Dive Brief:

• Most LinkedIn advertisers now use programmatic advertising, the head of products for LinkedIn Marketing Solutions told Direct Marketing News. That's caused LinkedIn to push into the space.
• Russell Glass, the product chief, says the technology behind programmatic has improved to the point that targeting and security have improved.
• Mobile also already accounts for more than half of LinkedIn's advertising revenues and will continue to play a larger role, he said.

Dive Insight:

We noted last week that LinkedIn had rolled out a programmatic sales feature and had been testing it since Q3 of last year. In an interview with Direct Marketing News, Glass explains the reasoning behind the push.

"The demand has now increased to the point where majority of our advertisers now use programmatic as their preferred way to buy display ads," he said. He also said the technology had improved to the point where targeting and member security were much improved.

Glass also noted mobile "represents more than half of LinkedIn traffic and engagement and more than 50% of our advertising revenues. It will only continue to become more critical to our ad business and LinkedIn as a whole."