Category: Advertising

When promotional messages are delivered on Internet, they are called online advertising or online marketing or Internet advertising or web advertising. Such promotion could be through emails, through search engines or mobile phones. In online advertising too, there is a publisher and an advertiser. A publisher integrates ads to the content. Advertiser provides the ads to be displayed on the content. Ad agencies generate the ad copy and ensure its placement. Ad servers deliver the ads and tracks the data. Advertising affiliates do the independent promotional work for the advertiver. To begin with, in the initial days of Internet, online ads were banned. Email ads were first used in 1978, and its use spread rapidly. It was in early 1990s, that non-commercial spam messages originated. Online banner ads appreared in the early 1990s. The first clickable ad appreared in 1993. Banner ads became mainstream in 1994. In 2003, search engine ad was started by Yahoo! AdWords was launched by Google in 2000. The trend now is to let the content and ad message merge. Coke’s online ad magazines, Red Bull’s streaming of space jump, Nike’s free apps for performance tracking are illustrations. Advertisers have taken to social media too. Mobile ads have grown.

The element of display ads are text, logos, videos, animations, photographs and other graphics. Targeting is related to user traits. That makes these ads effective. Tracking could be done by using cookies . Data is collected from a number of sources. This is behavioural targeting. There is contextual or semantic advertising too depending upon the content of the web page where the ads appear . Targeting is thus retargetting, behavioural targeting and contextual targeting. This makes advertising effective, and improves advertiser’s ROI. Apart from this, there is geotargeting based on a user’s suspected geography.

Web banner ads are graphical display ads within a webpage. They are delivered by a central server. These can be enriched by incorporating video, audio, animations, buttons, forms or other interactive elements. The software used could be Java applets, HTML5, Adobe Flash and such other programmes.

Traditional banners were frame ads. Here some space is set aside by publishers to have the frame ads.

Pop-ups and pop-unders. A pop-up ad is displayed in a new web browser window above a website visiter’s initial browser window. Conversely, pop-under ad opens in a new browser window under a website visitor’s initial browsing window.

Floating ads is also called overlay ads which is superimposed on the requested websiter’s content.

Expanding ads change dimensions as per the activities of the users over the ad. They allow advertisers to carry more information in restricted space.

Trick banners are banner ads. They imitate some commonly found screen elements, e.g.app message, OS message . Initially, the advertisers’ name is not mentioned. They are baits.

News feed ads are on the social media. They are intertwined with non-promoted news. Sponsored stories is an example. Twitter uses of promoted tweets and LinkedIn Sponsored updates. Newsfeed ads blend into other updates, and thus can be distiguished from the display ads.

Interestitial ad shows before a user can access the desired content. It could be embedded.

According to Deloitte TMT ( Telecom, Media and Technology ) report, 2016, mobile advertising in India is expected to grace from 2.4 per cent of the overall media expenditure at present to 15-20 per cent by 2020. The growing penetration of smart phones and mobile internet and m-commerce will give a big push to mobile advertising.

The digital population in India has increased from 10 million users to 100 million in a decade but then it has reached to 200 million in just three years. India will have 651 million smart phone users by 2019. In 2011, India’s mobile advertising was $ 25 million. In 2015, mobile advertising is $ 70-80 million. Its annual growth rate is 60-70 per cent. It is the fastest growing segment.

It started with SMS and telemarketing calls. It has now grown into sophisticated in-app ads, mobile web, mobile search and social media. Marshmallon in the latest Android version delivers customised ads on the locked screen of a smart phone. Mobile applications has led to innovations in mobile ads beyond  banner ads. Mobile web and mobile apps work the same way, but the apps are more intuitive, and hence do better targeting. Users spend more time on apps than on the mobile web. India ranks third in downloading apps from GooglePlay. The app budgets of brands are increasing. Many new formats are being  tried, leading to experimentation.

The highest contributor to mobile advertising is going to be in-app ads. Next to it comes mobile videos and mobile ads. Video advertising has been increasing as there is consumption of short format videos on mobiles.

India’s internet access through mobiles is 60 per cent ( IAMAI report.)

Digital marketing is through digital channels, which could be online or offline. Online marketing is real time live Internet marketing. Digital marketing could be online, and goes beyond that, say through mobile phones, using apps, tablets and other means of communication such as Podcasts and SMSs. It is a broader term. Digital marketing does not use print media. It uses social media, mobile marketing SEO, QR codes etc. Online marketing is restricted to Internet. Digital marketing includes Internet Marketing, Digital Advertising, and TV, Radio, SMS and Billboards. It has digital foundation.

Internet marketing includes websites, search engine marketing, email marketing, social media marketing, content marketing, email marketing, mobile marketing and banner advertising.

Digital marketing is to be used in conjunction with the traditional marketing.

Digital marketing is more cost effective. Online marketing is measurable. Digital marketing is useful for brand development. Digital  lets us reach the qualified customers. It sets the stage for customer engagement.

Digital advertising is also a channel of digital marketing.

Digital marketing is through digital channels, which could be online or offline. Online marketing is real time live Internet marketing. Digital marketing could be online, and goes beyond that, say through mobile phones using apps, tablets and  other means of communication such as Podcasts and SMS. It is a broader term. Digital marketing does not use print media. It uses social media, mobile marketing, SEO, QR codes etc. Online marketing is restricted to Internet. Digital marketing includes Internet Marketing,  Digital Advertising, and TV, Radio, SMS and Billboards. It has digital foundation.

Internet marketing includes websites, search engine marketing, social media marketing, content, marketing, email marketing, mobile marketing and banner advertising.

Digital marketing is to be used in conjunction with the traditional marketing.

Digital marketing is more cost effective. Online marketing is measurable. Digital marketing is useful for brand development. Digital lets us reach the qualified customers. It sets the stage for customer engagement.

Digital advertising is also a channel of digital marketing.

There are two types of programmatic buying —

• Programmatic direct
• Programmatic RTB

Here programmatic refers to automatic. Ad space  is bought automatically on a web page by two methods — bidding for the space or buying it directly.

Programmatic RTB is like Google AdWords. It is only for display ads, and not for search results.

After RTB, the winning ad appears on the web page. Every time an ad loads, it is considered as one impression. Its price is determined by what buyers are willing to pay in real time. This is facilitated by DSPs. A DSP is a fully automated software that bids impressions from an ad exchange.

Programmatic direct is also called programmatic guaranteed and programmatic premium. It is an automated process of buying guaranteed space without involving in an action.

By definition, RTB is a method by which advertising inventory is purchased and sold on a per impression basis, through programmatic instant auction, similar to financial markets.

When the bid is won in an auction, the buyer’s ad is immediately put on the publisher’s site. RTB helps to manage and optimise ads from multiple sources ( ad networks ). It provides access to different networks permitting them to create and launch ad campaigns. It prioritizes networks and allocates a portion of unsold inventory, called backfill.

This stands in sharp contrast to static auctions. In dynnmic RTB, the bidding is per impression. In static auction, it is for a group of several thousand impressions RTB is thus more efficient and effective both for the publisher and advertisers.

Imagine a user visiting a site. Here a bid request is initiated. It covers the demographics of the user, his browsing history, his location and  the page being loaded. The request travels from the publisher to an ad exchange, The request and the accompanying data gets submitted to multiple advertisers. They submit their bids in real-time to place their ads. Advertisers bid for each and every ad impression on offer. The impression goes to the highest bidder. The highest bidder’s ad appears on the page the user has visited. The process is repeated for every ad slot available on the page. The whole transaction takes place in milliseconds from the moment the request is received by the exchange.

The bidding process is automatic. The advertisers set budgets for a campaign and the maximum bids. The criteria for bidding for consumers are complex, and consider a lot of data.

Probabilistic models guide us about the probability of a click or conversion, considering the user history. This probability can be used to decide the size of the bid for the respective slot.

DSPs give buyers direct RTB access to multiple sources of inventory. DSPs have the technology to determine the value of an individual impression in real-time — less then 100-milliseconds, considering user history. Large publishers use SSPs to manage advertising yield.

An individual browser history is more difficult to cull on mobile devices. Mobile real time bidding has no universal standards.

The first such RTB platform was launched by DoubleClick Ad Exchange from Google. Microsoft and Yahoo then launched Microsoft Advertising Exchange and Yahoo Ad Exchange respectively.

DSPs use data management platforms or DMPs. They give DSPs a lot of data and information. It is an intelligent technological platform which takes data from first, second and third party of data providers, and manages the data meaningfully so that a DSP can make the best purchase decision on behalf of the marketer.

First party data is owned by the advertisers. It has collected this data from its audience. It is collected from site visitors and existing customers. Tags, pixels, cookies are used for collection . Data comes from o CRM system or web analytics. This data is leverged to  meet the advertising goals.

Second party data is the newest form of data. What is second party data for someone is first party data for some one else. It is made available through arrangements with other organisations of similar target audience. A clothing company can partner with a jewellery company. Here the demographics overlap. It facilitates targeting.

Third party data is data that is not in the realm of first party data, is not connected to the advertiser. An independent party gathers data from diverse web sites, vendors and offline. It is fused with first party data to provide more targeted campaign. Or it can be used independently. It is additional data of consumer behaviour.

The kind of data that is stirred is socio, demographic, behavioral and geographic data.

DMP need to segment the data and normalise the data. It has to find trends. The collection and segmentation of data are together used to send instructions to the DSP. DSP in this light decides the worth  of an impression for the advertiser.

Ad Exchanges carry a pool of ad impressions. These are offered by the publishers in the hope that these will be bought. Buyers then buy the impressions they wish using technology such as DSP. The decisions are made in real-time based on information such as the previous behaviour of the user of an ad being served, time of day, type of device, ad position and many more.

The exchange is a digital market place. It brings together marketers and publishers. It facilitates buying and selling of advertising space; mostly through real-time auctions. They are used generally to sell display, video and mobile inventory.

The examples of exchanges are Right Media ( Yahoo ) and DoubleClick Ad Excange ( DoubleClick ).

Ad Exchanges are a mechanism which make the ad impressions from the publishers available to the DSPs. The price of each impression is decided through real-time auction called real-time bidding ( RTB ). A salesman is not needed to negotiate prices with buyers, since the impressions are auctioned off to the highest bidder.

This concept has its genesis in Europe. Basically it is a software for purchasing advertising in an automated fashion. DSPs are often used by the agencies and advertisers ( marketers ).These buy display, video, mobile and search ad inventory. DSPs facilitate the real-time bidding ( RTB ) access across multiple sources of inventory. DSPs provide access to more publishers. Previously the process of buying and selling digital ads was manual — there were human buyers and salespeople. They were costly and unreliable. DSPs make the process efficient by automation. It bypasses the need for negotiation of ad rates.

DSPs purchase ad impressions across a range of publisher sites. Still the ads are targeted based on certain attributes — location, previous browsing behaviour. DSPs try to find the best ROAS for an advertiser.

A supply side platform is also called a sales side platform. Essentially it is a software for programmatic buying, This buying has three softwares — SSP, DSP and Ad Exchange. It makes the process automated. These platforms have been invented in the US. SSP facilitates the management of advertising space inventory of the web publishers. SSPs help them fill the space with ads, and receive revenue in return. Large publishers use SSPs to automate and optimise the selling of their online media space.

The SSPs interface with the advertising networks and exchanges. These in turn interface with the demand-side platforms ( DSPs ) serving the advertisers.

This system makes it possible to put online advertising before a select target audience. The transactions are often completed at the DSP end using real-time bidding (RTB).

Some SSPs working in this field are Google, Adform, OpenX, AppNexus, DoubleClick for publishers ( DFP), PubMatic, ExoClick, SpotXchange.

Advertisers or marketers use DSPs and exchanges to buy online advertising. Publishers use SSPs to sell their advertising space inventory of display, video and mobile ads.

Through the exchange, the DSPs buy ad impressions as cheaply and as efficiently as possible. SSPs work for the publishers to do the opposite — to maximise the price at which the impressions are being sold. Technology that powers the SSPs and DSPs is similar.

SSPs connect to multiple ad exchanges, DSPs and networks — all at once. This is an opportunity for the  buyers to purchase the ad space. This is an opportunity for the publishers to get the highest possible rates.

SSPs throw ad impressions into ad exchanges. DSPs analyse and purchase them on behalf of the marketers. While buying, an algorithm matches the clients requirement and the demographics of the users. The impressions must also reach as many potential buyers as possible.

Through real-time auctions, publishers can maximise the revenues for their inventory. SSPs are thus yield-optimisation platforms.

DSPs could drive the value of ad inventory. SSPs counter this. SSPs set price floors which dictate the minimum prices for which their inventory can sell to specific buyers or through specific channels.

There are human sales teams, and SSPs are used to sell inventory which the human sales team fail to sell.

An SSP is a publisher side equivalent of a DSP whose main goal is to maximise revenue for the publisher, and make the dealings comfortable.It is an algorithm consisting of three main variables to decide who gets to win the impression. It is on lines of multiple regression analysis. It has to see which variable has the highest correlation with the output or maximum revenue. Every single time an impression is put up for auction the result change based on the values of the variables. The three variables are RTB, Payouts and DMPs. RTB ensures that 90 to 92 per cent of all bids won impressions are based on the highest bid. In Payouts, the advertiser buys on CPA or CPL basis and gives the publisher a certain percentage of profits.Whenever,  there is a tie for the bid, the SSP sells the impression to the third party who has the highest Payout rate. It happens very rarely. DMP provides SSP with data of the various dimensions of the consumer or user.