Programmatic advertising is a way to buy and sell ads on websites, before or in between videos on streaming platforms and in apps, based on an algorithm.
The algorithm, or calculation, is based on data about users who visit the sites, stream shows or use apps. The data involves their demographics (age, gender, location and more) and their past digital behavior (sites they visit, shows they watch and more).
Programmatic advertising is a way to buy ads, and sell ad space (if you’re a publisher) without too much human involvement.
At SEO Design Chicago, we make programmatic advertising even better by offering a proprietary tool called the Active Pixel Program. We – a group of tech-savvy people, developed a unique algorithm to make digital ad sales and purchases easier.
Other digital marketing companies don’t offer this.
That said, programmatic advertising works better for some industries than it does others.
Here are the businesses that are best for programmatic advertising.
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First, Understand the Differences Between Demand Side and Supply Side Programmatic Advertising
A demand-side platform (DSP) is a company or arm of a business that allows an advertiser to buy advertising space, i.e. placement on a website, a commercial before or after a video, and more.
DSPs are great because businesses can show their ads across many sites and places while logging in to just one location.
Before DSPs, businesses and advertising agencies had to do a lot of button pressing and calculations to make ads appear on websites or other places.
Display and Video 360 is an example of a DSP that is part of Google’s Marketing Platform. When a company runs an ad through Display and Video 360, you get access to Google’s variety of websites – from Gmail to Youtube – and that of their partner exchanges, which are major third-party websites like:
- 247 Sports
- Amazon
- Ask.com
- BizRate.com
- Dogpile.com
- Excite.com
- Lycos.com
- Target
- The New York Times
- W3Schools
- Walmart
Supply-Side Platforms (SSP) are tools that help publishers manage their advertising spaces. This means SSPs identify places where ads could appear, like banner spots on websites or before apps, and helps find businesses that want to run ads in those places.
SSPs allow publishers to find appropriate digital ads to run by filtering through types of companies, ad format (text, video, etc.), target audience, and other criteria. SSPs also automatically find companies willing to pay what you think the space is worth. An example of a SSP is Google Ad Manager, which helps social, game, and streaming publishers sell ad space to companies.
So What Companies Are Best for Programmatic Advertising?
Do you have ads you want to run to increase brand awareness and boost sales? Or do you want to start an ad campaign with these goals in mind? Then programmatic advertising is for you.
Do you own an app, website, or other type of media? Are you looking to boost your bottom line by running ads from other companies? Then programmatic advertising is for you.
That’s right. At the risk of oversimplifying, everyone in business could benefit from programmatic advertising.
That said, you need to understand programmatic advertising to maximize its benefits. Here’s what every business needs to know to be prepared for programmatic advertising.
The Benefits of Programmatic Advertising
1. Better Return on Investment for Ads at a Reduced Cost
Buying traditional tv and radio ads, or billboards, used to cost a ton of money. The best part of programmatic advertising, and our specialized Active Pixel Program, is that businesses can actually see if an ad is producing results (whether those results are sales, increased phone calls, more web traffic or more) for less money.
Most studies have found that for every $1 spent on digital ads, there’s a $2 ROI.
2. Enhanced Audience Reach
Programmatic advertising isn’t just about appearing under the “sponsored” section of search engine results pages. Programmatic advertising, and our Active Pixel Program, includes having ads appear in places other than Google or social media — like Connected TV (CTV), display, native, and video ads.
3. Allows for Real-Time Bids
One of the major pluses of programmatic advertising is real-time bidding. For years, tv advertisers have given the best advertising slots – like the minutes before the HalfTime Show at the Superbowl – to the highest bidders. Now, online, you can do the same thing, for much less money. Programmatic advertisers allow publishers to secretly set a price for a space. Then the company that is willing to bid closest to that amount gets the prize – running their ad. All of this happens fast though, unlike the advertising process for the Superbowl.
4. Intense Targeting of Audience
With programmatic advertising, companies can run ads that only appear in front of a select group of people, based on things like location, age, gender, household income and more. All of these data points are culled from a user’s online activity and profiles. Companies can even cross-target specific groups, like Mac users in specific zip codes who also use iPhones. A company’s ads can appear before those specific people stream videos on a variety of their devices, from their computers to tvs to phones.
5. But this Targeting is Ethical
That kind of laser focused targeting of ads may seem suspicious at first, but programmatic advertising lets audiences see a message so they know why they’re being shown an ad, and how that ad was placed. Transparency is key in today’s world, and programmatic advertising makes that transparent policy easy to see and understand.
6. Variety of Ad Types
Rather than running only Google ads, or video ads, companies can test multiple formats on multiple devices to identify the media with the highest return on investment. When you see that Hulu ads are working, you can put more ad dollars there, and less in other places.
Some of the various places programmatic ads appear include:
Audio
Programmatic audio means companies can run audible ads during or before podcasts, digital radio songs, and whenever music is streamed.
Connected TV (CTV) Ads
Programmatic Connected TV advertising means spots appear on smart TVs, and video content shown through streaming sticks, and game consoles.
Digital Out-of-Home Ads
Programmatic Out-of-Home advertising means ads are shown on digital billboards, digital screens, and other physical spaces.
Display Ads
Programmatic display advertising means companies can show content on websites, apps, and social media platforms.
But What About the Downsides?
Life isn’t perfect. We wish it was. While we’re huge proponents of programmatic advertising, and the unique spin we put on it with our Active Pixel Program, we do want to point out some things that may give some businesses pause.
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Ad Fraud
Since it’s easy for websites to sell ad space, and charge on a pay per click model, some bad characters have used bots to to repeatedly click on ads on websites they own. That means the advertisers – if they’re not savvy – pay for impressions that aren’t real.
Our proprietary service, the Active Pixel Program, helps weed out websites that click on ads that use bots. We’ve found that it’s easy to detect some ad fraud with our technology.
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Backlash Against Tracking With Cookies
Programmatic advertising works because you can target specific customers according to demographics and each specific users’ internet habits. But people are increasingly concerned about privacy, and being tracked by companies.
Our Active Pixel Program includes a transparent tracking policy. We don’t want to trick you, our clients, or your clients. We also have found innovative ways to collect information without violating digital ethics.
We can tell you more about it when we chat.
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Some Companies Are Still Nervous
It’s hard to let go of old school thinking that you were born and raised with. But programmatic advertising is the future, and it’s not just limited to display ads in search engine results pages.
Programmatic advertising today is moving to smart phones, and has branched into connected TV.
Programmatic advertising will make up over 90% of US digital display advertising in 2024, per a December 2023 EMARKETER forecast.
Don’t miss out on the future. It’s happening today. Reach out to us at SEO Design Chicago to learn more about our Active Pixel Program. Our Google Reviews speak for themselves. We’ve helped loads of clients increase their sales and expand their online presence. Let us help you next!
Contact Us Today!