Programmatic advertising is the automated process of buying and selling of online advertising!
years ago even till the moment some of the online media buying happening is running the old fashion way, which is direct buying.
Direct buying includes negations to get the best placement, price and it can take days to go live with your Ad!
Why use programmatic advertising?
To know the importance of programmatic we need to know how things are done in direct buying and programmatic.
Direct buying!
The old fashion way of online media buying which starts with the search for the right publishers and pick the phone and actually call them to ask for the rate card and negotiate for the discount which you will get!
Not just that, but also asking them for the specs of the media placement which you have chosen, and before of all that asking them for the media kit, to know their insights which are not completely accurate!
After that comes the step of sending the Booking order and signing the insertion order and then the publisher operations team starts placing the ad on the booked placements.
Reporting, asking for reports from the publisher which can be delayed and you are committed with the deal amount, most probably you won’t be able to pause the campaign!
I am telling you all that because I am dealing with this hassle on everyday with every and each new campaign!
Programmatic buying!
Imagine that all, what we have mentioned earlier in the direct buying, happening automatically, after a few clicks, with no calls with no negotiations, transparent and optimized by the AI!
Programmatic advertising will give you the privilege to pause the campaign anytime, know the available impressions inventory and bid on premium placements like takeovers, etc…
Programmatic advertising, how does it work?
The advertising process include two main parties ” Publishers & Advertisers”
The publishers have the advertising spots which the advertisers want to appear on, in this world the handlers of the supply and the demand for both sides are the Ad server or Ad exchange.
To understand the programmatic advertising mechanism we need to know how each party on the advertising process interact with each other.
What is DSP?
DSP stands for Demand Side platform, which allows the advertiser to access the available inventory on different networks.
What is SSP?
SSP stands for Supply Side Platform, which allows publishers to sell the available ad spaces to advertisers.
AD Exchange
The Ad Exchange is where the relationship between advertisers and publishers are managed, represented in the SSP & DSP.
On the ad exchange level, advertisers place their bids for the available inventory which match the criteria set on the DSP.
What is DMP?
DMP stands for, Data Management Platform, from the name it is where data are managed for better targeting capabilities, as it manages First-party & third-party data to make it available for SSPs, DSPs and Ad exchanges to be used in targeting and data-driven optimization.
What is RTB?
RTB stands for Real-Time Bidding, which is bidding in real-time, once user loads a website in few milliseconds a real-time auction happens where advertisers bid to show their ads for that user in real-time.
So every time a user loads a website of the ones supplying their inventory in the SSP, and the auction runs in a split of second according to the user profile and data in the DMP matched with the targeting criteria in the DSP by each advertiser, placing biddings, and the winner shows his ad to the user.
Whats is the difference between RTB and Programmatic?
RTB as we mentioned earlier is one way of buying Programmatic advertising which gives you the option of buying ads by bidding on each impression not by CPM like other auction systems.
Programmatic is the whole process of supplying, buying and managing Ads on different networks through the automated system of programmatic advertising.
RTB can be part of the process of programmatic advertising, but not all programmatic use RTB as a bidding system.
What is the difference between Ad exchange and Ad Network?
Ad Network is a network of publisher’s websites connected to the ad network offering their inventory to advertisers and the buying happens on the Ad exchange which can be connected to more than one ad network.
The Ad Exchange is where the auctions happen and biddings are placed to determine the auction winner.
What are the benefits of Programmatic Advertising?
The whole process of the programmatic advertising is automated, providing more transparency, better targeting and optimizations, as it use real time data not just showing ads for all users who loads a targeted website.
It removes all the hassle of communication and negotiation, the AI works on optimizing the ad delivery so not much human input is needed.
Programmatic can manage Display advertising, video, Native, even TV Ads.
What to expect from Programmatic?
Programmatic mostly used in display and you can only expect what you are going to expect from display placements, which you will be able to judge by CTR and comes in the phase of spreading the word and the first phase of the funnel and not necessarily target direct conversions, but it can in some cases.
It can be used in retargeting, Native and video forms, but still, it is one type of managing the advertising in the digital cloud.
Is the future programmatic?
Yes it is programmatic and more and more companies heading towards programmatic but still, it is not in the reach of all business sizes and it can be expensive, but there is always an alternative like self serve programmatic platforms which can be offered for more reasonable prices.
Do not forget that programmatic advertising is the automated way of buying and selling ad spaces, adding on top of it the ability of targeting and optimizing using the AI, and what makes a programmatic network better than the other is the Ad networks it is connected to, which means a bigger inventory.
For you to know that Google Display Network is a programmatic advertising method and Google Ads represents the DSP and Google AdSense represents the SSP, but it is limited to google inventory which is not very premium.
In the end, programmatic will be essential in the next few years as everything is becoming managed by AI, automated and you need to be part of that.
