When it comes to targeted marketing, programmatic advertising has already proven to be one of the most effective methods. Find out the essential details about this marketing tool.

Programmatic advertising might not be a familiar term for many people. However, it’s been around for over 15 years and has become an integral part of certain marketing strategies.

Despite its robust name and complex background structure, programmatic advertising isn’t as daunting as it might seem. You can understand how it works by learning about only a few basic concepts.

It’s worth mentioning that programmatic advertising is one of the essential methods of marketing today. One that can greatly improve your outreach and, by extension, sales.

This article will explain what programmatic advertising is and provide actionable steps on how to incorporate it into your strategies.

What Is Programmatic Advertising?

In essence, programmatic advertising is a marketing method that leverages machine learning and data to analyse customer behaviour. Then, the information from this analysis is used for hyper-segmentation of your customer base.

Once the customer data is gathered and segmented, the software algorithm buys online advertising space targeting a particular type of potential customer.

This purchasing process is more complicated than it may sound, though.

When a website with programmatic advertising receives a new visitor, a bidding process starts in the background. The advertising space is listed by the publisher, and advertisers start bidding for it based on various marketing-related information.

The visitor’s data is analysed to determine their demographics, browsing behaviour, geographical location, spending habits, and other relevant info.

The bidding happens in real-time, and the winner gets to display their ad on the website before the page finishes loading. Advertisers can use programmatic advertising to engage their ideal clients in mere milliseconds, making this tool incredibly effective.

Of course, the market was quick to realise the immense benefits of programmatic advertising. And the following section will outline the most important upsides of this marketing tool.

How Your Business Benefits From Programmatic Advertising

One of the greatest advantages of programmatic advertising is the return on investment it provides. Since the software can analyse copious amounts of data, your message can reach your intended audience with maximum efficiency.

In other words, you’ll be able to use your advertising budget much better, reaching a large percentage of prospects who are interested in your offer.

Ad spending is also made completely transparent. It’s because you know the precise amount and purpose of every marketing expense from programmatic advertising. There’s no longer a need to employ a third party to manage the financial part of your marketing.

Programmatic advertising also provides the advantage of measuring, analysing, and optimising consumer data almost instantly. This means you don’t need to wait for market analysis to be done before launching your ad campaign.

Besides data handling, programmatic advertising also considers the website and other online contexts. In other words, your ads can be more aligned with specific keywords and other page content, making them as unobtrusive as possible.

Finally, you can use this method to reach your audience across various channels, devices, and formats. Programmatic advertising is just as efficient on computers, mobile devices, smart TVs, and other platforms.

Using Programmatic Advertising

Several aspects will require your attention when you decide to use programmatic advertising for your business.

The first thing you should understand is that programmatic advertising works separately from a paid search such as Google ads. However, it still functions by similar digital marketing standards, sharing some of the best practices used today.

Of course, one of the essential requirements for every marketing campaign, including programmatic advertising, is to understand your market. It would be best to also learn as much as possible about the programmatic advertising marketplace since it represents a system of its own.

This ecosystem has three main components: the demand-side platform (DSP), supply-side platform (SSP), and the ad exchange. The DSP represents a software platform through which advertisers can purchase digital ad space, while the SSP is used by publishers who offer that space.

Both platforms meet in the ad exchange where direct trade happens.

When engaging in programmatic advertising, you’ll need to choose a DSP, which you can do according to your intended audience, the DSP’s pricing, and the support offered.

It would also be very helpful to have your marketing goals set and your strategy in place.

While programmatic advertising will handle plenty of data once you start your campaign, it’s good to use the information you’ve already got to determine the right approach beforehand.

As with other automated solutions, it’s easy to forget about the human side of marketing and sales when you start using programmatic advertising. However, it would help to keep in mind that you’ll still need to leverage your marketing team and other experts to fine-tune the automation results.

Finally, security is a crucial aspect of programmatic advertising.

On one hand, you don’t want your ads to appear on suspicious websites, which is why you should use blacklisting or whitelisting in your campaign.

On the other hand, programmatic advertising can be prone to fraud, with campaigns falling prey to bot attacks and apps with dangerous privacy permissions.

As it should be with all online business dealings, security must be your primary concern. Luckily, the most significant dangers can be avoided by carefully considering your campaign options.

Programmatic Advertising Is the Marketing Tool of the Future

Programmatic advertising offers numerous advantages. But the most important is that it can help your marketing campaign reach the right customers when and how you want.

With software solutions and algorithms improving more and more every day, it’s almost certain that this marketing method will become more sophisticated as time goes by.

If you want to learn how you can incorporate programmatic advertising into your overall marketing strategy, don’t hesitate to reach out and schedule your free consult with GMS.