Programmatic advertising, at least the kind that drives exceptional results, is truly people powered. People unlock programmatic’s vast potential by adding creativity, and oversight, to the technology in order to create the kinds of hyper-relevant, hyper-targeted campaigns that really resonate with consumers. People are essential to the programmatic process and that’s something that online classified website Kijiji knows very well.
The human element has been at the centre of Kijiji’s programmatic practice, which has become a positively impactful alternative revenue stream for the company, since day one. Kijiji was an early adopter, initially engaging in the space back in 2011 when it made its ad inventory available on Google’s Ad Exchange for the first time. Since then, it’s added two more platforms to the roster in Pubmatic and the Casale Index. It immediately became evident that the human component was an integral part of the process from an educational standpoint, something that’s still true today as more advertisers explore different ways of buying media.
“We want to make sure that, generally, everyone has an understanding and can grasp what’s going on in this space,” explains Chris Quinn, Head of Ad Operations, Kijiji for Business. “It’s about making sure we don’t repeat mistakes and then, ultimately, making sure our clients understand what we can offer and what we’re doing for them.”
Programmatic sales at Kijiji are set up so that human involvement is essential for deals to be completed successfully. It has two different approaches to programmatic: private auctions, which are a bidding landscape wherein invited publishers advertisers can bid on custom audience segments; and private marketplaces, or DealID, in which it customizes specific segments of audience for unique brands or agency trading desks. Both approaches are predicated on a direct relationship with the buyer, be they brands, data management platform, or trading desk.
“It comes down to delivering value back to our customers and preferred partners,” says Karla Stuewe, Manager, Advertising Sales, Kijiji Advertising. Stuewe is Kjjiji’s programmatic lead. “In a private auction environment we can ensure that not only do brands have a brand-safe environment within Kijiji, but also that the Kijiji brand maintains its brand safety. Where we work with our preferred partners, we know exactly what brands are buying for and we’re not at risk for any sketchy advertising.”
Apart from issues around execution, education, brand safety and transaction transparency, the human component in programmatic is important for general troubleshooting, particularly given the different kinds of complex technology involved, and a persisting lack of education around the space.
“When you’re working with so many different technology partners it’s critical that you have an open human dialogue,” explains Stuewe. “Fundamentally, all of the technology doesn’t necessarily speak clearly and in the same language, so you’re really mitigating and troubleshooting person to person. If you don’t have that human element then it’s going to be really difficult to problem solve because the problem solving doesn’t happen automatically.”
Another important role for people in the programmatic process is data analysis and insight mining, the kind of creative thinking needed to manipulate data to give programmatic campaigns legs based on sound insights and create lasting productive advertising partnerships. It’s about finding the best ways for advertising partners to identify and act on the kinds of performance benchmarks they’re looking to deliver against, driving for them the most on-target results. It’s an area where the human conversation really adds significant value to the process.
“Clients are looking for specific audiences, but how they derive those audiences is very often based on conversations around brainstorming,” explains Stuewe. “It’s really cool to sit back and get creative and look at what kinds of KPIs the specific brand is looking to deliver against, whether that’s a certain type of consumer, or driving performance on the back end and then using that as a starting point for ideation.”
Crucially, human involvement also helps the programmatic space at large to evolve. it’s important to remember that despite its growing popularity and significant increases in programmatic spend globally, the space is still very new. New technologies are appearing with assembly line regularity, new platforms for programmatic — like mobile — are being explored and, still, brand safety, education and transparency are widespread issues. The human conversation around programmatic, both internally at companies and at large, is critical if the space is to evolve and reach uncover its true potential.
“No one’s found the golden ticket yet and that’s probably been why and has, and will continue to have, human involvement,” says Quinn. “It’s that constant refining of what’s happening. The technology is going to get easier, it’s going to get better, but you still have to make adjustments, you still have to improve. Having people involved in that obviously gets the conversations going quickly, and gets them to understand the space and all its different sides. Then they can make those improvements.”
There’s no doubt that future of advertising lies in the programmatic space. Media intelligence organization Magna Global predicts global programmatic spending to reach $32 billion in 2017. While there have been many arguments made regarding the efficiency, a primary programmatic selling point, that comes with ad automation— who likes paper trails anyway? — that on its own will only take the space so far. The human component adds to the process by making it richer, more creative, rewarding and, yes, even more efficient.
“There really is quite an intensive human element that is needed,” says Mark Lister, Managing Director, Kijiji for Business. “Often overlooked is the environment that the campaign is served within and the learnings and ongoing collaboration that can be provided by the guardians of the PMP. Those are things that a computer just can’t do.”
Programmatic advertising is efficient, yes, but it’ll never realize its potential on its own. That’s where the human component comes in. It gives this systematic computer-powered process a creative soul that takes the benefits of programmatic beyond the nuts-and-bolts of the process itself.
