How To Advertise On Programmatic Display
How To Advertise on Programmatic Display
Key Takeaways:
Start with strong marketing fundamentals. Advertising on programmatic display works when you have clear objectives, understand your audience and use creative designed for the reality of the open web.
Use programmatic intentionally. Programmatic becomes effective when you choose the right mix of inventory, formats and data to match how your customers browse.
Work with an integrated media agency. Programmatic planning and buying involve data, brand safety, bidding strategies, measurement and cross channel alignment. An integrated agency like One Day ensures everything works together.
Programmatic display is one of the most flexible and scalable ways to reach customers across the web. But reach alone is not what makes it powerful. Success comes from applying marketing fundamentals, making smart media choices and building creative that fits where people actually spend time. This guide explains how businesses of all sizes can advertise on programmatic display in a way that supports both brand and performance.
Why Programmatic Display Belongs in Your Media Plan
Programmatic display gives brands access to ad placements across millions of websites, apps and digital environments without negotiating with each publisher individually. Instead of buying one site at a time, you buy audiences and contexts at scale.
For small businesses, it acts as an accessible way to build awareness and reinforce social or search activity. For mid sized and scaling brands, programmatic helps broaden the top of the funnel, reach new audiences and stay visible across the open web. Large brands use it for multi market targeting, dynamic creative and advanced data integration.
Whatever the size of your business, programmatic display is most effective when it has a clear purpose and is integrated into your wider media plan rather than treated as a standalone channel.
Start with the Marketing Fundamentals
The strongest programmatic campaigns start with clarity, not complexity.
Your objective sits at the centre: brand building, mid funnel consideration, new customer acquisition, app downloads, promotion of a seasonal offer or retargeting people already familiar with your brand. Each objective influences your bidding strategy, targeting options and the formats you choose.
Your audience should be defined by real behaviours, not vague assumptions. Programmatic allows you to target based on demographics, intent signals, contextual environments, CRM lists, lookalike models or page categories. But more targeting is not necessarily better. The goal is relevance, not narrowing the audience until it becomes too small or too expensive.
Your message must reflect the reality of the open web. Display ads sit beside articles, within apps, on news sites and inside marketplaces. A single clear idea, strong brand assets and a simple call to action work far better than cluttered, multi-message banners.
Programmatic is powerful, but it performs best when built on fundamentals.
What Programmatic Display Actually Covers
Programmatic display is not just banners. It encompasses standard web formats such as MPUs and leaderboards, high impact formats like skins and takeovers, native ads integrated into page content, dynamic creatives, mobile in-app inventory, and even video purchased through display auctions. Increasingly, digital audio and digital out of home can also be bought programmatically, adding further reach and consistency.
This means programmatic can support branding, drive mid funnel engagement or serve precise retargeting messages depending on the formats used.
How To Advertise on Programmatic Display Effectively
Use Data with Purpose
Data is one of programmatic’s main strengths, but using too many signals or relying purely on third party segments often reduces efficiency. The best advertisers build their strategy around a blend of first party data, contextual signals and high quality intent data. CRM lists, past purchasers, newsletter subscribers and site visitors offer a solid starting point, while contextual targeting ensures you appear next to relevant content without over narrowing your audience.
Match Context to Behaviour
The places where people see your ads shape how they react. Someone reading a long form financial article is in a very different mindset to someone scrolling a recipe site or a lifestyle blog. Programmatic allows you to purposely place your brand within the right content themes, helping you meet your audience where their attention already is.
Build Creative That Works Across the Web
Creative is often the biggest driver of performance, especially in display. Ads need to cut through busy environments and be instantly recognisable. Many high performing advertisers focus on consistent brand colours, simple layouts and direct language rather than overly complex visuals. For higher funnel activity, strong branding matters most. For retargeting, clarity and relevance become the priority.
Choose Formats That Support Your Funnel
Programmatic becomes more effective when formats are chosen with intent. Standard display delivers reach and frequency. High impact formats create memorable first impressions. Native advertising integrates your message naturally into content. Dynamic formats adapt messaging based on user behaviour. A healthy programme blends these formats in a way that supports the customer journey.
Useful Tools for Marketers and Business Owners
The programmatic landscape can seem technical, but several tools make it accessible regardless of budget size.
Demand side platforms such as DV360, The Trade Desk and Amazon Ads allow advertisers to buy across wide inventory pools while controlling targeting, frequency and optimisation. Verification tools like Integral Ad Science, DoubleVerify and MOAT help ensure ads appear in safe and viewable environments. Analytics tools provide visibility over reach, user behaviour, brand searches and the downstream effects of programmatic exposure.
Creative optimisation tools also help refine performance without rebuilding entire campaigns. Even simple A/B testing can reveal big differences in outcomes.
For business owners, these tools transform programmatic from an abstract concept into something understandable, measurable and commercially sound.
The Role of Programmatic Within Your Marketing Mix
Programmatic rarely works best in isolation. It reinforces search performance by building brand familiarity, supports social by increasing frequency, and drives conversions by re-engaging warm audiences. For businesses with physical locations or ecommerce stores, programmatic also helps maintain visibility between major campaigns.
When part of a coherent system, programmatic builds familiarity at scale and nudges people into the channels where intent is highest.
How an Integrated Media Agency Like One Day Can Help
Programmatic display involves data, technology, creative, measurement, brand safety, transparency and cross channel strategy. Most businesses benefit from a partner who can manage all of this in a joined up way.
One Day helps brands of every size and budget by defining the role of programmatic within the wider plan, managing DSP setup, selecting the right inventory sources, designing brand safe targeting, producing tailored creative and building measurement frameworks that show commercial impact. Crucially, we connect programmatic display with social, search, out of home, video and CRM activity so every impression contributes to the whole system.
When planning and buying sit under one integrated team, programmatic becomes a strong, measurable growth engine rather than an isolated technical channel.
Conclusion
Advertising on programmatic display can be one of the most effective ways to reach and influence customers across the web, but only when it is grounded in fundamentals. Clear objectives, purposeful targeting, simple creative and an understanding of context all matter more than the technology itself.
With a well structured plan and the support of an integrated media agency like One Day, programmatic becomes a scalable, measurable and commercially meaningful part of your marketing mix, regardless of your budget or maturity as a brand.
Learn more about Paid Social and Digital Advertising, essentials to Programmatic Display!
