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15 Best Programmatic Advertising Platforms | CIENCE

Written by Josef Mohamed | Mar 15, 2023

With the rise of digital advertising, programmatic advertising platforms have become an increasingly popular solution for businesses to reach potential customers, revolutionizing how companies target and deliver their online ads. 

Today, the current valuation of programmatically sold advertising is estimated to be an impressive 418 billion U.S. dollars and is projected to skyrocket to 725 billion by 2026, a remarkable increase.

Additionally, this year in the U.S., programmatic display ad spending is set to experience a 16.9% growth rate and hit closer to $100 billion—the highest growth rate compared to any other nation, according to a 2023 Insider Intelligence report.

Given the advantages it offers, many organizations are now utilizing various types of programmatic ad platforms to meet their marketing needs. There are numerous options out there for different budgets and sales requirements, so finding the right one for your business can be the ultimate challenge.

With this in mind, we’ve compiled a list of fifteen of the best programmatic advertising platforms and companies out there today. These platforms offer features such as advanced targeting capabilities, real-time auction bidding, detailed analytics tools, and more—all designed to help you maximize your marketing and sales campaigns.

What Is a Programmatic Advertising Platform?

A programmatic advertising platform is software that helps companies to manage their online ads in real-time. Programmatic advertising automates the buying and selling of digital advertising, making it easier than ever for companies to reach their target audiences. 

Programmatic advertising allows for automatic optimization and bidding on every ad impression based on pre-specified rules and ratings. These platforms can be used to collect data from various sources, such as websites, apps, or networks; optimize campaigns; measure success; and track performance metrics.

Additionally, programmatic advertising technology can adjust bids depending on how well the campaign is performing, which makes the process more cost-effective than traditional methods. All in all, programmatic marketing platforms offer businesses more control over their digital ad campaigns.

How to Choose Programmatic Ad Platforms

Choosing the right programmatic ad platform is a critical decision for any business looking to advertise online. And the pressure is on—as an estimated 87% of all digital advertising revenue will be generated from programmatic ads by 2027, so you’ll want to get it right the first time. Here are some key factors to consider when selecting a programmatic ad platform:

1. Advanced targeting capabilities 

Look for a platform that offers advanced targeting capabilities, such as audience segmentation based on demographics, interests, behaviors, and location. This will help ensure that your ads are seen by the right people, at the right time, and in the right context.

2. Ad formats for different channels

Consider the types of ad formats that are available on the platform, and whether they align with your marketing goals and creative assets. Some common formats include display ads, video ads, native ads, and social media ads.

3. Robust bid management

Bid management is an essential requirement of any programmatic ad platform, as it enables advertisers to set and adjust their automated bids for ad inventory in real-time auctions. This allows advertisers to optimize their ad placements and achieve maximum visibility while also ensuring that they are paying the most efficient cost possible. 

4. Ad campaign data and analytics 

Look for a platform that provides robust data and analytics capabilities, including real-time reporting, campaign performance metrics, and audience insights. This data will help you optimize your campaigns and make informed decisions about your marketing strategy.

5. Cost and transparency

Finally, consider the cost and transparency of the platform's pricing model. Look for a platform that offers competitive rates, clear pricing structures, and transparency into the fees and commissions that are charged.

By considering these factors, you can select a programmatic ad platform that is well-suited to your business needs and goals, and help you achieve your desired outcomes.

15 Best Programmatic Advertising Platforms for 2024

As programmatic advertising continues to grow in popularity, finding the right programmatic ad platform can make all the difference. Here’s a list of the top fifteen programmatic tools for 2024 with key features and pricing to best suit your business needs:

1. CIENCE GO Digital

CIENCE GO Digital is a great programmatic ad platform for businesses looking to improve their ad targeting efforts. It offers an easy-to-use interface that allows you to target your preferred B2B audience with precision. 

With its built-in, demand-side platform (DSP), you can create custom audiences and use Bidder-as-a-Service (BaaS) to maximize the reach of your ads. Additionally, CIENCE GO Digital has competitive pricing and features that make it a great choice for businesses of all sizes.

Key features:

  • Precisely target millions of individual business users
  • Micro-segmentation with 100 plus targeting filters
  • Support for any ad type: display (all sizes), video, audio, and social media
  • Detailed analytics and reporting
  • Fine-grain bidding options and control

Pricing:

Available by request

2. MediaMath

MediaMath is a digital advertising platform that enables brands to buy addressable media. It was the first software for real-time media buying when it was launched in 2007, and today works with over one-third of the Fortune 500 and more than 3,500 other companies.

MediaMath provides marketers with personalized communication at scale across all touchpoints, leveraging data and technology to drive real business outcomes. The platform has been acclaimed by users for its performance, accountability, and responsiveness. 

Key features:

  • Real-time media buying capabilities
  • Personalized communication at scale
  • Leveraging all touchpoints, data, analytics, and optimization
  • Accountable and addressable supply chain for the industry
  • Bid-level transparency

Pricing:

Available by request

3. Google Ad Manager

Google Ad Manager is a powerful tool for publishers to streamline their ad operations and maximize revenue from every impression. It allows users to manage multiple Google Ads client accounts from one place, delivers engaging ad experiences everywhere, and optimizes the platform to drive more advertising revenue.

Additionally, the programmatic platform provides methods for managing ad inventory, creating orders, pulling reports, and more. With Google Ad Manager, small businesses can monetize all inventory types such as websites and mobile apps.

Key features:

  • Streamline operations and capture value
  • Deliver engaging ad experiences
  • Optimize to meet objectives
  • Drive ad revenue
  • Monetize all inventory types

Pricing:

Free 

4. SmartyAds

SmartyAds is a full-stack programmatic ad tech company that offers the best-in-class profitable ad monetization and media buying solutions for advertisers, publishers, brands, marketers, and their agencies.

SmartyAds provides innovative AI-powered media buying solutions that streamline the process of inventory purchasing, ROI generation, and real-time reporting. With its global presence on platforms such as LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, and Inc., SmartyAds has been able to reach out to a wide range of customers worldwide.

Key features:

  • Comprehensive targeting
  • Automated ad optimization and real-time bidding
  • Multiple ad formats, including video, display, native, and rich media
  • Access to demand partners such as exchanges and networks
  • Advanced analytics tools for tracking performance metrics

Pricing:

Starting plan: $500/One-Time

5. Amobee

Amobee is a global digital marketing technology company and a wholly-owned subsidiary of Singtel. It provides an advertising platform that unifies TV, programmatic, and social channels across all formats and devices. 

Amobee helps brands, agencies, and media companies optimize results across TV, connected TV, and digital media. It also provides technology to unify the process of buying media across different channels.

Key features:

  • Reach and target audiences across channels and devices
  • Access to direct publisher inventory
  • Understand and optimally influence consumer behavior
  • Bulk editing capabilities
  • Retargeting capabilities

Pricing:

Available by request

6. War Room Inc.

War Room Inc. provides the ultimate suite of advertising solutions that combines leading-edge programmatic technology and human insights. From search ads to video, native audio, shopping campaigns, and even Metaverse ad spaces—it has something for everyone. 

War Room is tailored to meet the needs of both large corporations as well as small businesses alike with access over 90,000 premium ad networks.

Key features:

  • Kedet ad tech platform
  • Omnichannel advertising and reporting
  • Analytics and optimization
  • Hyper-targeting capabilities
  • Cross-channel attribution
Pricing:

Starting plan: $50/month

7. AdRoll

AdRoll is a digital marketing and programmatic ad solution that helps B2B brands grow their businesses by providing a single platform to manage their omnichannel campaigns. AdRoll offers a powerful technology stack to fuel two distinct business units, RollWorks and AdRoll, which enable B2B brands to deliver strong growth with display ads, retargeting, account-based marketing, and more. 

With such comprehensive capabilities and an emphasis on customer outreach solutions for the B2B market, AdRoll presents an ideal choice for companies looking for a programmatic advertising platform.

Key features:

Pricing:

Monthly plan: $40/month

Annual plan: $36/month

8. Adobe Advertising Cloud

Adobe Advertising Cloud is a cross-channel platform that helps customers plan, buy, manage, measure, analyze, and optimize their advertising campaigns. It is natively integrated with Adobe Analytics to provide powerful data insights and automated creative customization for sophisticated advertising.

With Adobe Advertising Cloud, businesses can unify and automate all media, screens, data, and creativity at scale.

Key features:

  • Cross-channel functionality to optimize campaigns
  • Creative customization for sophisticated advertising
  • Native integration with Adobe Analytics
  • Unify media, data, and creativity at scale
  • Integrations for planning, managing, and analyzing campaigns

Pricing:

Available by request

9. PubMatic

PubMatic is a cloud infrastructure platform where companies can instantly process and execute programmatic advertising transactions for online content. It provides publishers with programmatic marketing tools to better monetize their content and maximize customer value. 

PubMatic offers an ad-serving and retargeting automation platform for an open digital media future, allowing users to control their dashboard and track stock performance, financial summary, valuation and funding, company profile, software reviews, and alternatives.

Key features:

  • Wide range of ad formats and channels
  • Maximizing customer value through digital advertising
  • Implementing online advertising software and strategies
  • Offering automation for the digital media industry
  • Helping publishers monetize content

Pricing:

Available by request

10. Simpli.fi

Simpli.fi is an advertising automation and demand-side platform that provides programmatic media buying, display advertising, and streaming solutions for over 2,000 agencies and 30,000 advertisers. It enables organizations to execute over 140,000 campaigns in a typical month on budgets of all sizes. 

Simpli.fi also offers powerful insights to help users reach their personal finance goals with its budgeting app. With the help of unstructured data elements, Simpli.fi transforms them into valuable factors that aid in decision-making.

Key features:

  • Omnichannel solution for media buying
  • Transforms unstructured data elements into valuable factors
  • Executes over 140,000 campaigns in a typical month
  • Budgeting app with insights to reach personal finance goals
  • Streamlining of programmatic media buying and display advertising

Pricing:

Available by request

11. Digital Turbine

Digital Turbine is a leading end-to-end mobile growth and monetization platform. It develops innovative ad monetization solutions trusted by top mobile game and app publishers, brands and agencies, telecoms, and app developers. 

Digital Turbine’s mobile ad network supports a broad range of parties and provides reporting API access for most mediated networks. The company also offers a developer portal to help users get the most out of their platform.

Key features:

  • Innovative ad monetization solutions
  • Supports app developers, brands, and agencies
  • Reporting API access
  • Dashboard with performance data
  • Optimized user acquisition campaigns

Pricing:

Available by request

12. Digilant

Digilant is a full-service digital media agency that provides marketers with a platform to support programmatic media buying. Digilant offers an omnichannel advertising partner for both agencies and brands, designed to connect people and technology to create the perfect blend of data-driven insights and creative solutions. With a proven formula, Digilant helps advertisers take their business from here to the next level.

Key features:

  • Robust planning capabilities
  • Data-driven insights
  • Programmatic media buying platform
  • Intelligent insights activated in real time
  • Programmatic self-service and consulting

Pricing:

Available by request

13. Xandr

Xandr is an advertising and analytics division of AT&T that operates an online platform community for buying and selling premium advertising across a variety of formats and screens. Xandr offers end-to-end platforms to run scaled and sophisticated programmatic advertising campaigns. 

Xandr also provides a read-only service called Profile Summary Service, which returns the IDs of campaigns under a given line item ID. Xandr is actively participating in industry discussions about Google's Topics API and has used TigerGraph's scalable graph database and analytics platform to merge data from silos across the WarnerMedia universe.

Key features:

  • Premium advertising across multiple screens
  • High-quality optimization components
  • Inventory and demand channel management
  • Bulk editing, brand safety, and fraud prevention features
  • Connected TV platform for the linear buying process

Pricing:

Available by request

14. Criteo

Criteo is a leading global advertising company that empowers marketers and media owners to optimize their advertising strategies. Founded and headquartered in Paris, France, Criteo's Commerce Media Platform helps brands, retailers, and publishers meet their business goals. 

Criteo connects marketers with thousands of media owners, enabling them to deliver highly personalized and engaging consumer experiences that drive brand recognition and purchase.

Key features:

  • Digital ad formats for video, rich media, and more
  • Dynamic creative optimization
  • Intelligent algorithms and predictive bidding
  • Contextual advertising
  • Consumer graphs to optimize campaigns

Pricing:

Available by request

15. Lotame

Lotame is a leading ad exchange and global tech company that provides data enrichment solutions for enterprises. It offers a data management platform to help marketers, publishers, and agencies collect customers' data to optimize audience segments and campaigns. 

Lotame's Spherical platform helps capture, identify, understand, and apply data to drive companies in any decision-making process. The platform is user-friendly and intuitive, providing an effective solution for audience targeting.

Key features:

  • Data enrichment services
  • Audience segmentation and targeting
  • Automated data collection
  • Real-time intelligence insights
  • Customizable solutions

Pricing:

Available by request

Boost Sales Performance with Programmatic Ads

The best programmatic ad platforms offer a comprehensive suite of features to help businesses achieve their marketing goals. From advanced targeting capabilities to dynamic ad formats and real-time reporting tools, these platforms enable businesses to optimize their campaigns and gain valuable insights into their advertising efforts.

The essential advertising tool, programmatic ads give you the flexibility to manage your ad budget and regulate the length of your campaigns, making it an ideal solution to maximize your return on investment.

By selecting the right platform, you’ll have the competitive edge you need to effectively reach your target audience and boost your sales performance.