How Marketers can use Ad Tech and Programatic Advertising
What is Programmatic Advertising and Ad Tech?
According to a blog from the Search Engine Journal, programmatic advertising is, "Programmatic advertising uses automated technology and algorithmic tools for media buying. The term programmatic relates to the process of how ads are bought and sold in the advertising space." (SEJ). The main idea behind programmatic advertising is automating the aspects of a digital advertising campaign through the use of advertising technology or Ad Tech.
Ad Tech, according to HubSpot is, "Ad tech (short for advertising technology) is the umbrella term for the software and tools that help agencies and brands target, deliver, and analyze their digital advertising efforts." (HubSpot).
There are other facets of Ad Tech that are important for marketers to understand such as "SSP" and "DSP"
What is DSP and SSP?
DSP stands for Demand-Side Platform. According to Aarki.com, DSP can be defined as, "Brands (or app developers who want to advertise their apps) can use DSPs to set up their campaigns and define their terms for maximum bids, budget caps, the target audience parameters and, their campaign goals." (Aarki).
SSP or Supply-Side Platform is similar to DSP but on the inventory side. From the same article by Aarki, SSP is, "A supply-side platform helps publishers (who might also be app developers supplying ad space) monetize their advertising inventory/apps. It enables publishers to make their advertising inventory available to ad exchanges, and it sets controls to maximize revenue yield on their impressions across all demand sources." (Aarki)
Here is a graphic that helps represent the differences between SSP and DSP:
How does Programmatic Advertising support website publishers?
In short, programmatic advertising helps website publishers out by allowing the to efficiently maximize their ad space. Since it automates the ad process it helps mitigate the need to outsource to an ad agency. Here are some additional benefits of programmatic advertising courtesy of Search Engine Journal:
- Large-scale audience reach.
- Efficient and low-cost awareness.
- Real-time data and analysis.
- Ability to utilize first and third-party data.
- Opportunities for cross-device campaign strategies.
The best part of programmatic advertising is that you can set it and forget it!
What are the challenges?
According to an article written by War Room, the biggest challenges facing those who use programmatic advertising are:
- Lack of Human Control: There's a reason that ad agencies produce different results. While programmatic advertising is efficient it can prove less fruitful than outsourcing.
- Online Traffic Fraud: The challenge here revolved around bots. We expect every view on ads to be organic but there are many bots that will view advertisements and lead to a false narrative.
- Inappropriate Ad Matching: A risk of low quality inventory is that your ad could end up in a completely unrelated page.
References:
- https://www.searchenginejournal.com/what-is-programmatic-advertising/462655/#close
- https://clearcode.cc/blog/programmatic-advertising/#programmatic-advertising
- https://www.insiderintelligence.com/content/forecast-2021-us-programmatic-digital-display-ad-spending-15-billion-higher
- https://www.smartinsights.com/internet-advertising/internet-advertising-targeting/what-is-programmatic-marketing/
- https://www.oracle.com/cx/advertising/adtech/
- https://www.aarki.com/insights/dsp-ssp-and-ad-exchange-what-is-the-difference
- https://www.warroominc.com/institute-library/blog/the-pros-and-cons-of-programmatic-ad-buying/?