Intergalactic Programmatic Advertising: The Future for Digital-Savvy Marketers?
Originally published on Linkedin, October 2015Chances are you’ve heard the P-bomb dropped, or caught wind that it’s projected to account for 50% of digital ad sales by 2018. You might’ve even tested it out for a recent campaign because you read that it is the future of advertising.
The bandwagon is well and fully loaded with trailer attached, but many still don’t know much about Programmatic Advertising or the power it holds.
But you, my friend, are different. You seek information and info you shall find.
Read on, Marketing Commander.
What is Programmatic Advertising exactly?
In an astro-nutshell, Programmatic Advertising covers a wide range of tech that have helped automate the buying, placement and optimisation of advertising, replacing traditional methods such as phone calls, faxes and craft beer lunches.
This method of digital media buying includes real-time bidding (similar to the share market) for online display, social media advertising, mobile and video campaigns — and it’s making advances on traditional TV advertising marketplaces too.
"What you're seeing is a fundamental shift in not just how media is bought, but how advertisers can engage with consumers more effectively"
- Brian Lesser, Global CEO of Xaxis
So why's everyone gravitating towards it?
Like an Uber ride, Programmatic Advertising is your personal driver to get you where you wanna go.
With certain Demand Side Platforms (MediaMath was my weapon of choice), the artificial intelligence (AI) machinery aka ‘the brain’, resolves billions of potential targeting combinations to reach people most likely to engage or convert by pinpointing audiences and delivering the right message, at the right time, in the right place.
It can react to changing market dynamics more quickly than manual optimisation by pulling in and analysing data in real time; a real-life Jarvis, if you will.
As a result, your media wastage will be obliterated (well, significantly reduced), your buying efficiency augmented and your highly optimised advertising campaign will work night and day toward constant self-improvement.
Simply put, Programmatic Advertising is a way to:
Achieve greater reach and access across all digital media inventory
'Cherry-pick' consumers across channels & devices in an individualised, sequenced way
Enable optimisation of the entire marketing program to drive greater performance
Better track digital ROI, helping marketers to be more accountable for bottom-line result
BUT HOUSTON, WE HAVE A PROBLEM
All too often with shiny new objects, there’s a tendency to feel like it’ll fix all your problems and it’s off into the moonlight we go.
Not so fast, Star-Lord.
Falling victim to the ‘set and forget’ mentality will land you in the abyss.
Machine-learning technologies aren’t meant to replace marketers like yourself, but to complement your strengths while making up for human weaknesses.
The good news is, when used correctly, Programmatic Advertising can free you up to focus on other important campaign elements like high-level strategy, creative, timing and pricing, user demographics, technology and data capture.
In the words of Peter Naylor, SVP of Advertising Sales at Hulu, “Programmatic is advertising’s newer, better mousetrap”.
And with the likes of The New York Times hiring their first ‘Programmatic Advertising Director’, it’s fair to venture that brands not in the Programmatic Advertising space in 2016 will risk being consigned to oblivion.
If you find yourself still in a black hole of confusion, fret not.
Yell out “Beam me up, Scotty!” and help will be on the way with more info around Programmatic Advertising and how it can be used effectively in your business.