Programmatic advertising is the automated process of purchasing and placing digital ads using software and algorithms. Instead of manual negotiations, this system uses data to make real-time decisions about which ads to show to which users. This ensures ads are strategically positioned where and when they will have the most impact.
This automated approach offers significant advantages over traditional methods. By leveraging technology, advertisers can enhance their campaigns' effectiveness and efficiency. The primary benefits include:
While powerful, programmatic advertising is not without its hurdles. Navigating the ecosystem requires vigilance to overcome significant obstacles and ensure campaign success.
While often used interchangeably, programmatic advertising and real-time bidding serve different functions within the automated ad buying landscape.
Artificial intelligence and machine learning are set to redefine programmatic advertising. These technologies will drive hyper-personalization and predictive optimization. The shift away from third-party cookies will also accelerate the adoption of first-party data strategies.
The expansion into new channels like connected TV (CTV) and audio will continue to grow. This creates new opportunities for cross-device campaigns. Concurrently, the industry is pushing for greater supply chain transparency to combat fraud and improve brand safety.
To maximize your return on investment, adopt a strategic approach. This involves leveraging data-driven insights and continuously optimizing campaigns for performance.
How is brand safety managed in programmatic campaigns?
Brand safety is managed using tools like blocklists, allowlists, and contextual targeting to ensure ads appear alongside appropriate content. Working with reputable platforms is also crucial for maintaining control and protecting your brand's reputation.
Can programmatic advertising work without third-party cookies?
Yes. The industry is adapting by shifting to first-party data, contextual targeting, and other privacy-safe identifiers. These methods allow for effective audience targeting while respecting user privacy, ensuring campaigns can perform well in a cookieless future.
Is programmatic advertising only suitable for large companies?
Not at all. While powerful for large-scale campaigns, programmatic is accessible to businesses of all sizes. Self-serve platforms offer flexible budget options, allowing smaller companies to run highly targeted and cost-effective campaigns without a massive initial investment.
Sales metrics are quantifiable data points that track and measure a sales team's performance against specific goals and objectives.
Shipping solutions are services or software that streamline the logistics of getting products to customers, from label printing to final delivery.
Serviceable Addressable Market (SAM) is the portion of the market your business can realistically serve with its current products and sales channels.
Employee engagement is the emotional commitment an employee has to their organization, motivating them to contribute to the company's success.
Account-Based Marketing (ABM) is a focused B2B strategy where marketing and sales collaborate to target and convert high-value accounts.
User interaction is any action a user takes within a digital interface, like clicking a button, scrolling a page, or filling out a form.
Marketo is a marketing automation platform used by B2B marketers to manage lead generation, nurturing, email marketing, and analytics.
Ramp-up time is the period a new hire takes to get fully up to speed and become a productive member of your go-to-market team.
A marketing attribution model is a framework for assigning credit to the marketing touchpoints that lead a customer to convert.
Account-Based Sales (ABS) is a focused B2B strategy where sales and marketing teams treat high-value accounts as individual markets of one.
A Representational State Transfer (REST) API is a web service that uses a simple, stateless architecture for systems to communicate online.
Lead scoring models rank prospects by assigning points for their behaviors and demographics, helping sales teams prioritize their outreach.
A Request for Information (RFI) is a formal process for gathering information from potential suppliers before issuing a more detailed proposal.
Demand is the economic principle describing a consumer's desire and willingness to purchase a specific good or service at a particular price.
Trigger marketing uses customer actions or events to automatically send highly relevant, personalized messages at the perfect moment.
Lead scoring is the process of assigning points to leads based on their attributes and actions to determine their sales-readiness.
A Content Management System (CMS) is software for creating, managing, and modifying website content without needing specialized technical skills.
Application Performance Management (APM) monitors and manages an application's performance, availability, and the experience of its end-users.
Webhooks are automated messages sent by an app when a specific event occurs. They push real-time data to another app's unique URL.
Buyer’s remorse is the sense of regret or anxiety that can arise after making a purchase, often questioning if it was the right decision.
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Programmatic display campaigns use automation to buy and sell digital ad space in real-time, targeting specific audiences across the web.
An email cadence is a scheduled sequence of emails sent to prospects over a specific period to nurture leads and drive engagement.
A sales methodology is the framework that guides how your sales team approaches the entire sales process, from prospecting to closing deals.
ABM orchestration aligns marketing and sales actions across channels to deliver seamless, personalized experiences to high-value accounts.
Lead generation is the process of identifying and cultivating potential customers for a business's products or services.
A go-to-market (GTM) strategy is an action plan that outlines how a company will reach target customers and achieve a competitive advantage.
Lead qualification is the process of determining which prospects are most likely to become paying customers based on predefined criteria.
Customer buying signals are the actions, behaviors, or statements a prospect makes that indicate they are moving towards a purchase decision.
A Target Account List (TAL) is a focused list of high-value companies that a business specifically aims to convert into customers.
Contact data is the set of details, like names, emails, and phone numbers, used to get in touch with a person or business for outreach.
Account mapping is comparing your customer list with a partner's to find common prospects and unlock new sales opportunities.
CRM integration connects your CRM software with other tools, creating a unified system for all your customer data and business processes.
SFDC stands for Salesforce Dot Com, a popular cloud-based CRM platform that helps companies manage their customer interactions and data.
A knowledge base is a self-serve online library of information about a product, service, department, or topic.
Persona-based marketing uses fictional customer profiles, or personas, to create targeted messaging for specific audience segments.
GPCTBA/C&I is a sales qualification framework for understanding a prospect's goals, plans, challenges, timeline, budget, and authority.
Feature flags let you remotely control features in your app without new code. This enables safe testing, gradual rollouts, and quick rollbacks.
Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) is the total cost a business spends to gain a new customer. It includes all sales and marketing expenses.
A channel partner is a company that works with a manufacturer or producer to market and sell their products, software, or services to customers.
GDPR compliance means following the EU's strict data protection laws to ensure the secure and lawful handling of personal data.
Enrichment is the process of adding third-party data to your existing customer profiles to get a more complete picture of your leads.
Integration testing is a software testing phase where individual modules are combined and tested together to verify their interaction.
"Smile and dial" is a high-volume sales tactic where reps make numerous cold calls from a list, often with little to no prior research.
Sales acceleration refers to strategies and technologies designed to speed up the sales cycle, enabling reps to close more deals, faster.
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No Cold Calls is a sales strategy that replaces unsolicited calls with warm outreach to prospects who have already demonstrated interest.
Sales workflows are a set of automated actions that streamline the sales process, helping teams engage leads consistently and close deals faster.
Copyright compliance is adhering to laws that protect creative works. It involves legally using content by obtaining permission or licenses.
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The marketing mix is the set of marketing tools a company uses to sell products, defined by the 4Ps: Product, Price, Place, and Promotion.
Objection handling is the process of responding to a prospect's concerns or hesitations about a product or service to move a deal forward.
Lead enrichment adds third-party data to your raw lead lists, creating fuller prospect profiles for more effective and personalized outreach.
Account-Based Marketing (ABM) software helps teams coordinate personalized marketing and sales efforts to land high-value customer accounts.
Account-Based Everything (ABE) is a strategy aligning sales, marketing, and success teams to focus on a specific set of high-value accounts.
Outbound sales is when reps proactively contact potential customers through cold calls or emails to generate leads and build a sales pipeline.
An AI sales script generator is a tool that uses artificial intelligence to create personalized sales scripts for any outreach scenario.
A Customer Data Platform (CDP) centralizes customer data from all sources to create a complete, unified profile for each individual customer.
Firmographics are descriptive attributes of organizations, used to segment companies by characteristics like industry, size, and location.
Order management is the end-to-end process of tracking customer orders from placement to fulfillment, ensuring a seamless customer experience.
Sales operations analytics is the practice of analyzing sales data to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the entire sales process.
Sales and marketing analytics involves measuring and analyzing performance data to maximize effectiveness and optimize return on investment (ROI).
Closed Won is a CRM status for a sales deal that has been successfully concluded, resulting in a signed contract and a new customer.
A marketing play is a repeatable tactic used to achieve a specific marketing goal, like generating leads or driving engagement.
Sales partnerships are strategic alliances where two companies co-sell products to expand their reach, generate new leads, and increase revenue.
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A landing page is a standalone web page created for a marketing campaign. It’s where a visitor “lands” after clicking an ad or email link.
Buying criteria are the specific requirements and standards a customer uses to evaluate products or services before making a decision.
Microservices is an architecture where apps are built as a collection of small, independent services that communicate with each other over APIs.
White labeling is when a company puts its own branding on a product or service that was actually produced by a different company.
Customer retention refers to the strategies and activities a company uses to prevent customer churn and encourage them to continue buying.
Competitive intelligence (CI) is the ethical gathering and analysis of market data to inform strategic business decisions and gain an advantage.
Revenue forecasting is the process of estimating a company's future revenue, using historical data and market trends to guide strategic planning.
A sales intelligence platform is software that provides sales teams with data and insights about prospects to help them sell more effectively.
Mid-market companies are businesses larger than small businesses but smaller than large enterprises, often defined by revenue or employee size.
A sales demo is a presentation where a sales rep shows a prospect how a product or service works and solves their specific problems.
A performance plan is a formal document outlining an employee's goals, expectations, and metrics for success over a specific period.
A custom API integration is a bespoke connection between software, enabling them to communicate and share data to meet unique business requirements.
Closed opportunities are potential deals that have concluded. They are categorized as either 'closed-won' (a sale was made) or 'closed-lost'.
Chatbots are AI-powered programs that simulate human conversation. They interact with users via text or voice, typically for customer support.
Event marketing is a strategy where brands engage directly with target audiences through live events like trade shows, conferences, or webinars.
Sales development is the process of identifying and qualifying potential customers to create a pipeline of sales-ready leads for closers.
Lead nurturing is the process of developing and reinforcing relationships with buyers at every stage of the sales funnel.
Cohort analysis is a behavioral analytics tool that groups users with common traits to track their actions and engagement over time.
Account management is the post-sales practice of building and nurturing long-term relationships with a company's most valuable clients.
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A sales territory is a specific group of customers or a geographic area that a salesperson or sales team is responsible for managing.
An Account Development Representative (ADR) identifies and qualifies new business opportunities, creating a pipeline for account executives.
Mobile compatibility ensures your site or app works flawlessly on mobile devices, like smartphones and tablets, for a seamless user experience.
Lead routing is the automated process of distributing incoming leads to the right sales reps based on predefined criteria.
The awareness stage is the first step in the buyer's journey, where a potential customer realizes they have a problem or an opportunity to explore.
Sales automation uses software to streamline and automate repetitive, manual sales tasks, freeing up reps to focus on selling.
A lead generation funnel is a systematic process that guides potential customers from initial awareness of your brand to becoming qualified leads.
Retargeting marketing is a digital advertising strategy that targets users who have previously interacted with your website or brand online.
Sales enablement provides sales teams with the necessary tools, content, and information to help them sell more effectively and efficiently.
Direct sales involves selling products directly to consumers in a non-retail setting, such as at home, online, or person-to-person.
Net new business is revenue from customers who have never purchased from your company before. It’s a crucial indicator of sustainable growth.
Scrum is an agile framework that helps teams structure and manage their work through a set of values, principles, and practices.
Email marketing is a digital strategy where businesses send targeted emails to prospects and customers to build relationships and drive sales.