Programmatic advertising 101: the process, tech and people

Sakthi R, Director of architecture, MiQ

The basic definition of programmatic advertising is the process of automatically buying and selling digital advertising space. This type of advertising connects publishers (websites with spaces for adverts) to advertisers (companies wanting to advertise) and offers a more data-driven, transparent and targeted approach than traditional advertising. Formats and channels which can be accessed programmatically include video, display, connected TV and digital out-of-home advertising.

Let’s dive into the process.

From website visit to served ad

• Someone clicks on a website with ad inventory (space for adverts)
• The publisher puts the ad impression up for auction using Supply Side Platforms (SSPs).
  SSPs are the interface between the publishers and advertising networks or exchanges e.g. Google Ad Manager.
• This request is passed to Demand Side Platforms (DSPs). Effectively, the request is saying, “User X is 24 years old and male; lives in London; is using a smartphone; is interested in gaming, Formula 1 and photography; and works full-time. He’s about to see an ad on a website. Who wants to advertise to him?”
  DSPs are interfaces through which impressions are bought, e.g. DV360. Each DSP has different targeting capabilities across a range of publishers, based on which buyers can reach specific audience segments.
• Real-time bidding takes place across DSPs. Buyers — ad networks and programmatic media partners — offer bids for the impression.
  Ad networks are technology platforms that broker the sale of ad inventory between publishers and advertisers. They buy inventory from the publisher up front before selling it to advertisers.
• The highest bidder wins the impression.
• The advertisement is served on the website to the user.

All of this happens in microseconds. Machine learning and analytics allow winning bids to be determined quickly.

Reaping the rewards

With the number of steps, platforms and parties integral to the process, programmatic is no easy undertaking. So, why is it still the choice for so many advertisers?

1.Omnichannel approach

How often do you use multiple devices simultaneously? The number of channels consumers are exposed to continues to grow and advertisers want to be able to target consumers everywhere. Programmatic enables advertisers to serve ads across smartphones, connected TVs and digital billboards whilst coordinating campaigns and frequency to allow for better connected campaigns.

2. Audience targeting

Information about users spans categories including device ownership, age, interests, location and more. Programmatic advertising allows brands to target specific category values e.g. ‘ages 19–24’ or ‘owns an iPhone’. Advertisers set audience requirements on DSPs and user information is shared alongside the bid request. Advertisers are able to target users, making the most of their existing customer data and allowing for targeted campaigns.

3. Creative formats

With so many advertisers and so much available inventory, you have to stand out. Luckily, programmatic has this covered. User information allows for personalised creative units, and there are also shoppable units, high-impact video, store locators and chatbots. Coupled with an omnichannel approach, creative solutions keep audiences engaged and responsive.

4. Measurable results

Programmatic partners and platforms provide analytics tools, meaning they do the heavy lifting in calculating key metrics like click-through rates, traffic, conversions and bounce rates. There’s full transparency on where the budget is being spent and how campaigns are performing. Maybe something could be improved? Campaign settings can be adjusted in real-time to test out different strategies.

Programmatic challenges

There are a lot of moving parts involved in a programmatic campaign and getting it right is tricky.

On top of this, the landscape is constantly changing. Third-party cookies have traditionally been used to track users’ online behavior and create profiles based on browsing interests, which advertisers can use to further target ads.

Advertisers also collect first-party data. This can be online or offline (i.e. from website or in-store visits) and may include user emails, IP addresses or location information. By layering third-party and first-party data, advertisers are able to gain deeper insight into users — building lookalike audiences or targeting lapsed customers for re-engagement, for example.

However, onboarding and managing first- and third-party datasets for audience targeting requires multiple partnerships, which can quickly become very expensive and complex.

And that’s not the only worry for advertisers. Browsers are also phasing out third-party cookies which means lesser-known solutions are often now the best choice.

An easier way

To make things simpler, brands opting to advertise programmatically may use programmatic media partners.

That’s what MiQ is and with over a decade of experience in programmatic advertising, we create, run and measure campaigns to meet our clients’ brand goals.

Other partners offer point solutions — specializing in one type of advertising. But with omnichannel campaigns increasingly driving the best business outcomes, we think an agnostic approach is best. This means we’re not limited by capabilities, data sources or partners — we work with whatever necessary to drive the best business outcomes for our clients.

So, why do advertisers choose MiQ?

1. We are tech enabled with proprietary solutions that we have built from the ground up to answer custom needs. Our Intelligence Hub gives advertisers brand, consumer and campaign insights in a friendly interface; Analytics Studio allows our analysts to connect data; and Trading Lab contains the strategies, set up and optimization tools we need to execute. Owning platforms dedicated to insights, activation and measurement enables us to deliver an end-to-end service, and allows us to adapt to client needs or industry changes.
2. As well as working across capabilities, we are also partner agnostic. This means access to inventory from both the open and closed web, and a comprehensive view of your audience through the hundreds of data partnerships we manage.
3. And MiQ wouldn’t be MiQ without its people! With over 300 analysts and data scientists, dedicated creative specialists and trading experts, we are people powered and driven by our human expertise.

Tech at MiQ

With this final point in mind — MiQ is growing and we’re hiring across data, engineering, trading and other teams in India, the UK, US and beyond.

We’re especially looking to grow teams that make up our three technology pillars, which power our proprietary solutions. Here’s a taste of what you can expect in each team:

• Software Engineering

Develop world-class & highly-intuitive programmatic advertising software products using new technologies which integrate almost all leading AdTech platforms for easy set up, execution & measurement of advertising campaigns.

• Data Science & Analytics

As a data scientist, you’ll develop market-leading data science solutions using advanced machine learning models to identify the target audiences across all channels, formats & markets.

In data analytics, you’ll enable MiQ customers to gain better insights from their marketing campaigns using the richness of MiQ’s own data lake, clean rooms and wall gardened solutions.

• Cloud Infrastructure & Security

Provide seamless deployment of programmatic solutions on all leading public cloud providers ring fenced with comprehensive data protection policies and security compliant with government/regional standards (GDPR,CCPA).

If you’ve enjoyed reading about programmatic advertising and think a career in this exciting industry might be for you, visit our careers page for details on open roles.

Sakthi leads enterprise architecture in MiQ’s Bengaluru office. Outside of work, he enjoys playing football and likes up-skilling himself regularly on the technology space. He also loves playing drums and listening to music.