.

Here are some example use cases with Copy.ai:

1. Automate bulk blog post creation: Workflows enable you to write multiple blog posts at once using a CSV file of keywords. This means you can quickly generate high-quality, targeted content to improve your organic search ranking and capture more long-tail keyword traffic.

2. Auto-generate landing pages: If you have a list of target accounts for Account-Based Marketing (ABM), use Workflows to create personalized landing pages tailored for each account. This can help improve engagement, increase conversion rates, and boost overall SEO performance.

3. Optimize existing content: Workflows allow you to analyze existing website content and identify areas that need improvement, such as meta descriptions, title tags, and keyword usage. By optimizing these elements, you can boost your search engine visibility and drive more organic traffic.

4. Scalable keyword research and content ideas: With Workflows, you can scale your content ideation process by generating content ideas and long-tail keywords that are important for your niche. You can quickly turn these insights into high-quality articles or other content assets.

Finally, as Workflows have their dedicated API, you can easily integrate them into your current tech stack to automate and elevate your SEO efforts further.

And when it's done, you can export the results in bulk for immediate implementation.

Ready for a tour of Workflows? Check out the tutorial below: 

Remember that a valid website URL is required for scraping and analyzing purposes. If you need assistance with any specific use case, feel free to provide more context or website details.

What is programmatic account-based marketing (ABM)?

Programmatic Account-Based Marketing (ABM) is the application of automation and artificial intelligence (AI) in executing targeted marketing strategies for specific high-value accounts. ABM as a strategy focuses on aligning marketing efforts directly with the sales team to target individual accounts as 'markets of one.'

Programmatic ABM takes this a step further by automating various elements of the process, such as data collection, content personalization, and even ad placement, making it more efficient and scalable.

How does programmatic ABM work?

Let's break down how the marriage of programmatic capabilities and ABM strategies plays out:

1. Identification of target accounts: AI algorithms can sift through customer data to identify high-value accounts based on factors like past purchase history, interaction with marketing content, and more.

2. Automated content creation and personalization: Programmatic ABM tools can generate content that resonates with individual target accounts. This could be as simple as inserting the company's name into a prewritten article or as complex as generating entirely unique landing pages that cater to an account's specific needs and pain points.

3. Programmatic ad placement: Just like in programmatic advertising, real-time bidding can be used to place highly targeted ads. In the case of ABM, these ads would be shown only to decision-makers or influencers within the targeted accounts.

4. Data-driven insights: Programmatic ABM platforms typically offer robust analytics tools that automatically collect and analyze data on how target accounts are interacting with your content and campaigns.

5. Automated follow-ups and nurturing: Based on engagement and interaction data, automated workflows can send personalized follow-up messages, set reminders for sales reps, or even trigger additional content delivery, all tailored to the individual account.

6. Multi-channel coordination: Programmatic ABM can coordinate efforts across various channels—email, social media, content marketing, digital advertising—making sure that the messaging is consistent and targeted throughout the buyer's journey.

The benefits

The beauty of Programmatic ABM lies in its ability to take what's already effective about ABM and amplify it through automation and AI. This enables marketing and sales teams to:

• Achieve better alignment and coordination
• Significantly reduce manual tasks
• Provide highly personalized experiences at scale
• Make data-driven decisions more quickly
• Focus on creative and strategic tasks

An example

Suppose you're in the business of selling cybersecurity solutions and you identify a large healthcare provider as a high-value target account. With Programmatic ABM, you could:

• Automatically generate a personalized landing page that addresses the unique cybersecurity challenges in the healthcare sector.
• Place targeted ads that only the IT decision-makers at the healthcare provider will see, thanks to programmatic ad buying.
• Monitor interactions with your content and ads in real-time, allowing for quick adjustments and follow-ups.

Programmatic ABM, therefore, adds an extra layer of efficiency, personalization, and data-driven decision-making to traditional ABM efforts, making it a powerful strategy for B2B marketers targeting high-value accounts.

How Workflows with Copy.ai helps programmatic ABM

Workflows can play a crucial role in your Account-Based Marketing (ABM) strategy, offering a programmatic approach to content generation that can improve engagement with target accounts.

Here are some use cases that demonstrate how you can leverage Workflows on Copy.ai for ABM:

1. ABM landing page creation: ABM involves tailoring your approaches for each specific target account. With Workflows, you can use a page template to generate unique and customized landing pages for each account in your target list. By adding personalization to the mix, you amplify engagement, thereby boosting conversion rates.

2. Detailed account profiling content: Workflows enable you to create data-driven, personalized reports or profiles for each target account. Leveraging this, you could understand your prospects better and build strategies that are more likely to convert them.

3. Targeted email campaigns: You can use Workflows to craft tailored email contents for each of your target accounts, improving open rates and conversions. With the bulk export feature, it's easy to integrate this content into your email marketing platform.

For example, check out how you can quickly build a workflow that creates personalized email copy based on your prospect's LinkedIn URL:

With these strategies, you can optimise your ABM to its full potential and substantially boost your results.

What is programmatic sales enablement?

Programmatic sales enablement is a fairly new concept that fuses automation and data analytics with traditional sales enablement strategies. 

In the context of content creation, this means using technology to automatically provide sales teams with the most relevant, personalized, and impactful content they can use in their sales cycles. 

The goal is to make the sales process more efficient, more responsive, and ultimately more effective by reducing the time salespeople spend searching for or creating the content they need.

How is sales enablement different from ABM?

Programmatic ABM focuses on using automation and AI to execute targeted marketing strategies aimed at specific high-value accounts. It's primarily a marketing function and aims to generate interest and engagement from decision-makers in those accounts.

Programmatic sales enablement, on the other hand, is more about using automation and data analytics to assist sales teams by providing them with the most relevant and personalized content. It aims to make the sales process more efficient and is tailored to individual sales scenarios.

In short, programmatic ABM is more about attracting and engaging high-value accounts, while programmatic sales enablement is about equipping the sales team to close those accounts effectively.

How does programmatic sales enablement work?

Here’s a step-by-step look at programmatic sales enablement in the realm of content creation:

1. Content inventory

First, an inventory of all available sales content is made. This could include case studies, product sheets, whitepapers, demo videos, and more. Metadata is added to each piece of content to categorize its purpose, target customer persona, stage of the sales cycle, etc.

2. Data integration: Sales data, CRM data, and other relevant metrics are integrated into the sales enablement platform. This could include information about customer behaviors, past interactions, sales cycle stages, and more.

3. Algorithmic matching: Based on real-time data and predefined criteria, algorithms automatically match the most relevant content to specific sales situations. For example, if a sales rep is about to meet with a CFO from the healthcare industry, the system might suggest a case study showcasing cost savings for another healthcare client.

4. Automated distribution: The selected content can be automatically sent to the sales rep or even directly to the prospect. Some systems may integrate with email platforms, proposal software, or other communication channels for streamlined delivery.

5. Real-time updates: As new content is created or existing content is updated, the programmatic system can automatically integrate it into the pool of resources, ready to be matched to future sales scenarios.

6. Performance analytics: The system tracks the performance of distributed content, collecting data on metrics like engagement, conversion rates, and ROI. This data feeds back into the algorithm, helping it make better content matches over time.

Why this works

Programmatic sales enablement has several benefits:

• Time-saving: Sales reps spend less time hunting for or creating the content they need, freeing them to focus more on actual selling.
• Personalization at scale: Each piece of content can be automatically tailored to the specific prospect or sales scenario, making interactions more relevant and impactful.
• Data-driven decisions: The use of real-time analytics helps sales teams understand what content is working and why, allowing for continuous optimization.
• Alignment: With automated content matching, marketing teams can be sure that the content they create is actually being used, and sales teams can be confident that they’re equipped with the best resources for the job.

How to do this with Copy.ai

Workflows create a new dimension for sales enablement by providing programmatic and automated solutions that can substantially enhance sales productivity and efficiency.

Here are a few example use cases for sales enablement:

1. Sales playbook creation: Workflows can assist in generating a structured and comprehensive sales playbook. Use the tool to craft scripts, responses to common objections, product positioning statements, and more - all tailored towards empowering your sales team.

2. Sales training material: You can utilize Workflows to develop training materials like role play scripts, quiz questions, case studies, and more. These materials can help to equip your sales team with the requisite knowledge and skills to sell effectively.

3. Automated proposal generation: With Workflows, you can automate the process of creating sales proposals. Input essential data such as customer requirements, pricing, timeframes and let the system generate a convincing proposal effortlessly.

4. Customized follow-up emails: Workflows can churn out personalized follow-up emails for your sales team to use. These emails could be keyed to various selling scenarios, making the follow-up process smoother and more efficient.

5. Sales call analysis: Workflows can help analyze sales call transcripts to discover what might be impeding a successful sale. You can then generate content instantly to address those concerns, giving your sales team the edge they need to close the deal.

Here's a step-by-step example on how you can use Copy.ai workflows to analyze sales call transcripts and write personalized follow-up messages to your leads:

With Workflows, you're able to scale these activities across your whole sales organization, making it easier to ensure that your team has the resources they need, when they need them.

Final thoughts

Targeting users through programmatic advertising, SEO, ABM, or sales enablement can seem like an overwhelming task, but it's well-worth the work.

And with Copy.ai, you really don't have to work all that hard.

Workflows by Copy.ai are designed to turbo-charge your content creation strategy. Spanning from programmatic SEO, Account-Based Marketing (ABM) to sales enablement, Workflows' transformative capabilities let you automate mundane tasks, cater to your unique needs and handle content scaling effortlessly.

Through versatile features like bulk blog post creation, customized email campaigns, sales playbook crafting just to mention a few, Workflows is bound to revolutionize how you address content generation and analysis.

Plus, the seamless integration of Workflows with your existing tech stack through its dedicated API adds to its suitability for diverse users.

Don't let manual tasks slow you down. Sign up for a free trial of Copy.ai today to save time, increase efficiency, and drive results.

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