Programmatic Advertising: A Better Way for Healthcare Organizations to Buy and Sell Ads
The traditional process for placing media buys tends to be inefficient and is often contentious for both the buyer and the seller.
Traditionally, you would have to identify which platforms, channels, or publishers cater to your target audience. Then you would have to work with a sales rep, who would propose an advertising schedule and negotiate rate. The better your relationship with the sales rep and the more you spend, the better your ad rate. It can be very subjective.
Once your campaign began, you would rely on the sales rep to provide you with reports on campaign performance, and you could only see metrics that the sales rep was able to provide. Any changes to your campaign would have to go through the sales rep according to their timetable.
Once this process was complete, you would start over from the beginning. Rinse and repeat.
During the past 10 years, however, media buying has shifted to the programmatic model, which provides a more efficient process for healthcare marketers to run highly targeted campaigns while creating more opportunities for medical society publishers to monetize their digital platforms.
In fact, programmatic ad revenues increased 24.9 percent in 2020, according to the IAB Internet Advertising Revenue Report, as election advertising in the second half of the year helped overcome Covid-related pauses in spending in the first half of the year.
What Is Programmatic Advertising?
Programmatic advertising is the practice of buying and selling media ads using software to automate the process. Campaign dates, targeting parameters, and key performance indicators (KPIs) are entered by buyers into programmatic software, while algorithms, not humans, determine ad rates and track spending over the course of a campaign. Advertisers simply bid for ad placement in real-time against other advertisers.
To be clear, programmatic advertising does not eliminate humans from the equation. In fact, programmatic allows humans on both sides to focus on higher-value tasks, such as analysis and optimization of strategy, targeting, ad creative, and campaign performance. Meanwhile, software eliminates rate negotiation and the tedious, labor-intensive tasks involved with inserting orders.
With programmatic advertising, advertisers pay to reach a desirable audience across multiple platforms. Ads can appear on websites, social media, video and audio channels, mobile apps, connected TV, and other platforms with ad inventory.
Benefits for Healthcare Marketers
Programmatic advertising makes the process of reaching the right audience simpler and more efficient. For example, if you want video ads to reach hospitals and insurance providers without appearing near controversial content, you simply set up your campaign parameters accordingly. Campaigns can be set up to be HIPAA-compliant to protect the privacy of potential patients.
Real-time bidding allows healthcare marketers to better control costs, while advanced, precise targeting allow advertisers to focus on specific audience segments and minimize wasted ad spend. With programmatic, advertisers set their own KPIs and generate reports to analyze performance.
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Benefits for Medical Society Publishers
While most conversations about programmatic advertising tend to focus on the advantages for advertisers, publishers can also benefit from the programmatic model. First and foremost, medical societies can monetize their digital platforms and data with a wide range of advertisers, creating a potentially lucrative revenue stream.
Real-time bidding increases competition for all ad inventory. Less unsold inventory means more revenue. Publishers can also control the type of ads that run on their properties. At the same time, the efficiency, flexibility, transparency, and precise targeting of programmatic create a better experience for the advertiser.
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Partnering with AMC for Programmatic Advertising
AMC helps both healthcare marketers and medical society publishers take full advantage of programmatic advertising. We can help you navigate this new model, implement a sound strategy, and leverage modern technology to optimize your investments.