Programmatic marketing allows the user to be impacted at an exact moment and in a specific context in such a way that this impact occurring is conditional on something happening and in milliseconds. By being marketing automation, there is technology behind it.

The term covers a wide range of technologies that allow the purchase process, ad placement and advertising optimization to be automated.

Because advertisers now have more information about users (pages they visit, articles they search for, what they share on their social networks, etc.), they can address them with messages more accurately than ever.