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Yahoo Programmatic

Yahoo's Nick Hugh on the need to bring clarity to the complexity of programmatic buying

By Nick Hugh |

October 16, 2014 | 4 min read

Discussing the complexities of the programmatic buyng landscape, Yahoo's Nick Hugh addresses some of the key issues that still surround this space.

Programmatic buying

Nick Hugh

The advertising world can be a complex place, mix in a few buzzwords such as ‘programmatic’ and it just got a little more complicated. At Yahoo, we want to bring clarity to advertisers by untangling this web of complexity.

So first off, what do we consider to be programmatic? According to eMarketer, it is an automated, technology-driven method of buying digital advertising, taking advantage of the audience targeting and cost efficiencies driven through real-time bidding (RTB).

RTB is a component of programmatic, but not in its entirety. Programmatic can be, and should be about automating a transaction, but that doesn’t have to be in real-time.

We are seeing rocketing interest in programmatically delivering reserved, or up-front guaranteed inventory – and workflow efficiency is critical to that process. Think of programmatic as the automation of digital media buying, whereas RTB is a type of programmatic buying – a useful synopsis from the IAB.

What’s interesting is the debate on whether programmatic can deliver on brand-based objectives. If programmatic goes beyond the performance-based goals associated with RTB, then yes. We would argue that it does.

Advertisers get transparency and control. This is through the combination of audience data and insights combined with greater efficiencies of automation and end-to-end campaign management. A predicted increase in the adoption of programmatic will boost programmatic ad spending, particularly among brand marketers. This is largely to do with seeking greater efficiency and brand control. Certainly at Yahoo we have made all of our rising star formats available programmatically, as well as takeovers, and we are seeing tremendous interest in this from brand buyers.

A question I’m always asked, is where does this all fit into the wider advertising ecosystem and how can Yahoo bring it all together?

The advertising environment is made up of several solutions for the marketer, across display, audience, native, and search – plus being across multiple devices and formats. All of these can be purchased programmatically or directly.

As a result, the online advertising world of today is fragmented, difficult to navigate, and not always customer friendly. For advertisers to get the reach, targeting, and ad effectiveness they want, they have to work with multiple publishers, ad networks and exchanges, demand-side platforms, and analytics vendors, among others.

And still, advertisers are left with limited ability to measure and optimize the performance of their campaigns which could hinder the uptake of programmatic with brand marketers.

This is why it is time to shine a light through this web of complexity and help brands get back to delivering simple ROI on their campaigns.

A unified approach to digital advertising is key. This is through simplifying online advertising and creating more opportunities for brands, across devices and formats combined with robust analytics. By offering a comprehensive suite of web, mobile, and video ad products across native, audience, and display, which are accessible through a new buying platform brands can communicate consistency anywhere, anytime and on any device.

A programmatic offering is most effective when it helps brands reach their desired audiences, across the web, across devices and across multiple creative formats ­ – all features of Yahoo’s programmatic media buying platform, Yahoo Ad Manager Plus.

By allowing advertisers to plan, execute and optimise complex display ad campaigns, it gives them greater control over the performance of their ads and third-party programmatic inventory.

Looking beyond the terminology, programmatic or not. This is about creating an effective campaign using available insights across multiple channels, through one access point, in a transparent and controlled way. As the IAB said recently, programmatic does not change this philosophy, it simply makes its delivery more effective than ever before.

Nick Hugh is head of advertising solutions EMEA at Yahoo

Yahoo Programmatic

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