I hear about programmatic all the time, but it's still an enigma to me.

I understand it's digital advertising across multiple channels. Are there specific softwares that are used for this kind of advertising? Are there some companies that do it particularly well? What makes it different than running FB, Google, and other similar ad platforms.

Thanks!

I would love to hear other people's thoughts on this.

Based on my reading of this subreddit there are some uncontroversial truths:

• Programmatic display is upper funnel. Don't expect click through rates or conversion rates comparable to search or Facebook

• If you aren't tracking post-view interactions, you are not assessing the full impact of the campaign

• you need to implement multi-touch attribution to get an idea of the impact prog. display is having

Then during discussions of whether display is good or bad there tends to be 2 camps:

1. Prog. display is so full of unseen ads, bots, fraud, crappy 3rd party data, scammy agencies making too much margin etc etc that it's a cesspit and should be avoided at all costs

2. Prog. Display when executed correctly by a benevolent, well informed and inquisitive manager will yield goal based results over time, assuming the goals align with the medium (i.e. it's measured as one step on the complex path to purchase)

But here's the thing I would love to be convinced of otherwise:

1. If Facebook ads are lower funnel and good at converting (which they are generally) then why is prog. display considered upper funnel... It seems to me like its designated that because it's a bad lower funnel channel rather than it being particularly good for awareness. The reasoning would seem to me to be that if FB or other native ads are better converters they're probably also better for awareness too. Display might be sort of ok if run perfectly but it's likely that there's better options out there for you as a marketer unless you have massive budgets are and really struggling to find incremental reach.

2. If prog. display is an upper funnel channel and it's really difficult to attribute conversions to it in a way that will beat things like FB, then it's just the same as any ATL media (e.g. OOH). However, the person who controls the budget at a brand is often not a programmatic expert. Therefore it would seem that their best bet is to stick to upper funnel activity that they can understand otherwise they open themselves up be an easily scammed client (so many agencies take advantage of these types of client). If I assess an OOH campaign, I don't need to be an expert to work out whether the placements seem aligned with my campaign goals. If I assess a programmatic campaign I probably have no idea what success should look like and will have to trust.

That's not to say that there aren't great programmatic campaigns run by great traders who have the advertisers' interests at heart, but there are so many pitfalls that I struggle to see how it's a good idea for a brand unless you're an expert.