Marketers have long seen programmatic as an awareness tactic, known for being cost-effective compared to tactics leveraging social or search. But leaders haven't seen it as a performance driver, per se, until now. With several evolutions in programmatic’s functionality, we are suddenly on the precipice of extreme growth: The global programmatic advertising marketplace is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 22.8% from 2024 to 2030 to reach USD 2,753.03 billion by 2030. Let’s take a look at why programmatic is ready for a rebrand as a veritable engagement powerhouse.
With highly agile programmatic, we're canvassing everywhere across the internet, even proving to be as sensitive as search by way of using predictive keywords to place relevant and timely ads. We can now understand an individual and their behaviors at a more nuanced level thanks to programmatic’s latest advancements -- namely, advanced audience targeting, integrations on emergent channels, and dynamic creative optimization. Not only is it efficient in terms of cost, as it has always been, but with these advances it is increasingly efficient in value-per-play, given the new wealth of consumer insights being drawn upon to inform placements.
The new reality is: Programmatic is a more full-service approach today than in prior years. It can even be drawn on as a targeting support tactic as we define search and social strategies. Imagine the level of planning this offers to the health industry in particular. Such advanced audience targeting can shed new light on individuals with conditions effected by seasonal changes or external events, such as psoriasis or asthma. Thanks to programmatic, we have new ways of understanding audience behaviors even when symptoms are notaggravated, thus further informing spend all-year round. Because we are receiving information about how a consumer behaves when they are experiencing symptoms, as well as before the onset of symptoms, we can arrive at a much more sophisticated media planning process that even has the power to improve public health given improved targeting acuity.
These advancements probably snuck up on those not closely following programmatic’s evolution. Fuel to this fire? The new wealth of inventory appearing on emergent channels: High-quality content entering the programmatic landscape is open to buy across all the primary apps and streaming devices. With linear programming, for example, you might see multiple pharma ads back-to-back if exclusivity wasn’t negotiated at a premium. But with CTV bought programmatically, this isn’t an issue. Streamers now share content identifiers directly, rather than working through third parties who provided genre codes and identifiers. Because of this we can understand today where it makes sense to buy for true cross channel audience planning and targeting.
Recently, these insights have become even more robust in light of the ever-evolving AI landscape; AI tools can indicate product adjacency in programming prior to advertising. For example, a certain name brand vehicle might showcase in premium content just prior to a commercial for that same vehicle. So, with this example, you can see how programmatic buyers can get truly contextual with all that dynamic creative optimization can offer. We can focus on exactly what it is we want to buy instead of focusing on audience cohorts or dayparting of the past. Rather than plan content by the hour, we can align content within minutes of relevancy to better capture an audience. This is possible only because we know specifically what was on the screen our target audiences were viewing prior to the ad running.
All this to say, the opportunity for the “new” programmatic is truly unique, delivering rich insights and impactful reach in a trustworthy, cost-effective way. Programmatic helps us take the patterns that are available and utilize them strategically across channels. It’s high time for us to see programmatic, and its value, as more of a mainstage player than ever before.
Posted at MediaVillage through the Thought Leadership self-publishing platform.
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