Programmatic Ads

Should programmatic advertising be compensated on a performance model?
A major issue with programmatic advertising is the lack of transparency.  This particular problem is what led Procter & Gamble’s chief brand officer Marc Pritchard to issue a call to arms on the industry to clean up the murky media system and improve areas such as ad fraud and measurement (Marketing Week, 2017).  The fact that ads are bought according to demographics and target audience means that we don’t always know where and when they are appearing.

Fraud
The largest digital ad fraud in history was performed by a group of Russian hackers, The Methbot scam, claimed $3-5 million per day from top advertisers and publishers, according to Mathew Ingram for Fortune.  These hackers are rarely caught, because they are based in countries where it’s difficult for advertisers to go after them.

Why Programmatic Advertising?
Programmatic advertising has been very attractive for companies of all sizes, due to the ability to pick your price for your advertising dependent on your intended audience reach.  One of the great challenges with this form of advertising is slowing down to focus more on creating great content, not just pushing out as many ads as one can possibly create.

There are negatives and positives to programmatic advertising.
Here are some of the pros:

1. You never need to talk to a human.
2. Can be more efficient than traditional advertising.
3. Is intended to reach only those in your target audience.

Here are some of the cons:

1. Lack of transparency
2. You don’t know when and where they are appearing.
3. Possible fraud.

The Future
Programmatic buying is on track to make $14.88 billion this year, according to eMarketer.  The prediction is that we will see more companies move towards data collaboration with audience sharing going beyond intent data to include cross-device and UX behavioral insights.