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7 April 2021
- Big Data
Nowadays, companies are trying to automate as many processes as possible. The fact is that a highly qualified employee is not always necessary to make some decisions. Thanks to modern tools, your experts can focus on complex tasks, while machines make better choices in order to optimise many internal and external business processes such as, for example, advertising.
Advertising on the Internet has many faces. There are various types of campaigns, marketing tricks and settings you can change in order to make your advertisement more efficient. The thing is, it is not easy to optimise or decide where, when and from whom you should buy digital advertising space… At least, it isn’t easy for a human (even an experienced one), but computers are able to handle it quite well. So, how can programmatic advertising make your daily work simpler?
Will robots replace humans? Programmatic technology on the rise
Just about a year ago we could read in eMarketer that 83.5% of US digital display ads are managed using programmatic technology. Some may think then that technology will be replacing human experts in the future. This is partially true – there are tasks that can be done better by machines. But this can hardly be called a bad change. Automating some processes in business allows us to focus on more important matters like creating strategies and optimizing marketing campaigns. Programmatic technology reduces time spent on bureaucracy and leaves more space for conceptual work, which is much more important for modern companies than taking care of monotonous duties.
Programmatic ad buying – a more efficient way of advertising?
The numbers are clear – programmatic advertising is becoming a trend, so you should certainly learn more about it. There are still some companies who approach Internet advertising in the traditional way – someone decides where, when and how to publish an ad in virtual space, similarly to publishing an ad in a newspaper or on TV. Advertisers and sales representatives negotiate over the price and other terms until they come to an agreement. Programmatic advertising is a piece of software or an automation tool that automates this process.
Programmatic advertising uses data to make the process programmable and automated thanks to the algorithms and functions of certain software. As both – sales reps and advertisers – are excluded from the process, it becomes more efficient and your experts can pay attention to more sophisticated tasks.
Is automatic buying and selling ads the future of Internet advertising? Probably, yes. You can save money and time, while making your campaigns more effective thanks to it. Possibly, programmatic advertising will also come to “traditional” media, such as TV. Keep reading to understand how it works and what the benefits are of this technology. If you want to know how to implement it properly visit our Data Engineering Consultancy page
How does it work?
It needs to start from the publisher – the person/company who has some website or application and space on it to sell for advertising purposes. To make money on selling ad space, a representative of such a company can offer it to an advertiser (the person or company that needs a space to deploy some content). The advertiser contacts a programmatic ad agency.
The agency uses a DSP (demand-side platform) to automate the process of buying ads. This platform facilitates purchasing programmatic ad inventory from many publishers and then uses a DMP (data management platform) and potential audience data (like demographics, online activity, gender or location) to present an ad to specific Internet users.
Let’s assume we’re selling women’s shoes and a woman, age 30, who is currently visiting a lot of online shops with shoes has just landed on one of our publisher’s websites. The web page sends an ad request to the SSP (supply-side platform) and a virtual auction runs between potential buyers (advertisers) who are interested in presenting their ad to this woman.
Of course all of this happens very fast. After the space on the website is sold, the ad is presented. This process repeats over and over again each time when some user visits a website or application (or refreshes it).
Types of programmatic advertising
There are many types of programmatic advertising recommended by experts. It may be difficult for inexperienced marketers to understand them all at first. We’ll be happy to analyse your business needs and suggest the best solutions for your business. Here are some often utilized kinds:
- Real-Time Bidding (RTB) – also called Open Auction or Open Marketplace. The Auction happens in real-time. It is simple – the chosen tool matches publishers and advertisers on the public marketplace and the highest bidder wins the ad space. This is the most basic solution and probably the most popular kind of programmatic advertising nowadays.
- Private Marketplace (PMP) – this works differently. Only certain advertisers can access the offers. In this type of programmatic advertising, there may be some restriction for the ad inventory. Why? This enables control of the types of ads that can be placed on a particular web page or app, which might be required by some of the publishers.
- Automated Guaranteed – this might become as popular as RTB. In this case, a 100% bid rate is required from the buying platform in order to fulfil the transaction. There is no bidding process in this type of programmatic advertising. Negotiations take place between publisher and advertiser. As a result, the inventory is sold directly to the advertiser.
Nowadays there are more possibilities – header bidding, exchange bidding, first or second price auctions – all of these programmatic advertising types were created in order to offer advertisers and publishers a suitable way to cooperate. The goal is to make buying advertising the most efficient process it can be.
Advantages of adopting programmatic advertising solutions
Wondering why you should adopt programmatic advertising technology in your company? Here are some of the most important reasons why you should improve your ad buying process with the newest solutions for business:
- Efficiency – the main and the most obvious benefit of programmatic advertising. You can spend your marketing budget better than in the past. This approach is cost-efficient. Even a small piece of your budget can be put to a good use and show spectacular results. Real time measurement allows advertisers to monitor their campaign and optimize it when needed. Automated, proper targeting of customers yields better outcomes for marketing campaigns.
- Perfect targeting – as we’ve already mentioned, programmatic advertising enables advertisers to set targeting criteria and reach the right Internet users easily and cheaply. You can target many audiences using big data and all kinds of information your systems can collect about your targeted groups. With huge amounts of data, software for buying programmatic ads can target very specifically described groups of people.
- Real-time flexibility – imagine buying advertising space in the traditional way. There is no room for adjustments once you buy it, right? After making a bad decision, there is no turning back. So, if the situation changes, you may lose the money you’ve invested. Programmatic advertising allows you to modify your approach in real-time if you realize that your campaign is not effective.
- Automation – software does a lot of the work for you. First, it eliminates the risk of making a bad choice and second, it gives your employees time to focus on more important tasks that can be only performed by humans.
Programmatic advertising solutions are scalable. Traditional ad buying is highly ineffective for large enterprises and even medium companies. With the power of programmatic advertising, you can reach more people and get better effects with a smaller budget. If you want to manage your marketing campaigns in a smarter way, contact our consultants and ask us about a programmatic advertising solution for your business.
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