Programmatic: welcome to the era of smart advertising!

The purchasing process of digital advertising changed drastically. It is now possible to target broadcasting with extreme accuracy and to adapt the content to external factors like the time or the weather.

We may not realize it, but publicists don’t have an easy life. Their posters designed to draw the attention of men are regularly seen by women. Teenagers often hear their amazing radio spots intended for retired persons. This happens all the time and they can’t do anything about it.

They dream of a solution that would enable them to target their public with unerring precision. Or rather, they “dreamt”: from now on programmatic advertising turn their desires into a reality.

How about that?

Programmatic advertising is a marketplace system. A kind of big trading room where we sell and buy all the things that are put up for auction.

The first difference from traditional advertising market is huge: as in the stock market, prices go up and down based on supply and demand.

Second significant difference: you don’t only buy broadcasting spaces (websites or websites’ sections), you also buy audiences (for instance, women with 1 to 3 years old kids)

Programmatic advertising … Say it again?

But it isn’t the only revolution. The word “programmatic” means that machines are taking care of transactions, choosing the locations or the topics to broadcast. That opens up a brand new field of possibilities!

Developing the volume of broadcasting according to the time or the date. Modifying the content on the fly to fit the news or the weather. Changing the visual of a banner based on the preferences of the target audience. Adapting the price of your offer to an event using various scenarios. Opportunities in terms of creation or of strategy are countless!

The example of The Economist

Based on the editorial context and the readers’ interests, which were already known thanks to a cookie, the renowned British economic magazine was defining the most appropriate content for the target audience among seven thematics (from finance to social justice).

An adapted banner was then displayed to invite the reader to read an other article about the same subject. On the landing page there was a subscription offer coherently formulated regarding the thematic.