Programmatic Advertising - A Comprehensive Guide

We all are aware of the fact that how crucial digital advertising is for small businesses and how artificial intelligence has taken to a different level altogether. Advertising has transformed itself into programmatic advertising that is expected to account for 88% of digital display ad dollars by the end of 2021.- This is one ever-so-growing method for advertising used nowadays. Let us understand its concept here.

Programmatic advertising defined

Programmatic advertising, better known as programmatic marketing, is a process that includes real-time buying and selling of ad space via an automated bidding system.

For the rookies, who are accustomed to the traditional way of purchasing digital space, programmatic marketing could be a difficult concept to understand. The advertising form allows companies to buy ad spots from a wide range of publishers and apps so that they could reach their target audience on the sites and apps they visit.

Types of Programmatic advertising

Now, when you all well-versed with the concept of programmatic advertising, let us move further and discuss their types. Generally, there are four types of programmatic advertising options.

Have a detailed look into them.

Real-time bidding (RTB)

Real-time bidding or RTB is one of the main types of programmatic advertising that takes place on a case-by-case basis. As the name suggests, in real-time bidding the advertising spots are opened to the public so that any company can bid on any particular location. Because the auction process takes place instantly in real-time, this is the reason why it is called ‘real-time bidding.’

The process, however, is not just dependent on price. Some other factors too are considered about the prospective customers to figure out which company wins the advertising space. These factors are,

Browsing habits
Psychographics
Geographic metrics
Demographics

These factors are also essential to determine the target market of your business. The auction bidding is simple. The company that bids highest for the spot gets it. Also, the winner will not be charged their highest bidding amount but will be charged $0.01 higher than the second-highest bidder for the ad-spot. The only setback here is that you don’t know where your ad will appear.

Private Marketplace

Next on the list is the private marketplace that works on an invite-only basis. In this, a publisher sets the premium ad spots separately for a selected list of advertisers. This marketplace is generally used by publishers and websites that have a good reach, like Forbes. These platforms have companies in abundance who strive for advertising spots to set some spaces aside for the premium advertisers. Private marketing helps you in knowing where your ads will appear, taking away the subtlety of ad placement.

Also, Read – Performance Marketing And All Its Aspects

Preferred deals

Preferred deals help in choosing the ad spots before they go on the public market. In other words, it enables advertisers to choose ad spots before they are made available on the real-time bidding auctions. If you opt for the preferred deals you will then pay a fixed price for ad space known as spot buying. When an advertiser pays for a particular spot on the publisher’s site, both parties agree on targeting, pricing, and much more before claiming the ad space.

If you are looking to get a preview of the available ad spaces, the preferred deals option is definitely the best one to opt for.

Ad exchange

The ad exchange is perhaps the most impeccable thing in programming advertising. It is basically a marketplace where both advertisers and publishers cohesively buy and sell ad space. Here, the ad space is bought via real-time auctions. This bidding option differs largely from Real-time bidding. In real-time bidding, the advertisers can buy impressions from multiple sites at once.- This could be a great choice if you are looking to execute your omnichannel marketing plan.

The formats of programmatic ads

Till now, you must be aware of the concept and types of programmatic advertising. Let us now discuss the ad formats used in programmatic marketing. There are various ad formats, and some of them are mentioned below.

Display ads

These are the visual ads that can be found in the header, footer, or sidebar of a website. Ads like these can get created via the display networks like Google and Microsoft.

Video ads

Video ads are programmatic ads that feature video footage. These ads can appear in three different places like,

Instream ads: The ad will run before the user watches a YouTube video. These ads are in the video player itself
Outstream ads: These ads appear between two articles or in the middle of an article
In-display ads: These ads appear in the search result for videos or in the recommended videos panel on YouTube

Native ads

Native ads are those which can appear on any part of a third-party website. Here, advertisers have the right to choose which impression they want to buy and what price they should pay.

Voice ads

The final ad on the list is the voice ads. These are the advertisements that appear in audio content that include,

Podcasts
Digital radio
Music streaming services

Time to wrap up: We have managed to cover all the necessary aspects of programmatic advertising on search engine result pages. After learning all this, you must have known how essential it is for digital marketing. Break down the different types of programmatic advertising concepts and compare them to more familiar things to understand better.