Programmatic Advertising in Africa

What is Programmatic advertising? It is simply put as the automated buying and selling of online advertising. Its targeting tactics are used to segment audiences using data so as to allow advertisers pay only for ads delivered to the right people at the right time. Programmatic advertising relieves someone of the job of having to bid for an advertising space and places that responsibility in the hands of an algorithm.

In Africa, there is a huge growth in smart phone penetration which makes it a great potential for programmatic advertising. Media buying was the physical negotiating and securing of media real estate on billboards, magazines etc but with such an unprecedented increase in mobile and internet access, it is expected that the surrounding sectors would be ready for an advancement in technology.

Mobile devices have shifted the attention of Africa into the world of banner ads and interstitial advertisements and even though the same logic relating to negotiating, agreeing a price and flighting media still applies to some extent, it is faster with programmatic advertising.

Programmatic advertising has created an online intersection for advertisers wanting to buy ad spaces online and publishers who want to sell those spaces. It is believed that there would be an increased appetite for programmatic advertising in the nearest future with businesses looking for effectiveness and efficiencies out of their media investments.

With programmatic advertising, there is a huge growth in sight for African publishers, advertisers and advertising agencies who run ad exchanges and can now optimize the auction process and connect with advertisers in real time. For African advertisers, programmatic advertising helps them to reach a wider audience because it supports a large number at a higher frequency of ad exchanges and networks, giving advertisers access to more ad spaces across multiple websites.

It promotes data analytics and real-time monitoring as advertisers and publishers are able to gather insights from real-time data and with these they can optimize ad campaigns and monitor performance. With advertisers and publishers being able to access real time data about ads placement and engagement, programmatic advertising helps with transparency as to how well a campaign is doing and this plays an important role in terms of cost transparency.

For Africa, programmatic advertising is going to help improve the quality of advertisements on a general scale and help advertisers and publishers to meet on common ground in order to both achieve their goals. At Cybertron Ads this is what we do, ensuring both the advertisers and publishers achieve their goals. Contact us at hello@cybertronads.com to get started.