• by Jeff Hirsch , October 8, 2013

Programmatic advertising has made it easier than ever to get the right message to the right consumer at the right time on the right device. There’s an abundance of data to work with, and that data, activated by technology, takes most of the guesswork out of targeting. When an advertiser identifies a consumer that demonstrates a number of specific behaviors, then they can serve ads to these people live and in real time. The benefit to programmatic is that now advertisers can have campaigns that are always on-call. We have taken the path to efficiency to a new level and we are not done yet.

This amount of accuracy presents a new challenge and responsibility. Now that we’re able to serve relevant communications, the pressure is on to message with finesse. All the right levers have been pulled automatically to hit the target, now the onus is on the creative to deliver the goods. In a programmatic world, the creative may be the only remaining variable in the performance equation. We now have a need for programmatic creative.

Creating and delivering the right assets requires balance on both sides of the brain. Marketers may have a lot of information about their audience’s interests and buying habits, but real creativity is involved in building ads that resonate with consumers and drive a response. It can be expensive and time consuming to work with an agency in this on-demand situation. Agencies are often inefficient and can’t always keep up with the demanding output that programmatic advertising facilitates. Agencies can be slow to turn around creative, which can impede some of the benefits of being able to serve relevant ads in a real-time setting. 

Marketers that take advantage of programmatic advertising already have sophisticated targeting in place. The challenge that these advertisers face in order to reap the benefits of programmatic is that they need to be able to quickly optimize creative. They can't wait weeks for new ads. Advertisers need faster, more economical solutions. Considering both internal and external options, a marketer’s best plan is to create those assets in advance and then optimize as needed. They need to have programmatic creative on-hand. 

Programmatic creative lets advertisers generate a multitude of creative assets to match their strategy. Using this approach, marketers can create thousands of variations on an ad in a small period of time efficiently and for free. Once a marketer has these creative assets loaded, they are ready to go when the need arises. Advertisers can then optimize this creative on the fly because they have this arsenal of creative assets prepared. These ads can be served dynamically based on the target that has been identified in the programmatic system. For instance, an airline can create thousands of versions of campaigns: Based on what city a consumer is based in, when they see the ad, what flights are available in that moment, route maps, specials they are offering, etc.

It doesn’t take a whole team of agency staffers to produce this massive amount of creative — a couple of people from a brand’s in-house marketing team can create these messages. This approach is available for all advertisers no matter what the size — big companies and small companies alike. Small advertisers can come in and build a campaign quickly and easily and make sure their budget goes toward reaching the consumer rather than building the campaign. This gives marketers the ability to do digital advertising with a $5000 a month budget, which just can’t be done in other ways. 

Programmatic creative gives brands a lot more creative control by giving them the template to create their own ads. An advertiser knows who their target Web user is and they know the message they want to serve to that person. Programmatic gives them the ability to do that more than ever before. Now a marketer can take advantage of the programmatic media buy with a multitude of creative options.