If we look back at the advertising industry over 2014, we’d see that in many ways it was the year that programmatic came of age. And even bigger aspirations are held out for 2015 with US advertisers set to spend $14.88 billion on programmatic display advertising, a 47.9% increase on 2014 according to a recent eMarketer report. Let’s take a look at some reasons why:

Addressing the Ability of Viewability

It’s a nightmare scenario, paying for an ad you’re not even sure has been viewed. However, in 2014, conversations were triggered around the way we should be considering viewability itself, as not just something to conquer but an issue we need to simply be transparent about. The Interactive Advertising Bureau’s new Anti-Fraud Principles are a major step forward. There’s no doubt that some negative players will always remain, but the new IAB guidelines – built around fraud detection, source identification, and process transparency – are already having an impact. And the IAB’s Anti-Malware Working Group promises to make a big difference as well. In 2015 we’ll be seeing a lot more on this.

Programmatic Video is Here

Bringing programmatic and video together required an attitude change. Many brands saw programmatic as strictly for display and video as separate from this. Yet the connection was made – if we were to combine the emotional bonds created by video ads with the benefits of gaining greater audience insights which comes with programmatic, then we’d be on to something pretty powerful. Brand marketers are coming round to the advantages of programmatic ads via this format and in turn programmatic video is growing more rapidly than anyone might have predicted only a year ago. This year it will grow by over 200% in the US alone according to the aforementioned recently published eMarketer report. Another recent report from BI Intelligence found that video will be key in driving the rapid expansion of programmatic in the coming years, with programmatic video spending hitting a remarkable $3.9 billion by 2018.

Premium Inventory is Expanding

As more and more brands begin to make the leap to programmatic, its value goes up in the eyes of other brand advertisers. 2014 was a premium year for programmatic ad inventory. In addition to being able to run programmatic campaigns on Facebook and Twitter, brand advertisers can now choose from a wide-range of top-notch publishers. Condé Nast has been leading the way in programmatic premium for several years now. And in December of 2014, News Corp., American Media, Time Inc and Wenner Media began to open up premium inventory for programmatic buying as well.

Marketers Just Want to See Results

Overall, what really matters to marketers is the outcome, and a return on investment is key. Granted, it can still be challenging to determine the effectiveness of some branding campaigns, but as our metrics grow more sophisticated each year, discovering the ROI of branding campaigns is becoming easier to pin down. And thus far, brand advertisers have been blown away by the ROI’s they’re seeing with programmatic.

The merits of programmatic remain: using crunched data to ensure ads are delivered to the right person at the right time and not used like a blunt force tool, without any idea of the target. Of course marketers want to know if the ads they’ve paid for have been viewed but it’s also important to remember that efficiency is efficiency regardless of the campaign you’re running. After all, what matters most is the end result, the return on investment, which is something more brand advertisers now appreciate. Waves were made in 2014 but 2015 is set to be the year things really take off in the programmatic brand space.

 

By Martyn Bentley, Regional Vice President, UK at Chango. 

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