Programmatic Ads

This page is different from the rest of my services, and I would rather say why in the first paragraph than bury it.

Programmatic is the one area on this site where I do not have a delivery history to point at. Nothing in my work at Limi Creatives, my remote contract with SoloiTech for Minnesota-based clients, or anything before that involved buying media through a demand-side platform. So this is a scope page, not a sales page. It exists to help you work out whether you need programmatic at all, and in most cases the answer for a business the size of mine is no, not yet.

If you were sent here by an agency proposal with a five-figure monthly platform commitment in it, read the rest before you sign.

What programmatic actually means, once you remove the acronyms

Programmatic is automated buying of ad inventory across many websites, apps, streaming services and connected TV, through a demand-side platform that bids on impressions in real time. The DSP is the buying interface. On the other side, publishers list their inventory through a supply-side platform, and an exchange matches the two in the fraction of a second before a page finishes loading.

The pitch is reach and control: you can buy audiences across the open internet rather than being confined to one platform's users, layer third-party data on top, and run frequency caps across every property at once.

The reality for a small advertiser is that this reach comes with a supply chain. Between your budget and the publisher sits the DSP fee, the exchange fee, often a data fee, sometimes an agency fee, and a verification vendor fee. A meaningful share of the money leaves before an impression is served. Large advertisers accept that because the absolute scale still works out. On a small budget it usually does not.

Where I stand on it today, stated plainly

I understand how programmatic works, I can read a media plan and tell you whether the numbers in it are reasonable, and I can tell you what questions to ask a vendor. I have not run a DSP campaign for a client, and I am not going to imply otherwise on my own website.

The nearest adjacent surface to programmatic in the platforms I work in daily is the display and video inventory available inside Google Ads. That runs on Google's own network through a managed interface, and while it is auction-based buying, it is not a DSP and I do not count it as programmatic experience.

What I will do is act as your side of the table. If you are being sold a programmatic package, I can review the plan, check what is being charged, ask about inventory transparency and fraud verification, and make sure the measurement is set up so you can actually tell whether it worked. That is genuine value and it is honestly scoped. Selling you the buying itself would not be.

The conditions that make programmatic worth considering

In my reading of it, programmatic starts to earn its place when three things are true at once. Two out of three is usually not enough.

1. You have saturated the platforms that capture and generate demand. If you can still add budget to search or paid social and get an acceptable cost per acquisition, do that. There is no strategic reason to buy harder-to-measure inventory while the easy inventory still has room.
2. Your budget is large enough to absorb the tech stack. Platform fees, data costs and minimum commitments are largely fixed. They eat a small percentage of a large budget and a painful percentage of a small one.
3. You have a genuine reach or awareness problem, not a conversion problem. Programmatic display and connected TV are top-of-funnel instruments. If your issue is that the people already visiting your site are not converting, buying more impressions will not fix it and will make the reporting harder to read.

Point three catches the most people. Buying awareness is a reasonable objective for a brand with a proven funnel. It is an expensive way to postpone fixing a broken one, which is why I insist on measurement setup before any programmatic spend rather than after.

What I would tell you to do with the same money

For most small and mid-sized businesses in the US, UK, Australia or Canada, the same budget produces better and more legible results in two places.

If people are already searching for what you sell, Google Ads search and shopping captures that intent at the moment it exists, with a search terms report that shows you exactly what you bought. There is no equivalent transparency in most programmatic buys.

If demand has to be created rather than captured, Meta Ads, where I do most of my paid social work, gives you reach across two of the largest audience pools in existence, with creative testing you can iterate weekly and attribution you can at least argue about sensibly. If you want the wider framing of that decision, including how organic fits, I have written about whether paid or organic should come first.

Neither of those is glamorous. Both are measurable, and measurable beats impressive when it is your money.

Questions to ask before you sign a programmatic contract

If you are proceeding regardless, with me or with anyone, ask these and insist on written answers.

• What percentage of my budget reaches the publisher, and what are the specific fees taken out along the way?
• Will I get a log-level or site-level report showing where my ads actually ran, and can I exclude domains?
• What invalid traffic and brand safety verification is in place, and who pays for it?
• Am I being charged on viewable impressions or served impressions?
• Is there a minimum monthly commitment or contract term, and what happens if I stop?
• How is a conversion attributed, and how much of the reported result is view-through rather than click-through?

That last question matters more than any other. A programmatic report that leans heavily on view-through conversions is frequently claiming credit for people who would have bought anyway. If nobody will tell you the click-through and view-through split, that is your answer.

How to work with me on this

I will not take a programmatic retainer on the basis of a capability I have not delivered. What I will do is review a proposal you have received, set up measurement so any programmatic activity can be judged against your other channels on the same basis, and manage the channels I do work in every day.

If your situation genuinely requires a DSP, the right answer is a specialist buyer with a track record, and I would rather tell you that than take the work. You can see the paid work I've delivered so far to judge where my actual strengths are. If you want a straight opinion on whether programmatic belongs in your plan this year, discuss whether this fits your budget and I will give you one without a proposal attached.

Frequently asked questions

What is programmatic advertising in simple terms?

It is automated buying of ad space across websites, apps, streaming and connected TV. A demand-side platform bids on individual impressions in real time, publishers offer inventory through a supply-side platform, and an exchange matches them in milliseconds while the page loads. The appeal is reach across the open internet rather than inside a single platform's walled audience.

Do small businesses need programmatic advertising?

Usually not yet. Programmatic makes sense once you have saturated search and paid social at an acceptable cost per acquisition, your budget can absorb platform and data fees that are largely fixed, and your problem is genuinely reach rather than conversion. Most small businesses fail at least one of those three tests, and their money works harder elsewhere.

How is programmatic different from Google Ads?

Google Ads buys inventory on Google's own search, display, video and shopping surfaces through a managed interface. Programmatic uses a demand-side platform to bid across independent exchanges and thousands of publishers, with more inventory but more intermediaries taking a cut. Google Ads generally offers better transparency into what you bought, particularly through the search terms report.

Why do programmatic reports show so many conversions?

Often because they count view-through conversions, meaning someone saw an impression and later converted without clicking. That credit is easy to claim and hard to verify, and it frequently includes people who would have bought anyway. Always ask for the click-through and view-through split separately before accepting a programmatic performance report.

Can you run programmatic campaigns for my business?

Not as a buying service. No engagement in my work history has involved demand-side platform buying, and I will not imply a track record I do not have. What I can do is review a programmatic proposal you have received, check the fee structure and transparency terms, and set up measurement so the activity can be judged fairly against your other channels.