The Beginner’s Guide To Programmatic Advertising: Explained Simply

The digital landscape took its sweet time to change and evolve. With it, evolved all of its allies. Today, the digital marketing field is at a point where it has become the future of advertising. Programmatic Advertising is one such ally that is rising towards its peak, with a large number beginning to understand details related to it and how it shall benefit businesses. This real-time bidding service is an automated process of buying media for a target audience, through an exhaustive decision-making process. Ad space is bought in order to reach out to a specific group of people through the bidding process. Visit Digital Quantistico if you're looking for an International Digital Marketing Company.

What goes down when We talk about Programmatic Advertising?

First off, your business will purchase ad space on the internet through an Ad Exchange. You’ll have to register with one, to actually reap its benefits. Then you enter a bidding war against your competitors in the industry. And finally, if you come out as the highest bidder, the ad space becomes yours to keep. You get to publish your ad on this space. The bids could be on various platforms, including display, mobile, video, and social media channels. Slowly, it is entering the television world as well.

Programmatic Advertising is estimated to contribute 84% of all the digital display ad spending.

There are way too many processes involved in the traditional methods of buying a space to display ads, starting by creating a campaign, requesting proposals, quotes, tenders, negotiation, etc. With more than double the time consumed, traditional methods of advertising are on a decline. Basically, with programmatic advertising, businesses use a DSP (Demand Side Platform) to decide which design should be worth investing in and what is the buying price. On the other hand, SSP (Supply Side Platform) is used by the publishers in order to sell ad space to businesses. Once this procedure is completed, the platforms are compared, in real-time. The software has been designed to keep track of how the ads are performing and scope out the areas of improvement.

Programmatic Advertising is automated through and through, while real-time advertising is based on the auction.

How does Programmatic Advertising actually work?

Algorithms built into the artificial intelligence systems analyze the behavior of a visitor to determine the need for optimization for the visitor to convert. Data related to the audience is collected by programmatic companies to make the targeting more precise. Your artificial intelligence will decide where it is best to spend the money in terms of advertising. All it needs is the campaign base and the key indicators in order to make the best decision.

Now, let’s take a look at every aspect that is involved in Programmatic Advertising.

1. Publishers-They stand on the supply side of the chain.

• Ad Networks gain inventory from the publishers to help them with the monetizing part by packaging the inventory and aggregating it.
• Exchangers are the ones who aid with the sales and buying of the inventory related to media. They determine the positioning of each ad by managing the bidding.
• Ad Servers are used by publishers in order to establish the where, how, and when of the display of their inventory. The sales of inventory are done through ad servers.
• SSP helps with sales and provides a platform to present a business’s inventory and generate revenue.

2. Advertisers- They are the ones who demand and are on the marketers' side.

• Trading Desks are hired by in-house teams or businesses to manage their media buys. They are above the DSPs (Demand Side Platforms) and are known to work with the teams.
• Creative Optimization is required to generate an ad and optimize it according to the real-time data that has been gathered.
• Agencies are hired to create ads for businesses to send out the message in a creative way to create cash flow.
• Demand Side Platforms buy ads in real-time and sell media inventory to in-house teams.
• Media Attribution and Planning includes deriving reasons behind a viewer’s action in order to determine various aspects like what drove them to make a call, drive down to the store, or what was the focal point of the ad. In the planning stage, the placement of the ad, amongst other things, is decided.
• Retargeting is carried out with customers who have visited a particular landing page and shows the data based on their behavior on the page.
• Ad Servers decide when and where the ad will be published within seconds of gaining information about a viewer.

According to a survey, 22% of the people who responded used in-house operations and agencies for programmatic advertising, while 29% of them ran campaigns with in-house operations only.

3. The Middle Men

• Media Management Systems and Operations companies specialize in navigating the whole ad system. Media planning tools, data aggregation, deploying media, etc. are a part of the system.
• Data Aggregators and DMPs (Data Management Platforms) collect data that is produced, store it, and present it in a way that it can be used by authorities.
• Measurement and Analytics companies calculate each piece of performance metrics.
• Tag Management is required to sort the behavioral patterns of each campaign and informs the advertisers of these details.
• Data Supply companies are known to collect viewer information and sell it off for a profit.
• Privacy and Verification ensures user privacy is protected.

An amalgamation of all the aspects mentioned above forms the base of programmatic advertising. Its effect on viewers and consumers has been undeniably astounding. With proper effort and background study, you can become an expert in the art of programmatic marketing. It is crucial to have detailed insights into the behavioral patterns of viewers in order to run an efficient strategy.

How do you go about your Programmatic Advertising journey?

Before the journey begins, it is a must to make sure that the collected data should be more than just numbers. Considering this data as consumers or potential customers will go a long way in helping you develop stronger strategies.

1. Be Aware of the Market

Starting a new business is not easy neither is expanding it. There will be several new terms and ideas floating in the air which will have to be settled down and understood to advertise your business the right way.

2. Establish Goals

You’ll be able to find strategies used by competitors in the market, which will help in establishing goals and formulating your strategies, that will help with achieving the goal. There’s no point in rushing into programmatic advertising if the purpose of doing so isn’t clear.

3. Use your Skills

Programmatic advertisements are largely tech-based, and algorithms handle all the details. This doesn’t mean ads don’t require the human touch. Some platforms only provide technical services, so investing in employees who are skilled in optimization, planning, and controlling should be hired.

4. Safe Keeping

Due to technical errors, ads could be displayed in the wrong place. The black-list on the demand side should be updated regularly to ensure that this doesn’t happen. Using low-quality sites for ads should be avoided as it may damage the brand reputation.

It is expected that in the year 2020, the USA will spend an approximate of 68.87 billion U.S. dollars for programmatic digital display advertising.

Being involved in programmatic advertising means having to take away time from other areas of marketing since the field is so wide. It wouldn’t seem so bad once an optimized programmatic strategy starts bringing in paying customers.

Here’s how Programmatic Advertising will help your business grow by leaps and bounds:

• Cost per thousand (CPM) can be adjusted in real-time depending on the value of impressions making programmatic advertising cost-effective.
• More focus can be directed towards the overall strategy rather than complicating things with RFPs (Request For Proposals), RFIs (Request For Information), etc.
• Since the algorithm is continuously working KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) can be tracked more closely.
• A larger number of people can be reached out to on time. Programmatic ads are efficient as well.

All in all, the best idea to go about programmatic advertising is to understand and strategize in a way that you can give people what they want, rather than assuming what they want and when they want it. Since it gives you the ability to make changes in your campaign on a real-time basis, the scope of improvement and ROI increases considerably. These alterations could be carried on various platforms, depending on the stats that have been collected. Max Effect Marketing is a leading Digital Marketing and programmatic advertising company located in Denver, Colorado. We provide top-notch Web Design, SEO, Online Reputation Management, and many other digital marketing services. We are Denver’s #1 SEO & Web Design Company, and with our results-driven approach, you can grow your business. Contact us for your digital marketing needs today!