Programmatic-TV-Advertising

Just What is Programmatic Advertising?

August 9, 2018 2:54 pm By InProgrammatic Advertising

Lately lots of Big Media companies like Spectrum Reach, Comcast, and even newspapers have been touting “programmatic ad buying” as 100% efficient for reaching your audience.

It’s true that buying ads programmatically can help increase the efficiency, refine your ad reach to more specific behavioral attributes, down to the cable box for location, etc.  Oddly, the cable networks we’ve worked with have left targeting by age and sex demos out of the equation (as the date of this post). The fact is “programmatic” has been around since 2013. Those of us who have been working in the online ad buying world have been using it all along.  Programmatic ad buying is the very thing Google Ads (formerly Google Adwords) has always been built on.

“Programmatic is a catchall term that many people are using to categorize everything from behavioral and intent-based targeting to real-time bidding and exchange-based buying of inventory,..” Adweek

Advertisers should consider the following when buying directly from a TV station for programmatic buys:

Each network is primarily concerned with filling their inventory within their bubble of viewership. Television reps typically are not going to tell you if you should put some or all of your ad budget on another network to get more of your audience. Television audiences have become exponentially more fragmented with the advent of the Internet, On-demand programming and streaming.  Because of this fragmentation, programmatic ad buying has become vital component to scheduling campaigns targeted at specific niches and effectively reaching an audience.

Programmatic ad buying programs are also great for helping ad sales managers fill holes in inventory for undersold air times and for showing greater reach and frequency within their individual offerings. However, with so many proprietary ad networks and slightly different audience measurements presented by each ad rep, cutting through the noise still requires the ad buying expertise of an experienced media buyer or agency to cross-pollinate the most effective buy across multiple networks.

In the Cleveland-Akron Designated Market Area (DMA), where most of our TV advertising customers are located, there are several overlapping Cable and Broadcast stations to choose from. For cable programs there are even multiple cable providers offering air time on the same networks.  It’s hard for the average local Ohio business owner to compare apples to apples and showing you the efficiency for their specific offering. The larger the target audience and budget, the bigger the impact this can have on your campaign’s reach (total unique people you are reaching).

If your business is just now ready for television advertising, or you’re already running TV ads but don’t think you’re buying air time efficiently, contact us today for a free initial consultation to see if it make sense to work with DigitalHipster.

About Matt Ross

Matt Ross is the President and Founder of DigitalHipster Inc. est. 2009.  Matt and his Wife Wendy have two adult sons. He's a Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Business Alumni, a member of The Society of Martin Scholars at The University of Akron, and an active member in a few book clubs. When he's not deep in code and cranking music, or trying to keep up with the latest Google Algorithm, Matt is gardening, mountain biking, off-roading in his Jeep, writing for fun or being a guinea pig for his wife's yoga instruction. He lives and works in Highland Square Akron, Ohio. For the 15 years prior to launching DigitalHipster Inc.  Matt worked as a Senior Advertising Account Executive and Integrated Sales Director for major television stations and newspapers in the Akron, Cleveland, Phoenix and Las Vegas markets. He has successfully planned, sold and executed millions of dollars in innovative multi-platform advertising campaigns consisting of television commercials, web video, content integration, multi-carrier mobile WAP sites, print ads, and radio. Matt says, "During my years working in broadcast and print media, I learned how to gather real-time advertising response rates and develop cost-effect creative that works for my clients.  By working for over a decade on the sales side with millions of dollars of advertising revenue, I learned how to spot bargains for my clients and see what worked and what didn't. We're not just a team of graphic designers, or artists that take chances with your ad budget. We have real advertising experience across all the major advertising channels."