Are publishers hearing the right story about this nascent field?
While there are still some perception and privacy hurdles to be overcome, programmatic buying – more commonly known as real-time bidding (RTB) – continues to flourish in Canada according to a new report from Media Experts.
The company’s inaugural Real-time Media Quarterly Report said that Canada maintained its status as the world’s 6th largest programmatic buying market in the first quarter of 2013, accounting for approximately 4% of the global market.
Globally, the amount of inventory available via RTB grew 184% over the corresponding year-earlier period (it grew 43% in Canada) with the report attributing the growth to broad-based support from both the advertising and publishing communities. This support is propelling expansion “across all channels, regions and tactics,” said the report.
While one billion impressions a month were being auctioned in Canada before the advent of the Canadian Premium Audience Exchange (CPAX) – which offers inventory from several major Canadian publishers including Rogers, Shaw Media and Corus – its 2012 introduction to the market has further hastened advertiser interest in the space, said Scott Atkinson, managing director, digital solutions for Media Experts.
At the same time, however, Atkinson characterized Canadian publishers’ attitude towards the space as “very cautious.”
Media Experts chairman Mark Sherman said that RTB continues to be hindered somewhat by the perception that it is almost exclusively focused on remnant inventory, while the continued focus on its real-time and auction aspects overlooks another key benefit – the ability to use data-driven insights to match advertisers with consumers at the right place at the right time.
“The power of programmatic media is driven by data – that’s the innovation,” said Sherman. “The rest of it is a tool that makes it all happen quickly. The power is to buy the right impression at the right price in the right place at the right time. It’s what is exciting to us as media people.”
Sherman said that the use of programmatic buying has led to five-fold improvements in some clients’ cost-per-acquisition. “It’s not about cheap and it’s not about remnant. It’s about performance,” he said. “That story doesn’t seem to be coming out.
“The focus tends to be on the shiny new drill instead of the hole it makes.”
CPMs Rising
The report also noted that average CPMs paid at auction were 27% higher than a year ago, attributing it to increased demand for inventory. Prices at shopping, home and travel-related verticals remained strong, the report noted.
RTB activity continues to emphasize the three primary display advertising units, with the 300 x 250 – which accounted for 37.2% of all impressions in the first quarter – edging out the 728 x 90 (32.5%) as the most commonly used unit over the past six months.
While mobile is an increasing area of emphasis for the programmatic buying space, the report said that it remains in a “nascent state,” with buyers focused on cross-channel, performance-oriented opportunities. Atkinson said there are still complexities over the likes of standardization and cookies that need to be resolved before the mobile space truly emerges.
However, the report noted that mobile RTB offers a “great opportunity” for buyers and sellers to resolve the disparity between time and advertising investment.
While Sherman said that RTB comprises a small portion of Media Experts’ overall activity, he predicted that its core tenets – data-driven buying – will be fundamental for companies such as his. “It’s not our big play, but using data to make intelligent buying decisions is very important for the media agency of the future,” he said. “There’s a lot to be learned here.”
The data being leveraged by RTB, he said, is providing companies like Media Experts with a vast amount of real world consumer information that is much more intricate than standardized studies like PMB, he said. This information can be applied to offline media plans, he said.
“We’re seeing, at an anonymous level [for example], the consumer behaviour of a buyer of a BMW 3-series,” he said. “Knowing those interests provides insights that helps creatives and marketers and media people better execute offline.”
