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June 17, 2015

Programmatic Explained

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There is no doubt that programmatic has changed the face of online marketing nor is there any doubt that Genius Monkey is on the frontline of innovation to incorporate it into the advertising campaigns of their clients.

Programmatic Explained

Programmatic Advertising is the automation of the buying and selling of desktop display, video, FBX, and mobile ads using real-time bidding. The term “programmatic” describes how online campaigns are booked, flighted, analyzed, and optimized by way of demand-side software interfaces and algorithms. Simply explained, programmatic advertising refers to an automated, technology-driven method of buying, selling or fulfilling ad placements. This is in direct contrast to the old method of traditional advertising, which involved requests for proposals (RFPs), manual insertion orders and human negotiations. There are two main categories within programmatic: Real-time bidding (RTB) and programmatic direct.

What’s the Attraction to Programmatic?

First is the fact that programmatic provides a broader ad-spending growth across mobile display. Also, there is a large-scale programmatic adoption among those best positioned for cross-device and mobile. Next, it brings improvements to incorporating mobile data into demand-side platforms and exchanges, as well as a movement away from last-click attribution models. Probably the most attractive feature of programmatic ad buying is efficiency. Before real time, automatic ad purchases, digital ads were being bought and sold by humans, which not only was expensive, but could be unreliable. Humans tend to fall ill, need sleep, and require time off. Robots do not require any of that. The age of programmatic advertising creates an efficiency like no other method of the past. It’s cost effective, as the human factor is eliminated where possible, making it more economical to purchase ad inventory. However, overall, it must be tempered by human oversight.

Are People Being Replaced by Robots?

Not exactly some of the more menial chores that historically, humans have had to deal with, are now being handled by technology. As an example, insertion orders used to have to be submitted to publishers, as did ad tags, but now the gift of automation has eliminated that need for people. However, the human touch is still needed to strategize and optimize campaigns. The number of ad buyers will be greatly reduced with programmatic, but this will allow the advertisers, as well as the sellers, to spend more time customizing carefully planned ad campaigns, instead of drowning in red bureaucratic tape.

Is Real Time Bidding the Same as Programmatic?

Nope, not necessarily while real-time bidding (RTB) is a type of programmatic ad buying, it certainly isn’t the only one. RTB pertains to the buying of advertising via real-time auctions, but with programmatic, guaranteed ad impressions can be purchased in advance from specific publisher sites. This method of ad purchasing can also be referred to as “programmatic direct.”

Is Programmatic Here to Stay?

Marketing experts agree that in the year 2015, the spending scales will be tipped towards programmatic. 55% of all U.S. digital display will be bought programmatically. That equals 14.88 billion dollars. Experts speculate that real-time bidding will capture the lion’s share of programmatic ad dollars, but programmatic direct will gain momentum quickly.

As a point of interest, it is expected that this year, more than half of all U.S. programmatic digital display ad spend will come from mobile.

The United States will be the market with the largest programmatic advertising share, reaching a lofty 80%. The second largest market will be the Netherlands, with a share of 60%. In 2011, the U.S. expenditures on programmatic advertising amounted to 2.8 billion U.S. dollars. The number is expected to grow to 14.88 billion by the end of 2015. Programmatic advertising is primed for another monumental year. For the first time ever, it will account for more than half of all digital display ad dollars.

Some agencies are stating that they intend to buy as much media through programmatic channels as possible. There are some brand marketers that are putting together “in-house” teams specifically dedicated to ad buying. 

With Genius Monkey, we do it all for you. We use all the intelligence available to find your target market, and maneuver our way into it. Once we are there, we monitor the success of the campaign and make adjustments to fully optimize every ad on every screen. Another thing that is optimized is the ROI for each of our clients!

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