• by James Green , Op-Ed Contributor, June 8, 2014

Real-time buying (RTB) has enabled many of us to become masters of the data-driven universe, making advertising decisions based on the massive amounts of audience data in milliseconds. We’ve seen data become an essential part of media strategies over the last few years, particularly when it comes to RTB. According to the October 2013 report from  Magna Global,  it’s estimated that worldwide programmatic ad spending and RTB will hit $12 billion this year. The growth in RTB is mostly driven by the ability for marketers to segment their audiences and target them effectively using all types of data from site visits to CRM and search data.When you apply automated buying and data to the actual creative, the message becomes extremely relevant to the end user, and, in many cases, will differ from consumer to consumer. Changing the creative elements of an ad is most commonly referred to as dynamic creative.

Brands use dynamic creative to show highly personalized ad content based on audience attributes related to their interests, environment, and purchasing patterns. While RTB provides marketers with the ability to target down to the individual level, dynamic creative provides the ability to dynamically change ad elements based on personal attributes and interests in real time. Dynamic creative solves a massive problem for brands across a variety of verticals from retail, to auto, to consumer tech and electronics: the massive numbers of products and services available for purchase. In fact, it’s difficult to find a brand that sells one single product – the majority are selling hundreds to thousands of products, and that number rises when you look at the SKU-level.

With that said, the ability to assemble thousands of individual elements based on product feeds, keywords, audience intent or environmental factors such as weather or location is a critical tool in the real-time marketing world. For example, take a store that sells hundreds of thousands of products for homeowners -- Home Depot, which changes 10,000 SKUs every month. How can the company efficiently create thousands of different ads to help it sell products from lawn mowers to patio furniture? Or, how can an airline serve up an ad in real-time, based on your recent search for flights to San Francisco? The world of real-time marketing, and even retargeting, is becoming increasingly reliant on creative assets and the opportunity afforded by personalized ad experiences.

The days of marketers and agencies outsourcing their dynamic creative to a “dynamic creative provider” are dwindling. Today, dynamic creative is another element of a brand’s data-driven strategy, and a key contributor to the overall success of ad campaigns. Whether you are targeting the middle, upper or bottom of the funnel, or looking to acquire new customers or re-engage site visitors, a portion of your creative should be driven by data, just like media buying.

The future of media is headed into a personalized world, where ads will be tailored at the individual level across all media channels. The ability to buy audiences based on intent and tie that intent into your creative messages will only improve as brands find ways to deliver personalized ads at scale.