The term “programmatic” has been around for several years but only recently has become part of the lingo of the online advertising world. So what does it really mean?
Programmatic refers to the process of one computer talking to another to complete an advertising transactional operation as opposed to a human calling another human to book an ad campaign. Google Adwords has used “programmatic” technology since inception. Nothing new.
You may also have heard about RTB – Real Time Bidding – often incorrectly used synonymously with programmatic. Very simply defined it means a technology that allows the automated bidding, buying, and selling of display ads in an open auction. An RTB platform is programmatic, however a programmatic platform is not necessarily an RTB. Google Adwords as well as competing Media companies with proprietary display networks (example PostMedia, Rogers, etc) are Real Time Bidding platforms. Again – nothing new.
That being said, there are new advances in the industry that are really exciting:
- Older generation RTB systems currently used by most networks serve ads to “prepackaged” audiences that are put together through structured data (data derived from organized databases).
- Newer generation RTB platforms use unstructured data sourced from e-mail, tweets, electronic documents, video, audio files, web pages, and more – giving far deeper insight into audience intent and recency.
That means better defined audience targeting, more inventory, enhanced hyperlocal targeting & geo fencing, more reliable tracking and more conversions.
So how do you access these new, better targeted audiences? Ask us at 20Eight!
Louise Scanlan