Programmatic Video Advertising 101 - What to Know

As recently as five years ago, media buyers and company representatives were the ones who negotiated ad space. Today, though, about two-thirds of video ads are programmatic.

You can define digital marketing campaigns based on your ideal audience, their profile, and their browsing habits online, and the DSP will use real-time bidding in order to fit a user to your product or service. With a platform for programmatic banner and static ads, you get to ‘win’ space when the bid you set is the highest for that page.

Benefits of using video ads

Since all of this happens in the space between clicking on a link and the page completing its loading time, it is efficient. Machines are faster at analysing information in bulk—if you target the right pages, you can increase your conversions and lower your cost per acquisition.

Doing this will enable you to show the ads only to the people who are likely to make a purchase. One place you can have programmatic advertising is YouTube. Its TrueView ads format, coupled with faster internet speeds today allows for programmatic video advertising. Here are more reasons why you must include programmatic ads in your campaigns.

1. Reach more customers over a larger area

With more and more digital inventory only being video and more and more publishers adding video ad slots to their websites, this means more opportunity to show impactful video creatives to more people. This greater breadth of publisher adoption for video directly leads to more people seeing your brand in the places they like to browse on the internet.

2. Gain more insights into your creative

As video formats are more complex, having to be played in specific player technologies, this allows for more technical capabilities for ad tracking. Specifically, you’re able to track how many people completed your video and even more importantly how many skipped or even watched each quartile. This leads to the ability to even retarget these video completers as you now know they are the most engaged.

What types of video ads can I buy?

Now that we know the advantages using video ads, let us look at programmatic video. You can use three types of video ads in your digital marketing campaigns—in-stream, out-stream, and in-display.

In-stream ads play at the start of a video. You have seen these on YouTube—they are anywhere from five seconds to a full minute long. These ads can also interrupt an ongoing stream, like what happens in traditional TV or radio ads, or they can show at the end of a video you are watching.

Out-stream, meanwhile, are video ads in the middle of online articles. These units are designed to fit within the look and feel of the webpage and should provide a much better experience to the end user for being delivered content.

Finally, in-display ads appear at the top of your YouTube feed. If you are on a desktop, that is located in the area that says ‘Up Next.’ You have the choice of clicking on these ads to see more.

Conclusion

Digital advertising is changing people’s consumption habits. As such, your business must follow these habits to stay relevant. Working with a partner that can help guide your decision-making and implement the best choice for your business is imperative.

Petram Digital is a programmatic agency in New York. We help small and medium business owners get better at making a mark online. Get in touch with us today to learn more!