acuity logo
  • Solutions
    • illumin
      Our intuitive platform helps you see through the clutter of programmatic advertising.
    • Attention Advertising
      Increase brand’s total viewership time within a finite, relevant audience set – without increasing your budget.
    • Live Audiences
      Incorporate the most recent and relevant audience insights and improve how your media dollars are used.
  • Insights
    • Blog
      These are the latest insights and trends in the advertising industry that you need to know
    • White Papers
      Helpful reports and guides to inform you of industry trends and complex concepts
    • Success Stories
      Learn more about the success of our clients and products within specific industries
  • News
    • Press
      Read our press releases for major announcements and upcoming events
    • Events
      Check out the events we’re attending or hosting and view past events with AcuityAds
    • Videos
      Watch the latest webinars, video presentations and demonstrations by AcuityAds
  • Company
  • Careers
  • Investors
  • Login
  • Schedule a demo
Contact Us

A Brief History of Programmatic

December 27, 2017

The programmatic advertising industry is growing at unprecedented rates – according to eMarketer year over year spending has increased approximately 30% and it is set to top $39.10 billion in 2018 in the US alone!

Automating the media buying process via programmatic advertising has become the ultimate solution to improve digital campaign ROI and ensure strategic business goals are met.

How Did Programmatic Come About?

Programmatic advertising uses technology to buy and sell ad inventory via an automated and data-driven process, across channels and formats including display, video,native, audio, CTV and digital outdoor ads.

In the early stages of the internet, buying an online ad was a simpler process, starting with a relationship between publishers (sellers) and advertisers (buyers).

Advertisers wanted to reach their target audience to influence users, such as to purchase, build brand awareness and affinity or promote an event. Publishers provided a web property made up of intriguing and useful content to attract an audience the advertiser might want to reach with their campaigns. Agencies helped advertisers achieve their marketing goals and connect with their target audiences. It was up to media buyers to create media plans that targeted the right people and communicate with publishers that had access to those audiences.

As the internet grew, it caused a massive ad oversupply that resulted in a significant amount of inventory being left unsold and unmonetized. Publishers grew faster than advertisers, making it hard for buyers to consume available ad supply.

Then came ad networks, which categorized a publisher’s unsold ad inventory so it was easier for buyers to access and include it in media campaigns. Ad networks split ad inventories into two categories: premium and remnant. Premium ads were sold via direct relationships between buyers and sellers, while remnant ads were those left unsold or leftover, which publishers sold via ad networks.

The Programmatic Advertising JourneyMultiple Technologies, Single Infrastructure

Ad networks created an environment where agencies had more than a single channel to source ad inventories, but made the ad buying process more complicated for publishers. The solution? Supply side platforms (SSP), which provided publishers with a way to manage who gained access to ad inventory for resale to agencies and advertisers. SSPs help publishers maximize revenue earned via ad networks because they act as a middleman between the seller and the advertising networks. They give publishers more control over ad inventory and dictate how it’s sold and delivered to the ad network. SSPs create a bidding environment wherein publishers extract the most revenue possible from their ad inventories.

On the other hand, Demand Side Platforms (DSP) have emerged to help agencies and advertisers scoop up ad inventories, enabling them to manage media buying via a single platform. DSP and SSP technology evolved to create an infrastructure that integrated both platforms, allowing buyers and sellers to perform programmatic advertising with Real-Time Bidding (RTB).

RTB Captures the Right Audiences in Real-Time

Before RTB, advertisers purchased impressions in bulk, making it hard to differentiate audiences from each other. For example, if an advertiser wanted to sell a product to a market of people aged 50 and over, they could only tap an impression range that included audiences in the 20 to 30 year old range (not exactly efficient, right?)

RTB created an environment in which advertisers can display ads to a particular audience based on data points related to that audience. Using the example above, a RTB would help the advertiser programmatically display the ad only to its target audience of those 50 years and older, instead of losing impressions on uninterested audiences within the impression range. RTB uses data and machine learning to ensure ads are delivered to the right people at the right time.

Programmatic advertising and real-time bidding helps advertisers effectively create campaigns and respond accordingly to real-time behavior analysis based on parameters and filters that administrators can adjust as needed. This helps advertisers craft campaigns that respond quickly to shifts in customer behavior, demographics, traffic and costs.

A Programmatic Advertising Case Study

Case Study: Travel & Tourism

How Programmatic Maximizes Digital Campaign Effectiveness

Programmatic advertising helps advertisers consolidate the media buying process to funnel ads across a number of relevant content channels to maximize a campaign’s effectiveness. Doing so requires identifying the right data and using it effectively. Machine learning provides advertisers with the ability to work at a much larger scale and much more efficiently, allowing them to focus more on developing effective campaign strategies and reviewing reports. Effective marketers are making use of the data available to them via technological advancements to reach their target audiences.

Acuity platform is powered by a proprietary machine learning algorithm and employs strategic digital advertising solutions that cater to advertiser needs and help them connect with their most meaningful audiences intelligently.


Share this post!


Categories

Uncategorized

Sign up to our newsletter

Acuity Insights is a monthly newsletter that provides informative, educational articles on everything connected with digital marketing and advertising today.

Subscribe

Categories

  • Uncategorized
  • Algorithm
  • Digital Advertising
  • Ad Exchange
  • Demand Side Platform (DSP)
  • Social Data
  • Geo Targeting
  • Geo Reporting
  • True Reach
  • Attention Advertising
  • Supply Side Platform (SSP)
  • Programmatic Audio
  • Decision Science
  • Cannabis Advertising
  • Direct To Consumer
  • Culture Advertising
  • Most Viewed Video Ads
  • CTV
  • Español
  • Walled Gardens
  • Webinar
  • Company News
  • eCommerce
  • illumin®
  • Consumer Journey
  • Advertising Automation
  • Journey Automation
  • Case Study
  • Contextual
  • Technology

Archive

B2B marketing zone

B2B Marketing Zone
Marketing Help Business Content Customer More >>

acuity logo
  • Contact Us
  • Opt-out
  • Corporate Privacy Policy
  • Technology Privacy Policy
  • Terms & Conditions
  • AODA
  • Cookie Policy
  • Investors
  • Careers
Subscribe

© 2022 AcuityAds. All Rights Reserved.

Manage Cookie Consent
Adchoices

This website conducts Interest Based Advertising through the use of cookies. By continuing to use this website you are consenting to the use of your cookies.
Functional cookies Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options Manage services Manage vendors Read more about these purposes
View preferences
{title} {title} {title}