Mumbo Jumbo: Programmatic advertising

Programmatic. There are few buzzwords that have been thrown around with as much enthusiasm over the past few years. And there’s a good reason – programmatic advertising has arguably changed the face of digital media buying more than any other technology. But how exactly does programmatic work, what impact is it really having, and is a programmatic robot going to steal your job? Nic Hodges explains.

A new layer between supply and demand 

Programmatic media buying has created a whole new layer of technology in-between media buyers and publishers. In the olden days (sometime around 2011), a publisher would deal directly with a media buyer in order sell a specific number of ad impressions on behalf of a specific advertiser.

Programmatic platforms dis-intermediate this relationship, allowing the supply of inventory from publishers and the buying of impressions by agencies to be separated.