Programmatic Buying Revealed

Programmatic buying is the new wave of the future for buying, selling, analyzing and optimizing online marketing. Through the use of quick and efficient real-time automated systems and algorithms, it is shaping up to be a must-have for

targeting individual customers and increasing return on investment.

But what exactly is this thing that has risen to the top of marketing in recent years?

For display advertising buyers and marketers, the general definition can be neatly summed up as a fully automated system for display advertising. In practice, this means that demand side software is used from developing the ad to booking, optimizing and all the way through to analyzing performance.

Although programmatic buying relies heavily upon computerized automation, this does not mean that machines have or will totally replace the need for the human touch. The use of algorithms, or the step-by-step rules that computers use for automated reasoning, can only go so far. But when the software is part of the tool kit of human marketers and media buyers, it becomes valuable and enhances performance considerably.

This type of media buying puts the consumer front and center in its efforts. It engages the customer where they are instead of pushing a product on the consumer. It works by delivering a relevant experience to the finely defined target audience of one. Although automated by machine, it has the human feel of a one-to-one interaction.

Programmatic buying unites a fragmented audience and allows marketers to combine customer interactions from many channels into one convenient and easy to read and use dashboard. This dashboard is instrumental in the development of overarching marketing strategies that best engages the potential buyer. It helps to continue the conversation, to form a personalized relationship with customers.

In addition, this automated system helps marketers assign value to every impression-every time a display ad is seen. In today's culture, consumers expect and most often demand high quality and professional content from their online social interactions and experiences. This is especially true when applied to the trusted sites that they depend on for breaking news and to read articles, stories and blogs that they are most interested in. These potential customers expect and demand the same quality and relevance from the advertising that is on the sites that they frequent.