If you keep up with recruiting tech, you’ve likely been hearing about how programmatic advertising – the technology that is taking over traditional online advertising – will soon have a huge impact on how you recruit as well. 

According to eMarketer, total programmatic display advertising in the US should reach $22.10 billion by the end of 2016.  By 2017, the programmatic spend is expected to increase to 27.5 billion. For job recruitment alone, $100 million has been spent in 2016. In comparison, that number was only $10 million 2 years ago.¹

It’s easy to understand the appeal of programmatic for recruitment advertising. Finding the right space for recruitment ads, negotiating price, creating ads and then uploading them and manually tweaking them to optimize impressions can be time intensive. With programmatic advertising, sophisticated algorithms optimize ad placement across a large volume of sites, eliminating much of the human element required.

Interested in learning more? Here are some common programmatic terms to get you started:

1. Real Time Buying or RTB refers to the open auction for ad space that occurs in milliseconds behind the scenes between computers when a web page loads. The highest bidder wins the space.² 

2. Don’t want to take the chance that your ad won’t win space in an auction? Programmatic Direct is an automated process where you’re guaranteed the placement you want for your recruitment ad without the auction.²

3. A Private Marketplace or PMP is an invitation only RTB that seeks to eliminate the public exchange altogether. While it is an auction, it is less automated than the straight RTB and requires more manual intervention. The idea is to have a quality interaction that isn’t solely reliant on volume.³ 

4. A Publisher is any entity that controls and runs a website or app that dedicates space to display advertising for a fee.

5. An Exchange is a vast online marketplace where publishers, ad networks, agencies, advertisers, and Demand Side Platforms (DSPs) can buy and sell ad inventory. The exchange functions by auctioning ad space and impressions to the highest bidder – similar to a stock exchange.

6. Inventory includes available space for all kinds of advertising including banner ads, display ads, and even native advertising.

Now that we’ve reviewed the upside of programmatic advertising, it’s important to point out that, as with all things, there can be a downside. For example, clicks can be fraudulently manipulated by “bots” or by people, site identities can be misrepresented, and actual viewability can be misrepresented as well.⁴

Bottom line, there is definitely a place for programmatic in recruitment advertising due to its efficiency and relevance. However, for a quality post with solid impressions and ongoing active management, it’s still important for trained ad ops administrators to provide oversight and critical analysis of data.

^{1 http://www.emarketer.com/Article/More-Than-Two-Thirds-of-US-Digital-Display-Ad-Spending-Programmatic/1013789}

^{2 eConsultancy, Aug. 19, 2015, https://econsultancy.com/blog/65677-a-super-accessible-beginner-s-guide-to-programmatic-buying-and-rtb/.}

^{3 http://www.mediative.com/rtb-programmatic-direct-private-marketplaces/}

^{4 http://marketingland.com/many-faces-programmatic-ad-fraud-142335}