68% of marketers believe DMPs are key to future of programmatic marketing

This is according to our report titled The Role of DMPs in the Era of Data-Driven Advertising, created in partnership with Oracle Marketing Cloud.

Programmatic advertising

Australia is world-leader in programmatic marketing

According to a report by the Boston Consulting Group (BCG), Australia is ahead of the US and the UK for mobile and video programmatic trading.

The report claims that this is due to Australia’s sophisticated structural system and more concentrated market, with trading desks specifically pushing programmatic. 

The Australian ad market is worth about US$13bn a year and its programmatic ad spend is predicted to rise to US$724m in 2015, representing year-on-year growth of 24.9%. 

The rise of programmatic

Research by Adform has found that ad space bought via programmatic trading increased 76% year-on-year to April 2015.

This figure has largely been driven by a 333% spend increase on branding ad formats. Counselling 

Ad viewability falls below 50% in face of programmatic’s rise

UK ad viewability is falling further behind other key EU countries due to the rise in programmatic, according to a study released today by Meetrics.

In Q2 2015 less than half (49%) of online ads served in the UK met the IAB and Media Ratings Council’s recommendation that an ad is considered viewable if 50% of it is in view for at least 1 second. In Q2 2014 that figure was 56%.

The UK figure is well below Germany (64%) and France (62%), where automated ad buying techniques are less dominant. 

Programmatic revenue hits $10.1bn

According to a new study from the Interactive Advertising Bureau, programmatic ad revenue in the US reached $10.1bn in 2014, accounting for 20% of total online ad revenue. 

The report suggests major changes in the way display advertising is bought and sold are on the way, although it does state that attempts to size the programmatic market are challenging due to inconsistencies about how it’s defined. 

The report also found that display banner ads for mobile and desktop accounted for around 80% of programmatic revenues last year, and predicts that more budget will be spent on mobile and video formats over time.

Programmatic ‘takes hold’ at Target

An executive at Target has stated that a commitment to programmatic has ‘taken hold’ across a number of divisions within the business. 

Target’s Group Manager, Digital Patrick Reiter discussed some of the benefits of using programmatic, saying:

It can help us better coordinate messaging to our customer, better manage inventory [and] bring forward information in a way that we hadn’t been able to before – so think about nuances buried within product feeds and things like that.

All this comes into play from, really, technology hitting the retail space – and one of the themes is programmatic.

UK programmatic spend surges

According to new research by the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB), almost half of UK online display ads were bought via programmatic last year, amounting to nearly £1bn in spending, 

Of the £3.13bn spent on display ads in 2014, 45% (£960m) was traded programmatically. This represents a 28% increase on the previous year. 

Surge in programmatic buying has hit the ad networks hardest

According to the same IAB report, the huge surge in programmatic has had a negative impact on ad networks.

Their market share plummeted from 22% in 2013 to just 6% last year.

82% of marketers have executed digital ads programmatically in the last year

According to a Google-commissioned report by BCG, UK spend on programmatic in 2014 was £1bn, double that of the previous year. 

But more than half of marketer’s still rate their programmatic knowledge as very poor, poor, or average. These findings suggest more education is needed in this area. 

The report also found: 

  • Fewer than 25% of the publishers regularly translate data analysis into sales initiatives
  • Publishers continue to approach programmatic in a reactive manner, often delegating programmatic decisions to operational teams
  • Less than 25% of programmatic team time is spent on activities that create value
  • In a typical month, publishers spent an average of just 11 hours on value-creating activities and 48 hours a month on admin tasks

60% of Condé Nast UK’s top 50 advertisers that bought through its automated platforms were new customers

In its first year of programmatic ad sales, Condé Nast U.K discovered that half the advertisers that purchased ad space through its automated platform were companies it hadn’t traded with before.

The findings came from a report by the Boston Consulting Group that studied 25 publishers, broadcasters, ecommerce companies and web portals in the US, Europe and the Middle East.

Learn more…

Our one-day conference, Get with the Programmatic, returns on Tuesday 29 September, after rave delegate reviews in 2014.

Join Econsultancy and Marketing Week in London for the only brand-led conference of its kind. Promising lively debate and honest peer-to-peer learning, the brand-driven conference will deliver content that covers the whole programmatic ecosystem, suitable for both brand and agency-side marketers, and publishers.

Book your early bird ticket before 31 July.