So-called “programmatic” software platforms, which let advertising buyers and sellers agree terms for ad inventory in real-time and using customer data, will process $21 billion global ad sales in 2014, according to new forecasts from IPG’s Magna Global intelligence unit.
That is 52% more money going through programmatic than a year earlier, the report says. Indeed, programmatic is close to accounting for half of global online display ad sales, expected to be 42% this year and 48% in 2015.
But the US market has already reached the tipping point, with 62% of 2014 digital display sales carried out programmatically, says Magna Global. These new processes are expected to shift US 82% of digital display dollars by 2018. For now, the US market will have shifted $10.9 billion programmatically in 2014 – 53% of the worldwide total.
Magna Global says this year’s growth is happening because big consumer-goods, auto and pharmaceutical advertisers have adopted new tools that extend measurement of branding goals to programmatically-bought ads.
The new report on the topic covers 35 markets. Speaking to Beet.TV in this video interview in August, IPG Mediabrands global CEO Matt Seiler said transparency is a requirement in the programmatic space. You can find more in this study published in the Wall Street Journal.
