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Digital Advertising Takes On Automation with Programmatic Media

Why advertisers are choosing to spend less and increase efficiency with programmatic media buys

The ad industry is entering an automated world with programmatic media buying. Once thought of as just a fad, more media buyers are looking to programmatic media buying as a necessity in the advertising world. 85 percent of advertisers have reportedly already adopted programmatic buying methods, and 72 percent of publishers support it.

Though it’s always evolving, we define programmatic media buying as using various software and systems to aggregate available inventory and price it based on marketplace demands.

Programmatic media buys often takes ad placements to the next efficiency level, layering data and using advanced algorithms to focus on a specific target audience. Human negotiations and insert orders are a thing of the past. Programmatically purchasing digital ads now saves time and reduces error. The end result is simple: you spend less and increase efficiency.

A major attraction to programmatic media buys is real time bidding (RTB). The International Data Corporation (IDC) predicts RTB spending to increase at a 59 percent annually compounded rate until 2016. With RTB, advertisers can choose specific parameters—audience characteristics, behaviors, type of page content—and bid on impressions that fall within their defined target. RTB helps the programmatic buy with better accuracy, targeting, and affordable costs.

Advertisers can also now purchase an ensured number of impressions from certain publishers at a fixed price, also known as programmatic direct. Though, price negotiation is still human-to-human, so the process is only automated post-purchase.

Are these human interactions during the ad buying process going to continue to dwindle?  Probably not. Sure, programmatic software makes buying and negotiating for ad space simpler and more streamlined, but algorithms cannot provide the sophisticated analysis, customized campaigns, or advanced media plans that the brainpower and intellect from a highly trained media team. Your team might spend less time buying ads, but they will end up doing more planning.

The great debate our media department is always having is between the good and bad effects of programmatic media buys. The good? Increased control and efficiency particularly on mass reach/impression buys. The bad? Programmatic inventory is not always quality inventory. It’s difficult to monitor the exact sites that ads appear on (other than in situations of direct exchanges) and where on the page the unit will be housed.


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