Taking programmatic in-house is an increasingly popular option for marketers. According to Pivotal Research Group analyst Brian Wieser, 15 of the top 200 US advertisers have taken media-buying in-house due to their ability to buy programmatically.

“This appeared to us as a relatively significant escalation from the last time we explored the topic,” Wieser says. It is not clear when he last explored the topic, but brands such as Procter & Gamble, L’Oreal and RB have all brought at least some aspects of their programmatic buying in-house.

Still more are reconsidering how they buy. According to a study by the WFA, 90% of advertisers are reviewing how they buy programmatic ads.

Yet it is by no means the easy option. Although in-housing may provide brands with more transparency over where programmatic ads are placed and greater understanding of how their budget is being spent, some companies simply don’t have the expertise to do so.

There are also different ways of in-housing. For some brands it means setting up their own agency trading desk and using that to deal directly with demand side platforms (DSP). For others it involves bringing on board an ad tech partner or an agency consultancy.

Unilever, for example, has a dedicated unit within its agency Mindshare called Ultra, which works solely on its programmatic interests. In contrast, Reckitt Benckiser has opted for an internal programmatic team, while Lastminute.com has its own in-house trading desk

“At Lastminute.com we have our own in-house trading desk. That gives us a great opportunity to take control of where our ads are placed and maximise our buying budgets.

“We also use a number of demand-side platforms (DSP) to buy inventory that overlays our own ecommerce data, making it more intelligent and allowing us to connect with customers throughout the web,” Alessandra Di Lorenzo, chief commercial officer for advertising and partnerships at Lastminute.com, says.

Besides the model, there are a number of other questions brand need to consider before working out if going in-house is the right solution for them.

Sourced through Scoop.it from: www.marketingweek.com