3 tips to successful programmatic buying

Every year billions of dollars have go to digital advertising, but rarely do marketers know if the money spent is worth it.Programmatic buying is hoping to close that gap. The ad tech platform is fast becoming a buzz term among marketers as it opens up new opportunities for brands to more effectively reach consumers in real-time and on the go.While programmatic transactions in the United States will, for the first time, take a majority 53% of non-search digital spending in 2015, marketers closer to home are starting to catch on. Speaking at last week's programmatic marketing conference organised by iClick, Alan Hellawell, managing director at Deutsche Bank, said programmatic display increased 217% in 2014, accounting for 9% of total display ad revenue."We are in an absolutely and radically different phase in programmatic and real-time-biding in China comparing to the rest of the world," said Hellawell."Rapid growth was driven by both real-time biding and non-real time biding markets, as well as the growth of programmatic videos."According to eMarketer, China is expected to grow to RMB 28.3 billion in programmatic spend for a compound annual growth rate of 80%."Marketers are adopting mobile programmatic gradually, while the growth rate will keep expanding and is expected to reach 14% of total programmatic display ads in 2017 will overtake US in ad spending while the overall growth rate will remain at a steady pace," he noted.But it will be a rocky road to programmtic buying in China.Real-time biding is still in its infancy in China, he said, and relies on a large quantity of high quality data. Many publishers don’t provide full transparency and access to data, leading to difficult algorithm optimisation strategies."The reality in China is that domestic advertiser and brands are not well educated in RTB and they do not see the imperative and the importance of using RTB. There seems to be a need for education," Hellawell said."Complaints from both local and multinational corporation in China have that they're not getting the right information and data. The information they get from other markets is much more valid than what they get from the Chinese scenarios."The conductibility and reliability of numbers, frankly, is in some cases quite questionable."In time like this, Hellawell served up three suggestions for the brands to success in programmatic buying in 2015.1. Measure what mattersView-ability: recent Google research showed, among other things, that 56.1% of all served ad impressions are not seen.Google DoubleClick subsequently launched a new measurement metric, ActiveView, to maximize brand visibility by targeting viewability."The China market does't have the sophistication to measure everything. It's a very gradual process and you have to be rational on what you want to measure by rolling out your targeting capability little by little," said Hellawell.2. Be relentless about inventory qualityBig publishers use private marketplaces and programmatic direct buys. More premium inventory will be available programmatically.Hellawell said there're issues in a lot of Asia markets about the credibility of the numbers and the quality of inventory. He suggests brand to seek help from agencies that provide ad tech that focus on authentication and verification.3. Prioritize mobile and videoMary Meeker indicated that 20% of user time spent on media is on mobile, but only 4% of the U.S's ad spend is allocated to mobile.In 2014 there was four times growth in the number of impressions for videos transacted programmatically. Real-time bidding sales for video ads should hit US$3.9b in 2018 (up from $500m in 2014) per BI Intelligence."Staying ahead of the mobile growth in China could get you burned, but following that wave, as it becomes a major opportunity, will stand you in good stead," he said.