For marketers around the world, one of the best ways to get the digital ads you want to be displayed where you need them is through programmatic ad buying. This technology allows millions of advertisements to be displayed on sites around the globe, while still remaining targeted and relevant. It really is quite an impressive system, but it can also be very confusing. If you’re a marketer who wants to benefit from this type of advertising, but can’t spend all your time learning exactly how these systems work, this simple guide should be able to help.
Read through each of the different types of programmatic options out there to see which one will work best for you, and then find the right company that is able to offer you exactly what you need.
Private Marketplaces
Private marketplaces help to control programmatic campaigns by only sending the ads to a relatively small group of publishers. This helps to limit the options for where the ads will end up being displayed, which can help to give marketers the confidence that they will get the results they are hoping for.
This added control allows brands and marketers to choose the type of sites or locations online where their ads will be as well. There are many different private programmatic marketplaces (PMPs) available, most of which focus on general niches, or a few niches, to make it easier for brands to find the right one.
Direct Programmatic
Direct programmatic systems work when larger companies either set up their own inventory of places where their ads can be shown, or work directly with an ad network that can do this for them. This gives most of the benefits of traditional programmatic networks, while also ensuring the brand or marketer in charge has 100% control over where their ads are seen. They can select each site or network of sites on a case by case basis to ensure they get the best results. This option is much more time consuming, especially when initially setting the system up. Once running, however, it can be maintained with fairly little interaction from the marketer. The biggest benefit to this type of programmatic advertising is the level of control you get.
Open Programmatic
This is the original type of programmatic advertising. It started off quite some time ago when programmatic was just getting started and allowed marketers to purchase ads, which would then be displayed on whatever sites were available on the open network. Today open programmatic advertising is a massive environment with millions of different ads being displayed in locations around the world.
While most open networks do allow some customization on where the ads are displayed through geographic settings and things like that, the brands and markters still have fairly little control over it. This option is best for those who just want to get their brand out in front of as many people as possible. Open programmatic is typically the least expensive. It does have some issues with fraud, more so than the other options, but that is slowly being addressed so it is not quite as much of a concern as it once was. Of course, you will need to be careful to only work with well known companies or those with good reputations to ensure you don’t fall victim to fraud.
Which to Choose
Finding the right programmatic ad provider is not always as simple as many people would hope. It is, however, well worth the work. If you’re thinking about adding programmatic ad purchasing to your marketing efforts, make sure you take the time to discover which options will work best for you.
