A Beginner’s Guide to Programmatic Advertising

Is your brand reaching the right people at the right moment? In today’s digital world, effective targeting is key to success.

Programmatic advertising may be the solution!

In this post we’ll cover:

• how to connect with the right audience at the right time
• how data-driven strategies can help you drive measurable results
• how to maximize your brand’s digital success

What is Programmatic Advertising?

Here’s one definition:
Programmatic advertising uses workflow automation and machine learning algorithms to deliver the most effective ads to audiences based on various signals, such as behaviors, interests, demographics, location, etc.

Gross. Did anyone understand that?

Here’s a better definition:
Programmatic advertising allows us to run on a broad spectrum of platforms, targeting a very specific/niche audience.

That’s better. When you want to target a specific audience, you have a number of different types of ads you can leverage.

Wondering what ad type is (or isn’t) best for you? That depends. Here are some qualities we look for to determine the right strategy for our clients:

By the end of this post, you’ll likely have a sense of which ad types would work within your marketing strategy. (If not? You know where to find us.)

Native Ads

Native ads stand out from traditional media because they are integrated within an article, allowing them to be less intrusive and more relevant to the content. Native ads are found within the feed of an article, within the display inventory on the page, and in the content recommendations.

EMARKETER reported that in 2024 advertisers in the US are pivoting from social media with native ad spend being 63.1% of the total display ad spend. 

Display Ads

Display advertising consists of banner ads, either static text and images or interactive with rich media elements. These banner ads are similar to the banner ads you’ll see through Google, but the behind-the-scenes buying and targeting are different. Display ads allow advertisers to utilize more creative ad formats to entice users to engage with ads. The more creative the ad, the more memorable and longer-lasting it is, which will help build awareness with your target audience. Here are some examples:

Video Ads

Video ads (or Online Video/OLV) run similarly to native ads but instead of being static, you use video clips. When combined with other ad formats, video ads can increase reach, help with product recognition, and lift the performance metrics of your other campaigns.

According to Wyzowl, 82% of consumers were convinced to buy a product or service after watching a video ad. 92% of marketers surveyed say that video marketing has given them an increased ROI, and 88% of them also say that video ads have helped them increase consumer understanding of their product.

CTV Ads

Through programmatic advertising, we can advertise to smart TVs and streaming platforms!

Connected TV (CTV) refers to a device used to stream internet content. This could be a smart TV or streaming devices like Roku or Apple TV, which enable a TV to stream digital video or streaming platforms like YouTube TV, Hulu, Netflix, etc.

B2B CTV ad example from the StackAdapt Creative Studio 

Compared to the small screen of a laptop or mobile device, a CTV ad is more immersive, relaxed, and typically delivers significantly higher completion rates than desktop, laptop, or mobile viewing.

Audio Ads

Audio advertising allows us to reach users while they enjoy their favorite music, audiobooks, or podcasts on streaming platforms like Spotify, Pandora, and iHeart Radio. In 2024, there were over 1.7 billion podcast listeners, 270 million audiobook listeners, and a monthly average of 750 million streaming music subscribers.

Audio ads play before, during, and after a user streams their favorite podcast, audiobook, or music. Advertisers can even target users based on their content interests so that ads play during relevant topics or genres.

But how does it work?

Programmatic platforms allow you to dive deeper, while other platforms are very limited in their targeting. This means that there are many ways we can use programmatic to narrow down to a very specific audience beyond the surface-level information that other platforms offer. You may even recognize these categories and filters (below).

Is programmatic a good fit for me?

Programmatic advertising is not the right fit for every brand or business. Use this checklist to determine if it might be a good option for your marketing strategy:

1. Before discussing and planning a programmatic strategy, it is important to investigate your audience, the performance of your industry, and industry benchmarks within programmatic to determine which platforms could be the right fit. (We like to use the forecasting tool in StackAdapt, but this does require having a paid account.)
   
   
2. Consider your budget. While every advertising plan will be different based on audience, targeting, industry, etc., a healthy starting point for programmatic advertising would be in the range of $3,000 - $4,000 a month. Keep in mind that this starting budget is just that – a start. We often find that the monthly budget needs to increase after we have determined a baseline.
   
   Note: Keep in mind that programmatic advertising defaults to running ads across all platforms of a specific ad type. This means that running ads exclusively on one platform (Private Marketplaces PMP) will cost more and/or require higher media spend minimums.
   
   
3. Ask yourself: How often can we produce new, organic content? Ideally, you should be posting new content to your website at least 3-5 times per month (including blogs, podcasts, videos, press releases, etc.). This ensures that your investment in programmatic advertising can be used to drive users to your website and offer enough content for them to engage with, learn more about your brand, and ultimately convert.

Big Picture Takeaways

Programmatic advertising can be difficult to wrap your head around if you’re new to it. Here are the main takeaways to remember:

1. Programmatic advertising allows us to run on a broad spectrum of platforms.
   
   
2. Programmatic utilizes various effective and relevant ad types. 
   
   

   Native Ads	Display Ads	Video Ads
   Connected TV / OTT	Streaming Audio

3. Programmatic allows us to target a very niche audience.
   
   

   Demographics	Location	Behavioral
   Weather	Contextual	Retargeting

While we love programmatic advertising at CID, it is not perfect for every brand. If you’d like to explore if programmatic advertising would be a good fit for you, CID’s digital marketing team is ready to help!