What's it all about?
The Blogfather looks at robot auctions and reminisces on Lovejoy whilst considering the larger sphere of programmatic mobile advertising.
By 2020, 90% of global online banner advertising will be bought and sold programmatically, a spend of some £60bn.
If you had said ‘auction’ to me in the past, I would have immediately replied with; Lovejoy, that roguish antique dealer who meandered through the Suffolk countryside, romancing, flouncing and bidding in an exceptionally leisurely manner.
But say it to me now, and I’m likely to have a very different mental image; something that is both frantic yet seamless whilst being utterly invisible. This is thanks, in part, to reading Matthew Wall’s piece on robot auctions, published on the BBC’s website as part of their ‘Intelligent Machines’ week.
A robot auction, or real-time bidding (RTB), falls under the umbrella term of programmatic advertising, which is basically using machines to buy adverts.
It is certainly a fascinating, if hard to comprehend, piece of technology. In a split second you have tonnes of media buyers bidding for your attention, via algorithms that are processing a ridiculous amount of data, just for the right to advertise to you whilst browsing the web.
The possibilities are huge. As are the potential ROI’s. That’s why the likes of Adobe are getting into the mix. Research carried out by IHS forecasts that by 2020, 90% of global online banner advertising will be bought and sold programmatically, a spend of some £60bn.
We can create campaigns to run in tandem with anything, from live sports events to the weather! And with the changeable nature of both the elements and Chelsea’s form in this country, that can be some task.
Though, as with most things, a note of caution is needed. Only this morning I read an article on how the measuring of online advertising is only getting worse.
Fraud is a problem for programmatic advertising. If we have automation technology advertising to bots, bypassing humans and creating inflated ad views and click-through rates, then the integrity of the medium could be compromised.
The upside is far too large to ignore. At Gasp we have been exploring the realms of programmatic advertising, specifically in mobile, and we now have some exciting new capabilities to offer our clients.
Via the real-time monitoring of ads, programs and sports events, we can trigger mobile ads in less than 1 second, showing them across all mobile devices. We can give your competitors a digital smack to the back of the head with a paddle board in the bidding process, leaving the way clear for you to sync with your audience, making sure your message is always on topic.
We can create campaigns to run in tandem with anything, from live sports events to the weather! And with the changeable nature of both the elements and Chelsea’s form in this country, that can be some task. But the combination of our powerful algorithms and rich mixture of data means we are more than up to it, ensuring your ads will always be relevant and at the forefront of mind.
Yet despite all the impressive automation, some personable, talented peeps remain fully behind the overall strategy and creative, ensuring all remains good.
It would be nice if these tech whizzes could develop a leather-jacket wearing, mulleted lothario bot, just to give these robot auctions a bit of an 80’s human feel, but we may be waiting on that.