Brief:
-
Mobile programmatic ad spending will reach $32.8 billion, or 70.4% of all programmatic digital display outlays in the US this year, researcher eMarketer estimated. Almost 90% of all mobile display ads will transact programmatically by 2020 because of ongoing investment in social platforms and efforts to develop the in-app ad market.
-
Marketers will boost their US spending on programmatic digital display advertising by 28% to more than $46 billion in 2018 from a year earlier. That growth means that 82.5% of all US digital display ads will be bought through automated channels this year.
-
As for video ads, programmatic channels will grow from three-quarters of spending this year to almost 80% by 2020. Greater investment in over-the-top (OTT) and connected TV (CTV) inventory will drive momentum in programmatic video, per eMarketer.
Insight:
The growing sophistication of audience-targeting capabilities is helping to drive the shift toward programmatic ad buying in mobile and other digital channels, as eMarketer points out. Most of the $19 billion in programmatic ad growth by 2020 will go to private setups, such as private marketplaces (PMPs) and programmatic direct transactions, as buyers continue to be wary of the open markets’ transparency and quality issues.
The native display ad market also is being transformed with programmatic ad buying. More than 85% of all US native display ad dollars will transact programmatically this year, and is forecast to grow by 2020, per eMarketer. That estimate follows a forecast by researcher Technavio that projects the global content marketing industry will grow 16% a year until 2021.
The transformation toward programmatic has been seen among social networks like Facebook and Twitter. Snap’s Snapchat also has made a major shift to programmatic sales, resulting in 100 job cuts last month in its advertising department. As of Q4 2017, the portion of Snap Ads that were served programmatically grew to 90% last quarter, up from 80% in the prior three months, per Marketing Land. The number of advertisers buying programmatically doubled from Q3 to Q4.
