Programmatic Advertising vs Google Display Ads

When running a paid advertising campaign, marketing managers face a variety of choices. In the race to get the best deal at the lowest price, some of them miss highly appealing opportunities.

While Google Display Ads and Programmatic advertising help you achieve similar goals, these two paid advertising tools are different. Knowing how they work can help you choose one over the other or take advantage of both.

What is Programmatic Display Advertising?

Programmatic advertising involves using software to buy digital advertising space. It means putting ads in front of the right people, with minimum human involvement in the process.

To take advantage of programmatic advertising, you need to:

  • Choose a DSP (Demand-Side Platform)

  • Create an ad

  • Set targeting parameters

  • Set the bidding budget

The software determines the best space for your ad according to your targeting parameters. If you are the highest bidder for that space, your ad is served up in the right place and at the right time.

In short, publishers provide ad space to be sold programmatically while advertisers enter automated bids to buy ad space. All of this is done through an ad exchange, which is part of a DSP.  

To get started with programmatic display advertising, you need to select a programmatic agency and a programmatic DSP. Once you get familiar with how the system works, you can bypass the agency and work directly with a DSP.

What are Google Display Ads?

Google uses artificial intelligence to put your ads (in a visual banner format) in front of the right audience on its Display Network. The Google Display Network includes more than 2 million websites and applications. The search giant promises that the network reaches 90% of internet users worldwide.

To take advantage of Google Display Ads, you need to:

  • Create a Google Ads account

  • Create an ad

  • Set targeting parameters

  • Choose bid type and budget

Google provides you analytics and metrics to monitor your paid advertising campaign and make timely adjustments.

You don't need to create an ad from scratch to place it on the Google Display Network. Google's responsive display ads can use your visual assets (images, videos) and basic ad copy to create different ad formats and test them to see which ones work the best.

Programmatic Display vs Google Display: Similarities

At first glance, Programmatic display advertising is highly similar to Google Display Ads. The key similarities include:

1. Goals and Concept

The key goal of both methods is to put the right ad in front of the right user at the right time. The concept involves using a bidding system to take up the most effective ad space for your business.

Both methods use artificial intelligence to achieve the best ad-to-space matching results. Both are becoming more and more sophisticated with time, providing users a growing number of targeting opportunities.

2. Targeting Options

Both programmatic and Google display advertising allow users to take advantage of similar targeting options that include:

  • Demographics

  • Behaviour

  • Site topics

Both of them offer remarketing opportunities. However, with Google phasing out third-party cookies, cookie-based remarketing may soon become obsolete.

3. Placement

Both methods allow ad placement on websites and apps.

Programmatic Display vs Google Display: Differences

While extremely similar on the outside, these two methods have significant differences.

1. Pricing

Programmatic advertising is generally more expensive than using Google Display Network.

  • Programmatic advertising — has only one auction model — CPM (Cost per thousand Impressions). Meanwhile, many DSPs require a minimum ad budget of several thousands of dollars.

  • Google Display Network — offers a variety of bidding options, including CPM, CPC (Cost per Click), and CPA (Cost per Action).

With programmatic advertising, you need to pay for using the DSP and cover agency costs. If you choose an agency that has its own platform, you can reduce expenses.

2. Reach

Since Google Display Ads are limited to showing up on Google Display Network, you can only reach a certain number of websites. With programmatic advertising, you can put your ads on over 95% of all websites.  

This is especially important if your audiences use other search engines besides Google (Yahoo!, Bring, Amazon, etc.).

FYI: While Google brags about 2 million websites within its network, it's worth noting that currently, there are 1.88 billion websites in the world. About 400 million of them are active.  

3. Simplicity

Google Display Ads are easy to use. The search giant has done an excellent job creating intuitive and user-friendly interfaces.

Programmatic advertising has a higher learning curve. DSPs are rarely intuitive. That's why inexperienced marketers are better off working with an agency.

4. Ad Formats

Google allows you to use a limited number of visual assets for your ads. With programmatic advertising, you can explore audio ads, connected TV, and native video.

You can also take advantage of the targeting option that chooses your next ad based on how users engage with the previous one.

5. Programmatic Direct Option

With programmatic advertising, you have the option to buy ad space for a certain amount of time or for a set number of impressions.

For example, if you know the perfect website for your ad, you can buy the space there for a week. Essentially, you are buying ad space programmatically but without any bidding. Every time a certain page is loaded and passes your set criteria for targeting, your ad appears there automatically.

Which One is Right for You?

Your choice of advertising tools depends on your expertise and budget. The majority of start-ups with limited budgets tends to choose Google Display Ads. After all, they are less expensive and easier to use.

However, as your budget and expertise grow, you may want to consider programmatic advertising. This method offers a wider variety of options and opportunities than Google Display Ads, allowing you to maintain a high marketing ROI and improve the company's bottom line.

Would you like to take advantage of the best advertising option for your business? We are here to help.

Steve Crowe