Imagine being able to digitally advertise to your ideal consumers based on where they’ve been in the real world. For years, that kind of pinpoint targeting sounded like a business owner’s wish list. Today, with geofencing, it’s standard practice.
“What is geofencing?” you may ask. Below, you’ll learn everything you need to know about this location-based marketing strategy, including how to leverage it to build your brand.
Geofencing is a location-based digital marketing tactic that allows you to send messages or ads to users within a defined geographic area. Typically, it’s a marketing method that targets smartphone users in particular, as these devices allow you to gather the real-time location data necessary for triggering location-based content.
Geofencing and geotargeting are both location-based strategies, but there are a few subtle differences that set the two apart.
Geotargeting involves delivering content to users based on their general location, such as a city, region, or ZIP code. Generally, geofencing is more useful when your goal is to focus on a narrowly defined area to trigger immediate actions.
Geofencing operates by establishing a virtual perimeter (or “fence,” hence the name) around a real-world geographical area. When a device enters or leaves that designated area, it triggers an action such as sending a notification or displaying an ad. The process relies on mobile devices’ GPS, cellular data, or Wi-Fi signals to accurately pinpoint their locations.
As an example, let’s say that you own a restaurant and have your own app. When the app’s users approach your establishment, you can encourage them to stop in and grab a bite to eat with geofencing.
By creating a digital perimeter covering a one-mile radius around your store, your app will send users a push notification highlighting your daily specials whenever they enter that area. You can even sweeten the deal by including something like a discount of 5-10% off their next order.
With proper geofencing initiatives in place, businesses like yours can achieve the following:
Advertising waste can bust your budget and crush your bottom line. Using location data, on the other hand, significantly cuts down on ad waste by allowing you to target niche groups , specifically those who are within close proximity to your place of business.
Creating location-based target areas also facilitates greater personalization and relevance, especially when using a branded mobile app to deliver your location-based ads.
For instance, if customers order through your app and consistently purchase the same few items, you can take advantage of that data to feature their go-to dish or product in your ad as soon as they get close by.
Proximity-based messaging encourages immediate action, which leads to higher engagement rates and more opportunities for conversion. Customers are more likely to make an impulse purchase or visit your store if they’re targeted when they’re in the neighborhood.
Geofencing can offer a trove of valuable data about your customers and their preferences, which can, over time, give you a feel for what types of ads work and which don’t. Use these insights to refine your marketing strategies, refocus your target area, and create more impactful campaigns.
Since it works to offer a more personalized and engaging customer experience, geofencing can differentiate your brand from its competitors and keep your business top of mind, even if a consumer is near another store.
There are many exciting ways to incorporate geofencing into your marketing mix. Some common approaches are as follows:
If you run your own mobile app, geofencing is the natural next step in your marketing journey. Use it to deliver in-app notifications when subscribers enter your digital area. Target, Starbucks, and countless other brands use geofencing alongside their mobile apps to stay connected to consumers and drive more business.
Even without your own unique app, you can still leverage geofencing to drive sales and grow your business. Many third-party applications allow businesses to deliver ads and notifications through the same approach. For instance, a restaurant could partner with a map app to offer customers coupons when they enter your designated area.
You don’t need your own branded mobile app or even a third-party alternative to serve up location-based ads. Simply create a virtual perimeter around your store and deliver text messages when potential customers approach.
When running social media ads, remember to take advantage of positional data and targeting tools. Create a radius or custom perimeter around your business and serve up ads to niche audiences.
Use location data and digital perimeters to deliver web-based ads to specific audiences. You can target cities, ZIP codes, or broader regions. No matter which you choose, it’s all about connecting with consumers who live and work nearby.
CTV advertising and OTT advertising offer precise geotargeting capabilities as opposed to those for geofencing, but you can still target consumers with laser-like accuracy, zeroing in on specific ZIP codes or radiuses.
MNTN Performance TV, in particular, allows you to target CTV consumers in three ways: You can engage in regional or city-based targeting, create a custom radius around a geographical point (i.e., your store), or set up campaigns aimed at specific ZIP codes.
You may be ready to start geofencing, but there are a few things to consider first:
Geofencing is a relatively straightforward concept, but it still involves more than simply creating a digital wall and running your ads. Before you spend a single dollar on location-based marketing, you need a game plan and some clear objectives in mind.
Avoid broad statements like, “I want to sell more products.” If your objective is sales-related (and there’s a good chance it probably is), give yourself a concrete finish line, such as boosting your in-store transactions by 10%.
Once you define your goal(s), it’s time to shift your attention to your intended audience. Ask yourself who it is you want to connect with, along with what they’re interested in, then determine how to leverage those interests to create a winning campaign.
For instance, if your plan is to advertise on social media, you’ll need to know which platforms are most popular among your target audience. Similarly, for CTV campaigns, you should determine which platforms and types of shows are favored among your key audience segments.
Geofencing requires considerable amounts of user data, specifically location data, and even though consumers are accustomed to having brands gather that information, they are also apprehensive toward secretive or dishonest data collection and sharing practices. With privacy regulations tightening and mobile operating systems giving users more granular control over location sharing, transparency matters more than ever.
The bottom line is as such: Be honest and open about what data you are gathering and what you intend to use it for.
Your content needs to be engaging, educational, and entertaining. You also want to try to make customers laugh, as laughter is one of the best tools for boosting engagement and recall. According to Forbes, 90% of people are more likely to remember an ad if it is funny.
That said, your ad also needs to be on brand, so maintain tonal consistency across all advertising channels, even when engaging in geofencing or other targeted marketing.
When you deliver an ad is just as important as what ad you run. You don’t want to overload people with ads, but you do need to display your content frequently enough to keep your brand top of mind. The best marketing tools allow you to set up custom rules designed to avoid oversaturation.
For instance, let’s say that one of your loyal customers has downloaded your branded app. They also pass through your geofence every morning and every afternoon on the way to work. Without setting up timing and frequency limitations, that customer would receive push notifications twice per day, which would get pretty annoying and may even urge them to delete the app altogether. Set frequency limits so you don’t overload people.
Geofencing is incredibly accurate, and the best tools allow you to draw custom areas on a map and run campaigns in those designated spaces. Some platforms even allow you to set up multiple geofences at once, such as one around each of your retail locations.
With MNTN Performance TV, running location-based marketing campaigns becomes easier than ever before. Our CTV platform gives businesses access to premium ad inventory on top streaming channels, connects with world-class creatives to assist in content design, and offers robust analytics tools to help them get more out of each campaign. That’s compared to traditional television advertising, which requires businesses to serve up ads to an entire Media Market, regardless of more niche interests.
Geofencing can be a powerful addition to your marketing mix. It allows you to target niche audiences and cut down on advertising waste. Stop casting a wide net and use location-based strategies to make every ad count.
B2B Sales Funnel: Complete Guide for MarketersBusiness-to-business (B2B) marketing professionals need a clear grasp of this industry’s specific sales funnel so they can create more holistic strategies for capturing new clients. As buyers increasingly conduct their own research before ever speaking with a sales rep, understanding how prospects move through the funnel has become more important than ever. Whether you’re new to B2B marketing or looking to optimize your existing processes, the following guide can help you better understand and leverage the B2B sales funnel.
A B2B sales funnel comprises the journey that potential business clients go through from the moment they learn about your offerings to the point that they make a purchase. Prospective clients enter the funnel at the awareness stage and (assuming they like your products or services) progress to the bottom of the funnel — where conversion and loyalty lie.
A well-structured B2B sales funnel can help businesses understand what stage their prospects are at at any given time so all marketing and sales efforts can be tailored accordingly. It’s important to present prospects with materials relevant to the stage of the funnel they are currently in. This matters all the more today, since B2B buying committees have grown larger and prospects often complete much of their evaluation independently before reaching out.
Marketing and sales funnels are related, but they are not the same. The B2B marketing funnel focuses on generating and nurturing leads through targeting marketing activities like email campaigns, social media, and Connected TV (CTV) advertising.
In contrast, the B2B sales funnel focuses on converting those leads into paying customers through the sales process.
To help you visualize the difference, imagine the marketing funnel feeding into the sales funnel. After you’ve connected with prospects through your marketing efforts, the intended outcome is that they enter into the awareness stage of the sales funnel.
The B2B sales funnel can be an invaluable tool for your organization as it seeks to acquire and retain business clients. Some of the greatest sales funnel benefits include:
A well-structured B2B sales funnel will help you attract more qualified leads. By tailoring your approach to each stage of the funnel, you’ll reach potential buyers at the right time with the right messaging — increasing the likelihood that they’ll engage with your business.
A sales funnel visualizes the customer journey and allows you to gather valuable data about your leads as they move through each stage. With that in mind, you can identify points where leads tend to leave the funnel and figure out how to keep them on the path toward a purchase. The ultimate goal is to get as many leads to convert as possible.
Because a B2B sales funnel visualizes the entire buyer’s journey, it allows you to better predict sales outcomes. Understanding where prospects are in the funnel enables more accurate sales forecasting, helping your business set realistic revenue goals.
By using a defined funnel, your sales team can follow a structured process that reduces guesswork. The funnel clarifies the next steps and actions that should be taken at each stage, ensuring a smoother sales cycle.
Most importantly, a B2B sales funnel can help your marketing team increase conversion rates. When you understand the entire purchasing journey, you can identify and remove points of friction that may be preventing prospects from making a purchase. You can also proactively manage your marketing campaigns to adapt to changing client priorities and pain points.
The B2B funnel can be broken down into the following five sales funnel stages:
At the top of the funnel, prospects are just becoming acquainted with your business. They may not yet know much about your offerings, but they recognize that they have a problem and need to invest in a solution. You’ll want to capture their attention through brand awareness efforts such as prospecting campaigns on CTV or social media.
In the middle of the funnel, your prospects are actively seeking more information about your products or services. Your goal at this point is to showcase your brand’s unique value proposition (UVP) and position your business as the ideal partner to help the client overcome their challenge. Whitepapers, webinars, and case studies are powerful marketing tools for nurturing a prospect’s interest in this particular stage.
Your prospects are now narrowing down their options, and your product or service remains in contention. They’ll compare your offerings to competitors and evaluate factors such as pricing, features, and customer testimonials. Now is the time for your sales team to step in and nurture the relationship, addressing any lingering concerns.
The magic finally happens at the bottom of the funnel: The prospect makes a purchasing decision. They may commit to a demo, submit a request for proposal (RFP), or sign a contract. In any case, it’s up to you to provide a seamless experience and seal the deal.
Despite what you may think, the sales funnel doesn’t end at a conversion. Post-sale, your focus needs to shift to customer retention. You want to keep customers happy so that they renew their contracts or buy from you again in the future. Use re-engagement strategies like regular check-ins or exclusive offers to build and maintain strong relationships with your existing clients to maximize customer lifetime value (CLV).
Here’s a basic framework for funnel building:
One of the most important steps in building a B2B sales funnel involves creating great content. You need top-, middle-, and bottom-of-funnel content to connect with prospects no matter where they are in their journeys.
Make sure you are using a variety of channels, including Connected TV, social media, and your website. Incentivize engagement throughout the funnel by publishing valuable resources like white papers and case studies. These tools provide real-world insights about your products or services and the value your company offers.
You won’t know if your sales funnel is efficient unless you’re paying attention to the right funnel metrics, such as:
Each metric provides a piece of the puzzle. You’ll need to regularly analyze several complementary data points to understand the full story. Rather than tracking everything at once, focus on a handful of the metrics that best reflect movement between stages, since too many signals tend to obscure rather than clarify.
Funnel optimization is key to maximizing the effectiveness of your sales funnel, so make sure you do the following:
Increasingly, B2B teams are also turning to AI-powered tools to analyze buyer behavior, score leads, and surface the next best action, though these tools are only as good as the data and qualification criteria behind them. It’s crucial to understand that B2B sales funnels aren’t set-it-and-forget-it, either. You must continuously monitor your funnel and proactively make changes. Client needs and your company’s product offerings will evolve, and your funnel needs to adapt right alongside them.
Let’s take a look at a few B2B sales funnel examples that illustrate how businesses across different industries implement funnels to drive conversions:
Businesses in the SaaS industry often rely on demos, free trials, or freemium models to attract leads at the top of the funnel. They will then nurture them with email campaigns until they’re ready to upgrade.
Manufacturers may use targeted content marketing at the awareness stage. As prospects reach the middle of the funnel (read: the desire and action stages), manufacturers will deploy personalized outreach to speak to each client’s unique pain points.
Traditional television advertising lacks the attribution, targeting, and measurement capabilities that B2B marketers need to nurture and convert leads. However, MNTN Performance TV has made TV-based ads a viable option for B2B marketers.
With MNTN, TV can now play a significant role at every stage of your funnel. MNTN itself is a B2B advertiser that has achieved great success by using our platform to drive growth.
With MNTN Performance TV, you can engage B2B audiences at the awareness stage and continue nurturing them throughout the funnel with precision-targeted OTT ads. Your ads will be delivered alongside premium and engaging content on popular streaming platforms. More importantly, MNTN allows you to measure campaign performance and consistently optimize your funnel.
Request a demo to get started.
A well-structured B2B sales funnel is one of the most valuable tools at your disposal. Understanding the stages and benefits of the funnel will help you achieve greater success in your B2B marketing efforts.
Customer Lifetime Value (CLV): What Is It & How To CalculateIn the world of marketing metrics, understanding customer lifetime value (CLV) is one of the most valuable things a business can do to optimize its strategies for long-term success. By calculating this metric, businesses can make informed decisions about marketing expenditures, customer retention strategies, and overall resource allocation.
In this article, we’ll cover the intricacies of CLV and provide a step-by-step guide on how to accurately calculate this essential marketing metric.
Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) is a marketing metric that determines the overall average amount of revenue a customer provides. In other words, it measures the profit your company can expect to earn over an entire relationship with a single customer.
Sometimes referred to as lifetime value (LTV), calculating your customer lifetime value is an important step in fully understanding your customers, as well as making decisions regarding sales, performance marketing, and product development.
Customer lifetime value provides a range of benefits to marketers, which are as follows:
Calculating your CLV will help your company clearly define your goals regarding marketing and sales strategies. This will ultimately improve many elements of your long-term customer relationships by reducing acquisition costs and increasing retention of the customers who provide the most value to your company.
Again, not all customers are equally valuable. So calculating CLV will allow you to increase profit by dedicating more effort and resources towards your higher-value customers.
The customer lifetime value calculation is a projection rather than a metric based on hard numbers, so in order to measure the relationship your business has with a customer, you will have to make informed assumptions.
Customer lifetime value is calculated by multiplying the average time spent as a customer with the average revenue they bring in every month. One CLV formula you can use as a baseline for this metric is:
CLV = Average Customer Lifetime Span * Average Customer Value
For example, if a customer spends $100 per month, and continues their relationship with your company for 10 months, the lifetime value of a customer would be $1,000. One thing to keep in mind is that CLV does not take operating expenses into account. However, it does include customer acquisition costs and any other marketing expenses that went into that particular customer.
A good customer lifetime value will depend on your company, industry, and products. It can often be useful to compare any new CLVs against old ones; if they are larger, it can indicate better customer retention. The higher your customer lifetime value, the better. High CLVs show that customers love your products, are spending money on them, and staying with you long term.
Another factor to consider is your cost per acquisition, which indicates how much it costs to get a single customer. The lower your CPA is compared to your CLV, the better your campaign is performing.
Improving customer lifetime value is crucial for enhancing business profitability and customer loyalty. Here are five effective strategies:
Want to maximize CLV by reaching high-value customers from the start? MNTN’s platform helps you connect with engaged audiences on premium CTV inventory, ensuring your brand stays top of mind throughout the customer journey. With AI-powered targeting, real-time optimization, and precise attribution, you can drive long-term growth, not just one-time conversions.
Here’s how MNTN Performance TV helps marketers improve CLV:
Build long-term customer value with smarter CTV advertising. Sign up today to get started with MNTN’s self-serve software.
Wrapping up, customer lifetime value is a critical measure that encapsulates the total worth of a customer to a business over the entire span of their relationship. Understanding and correctly calculating CLV is crucial as it assists in making informed business decisions, designing effective marketing strategies, and ultimately improving long-term business profitability.
Subscribe to the report Apple, Amazon, NBC and more use to get their CTV news.
In B2B marketing and advertising, long and layered sales cycles are simply part of the territory.
Customers’ decision-making processes, in particular, can be hard to measure, especially in the B2B space. That’s why mapping out the B2B customer journey is essential to ensuring you stay in step with your audience and their needs along the way.
Here’s all you need to know about what a B2B customer journey map is and how to build one that supports the growth of your brand.
A B2B customer journey map visualizes how another business interacts with your brand. It outlines every step, from brand awareness to post-sale engagement, all while identifying each touchpoint and channel a stakeholder might interact with.
Unlike the business-to-consumer (B2C) journey, the B2B customer journey tends to be longer and more detailed.
That said, while stakeholders rely on logic and value-based decision-making, they are still consumers. That means a proper journey map will help you blend B2C and B2B strategies and make your content more appealing altogether.
The buyer journey covers the path to purchase—awareness, consideration, and decision—before someone becomes a customer.
The customer journey goes further, mapping the full relationship after the sale, including onboarding, retention, and advocacy.
Investing time in customer journey mapping can provide a big payoff for your business. Some of the top benefits of the practice include the following:
Visualizing the B2B customer journey provides detailed insights into each stage of the decision-making process. You can then use that knowledge to remove any bumps in the journey and create a more engaging experience for B2B decision-makers by way of developing messaging that resonates and offers relevant solutions.
When you know which touchpoints matter most, you can work to improve and personalize them. Every interaction, therefore, will become more purposeful and impactful, leading to smoother handoffs between marketing, sales, and service teams.
The better you understand a client’s needs and pain points, the better you can meet their expectations before and after a sale. You want your clients to know that you understand their needs and are there to solve them, and the result will be stronger relationships that increase lifetime customer value.
As alluded to earlier, mapping the B2B customer journey naturally encourages collaboration between your marketing and sales teams. You’ll identify which team oversees which touchpoints and help each department align around shared goals. Mapping also promotes consistent, on-brand messaging across all channels.
Sometimes, the biggest wins come from uncovering what’s not working. A good B2B customer journey map exposes friction points and potential gaps in your content strategy. You can also use your map to identify underserved client segments and missed opportunities that could have led to big sales.
With that information in mind, you can specify and capitalize on growth opportunities that drive your business forward. Look for areas that would benefit from innovation, such as automation or the introduction of new channels.
Customer journey mapping begins with extensive research. You need both qualitative and quantitative data to understand what your customers go through at each stage of their journey. From there, you’ll break the journey into stages and define what’s happening at each point.
Your journey map should consist of the following components:
These are fictional yet research-based profiles you’ll create that represent different stakeholders. Each will include job roles, challenges, goals, priorities, and buying behaviors. Keep in mind that a single B2B purchase often involves a whole buying committee, so you may need several personas to capture the different decision-makers in the mix.
Any moment of interaction between your business and a decision-maker is a marketing touchpoint. Examples include social media ads, demo calls, blog posts, and support chats. Identify every touchpoint so you can make the most of them.
A typical B2B map includes the following customer journey stages:
The key is to create messaging that aligns with your audience’s mindset at each stage. It’s also worth remembering that buyers rarely move through these stages in a tidy, linear order — they often loop back, pause, and revisit earlier stages before committing.
Understanding how your customers feel at each stage will help you personalize your messaging and offer valuable solutions. Just like B2C consumers, B2B buyers are human beings who want to know you understand their pain points.
You need to recognize what your customer is trying to achieve at each phase of their journey. Sometimes, they may simply be comparing solutions, but in other stages, stakeholders may be trying to get other decision-makers on board. Give them the information they need to achieve their goals no matter where they are along the way.
Identify all of the channels and devices that your B2B customers may use to interact with your brand, then prioritize the top-performing channels so you can maximize your reach.
Now that you know the components, just follow these steps to build your own customer journey B2B map:
Your map won’t be perfect on day one; you must continuously analyze the customer journey and refine your map to create more engaging experiences.
Here are a few ways to create a better journey for B2B clients:
When optimizing the customer journey, B2B brands should also ensure that they are using a variety of traditional and dynamic channels. Take a moment to evaluate your strategy, including the channels you are using to differentiate your brand from the competition.
Want to understand how B2B buyers move from interest to intent to action? MNTN’s platform helps by aligning Connected TV advertising campaigns to key engagement and conversion points. With keyword-based audience targeting, real-time attribution, and premium streaming inventory, Performance TV advertising supports every stage of the B2B funnel, from awareness to closed deal.
Here’s how MNTN Performance TV helps B2B marketers map and influence the customer journey:
Guide B2B buyers from awareness to action. Sign up today to get started with MNTN’s self-serve software.
The B2B customer journey is nothing if not complex, but through mapping, you can better understand key stages in the decision-making process and gain a competitive edge. Use your map and the insights it provides to create smoother interactions and more relevant messaging.
Whether you’re just starting or refining your current strategy, journey mapping is a powerful tool to help you see the big picture of B2B marketing.
Discover how Performance TV delivers revenue, conversions and more through the power of Connected TV. Request a demo today to speak to an expert.
B2B programmatic advertising is transforming how businesses reach decision-makers, using automation, data-driven targeting, and real-time optimization to improve efficiency. By replacing slow, manual ad buying with intelligent systems, brands can deliver highly relevant messaging across multiple channels at scale.
This guide breaks down the key strategies, targeting tactics, and best practices marketers need to get the most out of their B2B programmatic campaigns in 2026.
B2B programmatic advertising is an automated, data-driven approach to buying and placing digital ads, ensuring they reach the right business decision-makers at the right time. By leveraging AI, real-time bidding, and audience targeting, brands can optimize ad placements across CTV, display, mobile, and other digital channels for maximum efficiency and ROI.
There are many advantages to utilizing B2B programmatic advertising, including:
Programmatic marketing enables laser-focused targeting, ensuring your ads reach key decision-makers based on firmographics, behavior, and engagement history. By leveraging first- and third-party data, you can connect with high-intent prospects when they’re most likely to convert. As third-party signals continue to erode across the industry, first-party and consented data have become especially central to effective B2B targeting.
AI-powered programmatic platforms streamline ad placements, eliminating the need for manual bidding and negotiations. This automation reduces wasted ad spend, optimizes delivery, and ensures your campaigns are running efficiently at all times.
With live campaign insights, programmatic advertising allows you to adjust targeting, bids, and messaging on the fly. This real-time optimization ensures better engagement, improved conversion rates, and maximized ad effectiveness.
Programmatic advertising provides seamless scalability, allowing brands to serve ads across CTV, display, mobile, and social media without manual intervention. This omnichannel marketing approach ensures consistent messaging and broader reach across the B2B buyer journey.
By focusing the budget on high-value audiences and data-driven insights, programmatic advertising eliminates inefficient ad placements and reduces wasted impressions. This results in higher conversion rates and a stronger return on investment for B2B marketers.
Every advertising process involves a buyer and a seller. And in the case of B2B digital advertising, those two respective parties are the advertiser seeking to serve their ads to specific audiences, and a publisher with the digital ad space to display those ads.
Here are the critical components of that automated process:
A Demand-Side Platform (DSP) helps advertisers purchase digital ad inventory. In other words, it’s an automated buying platform that buys ad space through an ad exchange for a predetermined price. B2B advertisers who use a DSP can target audiences based on several factors (including geographic location, age, online behavior, and more), and serve those ads on channels such as mobile, digital, and Connected TV.
This is the other side of programmatic transactions from DSPs. A Supply-Side Platform (SSP) allows publishers to add their ad inventory to an ad exchange and set their floor price (the minimum the publisher is willing to sell their ad space for) before programmatic bidding takes place.
An ad exchange is the trading floor where programmatic bidding takes place. Once a publisher makes its inventory available for purchase, the ad space will be sold to the highest bidder, just like in a real auction. The difference is that this all takes place through an algorithm, and B2B advertisers can purchase ad space in channels like display, mobile, Connected TV, and more.
An ad network aggregates ad inventory from multiple publishers and sells it to advertisers, simplifying the process of finding placements across various websites and apps. In the programmatic ecosystem, ad networks serve as intermediaries that help advertisers scale their reach, though they offer less transparency and control compared to ad exchanges.
A Data Management Platform (DMP) collects and organizes third-party audience data from various sources, enabling advertisers to segment and target users based on demographics, behaviors, and interests. DMPs enhance campaign precision by informing bidding strategies and optimizing ad delivery across different channels.
A Customer Data Platform (CDP) centralizes first-party customer data from multiple touchpoints, creating unified customer profiles for more personalized marketing efforts. Unlike DMPs, which focus on anonymous third-party data, CDPs help brands enhance programmatic campaigns by leveraging owned data for deeper audience insights and targeting. As privacy regulations tighten and third-party cookies become less reliable, CDPs have taken on a larger role in B2B programmatic strategies.
Real-Time Bidding (RTB) is an automated auction process where advertisers bid on individual ad impressions in milliseconds, ensuring ads are served to the highest bidder in real-time. Unlike header bidding, which allows multiple demand sources to bid simultaneously before the ad server is called, RTB operates on an impression-by-impression basis, optimizing ad delivery within the programmatic ecosystem.
Related: Learn more about the types of programmatic advertising.
So, how do all of those unique platforms work together? Here’s a quick overview:
Now that you know a little more about B2B programmatic advertising, it’s time to put that knowledge to use. So we’ve put together some strategies and best practices that you need to know before diving headfirst into your B2B campaigns.
B2B marketers must have a deep understanding of their audience’s needs, challenges, and behaviors, as this information will guide the creation of relevant and compelling programmatic campaigns and spearhead B2B retargeting efforts. Such understanding not only maximizes the effectiveness of ad spend but also fosters stronger customer relationships.
For a successful B2B programmatic advertising campaign, it’s essential to establish concrete goals and KPIs upfront. These will provide benchmarks for assessing the campaign’s success and make real-time adjustments more strategic and effective.
Choosing the right technology partners, including DSPs, SSPs, and data management platforms, is crucial as these platforms’ capabilities directly influence the campaign’s reach, efficiency, and effectiveness. Choosing partners with robust targeting options and transparency features can ensure your campaigns are seen by the right audience and yield the desired outcomes.
With programmatic advertising, the use of data goes beyond simple demographics; it’s about leveraging behavioral, contextual, and intent data to create highly personalized campaigns. This strategy can enhance targeting precision, boost engagement, and ultimately drive better conversion rates.
B2B marketers should allocate a portion of their budget to test different strategies, creatives, and platforms. This practice enables continuous learning and improvement, helps identify the most effective approaches, and optimizes the return on ad spend (ROAS).
Vigilance against ad fraud is critical, as it can drain ad spend and distort campaign metrics. Marketers should use technology partners with strong fraud detection capabilities and monitor campaigns closely to ensure impressions are being served to real, relevant audiences.
A well-rounded programmatic strategy integrates campaigns across multiple channels, such as display, social, mobile, and video. This approach ensures consistent messaging, expands reach, and creates multiple marketing touchpoints with the target audience, improving the overall campaign effectiveness.
Evaluating programmatic ad performance requires tracking the right marketing metrics aligned with specific campaign goals. Here’s a breakdown of key performance indicators (KPIs) used to measure success:
Several platforms sell programmatic display ads. Here are a few of the top contenders:
Programmatic advertising for B2B, like B2C, is traded on a CPM (cost per 1,000) basis, so advertisers will have to make decisions ahead of time to determine what amount will lead to the greatest return on their spend.
With that said, here are the top factors most likely to influence cost:
Want the precision of B2B programmatic advertising with the impact of CTV? MNTN’s CTV advertising platform helps you reach key decision-makers on premium streaming networks, using AI-driven targeting and automated optimization to maximize engagement. With real-time performance tracking and seamless integrations, your campaigns stay efficient, measurable, and effective.
Here’s what you get with MNTN Performance TV:
Run smarter B2B programmatic campaigns with MNTN’s self-serve software — sign up today.
Ultimately, programmatic advertising for B2B has changed the game for advertisers looking to serve their ads to other businesses and professionals quickly. By working with a company like MNTN, your B2B brand can effectively reach those audiences within the premium environment of the television screen, all while ensuring transparency into the effectiveness of your campaigns.
Discover how Performance TV delivers revenue, conversions and more through the power of Connected TV. Request a demo today to speak to an expert.
Standing out online takes more than a single channel. It calls for a coordinated, holistic marketing strategy that connects every touchpoint into one cohesive effort. One such tactic, growth marketing, leverages a data-centric approach to digital brand building. Using a combination of organic and paid content, growth marketing drives long-term growth, nurtures feelings of loyalty, and helps brands achieve sustainable revenue.
To maximize the impact of this increasingly popular strategy, you’ll need to incorporate the right mix of growth marketing channels into your overarching strategy. On that note, below are the top ten growth channels we recommend integrating into your marketing strategy.
Even though several new exciting growth marketing channels have emerged over the last few years, SEO remains a cornerstone of digital brand development. Winning at SEO requires a combination of on-page and off-page activities, including building quality backlinks and naturally integrating relevant keywords into your content. It increasingly means writing for how people actually search today, including conversational queries and the AI-generated summaries that now sit atop many results pages.
By prioritizing SEO, you can establish your site as a credible source of information and generate more organic traffic. While climbing the rankings takes time, it also represents a more sustainable strategy in the long run.
Content marketing involves creating and distributing valuable, relevant materials to attract and engage with your target audience. You can incorporate blogs, case studies, white papers, podcasts, and videos into your content marketing mix. The goal is to give consumers access to free information while also promoting feelings of loyalty.
Contrary to popular belief, content marketing is not solely for targeting top-of-the-funnel audiences, either. You can nurture consumers at any stage of their decision-making journey by targeting them with high-quality materials. Nevertheless, you must lead with value and minimize your use of sales-y language.
Platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn are all great tools for connecting with your audience. By acquiring followers, making posts, and interacting with people in the comments section, you make your brand approachable. And over time, these little efforts will build trust and drive traffic to your other growth channels.
Of course, you don’t need to use every social media platform out there. Focus on a few select channels that are most popular among your ideal consumer base. Short-form video in particular has become table stakes across nearly every major platform, so it’s worth weighing where that format fits your audience. Once you’ve established yourself on a couple of key platforms, you can consider branching out.
Sometimes, connecting with audiences in an approachable, cost-effective way boils down to sending an email. Email marketing remains a powerful tool for nurturing leads, building relationships, and reengaging with past customers. But it’s also easy to misuse.
Therefore, before you start blasting customers with emails, segment your audience into relevant subgroups, such as new prospects, existing customers, and past clients with whom you’ve fallen out of touch. Tailor your messaging for each niche and avoid sending too many emails too quickly. Otherwise, your recipients will be more likely to reach for the unsubscribe button instead of taking any favorable action.
PPC ads allow you to place your content at the top of search engine results pages (or SERPs) and on social media platforms. Since you only pay when someone clicks on your ad, you’ll enjoy good control over your spending. You’ll also be able to carefully track every campaign and get a feel for what type of content resonates with your audience.
However, you can’t rely on PPC content as your sole source of growth marketing traffic. Running paid ads gets expensive quickly, which means you’ll burn through your marketing budget and cut into your profit margins in no time. As such, you need to supplement your paid campaigns with other channels and vice versa. Holistic approaches are simply far more sustainable.
The influencer phenomenon is arguably one of the most compelling byproducts of the social media revolution. These individuals are viewed by many as trusted sources of information. Working with influencers can add a new layer to your brand’s content and expedite the growth of your own social media followings. Partnerships with smaller, niche creators have also proven especially effective, since their audiences tend to be highly engaged and trusting.
By aligning yourself with a few influencers, you can reach new audiences and borrow the credibility of these online personalities. Viewers are already going to be engaged, which means there’s a good chance they will listen and remember the content the influencer presents about your brand.
Happy customers are powerful brand ambassadors. At least they can be, if you give them a little incentive. Referral programs are a great way of doing this. By rewarding customers for their referrals, you can tap into word-of-mouth marketing. For instance, you could offer discount codes to customers who successfully refer someone to your business.
Referred customers represent a tremendous addition to your consumer base. On average, customers acquired through referrals spend 200% more than that of a typical consumer. They are also four times more likely to refer someone else to your company.
Affiliate marketing involves partnering with individuals and entities who promote your products and receive a commission on sales in return. It is a growth marketing strategy that expands your reach while leveraging the affiliate’s audience.
Overall, affiliate marketing is a low-risk strategy, as it involves very little in terms of an upfront investment. You may need to provide your affiliates with marketing assets and other resources, but you won’t pay them anything up front. They’ll only earn if they generate sales, which provides them with plenty of incentives to showcase your products and services.
Building and engaging with the community around your brand fosters loyalty and encourages word of mouth, and, as a result, increases conversions. You can interact with prospects and consumers both online and offline. For example, you can attend trade shows or expos, display your products, and position yourself as a customer-centric brand. Between shows, take to the internet and interact with consumers on your social media channels.
Keep in mind that there are a few caveats here. For one, the interactions need to be natural and consistent across all channels. You (or whoever is responsible for running the company’s social media pages) must embody the brand’s voice and values, or risk inadvertently pushing consumers away instead of building relationships with them.
Partnership marketing involves collaborating with other businesses to co-market products or services. These collaborations can open up new customer bases and add value to both parties.
For instance, real estate agents and lenders often publish co-branded content to generate clients for both parties. Working together expands the reach of both brands while also splitting up marketing costs. With your combined budgets, you can effectively double your reach while keeping costs down.
Historically, television ads lacked tracking capabilities and precision targeting functionality. The same holds for some Connected TV (CTV) platforms, but better solutions, such as MNTN Performance TV, have stepped in to fill the void.
With MNTN, you can access premium CTV advertising inventory, get in front of the right audiences, and fuel short and long-term growth. Unlike other solutions, MNTN is built for growth marketing, allowing you to set custom performance objectives and align them with your sustainable revenue goals.
If you’re prepared to make your next marketing campaign the most memorable one yet, check out MNTN Performance TV and leverage our suite of optimization tools to boost revenue.
The growth channels you implement will make or break your next digital marketing campaign, so choose wisely. Integrate MNTN Performance TV, SEO, and social media into your next campaign and start achieving real results. With the right marketing mix, you can gain a competitive edge and sprint toward your growth goals.
B2B Retargeting: Complete Strategy Guide for 2026The buyer’s journey rarely moves in a straight line, and it almost never moves quickly, especially in B2B. Decision-makers research, compare, stall, and circle back, often across weeks or months before a single dollar is committed. Retargeting for B2B businesses allows advertisers to keep their product or service top of mind and encourage viewers to purchase as they work through that extended decision process.
B2B retargeting is the tactic of targeting those who have already been exposed to a business, either by seeing a previous ad or visiting the brand’s website, to guide them down the B2B sales funnel.
It generally takes multiple exposures before a viewer chooses to purchase. Plus, B2B purchases are often even more involved as purchasing can require company sign-off or budget approvals. Retargeting ensures that the advertiser’s product or service isn’t forgotten about during the decision-making process and can provide valuable information to prospects to help them convert.
What is the difference between remarketing and retargeting? Remarketing and retargeting are often used interchangeably in digital marketing, but there’s a subtle difference.
Remarketing primarily involves re-engaging past customers through email campaigns to encourage repeat purchases or remind them of abandoned carts. Retargeting, on the other hand, focuses on serving ads to users who have visited a website or interacted with digital content but did not make a purchase, aiming to bring them back to the site.
A strategic B2B retargeting approach keeps your brand in front of high-intent prospects, guiding them toward conversion with precision and efficiency.
B2B retargeting re-engages decision-makers who have already shown interest, increasing the chances they take action. By serving tailored, data-driven ads, you can nudge prospects closer to a purchase and increase conversion rates.
The more a prospect sees your brand, the more likely they are to remember and trust you when it’s time to buy. Retargeting keeps your business top-of-mind, improves brand awareness, and ensures you’re the first choice when decisions are made.
Since you’re focusing on warm leads who have already interacted with your brand, retargeting delivers higher efficiency and stronger returns. Every dollar spent works harder, improving return on ad spend.
Retargeting leverages behavioral insights, firmographics, and engagement data to serve programmatic ads to the most relevant prospects. This precision targeting eliminates wasted impressions, ensuring your budget is spent on high-value opportunities. As third-party cookies continue to fade and first-party data takes center stage, this kind of intent-based targeting has become even more central to how B2B advertisers reach the right accounts.
By keeping prospects engaged with timely, relevant messaging, retargeting helps accelerate the B2B decision-making process. This shortens the sales cycle and moves potential customers from consideration to conversion more efficiently.
A strategic B2B retargeting approach keeps your brand in front of high-intent prospects, guiding them toward conversion with precision and efficiency.
This approach keeps your brand in front of potential B2B clients, nurturing leads and encouraging conversions through targeted and personalized reminders.
There are two main types of retargeting in B2B performance marketing: list-based retargeting and pixel-based retargeting.
To run pixel-based retargeting, a business must first place a pixel on its website. This pixel begins to create a targeting pool by tracking who visits the brand’s website and often additional marketing metrics, such as how long they were on the website and how many pages the user visited.
From there, the brand can use this list of potential customers to retarget. They can reach those same prospects at another time to remind them of their products or services and hopefully encourage them to purchase.
A sophisticated platform can get even more granular, allowing businesses to target based on how long a viewer was on the site or how many pages they visited.
A B2B brand may decide they only want to spend their limited budget retargeting those who spent more than a certain amount of time on their site, serving impressions to those who are highly engaged and more likely to purchase.
List-based retargeting is retargeting done from a specific list of users, typically based on email. This list is collected over time by the business and then uploaded to their advertising platform of choice. An example of this list may be users who attended the business’s most recent webinar or those who abandoned their cart without finishing a purchase. This tactic is much less common than pixel-based targeting. With the industry’s growing reliance on first-party data, list-based approaches have taken on renewed importance, though pixel-based retargeting remains the more common of the two.
And while there are many benefits of retargeting on Connected TV platforms, it is not just limited to the TV screen. Retargeting can run across screens and is available on many platforms including:
There are multiple strategies and retargeting best practices to make sure a business gets the best results possible.
For pixel-based retargeting, advertisers can get strategic and specific. They can create target audiences based on those who spent a certain amount of time on-site or who viewed multiple web pages. This ensures the retargeting campaign is reaching people who are truly interested rather than those who visited the website and determined the service is not for them or maybe even clicked on accident.
The benefits of retargeting can extend to previous customers as well. Advertisers can retarget past purchasers to remind them of their product or service, encourage repeat purchases and ultimately create loyal customers.
When retargeting, advertisers can speak more specifically to an audience they already know is interested. This can help focus ad messaging and creative to address a prospective client’s needs and makes it easier for them to decide to purchase.
Ensure that the landing pages linked from your retargeting ads are optimized for conversion, with clear calls-to-action (CTAs) and relevant content. This alignment between ad content and landing page experience is crucial for converting revisits into actionable outcomes.
Many studies have shown that people can tire of ads and stop paying attention when they have seen the same creative multiple times. Advertisers should look to refresh their creative to ensure this key audience pays attention. This is also a great time to test messaging strategies and audiences to see what drives the biggest ROAS.
Want to keep your brand top of mind for high-value B2B prospects? MNTN’s platform lets you retarget decision-makers across premium Connected TV inventory, reinforcing your message with precise audience targeting and measurable performance tracking. With automated optimization and AI-driven insights, your campaigns work smarter and drive awareness, engagement, and conversions.
Here’s what you get with MNTN Performance TV:
Turn CTV into your most effective B2B retargeting channel. Run high-performance campaigns with MNTN’s self-serve software by signing up today.
The benefits of retargeting for B2B businesses make it an essential part of advertisers’ campaigns. The repeat messaging reminds decision-makers of the product or service and drives additional purchases that might not occur without the nudge. B2B businesses should look to optimize their retargeting strategies and include the next generation in TV advertising for more efficient conversions.
Connected TV has moved from an emerging channel to a core part of how brands reach audiences, and the supply of ad space is expanding right alongside viewership. Many viewers now find CTV ads more engaging than traditional linear TV ads, in large part because streaming environments are immersive and built for attention. If you want to capitalize on that shift and connect with your audience through engaging content, the first step is finding quality CTV inventory.
Here’s everything you need to know about Connected TV inventory.
CTV inventory refers to the ad spaces or slots available on platforms and devices that stream online video. This includes a wide range of applications, from the on-demand shows on streaming services to the streaming apps themselves.
CTV inventory comes in all shapes and sizes, depending on which stakeholders in the streaming content ecosystem are offering it. Let’s take a look at the who’s-who of the CTV inventory landscape.
Content owners are the studios or networks — think Paramount+ or Peacock — that produce and own binge-worthy series and movies. They often sell ad space within their content to generate revenue, making them a valuable part of the CTV inventory supply chain.
App owners like Netflix and Roku operate the platforms that deliver the content directly to your viewers. They control the ad inventory within their apps and are therefore key gatekeepers for CTV ads. (Note: In many cases, app owners are also content owners — both Netflix and Roku produce/own content in addition to building and operating the platform on which people watch it.)
Demand-side platforms (DSPs) are the tools advertisers use to buy ad inventory across the CTV landscape. You can use these platforms to automate ad purchases across a wide range of inventory sources through what’s called “programmatic bidding.”
Connected TV inventory comes in several formats, each offering a unique way to reach and engage viewers. Some formats you’ll encounter include:
Pre-roll ads play before the start of a streaming video. They’re the appetizers of the CTV ad world, teasing what your brand has to offer before viewers dive into their content.
Mid-roll ads are similar to traditional TV commercials in that they play during breaks in the streaming content. These streaming ads are highly effective, as they appear when audiences are already deeply engaged in the show or movie they’re watching.
Post-roll ads appear after the content has finished playing. They can be a great way to put eyes on your brand while the viewer decides what to watch next, or while the viewer is binge-watching and letting episodes auto-play.
Banner ads are the billboards of the CTV universe. They typically display on the menu screens of streaming platforms, catching consumers’ eyes as they browse their viewing options.
Overlay ads pop up over the content during playback, offering a subtle yet effective advertising method without totally taking over the screen. This type of CTV inventory is most common on streaming platforms like YouTube. Pause ads (which appear over content while it’s, you guessed it, paused) have become an increasingly standard offering across major streaming services and are now one of the more sought-after placements in the space.
Choosing the perfect placement for your CTV ads will help you maximize your reach and mobilize your audience to action. Here are some of the most common CTV placement types.
In-app CTV ads are served directly within streaming applications, whether it’s on a mobile device or smart TV or through OTT devices like Roku or Amazon Fire TV Stick. They can appear as banners, sidebar ads, or overlays.
OTT devices are the hardware that streams content from the internet directly to your audience — your Apple TVs, Amazon Fire sticks, Rokus, and so on. Ads on these devices are integrated into the streaming experience, making them part of the viewer’s chosen content. Some OTT ads are skippable, while others aren’t.
Smart TVs have built-in internet connectivity and support for various streaming apps. Ads here can appear within the apps or as part of the smart TV’s interface.
Internet-connected gaming consoles, like PlayStation or Xbox, serve as another vessel for streaming content, allowing gamers to switch from playing to watching. You can deliver ads like banners, in-app content, and more on these devices.
A growing share of viewers watch CTV content on their smartphones, and that audience continues to expand. Consider that more than 243 million people in the U.S. will watch CTV content in 2026. This makes mobile devices a prime location for CTV ads. Ads can be tailored and optimized for these smaller screens, offering a more personal viewing experience.
There are two main ways to buy CTV ad inventory: through programmatic marketplaces or non-programmatically (i.e., directly from the publisher).
Programmatic marketplaces use automated technology to buy and sell CTV ad inventory. This method takes the hassle out of purchasing Connected TV advertising and allows for real-time bidding on available ad space. The growth of these tools has also opened the channel to smaller advertisers, who can now access television-grade inventory without the large upfront commitments that once defined TV buying.
Direct sales involve the purchase of ad space directly from the content or app owners. This approach gives you more control over where your ads are placed and can be negotiated based on specific campaign needs. However, it’s a hands-on process that comes with a lot of back and forth.
When it comes to choosing a CTV inventory provider, there are several factors you need to consider carefully.
Working with providers who can guarantee that your brand’s reputation remains untarnished is essential. Brand-conscious CTV inventory providers will ensure that your ads aren’t displayed alongside content you don’t want your brand to be associated with.
With digital ad fraud on the rise, it’s critical to select providers with robust measures in place to prevent fraudulent activities and safeguard your investments. The best providers will employ modern cybersecurity protocols and do their part to preserve your reputation.
Ideally, you want to go with providers that can offer access to premium networks. These networks typically have high-quality content and a loyal viewership, which can translate to better ad performance.
Work with providers who offer transparent CTV measurement using reliable metrics, such as impressions and video completion rates. This transparency is vital for analyzing and optimizing the performance of your CTV campaigns.
You wouldn’t pay for billboard advertising space in an unused industrial park or alongside a highway that’s closed for construction. Why? Because few, if any, members of your target audience would see it. The same premise applies to CTV inventory.
While you can reach some consumers with non-premium CTV inventory, you’ll be fighting an uphill battle. That’s why you should prioritize premium connected TV inventory. Quality inventory is the key to driving results, maintaining brand safety, and achieving a strong return on ad spend (ROAS).
Want premium CTV inventory that guarantees your ads reach engaged viewers? MNTN’s platform gives you direct access to top-tier streaming networks, ensuring your brand appears in brand-safe, high-quality environments. With AI-powered targeting, automated optimization, and real-time attribution, every impression is optimized for performance.
Here’s how MNTN Performance TV helps marketers make the most of CTV inventory:
Run high-impact CTV campaigns with premium inventory. Sign up today to get started with MNTN’s self-serve software.
Navigating the CTV inventory ecosystem may seem daunting, but it’s a journey worth taking. When you know what sort of Connected TV inventory is available, you’ll be better equipped to leverage this ever-growing performance marketing channel.
Remember, evaluating inventory providers is essential. You not only want to ensure that your ads reach the right audience but also that they reflect positively on your brand. With premium CTV inventory, you’re more likely to hit the mark on both counts, making CTV ads a central component of your advertising strategy.
4 Types of Programmatic Advertising + How to Use ThemProgrammatic advertising has come a long way from “set a bid, cross your fingers, refresh the dashboard.” Today, it’s the engine behind much of modern digital media buying, helping advertisers reach specific audiences, control where ads appear, and optimize toward outcomes in real time. And the channel is not exactly small potatoes: U.S. digital ad revenue reached nearly $300 billion in 2025, up 13.9% year over year. EMARKETER also projects U.S. programmatic ad spending will top $200 billion in 2026.
But there’s more than one way to go about it. In this article, we’ll discuss the different types of programmatic advertising, how they work, and when to use each.
Programmatic advertising is the automated buying and selling of digital ad inventory. Instead of manually negotiating every placement, advertisers use software to set targeting, pricing, budget, and campaign rules. Then the system helps decide which impressions to buy, how much to bid, and which ad to serve.
You’ll find programmatic buying across display, mobile, online video, audio, and Connected TV (CTV). Real-time bidding (RTB) is the most familiar version, but it is not the whole programmatic universe. Programmatic can also include private auctions, direct deals, fixed-price arrangements, and guaranteed inventory.
Programmatic matters because marketers need more than reach. They need relevance, control, and measurable outcomes.
A strong programmatic strategy helps advertisers:
That last point is critical. Programmatic is no longer just a display-ad workhorse. Digital video ad spend is projected to surpass $80 billion in 2026, accounting for more than 60% of total TV/video ad spend for the first time. In other words: the biggest screen in the house is now part of the programmatic performance conversation, too.
With that said, here are the most common types of programmatic advertising.
Real-time bidding (RTB) is the open-auction side of programmatic advertising. When an ad impression becomes available, multiple advertisers can bid on it instantly. The winning bid gets the placement, and the ad is served in milliseconds.
A user visits a website, opens an app, or starts streaming content. The available impression is sent to an ad exchange. Advertisers bid based on the user, placement, campaign goals, and other signals.
RTB offers scale, flexibility, and efficient testing. It’s useful when advertisers want to reach broad qualified audiences, gather performance data, and optimize quickly without negotiating direct relationships with every publisher.
The open nature of RTB can create more variability in inventory quality, pricing, and brand suitability. Without strong controls, advertisers may deal with wasted impressions, inconsistent placement transparency, or less premium supply.
RTB is best for scalable prospecting, campaign testing, audience discovery, and performance marketing, if you want flexibility without locking in inventory upfront.
A private marketplace is an invite-only programmatic auction. Think of it as RTB with a velvet rope. Publishers make select inventory available to approved buyers, often with floor prices and more transparency than open exchanges.
Publishers package inventory and invite specific advertisers or demand-side platforms (DSPs) to bid. Buyers still compete, but within a smaller, more controlled environment. Google Ad Manager describes Private Marketplace deals as non-guaranteed programmatic deals, including Preferred Deals and Private Auctions.
PMPs give advertisers more control over supply quality, brand safety, and publisher relationships. They can also unlock premium placements that may not be as easily available in the open auction.
PMPs can cost more than open-auction inventory and may offer less scale. They also require more setup, deal evaluation, and supply-path management. Translation: better inventory, but don’t set it and forget it.
PMPs are best for advertisers who want premium inventory, stronger brand suitability, more transparent supply, and enough flexibility to keep optimizing mid-campaign.
Preferred deals give one buyer priority access to specific inventory at a negotiated price. Unlike a guaranteed buy, the advertiser is not required to purchase every impression. They simply get the first look before the inventory moves elsewhere.
The publisher and buyer agree on terms, including price. When eligible inventory becomes available, the buyer gets the option to bid at the negotiated rate. Google notes that Preferred Deals are non-guaranteed because inventory is not reserved for the buyer, and buyers are not required to purchase it.
Preferred deals give advertisers predictable pricing and priority access without the commitment of a guaranteed buy. They’re a useful middle ground between auction flexibility and direct-deal control.
Because inventory is not guaranteed, delivery can fluctuate. If the audience pool is small or demand is high, advertisers may not get enough impressions to meet campaign goals.
Preferred deals are best for advertisers who want first access to premium inventory, but still want the choice to buy only the impressions that fit their strategy.
Programmatic guaranteed is the closest programmatic gets to a traditional direct media buy, just with more automation. The buyer and publisher agree on reserved inventory, fixed pricing, and guaranteed delivery.
The advertiser commits to buying a set amount of inventory at a negotiated price. The publisher reserves that inventory for the buyer with negotiated price and terms.
Programmatic guaranteed offers delivery certainty, premium access, and stronger planning control. It’s especially valuable when timing, placement, or audience access is mission-critical.
Less flexibility. Since inventory and spend are committed upfront, advertisers have fewer chances to shift budget quickly if performance lags. It also typically requires stronger forecasting and a clear business case.
Programmatic guaranteed is best for major launches, high-priority campaigns, premium video buys, streaming advertising campaigns, and advertisers who need predictable delivery more than maximum flexibility.
Programmatic advertising comes in a few different forms, but the goal is the same: make media buying smarter, faster, and more performance-focused. MNTN helps marketers bring that approach to premium OTT advertising, combining automated campaign execution with audience precision and measurement tools built around real business outcomes.
Here’s how MNTN Performance TV helps marketers make programmatic advertising more effective.
Turn programmatic strategy into measurable TV advertising performance—sign up today with MNTN’s self-serve software.
The best type of programmatic advertising depends on what you need most.
RTB gives you scale. PMPs give you more control. Preferred deals give you first-look access without a hard commitment. Programmatic guaranteed gives you reserved inventory and predictable delivery.
Most advertisers won’t rely on just one. A smart strategy blends deal types based on campaign goals, funnel stage, budget, timing, and inventory needs. Use open auctions to test and scale. Use PMPs to improve quality. Use preferred deals when access matters. Use programmatic guaranteed when the campaign cannot afford to miss.
Discover how Performance TV delivers revenue, conversions and more through the power of Connected TV. Request a demo today to speak to an expert.