The automated buying and placement of digital advertising using software, audience data, and real-time bidding systems.
A scalable method for reaching defined audiences across large networks of digital inventory.
Short and sweet:
The automated buying and placement of digital advertising using software, audience data, and real-time bidding systems.
A scalable method for reaching defined audiences across large networks of digital inventory.
See also: Display Advertising, Frequency Capping, Behavioral Targeting
Programmatic advertising automates the buying and placement of digital ads through real-time bidding software, matching an advertiser’s target audience with available ad space across the web in the time it takes a page to load, rather than relying on a human negotiating each placement directly. This automation lets advertisers reach very specific audiences at scale across thousands of sites at once, something manual ad buying could never realistically match. Because so much happens algorithmically and at speed, transparency into exactly where ads are appearing has become a bigger focus for advertisers wary of low-quality placements slipping through.
A platform like The Trade Desk runs programmatic advertising for major brands, using real-time bidding to place a car ad in front of the exact person who’s been researching SUVs across thousands of websites.
News publishers rely heavily on this kind of automated buying to fill unsold banner space, letting an auction decide within milliseconds which advertiser gets to show up on that page.
Retailers running holiday campaigns often use the same automated approach to serve different creative to different shoppers, showing a parent an ad for kids’ toys and a college student an ad for headphones on the exact same website.
