In the world of programmatic advertising, marketers often come across different types of programmatic deals. In this article, we are going to take a closer look at programmatic guaranteed.
What is it exactly?
A programmatic guaranteed deal (or PG for short) is where the buyers directly buy inventory from the publisher. The buyers agree to a fixed number of impressions, and the publisher agrees to deliver the exact amount of impressions for a guaranteed price. Both the buyer and the seller (publisher) bring a guarantee to the table.
Moreover, this allows buyers to access specific publisher audiences they want to target for a campaign at a much larger scale and on a more automated basis. In short, programmatic guaranteed helps the buyers focus on the top priorities for the business.
The below demonstrates the key difference between programmatic guaranteed and a traditional open auction.
Programmatic guaranteed deals are executed across major DSPs such as Display and Video 360, AppNexus and Trade Desk.
Programmatic guaranteed deals can be searched, negotiated and secured using a private marketplace interface within Display and Video 360. The following are the advantages of using Display and Video 360 for programmatic guaranteed deals:
- Users can search for a publisher directly in the marketplace interface without the need to contact a sales representative through email or phone.
- There is no need to set up a campaign from scratch as you are able to just assign the relevant creatives.
- Optimization will be done from the publisher side.
- There is no data or reporting discrepancy between the buyer and publisher as they are both leveraging the same platform.
What are the benefits
There is the question, why not direct buy? First of all, less time is wasted on the setup process compared to the traditional way. According to Boston Consulting Group (BCG), programmatic guaranteed deals took 57% less time for publishers to set up and maintain than traditional direct ads. Better yet, agencies saw a nearly 30% efficiency gain.
For publishers, they have the security of knowing that their inventory is sold at an agreed-upon price. By getting access to premium advertisers who are looking for high ad inventory volumes, publishers will be able to increase the revenue.
For advertisers, especially those who are concerned with brand safety and transparency will rest assured that the ads will show up on the agreed inventory when leveraging programmatic guaranteed. They have access to premium ad inventory placements that they previously might not have been able to buy via the open market.
Although programmatic guaranteed deals provide tons of benefits to both publishers and advertisers, it can require knowledge, contacts, and skills your team might not have.