Programmatic Terms
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Programmatic Advertising | Programmatic advertising is essentially the buying of ad space in an automated way. It uses audience data and insights from a variety of sources, to allow advertisers to show highly relevant ads for the audience, at the right time and in the right place. There are two main types of programmatic advertising: Programmatic Direct or PMP Deals, and Real Time Bidding (RTB). |
| Ad exchange | An ad partner that serves as a broker between a publisher and an advertiser. Ad exchanges use RTB technology to sell a publisher’s inventory in an auction-like manner. Typically, you can set a price floor within an ad exchange and you’ll receive a higher rate due to the auctioning process. |
| Auction Price Floor | This is the same idea as a standard price floor but in an auction or programmatic environment the floor serves as a minimum but can be exceeded by higher bidding. For example if you set your price floor at $1 you can still receives bids at $1.25 but not $.75. |
| Bid Price | The bid price is the highest price that a buyer (i.e., bidder) is willing to pay for an ad. |
| Cookie Sync. | A cookie is a key-value piece of data stored in the browser of a visitor/user. They are used and managed by browsers to be domain-dependent and contain information - often an ID. |
| DCO (Dynamic Creative Optimization) | The technology that builds personalized ads in real time for each consumer across all publishers and devices, including web, mobile, and app. DCO leverages consumer insights to determine which visual elements will be most engaging. |
| DSP (Demand Side Platform) | A buy side platform that allows buyers of digital ad inventory to easily and more directly connect with sellers in a programmatic and real time environment. |
| Header Bidding | Header bidding, also known as advance bidding or pre-bidding, is an upstream bidding process designed to maximize the monetization of impressions. In this advanced programmatic technique, publishers or ad networks access multiple demand platforms to assess the inventory’s real value. Technically, publishers and website owners implement HB through a specific tag wrapped in the website header. This lets the demand side submit bids before the ad server/supply-side platform (SSP) request. The idea is that by letting multiple demand sources bid on the same inventory at the same time, publishers increase their yield and make more money. |
| Private Marketplace (PMP) | Private Marketplace is an invitation-only RTB auction where one publisher or a select number of publishers invite a select number of buyers to bid on its inventory. Inventory purchased is transparent – the buyer knows exactly which site the ad will run on. With Private Marketplaces, the general premise is to skip the exchanges altogether. With PMP deals, the advertiser cuts out the middleman and skip over the exchanges and service-side platforms all together. Advertisers also get access to premium sites for cheaper than they would with programmatic direct. The advertisers also know exactly which sites their ads will run on. With Private Marketplaces your buying platform (DSP) plugs directly into the premium publisher’s inventory source, combining the strengths of both buying approaches to essentially create a third buying approach. The inventory transaction is within an auction environment but the terms of the deal are pre-negotiated between the buyer and seller and the advertiser must be approved – so it is more manual than open exchanges. A unique identifier is generated to represent the terms of the deal that was made between the buyer and seller – this is called the Deal ID. Traditionally, one would utilize the direct IO buy to achieve a branding objective, while buying on the open exchange in hopes of getting conversion volumes at a super low eCPM. Deal ID allows you to easily reach premium placements on-demand through your DSP platform, while also giving you a way to apply your first party data to any and all premium placements. |
| Programmatic Direct | Programmatic direct is slightly different to PMP deals. Programmatic Direct is direct-sold, guaranteed inventory, that unlike PMP deals doesn’t require human intervention to run. However, Programmatic Direct is actually a more manual process than PMP deals. This is because deals are made on an individual basis, where a publisher’s sales rep negotiates the arrangement with the advertiser on a one-to-one basis. With Programmatic Direct, the advertiser purchases a fixed CPM, meaning the advertiser agrees to paid a predetermined CPM. Programmatic Direct is a good choice for brands focused on brand safety, as the relationship is one-to-one and the brands know exactly where their ads will appear. |
| RTB (Real Time Bidding) | Impression based, real time ad inventory sales method. This is a technology that allows thousands of buyers to bid on a single website impression based on bidding algorithms. |
| Second-Price Auction | Auction mechanism allowing the highest bidder to win the auction, while paying the second-highest bid plus a penny. This model encourages buyers to bid their true value (no bid reduction), as their paid price will always be equal to or lower than their bid. |
| SSP (Supply Side Platform) | A sell side platform that allows publishers to better package and manage their websites inventory to sell. |