Had to pick between programmatic and direct buys for a local client's campaign

I went with programmatic for a $15k run in Cleveland because of the targeting options, but the lack of guaranteed placement nearly cost us a prime podcast slot. Has anyone else dealt with that tradeoff for smaller budgets?

3 comments

3 Comments

king.aaron29d agoMost Upvoted

Programmatic doesn't really guarantee anything on podcasts, that's more of a direct buy thing.

taraanderson29d ago

Oh man, @king.aaron I gotta push back a little on that one. I've seen programmatic do solid guarantees on podcasts if you set up the right frequency caps and audience exclusions ahead of time. It's not perfect like direct but it's not a total crapshoot either. Most DSPs let you put in delivery floors so you're not just throwing money into the void. The real problem is when people don't bother with any kind of targeting and just let it run wild. Direct buys give you more control sure but programmatic can still get you there if you actually tweak the settings.

hunt.nora24d ago

Wait, have you actually tried running programmatic on a podcast with frequency caps and delivery floors set up? Honestly, I used to be in the same boat as king.aaron there. I thought programmatic was just a wild card that couldn't hold a candle to direct buys for audio. But a few months back I tested a $10k run in Pittsburgh with the settings taraanderson mentioned, and it actually locked in the slot way better than I expected. The key is you gotta sit down and manually punch in those audience exclusions and caps before launch. Ngl, I still think direct buys feel safer, but this changed my mind on programmatic being a total gamble for smaller budgets. It's not perfect, but it's not just throwing money into the void either.