Programmatic advertising is the use of automated technology for buying and selling online advertising, allowing businesses to target specific audiences, optimize their ad campaigns in real time, and measure their results.

While Programmatic is a term usually associated exclusively to Real Time Bidding, RTB is actually just one of the many methods of programmatic buying.

As the name suggests, open auctions are open to all. All marketers on the exchange/SSP/ad network have an opportunity to bid on all available publisher inventory. This is the most traditional form of programmatic auctions.

With real-time bidding, publishers can set the floor price for an ad, but the marketer demand still determines the final price, and the highest bid wins. Inventory is not guaranteed.

A private exchange is another form of real-time bidding, but instead of being open to all marketers and all publishers, a single publisher invites a mere handful of marketers to participate.

To access the auction, these hand-selected marketers will need a time-sensitive deal ID. Publishers set a floor price, and the bidding starts there. As in the open auction, the highest bid wins. Inventory is not guaranteed.

A Preferred Deal is a private, 1:1 relationship between a publisher and a marketer. In a Preferred Deal, publishers offer premium inventory to the marketer at a pre-negotiated fixed eCPM price.

While eCPMs are a bit higher, marketers are paying to get what’s essentially “first dibs” on premium ad space. When an ad request comes through, a marketer with a preferred deal has an opportunity to bid at the pre-negotiated fixed eCPM price in real time, before the inventory heads to open auction. Inventory is not guaranteed.

With a guaranteed buy, a publisher offers specific, reserved inventory to a marketer at a fixed price. Publishers and marketers negotiate a price for a guaranteed volume of impressions, or flight date. This is similar to a direct sale/buy, but programmatic automation replaces the manual IO process, improving efficiency and reducing error.

The Kayzen platform has support for Open Auction (RTB), Private Marketplaces (PMP) and Preferred Deals.

In the case of Private Marketplaces and Preferred Deals, a Deal ID must be previously set up with a Publisher through a supporting Ad Exchange (not all ad exchanges support deals)

Programmatic Guaranteed is not supported on Kayzen.

The main goal of a publisher's ad monetization strategy is to maximize their Ad Revenue. Ad revenue is calculated by multiplying the number of ad impressions served with the average CPM for those impressions.

In order to maximize both of these components, ad monetization managers integrate multiple demand sources. This approach minimizes the possibility of an ad impression left unserved, i.e. increases fill rate, and, by keeping demand high, CPMs also increase.

These demand partners usually range from Direct Buyers, Ad Networks and Ad Exchanges.

Managing such a complex monetization stack can be very taxing at an operational level, so publishers also integrate a mediation platform, which allows them to manage all their demand partners on a single platform, segment their monetization strategy as they see fit, while also getting access to consolidated reporting and ad quality capabilities.

While there are many mediation platforms in the market today, and some publishers even leverage their own mediation (MobilityWare, Miniclip, Rovio), the most commonly used mediations are AppLovin Max, Google AdMob and Unity LevelPlay.

With the introduction of In-App Bidding a few years ago, programmatic has democratized access to mobile in-app inventory.

As such, almost every ad impression opportunity outside of walled gardens (Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X) is accessible through programmatic means.

To learn more about In-App Bidding make sure to check out our Supply Path Optimization section.

In order to maximize our reach and ensure your campaigns run successfully in a brand-safe environment with engaging creative experiences, Kayzen has integrated with multiple top-level Ad Exchanges.