Connecting AI and Human Intelligence in programmatic trading

Lots of things about programmatic are getting better. Processes are getting quicker. Targeting is becoming more sophisticated. Measurement is becoming more accurate. More channels are becoming programmatic.

But that doesn’t mean all the challenges have disappeared. For programmatic traders, there are still some big ones. 

DSPs are complex platforms, but they enable us to have access to vast amounts of data and activation capabilities. However, extracting transparent campaign insights and recommendations with the breadth of data available proves to be challenging. Customization is difficult and time intensive. Many DSPs still treat all conversions as equal (when they’re definitely not) which makes it difficult for traders to use the insights they have in new campaigns to drive true business growth to those advertisers where not all customers are created equally. 

And, lastly, traders often still spend too much of their time on the repetitive, time-sapping, manual stuff like reporting and line-item optimization, rather than the awesome, big picture, strategic analysis that help campaigns work better. 

Does AI hold the answer?

The DSP platforms are incredibly powerful and know that these challenges exist for traders. In our 10 year trading experience, we’ve learned that traders can be even more effective when they use a layer of customization that adapts the DSP – helping them do more with less time. The vision is to use AI and machine learning algorithms to automate the repetitive tasks that bog traders down, while giving them the tools and insights to help them improve campaign performance. 

Will this work? Well… the problem is that many of the key players and DSP solutions still lack transparency and don’t provide traders insights around the campaign optimizations they make. So, even with the AI, this leaves agency traders and advertisers equally frustrated and in the dark about their campaign insights. 

So, what IS the answer?

AI automation and machine learning are a good start. This powerful combination of human intelligence and AI enables traders to understand the decisioning algorithms make; providing insight into what is working for a campaign and, equally as important, what is not working. Thereby allowing the trader to have more transparency into campaign optimizations. 

Atul Saurabh, Product Lead at MiQ, discusses a solution he’s building that combines the promises of AI powered by human intelligence to get better results:

“AI is creating immense opportunities for programmatic traders. It lets programmatic trading teams eliminate time spent on consuming repetitive tasks and helps them analyze a plethora of datasets quickly and turn them into actionable insights.”

“But does that mean AI applications can automate the trading jobs completely? Of course not. If we want algorithms to evolve as they meet new use cases, they need to be under the guidance of programmatic experts. When AI is combined with the human intelligence of traders, programmatic teams can make the most out of the insights by actioning them via the AI applications or within DSPs directly.”

“We think of AI applications as intelligent assistants to our smartest traders. Over the course of 10 years in the programmatic business, we have built proprietary technology that our traders use to give our clients the very best insights. As we continue to evolve in this space, I believe that technology that combines artificial intelligence powered by machine learning with trading expertise will revolutionize the industry.”

Eric Bashirov, a programmatic trader at MiQ, provides a hands on perspective about his experience using AI-driven tools in programmatic trading on a daily basis: 

“I’ve been a programmatic trader for two years and I never have enough time in my day to do everything I want. There are always ways to make campaigns better, there are always line items to be optimized. But with so many levers to pull and buttons to press, it’s difficult to keep a close eye on everything going on at once.” 

“At MiQ, our product managers and data experts have built tools like Trading Lab that super power our traders. They allow us to be more efficient and scale with high performance. Using this proprietary technology has allowed me to dedicate even more time to analysis and providing clients with actionable, data backed insights.” 

Technology and teamwork in trading

As programmatic trading evolves, AI will continue to play a huge role in optimizing campaigns, reducing costs, and saving traders time. In short, MiQ is leading the industry to keep delivering programmatic-first and tech-forward solutions to challenges that our clients face everyday. MiQ is no stranger to the challenges that programmatic traders face and our core foundation and technology will continue to be built with programmatic traders at the forefront.

To learn more how you can partner with MiQ or to learn how we are using AI and human intelligence to deliver programmatic-first solutions get in touch with us here.