What Is Programmatic Advertising?

Programmatic advertising involves using technology, software, and algorithms to buy and sell digital advertising inventory. The UK programmatic advertising market is the largest in Europe. According to a recent forecast, programmatic advertising spend in the UK will reach a jawdropping £32 billion in 2026. 

At Drovo, we are a transit media outlet at the forefront of the move towards efficient programmatic advertising. 

What Is an Ad Exchange? 

DOOH advertising is a competitive business in 2024, with everyone wanting to get in their first and receive as many impressions and engagements from consumers as possible. An ad exchange is a digital marketplace where advertisers and publishers can buy and sell ads. When you arrive on an ad exchange, the website automatically communicates with a Supply Side Platform and offers you ad space in no time.

The advantage of using programmatic ad exchanges is that they are fast, save you time, and remove the need to use intermediaries. At Drovo, we work closely with programmatic media buying agencies to make their lives easier with our avant-garde programmatic transit advertising technology.

Get in touch with our team today to learn more about how our transit programmatic advertising will benefit you. 

Programmatic Advertising Platforms 

Programmatic ad platforms give you a real-time live bidding marketplace for buying and selling ads. On programmatic advertising platforms, there are 

• Demand Side Platforms for media buyers
• Supply Side Platforms for media owners or ‘publishers’

What Are the Benefits of Programmatic Advertising?

Now you understand a bit more about how programmatic advertising works, let’s take a look at its various perks.

Increased Transparency for Advertisers 

When it comes to assessing and tracking the progression of campaigns, advertisers like to focus on results. In order to monitor and measure campaign performance effectively, you need to have proper transparency and oversight of what is going on. Programmatic advertising offers you increased transparency over how your campaigns are performing. 

Watch the video below to see how Drovo’s live tracking vehicles dashboard provides you with real-time information for your transit campaigns. Our proprietary dashboard raises transparency and allows you to assess statistics on real time impressions for your programmatic campaigns.

What’s more, sustainability is a core value at Drovo, and we choose to incentivise electric vehicle adoption by paying our EV drivers more money. We are proud to have the largest carbon-neutral moving media network in the UK, and all vehicle emissions are carbon offset. 

Lower Media Spend – Improved ROI

Finding that you are overspending on campaigns? You will be pleased to learn that buying programmatic ads is the more affordable option. An industry report unveiled that using programmatic advertising reduced media costs by 42%. 

A Large Range of Media Publishers to Choose from

A wide range of media publishers, large and small, now sell media on programmatic ad exchange SSP platforms. So, you will have no shortage of choices when you go down the programmatic advertising route.

Better at the Right Audience Group

Want to push targeted programmatic DOOH ads? The algorithms and data used in programmatic advertising platforms help you to better target the right people at the right time and place. 

Quicker Setup Time

Both traditional billboard posters often take a long time to set up, and this wasted time can be a stickler.

At Drovo, we get that advertisers’ time is valuable, so we have assembled a team of in-house specialists with experience in programmatic advertising, meaning you can buy our on-vehicle screen ads programmatically. Go to your audience instead of waiting for them to come to you. 

Programmatic Advertising examples

Programmatic advertising is the process of buying and selling ads on a digital marketplace. But what types of adverts can you bid for on programmatic advertising platforms?  

Digital Out-Of-Home

Digital Out-of-Home is a prime example of modern-day programmatic advertising. The DOOH market shows no sign of slowing down. A source forecasts that the Digital Out-of-Home sector will generate around £17 billion in revenue worldwide in 2028. 

DOOH advertising includes 

• Digital billboards
• Bus stops
• On-vehicle screens, just like we offer at Drovo for private vehicles

Digital Display Ads

You can also bid on online digital display ads on programmatic advertising platforms.

Gaining online space or ‘real estate’ is fiercely competitive these days, and banners can get hoards of impressions, especially if they are run on popular websites with large amounts of traffic. A news report on the topic in 2022 found that programmatic advertising accounted for 72% of all digital displays. 

Social Media 

Programmatic advertising on social media platforms, such as Instagram, Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), YouTube, and LinkedIn, allows social media advertisers to be more strategic about the ads they buy, and more specific about the audience they target.

The goal of social media advertising campaigns is to increase consumer brand awareness and engagement, and social media programmatic advertising does just that.

Video Content 

Video advertising is a big part of programmatic advertising. Digital video content campaigns can be highly effective in today’s age, there are billions of eyes on TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram constantly watching clips and reels. Figures show that YouTube managed to generate an impressive 29.2 billion dollars in revenue in 2022.