FINAL WORD
Self-serve technology is both the present and future of buyer-seller interactions . From retail and e-commerce to hospitality and entertainment , it has transcended practically every sector in which goods and services are exchanged . According to Gartner , customers managed as much as 85 % of their relationships with companies without interacting with an employee in 2020 . In line with this growing trend , the advertising industry is yet another space in which self-serve technology has become vital to parties on both sides of the transaction .
In order to understand what ‘ self-serve advertising ’ is , and why it is becoming increasingly important to the sector , we need to first determine who these two parties are . On one side of the relationship – or transaction – is the publisher or platform owner who has advertising space on their website or app which is available to purchase through a self-serve platform .
On the other side of the exchange is the business or advertiser who wants to buy this advertising space . By selling off their ad inventory in this way , the publisher grants the advertiser direct access to their first-party data , which provides a unique opportunity for the advertiser to reach the audience of their choice and manage their campaigns in real-time .
The publisher ’ s perspective
In order to become more efficient and reduce costs , the media industry has undergone a huge Digital Transformation , which has , more recently , also transcended its advertising infrastructure .
In the past , like most industries in which a service or product is being exchanged , advertising was sold over the phone or in a face to face meeting by a salesperson or wider ad ops team . And , like most industries , publishers had to pay the costs associated with this form of sale , such as salaries , commissions and rent for office space . Self-serve advertising tools enable publishers to streamline by removing these costs and manual processes and replacing them with a much more effective and faster automated platform .
Self-serve platforms also ensure that publishers retain a greater share of the revenue by removing the intermediaries involved in traditional programmatic advertising supply chains . These ‘ middlemen ,’ which include the likes of media agencies , DSPs , SSPs and trading desks , also reduce transparency as the data handled in these transactions is often shared without the full knowledge or approval of the publisher .
Improving the speed and transparency of the ad booking process are only some of the advantages that self-serve platforms bring publishers . Another is the role they can play in the ad distribution process . By integrating with a publisher ’ s ad server , self-serve platforms can seamlessly and autonomously distribute print and online adverts at a given time and in a given place .
So , what about the sales team ’ s involvement in all of this ? Are they now redundant ? Quite the opposite . Through the speed and power of automation , the sales team no longer has to spend time deliberating with the ad ops department in order to push booked adverts through a timeinefficient and bureaucratic system . Instead , they are free to dedicate a greater share of their time and attention to the needs of their bigger clients . Small-to-medium clients on the other hand , are able to control their own campaigns once registered on the self-serve platform . This gives them greater autonomy over their ad campaigns and expenditure , which the publisher ’ s sales team is readily positioned to improve by sharing performance data analysis when called upon .
Democratising the advertising space by providing SMEs with access to the same booking , buying and analytical services as bigger advertisers also means that publishers are able to increase their revenue by broadening their potential customer base . Whereas smaller clients with low budgets might not have justified the attention of under-resourced publishers in the past , the autonomy self-serve platforms provide means that publishers can now scale advertisers of all shapes and sizes .
The advertiser ’ s perspective
For advertisers , this level of control and autonomy can be equally empowering and is one of the main reasons self-serve technologies have become so popular and prominent within the space .
SELF-SERVE ADVERTISING TOOLS ENABLE PUBLISHERS TO STREAMLINE BY REMOVING THESE COSTS AND MANUAL PROCESSES AND REPLACING THEM WITH A MUCH MORE EFFECTIVE AND FASTER AUTOMATED PLATFORM .
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