Programmatic Advertising vs Direct Buying

Internet has changed the face of advertising, along with other aspects that it has affected and changed. It has opened a whole new spectrum of opportunities which is exceptionally great but there is still confusion on what these are. Well, a couple of these are programmatic advertising and direct buying. Programmatic advertising has brought  major changes in online advertising. It basically is a process where softwares are used to purchase digital advertising, differing the conventional process that involves RFPs, human negotiations and manual insertion orders. In simpler words, it is machines purchasing ads. Opposed to this, is the concept of direct buying, which is completely manual. It is quite a long process and involves maximum human effort, in terms of satisfying client’s needs, negotiations and back and forth communication. It also requires quite a lot of money and time and puts in a high probability of making mistakes. So, here, we will compare and contrast the given methods to find out which one is comparatively better.

Programmatic Advertising vs Direct Buying: Recommended Networks

A couple of known and widely used networks for programmatic advertising are DataXu, Linkedin,Trade Desk, DFP, Mediamath and more. These are some of the bests and there also is the Rubicon Project and Appnexus which too is fairly good. Some of the bests for direct buying includes Ezoic, Propellor Ads and more. There are many networks out there, that allow you to directly purchase ads.

Programmatic Advertising vs Direct Buying: Ad Quality

The fact that programmatic advertising has nothing to do with quality is agreed upon widely. The industry is quite booming with issues about the ad quality but programmatic advertising has got nothing to do with that. It is just a way of buying, and is not supposed to be a remnant inventory. Also, there are some inventories like Dell that is willing to pay a premium for quality programmatic inventory. Publishers guarantee impressions to advertisers in direct sales, and so serving impressions is prioritized when it comes to direct sales, and that, certainly does not happen in programmatic advertising.

Programmatic Advertising vs Direct Buying: Features

The major features of the two is targeting. When directly buying, you know the kind of content you want to see your ad on and it works specifically if your brand has a strong name and recognition. While in programmatic sales, impression is profiled and evaluated in the split second while a page loads. During this time, an auction takes place, and the highest bidder gets to place his ad in the unit. Also, there is a  major difference in supply, because in direct sales, a major bulk is sold to a client at a fixed CPM rate but in direct buying, an auction is held for every individual impression.

Programmatic Advertising vs Direct Buying: ROI and Investments

The major reason for differences in the pricing is that in direct sales, the purchases are made in bulk, while in programmatic sales, bidding is done on individual impressions separately. The price in direct sales in usually fixed at a CPM and all the impressions are essentially priced the same despite the fact that they have seen a whole lot of varying audience. Contrasting that, is programmatic sales, where auctions are held for each impression individually and hence, there could be a major difference between two rates. If an advertisers wants a specific impression a lot, he might be willing to pay quite a high price for the same. The dynamic value derived from all the individual prices of each impression known as effective CPM.

Programmatic Advertising vs Direct Buying: Future Scope

Conclusion

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