“I started my career as a media buyer and one of the things I was surprised about was how manual the process was. To buy an ad unit on the Yahoo homepage, you had to call people. You had to send Excel spreadsheets, email back and forth.”
-Jimi Smoot, founder Prosperio, via LA Business Journal
The concept of programmatic advertising is still new to most people, although it’s been in the online realm for quite some time. This is probable because up until now, they had heard this term but were not fully aware of its landscape. Just like other digital marketing platforms, programmatic marketing is slowly and steadily making its way in the world of online marketing
What is Programmatic Media Buying?
Also known as Programmatic ad buying, programmatic media buying refers to the automated buying and selling of online ads. It uses a real-time bidding mechanism to automate the processes involved in digital ad buying to bring more transparency to the process.
Before programmatic media buying, ordering, setting up, and reporting on ads all had to be performed manually. This process is streamlined through programmatic advertising, making it more effective and productive. With programmatic ads, people involved have plenty of time for the optimization and improvement of ads. Not only on digital platforms, but programmatic ads are also used for television.
Screenshot: Google trends
In the above Google Trends chart, you can see that programmatic advertising interest has steadily increased in the last 12 months, while traditional display advertising interest is comparatively less. This trend graph shows how popular programmatic is in the digital marketing space and hints at the reasoning behind current projections on the massive growth of programmatic in the coming years.
Additional Read: How will the current rate of digital media consumption affect digital marketing
How Programmatic Advertising Works?
Programmatic advertising works by using different technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and real-time bidding. Programmatic ad buying analyzes a user’s behavior to produce real-time results that help run ad campaigns with a profitable return on ad spend. Here is how it works-
Once an ad is bought via programmatic advertising then the user data is analyzed based on:
- Age and behavior
- Engagement level
- Social engagement
- Location
- Time per visit
This data helps the media system in determining which ad is relevant to a particular user. Accordingly, an ad is displayed on that particular page. The ad aims to attract the user to click on it.
For instance, if a user is scanning some blog related to “health”, the ad tech system evaluates the user data and displays an ad related to “healthy energy drinks” or “fitness centers”. Thus, by targeting user-specific ads, programmatic advertising can increase the efficiency and relevancy of an ad campaign.
Importance and Benefits of Programmatic Media Buying
Programmatic advertising automates the media buying process by making the ad buying process easier and offers better outcomes. By removing manual buying and selling of media inventory, it streamlines the media buying process for the publishers as well as advertisers who benefit by reaching the right target audience, which helps improve ROI since more sales are made by spending less.
On the other hand, publishers get to sell the inventory to the highest bidding amount and make more money. Moreover, they have control over the kind of content displayed on their pages including the ad design, colors, and format.
Let’s discuss some of the significant advantages of Programmatic Media Buying.
Better customer insights
Programmatic technology constantly gathers “smart” data based upon the type of users that engage with your brand. Marketers can use this information and apply them across all marketing arenas to increase the overall campaign performance, creating a more holistic marketing approach.
Scalability
By targeting the right audience at the right time, advertisers can reach a large audience across different platforms, channels, and websites increasing the chance of higher ROAS.
Cuts back Ad fraud
Ad Fraud is a huge concern in online advertising. Programmatic ads can control this problem to a large extent through better analytics and data-driven insights. Programmatic ads can help identify high-quality traffic to provide a better outcome for advertisers and publishers.
Transparency & better control
Unlike the traditional media buying process where everything was handled manually, programmatic marketing offers a better and clear way to deal with online ads including fair trade practices and allowing advertisers to not overpay for ad impressions. Further, advertisers get to know the real-time info like what sites their advertisements are shown, who all are looking at their ads, and any costs associated with the ads which give them better control.
Highly customizable
Programmatic advertising allows you to modify your ad campaign according to the available media inventory. This helps you create a more strategic campaign according to your end goal. E.g. if a campaign is focused on generating leads and conversions, ad placement that is at the fold would be the priority to gain maximum visibility across channels.
Brand safety
With the help of programmatic ads, brands can ensure that their ads appear on safe sites with the help of collective data and insights marketers get. This ensures the best results for your campaigns.
Greater efficiency
The overall efficiency of digital advertising has greatly improved with the ability to measure the campaign’s effectiveness. Real-time measurement, as mentioned above, allows advertisers the ability to track their campaigns and optimize them accordingly which ensures that each campaign is achieving its full potential by reaching the ideal buyer persona utilizing the ad spend aptly.
With a programmatic campaign, you are continually gathering consumer data points to learn more about your converting audience. With the ability to gather these audience insights, you can then utilize this valuable info in your Adwords (or any other marketing campaign) to create a comprehensive marketing strategy.
If you are a digital marketing agency looking to provide transparency and success for your clients’ digital marketing campaign with better targeting capabilities, and wider audience outreach, then programmatic media buying is for you. It is faster, more efficient, and less expensive.
Also Read: 25 things to remember when starting your digital marketing agency
