Programmatic media
Media bought against a CPA, not a delivery target
Programmatic goes wrong when the buying team is measured on delivery and the marketing team is measured on cost per acquisition. We take the second target.
Overview
Programmatic media buying on Performetra
Programmatic on Performetra means display, native, video and connected-TV inventory bought against your allowable cost per acquisition, not against a delivery quota. The buying team optimises to the CPA that comes out the other end, made-for-advertising domains are excluded at inventory level, and supply paths are disclosed so you can see — and veto — where budget actually lands.
Where inventory and volume allow, campaigns are structured fully outcome-priced; where they cannot be, the buying risk is shared and stated in the insertion order rather than passed on quietly. Conversion measurement runs through the same postback and pixel stack as the rest of the network, so programmatic and network campaigns report in one place.
At a glance
- Formats
- Display · native · online video · CTV/OTT
- Pricing
- CPA target · fully outcome-priced · managed %
- Brand safety
- Category blocklists, MFA exclusion, keyword filters
- Transparency
- Supply paths and, on managed, platform fees disclosed
- Measurement
- Same postback stack as network campaigns
- Proof
- Geo-holdout incrementality tests on larger budgets
The approach
One target, held by the people pressing buy
We buy display, native, video and connected TV inventory through vetted supply paths, and we are accountable for the acquisition cost that comes out the other end. Where a campaign can be structured fully on outcomes, it is. Where it cannot, the buying risk is shared and stated.
- Outcome-anchored buying. Campaign optimisation targets your allowable CPA. Impressions and viewability are inputs, not the report.
- Supply-path transparency. You see which exchanges and publishers the budget reaches, and can exclude any of them.
- Brand safety by default. Category blocklists, keyword exclusions and inventory quality thresholds applied before launch.
- Creative iteration. Multiple concepts in market from week one, cut on performance rather than opinion.
Pricing models
- CPA target
- We buy on CPM and are accountable for the resulting cost per action, with a review point where it drifts.
- Fully outcome-priced
- Where inventory and volume allow, you pay purely per conversion and we carry the media risk entirely.
- Managed service
- A percentage of media spend, with full cost disclosure, for advertisers who want the buying transparency of an in-house desk.
- Hybrid
- A reduced management fee against a CPA performance bonus.
What we need
To quote you a payout, we need five things
None of them take long to gather, and having them ready is the difference between a quote today and a quote next week.
- Allowable CPA or ROAS, and the margin assumption behind it
- Conversion tracking access — pixel, S2S or MMP
- Brand safety requirements and category exclusions
- Creative assets or approval to produce them
- Any first-party audience segments you can share for seeding
Guardrails
- MFA exclusion
- Made-for-advertising domains are blocked at the inventory level and reviewed monthly as the list evolves.
- Frequency discipline
- Caps set per user per day; over-frequency is an easy way to spend budget and lose goodwill at once.
- Incrementality checks
- Geo holdouts or PSA tests offered on larger budgets, so you can see what the media actually added.
- Fee disclosure
- On managed-service engagements, media cost and our fee are shown separately. Always.
Programmatic media — questions
The media is bought on CPM auctions, but the plan, the optimisation and our accountability all sit on the cost per acquisition that results. If the CPA drifts from target, the review point triggers — we do not report impressions delivered and call it success.
Network campaigns route through publishers who carry the media risk and are paid per conversion. Programmatic buys exchange inventory directly, which adds reach and formats — CTV, premium video — the network cannot always supply. Most advertisers run both, with the network buy as the lower-funnel floor.
Category and keyword blocklists, made-for-advertising domain exclusion, inventory quality thresholds and your own domain blacklist, all applied before launch. You can also require an allowlist-only buy at some cost to scale.
Spend, conversions and effective CPA daily; supply-path and domain-level breakdowns weekly; and on managed-service engagements, media cost and our fee shown separately on every invoice. The same raw conversion log applies as everywhere else on the network.
Your first-party segments where you can share them, contextual and interest signals from the exchanges, and lookalikes seeded from your converters. We do not buy third-party audience segments of dubious provenance — they test badly and age worse.
We work across major demand-side platforms and select the stack per campaign based on inventory access in your geos. The platform is disclosed and, on managed-service engagements, so is the platform fee.
Yes, through connected TV and OTT supply. It is a reach and consideration channel, so we pair it with a lower-funnel outcome campaign rather than pretending it delivers direct-response economics on its own.
Geo holdout tests are the most practical method: a matched region is excluded, and the delta is measured. On larger budgets we recommend running one before scaling.
Enough to reach statistical significance in a reasonable window — practically, a monthly budget that will produce a few hundred conversions. Below that, an outcome-priced network buy is a better use of your money and we will say so.
Roughly a week from signed IO: tracking and brand-safety configuration, creative trafficking, then a ramped launch with frequency caps in place. Faster is possible when creative and pixels already exist; we do not skip the safety configuration to save two days.
Explore the silo
Other Performetra solutions
Most advertisers combine two or three of these — a lower-funnel network buy plus a reach or creator layer, measured in one place.
App growth
Installs are easy to buy and easy to fake.
Lead generation
A lead is only worth what the sales floor can do with it.
E-commerce & sales
Placed orders are a vanity metric in markets where a third of them never get delivered.
Influencer & creators
Reach is not a result.
Affiliate network
Most affiliate programmes are launched and then left.
All solutions
The six campaign types compared, with a decision guide for which model prices your outcome best.
Next step
Price this campaign properly.
Send the conversion event, the geos and the volume. You get a written payout, an expected volume band and the guardrails that come with it.