Programmatic Media Buying 101

Programmatic media buying is purchasing placements for advertisements on websites, apps, and other digital platforms. Advertisers negotiate with the publisher to display their ad through RTB whenever an individual refreshes or loads a new page online. What individuals used to do manually is now accomplished in the amount of time it takes a webpage to load.

How does it work?

The majority of RTB is orchestrated by four main parties involved with the process: the demand-side platform (DSP), the ad exchange, the supply-side platform (SSP), and the publisher.

The Demand Side Platform (DSP) The demand-side platform is designed and used to help marketers store the advertisements they would like to place on publishers’ websites and allow them to advertise to specific audience segments. This ensures your target audience is the one seeing your advertisements. Additionally, DSPs are used to working within ad exchanges to purchase placements for their advertisements in an automated, efficient way. Furthermore, the platforms often offer other benefits such as analysis tools and avoiding fraudulent sites that generate traffic with bots, wasting advertising dollars on a non-existent audience. The Ad Exchange The ad exchange is the marketplace for buying and selling advertisements and ad placements. Publishers sell their ad space available for content (also known as their inventory), and advertisers bid to buy those spaces in real-time. This all happens in a fraction of a second! The Supply Side Platform (SSP) The supply-side platform is the publisher’s equivalent to the advertiser’s DSP. SSPs allow publishers to sell their inventory in the ad exchange to interested buyers. The publisher is the website or other content-creating platforms that consumers visit. Publishers have ad spaces on their sites that they use SSPs to sell to advertisers. The Publishers Publishers are the owners, “suppliers”, or “sellers” of digital ad space online. They’re referred to as the “first-party” in digital advertising because they have direct ownership over the ad space that they sell to the advertisers they work with. Some examples of different types of digital publishers include:

• Website owners

• Blog owners

• Podcast productions

• Video content creators (YouTube, etc.)

• Mobile apps/games

• Software platforms

The unifying factor between all of these diverse publisher mediums is that various types of ads can be placed within them – meaning that these channels create available ad space. The Benefits The introduction of automated digital media buying has made the process more efficient and cost-effective for both buyers and sellers. Advertisers can make the most of their advertising budget by targeting the audience segments most likely to engage with their advertisements and purchasing that ad space in real-time as users open new web pages. The future of digital media buying is increasingly automated, and understanding the process is vital to success with your digital advertisements.

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