What is Programmatic Advertising?

Programmatic advertising is the automated buying and selling of ad impressions through technology platforms: DSPs (Demand-Side Platforms), SSPs (Supply-Side Platforms), and ad exchanges. Deals often run as RTB (real-time bidding): an auction for each impression milliseconds before the creative is shown.

Ecosystem players

• Advertiser / buyer — sets campaigns, creatives, targeting, and bids in a DSP.
• DSP — aggregates inventory and bids in auctions (DV360, The Trade Desk, and others).
• SSP / exchange — connects publishers and apps, sells impressions.
• DMP / data — audiences for targeting (sometimes inside the DSP).

Deal types

Open auction (RTB) — open bidding. Private marketplace (PMP) — curated deals with selected publishers. Programmatic direct / guaranteed — fixed volume and price. In arbitrage, RTB and PMP via DSPs are common for display, video, and in-app.

Relevance to arbitrage

Programmatic offers scale and geo reach, but inventory is heterogeneous: news sites, apps, video players. Buyers filter via whitelists/blacklists, monitor viewability, fraud scores, and post-click CR in the tracker. Optimization targets eCPM, CPC, and ROI—not only DSP bid price.

Risks

Opaque supply chains, domain spoofing, bot traffic, and brand safety issues. Without a tracker and postbacks, linking programmatic spend to offer conversions is hard. Cookie and ID restrictions complicate frequency capping and retargeting.

See also: DSP, SSP, RTB, header bidding, viewability.