programmatic ads

Through ingenuity, cunning and outright fraud, the 300×250 ad has become one of the most common video ad units sold via programmatic ad exchanges.

The increase in data-driven automated advertising transactions for television is driving Horizon Media to introduce HorizonAdvanced, a new unit designed as a centralized vetting process to identify the value of new non-traditional TV platforms.

AOL has released a study called Finding the Needle in the Haystack, which looks at the value of programmatic advertising. It used WebSpike, a proprietary second screen tool, to examine over 2.6 billion television ad impressions and eight brands from 2013-2015. It found that the further an ad is into the commericial break, engagement drops dramatically.

The two companies are partnering to create a fully automated integration between TubeMogul’s demand-side ad platform and Placemedia’s supply-side platform that reaches 85% of U.S. TV households.

The programmatic advertising world is powered by data, and as such, marketers are putting a lot of faith into data management platforms (DMPs). In fact, over two-thirds (68%) of marketers say that DMPs are the “key to the future of programmatic advertising,” according to a new report from Econsultancy and Oracle Marketing Cloud.

More media planning and buying agencies are building their own programmatic capabilities. This development is driven by brands looking for more transparency into their current programmatic buys, most notably into fees, strategies, viewability and ad fraud. But while understanding the fine details of running programmatic media is pivotal to start an in-house practice, it’s not enough for it to thrive. There are three questions agencies should ask before starting their own programmatic media practice.

In a new study, three-fourths of brand marketers plan to increase their programmatic budgets this year, citing an increase in sales, the ability to personalize ads and the ability to use CRM data as three key reasons why. Nearly two-thirds (65%) of respondents said a lack of transparency is the main barrier to even more programmatic spend.

To most media people, programmatic, or automated, buying is the equivalent of a flying car. It’s something they think of being way off in the future. But that perception is incorrect, according to a new report on local programmatic from Borrell Associates. Kip Cassino,  Borrell Associates EVP, talks about why programmatic is suddenly so hot, how national advertising will be impacted, and what sales reps can expect in this digital future.

Programmatic will draw $47 billion of local advertising by 2019, a new Borrell Associates report finds. By 2020, programmatic will comprise 85% of targeted banners and 67% of streaming video ads.

Videa President Shereta Williams says that if TV doesn’t embrace programmatic online and other sales channels that are more focused on measurement, targeting, and attribution, it risks losing out to other mediums that do.

Empower MediaMarketing, an independent media agency, has announced plans to allow advertisers to buy local broadcast TV inventory via programmatic channels. Empower has partnered with the E.W. Scripps Co. and invested in Savveo, an ad tech startup focused on local media, to put the pipes in place. Local programmatic ad inventory from Scripps-owned TV stations is expected to be available to Empower clients by the second quarter of 2015.

The Guardian, the Financial Times, CNN, Reuters and The Economist have teamed up to pool their digital advertising space, to fight back against the drain of ad spend to tech giants such as Microsoft, Google and Facebook. The initiative, called the Pangaea Alliance, will give brands access to more than 110 million online readers using a computerized, or programmatic, advertising system.

Walt Horstman, president, AudienceXpress: “With each week, it seems that more TV networks and media agencies are embracing the future of programmatic TV. The benefits for TV advertising are simple and straightforward: Automation and audience data benefit all the players in the ecosystem. But now the question on many minds is coming up with greater frequency, often in a hushed aside, ‘Is this all really a job killer?’ The answer is ‘No.’ “

Programmatic pricing’s valleys and peaks, like in every other kind of ad sales, are driven by demand and a host of other often unforeseeable factors affecting different audiences and consumer segments. The general trend, however, is up.

TV is expected to be the next medium to adopt programmatic ad buying and that will be a boon to broadcasters, says Pivotal Research Group’s Brian Wieser. “There are going to be different advertisers who can make use of TV who otherwise wouldn’t have,” he says. “The ability to apply more data to the buy could make it possible to find new marketers looking to buy in a very different way.”

Interpublic’s Mediabrands unit has formed an alliance with more than 15 minor TV networks to develop and organize data and technology that would enable the agency and its clients to buy their advertising inventory programmatically. The initiative, which is being led by Mediabrands’ Magna Global unit, so far includes more than 15 networks, about half of which are not even measured by Nielsen.

Automated or “programmatic” advertising has some in spot sales worried that it could be a threat to local account executives. But rather than thinking about how it may threaten job security, you need to realize that selling spot TV isn’t going away. Like the medium itself, it is changing into something new and relevant to today’s media buyers. Here are a few of the reasons to look beyond the threatening aspects of programmatic to get a better glimpse of the opportunities it can yield.

Sales people won’t be replaced by robots anytime soon, but automation could lead to massive change at stations and rep firms. There’s a growing interest among broadcasters in automated selling that has evolved from wary to cautiously optimistic over the past year. This story originally appeared in the winter edition of TVNewsCheck’s Executive Outlook.

AdMore, launched in 2013, is an outgrowth of RevShare, which specializes in direct response sales. Individual stations within the Tribune, Sinclair and Gannett groups are among AdMore’s clients. AudienceXpress, owned […]

Sales people won’t be replaced by robots anytime soon, but automation could lead to massive change at stations and rep firms. There’s a growing interest among broadcasters in automated selling that has evolved from wary to cautiously optimistic over the past year. This story originally appeared in the winter edition of TVNewsCheck’s Executive Outlook.

Programmatic ad-buying technology is becoming an ever more necessary component of ad sales programs. Yet, even the mention of programmatic advertising sales can be enough to elicit a look of absolute bewilderment. One of the reasons the term “programmatic” is so confusing is that it means different things for different situations.

Joe Oulvey, EVP, Fox Stations Sales: “By adding LiveRail to our digital video programmatic solution, the Fox TV Stations Group extends our existing platform to better enable advertisers to target desired consumers of our video content in the credible and brand-safe environment.”

Premium programmatic is a hot concept, and it’s catching on. The ad industry’s top brands are embracing more automation for digital campaigns — Cadillac, Tory Burch, CBS — and publishers are too. Instead of open exchanges where low-quality advertisers compete for low-quality Web inventory, a more selective programmatic landscape is growing up. The private marketplaces are where top brands are putting more of their dollars. Private programmatic will be a nearly $8.6 billion industry by 2016.

William Ammerman will have responsibility for programmatic direct, private exchanges and yield optimization on the station group’s mobile, desktop and video platforms.

Strata asked 81 agencies whether they trust programmatic buying to properly execute ad orders and found 20% of them said they trust programmatic to properly execute ad orders, while 12% said they do not trust programmatic. Another 34% remain undecided and the other 34% of respondents don’t use programmatic. The number of agencies that trust programmatic techn more than doubled (up 153%) quarter-over-quarter, while the number of those that distrust it decreased 16% quarter-over-quarter.

Ad operations have been no exception to local media’s fast-moving digital changes, where recent trends include the outsourcing or consolidating of production tasks. The creation of advertisements, including graphic design, is an often-outsourced task. In some cases, graphic designers are being replaced by ad creation systems. In other cases, larger media companies are creating hubs where the work is centralized. Read the special three-part report on the fast-changing digital advertising sales world.

In its first deep dive into the U.S. programmatic display ad marketplace, market research company eMarketer estimates that programmatic spend in display advertising will top $10 billion this year, rising to over $20 billion by 2016.

Digital publishers say programmatic, or automated, ad sales account for roughly 10% to 20% of their transactions, with a mix of traditional deals and other indirect sales accounting for the rest. They expect that number to rise as both buyers and sellers embrace the process for providing a more sophisticated way for buyers to reach specific consumers. This is the first of a three-part NetNewsCheck special report.

The ad industry has always been consumed with the latest trends. This should be no surprise, given that marketers and their agencies spend the better part of their days trying to create them. But nothing in advertising has generated more buzz in recent months than programmatic buying. Buying ad inventory more efficiently by applying rules to technology-enabled, automated purchases has marketers salivating.

Hearst, Meredith, Raycom, Scripps and Sinclair will join in testing the programmatic targeting and automated buying platform based on WideOrbit’s WO Central. “By providing a programmatic solution that allows agencies to perform targeted, data-driven, audience buys across markets, and delivers real-time analytics and audience insight for on-the-fly optimization, we’re creating a brand new revenue stream for our television station partners,” says WideOrbit’s Eric Mathewson.

Over the past year, buzz over programmatic ad buying has soared, but it’s been hard to determine just how popular it is. Now there are some solid numbers behind the buzz. A new forecast from Magna Global predicts programmatic buys worldwide will hit $21 billion this year, up 52 percent from last year. Magna’s Vincent Letang, EVP-director of global forecasting, and Luke Stillman, manager of global forecasting, talk about why programmatic is growing so fast, how it is changing media people’s jobs, and whether the rest of the world is adopting programmatic as fast as the U.S.

Big Data just got much bigger at AOL. At its second annual “Programmatic Upfront” event in New York on Monday, AOL announced the launch of a data management platform (DMP) with multi-touch attribution. The DMP will be part of AOL’s “ONE” platform, the multichannel programmatic ad platform the company plans to launch in 2015.

NBCUniversal today launched NBCUx, a comprehensive programmatic digital advertising sales offering devoted to increasing its clients’ opportunities using programmatic technology. NBCUx offers a combination of data-enabled targeting alongside NBCUniversal’s premium digital display, mobile and video content across its portfolio of entertainment, news, sports and Hispanic digital properties, which reach more than 100 million unique visitors.

With the midterm elections on the horizon, political marketers are preparing to make use of programmatic buying to reach their audiences. A new STRATA political survey says that 85% of political agencies plan to use programmatic for their political media-buying efforts this year. The company says the agencies polled represent roughly 75% of total political advertising billings.

One estimate predicts 30% of local TV ads will be bought using automated systems in just 18-24 months. Others say it will take a little longer, but will happen. This “programmatic” buying is no longer reserved for filling low-value inventory with remnant ads, but instead can make local TV a more attractive medium.

The president of Gannett Broadcasting says broadcasters should work together to develop an automated or programmatic system to streamline the selling of their broadcast and digital inventories. “To be relevant to our local and national clients, we have to make it easy for them to buy and activate across platforms.”

New deals with Doubleclick Ad Exchange and Vindico mean wider exposure for the stations’ digital ad platforms.