Programmatic Advertising vs. Google Display Network: What’s Best For Your Campaign?

Online advertising is synonymous with programmatic advertising and the Google Display Network (GDN). According to Statista, marketers in the United States spent more than US$356 billion on digital advertising in 2020, with this figure expected to rise to US$460 billion by 2024. Simultaneously, automated advertising now accounts for more than 80% of digital display advertising splurge in the United States.

What Are Programmatic Ads?

Programmatic ads are online advertisements that advertisers buy and place using software rather than manual methods. Advertisers can use programmatic ad buying software to automate the purchase of ad space, the selection of ideal ad locations, the targeting of ads, and other tasks. This is in contrast to the traditional methods of negotiating with human representatives and requesting individual ad placements.

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What are Google Display Ads?

Display ads are digital advertisements that are visually appealing. These ads can include images, video, text, and audio, and they can be displayed in a variety of formats, such as banner ads, video ads, and native advertising. Advertisers can use networks like the Google Display Network to place display ads on websites. On search engine results pages, the term display is frequently used to distinguish image and video-based ads from text-based ads (SERPs). Display ads appear as users navigate through various websites, whereas search ads appear after users enter search terms into search engines.

So Why Choose Either Of Them?

The Google Display Network is similar to programmatic advertising in several ways. Both systems use display advertising to reach a specific audience and are auction-based. You can reach mobile users using either process, and both platforms have basic targeting options where you can specify demographics, interests, and behaviors.

However, there are a few significant differences mentioned here:

Google Display Network

Programmatic

Pricing

GDN does not necessitate a substantial financial plan as programmatic advertising. It uses the following payment models, making it a less expensive option.

Cost per click (CPC)
Cost per mille (CPM)
Cost per action (CPA)

To reach a larger audience, programmatic advertising only employs the CPM model and employs real-time bidding in a vendor-neutral environment.

Formatting

GDN doesn’t give you much more than image ads. GDN can only be used for video, audio, or TV-based ads limited only to YouTube and its app.

Video ads can be included in programmatic advertising, and the scope of your campaign can be set to include or exclude YouTube.

Targeting Audience

Google Ads only uses data that it collects itself to target users.

Programmatic goes one step further by allowing the use of data from third-party providers, also known as 3rd party data. These are typically gathered by specialized DMPs (Data Management Platforms)

Data Analytics

Google Ads allows you to report campaign statistics with a delay ranging from a few hours to about a day for some metrics.

The reporting of programmatic campaign results is available almost immediately. Monitoring the effectiveness of a programmatic campaign has a significant advantage in this case – it allows for more effective activity optimization.

Settlement Models

Google offers several settlement models such as

CPM (Cost Per Mille) – a predetermined fee for every thousand ad views
CPC (Cost Per Click) –a predefined fee for each time a user clicks on your ad
CPA (Cost Per Action) – You pay for each preset action taken by the user, and the action is entirely up to you – it could be a product purchase or subscription to your newsletter.

A settlement is only done in the CPM model in programmatic advertising, but it is calculated slightly differently: CPM = (expenses/views) x 1000. This is because each view can have a different rate since you bid for each of them separately.

Entry Threshold

There is no advertising issue with Google Ads – the platform allows you to buy advertising for any amount of money, and the costs can be scaled proportionally to your needs.

Programmatic advertising on the other has the potential to display your ad, but you must frequently meet the minimum monthly expenses on your chosen platform.

Both methods are effective, but programmatic advertising has the advantage in terms of reach, ad variety, and the number of deal-making options. However, launching ad campaigns with programmatic advertising can be more expensive than with GDN and is a riskier bet for those unfamiliar with the space. If you’re just getting started with digital advertising, you might want to limit your ad campaigns to GDN until you find your footing.