Programmatic has become an essential element of the media mix as marketers embrace the automated approach to media buying. Marketers are starting to gain a better understanding of the benefits of incorporating programmatic into their marketing strategies.
Programmatic allows marketers to reach their ‘always-on’ consumers across multiple channels and devices throughout each campaign, and by making the media buying process more efficient, programmatic has proven itself as an effective tool. The right programmatic partnership offers transparency, brand safety, increased ROI, and key insights into the behavior of online consumers. By automating data collection and analysis, programmatic also streamlines the buying process, allowing marketers to focus on their strategy and execution.
While the industry is becoming more informed about programmatic, marketers still need more education on the benefits of using a multi-platform approach, specifically around scale and transparency.
So what is next for programmatic? There’s no doubt in my mind we will see another 12 months of rapid advancements. Here are my top 10 trends to watch out for in 2015:
- Increased sophistication around targeting mobile audiences, which will be the tipping point for increasing mobile budgets in programmatic.
- Linear TV will take baby steps into programmatic and start to be included in overall strategies.
- Programmatic will see significant growth in Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS). The device ownership is high and internet penetration is currently low, but is forecasting huge growth. China in particular is an untapped market with most consumers’ first device purchase being a mobile device.
- Media blackout resorts. People are starting to want a break from their always-on lives. Now they can go to resorts that don’t allow cell phones and have no wireless or internet connection.
- New ad formats will become available. Traditionally, programmatic focussed on display advertising, but it is now possible to execute other formats including rich-media, video, and native, programmatically.
- More major brands will adopt programmatic as business models evolve.
- Multi-screen programmatic will continue to build momentum. More than half of advertisers (57%) are already buying mobile ads programmatically and eMarketer estimates by 2015 mobile will take outpace desktop digital display. As mobile tracking technology improves, brands will likely increase investment in multi-screen programmatic.
- Viewability will become a more established metric.
- Transparency will remain front and center and advertisers will question the ethics of agency trading desks.
- More advertisers will consider moving programmatic operations in-house.
I believe programmatic is where search advertising was in 2001, and during 2015 I expect it to become more streamlined. Incorporating programmatic in the media mix enables advertisers to connect with consumers in ways we could never imagine. This is certainly a space to watch in 2015 and well beyond.
