The advent of ‘big data’ necessitated the use of automated tools that could handle massive amounts of data. Thus was born programmatic advertising, as part of the marketing function.

Programmatic advertising has been around for several years now in traditional marketing. As recruitment becomes increasingly data-driven, programmatic advertising is gradually gaining ground in talent acquisition as well. Recruitment industry experts predict that by 2020, 80% of all recruitment advertising will be based on programmatic campaigns using big data.

Here we’ll examine what programmatic recruitment advertising really is, and explain how it transforms your recruiting process while highlighting the role that HR professionals play in order for this automated platform to work best.

What is programmatic recruitment advertising?

Programmatic advertising is the automated buying, selling and placement of ads through software, with minimal human intervention.

It helps you purchase online ads in real-time – making decisions in a matter of milliseconds – based on criteria set by you. It uses algorithms to find out where your target audience ‘resides’ online, and places ads in front of them at the right place and at the right time.

The end result is an optimized ad campaign which gets the most out of your ad budget, without unnecessary human intervention.

Where does this figure in your recruitment processes?

Traditionally, placing job ads required researching the best places to buy ads, calculating pricing and availability, placing orders, and then uploading ads manually.

With programmatic recruitment advertising, employers no longer have to follow the ‘post and pray’ approach. Instead, these tools seek out your target candidates and ‘follow’ them around the web until you get the desired response, which could be in the form of a completed application.

RELATED: Top 6 FAQs about Programmatic Recruitment Advertising

How exactly does programmatic aid your recruitment processes?

Programmatic recruitment advertising comprises four key components –

• Predictive Analytics

Predictive Analytics takes the guesswork out of posting job ads. It uses algorithms and machine-learning to analyze historical data about job ad performance and makes predictions about where your job ads need to appear in order to have the best response.

• Real-Time Bidding (RTB)

Real-time bidding is used to buy online ad space automatically. While a webpage gets loaded, information about that webpage and the user is utilized to auction off ads to the highest bidder. All this happens in milliseconds, and the highest bidder’s ad gets displayed on the loaded page.

RTB continuously monitors job ad performance and adjusts bid rates to produce qualified applicants in less time.

• Targeted Job Ads

Using a comprehensive taxonomy of job skills, types, location and other parameters set by you, only the most relevant jobs are displayed to target candidates.

• Automated Campaigns

Automation acts as the foundation for all the above-listed features. Programmatic turns your job postings into fully automated campaigns, scanning every detail that matters and making decisions about where, when and how to place ads. This translates to improved job visibility and optimization in search results.

Did you know?

Some of these programmatic tools use natural language processing and artificial intelligence (AI) to classify jobs at accuracy rates exceeding 94%. This means more relevant jobs for your target candidates.

These tools also employ job-matching technology to rank candidates in relation to job requirements. This yields better matching candidates. And matching candidates are 14X more likely to apply to targeted ads, compared to traditional keyword search that yields so many irrelevant results.

What role do you play in all of this?

Just because the whole process is automated, the word programmatic should not be misconstrued as free of human intervention. While the admin-heavy part of the recruitment process is taken care of, these tools require humans for a variety of inputs.

For instance, in order to create targeted job ads, the programmatic platform needs you to input the relevant keywords related to job skills, types, location and other criteria.

It is necessary to specify ad budgets and other financial parameters and make decisions about dollar allocations towards specific hard-to-fill vacancies. These tools use logic-based rules set by you to govern the automation of job ad spending.

For instance –

• If the Senior Developer posting in Atlanta has less than 10 applicants, then increase the bid to $2.50 on Glassdoor.
• Stop advertising if the Mechanical Engineer role at Dallas has 25 applicants.
• If any of the postings have a conversion rate of less than 5%, then decrease bid by $1.

Related: Programmatic Recruitment Advertising: What It Can Do (And What It Can’t)

The way forward…

As is evident, programmatic recruitment advertising helps companies optimize their recruitment spending using real-time data. It ensures that you spend your money where it is needed most and in a fraction of the time it takes for humans.

Programmatic advertising has revolutionized the world of digital marketing. And wherever digital marketing goes, historically, recruitment has followed. So, it makes sense for organizations to dig deeper and figure out how programmatic recruitment advertising might benefit them.