What is programmatic advertising?
Programmatic advertising is the use of automated technology to buy digital ad space. Instead of negotiating directly with publishers, making phone calls, and sending insertion orders, programmatic platforms use algorithms to purchase ad impressions in real time, targeting specific audiences at optimal prices.
The process happens in milliseconds. When a user loads a web page, information about the page and the user is sent to an ad exchange. Advertisers' systems evaluate whether this impression matches their targeting criteria and submit a bid. The highest bidder wins, and their ad appears -- all before the page finishes loading.
Programmatic advertising now accounts for the vast majority of digital display ad spending. Its appeal lies in efficiency and precision: instead of buying ad space on specific sites and hoping the right people see it, programmatic lets you target individuals across the entire web based on their demographics, behavior, interests, and intent.