Tag: Programmatic

Programmatic Advertising for Beginners

I’m going to go ahead and say it: programmatic advertising is the future. Although it’s a relatively new concept compared with other forms of marketing, spending on programmatic advertising is growing yearly.

Omnichannel marketing, audio and in-game advertising, voice-activated advertising, and 5G are just some of the factors fueling its growth, and they’re going to take programmatic advertising into 2023 and beyond.

Now, enough about the future. What if you’re not so familiar with this type of marketing? How does programmatic advertising work? How are others using it? More importantly, is it right for your business?

In this article, I discuss all of that and more, starting with the basics.

What Is Programmatic Advertising?

Programmatic advertising is the automated buying and selling of digital advertising space over the internet.

Here’s how it works.

Two main platforms are involved: a supply-side platform and a demand-side platform.

By using programmatic technology, ad space gets bought and sold in real-time through automated auctions on a demand-side platform (DSP). This process happens instantaneously, with the winning ad displayed on the publisher’s website or app. This means that ads can be bought and sold more efficiently and at a lower cost.

When targeting ads, marketers first identify their target audience and then set parameters, such as geographic location, age, gender, interests, etc. They also specify how much they want to pay for each ad view or click.

If you’d like a deeper dive into this topic, here’s a detailed article on programmatic buying for PPC.

A supply-side platform (SSP) is an automated platform that enables the sale of ad space to businesses.

A graphic showing how programmatic advertising works.

It is hugely popular, with top brands like Lacoste, Aldi, and Turner Sports using it, and global programmatic advertising spend is set to exceed $700 billion a year by 2026.

What Makes It Successful?

Why the growing popularity?

Aside from the ease of automation, programmatic advertising allows for better targeting of specific audiences. The golden rule with this type of marketing is it only does well if you target the right prospects with your ads.

Programmatic advertising relies on data, meaning marketers can direct their ads to people based on their interests, location, internet searches, or even what they’ve bought before. All this makes the ads more relevant to the individual, and likely results in more clicks and conversions.

For instance, if you’re selling health foods in California, you’d want to target fitness enthusiasts in the area.

Publishers also benefit from programmatic advertising because it allows them to sell ad space more efficiently. They can target specific buyers interested in their content and sell ad space on an impression-by-impression basis.

Second, programmatic advertising is efficient and effective. For many marketers, programmatic advertising is an ideal hands-off approach to buying ads; it allows advertisers to buy ad space in real-time, which means they can get their ads in front of the right people quickly and at a lower cost than traditional methods.

Third, programmatic advertising is constantly evolving. Marketers can use it to target not only consumers, but also businesses. As new technologies emerge, programmatic advertising is likely to grow and adapt, becoming even more effective.

However, perhaps the main reason behind programmatic advertising’s success is simple: it gets results.

For example, when Grapeseedmedia.com worked with Lights.com, the campaign created a Return on Advertising Spend (ROAS) of 316 percent, a Cost Per Acquisition (CPA) of $26, 179 newsletter signups, and a 25 cents cost per page visit. This is four times the industry benchmark.

Another case study shows how a campaign for Grand-Hyatt achieved revenues of $1, 647,787 during the nine months it worked with the agency. In addition, by using display advertising, Facebook, and Google, the agency gained:

  • A 1,017 percent ROAS.
  • Over 3,000 Facebook page likes
  • A $275 average daily rate, which is $12 higher than the overall average
  • Along with 2.5 times more room nights from the Hyatt.com website.

The strategy behind the campaign included:

  • Showing messages to people actively searching and engaging with Google’s search results.
  • Focusing on users depending on their travel patterns to New York by analyzing data from Hertz and American Airlines, among others.
  • Targeting audiences in the trip planning phase of the customer journey

Now, let’s look at the different types of programmatic advertising available.

What Are the Different Types of Programmatic Advertising?

There are three types of programmatic advertising and four main formats available:

Open Auctions: Otherwise known as real-time bidding (RTB). This process is where ad inventory is bought and sold via a DSP or SSP.

Private Auctions: These are sometimes called ‘closed deals’ and are only open to invited bidders.

Preferred deals: Rather than auctioning ads, these provide programmatic advertising at a fixed price to a buyer.

Typically, programmatic advertising comes in four formats: display, video, banner, and in-app ads.

  • Video advertising is ideal for grabbing people’s attention through imagery, narratives, and sound.
  • Banner ads consist of a graphical image or animation placed on a web page, along with a URL to direct visitors to a website.
  • Native advertising is a form of online advertising that matches the form and function of the platform on which it appears. Native ads are less intrusive than banner ads and other online advertising, and can appear in various formats, including in-feed content, search results, and recommendations.
  • In-app ads are a type of advertising shown within an app. This can include banner ads, interstitial ads (full-screen ads), video ads, and native ads. In-app ads can be a great way to monetize an app and generate revenue.

Is Programmatic Advertising the Right Fit for Your Business?

You’ve read all about the benefits, but how do you know if programmatic advertising is the right fit for your business? That depends on a few factors, such as your target audience and marketing goals.

Below are some reasons why you might want to consider using programmatic advertising:

Volume targeting: if you’re looking to reach a large audience quickly and easily, programmatic advertising may be a good fit for you. Through automation, programmatic platforms allow you to focus on specific audiences according to interests and behaviors to reach more people in less time.

Managing your budget: As programmatic advertising lets you target specific groups, it can be budget-friendly. However, depending on the size of your business, the advice is to spend no more than 6-20 percent of your overall marketing.

Suggesting marketing budget for programmatic advertising.
  • What are your goals? Programmatic advertising can help you achieve various marketing goals, such as increasing brand awareness, generating leads, or driving sales.
  • What type of media do you want to use? Programmatic advertising offers you a variety of media types, including digital and in-app ads.
  • You need to be comfortable with the idea of automation and trusting algorithms to make decisions about where your ads should run.

Additionally, there are occasions when programmatic advertising may not be for you. If view-through-conversions aren’t of value to you and you haven’t tried display advertising before, then programmatic advertising may not be the ideal match.

How Much Does It Cost?

Programmatic advertising uses cost per mile (CPM), meaning you’re charged per 1,000 impressions.

However, other factors impact the cost of programmatic advertising. These depend on several factors, such as the type of system used (real-time bidding or private exchange), the amount of competition for ad space, and the quality of the ad space.

In addition, prices depend on:

  • Targeting
  • Industry devices
  • Ad format (video, display, etc.)
The factors that impact pricing in programmatic advertising.

Another benefit to consider is how programmatic advertising avoids the risk of overpaying for ads, which could save you money long-term.

Usually, costs can vary from 0.50 – $2.00 per impression, which is more affordable than traditional advertising.

How Do You Integrate Programmatic Into Your Existing Ad Plans?

Suppose you’re looking to introduce programmatic advertising into your marketing mix. In that case, you can do a few things to help get your campaigns off to a flying start, like:

Defining your objectives: What do you want to achieve with your programmatic advertising? Do you want to increase brand awareness, drive increased website traffic, generate more leads, or improve your ROI? Once you know your objectives, you can start setting specific goals and determine how to measure them.

Set realistic goals: It’s important to set achievable goals; otherwise, you’ll only be setting yourself up for disappointment. Be sure to consider factors like budget and available resources when setting your goals.

Decide on your Key Performance Indicators (KPIs): KPIs measure if you’re on target regarding your business goals. For example, if you were working on SEO, featured snippets might be a desired KPI. Everyone wants something different from their programmatic advertising campaigns. Therefore, the KPIs you choose stem from what you’re hoping to achieve and what success means to you. Some key performance indicators to keep an eye on include:

  • click-through rate (CTR), which is a metric that measures how often people who see your ad click on it. A high CTR means that your ad is relevant and interesting to your audience.
  • cost per click (CPC): CPC is an important metric for measuring the success of online advertising campaigns. By understanding how much each click costs, advertisers can better assess the ROI of their campaigns and make necessary adjustments to ensure they are getting the most bang for their buck.
  • conversion rate, or the percentage of people that make a purchase when they visit your website.
  • cost per acquisition, which is the cost of acquiring a new customer through an ad campaign.

Decide on the type of ads to use: You can select from In-app ads for getting more downloads, banner ads for brand awareness and retargeting, video advertising for engagement, and native advertising for brand awareness and engagement in a user-friendly format.

Sign up for a DSP: Examples include Amazon DSP, MediaMath, or RocketFuel. However, there are plenty more, and it’s best to do your own comprehensive research before you decide which platform is right for you.

Create your budget: Some networks have pre-determined budgets, while with others, you work to your budget. There are a lot of different resources out there on how to optimize your budget.

Decide who to target: This is when it gets personal. Ideal customers are identified by many factors, including interests, buying behaviors, location, languages, operating systems, and plenty of other factors.

Choose your SSP: Turn to options like Google Ads Platform, AdSuite, or OpenX to get you started in your search.

Next, upload your creatives and set up your ad markups.

Use the above only as a guide, and follow the step-by-step instructions for your chosen platforms.

Once you’ve launched, analyze your data and keep tweaking until you get the results you’re looking for.

Finally, I’ve got another article for you if you’re looking for more ways to implement programmatic advertising.

Programmatic Advertising Success Stories

Now you see the potential of programmatic advertising, here’s a look at some success stories.

Agency Pubmatic worked with a Chinese mobile app games developer with an audience of 40 million. The developers sought a suitable in-app monetization solution to improve the overall customer experience and scale demand.

Pubmatic’s solution was an Openwrap SDK, which allows advertisers to optimize their in-apps earnings. The result was:

  • A 10.6 percent daily average fill rate lift
  • A 16.4 percent daily ARPU lift
  • A 14 percent eCPM lift

For another example, World of Warcraft is one of the most popular online video games with a turnover of $6.9 billion. However, that doesn’t mean its makers, Blizzard, didn’t want to reach out to new audiences. It wanted an advertising campaign that would:

  • Improve brand awareness and drive qualified traffic.
  • Enhance awareness for upgrades and game launches.
  • Develop a healthy return on ad spend.
  • Increase traffic away from usual sources like Google, YouTube, and Facebook.

To achieve this, Advent Technology used in-app advertising in the form of rewarded video advertising. It also:

  • Created a full-funnel retargeting solution.
  • Allowed Blizzard to own the data.
  • Used retargeted strategies to enhance re-engagement.

The campaign led to an 8.6 percent click-through rate, compared to YouTube’s average of 0.33 percent for audible and viewable on complete (AVOC).

FAQs

What is Next for Programmatic Advertising?

In the fast-approaching cookieless society, we’re likely to see more focus on customer engagement through impactful and engaging creative media based on quality over quantity, with more emphasis on engagement-driven metrics. Artificial intelligence is also likely to play a role in programmatic advertising in the future.

How Does Programmatic Advertising Work?

Programmatic advertising is a type of online advertising that uses computerized systems to purchase ad space in real-time. Advertisers bid on ad space through an auction system, with the highest bidder winning the ad spot.

What is Programmatic Display Advertising?

Programmatic display advertising is a type of online advertising that uses programmatic technology to purchase ad space and target audiences.

When Did Programmatic Advertising Start?

It may sound like a new development, but programmatic advertising has been with us since 1994. The first banner ad was for AT&T’s ‘You Will’ advertising campaign.

Conclusion

If you’re looking for an effective and efficient way to reach potential customers, then programmatic advertising could be your answer.

Not only is programmatic advertising affordable and it can deliver you a high ROI, it automates buying digital ad space, saving you much-needed time.

Programmatic advertising also lets you target your ideal customers with precision, while delivering ads in real-time, potentially saving you money.

However, this type of advertising may not be suitable for everyone, especially if you haven’t started with regular digital marketing and don’t have a lot of data to go with.

Do you use programmatic advertising? How does it compare with other methods?

12 Best Programmatic Advertising Platforms to Use in 2022

Programmatic advertising platforms solve a problem for both publishers and advertisers.

For publishers, they help maximize advertising revenues by auctioning ad space to millions of advertisers worldwide. For advertisers, they expand reach and leverage data to target very specific audiences.

When done well, this means more profit for both groups, and who doesn’t like that?

What Are Programmatic Ad Platforms?

Programmatic ad platforms provide a real-time marketplace for buying and selling ad space. They link the millions of publishers to the marketers looking to place strategic ads across the internet.

All of this happens in the blink of an eye:

  1. A visitor arrives on a website.
  2. The publisher captures the impression and relevant data on the website visitor.
  3. Advertisers bid on the impression.
  4. The highest bidder places their ad.

You need some powerful software working in the background to make all this work. This is where programmatic ad platforms come in. The types of platforms are broken down into four categories: demand-side platforms, supply-side platforms, ad exchanges, and data management platforms.

The supply-side platforms work for the publishers, collecting data and serving it to the ad exchanges. The ad exchanges then serve this information to demand-side platforms that work on behalf of advertisers, creating an auction for each ad impression.

Collecting data on each ad impression allows publishers to sell ad space to the highest bidder, and allows advertisers to be extremely targeted with their advertising (here’s how you can identify who to target).

This has been an extremely successful formula as spending on programmatic advertising has pushed well past $155 billion a year and continues to grow.

Benefits of Using Programmatic Ads Platforms

Why do advertisers love programmatic ads platforms?

  • huge reach
  • detailed targeting
  • efficiency
  • flexible and scalable

There are many benefits, but the most crucial is the ability to scale. The best programmatic advertising platforms give you instant access to millions of publishers around the world, allowing you to reach your target audience wherever they are.

This is one of the reasons 76 percent of marketing professionals are using programmatic advertising to some extent.

Reaching out to all the different sites manually would take a lifetime, but with programmatic advertising, it happens in real-time.

Of course, not every publishing site serves your target audience, so one of the most important elements of programmatic ads platforms is the ability to reach an extremely targeted audience in real-time. These platforms run ads on a huge scale, collecting a lot of data that is leveraged to improve ad performance.

When you work with a programmatic ads platform, you’re able to set specific parameters for where you serve ads and who you serve them to. This is a huge advantage.

In fact, 73 percent of marketers believe audience targeting is the most effective tactic for programmatic advertising.

Access to so much data also allows you to become more efficient. Everything happens in real-time, so you’re not working on outdated information or paying for ads based solely on historical trends. You’re making a specific bid for that exact impression using a highly attuned algorithm, taking your efficiency to a new level.

Lastly, the instant nature of programmatic ads platforms makes them easily scalable. You have no long-term agreements with publishers, so you can adjust your ad spend according to your needs.

Say you want to run a quickfire sale. You can use programmatic advertising platforms to immediately boost your reach while reaching the exact audience you specify.

Types of Programmatic Ads

There are five key types of programmatic ads:

1. Display ads: Ads placed in the header, footer, and sidebar of a publisher site.

Types of Programmatic Ads - Display Ads

2. Video ads: These ads appear in a video, either before the video begins (pre-roll), during the video (mid-roll), or when the video ends (post-roll).

Types of Programmatic Ads - Video Ads

3. Social ads: Ads are automatically served on social media using the platform’s data.

Types of Programmatic Ads - Social Ads

4. Audio ads: Ads served in audio content such as podcasts.

5. Native ads: These are ads that follow the form of the content they’re shown in, for example, in content ads, or a promoted listing on Amazon.

Types of Programmatic Ads - Native Ads

When shown on a publisher site, all of these types of programmatic ads tend to be referred to as display ads, but in the programmatic ads platforms, there is a difference.

Most advertisers look to use a mixture of these formats, but you can adapt your approach to fit your target audience.

12 Best Programmatic Advertising Platforms

Programmatic advertising is everywhere and nearly every advertiser is using it, even if we don’t realize it. While your mind might be drawn to a few well-known big players, there are lots of programmatic advertising platforms out there, each with its specialties.

Here’s a look at the 12 best programmatic advertising platforms.

1. PubMatic

Best Programmatic Advertising Platforms - PubMatic

PubMatic offers comprehensive solutions for both publishers and marketers, making it a complete programmatic ad platform.

Features include a private marketplace of high-quality ad inventory, a wide range of ad formats and channels, powerful real-time analytics, and fraud-free program refunds to protect against fraudulent activity.

With over 1.2 trillion ad bids per day, PubMatic is certainly popular, and its excellent supply of high-quality ad spots is frequently cited.

2. MediaMath

Best Programmatic Advertising Platforms - MediaMath

MediaMath is well known for its end-to-end campaign management and omnichannel ad campaigns, and it’s trusted by over 3,500 advertisers.

It’s particularly good at data integration, allowing advertisers to reach their most valuable customers through the MediaMath audience feature. With ad options for display, native, video, audio, and Digital Out of Home ads, every base is covered.

Known for great service and support, the MediaMath team is there to help marketers get the most out of their campaigns.

3. Google Ad Manager

Best Programmatic Advertising Platforms - Google Ad Manager

Google Ad Manager is a massive programmatic advertising platform working on the supply-side to monetize publishers’ content.

Nearly 75 percent of ad impressions served in the U.S. are through Google Ad Manager, which makes it a powerful partner for reaching your audience, no matter where they hang out online.

The great thing about Google Ad Manager is it’s incredibly easy for publishers to get set up and start serving ads. It offers good tools and analytics, but it’s not always known for providing the best value (RPM).

4. Adobe Advertising Cloud

Best Programmatic Advertising Platforms - Adobe Advertising Cloud

Adobe is a huge name in software and also provides one of the best programmatic advertising platforms in Adobe Advertising Cloud.

It specializes in connected TV, video, display, native, audio, and search campaign ads to offer advertisers a complete solution. With a focus on people-based marketing and inventory management, it’s a great tool to maximize return on your budget.

The user interface does take some learning, but once you get the hang of it, it’s a great platform to help you maximize your return on ad spend.

5. War Room

Best Programmatic Advertising Platforms - War Room

War Room brings together the power of advanced programmatic technology and human insights to deliver search, display, social, video, native, audio, shopping, and even Metaverse advertising.

With access to over 90,000 premium ad networks, it has something to offer advertisers of all sizes.

6. AdRoll

Best Programmatic Advertising Platforms - AdRoll

AdRoll is powered by 15 plus years of data collected from working with over 120,000 brands. It’s quick to set up and easy to use, offering high-quality ad templates to help you get started immediately.

One of the key benefits of AdRoll is its solid audience targeting, with options for contextual, lookalike, demographic, and interest-based campaigns.

It prides itself on maximizing returns for businesses of all sizes, from global corporations right down to the one-person marketing teams.

7. Amobee

Best Programmatic Advertising Platforms - Amobee

Amobee brings together different types of programmatic ads to create a complete advertising campaign. With ad options for TV, connected TV, digital, and social, advertisers can engage their target audiences in a truly omnichannel strategy.

With a great understanding of how people consume content across different platforms, Amobee can help advertisers to coordinate their campaigns to achieve maximum results.

8. SmartyAds

Best Programmatic Advertising Platforms - SmartyAds

SmartyAds’ programmatic ads platform offers a full stack of services for both advertisers and publishers. Its core aim is to simplify advertising, allowing businesses to prioritize who they trade with.

For advertisers, it’s an excellent tool to improve CTRs and boost conversions, while it also helps publishers achieve higher yields and fill rates, and improve engagement.

SmartyAds has over 500 million monthly impressions in North America alone, so it’s a popular option for both advertisers and publishers.

9. Criteo

Best Programmatic Advertising Platforms - Criteo

Criteo works largely on the supply side, helping publishers to create more revenue from their content.

It works with social media, video, display, web, and mobile ads to help small publishers monetize their content. Using large-scale purchase and intent data and the power of AI, it improves ad returns for over 685 million daily active users.

10. Xandr

Best Programmatic Advertising Platforms - Xandr

Xandr is responsible for 6.7 billion ad impressions daily and works with over 193,000 brands. It offers both demand and supply services and functions as an ad exchange for a variety of different ad types.

One of the most impressive features of Xandr is its incredible data, which allows advertisers to enhance their buying strategies. It offers an easy-to-use interface and has all the tools advertisers need to optimize campaigns.

11. Lotame

Best Programmatic Advertising Platforms - Lotame

Lotame is primarily an ad exchange, helping advertisers connect with consumers across browsers and mobile CTV.

It offers excellent audience management tools, using data to onboard, analyze and model customer segments. Using publishers’ data, the platform enriches audience segments, allowing advertisers to buy off-the-shelf segments to optimize their marketing reach.

Lotame prides itself as being future-proof in a cookieless world, which is a great selling point for today’s businesses

12. The Trade Desk

Best Programmatic Advertising Platforms - The Trade Desk

The Trade Desk is an ad exchange that allows publishers to sell targeted ad space to advertisers around the world. It’s an ideal platform to collect, manage, and activate data all in one place.

A key feature of The Trade Desk is its ability to use lookalike modeling to help advertisers reach new, targeted audiences to expand their market share.

With access to high-quality audiences from a vast list of data providers, it’s a highly rated programmatic advertising platform.

Programmatic Ad Platforms Frequently Asked Questions

Is Google Ads a programmatic ads platform?

Google ads is a programmatic ads platform working on the demand side. It provides a platform for advertisers to bid on advertising space in real-time, creating an auction and awarding the impression to the best bid.

Does Facebook have a programmatic ads platform?

Facebook offers a demand-side programmatic ads platform much like Google Ads. It sells advertising space in real-time, creating an auction for each impression.

How do programmatic ad platforms work?

Programmatic ad platforms bring together the publisher selling advertising space and the advertiser who wants to buy that ad space. They facilitate real-time auctions where advertisers bid on each impression, taking a cut of the winning bid and paying out the remainder to the publisher.

How much do programmatic advertising platforms cost?

Programmatic advertising platforms take a commission on the sale of each impression. This is usually between 10 and 20 percent.

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Conclusion: Programmatic Ads Platform

Programmatic ads platforms are an essential tool in modern advertising. They create a bridge between publishers and sellers, allowing both parties to negotiate a price for ads in real-time.

By collecting data from thousands of websites, these platforms allow advertisers to target detailed audiences and ensure they spend ad budgets on the right ads.

The world of online advertising is constantly changing, so working with a good programmatic ads platform is a great way of future-proofing your marketing and staying a step ahead.

What’s your experience with programmatic ad platforms? Are there other platforms you love that didn’t make the list?

What is Programmatic Buying For PPC?

Advancements in the advertising industry have led to data-driven methods to promote and market your business.

One relevant example is programmatic advertising.

A study found programmatic ad spend will top $59.45 billion in 2019. By 2021, $81 billion of digital display ad spend will be conducted programmatically.

How can programmatic buying benefit your business? What does it even mean? This guide will share everything you need to know about this latest marketing trend and how to leverage it for your business.

What Is Programmatic Buying?

Previously, buying ads was a long and arduous process.

Advertisers were required to purchase impressions from publishers, negotiate terms for ad inventory, and send proposal requests to get their ads out into the world.

This meant a lot of back and forth and follow-ups across multiple parties. It was costly in most cases and, worse, inefficient.

The rise of programmatic advertising has sped up the process. Advertisers can now leverage machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to automate the ad buying process in real-time.

This graphic from PubMatic shows the difference between the different types of ad buying:

programmatic buying definition

So, how does programmatic buying work? Here’s an example to help you understand the process.

Let’s say you sell tech products, like an iPhone.

You opt for a PPC campaign to promote your products on Google. Your goal is to bid on advertising inventory to get your promotional content featured on Facebook, Google, or in a 30-second pre-roll video on YouTube.

In the programmatic buying process, cookies or anonymous data are sent to a demand-side platform where the ad-buying occurs. Data can help identify users who have visited your website, live in your geographic location, or are existing customers.

This data could help you identify people who resemble your ideal target audience. In this case, it could be users who have read an article about the latest iPhone, visited the Apple website, or searched for iPhone reviews.

How to Get Your Ads Shown to High-Converting Users With These Attributes

Real-time bidding occurs between various advertisers who want to send an ad impression to the user. This entire process is automated and based on algorithms rather than human input—and it takes less than a few seconds.

The winner of the bid gets to show their ad to the website user.

Here’s to hoping website users will click the ad and convert!

In summary, programmatic buying lets advertisers identify their target market through behavioral insights rather than just keywords, bid on those users, and deliver the ad in the blink of an eye.

Advanced ad targeting capabilities means access to high-converting consumers who are more interested in the products or services you offer.

Why You Should Use Programmatic Buying in Your PPC Campaigns

Programmatic buying lets your ads reach your ideal target audience at affordable price points.

Here are some statistics on the results of programmatic buying:

  • Programmatic advertising generated an astounding $129.1 billion in 2020 and is expected to reach 155 billion in 2021.
  • The data-driven characteristics of programmatic advertising have led buy-side decision-makers to choose this option. Nearly half (48 percent) believe data is the driving force behind their programmatic investments and strategies.
  • Fifty-two percent of publishers state they have sold more than 81 percent of their ads inventory.
  • Video is a leading driver in programmatic advertising. Fifty-four percent of agencies purchased more than 41 percent of their video inventory through programmatic advertising, compared to only 50 percent in 2019.
  • Sixty-eight percent of marketers have stated paid ads are “very important” to their marketing strategy.

These statistics prove programmatic advertising can bring a load of benefits! Here are a few more benefits to leveraging this ad-buying strategy.

Increase Reach

Programmatic buying is supported on numerous ad networks and marketing channels. It lets marketers access private marketplaces or get ad space from thousands of websites with the click of a button.

Since the entire process is automated, advertisers can scale their PPC campaigns with minimum effort while staying within their budget.

More Transparency

Publishers and advertisers can receive real-time information about ad placements and activity. More transparency guarantees every penny is well-spent while simultaneously improving ROAS (Return on Ad Spend).

Target Beyond CTR

A PPC campaign can lead to thousands of impressions and clicks. Yet, these numbers don’t matter if you aren’t generating conversions and increasing sales.

With programmatic advertising, marketers can use advanced ad targeting features. Leveraging website behavior or demographic data lets advertisers reach their intended audience at scale.

Access to Data and Results

Programmatic exchanges provide real-time information on your ad performance. Once you get the insights, you can maximize results by investing in high-performing ads.

If you have subpar ads, then consider modifying them based on data from past campaigns. As long as you know what works and what doesn’t, you can optimize your campaigns and scale fast.

When Should I Use Programmatic Buying in PPC Campaigns?

Programmatic advertising looks promising, but it may not work for everyone. In this section, I’ll discuss when programmatic buying is a good fit.

How to Use Programmatic Buying in PPC Campaigns

  1. Move Beyond the Google Display Network

    If you’re a PPC marketer, you’ve probably used the Google Display Ad Network (GDN) to reach website users. Programmatic buying can help you make the most of it.

    Programmatic buying lets advertisers connect with 80+ additional inventory sources and get placements in sites that were previously inaccessible.

    On top of this, you can reach premium inventory previously considered too small to warrant placement in the GDB or too expensive for direct buys. An example would be ad placements in popular websites like The Wall Street Journal, CNBC, Bloomberg, or Entrepreneur.

  2. Access to First-Party Data

    Marketing strategies often rely on big data to be effective.

    With modern analytical tools, we can easily monitor results and gather information about our customer base.

    Demand-side platforms (where ad buying takes place) can integrate first-party data. This includes data from your customers or audience.

    First-party data can include CRM, social, behavioral, and subscription data.

    As a result, advertisers can launch highly personalized and targeted campaigns. Similar to Facebook campaigns, they can build lookalike audiences that match the profiles of their existing target audience.

    Research-backed data also means you can create content more likely to resonate with your audience. You can also create effective campaigns to get new prospects down the sales funnel.

  3. Personalize Ads

    People are bombarded with ads 24/7 on their phones, in their email, while they watch television.

    Programmatic buying lets advertisers create ads using behavioral targeting and demographic data. Hence, they can connect with their target audience without being spammy or annoying.

    For example, the Intercontinental Hotel Group (IHG), which owns hotel chains like Holiday Inn, used programmatic advertising to compete with Booking.com and Expedia.

    According to their data, consumers opted for their competitor sites because of the myth that they offered better prices. In reality, customers were charged between 15 percent and 30 percent more than the original price.

    The campaign did well because targeted users were more aware of the cost of booking from third-party sites.
    programmatic buying IHG

5 Programmatic Buying Software Options

At this stage, you’re probably wondering how to start with programmatic buying. Let’s take a look at some of the top programmatic buying software options to consider.

Simpli.fi

programmatic buying simpli.fi

Simpli.fi’s programmatic platform lets users efficiently buy targeted impressions or ad inventory from real-time advertising exchanges.

What makes it unique is it lets marketers leverage unstructured data instead of pre-made audience segments. Users can create highly targeted custom audiences based on CRM data, browsing behavior, search history, and geographic location.

You can also use insights to understand audience behavior, and optimize audiences in real-time. This is advantageous for businesses with a huge customer base and tons of data.

For seamless analytics, it has 60+ pre-built reports which lets users easily organize data from campaign results. They also have visualization tools to help you better understand data through graphs, charts, heat maps, and tables.

Adobe Advertising Cloud

programmatic buying adobe experience cloud

Adobe Advertising Cloud offers an independent platform for programmatic buying.

The demand-side platform can plan, optimize, and manage your ad campaigns.

AI pulls audience data so advertisers can launch a paid media strategy that fosters brand awareness. Content creators can also streamline content and build meaningful user experiences.

Budget is a main concern when it comes to running PPC campaigns. With Adobe, users can use AI to analyze data and conduct performance optimization for cost-efficient spending.

AdRoll

programmatic buying adroll

AdRoll’s programmatic platform uses customer intelligence data to identify and target potential leads. It aggregates consumer purchasing behavior on your website so you can understand what works and predict audience reception.

With its powerful analytics capabilities, marketers can send relevant messages to prospects, leading to more engagement and conversions. You can also run omnichannel marketing campaigns and connect with your audience through email, social media, or web across multiple devices.

DoubleClick by Google

programmatic buying google marketing platform

DoubleClick is a programmatic ad platform that automates the ad buying process and effectively runs campaigns in real-time.

Here’s a look at some of its most notable features:

  • DoubleClick Digital Marketing Manager: Built-in intelligence to uncover significant marketing insights on trafficking and reporting. This lets advertisers make data-driven decisions and gain more control of their advertising spend.
  • DoubleClick Bid Manager: This tool helps agencies effectively purchase display media from different ad exchanges in a streamlined platform.
  • DoubleClick Search: Powerful search features provide real-time insights on KPIs and ad performance. Their Ad Data Hub leverages data from Google Ads or your own CRM system to improve your PPC campaigns. By diving into the details, you can make smart bidding decisions and run ads across multiple platforms.
  • DoubleClick Rich Media: Data dashboarding tools streamline information from Google Ads, Analytics, or spreadsheets. Their interactive dashboards also generate easy-to-understand reports so you can communicate results to teams and executives.
  • DoubleClick Studio: Workflow and production tools help marketing teams and media agencies create high-quality and compelling ads which delivers results.
  • Google Analytics: Google Analytics helps users aggregate data to create tailored lists, identify digital touchpoints, and create shareable reports. As you get more information about your company, you can better understand your target audience.

Rubicon Project

programmatic buying rubicon project

Rubicon Project has an automated advertising platform connecting media buyers and publishers from across the globe. Top brands use it to reach over a billion consumers.

The platform centralizes the traditional proposal process and deal negotiation. User-friendly tools and real-time performance analytics capabilities seamlessly consolidate the ad buying process.

Furthermore, insightful reports from their Prebid impression funnel data provide information on page load and impressions across websites and mobile apps.

Conclusion

Programmatic buying lets marketers leverage AI and big data to reach their target audience.

Not only can you identify high-intent consumers, but you can also present ads at the right time and place to maximize results. The automated bidding process speeds up the process, so you can access premium ad inventory with minimal effort.

While it has a lot of benefits, it may not be a good fit for everyone. We highly recommend this solution for advertisers who have maximized the Google Display Ad Network (GDN) or have access to first-party data.

If you want to try it out for yourself, there are multiple platforms that can help you get started in an instant.

How will you use programmatic buying to power up your marketing?