How Programmatic Creates Quality For Brands In ANZ

The unstoppable rise of programmatic advertising, an automated method for buying ads, is a crucial element of media buying strategies.

Its expected programmatic advertising spending is projected to reach nearly $100 billion by the end of 2022.

In the Australian market, there has been a 42.1 per cent year on year growth rate and $11.4 billion spent on online advertising for the 2021 financial year.

With such strong results, it’s hardly surprising that marketers are now putting more than 50 per cent of their media budget into programmatic advertising.

Clem Birdsall, strategic partnerships director ANZ at Integral Ad Science writes:

The Strong Emergence Of Programmatic

The rising investment in the programmatic ecosystem in Australia can be attributed to both the sell-side and buy-side of the ecosystem.

For publishers, the goal is to monetise each impression for its maximum value, which has given rise to header bidding to allow the highest bid to succeed.

However, this needs to be balanced with creating extra complexity in their ad stacks.

On the demand side, programmatic has become the norm for trading.

Most buys are being executed in this fashion leading many Australian agencies to merge their trading teams with traditional digital teams or brands taking their programmatic in-house to control it at all levels.

In Australia, the industry is mature enough that confidence in programmatic is high even during tough times.

Even with the pandemic, the need for increased efficiency and flexibility across, leading to more spend on programmatic and many buying platforms introducing AI to help buyers realise more efficiencies with less need for manual intervention.

The Key Growth Opportunities For Programmatic In Australia

Australia has a high early adoption rate when it comes to formats and new programmatic products and this early adoption mentality makes Australia a great market for exciting new technology to spring up.

There are already significant developments in Connected TV (CTV), Gaming and the audio space is similarly proving a rich source of inventory.

In the future, if something is digital, chances are it will be available programmatically, whether that’s DOOH screens, smart wearables or fridges.

Marketers who adopt a programmatic approach, leveraging data to maximize customer lifetime value and better engage with customers across the purchase journey in a more relevant, appropriate and helpful way will prosper.

Importance Of Activating First-Party Data

Our report finds that 86 per cent of Australian advertisers have access to first-party data, yet many in the market are not that confident in actually activating that data.

This could stem from uncertainty on the solutions available with marketers unsure who they should integrate with or if a particular solution can deliver the results, with the pressures for Publishers too.

Fortunately, publishers have been willing to work with marketers’ first-party data and in some cases, publishers in Australia have built audience solution teams to service the market.

Marketers overall are after the best performance and if these new ID solutions, combined with data are producing better performance than their traditional setup, this will drive a shift in spending.

Role Of Supply Path Optimisation

Supply Path Optimisation is a growing trend globally with a majority of brands and agencies having audits or planning to audit their supply path and take measures to improve according to our latest research.

In an ecosystem where similar transactions are repeated millions of times, marketers are understanding that any change can have a ripple effect and are leaning into who all their supply partners are, which is a great thing.

If efficiencies or increases in performance can be elicited by a deeper understanding of what goes on in supply paths, brands who lean into this and focus on quality as the output will have an edge.

Determining Programmatic Advertising Goals

At all stages of the sales funnel, the focus on quality is imperative for marketers – the same audience in a low quality versus a high-quality environment will elicit vastly different results.

Relevant and safe environments with strong attention and time spent will aid awareness metrics, building brand recall where the association is critical, whilst also driving conversions lower in the funnel where users are triggered into taking action.

Brands that succeed will be the ones who will focus on quality and balance this with efficiency-seeking.

Traders of programmatic video are reaping the benefits of increased control, generating far lower risk and fraud rates across their investments through optimisation strategies such as pre-bid targeting.

Though all in all, advertisers who treat programmatic as a science, with small refinements, robust planning and adapting to results while questioning common beliefs will succeed.

Although programmatic buying faces scrutiny from advertisers concerned about transparency, brand safety and evolving targeting challenges, it is nonetheless the backbone of digital advertising.

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Clem Birdsall Programmatic