More and more publishers are leaning on programmatic ads to generate revenue for online ad slots their sales teams have been unable to sell. It’s a strategy worth considering. According to Zeniths Programmatic Marketing Forecasts report, advertisers are set to spend around $98 billion on programmatic ad campaigns in 2020 alone.
Here’s a brief overview to help you decide if programmatic ads are right for your publication’s website.
What are programmatic ads?
Programmatic advertising is the automated process of buying and selling display advertising. I find it helpful to imagine the world of programmatic ads as having two “sides,” a seller side and a buyer side.
On the buyer side, you have advertisers with online ads they want people to see. On the seller side, you have websites with ad slots to fill. Both of these sides team up with one or more demand partners, who act as their representatives. Each advertiser will tell their demand partner (also known as a DSP or demand-side platform) how much they are willing to pay for an ad slot. And each website will tell their demand partner (also known as an SSP or supply-side platform) how much they are willing to accept for their ad slot.
After the demand partners have all the information they need, they meet at an online marketplace, or ad exchange, to determine which advertiser will win which ad slots. This whole process—from the user visiting a website to being delivered the winning ad—takes milliseconds.
It’s worth noting that online publications can be involved with both sides of the programmatic process. For example, a publisher could partner with a DSP to buy ad space on another website to advertise one of their events.
Should I run programmatic ads on my website?
Programmatic ads can benefit publishers, but there are a few factors to consider before you take the plunge.
How will programmatic affect the revenue my ads bring in?
Compared to display advertising sold directly by a publisher to an advertiser, programmatic advertising brings in far less revenue per 1,000 impressions (CPM). According to Outbrain.com, the CPM for programmatic ads lives somewhere between $0.50 and $2. (When shopping around for demand partners, be sure to inquire about any fees, since this will also cut into your net profits.)
But even though programmatic may shave off a little bit of your average revenue per impression, it makes up for that loss in other ways. Namely, you’ll be reaching a global pool of advertisers, so will likely fill more of your total ad space. And since the sale of your ad spaces is being automated, programmatic can free up your sales team to sell other higher-priced packages.
Am I even eligible for programmatic ads?
Many of the well-known demand partners require steep minimum traffic requirements. OpenX and Rubicon, for example, require the publishers they work with to receive at least 10 million pageviews per month. But demand partners like Sortable, Freestar, and NitroPay cater to smaller publishers and have no minimum traffic requirements.
How much work is involved in setting up and maintaining a programmatic ad strategy on my site?
Although programmatic advertising prides itself on being automatic, there are tasks that someone on your staff or a contractor will need to do to set up and maintain this system. If you are a Metro Publisher client, you can reach out to us via our support site about assisting you with the setup. Because of our experience, we may be able to help you set this quickly and cost effectively.
Most of the required labor will happen upfront. You will need to research and reach out to demand partners. You will need to install some code on your website. And you will want to monitor the flow of bids coming in to determine if you need to switch or add demand partners, change your price floor, etc. The time this takes will vary based on the amount of site traffic your site receives and the amount of demand partners you work with.
Will setting up programmatic ads affect my site speed?
Programmatic ads can decrease site speed, but there are a few actions you can take to minimize this:
- Set a session timeout so that lags in advertisers’ bids won’t affect the experience of your site visitors.
- Use no more than five demand partners.
- Limit the number of third-party plugins used on your website.
- If using header bidding—a programmatic technique some publishers have found success with—install a header bidder wrapper (more on that below).
- Continually monitor your site’s page load time and make adjustments as needed.
How much should my revenue strategy be built around display advertising in the first place?
This is a key point when considering how programmatic advertising fits into your revenue strategy. Display advertising is not the moneymaker it once was for local publishers. And many small publishers have found that focusing on reader membership drives significant revenue and strengthens community relations. Publishers become more accountable to their readers rather than their advertisers.
But programmatic ads can also help publishers shift to this type of revenue strategy. Because after the initial setup, they run with little management. So, it can free up employee time, allowing team members to focus on other revenue-generating models.
Will I be able to ensure that pornographic, spam, or other inappropriate ads don’t show up on my website?
Most of the more prominent demand partners will automatically filter out inappropriate ads. Some will also allow publishers to choose which categories of ads they want to allow on their sites.
How do I install programmatic ad spaces on my site?
Once you’ve decided that programmatic ads are a good fit for your publication, here are the basic steps you will need to get started.
- Find the right demand partner(s): Research available demand partners and find up to five that serve the niche you operate in.
- Coordinate with your ad server: Whether you’re using Google Ad Manager, Broadstreet, or pubGENIUS, you will need to coordinate with them before you accept requests from demand partners on your site.
- Install header bidding wrapper: A header bidding wrapper is a container of Javascript code that will need to be added to your site’s source code. You will need to place information from all your demand partners and insert your desired auction settings in this location. Your ad server and CMS will be able to provide more information on how to do this.
- Set session timeouts and floor price: Publishers should establish session timeouts so that delays in demand partner’s bids don’t slow down your page load time. You should also set floor prices—a minimum price that a bid can be to secure an ad spot.
- Maintenance: After your programmatic ads are all set up, continue to monitor incoming bigs to ensure that you’re getting the highest bids for your ad spaces and that your site speed isn’t lagging.
