Dive Brief:
- A study from Circle Research and commissioned by Appnexus, WARC DDMAlliance and IAB Europe found 63% of respondents reported that by 2020, having working knowledge of programmatic ads will be a crucial advantage to have.
- That figure is in contrast with the 44% who reported having little or no understanding of how programmatic works.
- Even though programmatic is seen as important, it is currently not held in high regard – a mere 15% of the surveyed associating “programmatic” with “trust.”
Dive Insight:
Appnexus, WARC DDMAlliance and IAB Europe joined to commission a study by Circle Research titled, “Reaching Full Potential,” highlighting the similarities and differences between publishers and media buyers and their attitudes towards programmatic advertising trends. The key insight was programmatic is seen as popular in terms of adoption, but with a significant lack of understanding on the buyer-side, and very high lack of trust due to transparency and ad fraud issues around programmatic ad buys.
On the positive side of things for programmatic, 67% of the 1,200 advertising professionals surveyed reporting using programmatic, and 63% said knowledge of programmatic will be an important capability to have by 2020. At the same time almost half at 44% reporting having little to no understanding on how programmatic works. And even worse, when asked only 15% said they associated programmatic with the word “trusted.” This stems from an overall lack of transparency in programmatic ads with reports of ad fraud, and marketers not knowing where their ads will show up creating concern they might appear on undesirable sites. Another transparency issue could be seen in only 14% of advertisers reporting confidence in knowing how the campaigns perform.
Programmatic remains popular, especially among brands, with the Index Exchange Quarterly Index Report for Q1 breakdown of its programmatic data finding brands account for 70% of programmatic spending.
