Expert Discussion on Programmatic Advertising: From Basic Concepts to Advanced Deal Types and Campaign Strategy
In this comprehensive episode of our digital marketing podcast, Patryk Pacenko and Adam Samulak break down everything you need to know about programmatic buying and demand-side platforms (DSPs). Whether you’re new to programmatic advertising or looking to deepen your understanding of automated media buying, this episode covers the fundamentals through advanced strategies.
What You’ll Learn:
- What is programmatic buying and how it revolutionized digital advertising
- How DSPs work (Display & Video 360, The Trade Desk, Amazon DSP)
- Understanding ad exchanges and the programmatic ecosystem
- Four types of programmatic deals: Open Auction, Private Auction, Preferred Deal, and Programmatic Guaranteed
- When to use programmatic advertising for your business
- Publisher perspective: How SSPs and header bidding work
- Real-world scenarios: Brand awareness vs. performance campaigns
Key Topics Covered
Understanding Programmatic Buying
Programmatic buying is the automated process of purchasing digital advertising that targets the right user, at the right time, on the right device, with the right message. Unlike traditional media buying where you call publishers individually and negotiate placements, programmatic advertising uses technology platforms to automate the entire process.
The Evolution from Traditional to Programmatic
Traditional Digital Buying (Pre-Programmatic):
- Called individual publishers (Onet, WP, TVN24)
- Negotiated placements manually
- Signed individual insertion orders
- Managed invoices separately for each publisher
- Limited transparency and control
Affiliate Networks Era:
- Aggregators representing multiple publishers
- Simplified buying but reduced transparency
- Issues with brand safety and ad fraud
- Rising CPMs without clear value
Programmatic Revolution:
- Single platform managing thousands of publishers
- Real-time bidding and optimization
- Complete transparency into where ads appear
- Advanced targeting using first-party and third-party data
- Automated campaign management at scale
Demand-Side Platforms (DSPs) Explained
A DSP (Demand-Side Platform) is the technology that advertisers and agencies use to buy digital advertising programmatically. The major platforms discussed:
Google Display & Video 360 (DV360):
- Enterprise-grade programmatic platform
- Access to Google Display Network plus external exchanges
- Advanced targeting and optimization capabilities
- Integrated with Google Marketing Platform
The Trade Desk:
- Independent DSP with global reach
- Access to premium inventory and data partnerships
- Advanced attribution and measurement tools
Amazon DSP:
- Access to Amazon’s first-party shopping data
- Premium placements on Amazon properties
- Retail media network integration
Other Major DSPs:
- Adform
- Xandr
- And approximately 100 ad exchanges globally
The Four Types of Programmatic Deals
1. Open Auction (Open Market)
What it is: Public marketplace where any advertiser can bid on available inventory
How it works:
- Lowest priority in the waterfall
- Real-time bidding against all other advertisers
- Access to Google Display Network and other open exchanges
- No guaranteed impressions or pricing
Best for:
- Performance campaigns seeking scale
- Finding users across the entire web
- E-commerce and direct response advertising
- Budget-conscious campaigns
Example scenario: E-commerce company selling office supplies wants to retarget users who browsed their website across thousands of publisher sites
2. Private Auction (Private Marketplace)
What it is: Invitation-only auction with selected advertisers
How it works:
- You must be invited by the publisher
- Bid against other invited advertisers only
- Higher priority than open auction
- No guaranteed impressions
- Competitive bidding determines winner
Best for:
- Premium inventory access with flexibility
- Campaigns requiring optimization and price discovery
- Advertisers wanting quality placements with bidding control
Think of it like: An exclusive art auction where only select collectors receive invitations, and they bid against each other for premium pieces
3. Preferred Deal (Fixed Price Deal)
What it is: Pre-negotiated fixed-price access to inventory
How it works:
- Fixed CPM negotiated in advance
- First look at inventory before it goes to auction
- No impression guarantees
- You buy at the agreed price if inventory matches your targeting
Best for:
- Budget predictability and control
- Safe testing for teams new to programmatic
- Campaigns with strict cost parameters
- Multi-campaign management requiring stable pricing
Key advantage: Protection against overbidding – even if someone sets the wrong bid by adding extra zeros, you only pay the negotiated rate
Example scenario: Large advertiser managing 50 campaigns simultaneously wants cost certainty across all markets
4. Programmatic Guaranteed (PG)
What it is: Guaranteed delivery deal with fixed pricing and impressions
How it works:
- Highest priority in the waterfall
- Guaranteed number of impressions
- Fixed CPM and delivery timeframe
- Reserved inventory exclusively for you
Best for:
- High-visibility brand campaigns
- Executive/stakeholder visibility requirements
- Product launches requiring guaranteed reach
- Campaigns where delivery certainty matters most
Example scenario: CMO wants to ensure the company’s new product appears on the homepage of major news sites during launch week
Deal Priority Waterfall
Understanding how programmatic deals prioritize (from highest to lowest):
- Programmatic Guaranteed – Gets first access to inventory
- Preferred Deal – Second priority with fixed pricing
- Private Auction – Invited bidders compete
- Open Auction – Everything remaining goes to open market
Important note: Some publishers reserve premium placements (like homepage top banners) exclusively for PG or Preferred Deals and never release them to open auction.
DSP vs. Google Ads: When to Use Each Platform
Use Google Ads When:
✓ Small to medium budgets (under €5M annually)
✓ Simple targeting requirements
✓ Limited team resources
✓ Only need access to Google Display Network
✓ Single-market campaigns
Use DSPs (Programmatic) When:
✓ Larger budgets justifying technology fees
✓ Need access beyond Google’s ecosystem
✓ Require advanced targeting granularity
✓ Want complete campaign transparency
✓ Managing multi-market operations
✓ Need direct publisher relationships
✓ Require detailed performance reporting
✓ Building in-house media capabilities
Technology costs: DSPs charge platform fees (typically percentage of spend or monthly fee), so budget size must justify this additional cost.
Understanding the Programmatic Ecosystem
Advertiser Side (Buy-Side):
Trading Desk → DSP → Ad Exchange → SSP → Publisher
- Trading Desk: Team managing campaigns
- DSP: Technology platform for buying ads
- Ad Exchange: Virtual marketplace connecting buyers and sellers
Publisher Side (Sell-Side):
Publisher → SSP → Ad Exchange → DSP → Advertiser
- SSP (Supply-Side Platform): Technology publishers use to sell inventory
- Ad Server: Delivers and tracks ad impressions
- Header Bidding: Simultaneous auction across multiple demand sources
The Real-Time Bidding Process (Happens in 0.04 Milliseconds):
- User visits publisher website and accepts cookies
- SSP sends bid request to ad exchanges with user data
- DSPs receive bid request and evaluate against campaign targeting
- DSPs submit bids based on user value
- Highest bid wins
- Winning ad creative serves to user
- Impression tracking and attribution recorded
What data is passed:
- User browsing behavior
- Previous site visits
- Search history (with consent)
- Device information
- Geographic location
- Demographic signals
- Interest categories
- Purchase intent signals
Programmatic Deal Scenarios: Which to Choose?
Scenario 1: Brand Awareness – CEO Wants Visibility
Situation: New product launch. CEO/CMO wants to see the company’s ads on major news sites like TVN24.
Solution: Programmatic Guaranteed
Why:
- Guarantees delivery and visibility
- Can target specific IP addresses (executive’s office)
- Ensures premium placement on high-profile sites
- No risk of missing delivery targets
- Complete control over when and where ads appear
Setup:
- Negotiate PG deal with premium publishers
- Reserve homepage placements
- Set specific dayparting for peak visibility
- Include frequency caps for target executives
- Confirm delivery with publisher before campaign starts
Scenario 2: E-commerce Performance Campaign
Situation: Online retailer selling office supplies wants to drive sales with best possible ROI.
Solution: Open Auction
Why:
- Access to maximum scale across thousands of sites
- Find users wherever they are online
- Dynamic pricing based on user value
- Real-time optimization for conversions
- No commitment to specific publishers
Setup:
- Retargeting website visitors
- Prospecting using lookalike audiences
- Bid optimization for target ROAS
- Exclude poor-performing placements
- Focus on conversion metrics, not publisher prestige
Scenario 3: Multi-Brand Corporate Campaign Management
Situation: Large corporation managing campaigns for 10 brands across 15 European markets with strict budget controls.
Solution: Preferred Deals
Why:
- Fixed pricing prevents overbidding accidents
- Predictable costs for budget planning
- Access to quality inventory without price fluctuations
- Safe for teams with varying skill levels
- Stable performance reporting
Setup:
- Negotiate preferred deals with major publishers
- Create templates for quick campaign deployment
- Train teams on fixed-price deal mechanics
- Set naming conventions for tracking
- Build centralized reporting dashboard
Supply-Side Platform (SSP) and Publisher Monetization
How Publishers Sell Inventory
SSP Configuration:
- Define which ad placements are available programmatically
- Set minimum CPM floors
- Create deal types (open, private, preferred, PG)
- Configure brand safety rules
- Set up header bidding partners
Monetization Strategies
Waterfall (Legacy):
- Sequential requests to demand sources
- First source gets priority, then next if they pass
- Inefficient – doesn’t maximize revenue
- Lacks transparency
Header Bidding (Modern):
- Simultaneous requests to all demand sources
- Real-time competitive auction
- Maximizes publisher revenue
- Better for advertisers (fair competition)
The Google Exception:
- Google historically didn’t participate in header bidding
- Publishers had to run separate auction
- Led to creative workarounds
- Dynamic continues to evolve
First-Party Data and Cookie Consent
Why Cookie Consent Matters
When users accept cookies on a publisher’s site, they enable:
- Behavioral tracking across websites
- Retargeting capabilities for advertisers
- Audience segmentation based on interests
- Attribution connecting ads to conversions
- Personalization of ad messaging
The User Journey
1. User searches “microphones reviews” on Google
2. Visits YouTube to watch microphone comparison videos
3. Browses several audio equipment websites
4. Visits major news site and accepts cookie consent
5. SSP collects all this behavioral data
6. Passes it to ad exchange with bid request
7. DSP recognizes high-value audio equipment buyer
8. Microphone retailer bids $10 CPM for this user
9. User sees personalized microphone ad
All happens in 0.04 milliseconds
Expert Tips for Programmatic Success
For Advertisers Starting with Programmatic:
- Start with education – Understand the ecosystem before buying
- Choose the right DSP – Based on your markets and needs
- Begin with preferred deals – Safe way to learn
- Build internal expertise – Don’t rely solely on agencies
- Implement proper tracking – Attribution is critical
- Use third-party verification – IAS, DoubleVerify for brand safety
- Create naming conventions – Essential for reporting
- Test and optimize continuously – Programmatic enables rapid iteration
For Publishers Monetizing Inventory:
- Implement header bidding – Maximize competition for your inventory
- Set appropriate price floors – Don’t undervalue premium placements
- Diversify SSP partners – Don’t rely on single demand source
- Monitor fill rates – Balance floors vs. monetization
- Create deal packages – Make it easy for buyers to access your inventory
- Invest in site speed – Faster load times = better monetization
- Maintain content quality – Premium content commands premium CPMs
Common Programmatic Buying Mistakes to Avoid
❌ Using programmatic for very small budgets – Technology fees make it inefficient below certain thresholds
❌ Not understanding deal types – Using PG when open auction would work (or vice versa)
❌ Ignoring brand safety – Ads appearing next to inappropriate content
❌ Poor campaign structure – Lack of proper naming conventions and organization
❌ Over-targeting – Too many targeting layers limit scale
❌ Not using verification tools – Paying for invalid traffic and bot impressions
❌ Expecting instant results – Programmatic requires optimization time
❌ Ignoring creative quality – Even perfect targeting fails with poor creative
Future Topics and Discussion
Want to dive deeper? In upcoming episodes, we’ll cover:
- DSP Campaign Setup: Step-by-step walkthrough of building campaigns in DV360, The Trade Desk, and Amazon DSP
- Advanced Targeting Strategies: First-party data, contextual targeting, and audience segmentation
- Creative Optimization: Dynamic Creative Optimization (DCO) and creative testing frameworks
- Performance Measurement: Attribution modeling, incrementality testing, and ROI calculation
- In-House vs. Agency: When to build internal programmatic capabilities
- Brand Safety and Ad Fraud: Verification tools and best practices
- Programmatic for Different Industries: E-commerce, automotive, finance, FMCG strategies
About the Hosts
Patryk Pacenko – Head of Digital Media and Programmatic Expert with extensive experience building in-house teams at Volkswagen Group and managing enterprise-scale campaigns. Specializes in DSP implementation, team building, and programmatic strategy.
Adam Samulak – Digital marketing specialist with deep programmatic buying expertise across multiple DSPs and industries. Experienced in both advertiser and agency-side campaign management.
Combined experience managing hundreds of millions in programmatic media spend across European markets.
Join the Conversation
Have questions about programmatic buying? Share your experiences with DSPs in the comments below!
Questions we’d love to hear from you:
- Which DSP platforms are you currently using?
- What challenges are you facing with programmatic buying?
- Are you managing campaigns in-house or through agencies?
- What topics should we cover in future episodes?
Connect with us:
- Leave comments with your questions
- Share your programmatic buying scenarios for discussion
- Suggest topics for future episodes
- Share this episode with your marketing team