Programmatic Advertising-[ A Complete Guide]

Digital marketing is taking a new shape every day as marketers continue to look for new ways of improving sales and profits as well. Statistics show that in 2019, companies spent around 65% of the digital advertising budget on programmatic advertising. That shows how this form of digital marketing is gaining popularity, and it could be the biggest thing in the next few years in digital marketing. On the other, 85% of the businesses that invested in this form of digital advertising recorded massive improvements in their sales and profits. Therefore, don’t be left out, get the best digital marketing specialist around you to help you out. However, it’s good to have a general knowledge of programmatic advertising before you pump in your money.

So what is programmatic advertising?

Programmatic advertising is said to be the online marketing ‘black box’ full of jargon and exponential in its growth. Sometimes it can be a difficult subject to understand if you are not an expert but, we will try out best to simplify it. In short, programmatic advertising is an automated transaction of buying and selling advertising on the internet. This is a process of using various online platforms to market your inventory on publishing websites, as well as placing ads on different publishers’ websites. Some days, back this used to be a manual process that involved human negotiations, writing of proposals (RFPS), and inserting of orders on the publishers’ website. Today all that transactions can be done within milliseconds and involve multiple platforms. This will, for sure, help you to push your brand on various website platforms with ease. Imagine your brand being promoted on over a thousand websites at once, how many people will know your products within a day? That’s how effective programmatic advertising is in modern digital marketing.

How does programmatic advertising work?

As mentioned earlier, this topic has been tough for many businesses and even digital marketers. The majority of the articles on the internet have never simplified it for readers to understand better. Here are steps that will make it easy for you to understand how this digital marketing strategy works;

Step 1:

Once a viewer comes on your website and it’s using programmatic advertising, the automated bidding starts popping up to serve as an advert to this visitor.

Step 2:

Here the publisher lists the adverts space on the viewer’s supply-side platform (SSP). This SSP works as the seller for the publisher by allowing advertisers to understand the website characteristics, user as well as ad space that enables DSPs to make their bids. They advertise products for sale on the website.

Step 3:

The moment, SSP receives the information about the ad space, they usually analyze the user’s cookies and determine various factors like demographics, geography, and interests among others.  

Step 4:

After that, the corresponding demand-side platform (DSP) then reviews the user information provided by SSP. Then DSPs display adverts that are in line with user targeting parameters and budget. The ad placement is based on the user and the website’s characteristics.

Step 5:

DSP makes the bidding on the ad placement on behalf of the advertiser, and that happens automatically within milliseconds; that’s why programmatic advertising is also referred to as real-time bidding (RTB).

Step 6:

After the SSP receives the bids from different DSPs, the SSP picks the winner.  However, there are various SSPs bid strategies, such as client-side. Waterfall bidding, and header bidding. Header bidding is the most used strategy, as many businesses find it fair and more efficient.

Step 7:

When the winning bid is chosen, the SSP will display the ad to the user’s publisher website. Remember, the whole process from step 1 to step 7 happens within the page loading time. Very fast and efficient for any business that wants to tap into internet users.

That’s how programmatic advertising works, it just identifies the right target audience then displays the ad on the website they access. For instance, you have been looking for a laptop online; the programmatic advertising program will study your character the display adverts related to what you have been searching for once you click a link to open a specific website page. Through the process, you might find good deals that you haven’t come across before; it’s the best way to market your products online.

Why use programmatic advertising?

A majority of online businesses are investing a lot of money in programmatic advertising. Over the years, it has proven to be very useful in boosting sales and profits. However, many businesses are still using traditional advertising ways, which are good, but in these modern days, they might not be effective enough. Digital marketing has changed the advertising model, and now you can have programs working for you and pulling more customers or clients on your website. Here are some of the key reasons why you need to consider programmatic advertising to elevate your business to the next level;

1.     Allows you to spend the advertising budget properly and wisely

Unlike other advertising models where you post an ad expecting the interested parties to see it and maybe make a purchase, programmatic advertising is very different. Your ad is only displayed to the internet users who are interested in buying your products. The SSP reads the website viewer’s behavior, and the character then posts the advertisement according to what the user has been searching online. The cases of pushing your products to an uninterested audience are reduced when you use programmatic advertising. Here you have a high chance of improving sales and eventually profits.

2.     Real-time Optimization and measurement

When you are using programmatic advertising, you can easily monitor and measure advert performance. If you have ever done traditional media advertising, you know how hectic it is to wait for an excel sheet that might even be delayed for you to know how your ad has been performing. That’s something you need to forget now and focus on the new way of pushing your brand to the right audience. Programmatic advertising will allow you to optimize ads and adjust them to improve the results. You will also get real-time statistics on how many users the advert has reached out to and how many have made their purchases.

3.     Programmatic advertising is a transparent way of promoting your brand and products

Some years back, businesses relied mostly on advertising agencies and third parties in handling and managing their ad expenditure. A process that couldn’t show the business owner a clear breakdown of the spending. The advertising agencies only gave a majority of the businesses a round-off figure, and they could not tell what they were paying for. However, with programmatic advertising, you will get the full disclosure of how much and where your money has gone. You will be provided with the data breakdown, showing how the advert reached many users, where and when, thus providing a transparent process.

4.     Multi-channel reach

The increase in digital touchpoints only means that as a business, you need to ensure that you reach out to almost all your target audiences. Your marketing game should always be in line with the dynamic digital world. This is where now programmatic advertising comes in, to help you reach out to various audience devices like smartphone users, tablets, desktops, digital TV, and even when they are out of their homes. For each device that the internet users use to search for anything on search engines, the programmatic tool will access them. That’s why this programmatic advertising is considered the best digital marketing strategy you can use to enhance your sales.

5.     Programmatic advertising is not only about data

Targeting your audience through programmatic advertising uses internet user data but not necessarily all the information. There’s the contextual targeting aspect that is also involved in identifying your target audience. That means any internet user that has been searching a keyword related to your service or products will be considered your target audience, and the ad will be displayed on the websites they visit. This means the tool doesn’t need to have all the internet user details before deciding which advert to show. The whole process takes as little time as possible, and just the page loading time is enough to collect internet user data, choose the right ad, and display it.

All in all, programmatic advertising is unavoidable in modern-day digital marketing. Any business looks for ways to improve sales and profits in the long run while reducing the overall operations expenditure. This digital marketing strategy gives you value for your money as well as helps you reach out to the right target audience. Programmatic advertising is also the easiest way of pushing your brand online, and it can display the ad to millions of internet users within milliseconds. Consult with digital marketing experts around you for more information about programmatic advertising. Alternatively, keep following our website will be updating you on different developments in the digital marking industry.

Author Bio-

Shanta Narang is a Passionate, amiable, dynamic, and result-oriented digital marketing professional with over 12 years of experience in SEO, content management, brand marketing, business management, and educational counseling. She facilitates digital transformation initiatives for organizations to help them grow in the online platform. Being a DM Specialist, She helps companies to succeed in their business with the help of the latest trends and technology.

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