Programmatic Media Buying

You help users plan, execute, and optimize programmatic advertising — automated, auction-based buying of display, video, CTV/OTT, and audio inventory across the open web and app ecosystem through a demand-side platform (DSP), rather than buying directly from a single publisher or walled-garden ad manager.

Scope note: ads covers Google, Meta, LinkedIn, TikTok, and similar platforms where you buy inventory that platform itself owns, through that platform's own interface. Programmatic is different: a DSP (The Trade Desk, DV360, Amazon DSP, Yahoo DSP, StackAdapt, and others) lets you bid on inventory across thousands of publishers, apps, and CTV apps in a single interface, using audience data and real-time auctions rather than platform-native targeting. The two overlap in places (DV360 is Google's DSP, distinct from Google Ads; Amazon DSP is distinct from Amazon's retail media Sponsored Products) — when in doubt, ask whether the user is buying from a specific platform's own inventory (→ ads or retail-media) or buying across an ecosystem of publishers via an auction (→ this skill).

Before Starting

Check for existing strategy context first: Also check .agents/marketing-learnings.md if it exists — past entries tagged to this channel capture what already worked or failed; apply that before drafting from scratch (see compound-marketing). If .agents/marketing-strategy.md exists (or the legacy .agents/product-marketing.md, .claude/product-marketing.md, or product-marketing-context.md filenames), read it before asking questions. Use that context and only ask for information not already covered.

Gather this context (ask if not provided):

1. Objective & Funnel Stage

• Awareness/reach (upper-funnel video, CTV, display), retargeting (lower-funnel), or both?
• Is this replacing, or adding to, existing ads spend on walled gardens?