Top tips: Demystifying programmatic video advertising

Programmatic ads are taking off, but more than half of marketers still don’t understand programmatic well enough to implement it. Guy Yalif, VP of Global Marketing, BrightRoll offers a guide to getting the most out of programmatic video ads.

Programmatic is arguably one of the biggest developments in the digital advertising space. When it comes to video advertising, programmatic is beginning to take off, with programmatic video ad sales in EU-5 reaching €226m in 2014, according to eMarketer, and expected to soar 63.5% this year to reach €369m by the end of 2015.

Advertisers and agencies are adopting programmatic quickly. Yet, despite being the Association of National Advertisers’ (ANA) marketing word of the year in 2014, more than half of marketers still don’t understand programmatic well enough to implement it.

So, to put a clearer lens on programmatic advertising, let’s explain what it is and discuss some of the key benefits it delivers to advertisers.

Simply put, programmatic refers to the use of software to automate the purchase of digital advertising. Fundamentally, programmatic advertising lets advertisers make their video advertising investments work harder for them by allowing them to work smarter, faster and more efficiently. Efficiency and efficacy are why programmatic advertising is so effective. Programmatic advertising helps marketers reach the precise audiences they seek across screens as efficiently as possible.

Programmatic gives ad buyers huge advantages, which is why a growing number of marketers are shifting their dollars towards this strategy. Advertisers can easily put the best data they have in-house and from third parties to target specific audience characteristics, like age, gender, geography and interest. They can also target on particular aspects of the inventory they buy, including ad placement, content category and device. Good programmatic software also gives advertisers real-time performance insights of their campaigns.

With programmatic, advertisers gain a single holistic view of their campaigns, making it easier to manage their data, frequency cap across publishers and devices, and control quality. Advertisers should seek a fully transparent view of metrics like completed view rates, click-through rates, in target audience delivery, and where their ads appeared. Advertisers should look for the capability to track and optimize these KPIs and then make in flight adjustments during campaigns.

Programmatic advertising is enabled by the software to buy video programmatically, namely a demand-side platform (or DSP). A full featured video DSP gives ad buyers access to video inventory from web, mobile web, mobile app publishers, and TV.

DSP’s also enable advertisers to consolidate all of their buys in one place. This single source of information makes management and reporting easier, giving advertisers cross publisher and cross device insights to improve their campaign performance.

For many advertisers, programmatic is the right way to use customer data and broader audience intelligence in digital advertising initiatives. For many agencies, programmatic has shown to be an efficient, cost-effective way to automate ad buying and realize greater returns by using advertiser and third party data to select, optimize and enhance paid media. Advertisers and agencies want their campaigns to tell powerful stories, shift consumer perception, and ultimately drive sales — and programmatic is helping them meet these goals.

Programmatic make video ad buying more effective and more efficient. However, given the complexity it’s not hard to see why there may be a steep learning curve to a new set of skills required to use it effectively. It takes a training, internal communications, and a mindset of experimentation to get it right. You don’t need to tackle everything at once. If you’re ready to go programmatic, find a partner to help you navigate the waters. If you’ve gotten this far, you’re already taken the first step.