The ABCs of programmatic are DSPs and SSPs, but there are still some other three-letter combos you’ll want to understand as you dive deeper into that world.
The main inspiration behind the invention of programmatic was solving inefficiencies. Less time, less paperwork, less set-up, less room for human error. Automation made the process more seamless. But efficiency isn’t always synonymous with quality. Open markets offer tons of inventory and make buying easy, but not always pretty if your ad lands on clickbait.com for example. That’s where Private Marketplaces (PMPs) come into play. These arenas are invitation-only and require a good deal of vetting around content quality and brand safety for a publisher to qualify. PMPs still offer the efficiency of programmatic buying, but you might have to exchange some cost efficiencies and audience sizes for that higher quality.
The Open auction is the best example of the efficiencies and flexibility programmatic advertising can offer. Huge inventories, vast audiences, lower CPMs and greater ROIs generally come with that territory. But these benefits come with significant downsides that we hinted at above, but will now go into a bit more detail. True to their name, Open Marketplaces are open to nearly all publishers and advertisers. This means the quality of inventory can vary greatly and there’s more competition for it, driving bids higher and higher. Additionally, because publishers often reserve their best inventory for value-added partnerships, the inventory in an open auction isn’t always the best.
PMPs are a great example of you get what you pay for. Yes, the CPMs are higher (can you hear the publishers’ cheering?), but the premium environments you’re buying into deliver stronger engagement and a greater brand halo. There’s so much less risk in regards to brand safety for advertisers and publishers, sparing both any PR nightmares that really could get costly. You also have greater control over what inventory you can select from, so you can be sure your ads are running in the right spots in the right pubs.
Kargo is the best of both worlds. Our marketplace brings together the best brands and best publishers to assure maximum brand safety and quality inventory. And it’s big enough to give us 100% reach across all smartphone users in the U.S. We’re also 100% ads.txt compliant, so advertisers can run across our network of publishers without worrying about fraud, even in open auctions. For those who want their automation with some customization, we also offer a Programmatic Guarantee program to ensure the desired inventory is guaranteed to our advertisers, and that the allocated budget is spent in full. We also offer a myriad of audience, cookie-less, and contextual targeting solutions that we can implement directly in our Supply Side Platform (SSP), ensuring every request sent to our advertisers meets their criteria with maximum scale.
The quality of PMP. The scale and agility of the Open market. Only at Kargo.