Automation has brought ease and a sense of simplicity to our daily lives.
Programmatic advertising has brought automation to the world of media buying and digital advertising.
Traditional media buying went through a very complex process with multiple people before the buy was actually finalized. The average total time spent on setting up campaigns with traditional media buying is around four hours over the course of multiple days. This can change depending on the advertiser’s relationships with publications and the complexity of the deals being made.
Here’s a glimpse at what a traditional media buy might look like:
Traditional Media Buying
Day 1
*ring, ring, ring*
“Hello, this is Barbara Wilson calling from Watauga Group. I am interested in running advertising with The New York Times,” said Barbara.
“Hi, Ms. Wilson. Absolutely. Let me send over our media kit for you to look at,” shares Nelson from The New York Times.
Day 2–3
Once Barbara receives the media toolkit, which outlines the different advertising options or packages available for purchase, she looks it over and decides to reach back out to The New York Times.
*ring, ring, ring*
“Hello, Nelson. This is Barbara again calling from Watauga Group. I had a chance to look over the media kit and wanted to reach out regarding a few of the options that may work for us,” stated Barbara, “However, I have 10 advertisers that would like to show on The New York Times, is there a deal we can work out with the options I’m interested in?”
“Hi, Barbara. No problem. Let me know what you’re interested in and I’ll see what I can do for you,” says Nelson.
Barbara shares which options she’s interested in and Nelson hangs up to bring the options back to his team to work out the negotiation.
Day 4–5
*ring, ring, ring*
Nelson calls Barbara back to extend their offer for 10 advertisers to display on The New York Times with a 10% discount on media options. Now an IO has to be formed by Nelson with the deals negotiated and sent back to Barbara for final approval and signature.
Day 4–6
Once the IO is signed, Barbara sends it back to Nelson and begins the process of submitting advertisements for the 10 advertisers displaying on The New York Times. This begins the traffic of ads back and forth between Wautaga Group and The New York Times.
As each campaign runs, Barbara is only able to get reporting as requested, at least once or month, or only after the campaign is completed. During this process, there are no optimizations that can be made or changing of campaign tactics mid-flight. Whatever was on the IO is now set in stone and Barbara will have to wait until the end of each campaign to see the performance.
(keep in mind the number of days with the traditional media buying process may range and can take anywhere from one week to multiple weeks to settle on a deal and get campaigns launched)
With programmatic advertising, this process doesn’t take a week or two. There’s no negotiating back and forth between publisher and advertiser, waiting for IO’s, waiting for the campaign launch, waiting for reporting, waiting to see how your campaign actually ran the entire flight it was up. Programmatic advertising is a simple 5 step process with the advertiser alone and the ability to see the performance in real-time.
Programmatic Advertising
Step 1 Login to the programmatic digital advertising platform of choice (heyyy, Choozle)
Step 2 Upload creative for all campaigns being created within the account
Step 3 Create Campaign—set budget and flight dates
Step 4 Create ad group(s) and set targeting tactics (i.e. IP targeting, geolocation, contextual and site categories)
Step 5 Enable Campaign
This process can be done within 30 minutes to a couple of hours depending on the complexity of the campaign. Once the campaign is launched, the advertiser will be able to pull reports whenever needed, make optimizations as they see fit, adjust the budget to better performing tactics, and see the performance of the campaign on a daily basis.
With this use of programmatic digital advertising, advertisers are literally able to cut the time spent on their campaign by 75%. On top of the time saving for the advertisers and their employees, clients are happier as they are able to receive information on the performance of their campaign in real-time and know their money isn’t being wasted.
Save time and take control of your campaigns with programmatic digital advertising.
