Have you heard about Programmatic Advertising
‘Programmatic Advertising’, we all agree is the buzzword in the ad-tech space since last two years, but sadly the ambiguity about its role in digital marketing still exists. Recently, a lot of companies piggybacked this buzzword to make their presence felt in the market but without any value addition. Upon, exploration I discovered that most of them are just using ad exchanges to buy ad spots manually and mentioning it as programmatic buying. Now, this is not called ‘programmatic’.
So are we saying that transition from ‘Google AdWords’ to global ad exchanges (still manual) is programmatic advertising? Are we sure this is programmatic? In my opinion, companies involved in online media buying are not utilizing the full potential of programmatic advertising. There is more to it.
Let’s have a look at the above image, as per a study conducted by Forrester Association of National Advertisers, data reveals that as high as 29% of marketers’ state that “they have heard the term, but don’t know what it is”. That’s an alarming piece of data. The factor leading to this ambiguity is the lack of basic knowledge about this subject among fellow CMO’s and marketers.
Undue pressure from brands to spend fixed share towards programmatic leave agencies in a fix. The common and easy way out employed by agencies is to outsource some percentage of media spends to trading desks and claim it under ‘programmatic spends’ without clearly knowing if the dollars are spent at the right place and using the right platform. Apart from the benefits of programmatic CMO’s and digital marketers, should also consider the limitations or concerns like transparency, click fraud, non-human traffic related to automated ad buying.
Let me explain this vicious cycle by giving an example:
In this whole conversation, we see that there is a lack of understanding about this catchphrase. The responsibility to discern and share the best practices of ‘programmatic advertising’ lies with all the stakeholders in this fraternity. Analyzing the data-driven aspect and to the find, the underlying value of the data points collected is very critical and integral part of programmatic advertising. I feel ‘programmatic advertising’ is a victim of identity crisis.
Will the real ‘Programmatic advertising’ please stand up?
If I may have to explain, (considering the Indian scenario), the general understanding about programmatic advertising is cost optimization which should not be the case. Taking effective real-time decisions using data points and delivering personalized campaigns in real time is the crux of programmatic advertising.
We need to ponder upon the real meaning of this talked about jargon.
The Bottom line:
Any digital campaign execution that has a holistic and data-driven approach derived from CRM and web analytics tools of brands and takes real time decision for buying ad impressions via multiple global ad exchanges is what TRUE ‘Programmatic advertising’ means. In this whole process, it reduces human efforts and improves efficiency. The decision making is taken by a machine which adjusts the pricing model and bids automatically to WIN the ad slot without any human intervention.
P.S. Just doing cost optimization is not programmatic advertising, Performance optimization using automated decisioning is ‘programmatic’.
For your programmatic advertising needs, connect with us here @ Inuxu