Programmatic Explained: Understanding Demand-Side Platforms (DSP)

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Programmatic advertising involves buying, selling, and managing ads through a DSP. In the age of big data, AI is automating marketing tasks that were traditionally left up to humans. And with the large amounts of data that computers can process and modern digital infrastructure can collect, technology is helping marketers do a better job than they ever did alone. It is unsurprising, then, that programmatic placement is taking off in the digital marketing industry.

Programmatic advertising tools allow for significantly better results with reduced labor costs. This is a win-win scenario and a way of the future for digital advertising. Getting the most success from the technology, however, relies on working with the right partners – putting the right people at the wheel. In this post, we’ll discuss programmatic advertising and delve into one of the top programmatic platforms, Google Display and Video 360 (DV360).

Intro to Programmatic Advertising

Done manually, managing an effective ad campaign requires many steps. Someone must constantly monitor the performance, weigh that performance against the cost, and make adjustments as necessary to ensure that the highest performing creatives and audiences are getting the largest chunk of advertising dollars. For those of you using Deep Search and Automated Bid Management, you’ve already got an idea of how smart technology plays a role in any successful digital marketing strategy, and that’s a cornerstone of successful programmatic marketing.

With programmatic advertising platforms and the AI-powered algorithms that drive them, time-consuming manual steps can be alleviated by the help of a machine. The platforms also allow you to manage all of your advertisers’ campaigns from one convenient location, providing you with a more robust overview of your management portfolio.

It is important to note that programmatic advertising is a broad umbrella term. It can refer to anything from automating the purchase and delivery of ads to a full-blown, real-time, AI-powered, ad optimization machine. Therefore, not all programmatic advertising platforms are created the same. If you want to get superior results, you’ll need to use the best demand-side platforms.

Some of the benefits of DSPs are real-time reporting and metrics that allow for real-time bidding. Real-time bidding leads to cost efficiency and more. DV360, Adlucent’s DSP of choice, offers this functionality, and we’ll discuss it in more detail below.

Google DV360 Programmatic DSP

Google’s DV360 is the evolution of a product formerly known as Doubleclick Bid Manager. It is the demand side offering by Google for programmatic ad buying and management. Many users coming from running a basic campaign on Google’s display network will find DV360 to be a welcome step up without taking them into unfamiliar territory.

DV360 works by offering a centralized tool that finds and buys inventory; plans, measures, and optimizes campaigns; designs and manages creative; organizes and applies audience data. Specifically, DV360 integrates creative, data, and media information so that respective teams can collaborate by sharing campaign data and insights from media, creative, data, and analytics teams so they can work across disciplines and execute robust campaigns.

DV360 offers transparency and control by showing exactly how the budget is spent and where the ads are running – across all campaigns. Built-in DV360 intelligence automates tasks like bidding and optimization and automatically surfaces insights and recommendations for quick action.

Additionally, five integrated modules: Campaigns, Audiences, Creatives, Inventory, and Insights work together to simplify the campaign management process. We’ll summarize the features of the modules below.

Campaigns Module

Organizations can build and execute a cross-channel media plan with the Campaigns module and use it to create, optimize, and monitor campaigns, line items, and insertion orders.

Audiences Module

Companies may manage audiences alongside campaigns with the Audience module. New DV360 features that help build and manage audiences include:

• Audience profile analysis. Learn about the composition of audiences based on all available first-party, third-party, and Google data, and create new combined audiences across data sets.
• Activity-based audience builder. Build audiences from campaign activity in DV360.
• Audience-based frequency caps. Set frequency caps across audiences based on all impression exposures.

Creatives Module

Brands can tie creative strategy to the campaign, audience data, and the media plan with the Creatives Module. It offers a workspace for the entire creative team within DV360. The new features that help build and manage creatives are:

• The Ad Canvas. Design ads visually with real-time previews on the Ad Canvas.
• The Format Gallery. Discover new innovative formats, test them on the Ad Canvas, and browse Google Web Designer templates for custom solutions.
• Data-driven creatives. Create variations of messages that resonate with different audiences and set up rules to deliver the creative strategy.
• New user roles. New Creative user roles, allow the entire creative team to collaborate within DV360.

Inventory Module

Organizations can discover and manage high-quality inventory from top broadcasters and publishers, explore new opportunities in the Marketplace, and negotiate deals within the Inventory module.

Insights Module

Companies will get all needed campaign metrics with the Insights Module.

View new features (like instant reporting) that help marketing teams analyze performance across DV360 and quickly act on the results.

Along with the five modules, additional features throughout DV360 include:

• Google Marketing Platform features: You’ll see the new Google Marketing Platform features described here linked from the new common product switcher
• Overview page: Navigate easily to what matters the most. See important alerts and recently viewed items specific to the DV360 user account.
• The Intelligence Panel. See performance health alerts and optimization suggestions for campaigns and insertion orders.

Furthermore, some of the standout features for DV360 are:

• High-quality inventory marketplace – Any ad platform is only as good as the inventory that it makes available to you. Many programmatic ad platforms get second-tier inventory from publishers that use them to sell off unsold space. DV360 provides you with quality placement with top-tier publishers.
• Access to third-party data – For an extra fee, you can access third-party data from other top providers of marketing research. This will allow you to more precisely target your ads to ensure that they are getting into the reach of the right people.
• Powerful reporting functionality – Effective marketing thrives on understanding your customers. DV360s powerful and informative reports will give you better insight into who is responding well to your advertising so that you can make more informed adjustments to your marketing strategy.
• Cutting edge ad formats – As customers learn to mentally block out traditional advertising formats, it is essential to stay ahead of the curve and use emerging formats that are known to work. DV360 allows formats such as interstitials, roadblocks, and audio ads that will engage with potential customers and increase your ROI.

Programmatic advertising management is undoubtedly the wave of the future. Although these tools make things much easier in the hands of experts, using them to their fullest still requires a great deal of knowledge. If you are looking for a partner to develop a successful programmatic ad management strategy for you, please reach out to us. We would be glad to help increase the ROI of your digital marketing campaigns.

Daniel LaFave