What Is Programmatic Advertising?

Digital marketers are a buzz about programmatic advertising these days, but not all marketers understand exactly what programmatic advertising is and how it differs from other forms of digital advertising. Digital Media Solutions is here to help. In this article, we’ve answered five of the most-searched questions about programmatic advertising. Click on your question below to see the answer.

1. What is programmatic advertising? 
2. What is the difference between display advertising and programmatic advertising?
3. What are the benefits of programmatic marketing? 
4. What are the limitations of programmatic media buying? 
5. How is programmatic different from real-time bidding? 

1. What is programmatic advertising?

While programmatic advertising began as a method to use up remnant media inventory, this type of digital marketing now includes the automated buying and selling of all media, including display, digital outdoor and television.

2. What is the difference between display advertising and programmatic advertising?

Programmatic advertising includes the automated buying and selling of display advertising. But the display advertising market also includes non-automated buying and selling of media space. Therefore, display advertising is a subset of programmatic advertising and programmatic advertising is a subset of display advertising.

3. What are the benefits of programmatic marketing?

Because it is an automated method of buying and selling media space, programmatic marketing offers many technology-related benefits. Programmatic marketing can be:

1. Simple to plan: Programmatic marketing allows advertisers to purchase from several ad exchanges at one time, simplifying the media planning and buying process.
2. Quick to launch: Programmatic marketing campaigns can be launched within minutes.
3. Easy to scale: Programmatic marketing essentially provides advertisers with access to all internet users.
4. Targeted: Programmatic advertising allows advertisers to target individuals as they travel across the internet. Often programmatic campaigns are based on detailed audience profiles. Programmatic marketing even allows advertisers to target lookalike audiences, or people who “look like” their current customers.
5. Personalized: Real-time data can be utilized to update advertising messages and make them relevant for the audience and the location within the purchase funnel.
6. Trackable: Because it’s automated, programmatic marketing offers real-time results tracking, including impressions and conversion rates.
7. Transparent: Programmatic marketing technology offers visibility into the sites on which a brand’s ads were placed, the audience presented with the ad, media costs and advertising performance.

4. What are the limitations of programmatic media buying?

Programmatic media buying technologies and techniques are continuously evolving, and most programmatic media buying limitations of the past, like high minimums for media spend, have been resolved. Advertising fraud, including never-viewed impressions and click bots, is generally considered to be the greatest limitation of programmatic media buying. While blockchain technology has been touted as a potential fix for advertising fraud issues, performance-based optimizations are a more immediate solution for measuring accountability. As explained by Joe Marinucci, CEO of Digital Media Solutions, “If campaigns are appraised in such a manner [based on ROI], practices that artificially raise the cost of media may result in lower ROI. Essentially, those who drive the best results are likely to be the partners you can trust.”

5. How is programmatic different from real-time bidding?

Real-time bidding (RTB) is a sub-set of programmatic advertising. RTB typically happens in a technology-based auction setting that allows media buyers to quickly purchase media space from media sellers. Because the auction happens in real time, the advertisement of the winning media buyer is immediately shown on the web property for which the media space was purchased.

Are you looking to scale your customer acquisition efforts?

Digital Media Solutions (DMS)  can help. Contact DMS today to take your digital marketing to the next level.