Definitive Guide to Programmatic Advertising by AudienceX

The Definitive Guide to Programmatic Marketing and Programmatic Advertising

Digital programmatic marketing is one of the most dynamic fields to follow, and programmatic advertising is one of the most dramatic advances. A steady stream of new technological developments like programmatic ad buying is constantly transforming the way companies create and deploy online ads, offering cutting-edge ways to ensure your advertising reaches your audience.

Programmatic buying takes place in the blink of an eye, in the time it takes for a web page to load, making it one of the least understood forms of marketing. We’ll cover everything you need to know, including the benefits, the options available, how it works and much more.

Table of Contents:

What Is Programmatic Marketing?

AI-enabled programmatic marketing that automates and optimizes the purchase of ad space, delivers the most effective ads to potential customers. In the past, marketers had to juggle proposal requests, quotes, and tenders by negotiating with multiple people along the line.

The term “programmatic” refers to workflow automation made possible by technology that employs algorithmic artificial intelligence technology to optimize the delivery of ads based on a visitor’s behavior. Brands and agencies use a demand-side platform (DSP) to determine which impressions to buy and at what price, and publishers use a supply-side platform (SSP) to sell their ad space to brands. With this form of marketing, advertisers stop wasting money on delivering ads to poor-quality leads.

What Are the Types of Programmatic Ad Buying?

Seated man studies programmatic marketing ad on smartphone

To get started, there are three primary types of programmatic advertising.

1. Programmatic Direct

Programmatic direct advertising works similarly to how advertising was bought when the Internet was still relatively new, although added software assists now. In a 1:1 agreement, publishers and advertisers decide on terms for a media campaign. Then they use AdTech platforms to automate the delivery of the campaign as well as the reporting.

2. Real-Time Bidding (RTB)

RTB is a type of programmatic buying that is data-driven and allows advertisers to bid on ad space in real-time. After a user clicks on a web page, the publisher of that page puts that ad space up for auction. Advertisers compete for the impression, and the highest bidder wins the space to place their ad. This entire process occurs within the fraction of a second it takes the webpage to load.

3. Private Marketplaces (PMP)

Private marketplaces, as the name implies, offer advertising inventory to select advertisers in a private setting rather than on the open market. Premium publishers, such as the New York Times or Forbes, use this type of exclusive media purchasing when they want more control over the kinds of ads they show on their sites.

The 5 Benefits of Programmatic Marketing

Connect with your target audience and improve your campaigns in ways traditional advertising can’t: 

1. Efficiency

Automation speeds up the process of buying and displaying ads online. You’ll get to see your results come to life immediately. Once the ad placements are purchased and the design work is complete, you can start generating new clicks or purchases right away. No more insertion orders required—the technology that powers programmatic does the heavy lifting for you, so you can reach your target audience when and where they are ready to buy. Even better, you aren’t wasting your ad impressions on people that aren’t in your target audience, so your advertising dollars go farther.

2. Measurement in Real-Time

Programmatic ad buying allows you to make adjustments to your campaigns at any point, in real-time. At the beginning of the flight, you can start out your campaigns by casting a wide net—targeting your ads to a much broader audience while testing theories around what your ideal audience might be. Once you’ve determined the perfect target audience, you can adjust these restrictions before the flight ends to improve campaign performance. 

3. Increased Reach

Through programmatic ads, you can easily determine the specific audience you want to reach using a wealth of online data. Rather than trying to reach soccer fans on a sports website or page specifically, you can build an audience of soccer fans and reach them across hundreds of websites, wherever they happen to be online. You can stretch your audience as far as your budget allows with programmatic advertising, reaching almost any consumer on the internet. 

4. Transparency

Although much of the buying process is automated, you still have access to the purchase price of the ad, the platform it’s running on, the number of impressions, clicks, and other interactions. You can also access data about your audience, including browsing and buying habits as well as brand loyalty. This transparency allows you to optimize your campaigns for performance at any point. 

5. A Variety of Channels 

Most marketers rely on multiple kinds of ads to run a successful campaign. As a result, you can reach your target audience across many different channels with programmatic advertising, including:

  • Display: Display advertising deals with both image and text banner ads. Programmatic display advertising platforms can buy these ads from any website or search engine that supports them.
  • Video: Programmatic marketing and buying services for video ads allow you to utilize video ads that run before, during and after website and social media videos.
  • Mobile: Programmatic advertising for mobile ads has become popular due to the growing use of mobile devices in everyday life. This option involves the automated purchase of ads for tablets, smartphones and more.
  • Native: Native ads are designed to fit the presentation of a specific platform, including social media platforms. Programmatic advertising software can buy native ads across channels.
  • CTV: Connected TV combines the efficiency and targeting of programmatic with the broad appeal of TV advertising. Marketers looking to reach engaged audiences while they are watching TV through the internet are turning to CTV to boost campaign performance.
  • And More

How to Get Started With Programmatic Media Buying

Not using programmatic ads yet? It’s time to get in on the action. Here’s a quick summary to help get you underway.

Step 1. Identify Your Goals

Before you begin creating a programmatic campaign, you need to identify your campaign goals. These objectives will guide the decisions you make as you put together and run your campaign.

You can accomplish a wide range of goals with programmatic marketing. You may want to boost brand awareness, increase sales of a certain product, get people to sign up for an email list or increase traffic to your website, among many other things. Be as specific as you can when creating your goals.

You also need to define your target audience, or who you want to reach with your ads. Once you have everyone on your team on board with your objectives and target audience, you’re ready for the next step.

Step 2. Choose Your Ad Format for Your Advertising Channels

With programmatic advertising, you can place ads across all kinds of digital formats. Some of the most common formats are:

  • Display: Displays ads include banner ads and other similar ad styles found on websites. These ads may be static or incorporate animation.
  • Mobile: Mobile ads are becoming increasingly important for advertisers. These ads can appear on mobile websites and apps.
  • Native: Native ads blend into a website’s content more seamlessly than other types of ads. To place these ads, programmatic buying platforms use analytics and AI to determine relevancy and improve targeting accuracy.
  • Video: Video ads are an engaging way to get your message to your audience. They may come in the form of video ads that play before a featured video, video ads placed in the middle of articles and in-display video ads on sites like YouTube.
  • Over the top (OTT): OTT ads are streamed through the Internet to connected devices, such as laptops, smartphones, smart TVs and gaming systems, along with OTT video content. These ads are similar to traditional TV ads but allow for more detailed targeting and reporting.
  • Interactive: Interactive ads are an emerging form of advertisement. They often show up on apps and websites and encourage the user to interact in some way, perhaps by answering a question or playing a simple game.
  • Connected TV (CTV): Connected TV combines the broad reach of TV with the targeting capabilities of programmatic ads for highly targeted ads on OTT and CTV devices.
  • Audio: Programmatic audio allows marketers to reach engaged listeners of digital radio and podcasts.
  • Social: Social media platforms collect data about users, so personalized ads can be created to enhance the experience of the user. This data determines which users will see ads, how much time the ad will be displayed, and in what formats the ads will be delivered.
  • Search: Search ads appear on search engine results pages (SERPs) and are targeted based on a user’s search. They show as text at the top of the page, above organic results. These are typically pay-per-click, which means advertisers only have to pay for the ad placement if audiences click on it.

Step 3. Choose Your Programmatic Ad Platform

Another decision you’ll have to make is which AdTech platforms or demand-side platforms (DSPs) you want to use to run these programmatic buys. These platforms include programmatic, social and search advertising platforms. With tdX, our programmatic trading desk, you get access to 18 platforms, including 12 enterprise-level DSPs such as Amazon, MediaMath, The Trade Desk, and DV 360, as well as other leading platforms including Google Ads, Facebook, Instagram, and Spotify. 

What Is a Trading Desk?

Trading desks are a relatively new concept within the world of programmatic advertising. A trading desk can be defined as the technology that facilitates real-time bidding, or as the managed service layer on top of a DSP. A trading desk is also the team that offers the managed service and facilitates the buying model for the agency’s clients. The greatest benefit of trading desks is access to multiple DSPs. All DSPs have their own advantages and disadvantages, but most of them require very large monthly minimums that prevent smaller companies from utilizing their services.

Which DSP Is Right for You?

Not sure which platform you want to use? We can help! Our trading desk offers unbiased platform recommendations to help lead the way. Our proprietary algorithm ingests 200 specific campaign criteria, and 50 filters to identify your ideal budget, platform, and channel mix to reach your target audience. Learn more about how to choose the right DSP for your campaign, or contact us to talk to one of our campaign specialists. 

Step 4. Identify Your Budget

One last choice you need to make is how much you want to spend on ad space. Exactly how you do this will depend on which type of programmatic buying approach and pricing model you’re using. Often, you’ll set a budget for each day, and if your budget is reached, your ad will stop running until the next day.

Once you’ve made all of these choices and your campaign is set up, you can launch it. If you’re running an RTB campaign, whenever someone visits the relevant site, your DSP will place your bid. If you win the auction, the site will display your ad.

While you set the total budget for your campaign or flight, you can calculate the value of your ad spend in a few ways: 

  • Cost per thousand impressions (CPM): CPM stands for cost per mille, which translates into cost per thousand impressions. This means you pay a certain price for every 1,000 users who see your advertisement. So if the CPM for a particular ad space is $2, and 10,000 people see your ad, you’ll pay $20. The CPM model is ideal for when you want to reach a broad audience. It’s also useful for campaigns focused on increasing brand awareness and other campaigns that don’t depend on users completing a specific action. CPM rates are generally low compared to other types of rates, but this price varies depending on the inventory source you are using. Going direct to a publisher, for example, will probably cost more than the CPM for an RTB bid. 
  • Cost per click (CPC): Another approach you can take is cost per click, or CPC. With this method, you pay every time someone clicks on your ad. So, if the CPC is 12 cents and you get 2,000 clicks, you would pay $240. Advertisers often use CPC when they want to target a smaller, niche audience. This is also the way you pay if you are advertising on Google AdWords which is where most marketers know it from.

As your campaign runs, you’ll likely want to monitor it so that you can make adjustments as necessary to better meet your objectives.

The 5 Main Features of Programmatic Media Buying

Programmatic buying makes ad purchasing effective and efficient. The features of programmatic buying that make this method of advertising so appealing to marketers include:

1. Machine Learning Algorithms

Technology and machine learning employ algorithms to review the data and find out which platform or website is best to reach the target audience. This makes the process quicker and more accurate.

2. Audience Insights

Programmatic media buying gives advertisers feedback about how their audience engaged with an ad. What factors contributed to the success or failure of the ad? What time of day or week was most relevant for users? What age group responded best to an ad? It can also shed more light on who is actually clicking on or engaging with a particular campaign. These insights can then be fed back to the marketer and agency to adjust the accuracy of their targeting the next time around.

3. Precise Audience Targeting

The main difference between programmatic and traditional advertising is the availability of precise audience targeting, which relies on building an “audience” based on a variety of traits. Advertisers can target their digital ads across all channels to audiences based on past exhibited behaviors and interests, actions, demographics, purchase intent, location, relationship status and household income.

Any combination of first, second and third-party data can be used to build an audience. First-party data is information advertisers own about their customers, while second-party data is essentially first-party data owned by someone else and third-party data is purchased from a data provider. Advertisers can use all of these to build their audience.

Once the audience has been built, advertisers can choose a variety of targeting strategies, such as retargeting, prospecting, lookalike targeting or contextual targeting to reach those consumers.

  • Retargeting refers to adjusting advertising approaches based on consumer behavior.
  • Prospecting refers to developing a pool of likely customers who have never visited your site.
  • Lookalike targeting takes first-party data and uses it to model potential customers so advertisers will have a larger pool of targetable consumers.
  • Contextual targeting can help advertisers build an audience by leveraging their existing campaigns based on keyword searches.

4. Bid Management

Programmatic media buying is also useful for setting your bid or budget, as this is another way the technology is used to automate the process. The marketer typically sets their budget and a goal in terms of impressions, and that bid goes up against other marketers vying for the same impressions. As with most auctions, how much you bid impacts whether or not you “win” the auction. If your price is too low, your ads won’t be seen by your audience.

5. Campaign Reporting and Optimization

Campaign reporting tools monitor and quantify campaign performance data. Because programmatic ads can be bought and adjusted in a small amount of time, optimizations to include the efficiency of your campaign and drive more leads or sales can also be made quickly and efficiently. These reports and optimizations don’t necessarily happen in real time, but they are automated to make the process more seamless.

What Industries Can Use Programmatic Ads?

Programmatic digital advertising provides a powerful set of tools for marketers in any industry. A few factors can boost the impact programmatic has on certain industries. Retail companies, for example, benefit from the ability to push specific products through cookies and retargeting. Travel companies can harness the power of geolocation to target customers within a set distance of the place they’re advertising for. The possibilities are endless.

1. Travel / Tourism

LivItaly, a travel company, had gotten as far as it could go with Facebook ads, even though it wanted to attract new customers. To make this happen, we used a combination of display ads, retargeting, third-party data and lookalike prospecting to draw in potential customers. In the end, LivItaly achieved a 12:1 return on advertising spending (ROAS), which far exceeded the initial goal of a 2:1 ratio.

2. Car Dealerships

Southern California Ford wanted to attract Spanish-speaking consumers to California dealership sites. To achieve this goal, AUDIENCEX targeted 30-second ads to in-market Spanish speakers on desktop, mobile devices and tablets. The campaign resulted in triple the site activity on each website and boosted the visibility of weekend sales events.

3. Retail

American Apparel, a well-known retail company was looking to increase the exposure of its brand relaunch as well as drive an increase in online sales. For this campaign, we focused on custom creatives that were served to individual customers through dynamic creative optimization (DCO) ads for promotions and online sales. The campaign generated $1.25 million in revenue with an average order value of $75.50. The ROAS was a significant 20:1.

4. And More

We have had success in working with clients in many industries. You can check out our case studies to learn about our experience in your industry.

What Are Some Concerns?

What keeps so many marketers from diving into programmatic pool? Here are a few of the concerns that can make marketers hesitate.

1. Viewability

When you’re putting your content on the web, you want to know where it’s going. Programmatic advertising lets you set parameters based on whether the ad inventory is above-the-fold (ATF) or below-the-fold (BTF). If your current campaign is centered around branding, you could save money by bidding on BTF ads. If you’re looking to maximize leads and conversions, investing in ATF ads can maximize your content’s visibility.

2. Ad Fraud

It’s important to remember that not all internet activity comes from legitimate human sources. In fact, more than a third of all internet traffic is fraudulent. Fraudulent web traffic is created by viruses that program computers to visit websites. For marketers, fraud is a huge problem as it means a significant portion of the ads they’ve paid to display are being served to users who aren’t actually users at all. Programmatic advertising platforms leverage their extensive analytic capabilities to evaluate the quality of leads by monitoring user behavior. The tech can keep learning what activity marks illegitimate traffic, continually refining lead quality and steadily improving ROI over time.

3. Brand Safety

Brand safety is paramount for any company, and some marketers get nervous that programmatic advertising will lead to their ads being placed next to inappropriate content. Responsible programmatic advertising providers like AUDIENCEX partner with third parties to measure and verify brand safety with the use of AI. One effective method involves the use of cognitive computing to codify keywords into brand sentiment signals, allowing for the identification of brand safety risks.

4. Lack of Education

If the number of acronyms involved in programmatic advertising has been making your head spin, you’re not alone. Programmatic ad buying is a complex and nuanced technology that does come with a steep learning curve if you’re trying to pick it up by yourself. AUDIENCEX takes the hassle out of the learning process by presenting an easy-to-use interface that’s intuitive and simple to master. We do the hard work for you, and you simply see results.

5. Budget Concerns

For the first few years after its invention, programmatic advertising was only a viable option for very large businesses. Working directly with a single DSP costs tens of thousands of dollars monthly, which was beyond the budgets of most small-to-medium-sized businesses. With an independent trading desk, you’re one of multiple customers accessing the DSPs, so you share the cost without having to reach a monthly minimum. AUDIENCEX is an affordable option that allows smaller businesses to receive the same quality of service and technology as their larger counterparts. Scalability provides another benefit: your marketing campaigns will easily grow with your business.

Glossary

Types of Audience Data

1. First-Party Data

When marketers collect information about their customers or site visitors, this is known as first-party data. This can include anonymous behavioral data as well as demographic data.

2. Second-Party Data

Second-party data is first-party data that you purchase directly from the source. Whereas third-party data is bought and sold anonymously on the open exchange, second-party data transactions take place on a 1:1 basis, typically from a publisher selling the data to a marketer.

3. Third-Party Data

Third-party data is purchased from a data provider as segments or audiences and includes groups of site visitors who have exhibited a certain characteristic or behavior on a website. Third-party data is typically available in larger quantities than first- or second-party data, but the original source and the data quality is not as easy to determine as those sources.

4. Behavioral Data

Behavioral data is based on a user’s history of interaction with advertising content or a website. For example, if a visitor visits pages or articles containing sports content, they may be grouped into a “Sports Lovers” audience.

5. Contextual Data

This data refers to the context of the webpage on which the advertisement is located. While behavioral campaigns serve ads to prospects based on their past behavior, contextual campaigns try to place ads where “best-fit” potential prospects are going to be browsing. If you were selling advertising and marketing services, you would target visitors on pages that are relevant to advertising and marketing, regardless of visitors’ past behavior.

6. Conversion Data

Conversion data is just what it sounds like — gathering information on the visitors who have previously converted on your site, whether that is filling out a form, completing a purchase, or signing up for a newsletter. Looking at the similarities among your best customers allows you to find and hopefully convert more customers like them.

Audience Targeting

1. Retargeting

Retargeting refers to targeting your previous site visitors to bring them back to your website and compel them to complete an action. This could include targeting consumers who haven’t completed an order or targeting your high-value previous customers to entice them to come back to your site.

2. Contextual Targeting

These advertisements are intended for non-search webpages based on their category, keywords, and content. Marketers can use this form of programmatic targeting to access a bigger audience by leveraging any existing campaigns based on keyword searches.

3. Lookalike Modeling

Also referred to as audience modeling, lookalike modeling uses first-party data to model potential customers, providing advertisers with a large pool of targetable users.

4. Behavioral Targeting

This form of advertising is based on the interests and behaviors of the user. Data collection allows for behavioral targeting, and advertisers determine what data should be collected.

5. Geo-Targeting

Geo-targeting enables advertisers to target users based on their location so results will be more personalized and relevant. This targeting method is often used by local advertisers trying to reach people within a certain location of their store or service offering. 

6. Search Retargeting

Search retargeting means serving display ads to users as they browse the internet-based on previous keyword search behavior, intended to capture in-market consumers.

Tracking, Profiling, and Brand Safety

1. AdChoices

The AdChoices program was developed to apply consumer-friendly standards, address public education, and promote industry accountability in the collection and use of advertising data related to online behavior.

2. Bots

A bot is a software program that automates tasks on the Internet or other network. Bots simulate human users in online interaction and result in fake impressions.  

A cookie is a tiny text file that identifies the browser of a user to track activity and maintain information about the user. Cookies can be either first-party cookies or third-party cookies. Websites leave first-party cookies on a computer, while third-party cookies are left by a different domain than the website the user is visiting.  

4. Cross-Device Tracking

This term refers to the tracking of a consumer’s behavior across multiple devices, such as a mobile device, tablet, and desktop.

5. Opt-In

When a user opts-in, they permit a company to use collected data about them. This data is generally collected for the purpose of marketing the brand’s services or products.

6. Opt-Out

When a user requests to be removed from a brand’s list, they are opting out of being tracked, and therefore out of audience targeting.

7. Profiling

When advertisers track a user’s interests and create a profile based on the user’s behaviors and interests, this is known as profiling.

8. Tagging

In the process of tagging, a pixel is added to a webpage, and data about the visitors of these pages is collected. The webpages for this process are typically the key pages and landing page for a campaign.

9. Targeted Advertising

Targeted advertising refers to ads that are targeted to consumers based on demographics, interests, purchasing behavior, and location.

10. Tracking Pixel

A tracking pixel collects information about the placement of an ad. Generally, this tracking pixel is used for noting whether an ad has or has not been served.

Programmatic Ad Units

1. Standard Ad Units

This term refers to ad specifications that provide a framework for the webpage design. They also provide specs for the ad inventory of a standard image ad unit or an animated in-page ad unit. Standard ad units include Skyscraper at 160×600 pixels, Leaderboard at 728×90 pixels, and Big Box at 300×250 pixels.

2. Interstitial Ads

Interstitial ads are one of the most popular types of mobile ads. They cover the entire screen, and are displayed between content pages. These ads are also referred to as transition ads, Flash pages, and splash pages.

3. Overlay

An overlay is an ad that briefly appears over the webpage’s content.

4. Pushdown

Pushdown refers to a highly interactive ad unit that pushes down the content of a webpage when the creative expands, moving the site out of the way to display the ad. It lives in a space that is bigger than an expanding leaderboard and typically has original dimensions of 970×90 pixels, expanding to 970×415 pixels. Pushdown creatives are browser-only and can’t be served in mobile apps.

5. Portrait

This refers to an ad unit template in which the ad designer selects as many as three interactive modules in a pixel space of 350×1050. The format is very brand-centric and is an extra-large vertical canvas that allows advertisers to share their brand message with scale.

6. Filmstrip

Similar to a slideshow on Facebook, the filmstrip unit allows advertisers to have five different slides that come together to tell a story. The entire ad unit is typically sized at 350×3000 pixels, and each slide is 350×600 pixels. These segments scroll via user interaction in a placement window of 350×600 pixels.

7. Rich Media

Rich media refers to ad units with advanced technology, including video and audio. It can take the form of buttons, banners, tear-backs, transitionals, page take-overs, and floating ads — elements that encourage users to engage and interact with the content.

8. Expandable Ads and Banners

These rich media advertisements expand to greater dimensions. The enlarging of the ad depends on how the user interacts with it. For example, the ad may expand briefly to grab the attention of the user.

9. Slider

Slider ads reside at the bottom of a web page. These ads slide or fade in and move up or down as the user scrolls. The ad will stay visible unless the user manually closes it.

10. In-Banner Video

In-banner video refers to a video that is played within the confines of a 300×250 pixel display ad unit instead of being initiated through a video player. It can play automatically once the page loads or require a user to click to play.

11. Pre-Roll

This refers to a video ad that plays before an online content video begins. You would typically see one of these before a video on YouTube, Facebook, or publisher websites.

12. Mid-Roll

This refers to a video ad that plays in the middle of an online content video. These are also very commonly found within videos on YouTube, Facebook, and publisher websites.

13. Post-Roll

This refers to a video ad that plays after an online content video ends. These also appear on YouTube, Facebook, and publisher websites.

Measuring and Optimizing Campaign Performance

1. Ad Interaction

Through ad interaction, advertisers can measure the performance of a rich media campaign. When the user clicks an exit link, hovers over the ad with the mouse, or directs the ad to display in full screen, the interaction will be captured. 

2. Ad Verification

Ad verification verifies that ad impressions are all quality impressions, are displayed as intended, and are compliant with the guidelines of the industry. 

3. Brand Safety

Brand safety refers to the prevention of displaying ads on webpages that may negatively impact a brand.

4. Bounce Rate

This is the rate at which website visitors leave after they’ve viewed only a webpage. Decreasing bounce rate is a goal of marketers who want to increase engagement and time-on-site. 

5. Click-Through Rate (CTR)

The rate users click an ad is referred to as the click-through rate. This rate is given as a percentage.

6. Conversion 

A conversion is the desired action from a user in response to a digital ad. Examples of a conversion include when the user makes a purchase, opts in to a newsletter, registers through a website, signs up for a service or downloads an offer. 

7. Cost-Per-Action (CPA)

Cost-per-action, otherwise known as cost-per-acquisition, is a method of calculating ROI in digital advertising, based on the total amount spent on a campaign divided by the total number of leads or conversions. 

8. Dynamic Pricing

This refers to when a real-time auction determines an ad impression’s purchase price rather than the price of the ad being fixed by a predetermined rate.

9. Eyeballs

As in “eyeballs on the page.” This is a colloquial term for the number of people who see an online ad, or impressions served.

10. Fold

When the content on a screen isn’t visible any longer, this point is referred to as the fold. An ad that users can view when the webpage appears, without having to scroll, is known as “above the fold.” The opposite of this is “below the fold.”

11. Fraud

Fraud in online advertising refers to malicious activity to misrepresent an online ad campaign’s performance or to increase the costs.

12. Frequency

Frequency is a characteristic used in creating a target audience based on past behaviors. For example, building a sports audience with a frequency of five means people have visited sports content at least five times to be qualified for that audience.

13. Frequency Capping

This refers to a cap on the frequency that a specific ad is shown to a user. This intent of frequency capping is to improve performance and prevent banner fatigue.

14. Impression

This term refers to how many times an ad has been viewed.

15. Reach

The number of individuals who have been exposed to the ad is referred to as reach. 

16. Viewability

The opportunity that an ad has to be seen by a user is known as viewability. Factors like a consumer’s time on a page and the page’s location impact the viewability of an ad.

17. Target List

This is a list of websites that are determined by an advertiser to be safe for serving ads. The opposite would be a block list. 

18. Win Rate

The impressions won in an online auction versus the number of bids submitted is known as the win rate.

19. Yield Optimization

To determine the worth of an ad’s impressions and increase the revenue of ad inventory, publishers can use yield optimization.

The Programmatic Industry

To understand the programmatic buying and selling market, you’ll want to familiarize yourself with the following types of advertising technology that are used.

1. Ad Exchange

An ad exchange is a virtual marketplace where suppliers or publishers put their impressions up for bid to buyers. Every impression is announced by the ad exchange in real-time. Buyers have a chance to purchase impressions by bidding.

2. Ad Network

An ad network is an intermediary between publishers selling ad inventory and purchasing advertisers. A network aggregates and filters advertisement inventory and helps connect sellers with buyers for online ad impressions. Buyers and sellers often negotiate on specific impressions instead of bidding.

3. Ad Server

An ad server stores display ads, provides these ads to visitors of a website, and creates reports by monitoring campaigns.

4. Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

Companies use customer relationship management to track and organize contacts with both current and potential customers. 

5. Data Management Platforms (DMP)

DMPs help manage first-party and third-party data so advertisers can use the data for a targeted advertising strategy. 

6. Demand Side Platform (DSP)

Advertisers can use a DSP to manage the purchases of their online display ads in real-time. Through ad exchanges and networks, a DSP buys ads for advertisers.  

7. Supply Side Platform (SSP)

An SSP enables publishers to manage and profit from ad impression inventory. This technology platform also allows publishers to improve the revenue from digital media.

8. Trading Desk

A trading desk can be either an Agency Trading Desk (ATD) or an Independent Trading Desk (ITD). Both handle programmatic advertising, but an ATD is often associated with and managed by a large holding company, while an ITD is independently owned and operated. Both manage cross-channel advertising on behalf of their marketer clients. 

Programmatic Advertising with AUDIENCEX

With programmatic advertising, your business can streamline the buying process and generate unprecedented ROAS.

AUDIENCEX is here to help. Our independent programmatic trading desk offers you access to more than 18 enterprise-level platforms to increase your audience reach and improve marketing performance. Our strategic guidance will help you make the most effective choices in areas like budget allocation and delivery format through a 250-point evaluation that reveals the DSP or platform that will serve you best. Unified reporting and easily customizable dashboards make it easy to generate clear insights from vast pools of data and use them to refine your campaigns to the highest degree.

Whether you want to be hands-on and keep direct control of your campaigns or you’re looking for more significant support, AUDIENCEX has a service model for you. When it comes to achieving your marketing goals, programmatic advertising is a game-changer. If you’re ready to elevate your advertising, contact AUDIENCEX. We’re happy to answer your questions and explain how our independent trading desk technology and support can help you exceed your targets.

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