Programmatic marketing has become much more popular as of late, but still, not everyone knows about it, and many advertisers who would benefit from the process do not understand it completely, which prevents them from using it. In this article, we will be looking in-depth at programmatic marketing, including how the process works, and what sorts of benefits a marketer can get from it.
What is Programmatic Marketing?
Let’s start with defining exactly what programmatic marketing is. Programmatic marketing, or programmatic advertising, is the process of using automation to buy advertising. A software program is used to buy advertising automatically, based upon the options that you set and what is available on the market.
Programmatic marketing is actually one of the emerging technologies that are likely to change the entire state of buying and selling ads forever. The future looks bright for programmatic marketing, and the practice has grown exponentially over the last few years. The way that programmatic marketing is done requires a more detailed explanation which we will get to shortly. But at the most basic level, programmatic marketing or programmatic advertising is when a buyer uses software to automatically by the ad space that they need and at the prices that they set beforehand.
Benefits of Programmatic Marketing
There are number of benefits of programmatic marketing. The first is that you save a great deal of time by automating the process. If you are someone who does a lot of marketing, and you find yourself spending lots of time searching for the perfect ad, and at the price that you have budgeted for, then you will probably benefit a great deal from programmatic marketing. In addition, because you are able to set the price yourself and then search for the ad that matches that price, many people are able to save money by using programmatic techniques. But the main benefit of programmatic marketing is that you are able to target your ads so specifically. This means that you get a lot more bang for your buck.
The Process of Programmatic Marketing
The process of programmatic marketing starts with the demand-side platform, or DSP. The demand-side platform is what the buyer uses to buy their advertising. You will build a set up your account, tell the program what sort of ads you need, where you would like to place them, what sort of budget you have in mind and a huge number of other options that allow you to customize your ad buying and then turned the program loose.
On the other side of programmatic marketing is the person selling the ad space. These people use what is known as a supply-side platform, or SSP. The supply-side platform allows them to list their ad spaces and automate the process on their end just the same as you are automating the process on yours; the demand-side platform and the supply-side platform work together to connect buyers and sellers that have the same needs or prices in a way that really is impossible if you do it manually.
In addition, part of the appeal of programmatic marketing is that you are able to customize the types of ads that you run and target them to a very specific audience. It doesn’t really matter how specific you want to get, because the programmatic marketing platforms have so many different options available that buyers and sellers are usually able to be matched up without too many problems. The way that your targeting is done is through a software program called a DMP, which stands for data management platform.
One of the misconceptions about the way that programmatic marketing works is that all advertising is real-time advertising. Real-time advertising includes bidding for ads, something that is available within the programmatic marketing platform, but there are a lot of other options as well. Real-time advertising is only a fraction of the long list of options that you have whenever you use a demand-side platform to create an ad.
You are able to configure just about everything when it comes to the type of ads that you want in the way that you are targeting them. You can choose what sort of ads go to which people, as well as times that you want your ads displayed, or cut off periods. The goal of programmatic marketing is to get the right ad to the right person at exactly the right time.
The Growth of Programmatic Advertising
This tool first began as a way to manage left over advertising. However, it is become one of the standard tools used to buy and sell ads in many parts of the world. For example, in the UK, around 75% of the ad revenue received is due to programmatic advertising. Programmatic marketing is not quite as prevalent in other parts of the world, but it is growing. One of the reasons why growth is been slow in some parts is that there is a learning curve associated with using programmatic advertising. One example of this is the use of acronyms such as the ones described above.
But people are also reluctant about trusting a software program when it comes to spending their money. When it comes to any emerging technology, it takes people a while to warm up. But because of the many benefits that come from using programmatic advertising, more and more people are starting to use the platform. Of course, it still has a long way to go and there are a lot of considerations. Mostly, this type of advertising is used for web advertising including mobile devices, but in the future that could change as the Internet and all of the other consumable media become more intertwined.
Summary
Programmatic marketing is a method of using computer software to buy ads automatically without having to do very much manual work. The goal of programmatic marketing is to allow the buyer to target specific people at the price that they want to pay with their ad and try to get matched up with sellers automatically. Programmatic marketing is growing a lot all over the world and is looking like one of the major changes that are going to happen to digital marketing and advertising in the future.
Programmatic marketing has a number of benefits including being able to save the buyer time and money. The way the process works is by having the buyer use what is called the demand-side platform in order for them to set up their options and by advertising. On the other hand, sellers use the supply-side platform to show what they are offering.
