HELLO
HELLO
Programmatic advertising is an automated, real-time method to bid, buy and place digital advertising impressions across the internet.
This differs from the traditional media buying method, where buyers work directly with individual publishers to send requests for proposals, negotiate rates and terms, submit insertion orders, coordinate mechanical files and receive performance metrics at the conclusion of the agreement.
Programmatic advertising is a more data-driven strategy that utilizes advanced targeting, wide-reaching ad inventory and bidding algorithms to serve the right digital ads to the right users for the right price – all in real time. This process occurs through an ad exchange, which is a digital marketplace that lets brands buy and sell advertising space. One popular exchange is the Google Display Network, but many other programmatic exchanges also provide access to nearly all webpages.
“Digital advertising” means much more today than it did 10 years ago… or 5 years ago, for that matter. Depending on your programmatic advertising provider, it can include a range of asset types, including:
Also known as banner ads, these are the rectangular graphic ads that typically appear along the top, side or bottom of a webpage or app. They use images, minimal text and sometimes animation to increase brand awareness and generate click-throughs.
Short video ads, typically up to 30 seconds, can run before and after videos on a website or like a commercial on any television connected to the internet. You can track awareness and recognition by view-through rate, which measures how many viewers watched the full ad.
Display and video ads can also be shown outside of computer, phone and television screens. Programmatic advertising allows the same creative to be placed on digital outdoor billboards and signage in office buildings and hotels.
Built to match the visual design and function of natural content on a media site, these ads often use a simple static image and short title and description. Native ads are relatively unobtrusive to a user’s experience and can be great for promoting longform branded content, such as articles or white papers. Native can be another creative output for your brand awareness campaign or utilized to further engagement, tracking metrics like time on site or downloads.
Short, audio-only ads can be heard on platforms like streaming radio (Spotify, Sirius XM, Pandora) or podcasts. These ads often come with a companion display ad that appear while your ad plays, resulting in additional message reinforcement. Similar to video ads, you can track how many users listened to the ad in full, which is called audio completion rate.
Programmatic has many benefits for brands and agencies who may be managing multiple campaigns on a daily basis.
Programmatic advertising allows you to set bids automatically, saving valuable time and resources and improving efficiency with your budget. You no longer need to coordinate multiple direct buys but can view all your ad creative assets, audience segments, tactics and various targeting methods within one campaign. Automation is not only used for bids, but reporting can be set to deliver on any schedule. The ease of use gives you more time to dedicate to forming insights and making strategic decisions.
A cost per mille (CPM, otherwise known as cost per thousand impressions) that is otherwise manually negotiated can be decided in advance at a typically lower rate. Built-in optimization tools keep bids as low as possible while also limiting wasted spend on irrelevant sites or users.
With layered targeting abilities and a variety of compatible creative formats, a brand can reach their target audience, however niche, with a comprehensive user experience. Using real-time data, you can compare ad performance and optimize instantly – whether it’s switching out creative, pausing underperforming tactics or shifting budget between targeting types. Algorithms and machine learning help the targeting improve over time so that your ads appear on the most relevant sites and to users who are most likely to take action.
With the ability to add custom micro fields to your URL, the transparency of ROI (return on investment) is so robust that it can be drilled down to a single ad placement. Since all performance data is available to advertisers instantly, real-time reporting can be accessed at any time.
Virtually all marketing and advertising strategies will be affected in one way or another when Google ends third-party cookies. At the time of writing, this process is planned for late 2024. This isn’t a completely new complication to the digital advertising industry, as users have used pop-up blockers and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) was put into action years ago. Media companies have been working on ongoing solutions, including cookie-less conversions, opt-in screens, and more.
Programmatic advertising is an important part of a media strategy, especially for B2B brands. It is a cost-efficient and scalable tactic to effectively reach your target users anywhere where they may be online.
