Pick up a newspaper today and you are sure to read yet another article foretelling the inevitable collapse of the economy. With headlines painting a grim picture about the rising inflation, falling GDP, skyrocketing food prices, and numerous factory closures, it is natural for consumers to tighten their belts. But what does this mean for retailers? Sales of consumer goods have become sluggish, especially big-ticket items such as houses, cars, home appliances, and high-end gadgets. In such a gloomy environment, it is the need of the hour to use cost-effective advertising strategies that help enhance sales. Marketers today are compelled to do more with less.

In my experience, I have found programmatic advertising to be one of the most efficient ways to create sophisticated and highly targeted campaigns. Before we go ahead, let's take a quick look at what it means. In simple terms, programmatic advertising uses artificial intelligence and machine learning technology to automatically buy digital advertising across multiple platforms. Earlier, businesses had to manually bid for display space or purchase impressions at pre-set prices, which is quite time-consuming, and not to mention, an expensive process. Besides, there was no way to precisely narrow down the target audience to make sure that the ad is shown to only prospective customers. Due to this, ads would often become repetitive and irrelevant to the audience or they would fall prey to ad fraud.

But with programmatic advertising, the automated media buying process saves precious time, allowing companies to focus on more critical aspects of their business. And thanks to real-time bidding, these ads are displayed to you in the time it takes to load a website - 200 milliseconds! Impressive, right? Moreover, programmatic ads let you precisely target your customers based on consumer data such as

search history, interests, shopping patterns, gender, age, location, and more.

These data-driven insights also enable you to show variations of the same ad, giving each customer a highly personalized experience. For example, if you and your friend visit the same travel website, you may see an ad for Bali, but your friend who has recently returned from Bali, may be enticed with a travel package for Thailand or another country she has not visited. Such customized marketing attracts qualified leads, thus increasing the chances of conversion.

So, it's no wonder that marketers in India have really taken to programmatic advertising as well. According to Google, around 33% of video and display inventory is on programmatic, and this is expected to witness a 45% YoY growth. Our country has 390 million active smartphone users who spend an average of three hours glued to their phones, so this is a great way for businesses to connect with their specific audience. Brands such as Flipkart and Swiggy, and even shopping search engines like Google Shopping, My Smart Price and Taglr are using programmatic ads to offer a seamless consumer experience.

Consumers today expect a truly omni-channel shopping experience, and a programmatic approach can deliver just that. Meaning that consumers can watch the same video ad, regardless of whether they engage with your brand via a desktop browser, mobile app or your social media channels. Offering them such a connected, integrated experience portrays your brand as a unified entity. Also, consumers appreciate being shown products that interest them or are relevant at that point in their life. If you're really into extreme sports, you will most certainly click on an ad selling you a discounted skydiving experience rather than click on a serene yoga retreat. Or if you use third-party data to figure out when it is morning time, you can advertise waffles or sandwiches because people are more likely to be looking for breakfast options. Making sure that the right ad is in front of the right audience may not only lead to increased sales, but also promote customer satisfaction.

Programmatic advertising is rapidly changing the digital advertising landscape for the better. However, although Google is targeting nearly 60% of ad spend on programmatic, it is essential that other advertisers and publishers do more than just test the waters. Brands that are merely dabbling in the field need to arm themselves with the required knowledge and training required to fully utilize programmatic. In fact, 75% of video ads are programmatic, unless you want to lose out on valuable leads, you will need to implement it.

Moreover, with the launch of more programmatic self-service platforms, it will become easier for smaller companies to give larger brands with bigger budgets a run for their money. These platforms may also make it the norm for companies to purchase programmatic ads in-house rather than rely on agencies or middlemen. On the whole, programmatic definitely has a bright future, so if you have not hopped on the bandwagon yet, maybe it is high time that you did!