By Marissa Bernstein, Director of Marketing at Vistar Media

If you work in the digital advertising space, you have likely heard the term programmatic. However, if you’re new to this type of buying, you probably have questions about how it works and why you should use it. This article will answer your most pressing programmatic questions, and provide some information on what this type of transaction actually does.

Programmatic Advertising Explained

Programmatic advertising, at its core, is a way of using technology to buy and manage advertising spots. There are many different ways to buy programmatically and several different pieces of technology that make up the programmatic ecosystem. The common thread here is transactions are conducted through automation, rather than through a series of manual steps.

Core Features of Programmatic

• Programmatic buying is often executed via an auction-based marketplace or exchange.
• Publishers provide available inventory, discoverable at the individual impression or spot level.
• Buyers can evaluate and bid on inventory in real time, based on business rules such as audience criteria and price.

Benefits of Programmatic Advertising for Marketers

Aggregate Supply

Programmatic technology provides you with a single access point for all inventory, which serves as a centralized place to purchase different types of ad placements. This type of transaction usually provides additional transparency into budgeting and campaign performance metrics.

Efficient Workflow

With programmatic buying, you won’t need to manage multiple contracts and insertion orders. Instead, everything can be done through a single platform, which allows even the smallest teams to handle large, complex campaigns by being more dynamic and efficient with how they spend their time.

Data-Informed Purchasing

Programmatic platforms use data to inform buying decisions for every single ad placement at the impression or spot level. Whether using audience segments, weather triggers or other data to guide a campaign, marketers can make more efficient buys and ultimately eliminate wasted campaign spend.

Aggregate Measurement

With programmatic buying, you can apply overarching measurement techniques to understand the impact of your DOOH campaigns across all inventory types. Instead of measuring each publisher on an individualized basis, you can evaluate your campaigns more holistically, and optimize spending based on your learnings.

Programmatic Ad Buying Examples

One example of programmatic buying is programmatic digital out-of-home. Through this form of ad buying, you – as a marketer – can set parameters around what goals you are trying to achieve and identify any specific audiences you may want to reach. From there, you’ll upload your creative assets, set your budget, and let the technology use data-informed decisioning to do the work for you. If you are trying to reach frequent travelers for example, your ads may appear on billboards along major highways, gas stations, airports, and transit locations.

Programmatic marketing can also be done across mobile, digital display, television, audio, and more.

Getting Started with Programmatic DOOH Media

While all of this may sound appealing, it can sometimes be overwhelming to get started. Luckily, many of the creative materials you use for other types of advertising can be easily applied to the programmatic DOOH landscape as well.

The team at Vistar Media has a wealth of experience and can walk you through everything you need to know to start buying programmatically. Contact us today for a free strategy session.

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