Move Over Traditional Display Advertising, Go ‘Programmatic’
Saffron Edge
Apr 23, 2018
6 min read

So, what exactly is ‘Programmatic’?
Programmatic advertising is nothing new but has recently started to woo top level marketers who have now realised it’s true potential. Simply put, programmatic advertising is the automated process of buying and selling of display advertisements by making use of DSP’s, SSP’s, DMP’s and Ad exchanges. Are all these abbreviations going over your head? Let’s look at what they actually are and how they are an integral part of programmatic advertising -DSP’s

SSP’s
SSP’s or supply side platforms help publishers sell available display advertising spaces on their website by connecting them to prospective buyers through DSP’s and ad exchanges.Ad Exchanges
Ad exchange is where the actual buying and selling of advertisement space happens through RTB (real time bidding) or direct buying. Real time bidding is when advertisers place bids on SSP’s for ad spaces of publishers they want to place their advertisements on. Publishers, on the other hand, accept the highest bids from advertisers for their mentioned ad space, all of this happens on Ad exchanges in real-time and inventories are sold and bought in real time through AI. On Ad exchanges, publishers fill up their inventories with impressions and advertisers select a publisher with impressions that appeal most to them and their budget.DMP’s


But why go for Programmatic advertising?
Ok, so now you know exactly what programmatic advertising is and where you need to go to try your hands at it. But, is it worth the effort? Absolutely!
1. Transparent Pricing
As we talked about before, prices on ad inventory is totally based on impressions. Auction-based media pricing model increases impression-level price transparency and there is no way you can game the system. Publishers can’t ask for what their heart desires from advertisers in programmatic advertising.2. Granularity
In programmatic, advertisers can cherry-pick publishers based on impressions and selectively choose only those publishers who align with their target audience.3. Insights
Advertisers can track how their ads are performing in real-time and optimize accordingly, which is great as nothing of this sort was available in the traditional model of advertising. Advertisers can also make use of detailed campaign reports that most DSP’s provide to make better informed decisions in the future.4. Scale
You can spread the marketing wings of your campaign as much as you want with programmatic, ofcourse it all depends on the budget you’ve allocated for display advertising. With programmatic, it can be done easily with a click rather than contacting different publishers for ad space, which was the norm in traditional advertising.5. Control
Programmatic advertising puts you, as an advertiser or publisher, in the driver’s seat as you have the option to select the publishers or advertisers you want, the number of ad spaces you want to buy or sell, the price you’re willing to pay or get for each ad space and if the performance of your bought ads isn’t performing upto your expectations, you can always pull those ads in an instant. With so much of power and publishers at your disposal, it’s quite easy to come across a fraud inventory and misplaced ads. According to WARC, the international authority on media and advertising effectiveness, the fraud rate (assumed) on programmatic spend was as much as 30%.
1. Ad misplacement
Misplaced ads are a great threat to a brand’s image as your ads can be displayed right next to some objectionable content which you’d really not like your brand to be associated with. In the past year, as much as 43% of marketers claimed that they were already facing some reputational problems with programmatic advertising as most of their ads were placed right next to undesired or objectionable content and 37% of them pulled their ads as soon as they found out about it. And it can have some serious repercussions with your target audience as well, as one in five consumers (19.5%) state that they would likely take some direct action against a brand if it’s advertising appeared alongside objectionable content either by completely boycotting the brand (10.5%) or being local about it (9%), according to ANA.2. Ad fraud (clicks & impressions)
ANA’s data show that almost 3 out of every 4 clicks on programmatically purchased 300*600 ‘half page’ ads are fraudulent. On an average, 1 in every 3 clicks on programmatic ads across all platforms and sizes are fraudulent. And this data doesn’t even count fake impressions! ANA also states that the estimated loss of $6.5bn could have been reduced to just $700 million if the entire industry had adhered to their safety guidelines.By following these guidelines, marketers can make use of the full potential of programmatic advertising and save themselves from getting stuck with hollow metrics that portray a fake image of your digital campaigns. As this industry matures further and big players like Google entering into the market, we think that it will be a lot safer for marketers to initiate their programmatic endeavours without any risk of deceit and fraud. If you’d like some more information on programmatic advertising, feel free to contact us.

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