Programmatic buying - smart purchase of media advertising. What is programmatic advertising really?

Why use programmatic buying?

Display advertising is one of the most popular ways to promote on the Internet, but if you negotiate with each site separately, the process of placing such advertising will turn into a rather monotonous and time-consuming task. According to eConsultancy 's calculations, it used to take about 42 steps to place ads on the right resources. The first ad networks were created to simplify this process, and today programmatic can be considered the pinnacle of automation in advertising.

Programmatic - model for

purchases,
sales,
online advertising optimization,

when all processes are automated as much as possible in order to convey the right message to the right client at the right time.

Programmatic buying allows advertising buyers to make transactions in a fully automatic mode without manual manipulations, price discussions, signing contracts. Automation improves efficiency by reducing costs and improving the quality of an advertising campaign.

Many advertisers in Runet are in no hurry to delve into working with programmatic platforms, thinking that this trend will not become a “must-have” soon. Meanwhile, automated buying is on its way to dominating the world of display advertising. According to eMarketer, by 2017, 83% of all media will be software.

According to a survey by Circle Research, 37% of professionals believe that programmatic will become the main mode of advertising placement, and 55% of those surveyed agree that automated purchases will be an important part of digital advertising.

So how does programmatic work?

In the programmatic ecosystem, on the one hand, there are platforms that provide the interests of advertising platforms and try to sell space on the site more profitably, and on the other hand, there are services aimed at selecting and purchasing the most profitable placements for the advertiser. Who is who?

Web publisher representatives

SSP (Sell Side Platform). These platforms have a number of optimization tools to help them trade more profitably for their clients. SSPs work on the RTB system (the auction takes place in a fraction of a second while the user opens the web page) or through direct sales.

2. Ad Networks - A network that aggregates ad placements and matches them to advertiser requirements.

Advertiser representatives

1. DSP (Demand Side Platforms). The main goal of the platforms is to buy impressions for the most targeted user at the lowest price. They work on various advertising models (RTB and direct sales) and help advertisers to purchase ads with a favorable price-quality ratio.

2. ATD (Agency Trading Desk)— DSP add-on for configuring advertising purchase settings. Most Trading Desks operate for a subscription fee or a percentage of advertising. The DSP manager participates in the auction itself, which compares the advertising purchase parameters set by advertisers and information from other platforms of the programmatic eco-system.

Where do advertisers and web publishers meet?

Ad exchanges Ad Exchange - intermediaries in the digital advertising trade. This is where offers from web publishers and requests from advertisers meet.

When users browse websites, enter search queries, download files, or make purchases, they leave digital footprints. The user here is understood to be a unique cookie identifier, and not a first name and last name and passport data, so privacy laws and common sense are respected. For example, a person can be conditionally classified as a car enthusiast if he regularly visits portals / sections of portals and forums dedicated to this topic.

Of great value are more complex "bundles" of data with each other, including offline information (for example, shopping, visiting restaurants, gas stations, traveling to other countries).

What is DMP?

As the amount of diverse data grows, there is a need for their complex processing. To do this, separate data management structures are built - DMP (Data Management Platforms), which provide the built audience segments to the market for a commission from each impression using their data.

Why is it beneficial to use programmatic buying?

Organization IAB Poland conducted in 2015 a survey of agencies and publishers who use programmatic. A question about the benefits of this ad buying/selling model revealed that advertisers valued precise audience targeting, time savings, and the ability to optimize ad campaigns most of all.
Let's consider some points in more detail.

An advertiser can search for target users using targeting according to the following criteria:

demographic data;
behavioral data;
by intention;
by location.

One of the “chips” of programmatic is the search for duplicates of your users.

For example, if your client loves bowling and cats, then the system will find similar ones. Thus, you can not only expand the audience, but also show ads to the same user on different devices.

Programmatic platforms allow you to segment the audience, personalize messages, use flexible settings and quickly make changes to active advertising campaigns.

Most of the marketers in the ExchangeWire study agreed that programmatic helps you get quality services at a good price.

Programmatic buying is often mistakenly equated with real-time trading (RTB). The ratio of RTB to programmatic is well shown in the Auditorius infographic:
RTB is just part of a larger trend towards automated ad buying. This is an auction that takes place in a fraction of a second while the user is loading a page on the site.

Another very popular type of programmatic purchasing is Programmatic Direct. Using it, you can purchase ads using programmatic platforms directly from a web publisher, but bypassing the exchange and auction.

eMarketer predicts that direct buying will skyrocket in popularity, to 52% of all programmatic spending in 2015.

I asked experts for which industries programmatic buying is most effective.

In principle, programmatic buying is suitable for all industries. The first to use it will be those industries where the competition is highest, or those that will be most affected by the crisis. This is the specificity of domestic business: "until the thunder breaks out, the peasant will not cross himself."

Fear. Advertisers are intimidated by hiring and training employees, choosing and adopting technologies, and not being able to predict whether programmatic buying will be cost-effective.
The root of evil is ignorance of the system, the principles of its functioning and possible outcomes . In other words, the laziness of clients and agencies to understand and work. And these are the results of a study in Poland, where the popularity of programmatic is an order of magnitude higher than in Runet.

I learned from the experts what they think prevents buying targeted ads in real time through automated systems in Runet.

K50 :

This is not to say that programmatic does not develop. It is growing, and quite fast. However, several years ago, many experts predicted much greater growth for this segment.
But almost all technology falls short of short-term expectations. One may recall the railroad bubble of 1846. It will take quite a long time for the market to digest this rather complex tool, until a sufficient number of experienced specialists appear. The situation is aggravated by the fact that the market is now "digesting" many other instruments. Starting from dynamic remarketing, ending with the transition to performance marketing.

I see several main reasons.
Firstly, the programmatic procurement market in Runet is developing and growing, but slowly. To date, there are several strong platforms: Soloway, Hybrid, Kavanga, Auditorius, Segmento, Hubrus and so on. But advertising agencies and partners do not have a trained team to quickly move from an ad network model to a full-fledged programmatic platform. Therefore, there are few agencies working with Programmatic buying.
Second, a minimal level of knowledge about all the accessibility features of programmatic ad buying slows down market development. Too little specific information - cases, statistics, expertise, data. These technologies are still being tested by many advertising agencies and partners. To work effectively, this technology requires the attention of a trained team, special experience in planning and running campaigns. Advertisers and sites test programmatic purchases, analyze and compare the results of their work. It will take some time to figure it out.
Thirdly, the algorithmic procurement market is more likely for a large client. And most of the large clients have already learned how to work with this tool and are well aware of what tasks programmatic solves best.

Effective work with automated ad buying largely depends on which platform you will work with. In the West, the most popular platforms for working with programmatic are Google Ad Manager, AppNexus and Rubicon.
To choose the right platform for your business, you should pay attention to several important aspects:

audience coverage (will you be able to show ads to the right users);
targeting options (make sure the toolkit of the chosen platform is flexible and precise enough to find your target audience);
cost (most platforms are paid and have a certain entry threshold for advertisers; the main indicator is the advertising budget);
transparency guarantees (the platform must protect the advertiser from fraudulent traffic - when ads do not reach real people, and views and clicks appear due to bots).
ad visibility.

Key Steps to Success with Programmatic

Google has identified five key steps for working effectively with automated ad buying.

First step. Understand the audience

Audience data is the foundation for further work with advertising. It is necessary to collect and analyze the maximum amount of data on all points of contact and interaction of target users.

Second step. Create compelling designs

traditional banner;
dynamic HTML5 format declarations;
video and so on.

Third step. Use integration

Working with powerful programmatic platforms, you can get one campaign management center and unified reporting across all channels, devices and formats. This advantage must be used in order to effectively work with the audience.

Fourth step. Catch the user on any screen

Automated purchases should be used in a way that will engage your audience at any time, on any screen or channel. Thus, the advertiser can catch the right micro-moment when the advertisement will really influence the decision.

Fifth step. Assess user impact

Cross-media and growing budgets for mobile advertising

Along with the growing popularity and frequency of use of smartphones, the approach to digital marketing is transforming. According to eMarketer forecast, purchase of mobile programmatic ads in current year will account for 60.5% of all spending on automated advertising purchases.

Outdoor advertising

In 2016, Google began testing programmatic technologies in outdoor advertising. The system analyzes information about the weather, user movements, local events, and displays the most relevant advertising.
Also, leading programmatic players are aiming for integration with large TV channels.

Expert opinions.

By itself, programmatic is unlikely to change anything in the near future. But the increase in the number of channels will lead to an even greater division of labor in Internet marketing. Smaller studios will find it harder to compete with larger ones. On the other hand, the zoo of channels increases the need for intermediate services that can manage multiple channels at once. For example, Marin Software and Adobe AdLense.

Now in-house programmatic, programmatic video and programmatic mobile are actively developing, success awaits those companies that have already begun to move in these areas of development. Breakthroughs last year in expanding automated buying of traditional formats—out of the home, print, and TV—point to a future in which any media channel can be purchased through programmatic.

conclusions

People will continue to make major strategic decisions about targeting and optimization. And work with some advertising formats, for example, video, as a whole, is still not automated enough. We summarize:

Programmatic is a model of buying, selling, advertising optimization with maximum automation of all processes.
To convey the right message to the right client at the right time, programmatic work is based on the interaction of different platforms and systems. These include representatives of web publishers - SSP and Ad Networks, representatives of advertisers - DSP and Trading Desk, the "meeting place" of the first and second - Ad Exchange.
The main benefits of automated ad buying are precise audience targeting, time savings, and the ability to optimize ad campaigns in real time.
Most of all, the introduction of programmatic is hindered by ignorance of the system, the principles of its functioning and possible results.
When choosing an advertising platform to work with programmatic, it is worth considering audience coverage, targeting options, cost of use, guarantees of transparency and visibility of ads.
Effective programmatic advertising campaigns require understanding the audience, using persuasive ads that are adapted to different devices, remembering the benefits of integration, and the need to measure the impact of ads.
The main programmatic trends are the growth of mobile and video advertising, as well as going beyond traditional gadgets to billboards and city lights.

Do you work with software?

Realweb CEO's column

To bookmarks

Elizaveta Semyonova, Head of Procurement and Management of Auction Display Advertising at Realweb, wrote a column for the website about the structure of the Russian market for automated advertising purchases programmatic buying. Semenova talked about how the agency can work with this technology, why it will need its own platform for buying ads Trading Desk, and why it is important to strive for control over campaign management.

At the origins of programmatic

Initially, the whole programmatic technology threw a big challenge to Russian advertising agencies. Programmatic demanded that they revise their internal structure, as well as change their approach to media buying and media planning.

Mediplanners in the traditional sense are becoming unnecessary, they are being replaced by programmatic strategists and a lot of phrases of three capital letters - SSP, DSP, DMP, ATD. Western experience shows that programmatic can free the best minds of the agency from routine work and even reduce transaction costs. The only question remains how to make all this “technological programmatic” work in Russian agencies. Changes within the agency are indispensable here, but is everyone ready for this?

How an agency can become a member of the programmatic ecosystem

Let's focus on the two main players in the ecosystem (seller and buyer) and define how an ad agency fits into it.

The seller in the RTB ecosystem is SSP-systems (Sell Side Platform), which represent the interests of advertising platforms. SSP puts up for sale a lot containing information about the user and the Internet site. Potential buyers of the exposed lot are DSP-systems (Demand Side Platform), they, in turn, represent the interests of advertisers.

If the DSP is interested in showing ads to a given user, it makes a bid. If you win, ads will be shown. The agency just makes purchases in the ecosystem through the DSP. But working with just one DSP, especially on the Russian market, is completely unprofitable - this can greatly narrow the boundaries of the inventory available for purchase.

Therefore, agencies need to work with at least a few lead DSPs. But here a problem arises: each DSP has its own interface for managing and analyzing data, which significantly increases the agency's labor costs when working with them. Great solution this problem becomes the Trading Desk.

On the way to creating Agency Trading Desk

In the narrowest sense, Trading Desk (TD) is a programmatic infrastructure add-on that interacts via API with one or more DSPs. The main advantage is the management and analysis of data through a single interface.

When working with TD, the agency also has two options. You can choose a ready-made solution on the market or create your own ATD (Agency Trading Desk). The first solution is less expensive, but it carries fewer opportunities for the agency. The creation of ATD is much more promising, but only large market players can afford it. The main components of ATD are a special team working with this tool and the presence of its own DMP (Data Management Platform), which provides agency clients with access to unique audience targeting.

In the West, agencies have long recognized the importance of creating their own ATDs. For example, Omnicom Media Group has the Accuen platform, WPP has Xaxis, and MDC has Varick Media Management. There is even a successful case of spinning off ATD into a separate company, such as Havas' AdNetik.

Let me share our experience. When working with programmatic, we took a more difficult path, namely, to create our own ATD. The question of the need to use TD arose almost immediately, when the number of DSPs we used became more than three.

It is problematic for a specialist to effectively run a large number of programmatic campaigns when it is necessary to move from one system to another to track results. It is especially difficult with this approach to fulfill the KPIs set by the client. The complexity is also caused by the fact that at the moment in the interface of most DSPs there is no way to highlight KPI indicators against the background of other performance indicators.

That is, by entering the interface, you will see all the statistics for the campaign. And you will first need time to remember what KPI this particular campaign has, and then understand how it corresponds to the required value. ATD solves this problem too. For each programmatic campaign, we see KPI in real time, as well as possible deviations from the plans of values, which greatly simplifies the work on the implementation of KPI.

Why didn't we choose ready-made TDs. Firstly, because at the time the need arose on the Russian market, there were simply no systems operating on the selfservice model. And after their appearance, when studying all the possibilities, we were faced with the fact that the number of DSPs connected to them is very limited. And at the moment we use a lot more DSPs ourselves.

Also, if we are talking about pricing, then we need to understand that a third-party TD is another additional intermediary on the way to buying inventory, both for the agency and for the advertiser.

Choosing a full service or self service agency

Let's say an agency broke into the programmatic ecosystem. Then he has a choice: full service or self service.

Full service- this is a model of work in which all setting up, planning and optimization of an advertising campaign for agency clients is carried out by DSP or TD specialists.

self service- This is a model of work in which the conduct and management of campaigns is completely concentrated in the hands of an advertising agency through DSP, TD or ATD.

Which model is chosen by Russian agencies

Most agencies in our market are just getting started with programmatic and work with one or more DSPs in a full service model. The other half gets to know TD. But here the full service model also prevails. In defense of advertising agencies, it is worth noting that so far there is a very limited number of TD offers on the Russian market, and those that do exist often promote full service.

This is due to the imperfection of the systems and the impossibility of their complete transition to automation. Only a few agencies have already created or are working on the implementation of their own ATD for full-fledged work from programmatic to self service model.

no clear understanding of the campaign settings;
there is no possibility to quickly make any changes;
there is no work with post-click data.
Perhaps the most significant disadvantage that follows from the previous ones is that we cannot fully influence the result of the campaign in order to achieve the KPIs set by the client. That is why we chose to work on the self-service model.

Danger for agencies that prefer to work on a full service model

Firstly, this approach kills the whole point of programmatic. The agency still retains a department with a traditional approach to media planning. Launching a programmatic campaign in this case is no different from launching campaigns in previously popular banner networks. The same reservations, sending creatives for installation, a report on the past advertising campaign after its completion.

Secondly, the agency is not able to accumulate the necessary expertise for further planning and optimization of programmatic campaigns.

Thirdly, as such, there is no optimization on the part of agency specialists at all, and any advertising requires a human touch, even when it comes to programmatic.

The agency receives a certain black box, does not know and does not understand what is inside its own programmatic campaign. It's good if, with this approach, the agency got a conscientious programmatic partner who is sincerely interested in the effectiveness of each advertising campaign, regardless of its budget and client name, but what if not?

Unfortunately, the choice of such a model for working with programmatic can lead to the death of the technology on the Russian market. Let's not forget that mediocre results are primarily the result of poor leadership and management, not bad technology.

If we look at Western cases of agencies working with programmatic, we can see the emergence of a separate class of specialized advertising agencies that work only on self-service. They combine advanced programmatic technology with professional marketing experience.

Inside is ATD and a team of programmatic strategists. Through a single ATD interface, agency specialists manage all promotion channels at once using knowledge of the interests and behavior of users, with the ability to configure a single frequency between channels. This allows you to build complex media strategies.

The ideal option for a programmatic advertising campaign is when a user views ads on TV, and then sees the continuation of the same advertisement on his desktop computer. As a result, he becomes interested, so when he opens his smartphone, he is offered to install a mobile application of the same brand, and on the street he turns his attention to a billboard.

How can an agency work according to the self service model?

The client from the agency should receive a full-fledged strategy and full competence, and not just impressions purchased using programmatic technology. All this is achievable only according to the self service model.

1. Definition of KPI

You need to start with an understanding of the main KPIs of the client, that is, the choice of indicators that will determine the effectiveness of this advertising campaign.

It is important here that the KPIs chosen are measurable and achievable. Otherwise, the campaign will end in customer disappointment. An example from our practice: a large developer whose main KPI is calls. But at the same time, on the client side, there is a problem with measuring them and determining their source, since the developer does not have a call tracking system installed.

Under such conditions, KPI "calls" cannot be accepted for work, it is not measurable. Prior to the full establishment of the call tracking system, we chose an alternative KPI - the percentage of active users on the client's website (a qualitative characteristic of the audience), which we determine based on Google Analytics data.

2. DSP selection

Next, the agencies move on to choosing DSPs that can solve the tasks. The main platforms have a fairly comparable set of functionality, but when they are carefully examined, the unique features of most DSPs can be identified. This is where the work on self service helps, which allows you to touch all the "insides" of the DSP and explore the possibilities from and to.

For example, one DSP can have a large amount of video inventory and non-standard media advertising formats (including Rich media, which is necessary for image advertising campaigns). Others can be tailored to work with dynamic remarketing, which already allows you to solve the tasks of performance marketing. You also need to try to minimize the overlap between the inventory you buy in different DSPs in order to prevent situations where you are bargaining with yourself.

3. Selection of audience data

Once the list of DSPs able to solve the given KPIs is determined by the agency, attention moves to the selection of classroom data available within the selected DSPs. It also requires agency expertise, since not all data is equal. It is necessary to select the most relevant audience lists for the tasks at hand, as well as reliable data providers with a transparent and understandable scheme for collecting data and justifying their value.

In practice, several relevant lists from different suppliers are often selected in parallel, and the most effective of them are determined during the advertising campaign. One ready solution when working with data does not exist - each time an individual approach is needed.

4. Selection of metrics for KPI evaluation

Next, you need to make sure that the DSP has all the necessary metrics to measure the set KPIs, since each goal has its own metrics. An agency cannot measure the effectiveness of video and remarketing campaigns with the same metrics.

5. Creation of creatives

Do not forget about the importance of creativity - this is where programmatic opens great opportunities for designers. In programmatic, almost every advertising campaign is simultaneously aimed at different audience groups of users. And the agency can increase the effectiveness of campaigns by several times by showing creatives tailored to the interests of each of the audience groups.

A good example is the case study from DoubleClick and Netflix. The task was to promote the Narcos series among an audience with different interests and languages. It was necessary to reach American, Colombian and Brazilian audiences. With the help of Google creatives and designers, every component of the ad was dynamic. The language, content, and even button sizes changed depending on the country to which the user belonged.

6. Advertising campaign analytics

Since everything happens programmatically in real time, analytics must also be timely. A programmatic strategist must quickly respond to deviations from the set KPIs even during the advertising campaign, understand the effectiveness of each audience list and each creative. At the same time, it is important to take into account not only pre-click indicators, but also post-click data.

Quite often, programmatic marketing (or algorithmic advertising buying) is predicted to have a bright future, and these predictions are easy to believe:

according to Google, next year 60% of all online advertising budgets will be spent in this way;
According to Forrester, the majority of all digital advertising spending over the next few years will be for .

The only thing that can prevent this trend from spreading is the lack of marketers' awareness of the process itself and their unwillingness to abandon past methods of buying ads in favor of the complex but often more effective automatic bidding process used in programmatic marketing. In this situation, a small material introducing the essence of this concept will be extremely useful for Internet marketers and advertisers, and it should begin with the definition of the term programmatic digital marketing itself.

This article will also look at the benefits of programmatic advertising and the opportunities it offers.

What is programmatic marketing?

The term "programmatic" today is perceived as a synonym for online advertising, but despite its popularity, many still have trouble understanding true value of this concept and the mechanism of programmatic advertising in the context of display and video advertising.

Since this type of marketing is a collection of methods for buying ads using automated systems based on data on target users (the choice of an advertisement is made based on the results of an auction during page load), it may seem extremely sophisticated, but if reduced to simplest form, then the concept will become clearer.

So, programmatics is a set of methods for purchasing advertising on the Internet using automated systems (robots) and algorithms for making decisions about a transaction without the participation of a person (buyer) in real time (RTB), which provides the ability to show an ad to a specific client in a specific context.

Many people mistakenly think of programmatic as a strategy or even a channel. In fact, it is neither. Programmatic is a methodology; a method of conducting advertising campaigns that allows you to increase the relevance and performance of ad impressions, and not just ensures the selection of the most appropriate place and format for displaying them.

The programmatic approach assumes that the purchase of advertising space is carried out automatically, often in real time, using robots and algorithms. Programmatic advertising is the automation of the advertising process, which is traditionally carried out through phone calls, faxes, and face-to-face meetings. Programmatic allows marketers to reach out to new and existing audiences with content that enriches rather than hinders it.

This is very different from traditional media planning, which first determines the type of audience that the ad will be directed to, then selects the media channels that match this audience, purchases a certain amount of advertising space, and then launches the campaign.

Before the advent of programmatic methodology, just buying ads in itself was quite a costly undertaking: before launching a campaign, a marketer needed to spend many hours figuring out which ad platform to choose, given its cost and potential effectiveness, and how long to use it .

How does programmatic marketing work?

When a user opens a page with an ad space on it that is configured for programmatic ad buying, the page owner notifies the ad market that an ad can be shown on that site to a specific user. An auction is held among advertisers interested in showing an ad to this particular customer. There can be many participants in the auction, but only the one whose bid is the highest wins, and it is his ad that will be shown to this user after the page is loaded.

Since the process is automated, and the maximum price each advertiser is willing to bid for showing an ad is pre-determined, it only takes a few milliseconds for the auction to take place, so it takes place right at the time the page loads.

The diagram below is a visual representation of the interactions of all participants in programmatic marketing from brand to customer, with a detailed description of each step that exists between them.

Brand(who wants to buy ads) will work with media agency (Agency) for planning and managing advertising campaigns. Here the selection of channels and the development of advertisements are carried out (although for the latter, some brands attract additional agencies).

Trading Desk is a tool for searching for an advertising space that is advantageous in terms of price / quality ratio and is used for real-time display in the media.

DSP(Demand-Side Platform, an auction system for advertisers) is used to gain access to advertising exchanges (Ad Exchanges, an open marketplace that facilitates the buying and selling of advertisements) and advertising networks (Ad Networks, companies representing several websites and having established relationships with advertisers and resource owners (publishers) to sell advertising space on websites).

All these networks are connected to SSP(Supply-Side Platform, platforms for RTB trading from the sites), where resource owners, publishers (those who sell advertising space) sell ads to brands.

DSP and SSP exchange information in real time to enable search suitable friend friend of advertising sites and advertisers.

What result? Brands get the opportunity to display their ads on publisher sites at an affordable price and a predetermined (targeted) audience. In programmatic, all the actions described above are performed automatically, using algorithms.

What are the benefits of programmatic marketing?

Advertising in itself is very useful for brands, as it allows them to reach out to new and targeted audiences with interesting offers, draw their attention to their content, products, and so on. What is the value of programmatic technology besides purely advertising benefits?

Programmatic marketing provides whole line benefits that would not exist if advertising were hand-bought, as was the case in the past. First, programmatic allows advertisers to purchase seats without prior price negotiation, so they only pay for the relevant impression they actually receive. They can also set a minimum number of impressions or a maximum budget they are willing to spend, making programmatic marketing more flexible. In addition, advertisers make purchases through owners, which reduces administrative costs.

But a simpler and more flexible ad buying process isn't the whole point of programmatic marketing. Since the auctions are held separately for each person loading a page on the site, the opportunities improve. The use of user databases allows programmatic technologies to quite accurately determine which advertisements will arouse interest in a particular group of visitors or a particular user, and display them on the sites most popular with the audience and at the most convenient time for them, increasing the chances of conversion. .

More specifically, programmatic is superior to traditional advertising in the following ways:

efficiency- automation and the use of algorithms can reduce the degree of human involvement in creating and running campaigns, allowing digital marketers to focus more on solving strategic problems, and companies to spend resources more economically;
precise audience targeting- customer data can be segmented for different reasons to create more efficient and more effective target audience groups;
real time trading- the system allows thousands of publishers and brands to interact with each other at the same time, providing a much larger scale for the process of buying advertising space. Thanks to the bidding system, any brand gets the opportunity to place its advertising content on any site;
flexibility— the characteristics of target audiences and the amount of spent budgets can be changed without much difficulty, which allows you to optimize advertising campaigns and get the most out of them quickly enough.

All of these benefits mean that programmatic provides the best way to deliver advertising messages to potential customers.

Methods

When developing a programmatic strategy, the first thing you need to decide is who your audience is and what you plan to achieve by talking directly to them. Programmatic advertising is not limited to any one goal and can be used to achieve different results. Despite the fact that many consider conversion to be the main purpose of advertising, in fact it can be used throughout the entire customer journey.

1. Raising awareness (prospecting campaigns)- search campaigns aimed at attracting the attention of potential customers to the company. Their main goal is to raise about the company among the audience that has not yet visited your site. Clearly, campaigns should be implemented in the form of compelling ads and intriguing messages, and be targeted to potential customers, who can be reached by forming audience segments based on the analysis of the behavior of existing customers. Campaigns can be focused on increasing reach and performance. The effectiveness of search campaigns is usually measured by indicators such as , and . Campaigns are optimized throughout the process to make sure that the audience that your ads reach will react to them. As with all campaigns, it's really important to ensure that the branding of your ads matches your site's landing page: when a customer clicks on an ad, they expect to see a similarly designed page.

2. Retargeting (remarketing)- a method in which campaigns are aimed at reaching those people who have already honored your site with their visit, but have not bought anything. The goal is to convert these users into buyers by showing them more relevant and attractive advertising messages as they surf the web. First party data (the advertiser's own data) is used to form segments based on customer behavior (for example, time spent on specific pages). An example of effective retargeting would be the following scenario: a user visits an online fashion store and opens a page with red sneakers, staying on it for a certain amount of time, but leaves it without buying anything. Later, when browsing, this user will now and then come across ads advertising this store or specifically these sneakers. The whole process is aimed at converting users interested in the company's products into customers.

Channels

A description of a programmatic methodology would not be complete without an overview of the channels in which it can be implemented. A channel is the medium through which brands communicate their messages to an audience. AT last years the number and quality of available channels has increased significantly, in part due to the emergence of new and improved technologies. Let's take a look at the most popular digital advertising channels and how they should be used.

Display advertising

This format is also known as banner advertising and is probably one of the most popular advertising channels: you can see banner ads of all sizes and shapes all over the web. The purpose of such advertising is to broadcast messages, general or targeted (depending on the chosen methodology or strategy), to website visitors. These ads are interactive, and clicking on them takes the user to or the advertiser's website that is relevant to the text of the ad.

Video advertising

Video is getting more and more popular. advertising format, especially in those campaigns aimed at increasing brand awareness and reaching new audiences. While not a new channel, brands are finding more and more ways to use it these days. Video advertising can take many forms:

1. In-stream advertising is a video ad that interrupts the video content being consumed by the user (an example would be an ad that is shown to you before a YouTube video). The videos usually last about 30 seconds, they can be rewindable or non-rewindable. They are divided into pre-rolls (demonstrated before the video), mid-rolls (interrupt content) and post-rolls (after the video).

2. Out-stream advertising refers to video ads embedded in the content of the site and which are either revealed when reading the article (in-read) or are in the banner display slot (in-display). More recent developments in video advertising have made it possible to use dynamic interactive videos that you can embed in your responsive websites and allow users to interact with them by expressing their reactions to the video content shown to them.

Native advertising

This is a paid type of advertising, the visual appearance of which copies the environment in which it appears. As a result, the advertisement is perceived not as an advertisement, but as part of the site, due to which users are more willing to interact with it.

Social media

This is an actively growing channel that provides the opportunity for both paid advertising and organic promotion of your content. Social advertising refers to any content in social network, which is placed there for a fee. Ads can stand on their own as promoted posts or as part of broader paid campaigns. The format, characteristics and criteria of social advertising depend on the social network used.

Ad campaigns don't have to be limited to a single channel and can be designed to combine different formats to maximize reach, views and performance throughout the customer journey, from awareness to purchase.

Programmatic ads and ad blockers

With the ubiquity of programmatic advertising, users are increasingly aware that their personal data is being used by advertising platforms. As a rule, this explains the increased interest of the audience in several times over the past couple of years. The reasons for using blockers depend on the user's personal problems and country of residence. Below is the state of the ad blocker market for 2017/18:

The number of devices using ad blockers on the Internet (green - desktop browsers, red - mobile browsers)

Reasons why users resort to ad blockers:

30% for security reasons, 29% for frequent interruptions, 16% for avoiding slowdowns, 14% for too many ads, 6% for privacy reasons, 4% for poor capping

Static banner ads and skippable videos are viewed positively, native ads are neutral, and auto-play audio ads and non-scrolling videos are negative.

The growing concern of users about the security of personal data is forcing marketers to look for new approaches to the audience and turn to new advertising formats. Some site owners completely block access to the resource for those users who use blockers. However, limiting the number of impressions of remarketing ads avoids giving the audience the feeling of being "harassed", which can be more effective in building trust with users and eliminating negative attitudes towards online advertising.

Programmatic Marketing Spending in the World

At the end of 2017, it became known that advertisers spent about £3.39 billion on programmatic advertising. This is 23.5% more than a year earlier. According to MarketingTech, programmatic spending today accounts for 79% of all online advertising spend in the UK.

According to a study by the World Federation of Advertisers, programmatic marketing is the most popular North America(in 2017-2018, a third of the total budget spent on online advertising was directed to it). Less passionate about algorithmic ad buying in China and Latin America: Only 20% of their digital advertising budgets are spent this way.

According to a Magna Global report, in 2019 the programmatic direction will account for 50% of all advertising budgets, which, of course, is slightly more modest than Forrester's forecasts, but still significant.

Why use programmatic buying?

Programmatic - model for

purchases,
sales,
online advertising optimization,

when all processes are automated as much as possible in order to convey the right message to the right client at the right time.