‘Programmatic has created a bridge between publishers, advertisers & users’

Programmatic has become a dominating narrative in the digital ecosystem over the past few years. 2022 is the year when publishers should make the best use of the programmatic method. Apart from achieving greater efficiency within their ad sales operations, programmatic advertising can also help them target users relevantly using demographic targeting capabilities of programmatic placement.

To delve deeper into the evolution in the programmatic era and to learn more strategies for successfully adapting to the contemporary way of advertising, exchange4media, in association with vdo.ai, recently hosted a panel discussion on ‘Discovering the secrets to power of video for maximising revenue’.

Speakers on this panel were: Brijesh Chandila- Senior Manager- Programmatic Sales & Monetization, Times Internet, Kanthi Suresh- Founder & Editor-In-Chief , PowerSportz, Rahul Dogra-Head--Tech, Digital and New Initiatives, Daily Excelsior,  Suhaib Husain- Head - Programmatic Sales, Audience & Ad Operations, THG Publishing Pvt Ltd and Akash Pandey-Lead, Publisher Success, VDO.AI.

Some of the key points discussed on this panel included, how the programmatic ecosystem has impacted the overall advertisement delivery over a few years, why publishers are moving towards a clean website model with less intrusive advertisement structure and more fluid interface for the end user, dealing with the cookie less era and more.

Sharing her thoughts on how the programmatic ecosystem has impacted overall advertisement delivery, Kanthi Suresh- Founder & Editor-In-Chief , PowerSportz said, “There has been a tremendous impact. Programmatic advertising has helped to focus on a targeted approach rather than a ‘spray and pray’ method where you mass target and then pray that it hits the right audience. It has changed the expectations of the advertiser and changed the expectation of the viewer as well. It’s definitely a change for the better.”

“It is about getting higher returns. If you talk about programmatic advertising, it reduces overall costing and it also helps in right targeting”, added Brijesh Chandila- Senior Manager- Programmatic Sales & Monetization, Times Internet”.

Speaking about the impact that programmatic has enabled, Suhaib Husain- Head - Programmatic Sales, Audience & Ad Operations, THG Publishing Pvt Ltd said, “From a publisher standpoint, it has helped us build a robust ad stack. From Day 1 we were clear that our inventory will not be sold at a certain price. In India where the programmatic rates are lower than other countries, it helps you set floor prices without letting cheap demand take over the inventory. It also reduces the discrepancy since it is a server to server dealing, especially when you do a programmatic deal directly with a buyer. All in all, it benefits the publisher in a big way.”

“It is a win-win situation for both advertisers and publishers because we are utilising the best inventory available and helping us with targeted reac”, said Rahul Dogra-Head--Tech, Digital and New Initiatives, Daily Excelsior.

According to Akash Pandey-Lead, Publisher Success, VDO.AI, over the past 4 to 5 years there has been a change in the user adaptation from print to digital and this transformation has impacted the entire ecosystem of this advertiser or user engagement. 

“Programmatic has created a bridge between publishers, advertisers and users by a systematic way of targeting the users, delivery of ads. This has also attracted a lot of small scale advertisers who earlier did not have the budgets to advertise on the print scale. When we talk about programmatic advertisements, it has allowed a publisher to take control of their inventory and has allowed advertisers to be more contextual about what they are serving.”

When asked about the move away from clutter to clean slate websites, Husain shared, “It is extremely important for a media house to have a clean site. There are also some external pressures to rank better and a clean , minimalist look definitely helps. Also, today's user is extremely impatient. He wants the website to load in 3 seconds and if you show him an ad there is a delay of 4 to 5 seconds and then if you present him with a consent form, it will add to another 10 seconds, so overall 15 seconds wait. We need to cut down on this approach. Also it depends on what your goal is, do you just want to moonrise those ads or also build a rapport with your end user?”

“In 2020 we saw a huge spike in digital consumption, it went from 16 percent to 39 percent. We realised that having content to ad ratio is very important from a  user perspective in order to retain them on the site. In the last two to three years, we have used the consultative approach where we are talking about how it impacts from publishers and advertisers perspective”, added Pandey.