What are the benefits of programmatic advertising?

Maybe you've already heard of it or maybe you've even done some programmatic buying campaigns. 

Perhaps the word is still unfamiliar to you and you are not at all familiar with this powerful media placement tool. Whatever your knowledge or situation, we will try to demystify what programmatic is and how this type of ad placement can be useful to your business.

What is programmatic advertising?

Programmatic advertising is the use of automated technology for media buying (the process of buying advertising space) via a DSP (Demand Side Platform), as opposed to traditional (often manual) methods of digital advertising campaigns. 

Programmatic advertising has become an incredibly widespread and popular method of buying digital ads in recent years, as it allows advertisers to purchase web ad space through a systematic and standardized process. 

This makes setting up and managing ad campaigns easier, faster and more cost-effective than buying traditional ads through specific publisher relationships.

So, in order to help you make an informed choice for your next web marketing campaigns, we will discuss what the benefits of programmatic are. 

Flexibility

Programmatic ads are completely scalable in terms of the amount spent on ad campaigns, making them a suitable form of advertising for both small and large businesses. SMBs with limited budgets can simply set a monetary cap on their campaigns to avoid overspending and paying more than expected.

Plus, unlike media buying directly from the publisher, programmatic gives you more control over your results and spend. You can change your placements and audiences in real time, which is not possible with fixed buys.

Targeting 

With programmatic advertising, it's possible to display your ads to your ideal consumers based on the parameters you set. Here's how it works:

Targeting by IP address

IP targeting consists of focusing on one or more specific IP addresses. It is usually used to target a specific company or event.

 With this type of targeting, the DSP platform matches a customer's IP address to their physical address, providing advertisers with the location-specific tools they need to display digital ads to individuals based on their location.

Without the need for cookies, this type of targeting is beneficial to advertisers because it integrates offline data (customer databases, model data and direct mail data) into your digital marketing strategy.

Geo-targeting 

Location-based targeting allows you to choose where your ads appear geographically. In addition to targeting by city and zip code, you can also choose to target areas by radius as small as a few feet around a specific area.

This can be especially useful if you want to target users who are in or have visited a specific location, such as an event venue or a particular store.

Contextual targeting

Contextual targeting helps you target consumers who are looking for specific products or services online. 

If you sell camping gear and want people who visit a web page mentioning the best places to camp to see your ads, contextual targeting will help you achieve this.

Audience and behavior 

Behavioral targeting is a method of delivering ads to target audiences based on their past behavior.

Behavioral targeting can be used to show content to people who have shown interest in a topic, without them explicitly looking for it.

For example, someone who adds an item to their online shopping cart without purchasing it may be presented with an advertisement for that product.

More commitment and control at the creative level

Storytelling is more important than ever, so you need to be able to integrate the emotional fiber into your advertising. Indeed, programmatic allows you to personalize your message and integrate your ads into every step of your consumer's decision-making process. 

It is indeed possible to create several audiences and adapt your message according to the different points of contact your consumers have with you (e.g. visit of a specific page of the site, item left in a shopping cart, subscription to the newsletter, etc.).

The HTML5 format supported by programmatic also allows you more possibilities and creativity in your visuals, which can make your ad much more engaging and improve your storytelling. 

Improved return on investment with real-time data

With real time bidding (RTB), real-time bidding allows you to be faster and more efficient than traditional methods. Programmatic bidding provides you with real-time data that helps you make better decisions, react faster and optimize your results more effectively.

 More advanced targeting allows you to reach specific people based on their behavior rather than wasting time and money targeting the broader population or placing ads on sites where your potential customer may not be.

How to choose your DSP

The Google Display Network is a simple and inexpensive DSP that allows you to target your ads to relevant content on other sites, apps and videos. 

However, it is much less powerful or flexible than a true DSP. The targeting options are 

also limited compared to other DSPs, but it's ideal if you just want an easy way to get started with programmatic advertising.

To access all the features of a full DSP, you'll need to use DV 360 (Display and Video 360) if you want to stay in the Google family for programmatic ad management. This platform gives you much more advanced targeting and analytics options than the Display Network.

Of course, there are many other PSDs and it can be interesting to compare them in order to make an informed choice. Some of them are Canadian, which can be very attractive in terms of pricing. If you want to go further in your research, we have identified a list of the best PHRs in Canada in 2022.

Getting started in programmatic

If used correctly and effectively, programmatic can be a powerful tool to increase brand awareness among your target audience.
Whether you're just getting started with programmatic strategies or developing a strategy to do so, at Planning Media we have the resources to help you achieve your goals. You can visit our expertise for more information.