Programmatic advertising is a type of marketing that uses program algorithms to buy and sell digital advertising. There are many benefits of this kind of advertising, increased efficiency, high levels of targeting and personalization, and better reporting among them. Still, what does this all mean?
This blog post will discuss what programmatic ads are, how they work, and why you should consider them as an option for promoting your business online.
What Are Programmatic Ads?
Traditional advertising channels require several steps. These steps might include:
• Negotiating
• Receiving quotes
• Submitting requests for proposals
• Tendering offers
Conversely, programmatic advertising involves using software to buy advertising. During this process, computers use algorithms to purchase the right display space for your business.
It’s important to understand that this new kind of advertising does not completely automate the ad buying process. Still, it does give humans more time to improve and optimize online advertisements.
Programmatic Advertising Benefits and Drawbacks
No matter the technology, companies will always need people to plan and optimize advertising. It takes people to meet consumer needs on a deeply human level.
However, programmatic advertising will reduce the workload of ad buyers. In all likelihood, there’ll be fewer ad buyers around in the future.
For the ad buyers that remain, this advertising technology will prove empowering. It will enable professional ad buyers to better plan, optimize and target audiences.
This advertising tool is a very new resource. At this stage, it requires a deep understanding of the tool to get things right.
Programmatic Advertising Works
Let’s go back to the early days of programmatic advertising around 2015. Then, marketers used the resource to meet core brand objectives.
Their expectation of the technology, for example, may have been to boost their budget for this resource by about 40% over a two-year timeframe. Today, companies spend about 65% of their digital budget on programmatic ads.
In fact, experts forecast that companies will spend more than $46 billion on this kind of advertising every year. This massive spending budget is a testament to the growth of programmatic advertising.
It Just Keeps Getting Better
Certain players in advertising are fueling the growth of this kind of advertising medium—private advertising exchanges. Private advertising exchanges give companies more control over the automated ad buying process.
At first, this kind of ad exchange served to attract hesitant buyers and sellers. Now, however, private exchanges drive much of the momentum in the programmatic ad marketplace. In part, this circumstance exists because both buyers and sellers want more control over these kinds of ads.
For this purpose, private exchanges work. They’re an efficient use of resources for both buyers’ and sellers’ time and resources.
Why You Need to Jump Into Programmatic Advertising Now
There’s no denying the effectiveness of programmatic advertising. It enables brands to understand the media journey more clearly than ever. More importantly, this technology enables companies to have one-on-one conversations with buyers.
Programmatic advertising enables companies to optimize their ad spending. They enjoy a consistent return on investment using the technology. More importantly, this advertising vehicle enables companies to publish ads in a way that resonates with audiences.
As a result, programmatic advertising has massive potential for today’s brands. This kind of advertising can help you thrive in the digital age.
Launching a Programmatic Advertising Campaign
At this point, you may wonder, “How can my company start with programmatic advertising?” Good question.
Let’s look at how you can use this resource to your advantage.
First, you’ll need to get to know the programmatic advertising market space. An understanding of the market is the only way to come to terms with what you’re doing.
It helps understand that you’re venturing into a new area of advertising. As a result, you’ll need to learn new ideas and terms related to the field.
Establishing Goals
Once you understand the terms related to programmatic advertising, you’ll need to establish your goals. Here, you must take advantage of your existing data.
This information will help you figure out the kind of advertising awareness you must build. It will also help you to develop a suitable marketing strategy. Furthermore, you should use your data to establish both short and long-term goals.
It’s understandable to want to take advantage of programmatic advertising as soon as possible. However, you shouldn’t invest a penny into the resource until you know exactly why you’re doing it.
Monitoring Campaigns
Programmatic advertising works using algorithms and machine learning. However, that doesn’t mean that it works completely free of human intervention.
There are many kinds of programmatic advertising platforms. Some platforms offer full management services. Others offer some degree of management.
Yet other platforms simply provide the technology. In this instance, you’re left to your own devices to operate your buying activities.
In this case, you’ll need skilled staff. You must have talent on board who can plan, control and optimize your advertising buying.
Still, not every company has the budget to hire full-time staff that can effectively manage programmatic advertising. In this case, companies can hire a consultant to get up to speed quickly and operate programmatic ad buying for less than what it will cost to do it in-house.
Protecting Your Brand Image
As you well know, machines can make mistakes. As a result, the algorithms used by programmatic ads can sometimes place advertisements in the wrong location. This point highlights the importance of human intervention when using this resource.
As a programmatic advertiser, you’ll need to constantly monitor and update your demand-side blacklist. This practice is the only way to make sure that your advertising doesn’t end up on inappropriate sites that could damage your brand.
Some programmatic platforms allow you to exclude entire categories from your ad spend. Under the right circumstances, this feature can prove very helpful.
If your brand image is especially sensitive, however, you can instead use a whitelist. An advertising whitelist is a list of approved rather than denied sites.
A whitelist does narrow your ability to reach your audience. It’s also more expensive to run a whitelist advertising campaign. In some cases, however, this kind of advertising campaign is the only way to ensure that no unsavory material becomes associated with your brand or advertising.
Protecting Your Investment
Programmatic ad viewability hovers between 45% and 55%. Bots cost advertisers lots of money every year. Collectively, companies spend about $6.5 billion on false online ad views generated by bots every year.
In programmatic advertising, that percentage is about 16%. As you can see, this percentage is much lower compared to standard online advertising. Yet, it still exists.
Even with programmatic advertising, you’ll want to take steps to prevent fraudulent ad views generated by bots. As a result, it’s just as important for you to monitor your programmatic display ads as it is for you to do so when you use other kinds of digital advertising.
An Overview of CTV Ads and OTT Ads
It’s also important for you to know about connected TV (CTV) advertising. CTV advertising serves as a channel for over-the-top (OTT) video content.
Imagine, for instance, that you don’t want to run ads to viewers using a tablet or computer. You only want your ads to show to viewers who are watching on TV.
In this instance, you may use CTV advertising. It would serve as an alternative to OTT ads. Incidentally, you can show OTT ads on CTV.
CTV provides advertising freedom for your brand. There’s remarkable growth in the space for this reason.
Types of Programmatic Advertising
Programmatic TV is evolving. As it does, so do its capabilities.
As a result, there are increasing options for buying CTV advertising programmatically. For instance, you can invest in advertising on:
• Video on demand
• Digital linear TV
• Terrestrial linear
You can purchase video-on-demand advertising on sites like Amazon and Netflix. This kind of content gets streamed through apps and mobile devices.
Digital linear TV is an industry term for streaming television services. Meanwhile, terrestrial TV is an emerging development. You can’t purchase it now, but it’s worth watching for in the future.
Across these mediums, there are also different kinds of display ads.
Banner Ads
A banner ad is unchanging. It’s an image file without audio, animation, or video.
This is the most common kind of advertising you’ll see online. They’re widely used across the digital marketing landscape.
Interactive Ads
Interactive advertising is an innovative feature. It enables your audience to interact with your advertisement immediately. It’s more engaging compared to a static banner ad.
You can use an interactive ad to ask users questions. For example, your interactive ads might ask viewers to fill out a lead form. This kind of advertisement is popular on social media platforms.
Animated Ads
An animated ad is just what it sounds like—it moves. You can publish an animated ad to create a next-level viewing experience for your audience. Animated ads stand out in an online marketplace where everybody’s fighting for viewers’ attention.
Digital marketing is becoming an increasingly popular advertising trend. As it does, so have animated ads.
An animated ad can also include audio. More importantly, however, it can help to improve how your audience absorbs your brand message.
Video Ads
Video advertisements, such as YouTube ads, are different from animated ads. You’re more likely to see a video ad on a streaming platform. For instance, you’d purchase video advertising if you want to advertise on Netflix or YouTube.
You can also show video advertising on various social media platforms. There are also video advertising networks available.
Today, for instance, YouTube is second only to Google in search engine activity. As a result, it’s become a favorite advertising medium for all kinds of brands.
Video ads are also highly effective. They have a higher engagement rate compared to other kinds of advertisements.
Expandable Ads
With an expandable ad, your advertisement will start off in an invitation state. In other words, it will take over some of the viewers’ pages. Like commercials, it interrupts the user experience.
As a result, it can cause negative user experiences. It can disrupt a viewer’s entertainment or shopping experience.
You can have your expandable ad load along with the page. Alternatively, it could expand based on a user’s interaction with your website. In either case, you want to plan your expandable ad carefully to produce the best possible viewing experience.
360° Video Ads
One of the most innovative and engaging kinds of advertisements is 360° video ads. They enable users to enter a virtual reality environment. For instance, your 360° video ad might invite your audience to play an interactive role with your published content.
As you can imagine, a 360° video ad is very complex to build. They’re highly specialized. However, the resulting audience engagement is well worth the effort.
Start Capitalizing on Programmatic Advertising Today
We hope our marketing tips send you well on your way to your next successful advertising campaign. With programmatic ads, you can outdo your competition. However, it’s a highly specialized kind of advertising that requires an entirely new learning curve. We’re here to help.
Go Shark Media can help you incorporate programmatic display ads into your existing marketing strategies successfully.
Take advantage of this new marketing outlet now. We’ll help you do it fast and do it right.
The experts at Go Shark Media can guide you through the entire process from start to finish. Don’t wait. Claim your free programmatic advertising consultation today.
