As programmatic advertising continues to increase its space in digital advertising, often the industry has asked does it means it is the end of the road of direct deals between publishers and advertisers or platforms and advertisers. No Not really. Although direct media buying has its advantages, programmatic backed by performance has also created a significant space in the market. According to experts, programmatic advertising helps marketers make the most of every cent and every second. With precise targeting and real-time optimisation, marketers can improve their campaigns’ efficiency and reach their audiences with individualised ads to engage and enhance brand visibility. “Programmatic advertising offers a more dynamic, data-driven approach to digital advertising that can improve performance, efficiency, and ROI compared to traditional direct media buys. The transition from direct media buying to programmatic advertising requires a data-driven approach,” Saurabh Khattar, county manager- India, Integral Ad Science, told BrandWagon Online.
As per the market research platform Statista, in 2022, the digital advertising industry across India spent around 58% of its ad spend on direct media purchases, while the remainder was spent on programmatic purchases. Overall, projections indicate that the industry will increasingly switch to programmatic advertising over the years to come, with a market share of 44% by 2024. According to industry experts, the adoption of programmatic media buying would allow advertisers to have increased flexibility and more control over their creatives and optimisation capacities.
In the pursuit of better user engagement!
Marketing, in its simplest meaning, is familiarising products and services to a mass audience. Now, as the world continues to evolve at a rapid pace, adapting to customer behaviour and keeping up with the competition at the same time require better strategies and reach. It is believed that a significant factor driving the shift towards programmatic advertising in the industry is its ability to analyse metrics and insights, providing marketers with real-time transparency. This transparency enables marketers to refine their targeting strategies and optimise ad placements, ultimately driving superior results. “Real-time tracking of consumer behaviour, coupled with leveraging Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Natural Language Generation (NLG) to create content, marketers can efficiently generate high-quality, personalised and precise engagement campaigns,” Harshit Jain, MD, founder and global CEO, Doceree, said.
But at the same time, the contrarian viewpoint from experts states that t digital advertising metrics is quite smoky and figuring out the actual data, conversion rate, and analytics does not always help in return on investment (ROI). Most advertisers claim to be l unaware of whether ads reach the right audience and are placed beside safe content. The repercussions of this are heavy on brands as they not only lose money but also put their reputation at stake. “ To counter these challenges, we provide log-level data to advertisers of their ad placements and ensure they are placed in a safe and contextual environment. Alongside that, we empower the advertisers with true data. Our capabilities enable advertisers to verify their impressions and get a clear picture of whether their programmatic advertisements are attracting genuine traffic,” Amit Relan, co-founder and CEO, mFilterIt, said.
To combat ad fraud in the programmatic world and to provide transparency, a host of tools are deployed to verify target accounts and delivery status. “These AI-enabled tools help to identify two mismatches – accounts not in the target list but campaigns delivered and second campaigns delivered to incorrect target accounts or segments. This is reported as ‘red’ when the % of mismatches is more than five percent,” Sunder Madakshira, head of marketing, Sinch India, highlighted.
Going with the flow!
According to experts, while planning a perfect strategy to deploy programmatic advertising it is imperative to have a smooth run between SSPs (Supply-side platforms) and DSPs (Demand-side platforms). Typically SSPs are the platforms which allow publishers to sell ad inventory to advertisers across different ad exchanges. The role of SSPs help publishers efficiently manage collaborations with multiple ad buyers and networks. SSPs leverage programmatic advertising to collaborate with demand-side platforms (DSPs), assessing advertisers, surveying publishers’ complete inventory, establishing bidding parameters, and offering suggestions for optimal space matches. A DSP streamlines the process for advertisers to acquire ad impressions across a variety of publishers’ websites efficiently. DSPs allow advertisers to secure multiple advertising spaces from a range of publishers, allowing online marketers and advertising agencies to effectively access premium advertising placements.
Additionally, connected TV (CTV) the increased adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning, and the growing importance of privacy regulations such as GDPR and CCPA. “These trends are influencing advertisers’ strategic decisions by prompting them to invest more in CTV advertising to reach cord-cutters and streaming audiences, utilise AI and machine learning for advanced targeting and optimisation, and prioritise data privacy compliance to build trust with consumers,” Yasin Hamidani, director, Media Care Brand Solutions, opined.
With Google depreciating third-party cookies and the government rolling out of the Digital Personal Data Protection Act (DPDP), marketers, publishers, and brands have been made to rethink their marketing strategies in compliance with user privacy. Given this, advertisers are also exploring new formats such as audio advertising and digital out-of-home (DOOH) advertising to diversify their programmatic campaigns and maximise reach. It is believed that the future of programmatic advertising lies in leveraging emerging technologies and adapting to changing consumer behaviours and regulatory landscapes to deliver personalised and privacy-compliant ad experiences.
See the forest for trees!
Typically programmatic ads are placed based on viewers’ search preferences. For instance, if a person reads some beauty tips or has looked for healthy protein-rich diet advice, she can rest assured that she will be bombarded with ads for skincare products and protein supplements. This is the role of contextual advertising in the programmatic world when the right content meets the right campaign. “Spotify wanted to boost ad engagement rates on its platform. The platform achieved this by analysing user behaviour and music preferences data (including listening habits on genres and artists) to deliver personalised ads to users. The platform also looked at the time of day users listened to certain types of music, and this way, it was able to deliver highly targeted ads that its users were drawn towards. The results were an impressive ad engagement rate 2 and a half times above the industry average and a 25% rise in ad recall among Spotify users,” Neha Yaduvanshi, founder, Vastada Consulting, said.
When personalisation is the key, why not in advertising? Maybe that is why programmatic is gaining traction as the campaign reaches the audiences as per their choice based on data and is personalised in nature. “Our approach to balancing brand storytelling with direct response within programmatic campaigns is strategic and data-driven. We segment our campaigns to cater to different stages of the customer journey, utilising dynamic creative optimisation (DCO) to serve personalised ads that resonate with the audience’s specific interests and needs at each stage. For brand storytelling, we focus on high-impact formats and premium placements that foster emotional connections with the audience,” Himmath Jain, co-founder and director, AS-IT-IS Nutrition, said.
To be sure, adapting programmatic necessarily does not mean ditching direct media buying but rather adopting a multi-faceted approach. “Our strategy involves seamlessly integrating programmatic advertising with our broader marketing initiatives, such as omnichannel campaigns and brand partnerships. Through robust data analytics, we identify synergies across channels to create a unified and consistent brand experience,” Ravinder Varma, brand manager, RiteBite Max Protein (Naturell India), said.